But it was 2019. The year Mukesh least hoped it would be. The second year of his life since Naina, the year that began without Naina and would end without Naina too. He rummaged in his bag, pulling out Rebecca. Even though the book had scared him half to death, he needed to be somewhere else for a while, beyond the confines of his little Wembley home, walking in someone else’s skin.
As he turned the pages, Mukesh met Mrs Danvers, the housekeeper, who so loved the first wife, Rebecca, and so hated the second wife, constantly reminding her and Mr de Winter that she would never fill her beloved Rebecca’s shoes. In an instant, Mrs Danvers took on a new life, a new meaning, for Mukesh. She was his own internal guilt. He stopped reading mid-sentence, and sat in deathly silence. Books were an escape. But Mukesh was learning that they weren’t always an escape in a good way. ‘I’m not forgetting Naina!’ he said out loud, to himself, to the judgemental Mrs Danvers. ‘I’m sorry, Naina,’ he said. ‘I am such an idiot. This book, it doesn’t mean anything.’
In response, he thought he heard Naina’s words through the still evening air: I know, Mukesh. But he couldn’t be sure if he was just hearing things, his imagination heightened by the story, telling him what he needed to hear after all.
PART IV
THE KITE RUNNER
by Khaled Hosseini
Chapter 13
ALEISHA
‘ALEISHA,’ BENNY CALLED AS he wiped down the tables. ‘What you up to this evening?’
‘Just going to the shops to get stuff for dinner,’ she replied, one foot already out the door. ‘But then literally no plans, Benny – what about you?’
Aleisha thought of the book stuffed in her bag – The Kite Runner. She didn’t want to admit it to him, but she was excited to have no plans, so she could just curl up with her book. To her, it was the closest thing she’d had to a plan in ages. Now, every morning, she read a chapter or two – every lunchtime she read some more – and she couldn’t sleep now until she’d turned the pages, revisited the characters who were becoming more real with every passing chapter.
‘I’m going on holiday!’ Benny did a little dance. Aleisha liked Benny – she never got to see him much, because their shifts rarely crossed over, but he was always so joyful.
‘All right for some! Where to?’
‘Ayia Napa!’
Benny was 40, and every summer he went on a lads’ holiday with his friends. Thermos Flask loved to mention it whenever Benny came up in conversation.
‘With my boys!’ Benny finished.
Aleisha giggled to herself.
‘You going away this summer?’
Aleisha shook her head. ‘Although you know, Benny,’ she said, pulling out her book. ‘Actually … I’m going to Kabul tonight.’ She waved The Kite Runner at him.
‘Oh, Aleisha! That book … it’s devastating, you know.’
‘Well, Benny, my life’s devastating. I’m seventeen and my forty-year-old colleague is going to Ayia Napa instead of me.’
‘Soz, hun. You win some, you lose some,’ Benny said, as he trotted out through the doors with a spring in his step.
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini – she liked the cover; two boys, arms around each other, a bright blue sky, a kite. From the back cover, Aleisha had learned it was about two best friends, Amir and Hassan, who want to win the local kite-flying competition, but something will change both their lives for ever. Years later, Amir, who has moved from Afghanistan to America, realizes he must return to Kabul, for forgiveness, and for redemption.
Looking at that cover, it made her wonder – what happens to Hassan? What did Amir do? Benny’s words rang in her mind, ‘It’s devastating, you know,’ and she braced herself. She was putting a lot of trust into whoever had collated this list – but she’d loved To Kill a Mockingbird, and Rebecca too – they’d been so different, one so easy to read but with heartbreaking moments, the other dark and brooding, atmospheric. Rebecca had been one she read under the covers, terrified for young Mrs de Winter, the new wife at Manderley.
At first, she’d been blindly following the list, accepting the books without question. And now, she realized, reading them made every day go a bit quicker than the last. She had stopped using the list as a bookmark, and had replaced it in her phone case, to keep it as safe as possible. She didn’t want to lose it – she knew the books off by heart, even without her iPhone photo of it, but the physical list … it felt like some kind of lucky charm.