‘There is only one way round,’ I say, letting him know that I want him to stop talking.
‘Listen,’ he says, taking my hand. He tells me he thinks that maybe Cal got lucky. That his last days seemed so beautiful, the way I’ve described them, filled with golden light. ‘Maybe he didn’t get screwed over by the universe. Maybe it was trying to cram everything in for him.’
‘Not very scientific,’ I say.
‘Sometimes science isn’t enough,’ he says. ‘Sometimes you need the poets.’
It’s in this moment, this exact moment, that I fall in love with him again.
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith
Letters left between pages 4 and 5
2 January 2015
Dear George
Happy New Year! Did you do anything? I spent the night on the beach with my sister watching the fireworks. We listed our New Year’s resolutions (my secret one is to try to tell you who I am). I told her I’d like to have a girlfriend, which is true. I would like to have a girlfriend, but only if that girlfriend is you. I know you can’t agree to that without knowing who I am – I’m working on having the courage.
My biggest fear is that I tell you and you’re so disappointed that I never hear from you again. My second biggest fear is that you laugh.
I have to tell you soon because my friend is moving interstate, and this friend has been leaving my letters and collecting yours for me. I moved out of town a while back but I never said because I thought you’d guess who I was.
Anyway, my sister doesn’t have to resolve to have a boyfriend, because she has one. Her resolution is to get her next level diving certificate. That’s one of mine too. I saw this picture of the underwater canyons in California. There were all these glowing creatures. That far under the water, things have to make their own light because there’s nothing, not an inch of sunlight. William Beebe, this explorer, described the deep as outer space, which is maybe why I want to go there so badly. It just looked so beautiful – all that darkness, all that drifting light.
Pytheas (name soon to be revealed)
Dear Pytheas
I’d like to know who you are – I don’t think I’ll be disappointed. I won’t laugh. I know that. I love getting these letters.
I wait for them.
I haven’t once seen your friend leave a letter – so he must be stealthy too. I’m glad he’s going away, because it means you’ll tell me.
I’d like to be your girlfriend. My fear is that when we meet for real, you won’t like me.
George
Dear George
I won’t like you? Never. Gonna. Happen.
Pytheas
Henry
his shadow on the lawn
This week is all about distraction and confusion. I spend it thinking about Rachel and waiting for Amy to come back. Rachel assures me every day that it’s only a matter of time. ‘The kiss will work, Henry. Trust me.’ The thing is, I think the kiss did work – on me. It didn’t stop me thinking about Amy. But it started me really thinking about Rachel.
I distract myself by grilling Martin for information about him and George. ‘Nothing’s going on,’ he keeps saying, but that’s not true. There’s quite a bit of flirting going on. Quite a few letters, too. ‘She still likes the other guy,’ Martin says, crouching in front of the non-fiction shelf. ‘He’s pretty much all we talk about.’
‘That’s a bit shit,’ I say.
‘Yes, Henry. That is a bit shit.’
I’ve been looking in the Letter Library for any clue of George’s mystery guy, but so far, I’ve found nothing. Rachel’s cataloguing is really coming along, though, so I distract myself on Tuesday by looking through the database. There are so many people in the Library, so many people who’ve left parts of themselves on the pages over the years. Some afternoons, I lie on the floor next to Rachel, and share the lines that I love, almost all of them marked by strangers before me.
‘You have been in every prospect I have ever seen since – on the river, on the sails of ships, on the marshes, in the clouds,’ I read. It’s Pip’s speech to Estella, and I know my dad underlined it. The copy I’m holding is the copy he gave Mum. He’s written a note to her on the title page.
‘The speech, it’s all about Pip, isn’t it?’ Rachel asks. ‘She’s part of him. There’s nothing about who she is.’
‘My dad’s love for my mum isn’t all about him, though,’ I say, and Rachel tells me that’s not what she means.
‘I was thinking aloud, that’s all.’
‘People’s love is always about themselves isn’t it?’ I ask. ‘I mean, pretty much?’
‘Maybe. It’d be nice if it wasn’t though,’ she says, and I think about Amy, and find myself agreeing. It’d be really nice if it weren’t.
On Wednesday, in an effort to distract myself from Amy and Rachel and Martin and George and Dad’s failed great expectations, I challenge Frederick and Frieda to a game of Scrabble. They’re playing together against me, and we’re sitting at the counter in case a customer comes in.
As it turns out, George told them earlier that Rachel kissed me, so my plan to distract myself fails early in the game when Frieda asks if we’re a couple now. ‘We’re not. But it’s confusing, because it was good and I don’t know what that means.’
‘Sometimes kisses are just good,’ Frieda says. ‘And they don’t mean anything.’
Frederick studies the tiles. ‘Yes. However, in this case, Henry has known Rachel for a very long time.’
They go into quiet discussion before placing account on the board.
‘But I like Amy,’ I say.
‘I don’t like Amy,’ Frieda says.
Frederick remains neutral.
I look over at Rachel. If she hadn’t kissed me, everything would basically be the same. I just have to forget that she kissed me.
