The Reading List

Aleisha continued, picking up with Pi leaning over the boat trying to catch some food, in a desperate attempt to feed Richard and keep himself alive. Pi was almost entirely alone in the middle of the ocean, with nothing but animals, a volatile tiger, for company. Aleisha tried to squash down the rise of a familiar feeling – the survival mode that kicked in every time she heard Leilah shout out at night. It was with a stab of guilt that she realized, yes, she knew a thing or two about volatility. Like Pi, Aleisha was constantly watching for a shift, a change, that could come at any moment. But on the other hand, the tiger, despite everything, was the one thing saving Pi from his own loneliness. When she looked up from the page, she saw that Leilah was in Pi’s world too, her eyes were focused on the ceiling, painting the images before her eyes. Aleisha wondered how Leilah’s artistic eye was visualizing this story. She pictured some of Leilah’s recent designs, the ones she did for herself, rather than for ad agencies, printed as postcards and stuck to the wall in her bedroom. Were the colours vibrant? The sea, a deep blue, the orange of the tiger bold, burning. And, Aleisha allowed herself to wonder, to Leilah, was she Pi, or the Tiger? Or no one at all?

The beautiful, isolated mansion – Manderley – pulled her right into the book, taking her somewhere else altogether. She was slowly learning about Rebecca herself … she was actually Mr de Winter’s ex-wife, yet her presence was so overbearing in the house, so all-consuming in the new Mrs de Winter’s life, she deserved to be the title character. Manderley’s location was never mentioned precisely, but all the description reminded her of Cornwall … well, it reminded her of the photographs she’d seen of the beautiful Cornish coastline plastered all over her Year 9 Classroom wall after all her friends had gone on a school trip to Bude. Aleisha hadn’t been able to go.

‘I’ve heard of that book, Dada, it’s a film and everything,’ Priya jumped in.
‘Ha, beta? What is it about?’
Priya shrugged, a frown clouding her face. ‘I don’t know, I don’t know everything.’
Mukesh chuckled. The girl behind the desk breathed in, as though she was about to embark on a long speech, but all she said was, ‘It’s a good introductory novel, you know? A classic.’
‘Do you think I’ll like it, this book?’ Mukesh didn’t know who to look at – the girl, or Priya. He had liked The Time Traveler’s Wife but mainly because it had fallen into his lap at the right time and brought him closer to Naina.
The girl nodded.
Mukesh looked at the book cover. The title was scrawled like handwriting; he had to squint to make out the words. To. Kill. A. Mockingbird. ‘Why does it have that title?’ he asked.