The Reading List

by Sara Nisha Adams

  She hurriedly looked down at her phone again, nervous – unsure what to do. She opened up Tinder. She’d never used Tinder properly. Unlike all her friends, who seemed to be on Tinder all the time, with dates every other night of the week, she didn’t have the time to be meeting guys, for dates or hook-ups. But sometimes, when she wanted to pretend that her life was something else, that she had some kind of freedom, she just swiped for the sake of swiping.

  Was this guy on Tinder too? What if she’d just mindlessly swiped left to him? Worse … what if she’d swiped right?

  She pressed the home button hurriedly, minimizing the app, then stuffed her phone into her pocket, panicking. But he was scrolling on his phone again and wouldn’t even have noticed. He wasn’t paying attention to her. She smoothed over the pocket of her jeans, feeling the warmth from her phone radiating through the fabric.

  She looked up again and let her eyes roam slowly around the carriage before they came to rest on the Tube map above her, as though she hadn’t been looking at anything in particular at all. In a final attempt to really look like she wasn’t interested, she pulled the copy of To Kill a Mockingbird out of her bag …

  They were already at Queen’s Park and no one in her carriage had left yet. All five of them still there, waiting for their stop. She started to read, her eyes darting over the page, wracking her brains to recall where she’d left off earlier, just as her phone buzzed.

  It was Aidan.

  ‘Hello?’ she said, self-conscious, trying to whisper. The boy-man looked up at her, and she hoped her cheeks hadn’t flushed.

  ‘Come back, Leish,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Can you get back home within the next hour or so?’

  ‘Why? Are you home?’

  ‘Yes, just come back if you can. I …’ He paused.

  ‘What, Aidan?’

  ‘I need you,’ he said quietly.

  And then he hung up. Aleisha felt an immediate tightening in her chest. Leilah had seemed okay this morning, hadn’t she? Okay in the circumstances.

  Aidan hadn’t said the words ‘I need you’ to his little sister since their father had left the house and Aidan had been desperately trying to clear out all his stuff. She hadn’t known at the time why he needed to eradicate every little detail of their father from their home.

  That had been the summer when Aidan gave up his place to study business at uni, just until things ‘settled’ again. When they were kids, they’d always played pretend that she was a particularly grumpy customer at his bike shop. For years, she’d never doubted that her brother would make that pretend bike shop (with the cutlery from the cutlery drawer as all the tools and bits and pieces for sale) into a reality. But things hadn’t settled again. Aleisha wasn’t sure if they ever would.

  ‘I need you’ rang in her head. The train came to a stop, and she looked at the boy-man one last time, before stepping onto the platform towards the Tube train ready and waiting to take her home. She dropped one hip and looked at her phone, trying to pretend to the whole world that this was her intention, that she had a plan. That she had a life.

  She glanced behind her, hoping to catch a glimpse of him again. The train had gone.

  She stood on her doorstep, looking up at the windows, listening hard, hoping for a clue, the tiniest clue, of what to expect inside. All she could hear was a helicopter hovering a few streets away, the wind gently buffeting her hair.

  Before she could pluck up the courage to take the keys out of her pocket and put them into the lock, her ringtone made her jump. Then the door flew open to reveal her brother standing in the doorway, his mobile to his ear.

  ‘Aleisha, there you are,’ he said quickly, putting his phone down by his side. ‘Why you just waiting here?’

  ‘I don’t know. I just got here. What’s going on?’

  ‘Erm, I’ve got to go out …’ He was looking beyond her, down at his feet, up at the sky, anywhere but in her eyes.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Aleisha kept her eyes trained on him, trying to work out what was going on.

  ‘I’m going to work. Can you stay in?’ His feet were rooted to the spot.

  ‘What for? Mum?’ Aleisha watched his face carefully, searching for any hint about what state Leilah might be in, what she was walking into. ‘I thought you had the afternoon off.’

  Aidan was now staring at his car keys. ‘Yeah, I … I’ve been called in last minute. Look, I’m really sorry to do this but I don’t want to leave her on her own today and I’ve got to get out.’

  Aleisha stepped forward, but Aidan made no move to get out of her way. There was something he wasn’t telling her. ‘Is she okay?’ Aleisha was trying to keep the panic out of her voice, the words I need you flashing up in her mind again.