To distract myself from thoughts of her kiss, I ask Frederick if Dad’s given him any information about the sale. The two of them are good friends. Chances are, Dad will run things past Frederick before he tells us.
‘There’s some interest, but I don’t think your mother and father quite agree.’
‘Because the price isn’t high enough?’ I ask, putting my tile down to form blind.
‘I’m not entirely sure. I don’t think your father wants to sell to developers.’
‘Mum wouldn’t sell to developers,’ I say, and then there’s a run of customers so I take a break from Scrabble. Frederick and Frieda keep playing the game, against each other now. By the time I’m done serving, they’ve moved into the reading garden and Lola’s taken their place at the counter.
It’s the first time I’ve seen her since Sunday morning. She didn’t say much then, but the gist of it seemed to be that Hiroko felt Lola was being unbelievably selfish in asking her to stay. ‘Music obsessed’ was the phrase Hiroko used.
‘Do you think I’m music obsessed?’ Lola asks. ‘I mean, obsessed to the point where I care more about music than people?’
I make a movement with my head to avoid answering. ‘Have you spoken to her since then?’ I ask, and Lola shakes her head.
‘What? Not even to apologise?’
‘Maybe if she’d told me she was applying, I might have applied as well.’
‘You’ve never wanted to study.’ As long as I’ve known Lola, she’s had one dream – being on stage, playing her own way.
‘She’s ruined everything,’ she says.
Sure, if the roles were reversed Lola would tell me I was sounding like a self-centred dick. But fuck it. Lola’s lost her dream, and I’m not telling her that.
‘Hiroko won’t play the last gig on Valentine’s Day. We’ve played our last gig.’
In an effort to distract Lola from Hiroko, I tell her about what I’m trying to distract myself from. ‘You know how Rachel kissed me the other night?’
The question shocks her out of unhappiness momentarily. ‘That, I d
id not know. Wait. Why hasn’t she told me?’
‘Because it didn’t mean anything,’ I say, staring at the triangle of skin that’s showing while Rachel reaches for a book. ‘She said she was doing it to help me out by making Amy jealous.’
Like I’ve said, Lola has a terrible poker face. She can keep a secret, but her face can’t lie. ‘You think the kiss meant something?’
She chews a mint to buy herself some time. She chews another to buy herself some more.
‘Tell me,’ I say, but she stands up to leave.
‘This I can’t tell you,’ she says. ‘This, you have to work out for yourself.’
Cloud Atlas
by David Mitchell
Letters left between pages 6 and 7
10 February 2016
Dear Rachel
I don’t think I thanked you quite enough for the kiss. It’s actually the nicest thing that a girl has ever done for me.
I’ve been searching for more Derek Walcott this week. I’ve ordered some in but I don’t get the feeling that I’ve found Frederick’s copy.
I’ve been reading my way through an edition of Tennessee Williams’ plays. I finished ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ last night. Very sexy. Very sad. It made me feel like love is a thing that could fall apart in my hands. Desire, on the other hand, is alive and well. But I know you’re not interested in either of those things, being dead on the inside as you say.
I actually think you’re the opposite of dead. I think you’re trying to be dead so you don’t think about Cal. Is that why you haven’t told anyone about him except for me?
Henry
Dear Henry
I don’t think I phrased it exactly like that. I’m not completely dead on the inside.
I don’t know why I haven’t told anyone but you about Cal. It can’t be so that I don’t think about him because I do that all the time.
At the moment I keep going over the week leading up to his death. I told you some of what happened, but not all. This giant bird arrived in town. Cal and I were sitting on the beach. We’d finished eating fish and chips and were licking the salt off our fingers when it landed in front of him.
He held out his last chip, but the bird wouldn’t take it. It stared right at him, with eyes that were different to any bird eyes I’d seen before.
I didn’t like the way it looked at him, or the way it followed us home, a low grey lash on the sky. I didn’t like that it was there when we arrived.
Mum’s a crazy birdwatcher and she was outside with her books trying to locate the exact species. She studied the eyes and the beaks and the claws, but we couldn’t pin it down. Its wings were luminescent in the darkness, like a pearl shot through with the blues and greens that come out in certain lights.
On the night before Cal died, I saw him outside with the bird. He ran a finger all the way down its chest and it didn’t move.
He headed off to the beach, and there was something about his shadow on the lawn; about the way the bird flew above him, an avian moon. The blues and the purples in the night seemed to be swamping him, and when I look back now, I can see that even the light was warning me about what was coming. I think it was a sign. I think that we got so many signs and we ignored them because we didn’t believe in them.
I wonder if the future sends us hints to get us ready, so that the grief doesn’t kill us when it comes.
Rachel
Dear Rachel
I believe in a lot of things that you don’t – you know I’m superstitious.
But I don’t believe that the future gives us signs. I think that we look back and read the past with the present in our eyes. I think that’s what you’re doing. Maybe you need to look forward, and start reading the future.
Henry
the future isn’t here yet
I text Rachel after dinner tonight, to make sure she’s okay. The letters we exchanged this afternoon felt important. I’d call her, like I did in the old days, but she’s explained that the warehouse has no walls and Rose works long hours, so when she’s home, she needs her sleep.
