Mukesh beamed back at her. This was everything he’d wanted. Here his granddaughter was, no longer locked in her own thoughts, in her own little world. He remembered Naina and Priya giggling away at a character, their quirks. He’d never understood. Now he knew that Scout, Atticus and Jem were as real to Priya, and to him, as her own family. Now, he understood.
Chapter 29
ALEISHA
SHE WALKED BESIDE HER dad, her 5-year-old hand held loosely in his. She could feel the rough tips of his fingers with her soft ones. She held on tight as she felt the soles of her trainers slipping ever so slightly on the sand-covered decking. They were walking towards the sea. She couldn’t see it yet, she just trusted that that’s where they were going.
They were walking through forest. She could see nothing but trees. Tall trees, thin trunks, and long, spiky green leaves. Fir trees, her dad told her. She was in a fir forest. She could hear birds and some dogs barking in the distance, though it sounded as though they might be right beside her. She kept turning round to check. Her dad told her to stop moving, he would lose his footing.
Aleisha didn’t want her dad to lose his footing. She didn’t want him to fall over. Then she would be all alone, without anyone in the world, without any way to get home. Her mother had taken Aidan to Cromer. He was adamant he didn’t want to go to the beach, especially a beach with nothing much on it; he just wanted some food, maybe even an arcade. He wanted to see the pier. His friends had been the summer before and he wanted to be able to say he had seen it too.
Today, it was just Aleisha and Dean. As she felt her small hand in her father’s larger one, she squeezed just a little too hard. She had no idea what to expect. She couldn’t see very far ahead, but she noticed a glimmer of light breaking through the trees ahead of her. And then she was there, standing on the line that separated forest from beach. Land from sea. Life from what she felt might be heaven.
She looked around. All she could see now was milky, golden sand. Grasses. So tall, maybe even taller than her, reaching up and touching the sky in some places. The sand on the dunes looked warm, the light hitting the beach in patches, leaving everything else in darkness.
They continued walking, and Aleisha finally felt bold enough to let go of her dad’s hand. She could feel her feet sink into the damp sand. In some places, the sand was soggy and moist, like treacle. In other places, it was wet but hard, solid, easy to walk on. The wet sand was darker – on a duller, drearier day she might have called it dirty. But not today. Today it was too perfect to be dirty.
She felt crunching under her feet, and when she looked down, she saw shells. Thousands and millions of shells. Normally, she would have picked them up, collected as many as she could. But it was just right as it was. She didn’t want to be the one to ruin it. As she looked around the beach, she saw figures, people and dogs, dotted along their own horizons. She didn’t look at them for long. They continued to walk; she knew the sea wasn’t far now. She saw a thin layer of water sitting on the surface of the sand, the sun and the sky reflected in it.
She turned around to look for her father, she could see him behind her, a little to her left, on sand she’d left untrodden, untouched. He was standing behind a figure, a blob on the landscape.
She skipped towards him, not minding the detour. She would get to the sea today eventually, though it was probably too cold for her to put her feet in. She could see now he was waving to her, his arm held high above his head, reaching further than the trees.
As she got closer, she realized the blob on the landscape was a seal. She had been told by her big brother that there were seals around here, in Norfolk. And as she got closer still, she saw it wasn’t a perfect seal. It had a hole in its side, flies were buzzing around it, and the sun hit its skin for just a moment, long enough for her to notice the flesh around the hole starting to draw back, weeping with some kind of liquid that wasn’t blood, but wasn’t water either.
She had never seen a seal before. Now she had never seen a seal alive before. She kept staring; she couldn’t take her eyes away. Where had the hole come from? What did it mean? Her father’s eyes were on her, and she could feel her head start to ache. A familiar ache. The one that came before tears, after sadness or anger.
She felt her father’s hand on her shoulder, and she wanted to nestle into his stomach, to block out the seal, the endless sky, the endless beach, and see nothing but black, smell nothing but her dad’s musty coat. Her tears were silent at first, cold and sticky as they crawled down her face. But then came the sobs, and she was embarrassed before they started, distraught when they did, and unable to stop. She couldn’t imagine anything worse than being this seal right now. Decaying. Dying. Dead, already. With no one here to watch over it, no one but two strangers, one who didn’t seem to feel a thing.
