The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams

Author:Sara Nisha Adams [Sara Nisha Adams]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2021-06-01T17:00:00+00:00

THE READING LIST

INDIRA

2017

INDIRA STOOD OUTSIDE THE library, peering through the doors, with the list held in her hands. She looked at it, as though it might give her direction. This morning, her next-door neighbour’s daughter had posted a note through the letterbox: Dear Indira, I wanted to let you know that my mother Linda will be moving away from Wembley. She is coming to live with me – we’re all keen to have her closer to us. Her memory is not what it once was and we feel the time has come to have her near. Please do keep in touch. All best, Olivia x

Linda had been Indira’s neighbour for the last twenty years. They weren’t best friends, but they spoke almost every day, at ten o’clock in the morning when they both sat out in the garden for a few minutes before they got on with the rest of their day. They were both lonely; they both filled their days with crosswords, and tea and chai breaks. They both had routines that meant nothing. But today, Indira realized there was a difference. Linda had people there for her, and now she wouldn’t be lonely again. Indira … she had no one. Her daughter Maya was living in Australia – she saw her every few years. Not once had Maya and her husband ever suggested she move there with them. She read Olivia’s note once, twice, three times, folded it up and unfolded it again and again.

Upset, but unable to explain why, she hopped over to her coat on the coat rack and pulled it over her shoulders – she needed to get out even though she had nowhere to go. She pulled her plastic mandir bag out from her pocket, and out came a note. The other note. The one she’d found weeks ago in her shoe rack at the mandir, with the list.

She turned it over. Harrow Road Library.

Right, Indira had thought to herself. That’s where I’m going to go.

Throughout Indira’s life, she’d always looked for signs. While the list of books hadn’t felt like one at first, her mind had kept being drawn back to it, like a siren in the night. And today, it had found her just when she needed a distraction. The library was only a few streets away from her house. She might as well go; she had nothing else to do – she never had anything to do. She hadn’t been to the library since her Maya had been little – and they’d curled up in the children’s corner reading books.

To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee. It would be under L, she kept telling herself over and over again.

After a deep breath, she pushed the doors open. Immediately, she was greeted by an Indian man behind the desk wearing a sweater-cardigan-waistcoat-type thing.

‘Hello, madam!’ he said, smiling broadly. ‘How may I help you?’

His smile was infectious; she couldn’t help but beam back at him.

‘Oh, hello! I am looking for some books.’ She passed him the list.

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