  ‘Yeah, Leish, yeah, I’m sorry, she’s totally fine. I just, you know, it’s been up and down, and I’ve got some stuff to do and I didn’t know where you were, you didn’t leave a note.’ For a moment, Aleisha saw panic, stress, hurt in her brother’s eye, but dismissed the thought. Aidan was never panicked, right? He had so much going on, but out of the three of them, he was the one who had it all together. Uncle Jeremy always said, ‘That boy, he carries the world on his shoulders with so much grace.’ He was right.

  ‘So, you going to let me in then? Or do I need a secret password or something?’

  ‘Yeah, sorry,’ he stepped aside, grabbing his bag from the step, and headed out. He plastered a smile on his face, but there was still something else behind his eyes, lingering just for a moment.

  Aleisha dumped her bag in the hallway. ‘Fine. See you later.’ She heard the calmness of her own words, when really she just wanted to shout after him: ‘Don’t pull the “I need you” card when everything’s fine.’ She wanted to tell him how much he’d scared her. She wanted to shout at him, to scream.

  ‘I’ve got a slightly shorter shift today,’ he said now. His voice was immediately lighter, his eyes brighter now his feet were on the pavement, now he was out of the house – she’d never noticed such a stark reaction before. ‘Finish at eight. See you then. Call me if you need anything, okay?’

  ‘Whatever.’

  ‘I’ll get you a pizza or something, to make this up to you. Sorry if we ruined plans,’ he shouted over his shoulder, climbing into his car.

  She knew he was using the ‘we’ to mean ‘me and Mum’ because she couldn’t be angry with him when he was ‘just thinking of Mum’.

  ‘I hate pizza!’ she shouted back.

  Aleisha waved to her brother and walked inside, carefully placing one foot in front of the other, hoping her mum was still in bed. But Leilah was sitting on the sofa, watching an international channel where everyone on it was speaking a different language.

  ‘Mum,’ Aleisha said, trying to keep her tone soft, ‘why’re you watching this?’

  Leilah said nothing, seemed unable to reply. Eventually she shrugged, and murmured: ‘It’s calming.’

  Aleisha looked at the TV – it was some over-the-top drama, thunderous music, intense stares. One woman’s venomous glare shot straight through the screen. ‘Calming how?’

  Leilah’s eyes were glazed over, as though they weren’t taking anything in at all.

  ‘Cup of tea?’

  ‘No, I’m okay.’ Her lips looked dry, slightly grey. There was a soft film of sweat on her forehead, the down on her upper lip collected tiny droplets of water.

  She could tell today was a spiral.

  There hadn’t been a proper spiral for a while. Aidan always knew what to look out for and now she wished she hadn’t left this morning. But Aidan had insisted, because he could cope with this – and he knew she couldn’t. She felt his absence now, she was flailing, she didn’t know how to make Leilah feel safe today, she didn’t know what to say or do for her own mother. No matter how many years they’d been through it, when Leilah felt like this she was nothing but a stranger to her.

  In the kitchen, she steadied herself with both hands
on the countertop before pulling out her favourite mug. Her dad had bought it for her from a Christmas market. It was hand-painted, according to the note on its underside. It had an angel on it. Blonde. Blue-eyed. The angel was definitely not her. When she was younger, she liked to pretend that that’s how her dad saw her, as his little angel with the blonde hair and the blue eyes and the pale, peachy skin.

  As the kettle fired up, Leilah called out, ‘Tea, please.’ Aleisha rolled her eyes and hastily cleaned her mum’s favourite Star Wars mug. It had been sitting in the sink for days, stained with dark, thick coffee rings.

  Once the kettle was boiled, she poured hot water over fresh tea bags and enjoyed watching the water turn brown, colour emerging from the bags, as she added a dash of milk in each.

  She carried them through to the living room gingerly, keeping her eyes on the liquid, careful not to spill any. She wouldn’t hear the end of it if she made a mess.

  She quietly set the mug down on the table next to Leilah and turned the television off. Leilah was, impossibly, fast asleep and snoring ever so quietly.

  Aleisha sat in a chair opposite her mother and watched her for a while. She heard kids cycling past on their bikes, she heard swearwords on the street, mothers laughing together, the cruising of pushchair wheels in front of them. She sighed and then jumped when she saw her phone was flashing with an incoming call: Dad. She picked it up and shuffled out of the room, closing the door gently behind her.

