The conversation turns from transmigration to 50 Shades of Grey, so I block my ears and close my eyes. Under my lids is a world without books. I look around for a while; feel the flatness of it, the general grey of the landscape – the rubble and bleakness of it. I choose to open my eyes.
I go to the bathroom to work out the speech I want to give, the thing I want to say to change our family back to what it was – basically what I’ve been thinking at the table, but a little more ordered.
I come back but everyone’s headed for the door.
‘I’m going home, to the bookshop,’ George says to Mum. She leaves with Martin. Dad walks in the opposite direction, despite me calling after him. I’m not sure where he’s going, but he’s going there with a purposeful stride. Mum’s giving Lola a lift to Laundry. She offers Rachel and me a lift too, but I kiss her on the cheek and tell her I’ll call later.
‘I know this was my fault,’ I tell her.
‘It’s not your fault, Henry. It’s no one’s fault.’
Rachel and I watch until she’s in her car, and then we start walking. ‘How could I have let this happen?’ I ask. ‘How could I not know how it would feel to lose the bookshop? I’ve got a great imagination.’ I say it over and over all the way to Laundry. I’m trying to make myself believe it. ‘Flats,’ I keep saying. ‘Flats.’
‘It’ll be okay,’ Rachel keeps saying.
‘How?’ I ask her when we’re standing in line, waiting to go inside. ‘How will it be okay? It is the end of the world. It is the actual end of the world.’
‘It’s not.’
‘You’re right. The end of the world would be better than this.’
‘Henry,’ she says, and out of nowhere. ‘I love you.’
And it’s a small spot of light in the darkness.
It’s brilliant, unbelievably brilliant. Life is still shit, but it’s great at the same time. Honesty and bravery are contagious, so I take Rachel’s hands. I’m shaking a little, which is to be expected, since I’m about to tell her that I love her too. I do love her. It’s been obvious for a while now, to everyone probably, except to me.
‘Rachel,’ I say.
‘Henry,’ she says, and makes a serious face. I realise she actually has to try to make it. She still seems sad some of the time, but it’s no longer her default expression.
‘What, Henry?’ she asks.
And then Amy appears beside us, takes my hand from Rachel’s, and says, ‘Thanks for keeping him warm. We got together Friday night. Didn’t you know?’ She smiles, turns my face to hers, and kisses me.
I know, for certain, that when I’m old and I’m losing my memories, I will always feel the warmth of Rachel’s hand leaving mine.
I blink, and Rachel’s face has changed. She’s smiling harder. It’s fake, but only I would know it. ‘That’s great,’ she says to Amy. ‘Really great.’ She points to the line that’s moving. ‘You should go inside. See Lola.’
‘I don’t want to go. I promised you an apocalypse and that’s what you’re getting.’
‘I’m okay,’ she says. ‘I set you free.’ She makes a silent swishing motion with her hand. ‘We’ve spent a great day together, and you should be with Amy, especially after losing the bookstore.’
I don’t want to be with Amy. I want to be with Rachel. But I can’t say that while Amy’s listening, because that would be shitty and I don’t want to be that guy. I can’t let Rachel leave, though, so I turn around and ask Amy to please give me a minute and some privacy, and then I say quietly to Rachel, ‘Do you love me?’
She looks at me, her eyes serious. ‘You’ll always be my best friend. I love every single thing about you. I would not want to live without you. But I don’t love you in the way you’re asking me if I love you. What I meant before was, I love you as a friend.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ I say.
‘Believe me,’ she says. ‘I’m fine.’
‘And the kiss?’
‘It didn’t mean anything. Henry. I’ll probably go back to Joel. There’s nothing for you to feel guilty about.’
I don’t believe she doesn’t love me, but I do believe I’ve lost her. She’s wearing the same face she wore when she first came back. A stranger’s face. I can actually feel a chasm opening in my chest. ‘Are you coming in to hear The Hollows play one last time?’ I ask, because I have this feeling that the next time I see her, Rachel will have blocked me out completely, like she did after the last last night of the world.
‘I’ll see you both in there,’ she says, and walks ahead of Amy and me into the crowd.
I take a seat outside because I need air. I need to talk to Amy. It’s an understatement to say that this is turning into a really shit night. I’ve lost the bookshop. I’ve lost Rachel. I’ve got what I wanted sure, only now I can’t believe I wanted it.
‘Henry, what’s wrong?’ Amy asks.
‘We’re selling the bookshop,’ I tell her.
‘I know,’ she says, and smiles. ‘You’ll make a fortune from that place. I could never work out why you didn’t sell it before.’
Because I love it. Because I love books down to the full stops. I love them in a way that’s beyond logic and reason. That’s just the way it is. I love them the way those people in the Letter Library love them. It’s not enough to read, I want to talk through the pages to get to the other side, to get to the person who read them before me. I want to spend my life hunting them, reading them, selling them. I want to serve customers and put the right book in their hands. I want to be there to console Al when he realises that the book he’s writing has already been written. I want to talk to Frederick and Frieda. I want to listen to the book club. I want it all. And I want it to go on forever. And if it can’t last then I want to want it right up to the very final second. And I want a girl who wants me the same way. Dust and all.
‘What do you love about me, Amy?’ I ask.
‘I love a lot of things,’ she says.
‘Name one. Please. I need to hear it.’
She thinks, and says, ‘I love how you’re always there.’
I know she does love this about me. She genuinely does love this quality about me. I scratch my head and think about that. I almost laugh. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, standing up. ‘But that’s not enough. I can’t be with you, Amy. I need someone who loves more about me than the fact that I can always be located.’
‘It’s more than that,’ she says.
‘It’d have to be a whole lot more to be enough.’
I realise tonight how much Amy hates being alone. Her idea of torture is an overseas trip without a friend. I understand that. But the friend can’t be me. ‘You can’t take Greg overseas?
‘He stripped you and gaffer-taped you to a pole. He threw you in a car boot.’
‘He did,’ I say. ‘You really need to wait for someone better.’
‘If Rachel’s who you want, you’re wasting your time,’ she says. ‘She doesn’t love you, she just hates me. I have the letter to prove it.’
‘What?’ I ask, remembering the letter that Rachel spoke about on the first night she arrived. ‘What letter?’
Amy doesn’t answer.
‘If you ever felt anything for me, please, tell me about the letter.’
She gives in, and to her credit, looks ashamed. ‘She left it for you on the last night of the world in Year 9. You took me up to your room and while you were in the bathroom, I flicked through the book on your bed. Rachel had left a note in there telling you to look in a book in the Letter Library. I can’t remember the title.’
‘Was it the Prufrock?’ I ask.
‘That sounds like it,’ she says. ‘I found it when we went downstairs. I took it. I wanted to spend the last night with you and I thought if you read it, you’d go to her.’
‘And the letter said?’ I ask, but I know what the letter said – I love you. ‘Do you still have it?’ I ask, and she says she put the letter into another book, one she didn’t think I’d look in.
‘A book with a yellow cover,’ she says, and I close my eyes in frustration. ‘The author had a Japanese name that started with K.’
‘Kazuo Ishiguro?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Never Let Me Go?’ I ask.