‘Aleisha,’ Dean said to his 5-year-old daughter. ‘You don’t need to be upset. Things die all the time. It’s not a big deal.’
She wasn’t upset. She wasn’t anything. She looked at her hands. The policewoman was still sitting on the chair opposite her. Her mouth was opening, closing, as though she was speaking – mouthing words like ‘bad news’, ‘found by a stranger’, ‘so sorry’ – but the room was entirely silent. And all Aleisha could think about was that seal – the memory was so distant, like words written by someone else in a novel – and yet she still felt her own heart ache at the memory. How could Aleisha have grieved for a seal, yet feel nothing when her brother, her Aidan, had been hit by a train.
She followed the policewoman into the hallway, let her out of the door, her own face frozen in a surreal, cold, emotionless smile as she said goodbye.
She drifted into the kitchen like a ghost, walked towards the fridge. She looked at Aidan’s Post-it notes, searching for a clue. As she read one, she took it off the fridge, listened to the soft peeling sound, and let it flutter to the floor. One by one. Until she started reading more quickly. Some of the Post-its just said one thing: ‘Beans’ or ‘Bin bags’ or ‘Washing-up liquid’ or ‘Sandwiches for Mum’, and finally one said, ‘Back later, don’t wait up. Love you Leish x’. She peeled faster and faster; he hadn’t left a new note here. What would it say? ‘I’m heading out. For ever. Good luck.’
She lifted her foot up, and smashed it back down on the pieces of paper, like dead autumn leaves shrivelling on the side of the dual carriageway. She watched them, felt them crease and crinkle. She left them as they were.
There, poking out between the notes, half hidden under the fridge, was a small shard of Aidan’s special plate, with Peter Rabbit’s ever-smiling face.
Chapter 30
MUKESH
‘HELLO, MUKESH!’ IT WAS the library assistant, Lucy. They had only spoken a few times when Aleisha wasn’t around, but Mukesh liked her nonetheless. She had a lovely smile. ‘I’m just heading out, but nice to see you! You’re becoming a proper regular. What’s that you’ve got there?’
Mukesh held Little Women out to her.
‘Little Women! That’s my daughter’s favourite book, even now, and she’s twenty-eight.’
‘It is really lovely. It reminds me of all my daughters. Their differences and similarities! My girls had squabbles and fights growing up, but they had always been the best of friends.’ Mukesh said all this in one torrent – his speech was almost rehearsed now after telling Nilakshi almost exactly the same thing the evening before. ‘I sometimes wish Naina had written a book of their lives, about the children, growing up.’
‘What do you mean?’ Lucy asked, her bag on her shoulder, ready to go.
‘Well, my late wife, Naina, she was around for most of the time with the girls, when we lived in Kenya, watching them grow up day to day. Sometimes, when I got home from work, everyone was already tucked up in bed and sleeping like babies.’
‘Did you feel you’d missed out?’ Lucy’s face was kind; she didn’t make any effort to leave.
Mukesh realized he’d never really thought about it this way before. ‘Somet
imes – but my Naina, she always told me we were a team. Every evening she would be waiting up for me, she’d tell me what had happened during the day. That was my favourite moment. I never felt like I’d missed it.’
‘That’s so lovely, Mukesh!’ Lucy said, she tapped him gently on the shoulder. ‘Thank you for telling me. Feels to me like you’ve got a book in you somewhere.’
‘Oh no! Maybe a Zee TV one-off series or something, but not a whole book.’
Lucy chuckled at that.
‘Where is Miss Aleisha?’ He wanted to tell Aleisha how much of his wife he’d seen in the four little women in the book, and particularly in Marmee. And he wondered if Priya might grow up to be bold and brave and intelligent, just like Jo, the feisty sister. Jo loved books, and writing – she became a writer. Was that in Priya’s future too?
‘I’m afraid I’m not sure. I think Kyle might be on duty today, he’s in the back, just ring the bell. Lovely to see you, Mr Patel!’
