The Reading List

by Sara Nisha Adams

  She joined Aidan in the kitchen, her slippered feet click-clacking on the lino.

  ‘Hey Leish, didn’t see you last night. How was work?’

  ‘Really shit, to be honest.’

  Aidan looked at her, his eyebrows raised slightly, meaning: ‘Go on, tell me.’

  ‘I just,’ Aleisha sighed, really not wanting to relive it all. ‘This old guy came into the library, he was literally about ninety, I swear, and he was asking for book recommendations and … you know I don’t care about books.’ Aleisha looked up at him, but Aidan didn’t give anything away. ‘I just snapped at him.’

  ‘Aleisha!’

  ‘I know. You don’t have to make me feel worse about it.’

  ‘Look, it’s fine. When I worked there, I’m sure I pissed loads of people off … probably not in the way you did … but just take it as a lesson. Like Uncle Jeremy always used to say, just do better next time.’

  ‘Come on, you’re not Mum … or Uncle Jeremy. I don’t need a lecture from you. You gonna be home today?’ Aleisha asked, unsure, registering his apron, dressing gown and slippers.

  ‘Yeah, it’s your day off. Go see your friends. I’ll stay here with Mum. Think she had a bad night again – woke up quite a few times.’

  Aleisha walked towards the plate of food next to Aidan. There sat three fat, oily sausages, cooling. She picked one up with her long nails, trying to keep the sausage away from her skin. She dangled it above her mouth.

  ‘Watch it, Leish! You’re dripping oil on the floor.’ Aidan dropped to the ground with a piece of kitchen roll, wiping up the yellow globs, his apron ballooning out with a whoosh. ‘Look, get out of the house today. Get some air.’

  ‘It’s okay, I’ve not got any plans. I’m just going to hang out here and watch TV.’

  ‘No, Leish, Mum won’t want any loud noises today. She’s got a migraine.’ Aidan looked at her with a serious frown; there were deep, purple shadows under his eyes. ‘I’ll be here, don’t worry.’

  With a shrug, Aleisha ate the sausage as quickly as she could; Aidan watched her with disgust. ‘It’s fine,’ she said, her mouth still full. ‘Really. I’ve got no one to see, I’ll stay here. I’ll sit quietly in my room – it’ll be like I don’t even exist.’

  Leilah suddenly shouted from upstairs, ‘Shut up! Aleisha, shut up!’ Aleisha and Aidan looked at each other, their faces blank, their smiles gone. She wasn’t surprised. Last night, the giggling, the yoga … but nothing had changed. Nothing would ever change. That thick black curtain would always be there, shrouding the whole house, holding Aidan down with it this time. After a moment of silence, the two of them barely drawing a breath, Aidan finally shook his head to say, ‘She doesn’t mean it.’ He didn’t say it out loud because he couldn’t know it was true.

  ‘So, I’m just going to have to leave?’ Her voice was sharp – but she was whispering. She didn’t want to make a sound.

  ‘Leish, you can stay, but you know it’s going to be like walking on eggshells here.’

  Aleisha shrugged. ‘Literally no one else has to put up with this crap. Don’t you hate it?’ She was exhausted – exhausted from being alert, exhausted from listening to her mum cry at night, pretending she couldn’t hear a thing and letting Aidan sort it all out, exhausted from never being needed, and always being a trigger. She was tired.

  Aidan stayed silent. He was wiping down the surfaces, but they were already spotless.

  As the front door slammed shut behind her, Leilah’s voice rang out in Aleisha’s head: ‘This is my house, not yours!’ Her standard comeback.

  She had nowhere to go, but nowhere was better than home.

  Without thinking too much, she just let her feet lead her. She walked, slowly, passed the market stalls being set up, ignoring the fruit sellers shouting things at her, prices, unbelievable prices, that never sucked her in. She wandered past kids already out on their bikes, cycling across the road without looking, shouting at their friends behind them, turning their heads a full 180 degrees to see their mates, wobbling on the handlebars.

  With each step down Ealing Road, then along the high road, she edged further and further away from home. With each step, she felt her heartbeat slow. She didn’t know where she was going, not really, until the bend in the road straightened, and there it was, like a little Tudor cottage, looking thoroughly out of place.