Me: What are you doing?
Rachel: Finishing Cloud Atlas. I liked it. I don’t think I completely understood it.
Me: I don’t think you’re alone.
Rachel: I think it was a novel, though. I think the stories are interconnected. The characters all had that same birthmark and someone’s written a note in my copy about the transmigration of the soul – whoever wrote the note thinks the birthmark means the book is about soul transmigration. Do you believe that souls can transmigrate?
Me: What is transmigration exactly?
Rachel: The passing of a soul, after death, into another body.
Me: I don’t know if I believe in it. Do you?
Rachel: No. But it’s a beautiful idea.
Me: You’re always so certain about things. I wonder how it would feel, to be so certain.
Rachel: You’re certain about Amy. You’re certain that selling the bookstore is right.
Me: I’m certain it’s the most profitable decision.
Instead of texting me back, Rachel calls. She starts in on what she wants to say without even saying a hello. ‘This is important, Henry,’ she says. ‘Very important. I want you to imagine, really imagine, that Howling Books is gone. Are you imagining?’
‘I’m imagining.’
‘Good. Now, I want you to imagine that you go to work, every morning, to a normal nine-to-five job. Imagine there’s no Frederick or Frieda. No George, no Martin, no Michael, no books, no me.’
‘Okay.’
‘What exactly are you imagining?’ she asks.
‘I’m sitting at a desk, typing.’
‘What are you typing?’
‘A letter to you.’
‘In this job, you can’t write letters to me. This job doesn’t allow for writing in your spare time, or dreaming, or reading. You don’t really have spare time anymore. At least not unguarded spare time,’ she says, and I hear her shifting her feet around, sliding them through the sheets.
‘Now,’ she continues. ‘Imagine that you’re earning a decent wage. Imagine that Amy is waiting for you at home when you arrive. You live in a flat. You sleep in a regular bed. You have limited space for books.’
I stop imagining. ‘I know all this, Rachel. I know life won’t be great without the shop, but I also know the shop won’t be around forever. I can’t fight the future.’
‘The future isn’t here yet,’ she says, and refers me to my last letter.
Rachel
the soft push and pull of the sea
It’s been a strange week. My dreams of Cal have been exchanged for dreams of Henry. I don’t think I’m imagining that he watches me at the shop. Every time I look over, I can feel that his eyes have been on me and I’ve missed it by a second. Every day I wait for Amy to walk in and end his looks. Every day she doesn’t arrive.
Henry’s been distracting himself from thoughts of her by talking and writing to me. I decided that wasn’t a bad idea, so on Tuesday I found myself texting Joel, and asking how he was doing, to distract myself from Henry.
I’m okay, he replied. I’m better now that I’ve heard from you.
I felt bad for using him, although I wasn’t entirely sure that’s what I was doing. I do miss him. The missing started up this week, after the kiss with Henry. I miss being with someone who loves me.
It makes no sense, but when I read Joel’s texts, I could feel the waves in them. I knew he was on the beach looking at the water as he wrote, and for the first time since I arrived in the city, I was desperate for the ocean’s rhythm.
I’ve wanted it before since Cal died. It’s why I sat near it every night, why Mum did too, I think. Pulled towards it by Cal, and kept away from it by him too. I could imagine myself walking in tonight, though. I could feel my feet at the edge, toes lapping up the salt and the cold.
I called Mum after texting Joel. I wanted to tell her that I missed the sound of the waves. After I
said the words I expected her to cry, or to sound hurt or angry. Guarded at the very least. But she held out the phone to the water and I held it to my ear like a shell.
‘Are you okay?’ she asked, after a while.
‘Yes and no,’ I said. ‘You?’
‘Yes and no,’ she said.
‘When will it be yes?’ I asked, but there was no answer to that, so she held out the phone again and together we listened, to the soft push and pull of the sea.
When Henry texts me tonight, I almost don’t answer. It’s dangerous, talking to him, because it makes me want to talk more and more. I turn off the phone and then turn it back on. I look at the text for a while, and then eventually I give in and reply.
I text that I’ve finished Cloud Atlas. I tell him that I think all the stories are interconnected. I keep staring at the cover, at those pages rising to the sky, and wondering about transmigration of the soul. I don’t want to wonder about things like that alone.
I stop texting and call him when he sounds uncertain about the bookstore, because I know he’ll regret selling. I want to convince him of that without actually telling him. All I do in the end is make him angry. He can’t change the future, he says, and I think of him and Amy and how much I want him. ‘The future isn’t set,’ I say, and I hope that he will believe it. I can hear that he doesn’t. I think ahead to the time when he’s with Amy and the bookstore is gone. I can’t picture where I am.
‘Henry,’ I say before I hang up. ‘I want a do-over.’
‘A what?’
‘A do-over,’ I say again. ‘On 14 February, this Sunday night, I want another last night of the world. This time I want to spend it with you. I want you to promise me that whatever happens with Amy, you won’t ditch me for her. The end of the world will be at six in the morning on 15 February. Before then I want to hear Lola and Hiroko play their last song. I want to watch the sunrise.’