Mira in the Present Tense

by Sita Brahmachari

  “It’s not very cheery, some of it.”

  Dad mutates his face into his misery mask. It’s supposed to make me laugh.

  “I don’t care. I don’t feel very cheery.”

  “Go and get ready then, Mira,” sighs Dad.

  In my room, I think about texting Jidé, but then I decide that before I go round to his place I should at least pluck up the courage to call him. So I do, but I can’t help but feel relieved when it goes straight to voicemail. I am such a coward.

  “Hi, Jidé. I just wanted to let you know that I’m not going to be in today.” It starts off all right. “So, yeah! I’m not ill or anything…it’s just that my dad needs a break so…and…anyway…” Now I really wish I hadn’t left this message. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” I knew I should have texted him instead. I hang up, hurling the phone to the other end of my bed because I’ve made such a mess of the call.

  We take the Tube to Waterloo and that’s when I realize I’ve left my mobile at home. How am I going to wait all day to see if he calls me back? I think about asking Dad if we can go back, but then the questions would start…so I try my hardest for Dad’s sake not to think about it.

  Waterloo is my favorite station in London because you still get the feeling of people from the past crisscrossing paths with us. Sometimes I think people from other times, like my great-great-grandparents, and even further back than that, are just in reach of us, but there is this separation called death that stops us from seeing them. Some places you go you can feel the past generations more than others. Waterloo station is one of those places. I tell Dad this, and he wrinkles up the worry lines between his eyes.

  “Are you talking about ghosts?” asks Dad.

  “Not really, more like you can feel the people from different generations in certain places more than others.”

  Like the Tate Modern. You can really tell that it used to be a power station. When you walk through that turbine hall you can still feel the great metal wheels turning. We take the escalator but before we get to the top I know we’ve wasted our time because the banner above our heads reads: frida kahlo exhibition 9 june–9 october.

  “Never mind,” says Dad as we head toward the down escalator. “I’ll bring you another time.”

  I can tell he’s trying to hide the relief in his voice. We meander aimlessly along the river. Dotted along the South Bank are stalls selling books mostly. One of the stalls is covered in bright little flags dancing in the breeze. I wander toward it, and a girl with long black hair and enormous brown eyes smiles at me and then at Dad as we browse over her stall. She’s selling jewelry and Indian puppets and tiny little leather purses, incense, that sort of thing. The girl, with her long black mane and her hippy-chick clothes, looks like something straight out of one of Nana’s 1960s photos.

  “Looking for anything in particular?” she asks my dad as he picks up a few of the bracelet chains.

  It’s a bit embarrassing, because Dad doesn’t answer her—he is literally staring at her. I elbow him in the side.

  “Sorry, yes, we’re looking for a bracelet chain for a charm that will fit this beautiful little wrist,” Dad says, picking up my hand. Why do parents have to be so embarrassing?

  She winks at me and rummages through a box with Indian dancers painted on its side. Nana would love that box.

  “I think I’ve got just the thing for you…yes, here it is…This is one of my old ones. It’s just missing one charm, but the catch is still in place so you could fix yours onto it.”

  It’s perfect…a tiny silver chain with two charms already attached, a butterfly and a bird. I can’t wait to show it to Nana.

  “It’s for a charm my nana gave me.”

  The girl just smiles at me and starts to wrap it in layers of orange tissue paper, which she finally sticks together with a paisley sticker, like a bindi.

  “Here you are.”

  “How much do I owe you?” Dad asks.

  “Nothing at all,” smiles the girl.

  “Are you sure? That’s very kind of you,” says Dad, still holding a ten-pound note toward her.

  “It’ll be my good karma. I’m telling you, because of this, I’ll make a fortune today,” she says, waving my dad’s hand away.

  “I hope so,” smiles Dad.