Waving with one hand, he rang the bell with the other, and the young man Kyle turned up, carrying an armload of chunky books.
‘Mr Patel, isn’t it?’ he said, sweating slightly with his load.
‘Yes, it is. Where is Miss Aleisha today?’
‘She’s not here I’m afraid, I’m covering for her. How can I help?’
‘Is she okay? Unwell?’
‘I think she had a family emergency,’ Kyle said casually.
Alarm bells start ringing in Mukesh’s head. ‘Her mother?’
‘I’m afraid I don’t know, sir.’
Mukesh began to panic. ‘I want to make sure she is okay. I would like to visit her. Can you tell me where she is? Is she at home? With her mother? And her brother?’
‘I can’t give you that information, sir.’
‘But I am a friend. I am only being friendly. I am only worried about her. Can I help?’
‘No, sir, unless she gave you her information herself, I cannot give you any details. It is against GDPR.’
‘Ah …’ Mukesh tried a different tack. ‘She will have given them to me. She visited me just two days ago, you know? I will just have forgotten. You know, my memory … not as sharp as it once was. Definitely no need to worry about GD-whatsit.’ He tried to make himself look as frail, old and helpless as possible. Sometimes it worked in his favour. He thought of what Marmee or Naina might do. ‘I just want to take her some food, something.’
‘I can’t help, sir.’ Kyle started typing something on the computer. ‘I see you have a book here, reserved.’
‘I didn’t put a reservation on.’
‘In which case, I imagine Aleisha did it for you. It is Beloved, by Toni Morrison.’
Without a word, Mukesh handed Little Women over and let the boy do his job. As he passed the book over, he felt as if he was giving something up, saying goodbye. To whom? The March sisters? Naina?
As he watched Kyle take the book, his heart returned to Beth, the sister who became unwell, and her big sister Jo who loved her so much. He thought of the chapter where they went to the seaside, in the hope that the sea air would fix everything for Beth. Immediately, in his mind, the seaside Beth and Jo walked along was the same seaside he took his girls to in Kenya, when they were growing up. He remembered hot, sweaty days when he would come home early and take the girls to the lighthouse where they would get barbecued corn on the cob and sit by the sea. The girls would be so joyful, and Naina would be silent, just looking at the view, as Mukesh did everything he could just to entertain them and keep the smiles on all their faces. He wondered if his girls remembered those days.
Then, years later, in the summer, in London, on one of these hot, sticky days, Naina told him that she wanted to see the sea, to relive these memories. Looking back now, he wondered whether it was in the hope that the sea air might fix everything, just like Jo hoped in Little Women. That day, they had got the train to Brighton, with a packed lunch of hummus sandwiches, carrot sticks, some bhajis and tepla. Naina had prepared a flask of chai, a bottle of papaya juice and added some cans of Vimto. They’d pack their tablets in a tiny little Tupperware too.
The train journey was exciting – he remembered it well. He hadn’t seen the sea for years, not since the girls were still young enough to come on holidays with them; even then, it had mostly been wet and windy because they’d stayed in England. On this trip, he felt that he and Naina were youngsters again, in the first few months of marriage, getting to know each other, when his parents had given them time and space, when they hadn’t insisted on Naina helping around the house, or things being a certain way. He held Naina’s hand on the train, and they both just smiled out of the window, watching the scenery rush by.
Naina loved the seaside. Seeing her by the sea that day, sitting on a bench reading her book, the sea breeze ruffling her hair, pulling out strands from her bun, he knew in that moment how lucky he had been, what a wonderful life he’d had with her. What wonderful children. His little women. How could he be this happy to just watch his wife, turning page after page, after years of marriage? How could he feel as though he was still as in love with her as he had been in those first few months of their shared life, learning new things about one another. And when they’d eaten lunch, overlooking the pier, avoiding seagulls, to the soundtrack of laughing, playing, squealing children, he’d told her he loved her with butterflies in his stomach, as though he was telling her for the very first time.