  This was the first time Dean had called in three weeks. She hovered her finger over the green button, and then the red button. Talking to Dean, when Leilah was only in the other room … it felt like a betrayal. But if she hit the red button, Dean might not call again. He had a new life now, new kids, a new wife. He had excuses not to call back. He was ‘so busy, darling’.

  ‘Hello?’ she whispered, her hand covering her mouth. She was trying so hard to keep the hope out of her voice. She just wanted a conversation, an ordinary conversation.

  ‘Hey sweetheart!’ His voice was upbeat, deafeningly happy – she could hear chatter in the background.

  ‘Hey Dad, where are you?’

  ‘I’m just at home – the kids are watching a film. Where are you? Why are you whispering?’

  ‘I’m just at home. Mum’s asleep.’

  ‘Is … Is everything okay with you all? How’s Aidan?’

  ‘He’s busy, working. Mum’s not too good right now. She’s stopped taking on any new design work for a bit, so we’re doing the best we can.’

  Aleisha loved seeing her mum designing, painting too sometimes. But when she was feeling this way, she stopped everything. She packed away her computer, she put away any materials, and she stopped accepting commissions. It was always the first sign, for Aleisha and Aidan, that things weren’t right.

  ‘Aleisha, you know if ever you want to get away, you can come and spend some time here. We’d love to see you. Are you on your summer holidays now?’

  ‘I’ve finished my exams, yeah. But … I’m working. Maybe another time? When things are quieter. Anyway, I’m going to try and get loads of reading done – prepare for uni applications and things. Law … it’s gonna be competitive. Aidan wants me to work hard.’ She stared at the wall, imagining her father sitting in his house, always spotless, with his perfect kids sitting in front of the TV, laughing, joking. She wondered how heavy the air in his new house was.

  ‘Of course, I understand. That’s good, sweetie, I’m glad you’re taking it so seriously.’ He paused – Aleisha heard a cackling in the background. Someone calling after him. ‘Dad?’

  ‘I’m really sorry, Aleisha, I have to go. I’m sorry – I’ll call you again soon. But I mean it, okay? If you ever want to visit, you are always welcome.’

  ‘I know,’ Aleisha said.

  ‘Okay, bye darling, love you.’ He rang off without waiting for her reply.

  ‘Bye,’ she said to her empty phone. Desperate to keep her brain working, to avoid the silence of the house around her, she began to scroll through her call log.

  Aidan. Aidan. Aidan. Home. Home. Kyle. Dev. Kyle. Home. Aidan.

  She went straight to her address book and hit ‘Call’ next to Rachel’s name. She listened to the dial tone, almost hoping Rachel wouldn’t pick up. She didn’t really know what to say. But speaking to her father, hearing his voice, hearing how relaxed it was, it made her feel more useless than ever.

  ‘Hey little cousin!’ Rachel’s voice chirruped.

  ‘Hey,’ Aleisha responded, unable to keep the gloom out of her voice. ‘You all right?’

  ‘I’m so sorry, babe, but I’m just out with friends at the moment. Can I call you later?’

  ‘Don’t worry, don’t worry,’ Aleisha replied with a lightness she didn’t feel, not wanting to make Rachel feel guilty for living a normal life. ‘We’ll speak this week, yeah? Have a good night!’ She hung up the phone with a sigh, the only company she had for the foreseeable: her mum’s gentle snores.

  Leilah sat beside her, her head slumped against her own shoulder, sleeping peacefully. Aleisha, for one moment, had a desperate urge to shake her, to wake her up, and shout, ‘Mum, talk to me! Let’s talk!’ But just as quickly as the urge arrived, it dissipated.

  She pulled out the reading list from her phone case, unfolded it and folded it in her hands, and then she slowly took To Kill a Mockingbird out of her bag. Someone had taken care with this list – they’d curated it. What was in these books? Why had they chosen these ones? Had the reading-list author known their scrap of paper would become someone else’s reading list too?

  She looked at To Kill a Mockingbird and felt a drop of awkwardness, remembering how flustered she’d been when she first opened it – as though everyone in the library had been scrutinizing her, wondering what she was doing, acting like some kind of bookworm. But here it was just her, alone. No one here could judge her.

