The doors are new: Automatic open. Fancy. That has changed since Aidan was here last. The first thing he notices are the sparse rows of books—when he’d been younger, smaller, the shelves seemed to never end, teeming with books of all shapes and sizes. Even when he’d been a teenager, working here over his summer holidays, this place had been a sanctuary for him and, though he’d never have admitted it to his friends, he’d loved getting lost between the stacks and stacks of reference books. Maybe he is just looking back with rose-tinted spectacles, imagining some kind of magical, bookish wonderland that has never really existed. But now, at twenty-two, no longer a boy but a man, here he is again, looking for a place to hide—from the world, his friends, his family.
The librarian looks up for a moment as he steps through the doors, and smiles. Aidan is greeted by silence. In his memories, this place was never silent. Obviously, it is a library . . . so it has always been quiet, but there had been that hum—of people shuffling about, of kids whispering to their mums, people flicking pages, moving chairs, wiggling around, coughing and snuffling too. Today, barely a sound. Someone tapping out a text on their phone. The librarian drumming away on that clunky old keyboard. Nothing else. Recently, he has spotted posters about saving Brent’s libraries stuck up on community boards: in Tesco; at the gym; even plastered near the Tube station, advertising cake sales, knitting clubs at the library, sit-ins, petitions. But it has never crossed his mind that Harrow Road Library needs saving. In his mind, it is popular, well loved, but now that he is here, his heart begins to sink . . . Maybe Harrow Road Library will be the next to go.
He wanders over to the fiction shelves, the crime section, and runs his fingers over the spines, landing on Black Water Rising by Attica Locke. He has read it before, years ago. Maybe even more than once. As he starts to turn the pages, looking for an escape, memories rush in . . . of Attica Locke’s Houston, the city alive, vibrant, dark, full of contradictions and contrasts. Today he needs that kind of familiarity, he needs to step back into a world where there are scares, twists, turns, but a world where he knows how everything will end.
He needs to know how something will end.
The table he’d once curled up under as a kid is gone, everything rearranged. Nothing was going to stay the same just to please him, not here, not in his life. This is another bad summer. But as the words of the story wash over him, he traces the sentences with his fingers, trying to re-create that feeling of being grounded, rooted to the spot, nothing more than a body, reading words, allowing his mind to wander elsewhere. He can feel the story take control of his mind, pulling him away. His own thoughts, his worries, that voice, begin to buzz at the back of his mind, and eventually they become nothing but white noise.
When he was younger, his mum would bring him here with his little sister, Aleisha; Aleisha was always more interested in playing and she’d kick and she’d fuss and Leilah would have to take her outside. Aidan would never have more than a few minutes of alone time, but those few minutes calmed him, they stopped his mind racing, they helped him breathe, escape . . . whatever he needed most.
A loud thwack alerts him to someone beside him. He averts his gaze, keeping his eyes on the page, unwilling, for now, to allow someone else to break his spell. Out of the corner of his eye, he spots a large stack of books piled high. A barricade.
There’s the scraping of a chair, and scraps of paper are pulled from a bag, creased receipts, a library slip, the back of a crossword puzzle, leaving a crumpled cloud of white on the desk beside him.
He tries hard to quiet his breathing as his neighbor begins to mutter almost inaudibly. He can’t tell if it’s a song, or a tune, or complete nonsense. He spots a pen poised above the first scrap; then follows the rhythmic scratching.
Aidan keeps his eyes fixed on the page, running over the words in his book, taking them in, trying to conjure up the feeling he’d had the last time he’d read these words in this order.
For minutes, Aidan allows his focus to flow in and out of the book, into the library, and then out onto the road, over to Wembley. He wonders how his mum is doing now. Has Aleisha noticed he’s vanished? He brings his mind back to the room, back to the library, to the person sitting beside him, scribbling as if their life depends on it.
And then, suddenly, his neighbor stands up abruptly, leaving a heap of little folded pieces of paper littering the desk. He watches from the corner of his eye as slips of paper are pulled into a line, as if in slow motion, a finger tapping each one in turn . . . counting one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight . . . Then the scraps are all tucked away into the first book, at the top of the pile—he sees now that it is To Kill a Mockingbird.
His neighbor’s hands rest for a moment on the cover of the book. Aidan realizes he hasn’t turned his page in a while. He wonders if they realize he’s watching. He wonders why he’s watching at all. Then, a moment later, their arms, wrapped in a thick black sweater, reach forward and pull the books toward them. With a soft groan, the pile of books is swept from the corner of his eye and he hears the swoosh-swoosh of shoes against the tacky library carpet, shuffling toward the front desk. He allows his mind to return to his story.