  We don’t talk about the girl or the charm as we walk along the river. Looking at the buildings on the Thames, what I notice for the first time is that they all fit in. Even buildings like the Gherkin fit exactly into the space. Buildings can do that. They can be one great big family where all the generations are alive at the same time, as long as they’re looked after properly. The great-great-grandparents like Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament or St. Paul’s Cathedral living side by side with their distant relatives the Wibbly-Wobbly Bridge, the Gherkin, the Millennium Wheel. Instead of some of them dying off before the next generation’s born, they just live here getting to be a bigger and bigger family. I wish humans could do that.

  Dad’s embarrassing, attempting-to-be-jazzy ringtone interrupts my thoughts.

  “When? Where are you?”

  The color has drained from his face.

  “I’m coming, right now.”

  It wouldn’t be fair if Nana died today because we’ve been to see her every day since she went to that hospice except today.

  “What is it?” I pant as Dad literally yanks me along the South Bank, pelts up the steps to Waterloo Bridge, and leaps in front of a black cab.

  He doesn’t answer me. Dad never takes black cabs.

  We climb inside.

  “Whittington Hospital.” Dad splutters the words out.

  We sit in the cab, chests heaving, not able to catch our breaths enough to talk.

  The taxi driver stares at Dad through the mirror.

  “Everything all right?”

  Dad shakes his head, still breathing hard, and then he says very slowly, as if he’s trying to believe it himself, “It’s my baby—she’s been rushed into hospital.”

  “I’ll get you there as fast as I can, mate. Leave it to me.”

  The taxi driver rams his foot down on the accelerator and weaves in and out of traffic, ignoring the other drivers’ noisy protests.

  Dad calls Mum again.

  “In a taxi…Waterloo Bridge…are they sure? OK, OK, I’m coming.”

  I am freezing cold, shivering from head to foot. Laila in hospital? My head’s all fogged up with not understanding. I look up at Dad for an explanation, but he’s staring out of the window. I think he might have even forgotten that I’m here, sitting next to him. His forehead is wet with sweat.

  “She was fine this morning,” I say, tugging Dad’s arm. “Come to think of it, she was crying a lot. Is it serious?”

  Dad turns to me as if he really had forgotten I was with him.

  “She’s got a rash and a high temperature…suspected meningitis.”

  “Is it serious?” I ask again, because although I’ve heard of meningitis I don’t really know what it is, except there’s a poster in the doctor’s office that says you can test for it by pressing a glass against your skin, which I remember, because it seems like a weird, not-very-scientific way of testing for something serious.

  Dad just squeezes my hand and looks out of the window. Then the sky opens. It’s the kind of rain that stops traffic. I watch the driver’s windscreen wipers working pathetically slowly against the build-up of rain. Car lights dazzle us through the haze, merging colors into a blurred brightness…like looking at the world through an out-of-focus camera.

  That’s when I remember feeling sick at the thought of a child-sized coffin, and it’s that memory that makes me ask myself the question…it just slips into my mind…“If it’s going to be Nana today or Laila, who should it be?” If Laila dies before Nana, it will all be in the wrong order. But why should Laila’s life be more important than Nana’s? She’s just a baby, and only we really love her. So many people love Nana Josie…so many people will miss her…but Laila’s life hasn
’t even begun yet. So as we weave through the traffic in the pouring rain I call once more on Notsurewho Notsurewhat…to let it be Nana.

  The taxi driver takes us right up to the doors of the Whittington, where the ambulances park. Dad checks on the driver’s meter and passes him a twenty-pound note.

  “Put it away, mate.”

  Dad doesn’t argue with him—he just shakes his hand as he gets out of the taxi.

  “The best of British to you,” the driver calls out of the window as he pulls away.

  I’m being yanked along again up an escalator, along a corridor with children’s pictures on the walls…Winnie the Pooh, Tigger…then I spot Krish standing in the hallway looking so little and lonely.

  “Mum’s in there”—he points through the door—“with Laila. We’re not allowed in.”

  Dad strides through, leaving Krish and me in the corridor on our own.

  “What’s the matter with her?”

