Aleisha laughed, softly. ‘I’m not sure that’s true. That’s really lovely, though, Mr P. Your wife would be really proud of you. Especially if you really had just read one book before all of this. I don’t believe you, though – you’re getting through the books like a machine.’
Mukesh let that thought rest with him, pride inflating his chest, his head, just as Mrs Danvers fled the scene. Then the ‘ding-dong ding-dong’ of the doorbell rang.
‘Oh, no!’ Mukesh said. Who could it be?
‘Wait! How was your day with Priya?’ And suddenly Mukesh forgot about the doorbell, about Nilakshi and her Zee TV dramas.
‘Aleisha, it was magical!’ he exclaimed. He heard Aleisha giggle in the distance. ‘I took her to a bookshop – in central London. I took your advice. There were so many people there, all browsing, or drinking in the café … it was so full! I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude to the library, but, you know … it was busier than the library. I wish people loved the library as much as we do, Miss Aleisha.’
Ding-dong ding-dong.
‘Mukeshbhai! I’ll get it!’
‘No!’ Mukesh shouted, as Aleisha started to say, ‘That’s so brilliant, Mr P.’ He dropped the phone on his bed, forgotten, and trotted as fast as his slippers allowed to the front door. But, as he entered the small hallway, he already saw Deepali standing on the Welcome mat, Nilakshi with a smile plastered on her face, beckoning her in.
‘Hi Dad,’ Deepali said. ‘I … I was just popping in to say hi. But … I should have called, I, er, didn’t realize you’d have company. I’d better go.’
‘Goodbye, Nilakshimasi. Nice to see you,’ she said, turning to Nilakshi once more.
Before Mukesh could get to the doorstep, Deepali was already in her car, the engine started, ready to go.
The excitement from his conversation with Aleisha had vanished completely. He watched his daughter drive away as Nilakshi clamped a hand on his shoulder. ‘Mukesh, we are just friends. We both know this, your daughters – of course they’ll understand.’
But Mukesh knew they wouldn’t. He had disappointed them – he had seen Deepali’s face drop. Speaking to Aleisha might have made Mrs Danvers disappear, but Deepali had brought her flying back again and Naina was nowhere to be seen, felt or heard.
THE READING LIST
IZZY
2019
‘HELLO?’ IZZY SAID, PEERING over the library’s front desk. ‘You all right there?’
The man behind the desk was covered in dust, with piles of boxes all around him. ‘Yeah,’ he puffed. ‘I’m all right, I’m just clearing some stuff out. My boss says we need to make this place spotless in case they try to shut us down. I don’t actually know who this mysterious “they” is, but there you go …’
Izzy stared at him, remembering the Save Our Libraries sign that had been stuck to the door for the two years she’d been coming here, ever since she’d found the reading list. Every time the words became illegible, bleached by the sun, someone – the save-our-libraries elf – replaced it with a new A4 sheet. The library, to her and Sage’s relief, was still going – though perhaps not going strong. Now that she’d found it, she couldn’t really imagine it not being here.
‘Sorry,’ the man brushed dust off his corduroy trousers, and his T-shirt. ‘Sorry. Hello, I’m Kyle. How can I help you?’
She’d seen Kyle several times before over the years, and he always had this distinct air of being completely frazzled yet absolutely serene at the same time. Izzy paused for a moment. Was this the right thing to do? She held the list in her hands – she’d kept it pristine, tucked away in her box of lists for ages, for safekeeping. She’d spent the last two years hiding away from the world in the library, joining the library book club every so often, chatting to anyone she could find, just in case they were the curator of the list. But she’d had no luck yet. She’d read each book again and again, writing notes on them, sticking little sticky tabs on crucial scenes, momentous lines, in case the books themselves, and their messages, were a kind of jigsaw. But she’d tried everything and still, after two years, she couldn’t shake her fascination.
‘You need to get over this, you’ll drive yourself mad,’ Sage had said to her one night, when Izzy was flicking through Little Women for the umpteenth time. It was the third library copy she’d taken out; she wondered if something, a clue, a message, had been marked in certain copies of each of the books on the list – so she was trying every single one. But, again, this copy of Little Women told her nothing new.