When he eventually stands up from his chair, the evening light is streaming through the window, and the library looks exactly how he remembers it: magical. It feels like a miracle, but he’s never believed in those before. The sun is casting long shadows on the scruffy library, dousing everything in a warm amber—it looks as if it has been carved out of gold. He tucks his chair in, lifting it up, trying not to make a sound—though there is barely anyone left here to disturb.
Then he spots one lonely folded scrap of paper sitting on the desk beside him—the crossword puzzle.
For a moment, he turns his head to the left, to the right, and slowly over his shoulder. No one is watching him. His arm reaches forward, pulling it toward him, and he unwraps it—one fold at a time. His fingers treat it delicately; it is barely thicker than a cigarette paper. He doesn’t want to break it. He thinks of the person, his anonymous neighbor, writing, scrawling, intent.
As he unfolds the final corner, the mystery is suddenly revealed. The lettering is neat, looping, warm, inviting.
Just in case you need it:
- To Kill a Mockingbird
- Rebecca
- The Kite Runner
- Life of Pi
- Pride and Prejudice
- Little Women
- Beloved
- A Suitable Boy
To Kill a Mockingbird—the first book in the massive pile. He runs his eyes down the list. It doesn’t mean anything to him—just scribbled words on a scrap of paper. But, for a moment, he thinks about taking the list with him, popping it in his pocket, but he stops himself. This small scrap of paper, so neatly folded, is nothing more than a stranger’s reading list. What does he need with something like this?
Instead, he lays it back on the table, and picks up his book, sending Attica Locke a secret thank-you, and tucks it back on the crime shelf, for someone else to enjoy. He heads out of the library, the doors closing automatically behind him. He turns once more, and he can see the note sitting exactly where he left it. The shadows of the library close in behind him; the books read and unread forming a barrier between him and the list. As he steps away from the library, he feels the peace, the silence, slide away from him as he heads toward the lights and sounds of the city he calls home.
Beep. “Hi, Papa, it’s Rohini. Sorry, sorry to be calling you again, but you know how I worry when you don’t pick up or return my calls. We’re going to come and visit you on Friday, me and Priya, so let me know if you need me to bring anything, food or drink. I’m not convinced the food you make yourself is nutritionally balanced, Papa—you need to eat more than just mung. And remember it’s bin day today, black bins only today, ha. Green bins next week. Call Param at number eighty-seven if you can’t do it, okay? I know your back has been playing up.”
Beep. “Dad, it’s Deepali. Rohini told me to give you a ring because she hasn’t heard from you. She said to tell you it’s your bin day today, so remember, okay? Not like last time when you had to run out in your dressing gown in the morning! Call me later, okay? I am going to work now, okay? Bye. The twins say bye too! Bye, Dada.”
Beep. “Hi, Papa, it’s Vritti. You doing all right? Wanted to check how you are. Let me know if you need anything. I can come round soon, just let me know when you’re free. I’ve got a busy few weeks, but can sort something out, yeah?”
And just like that, Mukesh’s day started like almost any other Wednesday: with three identical voicemails from his daughters—Rohini, Deepali, and Vritti—at the unsociable hour of eight A.M., before they started work; often Mukesh wasn’t even awake by then.
On another day of the week, he might have called each of them in turn, to let them know he was on top of his bins, even if he wasn’t, and that he had no clue who Param at number 87 was, even though he did—he liked to keep them on their toes. But he had no time for that today.
Today was his shopping day. Naina had always done the shopping on Wednesdays. To deviate from that routine now would be wrong. First things first, he checked the fridge and the cupboards, organized just the way Naina had liked them to be, by which he meant not at all. Just as he suspected: he needed okra and mung beans. He loved mung beans, regardless of what Rohini said. He had never cooked much when Naina was alive, except in the last few months of her life, but he knew a few recipes by heart. They kept him going. What did he need with “nutritionally balanced” at his age, anyway?
As he stepped out of his house, slamming the door behind him, the early July heat bowled him over. He had worn too many layers again. And he always felt the heat. Some of the other “elderly” people at the mandir laughed at him—when they were too cold, Mukesh was too hot. He worried about underarm sweat patches, though they would often say, “Mukeshbhai, why do you worry about such things? We are old now. We don’t mind.”
