He laid the book down, hopped off the bed and opened some of Naina’s cupboards, pulling out infinite saris, more roughly than he wanted to. He told himself he was looking for books, for something to give Priya to read, but really he was hoping it might bring Naina back to him. As sari after sari tumbled to the floor, he could smell the warm, musty tang of Naina’s perfume. It surrounded him like a cloud. For a moment, she was here again. She was everywhere.
He was wallowing for no reason – Rohini would want to give him a firm shake, saying, ‘Papa, life must go on. Mummy would have wanted that for you.’
He lay back onto the bed, looking up at the ceiling, and immediately regretted his decision. Would he ever be able to stand up again? He watched as the cracks in the ceiling grew before his eyes, as cobwebs began to overwhelm every corner of the room, as the shadows cast by the window pane developed into thick, inky-black lines, and he waited, waited for the ink to drip on him, obscuring him completely. He thought back to Henry, to Clare, to a time when his wife lying next to him wasn’t just the wish of a grief-stricken man.
THE READING LIST
CHRIS
2017
HE FORCED HIMSELF OUT of bed, his head heavy with sleep. But this was progress: it was the first time he’d been awake before midday in weeks. He felt the empty space beside him – Melanie’s side of the bed – and he immediately wanted the ground, the mattress, to swallow him whole and take the pain away. On the floor, a pile of crime books sat staring up at him, taunting him, a thin layer of dust collecting on the top.
Usually, Chris’s books were all he needed to get himself out of a funk. But when he’d first picked up a novel after the break-up and encountered a detective who was smart, tall, elegant and beautiful – all he could think about was Melanie. She was smart, tall, elegant and beautiful too. He’d shut the book in frustration, hearing the pages slam together. He’d stared up at the ceiling, his eyes unfocused, and stayed like that for the rest of the night, images of her running through his mind. Melanie … happy. Melanie … sad. Melanie, Melanie, Melanie.
Today, however, he was determined to put Melanie from his mind; his embarrassment, his weakness, his inability to ‘emotionally connect’ with people. He needed to tuck it into a little box, with a tiny wooden lid. He hoped and prayed that something would keep that box shut. He just needed a few hours to forget, to be another version of himself.
So, he pulled on his trousers – freshly washed ones today, and a new T-shirt, also just out of the cupboard, and headed for Harrow Road. He was in a reading slump, but every day he’d still dragged himself to the library: a little sanctuary in this lonely city. Since the break-up, his phone had been buzzing with messages from friends: ‘Hey, do you and Melanie want to join us for dinner tonight?’， ‘Hi Chris, let’s go for a walk. Joanna is missing Melanie and you!’， ‘How are you? How’s Melanie’s new job going? Hope you’re both good. Miss you guys x’。 Melanie, Melanie, Melanie. Everyone loved Melanie; he loved Melanie. But in the library at least he could breathe, he could escape the onslaught of messages, just be for a little while.
Today, as he sat down in his usual spot, he saw something – a book, just sitting there. Some people were careless, stacking up books to ‘peruse’， never returning the discarded ones to their rightful places, leaving it all down to the library staff. He would do the good deed and return it to the shelves.
But, as he picked the book up, he saw a Post-it note stuck to the table in its place. He peeled it off, carefully, and brought it close to his face. His eyesight wasn’t as it had once been, before the hours and hours of reading in his dimly lit flat. The Post-it note was covered in handwriting, an elaborate scrawl of letters.
I know this isn’t your usual thing, but I read To Kill a Mockingbird when I was 21 and going through a hard time – it taught me a lot back then, and I got to see the world through the eyes of a child once more, the good and the bad. It was an escape for me, I threw myself into the world, into the injustices, into the characters, and it was the respite I needed from my own life – for it helped me care deeply about someone else’s. I hope it can be an escape, a bit of respite, for you too. Sometimes, books just take us away for a little while, and return us to our place with a new perspective.
He brushed the hair out of his eyes. There was no name on the note, no ‘to’ and no ‘from’ – it could be for anyone. But then how could he explain that sudden feeling of being seen? As though someone had read his mind? He looked at the book afresh, his eyes taking in the title: To Kill a Mockingbird. Whoever had written this little Post-it note – had they known he sat here, day after day, wasting his hours wallowing?