I decide it’s too hard to make her laugh, and it seems disrespectful, so instead I decide to write to her about how I’ve been feeling. I don’t know if it’s a good idea, but at least it’s the truth.
When I’ve finished, I wait until she’s in the bathroom, and then I run over to the Letter Library. I’d intended to put the letter in the Prufrock, but now that I’m here I’ve changed my mind. Her copy of Cloud Atlas is sitting next to her bag, so I leave my letter between pages 6 and 7. I put the book on her seat, so she can’t miss it.
I go to Frank’s for a celebratory Danish, and when I get back, her copy of Cloud Atlas is on the shelves of the Letter Library, face out. I wait until she’s gone, and then I walk over, hoping that I’ll find a letter.
Cloud Atlas
by David Mitchell
Letters left between pages 6 and 7
22 January – 29 January 2016
Dear Rachel
I hope you don’t mind me writing this letter. I know you came to the city to forget about Cal, but you’re still thinking about him – every second – how could you not think about him?
This will probably sound stupid to you, but I’m having trouble believing that he’s dead. Maybe I’d be able to believe it if I’d gone to the funeral, or I’d seen his body. But in my memories, he’s alive, so I can’t make my brain compute the information that I’ll never see him again.
This isn’t sympathy, Rachel. Or, it’s a bit of sympathy, but it’s mostly an observation. You look sad a lot of the time. But sometimes you look confused. Like you can’t compute the information, either. I hate the thought that you might forget and remember, forget and remember. That must be exhausting.
I wish I’d been there at the funeral. I wish I’d been a good friend. You have my phone number. Use it if you want to talk, or if you require me to carry you home in a storm. Use it anytime.
I know you’ve said that words won’t bring Cal back and that’s true. But if you want to write, leave a letter in Cloud Atlas (there’s another copy in the Letter Library) between pages 6 and 7. I’ll always write back.
Henry
Dear Henry
Thanks for the letter. I appreciate you writing and I appreciate the offer to talk. But honestly, everyone’s always telling me to talk, and it doesn’t do much good. Talking won’t bring him back.
Rachel
Dear Rachel
I get it, I do. You know where to find me if something changes.
Henry
Dear Rachel
Okay, I know I said I get it, and I do, but I don’t agree with you. I’m sitting in the bookshop tonight, everyone’s gone home, and I’m thinking about the point of words. I’ve actually been thinking about the point of them since you dismissed all poetry three years ago, and dissed all the poets.
‘I love you, let’s kiss, let’s have sex’. I’ve found those words to be very useful over the years. Presumably you told Joel that you loved him and found them useful too. I know you told Cal that you love him. Those words mean something, Rachel.
Henry
Dear Henry
Yes, I told Joel I loved him and I definitely told Cal. I still tell him, every day. But I meant that words are useless in the big scheme of things.
Rachel
Dear Rachel
Doesn’t love fall somewhere in the big scheme of things? Isn’t it the biggest scheme?
Henry
Dear Henry
You know what I mean. I mean words don’t stop us from dying. They don’t give us the dead back. Death is the biggest in the big scheme of things.
Rachel
Dear Rachel
I think you’ve got your schemes the wrong way round. Life is the big scheme; death is the little one at the end.
I think we should go dancing tonight. It’s Friday – end of the week. We’ll invite George and Martin.
Henry
Dear Henry
Death isn’t little. If you think it is, you haven’t seen it. But yes, I’ll dance with you. Let’s go somewhere no one knows us (I’ve seen you dance). I’m having dinner with Rose tonight. I’ll meet you in front of Laundry at nine. We can watch The Hollows, then go somewhere after that.
Rachel
Rachel
even in the nameless lines, I read stories
The cataloguing stopped being boring as soon as I hit the Prufrock. Even the small lines that mean nothing to me must have meant something to someone, so I’m careful to document them. When I’m tempted to skip some, I think about Cal’s markings on Sea and I don’t.
I find a lot of people in the Letter Library this week. Even in the nameless lines, I read stories. One person has gone through Pablo Neruda’s The Captain’s Verses with the same hot-pink pen and I was halfway through cataloguing it when I realised everything they’d marked was a reference to sex. At least, I think they were references to sex. Or maybe I’m just thinking that because Henry’s on my mind again.
Henry’s letters in Cloud Atlas this week aren’t romantic. They’re about death, mostly, but strangely, they’ve made me feel like those pink highlighted lines. I love getting them. I go on breaks so I can come back and find one. If I go on a break and there isn’t a letter when I get back, I’m disappointed.
I’ve wanted to talk to Henry more and more as the week’s gone on. I don’t know whether I like him again or whether I’m looking for distraction or if the love letters I’ve found in the library have set off some kind of madness. Henry is a kind of madness, I’ve decided.
I’ve started searching for the love notes in the library, while I’m waiting for Henry to write. I’m not working in strictly alphabetical order anymore. I’m skipping around, looking for the interesting notes.
On Monday I read a series of letters from A to B in The Fault in Our Stars. At first they don’t call themselves A and B. At first they’re just lines on the page, written in different coloured pens. A writes in blue, B writes in black. They write underneath each other – Funny, A writes near a particular sentence. Hilarious, B writes underneath. By page 50 they’re telling each other their favourite lines. By page 100 A says he’s a guy and B says he’s a guy too. By page 105 it’s clear they both like each other. They met, according to the last page of the book, out the front of a club called Hush, on 2 January 2015.
Every night this week I’ve gone home thinking about A and B, and the pink on the pages of Pablo Neruda. I think about F and what happened to him when E died. Those thoughts lead to Henry, which are thoughts that keep me awake. It’s as though I’ve slipped back through time. I’ve fallen back into thinking about Henry as I drive to work, as I drive home. Things happen and it’s him I want to tell.
I’ve fallen back into thinking about him at night. The only way I’ve been able to sleep in the end is by distracting myself with Cloud Atlas. Whenever I’ve thought about kissing Henry, I’ve read a page. It’s 544 pages long. I’ve almost finished the book.
On Friday, I’m looking at the note where Henry has asked me to dance. ‘I want to say yes, but I’ve been here before,’ I say to Lola, who’s lying on the floor while I catalogue this afternoon, lost in her own thoughts about Hiroko leaving. She sits up and goes to take the letter, but Henry’s in the store watching, so I shake my head.
‘You don’t want to talk about it?’ she asks.
‘I want to talk about it, but pretend we’re talking about something else.’
‘This is the problem,’ she says.
‘With us?’
‘With everything. No one’s saying what they want.’
‘I don’t know what I want.’
‘You must know what you want or you wouldn’t want to talk about it while you pretended we’re talking about something else.’
‘Amy’ll come back,’ I say. ‘Don’t you think?’
‘She’ll definitely come back,’ Lola says, and flicks her eyes at the letter. ‘But maybe Henry does something different this time.’
I drive Martin home and lift the talking ban because I like Martin but also because he and Henry have become friends, and I’m wondering if they talk about Amy or me. I can’t ask him directly, but I’m hoping he’ll spill something by accident.