But Mukesh did not want to be old, and if he stopped worrying about sweat patches, belching in public, that sort of thing, he might stop caring about other more important things too.
He adjusted his flat cap, which he wore whatever the weather, to make sure the sun was out of his eyes. He’d had this cap for fifty years. It was wearing away and wearing out, but he loved it. It had outlasted his marriage and, while he didn’t want to be a pessimist, if he lost it, it would be like losing another fundamental part of himself.
Every week, the walk up the slight hill from his house to the high road got a little bit harder, his breathing a little bit shallower, and one day he would need to order a Dial-a-Ride for the five-minute stroll. When he eventually reached the top of the hill and turned left, he took a deep breath, steadied himself against a bollard, readjusted his mandir-branded canvas bag, which was slipping off his shoulder, and carried on toward his usual grocery shop on Ealing Road.
Ealing Road was a bit quieter on a Wednesday, which was why Naina had nominated it as her shopping day. She always said it reduced her chances of bumping into someone she knew, which always had the potential to turn a ten-minute shopping trip into an hour’s social catch-up.
A few people wandered in and out of the shops that had beautiful mannequins showing themselves off in the window, draped in jewels and bright material, but the majority frequented the fruit and vegetable stalls, or hung around near the Wembley Central mosque. Mukesh waved to his neighbor Naseem and Naseem’s daughter Noor, sitting on a wall sharing a packet of cassava crisps between them. They hadn’t spoken for more than a few minutes since Naina had passed, but whenever he saw Naseem, and Noor on school holidays, they never failed to brighten his day.
Mukesh finally reached his favorite shop, overflowing with all sorts of vegetables, fresh and fragrant, kept in the shade by the awning. It was swarming with shoppers and buggies and children. Mukesh felt a little bubble of panic in his throat. Nikhil was standing in the doorway, as though he had been waiting just for him.
“Hey, Mukesh!” Nikhil was thirty, and the son of an acquaintance from the mandir. So really, he should have called him “Mukeshfua,” meaning uncle, as a sign of respect, but Mukesh let this slide, as he often did. He didn’t want to be fua to this young man, who still had all his original hair, all his original teeth, and was a while away from the muffin-top belly Mukesh had been sporting for the last ten years, steadily maintained by a diet of rice, mung, and kadhi. He liked feeling like Nikhil’s friend rather than his doddery old uncle.
“Kemcho, Nikhil,” Mukesh replied. “Can I have mung, plenty of it—and some bhindi too?”
“Wonder what you’re making today, eh, Mukesh?!”
“You know what I’m making.”
“It was a joke. You know mung and okra don’t even go together, right? Make something different. For once, Mukesh.” Nikhil mock-rolled his eyes, a toothy grin on his face.
“You know, young man, you should be calling me fua! I must tell your mother of your rudeness.” He smiled to himself. Even if he tried, he’d never be able to earn the respect Naina had once had. She had been the public-facing figure in their marriage. She’d run the satsangs at the mandir on Saturdays, and led the bhajans. The younger ones and her peers looked up to her.
Mukesh watched Nikhil weave his way in and out of the crowds. Finally, he presented Mukesh with a blue bag, teeming with greenery. Okra and mung beans aplenty, but many other bonus vegetables thrown in too. They didn’t call it “Variety Foods” for nothing.
Mukesh said thank you, quite quietly, and jostled back through the shoppers to the street, where cars were tooting and beeping, their windows open and music of all kinds blaring out.
When he reached the top of his road, he began to walk “briskly,” helped by the downward slope. He unlocked his door, hobbled to his kitchen, and unpacked his groceries (bonus veg today: spinach and coriander, and a bread roll or two, perfect for pav bhaji, which Mukesh had no clue how to make). Finally, he sat himself down in front of the television.
Usually, on a Wednesday, he’d unpack his shopping and then sit on his chair with his feet up, drinking a cup of hot and just-right sweet chai, as Naina used to make it (now made using ready-mix sachets), and he’d turn on Zee TV or the news, to keep his eyes away from the empty chair beside him, Naina’s chair—and to fill his ears with sound, laughter, and stern conversations, important world affairs, to keep his mind away from the deafening silence that had welcomed him home every day for two years now.
For months after Naina’s death, Mukesh hadn’t been able to sleep in his own bed, because being in there alone felt like being in someone else’s home entirely.