  Of course her subconscious would bring her here: the library. The only place where she knew she could just be quiet, alone, for a little while. Maybe it wasn’t the worst idea. If books actually could let her escape, reading was at least cheaper than getting shit-faced.

  Goody-two-shoes Kyle was on the front desk today. Aleisha nodded to him in greeting as she walked through the library doors, ignored the surprise written all over his face, and started to wander the aisles. She went to the crime/thriller section, wondering if Crime Thriller guy’s words would impart some kind of inspiration. She watched the spines, sparkling in the sunlight, shimmering in their plastic covers. She let her fingertips graze each book, but she didn’t pull anything from the shelves. Eventually, the reds, blues, yellows of the spines merged into one big book mass, and nothing made sense to her. The library was silent, but it rang in her ears. The words jumped out – ‘Death’ ‘Murder’, ‘Killer’ – as well as softer, creepier titles like ‘Watching You’ … It was all getting a bit much. How did he do this? How did he feel chilled here, in this space, with these words bearing down on him? She tapped her finger on the side of her leg, trying to look calm, trying to look as if she knew what the hell she was doing.

  Her phone buzzed.

  It was the WhatsApp group again: they had set it up when they were 14, but Aleisha hadn’t spoken in the group in weeks. No one had noticed. Three of them were tagged in the last message from Mia. Once upon a time, Mia had been Aleisha’s very best friend.

  @Beth @Lola @Kacey you at home? Wna do something tonight?

  The other two girls, Jenna and Shreya, were on holiday – they’d been relentlessly sending poolside pictures from Ayia Napa and Croatia.

  The rejection still stung Aleisha, even after months and months of her making up excuses to her friends. She was known to bow out last minute due to illness, food poisoning, migraines, missing birthday dinners or gatherings in the park. But being flaky was easier than telling the truth: she didn’t want them to know her mum was mad. They’d never understand.

  Beth, Lola, Kacey, even Jenna, all responded immediately.

  Ping. Buzz. I’m around, let’s do something

  Ping. Buzz. Missing u girls, have fun without me. Ill b there in spirit vodka

  Ping. Buzz. Yh where shall we go?

  As Aleisha stood in the library, the walls of books began to close in on her, the spines growing larger, heavier. She watched her friends continue their lives without her. Message after message. Book after book. She didn’t exist any more. Emojis, dancing girl, high fives, thumbs up. Happy. They were all happy. They didn’t have anything else to worry about. It was summer, after all. The future stretched ahead. The best time of their lives.

  She pushed herself through the stacks of shelves into the clearing beyond. She needed to breathe again, to draw oxygen deep into her lungs. She turned her phone over in her palm and her eyes blurred at her watermelon phone case.

  Between the melons, she spotted the reading list poking through.

  There it was again. That book. The first book on the list. To Kill a Mockingbird. The image of Leilah throwing her head back in glee rushed in, her screams and shouts this morning, her sobbing through the night. Aidan’s eyes, dark rims, unable to give her any words of comfort. Her head was driving her crazy and she needed to get away, leave Wembley, leave her family, leave everything. But still, could a book work those kinds of miracles? At least it was a place to start.

  She found a chair – the Crime Thriller guy’s chair, actually – and sank into it, shoving her phone into her bag. The chair was worn in places, the arms had started to fray, but
it was comfortable. The sun illuminated the pages of To Kill a Mockingbird. If she was going to do this, it felt like the right kind of position, the right view, the right environment, to turn to Chapter One and begin. But just as she was about to settle in, psyching herself for full immersion, Kyle’s very loud, very patronizing tone pierced her silence. He was dealing with another irrational, irrelevant and annoying customer who had phoned in – but at least that was better than dealing with the irrational, irrelevant, annoying customers in real life. What had Aidan loved about this job so much?

  ‘No, sir. I think I will have to charge you for the book, if you removed it from the premises without checking it out.’

  Kyle’s brows knotted into a frown.

  ‘Sorry, sir, could you repeat that just a little more slowly for me please?’ And after a beat, ‘Do you have a library card?’

  Aleisha couldn’t tune out of the conversation, Kyle was so sodding loud.