  Krish shrugs. “They don’t know…some kind of virus, they think…She had a fit in her cot…She was boiling hot. I found her. Her eyes were rolling into the back of her head.”

  Then Krish wraps his arms round my waist and clings onto me. “She’s not going to die, is she, Mimi?”

  He hasn’t called me that in years.

  “No,” I say, stroking his hair. “Laila’s not going to die.”

  The door opens and Mum and Dad walk out without Laila.

  “They think she’s going to be all right. They’ve got her on a drip and her temperature’s starting to come down,” Mum sighs with relief, throwing her arms round both of us.

  “Can she come home now?” asks Krish.

  “She’ll be in here for at least a few days…I’ll stay with her.”

  Now, I want to take it back, my wish, but you can’t do that just because you’ve got what you want. Can you? As if he knows what I’m thinking, Dad says, “There’s no need to worry Nana about all this.” How could I ever tell Nana what I wished for?

  I can hardly look at her.

  “Did you bring me a catalog then, Mira?”

  “We didn’t go. It doesn’t actually start till the ninth of June.”

  “That’s a shame,” sighs Nana. “I was looking forward to seeing the catalog.”

  “But we did find a bracelet for your charm.”

  I take it out of my pocket to show her.

  “Nice wrapping!” she smiles as I carefully undo the bindi sticker and the folds of orange tissue paper. “Your favorite color too.”

  I nod and hand the little charm bracelet over to Nana for her to inspect.

  “But these are all our favorite things. Adorable little silver bird and butterfly, about the same size as the artichoke. Oh! And there’s just one charm missing, but the link’s still there, so you can just tweezer it on. Get your dad to do it. Some things are just meant to be,” announces Nana, handing it back to me. “Well, at least it wasn’t a wasted trip. I’ll expect to see you wearing it next time you come in.”

  “She looked a bit like you did when you were young, the girl in the stall,” Dad tells Nana.

  She smooths her short gray hair as if remembering the feel of her long black mane running through her fingers.

  “Did she indeed? We once had an art stall on the Embankment, me and your Granddad Kit,” Nana tells me.

  I can’t think of anything to say. It’s usually me who keeps the conversation going. Not today. Krish never says very much when we come to see Nana. Usually, he goes to the Family Room and watches football with the man who got married. Sometimes he tells Nana about his football or his running, but mostly he’s very quiet, for him. Today he asks her for a sheet of her best art paper. Nana points to her bedside table and Krish tears a sheet out of her book. He doesn’t think he’s any good at art. Whenever he gets art homework from school, he always asks me to help him. Once he got a certificate for his “excellent artwork.” On the certificate it said Krish Levenson, for your achievement in art, but he crossed out his name and added mine in instead and handed the certificate back to me. Krish is one of the most honest people I know. Actually, he is really good at art. He just forgets that I’m two years older than him, so I understand about things like perspective that he hasn’t even thought about yet.

  Once, in primary school, we had this Aboriginal artist come in. He said Aboriginal people believe in dreamtime. He took us into the playground, led us out of the school gates, and marched us up the hill. He asked us, when we were walking, to listen to the land speaking to us. I couldn’t really hear or feel anything, but Krish thought he felt water under the pavement. When we got back to school, we had a look on an old map outside the principal’s office and it turned out there was an ancient river underneath the street, just where Krish felt it. Some of Krish’s friends said he must have known that already, but he didn’t.

  Because of that, the Aboriginal man made Krish stand up in front of the whole assembly. He said that Krish had still got the power of dreaming. Krish looked pretty embarrassed, but I could tell he was pleased with himself. The Aboriginal artist said dreaming is when you are in touch with the energy of the earth, so your footprint feels a memory of how that place was created, even if that was thousands and thousands of years ago. Krish had to stand next to the Aboriginal man while he was saying all this. Then, in front of everyone, Krish asked if that means there is always a memory in the earth for everything, even when it’s dead. The Aboriginal man nodded and did this funny greeting to Krish, which you only do when you really respect someone.