  She bent the pages back over the spine and began to read, self-conscious at first, whispering each word cautiously, as if she was reading out loud in an English class, until she allowed herself to enjoy her own gentle rhythm, letting each word linger. Every few lines, she looked over, to see if Leilah showed any signs of waking: but her mum didn’t move at all. She noticed how this book was allowing her to step into two worlds – the world she was in right now, beside her mum, in her house, the air muggy from the heat of the day – and another world, the world of two children, Scout and her older brother Jem, who lived somewhere called Maycomb, a small town in Alabama, where they’d play outside, being foolish, being … children. She would do anything to see life through a child’s eyes again; a time when life wasn’t so serious, and scary neighbours were nothing more than a fun pastime, and family just meant home. From the first few pages, she could tell that Scout definitely cramped Jem’s style, but he put up with her all the same.

  ‘Mum,’ Aleisha turned to Leilah, whose eyes were still shut tight. ‘What do you reckon about Scout and Jem? Remind you of anyone?’ Aleisha smiled, not expecting a reply, as she caught sight of the photo displayed on the mantelpiece: Aleisha and Aidan, aged 7 and 15, embracing each other (forced to by Leilah, who was directing from behind the camera), with their faces screwed up in mock disgust. She smiled to herself.

  Then Aleisha met Scout and Jem’s father. The narrator, Scout, just called him Atticus … it made sense only because he was important. ‘Dad’ seemed too generic for Atticus. He was a lawyer. Wise, kind, fair … She turned to Leilah, her face pulled into a grin. ‘Mum! He’s a lawyer!’ she whispered. ‘A big-shot one in their small little town, it sounds like.’ She could see Atticus through Scout’s eyes – a large man, powerful, someone to be respected. She remembered thinking of her own dad in that way before, a long time ago. It was strange how, once childhood left, your parents became simply human, with fears and worries just like your own.

  ‘Mum,’ she said in hushed tones. ‘I think I’m getting the hang of this.’ For one small moment, she thought she saw Leilah stir, saw her eye
s open just a bit, and she wondered if she was about to say something to her after all. When she said nothing, Aleisha curled up onto the sofa, tucking herself around her mother, in the way she used to when she was a kid. She held the book in her arms, and allowed her eyes to close.

  When Aleisha woke up the next morning, the book was cradled in her hands, its soft, plastic jacket sticking to her slightly clammy skin. She looked around the room, and for a second, she thought she saw a small child sitting in the chair opposite her: scabby knees, shorts, legs a bit dirty from the Alabama dust – Scout. For that first waking moment, she wasn’t in Wembley any longer, she was in Maycomb. She looked to the other end of the sofa, expecting to see Leilah, wondering if Leilah was sharing this moment too. Leilah wasn’t there, and Aleisha was all alone. But, for the first time in a while, the silence in the house wasn’t so cloying; she could breathe.

  Chapter 7

  MUKESH

  BEEP. ‘PAPA, IT’S ROHINI, I have to go into the office today, so I’m going to drop Priya off with you for a few hours. It’s an inset day at school. I’ve done her a packed lunch because she’s being a bit fussy and she’ll have a book, so don’t worry about entertaining her. I’ve booked her in for a hair appointment on Wembley High Road at five, so can you drop her back with me there? Will be good for you to get a walk in today if you can. See you later, Papa. I’ll be round at eleven-ish.’

  BEEP. ‘Hi, Papa, Rohini just called me, wanted to check you’d got her message? She texted me to say she’s on her way to yours.’

  BEEP. ‘Hi Dad, it’s Deepali. Rohini told me you have signed up for the sponsored walk this year! Brilliant. I am going to come round soon with my fitness DVDs for you. Mummy used to love them. Kept her very healthy. Might be good for you to start looking after yourself too.’

  It was ten minutes to eleven, and Mukesh was listening to Rohini’s message for the fourth time, just to check he’d got all the details right. Eleven-ish arrival. Five o’clock hair appointment. No need to feed Priya. Phew. He ignored Vritti’s message, knowing she didn’t need or want a reply; Vritti always played the role of Rohini’s messenger. And he did not like the sound of Deepali’s fitness DVDs one bit. As far as he could remember, Naina only pretended to like them, so Deepali didn’t feel she had wasted her money.