Mira in the Present Tense

by Sita Brahmachari

  “That’s what I did for the beginning,” says Millie.

  “Then carry on. In the end the characters will lead you to the plot.”

  Millie nods.

  “What do you mean, you lost the heart?” Millie whispers to me while Pat Print chats to Jidé and Ben.

  “I’ve looked everywhere. I’ve lost it. Nana’s silver heart charm, the one she gave me for my birthday.”

  “Now who’s brought in an object to talk about?” asks Pat.

  Ben’s sitting, ready and waiting, with his skateboard on his knee.

  “Let’s have it then, Ben.”

  Ben adjusts his baseball cap, switches his iPod on loud, and starts rocking his skateboard back and forth, building up a rhythm before he entertains us with this one that he has definitely rehearsed. Because he’s got his earphones on he has to shout even louder than he usually does above the heavy rap beat.

  I have graffiti on me.

  Once a month I need a makeover

  because every time he wheels me out

  to hit the cold gray concrete,

  I get beaten up.

  Sometimes

  he carries me under his arm

  to cross the white line

  where the giant tires queue up,

  but if no parent spies are looking out

  I’ll fly him across.

  When we’re together, there’s no stopping us.

  I feel the rhythm from his earphones pulsing through his feet,

  twisting, turning, gliding, bumping, falling through the air.

  I sit and wait all day for the sound of his feet,

  the treads of his trainers on my wooden back.

  Then we’re off…flying down the track.

  As he finishes, Ben hits his heel against the back of his board, and it seems to jump to order straight into his arms!

  “I loved that, Ben. You’ve gone and seen the world from the perspective of a skateboard. That description of the road with the giant wheels queuing up and the parent spies is inspired,” gushes Pat Print. She is genuinely impressed.

  Ben grins.

  “That’s one of the things you absolutely have to do when you write, see things from different perspectives. Anyone want to add anything?”

  “I liked the way he performed it, he’s a real actor,” Millie says, actually looking a bit embarrassed.

  “It’s all about finding your voice, that sort of confidence…Ben, you’re a natural, but, let’s face it, with your vocal chords you’ve had a head start on the rest of us.”

  I laugh, which sets Jidé off too.

  “What’s so funny?” asks Pat Print.

  “Mira’s laugh.” Jidé smiles at me and this time I manage to keep my head up. “It’s like it belongs to someone else.”

  “Now you’re getting there, Jidé, observing human behavior in action. I’ll make a prediction, if you’ll allow me, Mira. I have the feeling that one day soon that big laugh and that small speaking voice of yours will meet and that day will be a happy day for Mira Levenson.” Pat Print smiles at me.

  “Jidé, how about you? Got anything for me?”

  He nods and shows us a photograph of himself sitting between Grace and Jai. They have their arms wrapped round him and all three of them are smiling the same smile. He looks about six years old, but still he is clinging on to that piece of orange cloth. You can tell so many things about Jidé Jackson from this portrait. I wonder, if I didn’t know his story, whether I would be able to spot it, that heart with bodyguard protection…Probably not.

  My eyes are not like his or hers, not my nose, not my lips, not my chin, but no one looks too closely because I have dark honey-colored skin and one and one make two. It’s amazing the things people say to Grace and Jai…about me. A woman on the 124 bus, when I was six years old, looked at Grace with her pale skin and her golden hair and green eyes and she looked at Jai with his dark brown skin and his black eyes and then she turned to Mum and said, “Look at those eyes. You so make the best-looking babies though, don’t you?”

  And my mum said, “What exactly are you talking about? Licorice allsorts?” She’s outspoken like that, Grace.

  “That’s all I wrote,” shrugs Jidé.

  “That’s not all you wrote. What you’ve written is full of what we call subtext. I can read between your words a hundred other thoughts, left unspoken, but if you wrote those words your writing wouldn’t be anywhere near as powerful as it is.” Pat pauses. “Any comments?” she asks.

  Nobody says anything, but suddenly I feel the need, for Jidé’s sake, to fill the silence.

  “It’s like my brother Krish…he’s practically blond. Even though Granddad Bimal’s Indian and Nana Kath’s English, my mum looks really Indian, and my dad has dark hair and dark eyes, like Nana Josie, and I’m like, I am…” I burble on.