  ‘I’m so sorry, sir, I didn’t realize. When was this? Yesterday? Hmm, yes, thank you, sir. Thank you for letting me know. I’ll investigate and see what I can do … Yes, well, if you don’t have a library card, how about I set one up for you today and take the book out for you, and you can return it when you can. That way I’ll make sure my colleagues can’t charge you when it is returned.’

  Aleisha hid herself behind the wing of the chair, frozen, ashamed. She pictured the old man from yesterday, standing in front of her, asking for help. She heard her own voice, harsh, telling him that no, she couldn’t be arsed. Aleisha wanted the chair to eat her whole.

  The moment Kyle shoved the handset back onto the desk, he jumped up and turned his head on his neck like a meerkat. Searching for something … for her.

  Aleisha kept as low as she could. But it was useless, Kyle knew exactly where she was.

  ‘Hey Kyle, what’s up?’ she said, as he arrived at her side.

  ‘You were on shift yesterday, right?’ he asked.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I’ve just had a lovely elderly gentleman on the phone, rather distressed, to put it lightly, saying you forced him out of the library. Is that true?’ He was putting on his ‘authoritative’ voice. When Thermos wasn’t around, Kyle took it upon himself to step up to the plate.

  ‘That’s not exactly what happened. He wanted book recommendations. I don’t do book recommendations.’

  ‘You need to. Do you want this job?’

  She didn’t want it, she needed it. She needed to help Aidan out. Leilah was an artist and a designer – usually she worked with ad agencies around the world and often she was swamped with work. But it came in waves. And her income was sometimes irregular, especially when she was going through one of her bad patches. Aleisha couldn’t lose this job. There’d be nothing else to go to. And, for all its faults, this place was becoming her silent retreat from the chaos that was her home, she knew that much.

  She nodded.

  ‘Do you know how many people could work here, how many people actually wanted to work here?’

  Aleisha shook her head.

  Kyle continued, his chest expanding. ‘Loads, quite frankly. Dev is always saying we need to do our best to keep people happy, provide a friendly place with book recommendations, the full service, otherwise we’ll lose regulars. If you don’t start actually doing your job, you’ll get sacked, or worse, we’ll just get shut down – and we’ll all lose our jobs.’

  Aleisha didn’t believe it. It had been so easy to get in. But she really couldn’t lose her job, and she couldn’t face it if she was responsible for the volunteers, Lucy and Benny, losing their favourite place. Or for Kyle, as much as he annoyed her, losing the only place he could ever be bossy and get away with it, and for Dev who would literally do anything to keep the Harrow Road Library up and running. She pictured this cute building with its windows blocked out, a sign from the council on the door directing people to the Civic Centre instead. It wouldn’t be right. Even though they were never completely rammed with customers, people loved this place. She imagined Aidan in her mind, parroting Uncle Jeremy: ‘Do better.’

  ‘If that man makes a formal complaint about you to Dev, you’re out.’

  Aleisha shifted in her seat. ‘Look, I’m actually here for pleasure today not work, so can you save it for—’

  ‘And it’s pretty horrible being nasty to like an eighty-year-old man. I don’t know what you’re going through, Aleisha,’ Kyle’s tone had softened now, ‘but try to be nice to people. Just a smile or a friendly face can make someone’s day a bit better. You might have ruined his. Was it worth it? Did you feel satisfied?’

  Aleisha shook her head again, unable to speak, feeling like a toddler being told off for fighting.

  ‘Right. If you see him again, give him a blooming book recommendation—’

  ‘I did try, he ran off!’ Aleisha interjected, but Kyle ignored her, continuing his pre-rehearsed speech.

  ‘Read some stuff,’ he said, pointing to To Kill a Mockingbird in her hand. ‘If you like that, then tell him to read it. It’s simple. Read a book. Recommend a book. You know what, even if you really hate it, recommend it to him anyway. Everyone has different tastes and beggars can’t be choosers as my nan says.’

  Aleisha sighed and watched Kyle strut off back to the desk, feeling like a boss, probably.

  She reached for the book again and opened it somewhere in the middle. The spine was broken in so many places, but she wanted to make her own mark on it, and bent it in two. It wasn’t as satisfying as she suspected. The book was soft, supple … the warmth of the library had turned the glue to jelly.