“Papa, you take your time,” Rohini had said to him at first, and Vritti had set up a bed in the living room for him.
“He can’t sleep there forever, he’ll do his back in,” Deepali had whispered to her sisters after tucking him in. A strange role reversal that made him feel an immense sense of shame. How could he be whole again when his whole had gone for good?
“He’ll be okay. He is grieving. I can’t bring myself to go in the bedroom at all, but we’re going to need to clear Mummy’s stuff away. She kept it so messy!” Rohini whispered back.
Lying on the living-room sofa, Mukesh had shut his eyes, hoping to block out the sound of their laughter. Soft, comforting laughter. He was the father; he should be looking after his girls. But he couldn’t. He didn’t know how to without Naina.
Once a year had passed, and Mukesh Patel’s Time of Eternal Quiet had begun, that silent, lonely stage of grief, where everyone but you had moved on, Rohini, Deepali, and Vritti had insisted on finally clearing out Naina’s room. “Papa, we’re not letting you put this off for any longer. It’s time for you to move forward with your life.”
So, they began sorting through the detail and debris of their mother’s life, reorganizing the organized chaos Naina thrived in. Deepali, who conveniently had dust allergies, opted to cook a lunch for them instead. For that one day, his house was full of life again—but for all the wrong reasons. As he listened to Deepali mixing batter in the kitchen, he stood in the doorway of his and Naina’s bedroom watching Vritti and Rohini. They didn’t know he was there. He was silent and invisible in his own home, a ghost of himself.
Rohini took the lead, shouting instructions to Vritti to root out the boxes under the bed, while she dashed around the room, returning a comb to its rightful place in a shoebox on the top of the wardrobe, folding up shawls and tidying them away into a big wheely suitcase, and packing away handfuls and handfuls of bangles. Mukesh watched as they dragged box after box out from under the bed. Vritti knelt to the floor, her cheek pressed against the carpet, and ran her hand to the left, and to the right.
All of a sudden, there was a clinking, clattering crash.
“Oh God! What have you done?” Rohini groaned, staring down at her sister. Vritti pulled the box out, revealing a now half-emptied yogurt pot of mismatched earrings. Next came the Clarks shoebox of photographs that had entertained them all for hours on end when the girls were little, sitting on Naina’s or Mukesh’s knees, asking about their paisley-patterned clothes and garish flares. Mukesh had always thought they looked rather fashionable. The girls laughed at that.
Then followed several pieces of empty Tupperware. And finally, one lonely, dust-covered library book.
Vritti slowed her pace for a moment and held it in her hands, as Rohini knelt down beside her sister.
“Papa,” they called, loudly, still oblivious he was only a few feet away. Deepali trotted into the room then too.
“Mummy’s book—well . . . library book,” Rohini said. “I thought I’d returned them all, but I must have missed this one.” She held it up to him and he walked forward, not quite believing it. As though this dusty, icky, sticky book was some kind of mirage. When he’d seen the other relics of her life, he’d barely felt a thing. But here, seeing this book, the gray dust sticking to the plastic cover in splotches, it was like Naina was here in the room with them. Here, with his three girls, and one of Naina’s beloved books, for a moment, just a moment, he didn’t feel so alone.
Once upon a time, a huge stack of library books sat on Naina’s bedside table. They’d kept her company in her last year. She’d read the same ones over and over again. Her “favorites.” Mukesh wished now that he’d asked her what they were about, what she loved about them, why she’d felt the need to read the same ones again and again. He wished that he’d read them with her.
And now all he had left was this one library book: The Time Traveler’s Wife.
That night, with the room devoid of Naina’s mess, Mukesh cracked the spine, feeling like an intruder. This wasn’t his book, it was never chosen for him, and perhaps Naina would never have wanted him to read it either. He forced himself to read one page, but had to stop. The words weren’t making sense. He was trying to turn the black letters and yellowed pages into a letter from Naina to him. But no such message existed.
The next night, he tried again. He put Naina’s reading lamp on and turned to page one once more. He flicked through the successive pages, trying to be gentle, trying so hard not to leave his own mark on this book in any tangible way. He wanted this book to be Naina, and only Naina. He searched, forensically, for a clue—a mark on the page, a drop of chai, a tear, an eyelash, anything at all. He told himself that one day he would have to return it to the library—it’s what Naina would have wanted. But he couldn’t let it go. Not yet. It was his last chance to bring Naina back.
