The Reading List

Harrow Road Library was an old building, completely different from the modern Civic Centre; it looked as if it had been someone’s house once, with big white walls and timber framing, black and bold. Behind it was the park, so it was quiet and peaceful despite being on the main road. There were lots of windows, some were definitely new and modern, along with those terrifying ‘automatic-open’ glass doors. He spotted a sign on the door that he hadn’t noticed before: Save Our Libraries it said. Spread the word.

Leilah suddenly shouted from upstairs, ‘Shut up! Aleisha, shut up!’ Aleisha and Aidan looked at each other, their faces blank, their smiles gone. She wasn’t surprised. Last night, the giggling, the yoga … but nothing had changed. Nothing would ever change. That thick black curtain would always be there, shrouding the whole house, holding Aidan down with it this time. After a moment of silence, the two of them barely drawing a breath, Aidan finally shook his head to say, ‘She doesn’t mean it.’ He didn’t say it out loud because he couldn’t know it was true.

She hurriedly looked down at her phone again, nervous – unsure what to do. She opened up Tinder. She’d never used Tinder properly. Unlike all her friends, who seemed to be on Tinder all the time, with dates every other night of the week, she didn’t have the time to be meeting guys, for dates or hook-ups. But sometimes, when she wanted to pretend that her life was something else, that she had some kind of freedom, she just swiped for the sake of swiping.
Was this guy on Tinder too? What if she’d just mindlessly swiped left to him? Worse … what if she’d swiped right?

Mukesh shuffled into bed that evening, in the bedroom he had once shared with Naina, mattress and bones creaking. He whispered, ‘Jai Swaminarayan’ and rested his head in the very centre of his pillow, looking up at the ceiling, the dying sunlight creeping in through the cracks in the curtains, casting an orange glow on the paintwork. He closed his eyes for the night, praying and hoping he would wake up with Naina next to him. He knew, if he was going to finally get to know his granddaughter, to earn her trust and her respect, he might have to start making some changes. The library was the key, he just knew it … but the sponsored walk, it couldn’t hurt to have a go, could it?

‘Rohini,’ Mukesh said, ‘is Priya always this quiet? Her head always in books?’
‘She just likes to read, Papa, it’s fine. Mummy did that all the time, and she definitely wasn’t quiet.’
‘But I never hear her talk about her friends, things she likes to do other than reading. Your mummy liked books, but she always had friends over too.’
‘Yes, Papa, Priya does other things. Have you ever asked her?’ Rohini wasn’t looking at him when she said this, but he felt the sting as though her eyes were boring right through him.
‘Well, no, but …’ Mukesh stammered.
‘She has two best friends, Papa, Christie and James,’ Rohini continued. ‘They’re very nice, and quiet like her.’
‘She has those two friends to visit?’
‘Papa, kids don’t do that these days. They play together at school. In the break times.’

He was dealing with another irrational, irrelevant and annoying customer who had phoned in – but at least that was better than dealing with the irrational, irrelevant, annoying customers in real life. What had Aidan loved about this job so much?
‘No, sir. I think I will have to charge you for the book, if you removed it from the premises without checking it out.’
Kyle’s brows knotted into a frown.
‘Sorry, sir, could you repeat that just a little more slowly for me please?’ And after a beat, ‘Do you have a library card?’
Aleisha couldn’t tune out of the conversation, Kyle was so sodding loud.
‘I’m so sorry, sir, I didn’t realize. When was this? Yesterday? Hmm, yes, thank you, sir. Thank you for letting me know. I’ll investigate and see what I can do … Yes, well, if you don’t have a library card, how about I set one up for you today and take the book out for you, and you can return it when you can. That way I’ll make sure my colleagues can’t charge you when it is returned.’