  She rewound to the first page. She started to fiddle, with her nose, with the pages, with a few straggly bits of hair that were falling over her face. She couldn’t take in anything. She was forcing her eyes to focus on the words in front of her, but she couldn’t settle.

  She was stupid, a fraud. Giving up, slouching back into the fading salmon-pink chair, she surveyed the room. A few people were reading and browsing. They were proper readers, people who belonged here. Bookworms. Book nerds.

  ‘Ef this,’ she hissed to herself. She gathered up her stuff and shoved it into her tote. The book was still on the table. She didn’t know whether to take it or just leave it there. She glanced around again before shoving that into her tote too.

  The beeps from the library alarm ushered her out, her own stolen library book nestled in her bag.

  Chapter 5

  MUKESH

  MUKESH WAS LYING ON his back when the doorbell rang. Had he fallen asleep? Rohini and Priya weren’t due to be here for hours, or so he thought. He gradually hauled himself up, groaning and creaking on the way, his back stiffer than he’d expected. He wanted to swear, but that wasn’t the sort of thing Mukesh did.

  He was looking forward to seeing his granddaughter, his daughter too. But he knew the Rohini whirlwind was about to hit … And no matter how many times he’d survived it, he wasn’t sure he was ready for it after the aimless, lonely day he’d had. Once upon a time, Fridays were his and Naina’s relaxing day, the day they spent for themselves. These days, on Fridays, he usually did nothing.

  He plodded down the stairs very slowly, holding on to the handrails on either side. Rohini’s handyman friend had fitted the rail on the other side of the stairs, to give him more stability. He was embarrassed about it. On the rare occasions he had non-familial visitors, he would joke about it before they mentioned it first.

  He spotted the head and shoulders of a woman, obscured by the frosted glass in the centre of his front door. He would recognize her anywhere.

  He took a deep breath and pulled it open. ‘Rohini, beti!’ he called, arms wide open in a welcoming gesture, forcing his voice to sound cheerful and bright.

  ‘Papa,’ she replied, walking straight in, avoiding his open arms. Behind her came Priya, a book held tight in her little palms.

  ‘Priya, come in, darling.’

  Without wasting any time on greetings, Rohini stomped
straight through to the kitchen and began rummaging in the cupboards. She tutted a few times. Mukesh glanced at Priya, hoping to exchange an ‘oh dear’ moment, but she had already tucked herself up with her book on Naina’s living-room chair.

  ‘Papa? What is this?’ Rohini called, holding up a Tupperware of rice he’d had sitting in the fridge for a few days … maybe a little longer. ‘This is disgusting!’

  ‘Sorry, beta, I promise I wasn’t going to eat it.’

  ‘Never eat rice left longer than a day, Papa! You should have at least let me fry it up for you.’

  ‘Beta, don’t worry,’ he shuffled forwards, grabbing the Tupperware from her and emptying it into his food bin. ‘Gone! Out of sight, out of mind.’ But Rohini had already started making her way over to the sink.

  ‘Uh-ruh-ruh!’ She vocalized her disgust, just as Naina used to do. ‘How long have these plates been sitting here, Papa? This is so unhygienic! You’ll get all those ants back again – they love this hot, hot weather.’

  ‘Rohini, please, beta, just go and sit down and I will make you chai.’

  ‘Papa, no! I need to wash this all up. You think I come here just for chai? I come here to look after you. If only Mummy could see you now.’

  Mukesh knew that last sentence came only from her frustration, but nonetheless it hurt. He’d noticed how over the past year, Rohini only ever mentioned ‘Mummy’ to berate him, to tell him he was living in a pigsty.

  He was too tired for this, too tired to argue back. Instead, he wandered to the living room and slumped himself down, trying to tune out Rohini’s frequent grunts and groans as she found cracks in the cupboard door (‘I told you I could get someone round to fix this! This is almost a brand-new kitchen, you can’t have it looking scruffy like this, Papa!’) and boxes and boxes of mung beans in the fridge (‘Papa, this is very unhealthy if this is all you eat! I know Mummy always used to say good for fibre, but you must eat a balanced diet, Papa, like the doctor told you!’) and three empty cartons of his favourite packet chai in the recycling (‘Papa! You’ll rot what’s left of your teeth and these are not good for your diabetes! Mummy said only for special occasions, Papa, I have shown you how to make it from scratch’).