He took it page by page, chapter by chapter. He met Henry, a character who could travel through time. Through this gift, he could meet a past or future version of himself, and it was also, importantly, how he met Clare—he traveled in time to meet her when she was just a girl, and returned again and again over the years. The love of his life. And Clare had no choice but to love him, because he was all she had ever known.
He began to see these characters not as Henry and Clare but as love itself—that kind of love that feels fated, inescapable. That’s what he and Naina had. Eventually in the story, Henry leaps forward into the future and learns he is going to die. He tells Clare he knows when it will happen, when they’ll be separated forever.
As he was reading about Clare and Henry’s tragedy, the phone beside him had begun to trill. It was Deepali. He’d not been able to speak, he could only cry.
“I knew she was going to die, my beta,” he said to her, when his voice could finally escape. “In the same way Clare knew Henry was going to die in that book. They could almost count their last days together. I had that warning too. But did I do enough? Did I make her last few months happy?”
“Dad, what are you talking about?”
“Your mummy’s book—Time Traveling Wife.”
“What about it, Dad?” Her voice was soft, he could hear the pity ringing through it.
“Henry and Clare . . . you know . . . they loved each other ever since they were very young, just like me and your mummy. And they knew when he was going to die. And they lived their lives as best they could, making the most of every moment. I don’t know if I did the same.”
“Dad, Mummy loved you, and she knew you loved her. That was enough. Come on, now. It’s late, Papa, go to sleep, okay? Don’t worry about it at all. You gave her a good life, and she gave you a good life too.”
Naina had died. But this book felt like one little glimpse into her soul, into their love, their life together. A snapshot of the early days of their marriage when they were still all but strangers to each other. Married, with no idea of what the other one was really like. Naina would do everything—she’d cook, she’d clean, she’d laugh, she’d cry, she’d sew, she’d mend, and at the end of the day, she’d read. She’d settle into bed as though she’d had the most relaxing day, and she’d read. From their first few weeks together, he knew that he loved her, and he’d love her forever.
I’ll never be lost to you, Mukesh, she had said to him then as he gripped the book in his hands. He heard the words. Her voice. The story—it had brought her back—even if just for a moment.
Now, as Mukesh reached for the remote control to continue today’s routine, his hand collided with a book. The Time Traveler’s Wife was staring up at him from the sitting-room table. Time to go to the library, no excuses, the book whispered to him, in a voice that sounded uncannily like Naina’s. It was time to leave this book behind, to move forward. Now it was time.
After a few deep breaths and a little stretch of his legs, he stood up, tucked the book into his canvas bag, checked his pockets for his bus pass, and headed straight out of the house, up the hill. He crossed the road at the traffic lights to get to the closest bus stop. He waited, struggling to read the timetable.
A young woman was standing next to him, with a messy bun and a huge mobile phone, held in two hands.
“Excuse me, where on earth is the library and which bus would I need to get, please?”
The woman sighed and began to tap the screen. He had irritated her, he would have to find out another way, but, squinting, he couldn’t make out any detail on the map. He would be here forever.
“You’ve got to get the ninety-two from here,” the woman said suddenly, making Mukesh jump. “It’s in the Civic Center.”
“Oh no! Surely there is another one. The Civic Center is so full of people. Too, too busy for me. Can you check again?”
The woman chewed her gum loudly, grumpily. She looked at her phone. “I don’t know. They’re all closing down round here, aren’t they, the libraries?” She inhaled sharply. A moment later: “Yeah, okay, there’s Harrow Road Library, down there—same bus. You’ve got to cross the road though.”
“Thank you, thank you. I’m so pleased.” He smiled at her; and then, against all the odds, she gave him a smile back. As he stepped off the curb—in his excitement he had forgotten how slowly his limbs moved—he felt a stabbing pain in his knee. The woman grabbed him, firmly but gently. “Chill a bit, you need to look both ways first.” She checked right, she checked left, she checked right again and gave him a nudge when the coast was clear.
On the other side, he turned to look for her, his hand held up in a wave. But her bus had arrived, and he was already forgotten.
As the 92 came to a stop in front of him, he clambered on, pulling himself up onto the deck with all his might, tapping his Oyster card on the reader. “Excuse me,” he said to the driver, “please tell me where to get off for the Harrow Road Library.” He enunciated the words as though it was a Highly Important Place of Interest. The bus driver looked at him blankly.
“Ealing Road stop,” he replied eventually.
“Thank you, my friend, thank you. Today’s quite a big day for me.”
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