He hadn’t known it then, but Naina only had a year and a half to live. It was the last time she’d see the sea. Looking back now, he was pleased they had gone to the beach, on a whim. But he wished he’d said he loved her every single day.
Now he knew, that just like for Beth, the sea hadn’t breathed new life into her. But it had allowed them time, together, to reflect and remember. Reading about Jo and Beth on the beach, it broke his heart – for Beth’s young life, and for Naina’s too.
As he said goodbye to Beth, Jo, Meg, Amy and Marmee, he accepted Beloved. He wondered what Aleisha would have said to accompany the recommendation. She was so good at helping him feel excited about every new offering when he was still saying goodbye to the old one.
‘What is this about?’ he asked the young man.
‘I’m really sorry, I’m not sure – I’ve not read this one. But Toni Morrison – the author – she’s just wonderful.’
Mukesh nodded. ‘Thank you. Now I would like Ms Thomas’s address, please, thank you? I certainly need to tell her about Little Women – we normally talk about the books she recommends me. It helps me understand them, it’s the full library service.’
The boy shook his head. ‘As I said, I cannot give out that information.’
‘I am an old man,’ Mukesh said, sternly – trying another new tack. ‘And I can cause a scene. If you don’t give me her address, I will be very loud.’ Mukesh looked around the room. He spotted Crime Thriller Chris sitting in the corner again, and waved at him, momentarily distracted. Dotted around the library, there were three other regulars, a large enough number to cause Kyle some embarrassment.
Kyle looked around the room nervously.
‘So. Will you help me?’ Mukesh bellowed.
After a couple of beats, the tension in the library rising, Kyle ran his hands through his hair and sighed. ‘Okay, fine. But please do not say that I gave this to you, I’d lose my job.’
So easy, Mukesh thought. Who could say he was just an invisible old man now?
Good job, Mukesh, Naina whispered cheekily in his ear.
He took the piece of paper from Kyle.
‘Thank you, thank you, sir! You don’t know how helpful you’ve been.’
He turned to go, there was no time to waste, but something gave him pause. ‘In fact, before I leave, do you have a copy of The Time Traveler’s Wife?’ This book had comforted him when he needed it. He hoped Aleisha was okay, but the book might be a good distraction from whatever emergency she was dealing with.
‘I’m sure we do.’ Kyle trotted off
and came back a moment later, holding a copy of this special book in its plastic jacket.
Mukesh held onto it tight, tucking the piece of paper with Aleisha’s address into the front cover, and wandered out into the hustle and bustle of Wembley.
Aleisha’s road was new to Mukesh – he’d never even noticed it before, though it was just off the main high street. Though it was a terrace, it looked very different to his road, in a completely different style. It could be a world away.
He looked at Kyle’s handwriting. It was hard to read, but he managed to make out the number. He kept walking. The house would be on his left. The sun was bright again, high in the sky, having broken through some thick black clouds earlier that morning.
He counted each and every house.
He could hear music blaring out of some of the windows, bass shaking the frames, and the panes as well.
He could see children playing in the street, kicking a football from one side of the road to the other. Mukesh felt his heart beat faster again, worried that the ball might come too close to him and he would either be hit or be expected to kick the ball back. Then, when he eventually passed the danger zone, he found he was standing outside the right house: number 79.
He was sure they would be home – Aleisha had said it herself: if she wasn’t at the library, she was at home. But while the windows in the rest of the street’s houses were wide open, these windows were closed. The front garden had nothing in it but bins and some weeds. Everything about the house was dull and grey, except for a flash of colour in the window: the glittering reflection of a police car parked on the other side of the road.
The walkway up to the front door was lined with geometric tiles that Mukesh rather liked, but it was all rather unkempt. He could tell that this had been a loved space once upon a time, carefully created and looked after. He thought of his own garden, Battenburg paving slabs for ease, now sun-bleached and broken.
He went to knock on the door, but he was half terrified of leaving a mark on this house. He waited, stepping a little way back from the door so he could look up at the upstairs windows, listening for any noises, checking for any movements. All closed. Curtains drawn. A silence that was heavy, pervasive.
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