  Tonight, I think Krish came to the hospice with a plan because he’s brought a bucketful of felt tips in with him. It’s amazing to see him sitting so still as he dots each tiny speck of color onto the page. He’s drawing hundreds and thousands of little gray, brown, and black dots in a curved shape round the edge of the paper. He’s been working on it for about an hour and he’s only just finished one circle, but when he gets to the part where the circle should connect, he curves the dots inward to create the beginning of the next circle. Nana asks him what he’s making.

  “A pattern.”

  “What kind of pattern, Krish?”

  “A spiral,” he says without looking up.

  Then he picks out the blue colors and starts on the next layer of dots.

  “The outside colors are the sea, then the next layers are going to be the land, and the sun’s in the center,” explains Krish as he carries on and on printing the tiny dots on the page.

  “Whoever would have thought…Krish the runner, the jack-in-the-box, would know how to meditate,” Nana smiles.

  He shrugs, like he hasn’t got a clue what she’s talking about.

  I stand there, staring out of the window, still hardly daring to meet Nana’s eye, as if just by looking at me, she will know what I wished.

  “How’s little Laila?”

  “Fine…she’s teething though,” I lie without turning round. I’m getting better and better at lying.

  “It’s a dreamtime picture, Nana,” Krish chirps up, changing the subject.

  Nana nods, blows Krish a kiss, and closes her eyes.

  When I finally get back home, I sprint up to my room to pick up Jidé’s voicemail message.

  “Hi, Mira, it’s Jidé. Sorry! I forgot to take my mobile in to school today. I’ve been thinking about you all day. Hope you’re in tomorrow. See you soon.”

  Now that’s what I call a fantastic message. I lie on my pillow and press repeat over and over, and that is how I finally drift off to sleep listening to Jidé Jackson’s voice…“I’ve been thinking about you all day…I’ve been thinking about you…”

  Clank! Clank! Clank! Clank!

  Wednesday, 18 May

  “All right, I’m coming!”

  “Where were you yesterday? I called by for you, but there was no one in.” Millie scans my face for signs of bad news. I can’t believe I completely forgot to call her.

  “I had the day off.”

  “You could have called me. Y
ou don’t look like you’ve had a day off!”

  “Sorry, it was a crazy day. Laila got taken into hospital, then we had to go to see Nana.”

  “Little Laila! Is she OK?”

  “She will be,” I say. “She’ll be out in a few days.”

  “We all thought maybe your nana…” She trails off, not wanting to finish her sentence.

  “Millie. Do you believe in God?”

  “Yes. Why? Don’t you?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  Millie frowns at me, as if to say, “Do we have to have one of these big conversations right now?” Then she shoots me her mischievous smile.

  “Jidé Jackson seems very interested to talk to me about you.”

  “Really,” I say, as if I’m not that bothered.

  “Really,” replies Millie, grinning at me.

  I think we must be the first in school, but then we pass Orla sitting on a bench outside the year-seven block. Without her sidekicks, Demi and Bo, she looks so tiny and, well, lonely.

  “Why don’t you come to this writing group we’re in? See if you like it. You might as well; you’re always in so early,” I say.

  Orla shakes her head. I can see that there’s no way she’s going to change her mind.

  “Maybe next time,” I mumble, walking off feeling slightly stupid for asking in the first place.

  “Thanks though,” Orla calls after me.

  I turn and smile at her.

  “What made you do that?” asks Millie, staring at me as if she hardly recognizes me.

  “I don’t know really…I just thought…she’s been all right to me since…”

  “You’re right. We should have asked her before. I can’t believe we’ve just walked straight past her every week, especially me, when I know how tough it is for her.”

  “Why so tough?”

  “I’ll tell you later,” Millie sighs as I swing open the door to the year-seven block.

  In the space of a few days Orla has been transformed from one of the three-headed bullies into a human being just because I’m not too scared to talk to her anymore. I look back at her and notice, more than ever, how small and thin she is.