  “Your point is?” interrupts Ben.

  “My point is that Krish, well, he’s blond and you wouldn’t think he would be…and he’s got these sparkly blue eyes like Nana Kath and people say stuff in front of him that really upsets him like, ‘Where did this one come from?’ Or, when me and Krish were little, people thought my mum was child-minding Krish. Sometimes they even ask Mum if he’s adopted or stupid stuff like, ‘What color eyes does the milkman have?’ The funny thing about Krish is he looks exactly like my mum, but most people can’t see that because he’s white. Mum says genetics are a bit more complicated than what you learn in biology, which is where most people’s knowledge stops.”

  “And your point?” repeats Ben.

  “I know what you mean, Mira,” says Jidé, elbowing Ben hard in the side.

  “Man, what was that for?” yelps Ben.

  “Millie, would you like to go next?” Pat smiles.

  Millie shakes her head in that slow, determined way she has that lets you know she’s made up her mind and she’s not changing it.

  “Mira. Did you bring me anything?” asks Pat, looking a bit confused and attempting to change the subject before it all gets out of hand.

  “I wanted to bring you the charm Nana gave me, but the chain broke and now I’ve gone and lost it. It was a tiny silver charm in the shape of an artichoke. I’ll read you what Nana said about it when she gave it to me, if you like.”

  Pat Print nods.

  So I flick back in my red leather diary to my birthday, the day Nana gave me the charm, which feels like years, not days ago.

  “I’ve given you this, Mira, because most people, by the time they get old, have grown themselves tough little shells around their hearts…”

  “Now, that’s a true example of the pathetic fallacy,” says Pat Print. “What powers does Mira’s nana think the charm holds?”

  “I think it might be a symbol of how delicate love is,” answers Jidé, smiling at me. “She thinks adults learn how not to feel by protecting themselves from feeling too much.”

  Pat Print nods, glancing from Jidé to me. She can tell that something’s going on between us.

  “What do you think?” Jidé whispers to me.

  “I don’t know. I just feel terrible because she’s worn it nearly all her life and now I’ve gone and lost it,” I whisper back.

  When Jidé talks to me now, I feel like everyone’s eyes are on us, especially as he insists on sitting so close to me. It’s terrible, but because of Jidé I can’t really focus on Pat Print’s carefully chosen closing words. It’s obvious that she’s rehearsed what she’s going to say beforehand, but even so, Pat Print is no good at saying good-bye. Now she’s telling us how proud we should be of the work we’ve produced and how she hopes to see us all in print one day. “No pun intended!” she laughs, that blueberry-colored rash starting to rise up her neck, as it does when she feels emotional about anything.

  As we all leave the class, Pat Print calls Millie back, so I wait for her a bit farther up the corridor and inspect the trail of mud that Pat Print has left again, like her personal signature. I wonder where she walks to get so much mud on her shoe
s.

  “What did she want?” I ask Millie.

  “She asked me why I was so quiet today.”

  “I didn’t notice.”

  “That’s because you and Jidé were doing all the talking!”

  “So what did you tell her?”

  “I told her that I was quiet because I was so amazed to hear you speaking out like that…and I don’t know…I’ve been trying to work out what’s so different about you.”

  Now I really do feel guilty…because it’s not that long ago that Millie knew everything about me. I practically couldn’t even walk into school without her holding my hand, but since Jidé, well, I haven’t needed her so much.

  “I’ve started my periods,” I blurt out.

  “Really! When? Are you all right?”

  “On my birthday. Great present!”

  “That was ages ago. Why didn’t you tell me?””

  I shrug, feeling even more guilty than before.

  “So come on then, what’s it like?” prods Millie.

  “It’s like blood,” I say stupidly.

  “Well, I know that. I mean how does it feel?”

  “I don’t know. It’s like everything’s changed. I can’t stop it happening, can I?”

  Suddenly Millie looks worried. “Does it really hurt then?”

  “Not hurt. I just sort of felt heavy and a bit achy…oh, and I got spots.”

  “Oh yeah! I remember now,” laughs Millie.

  “Thanks!”

  “Was your mum surprised?”

  “A bit,” I lie.

  “I hope I start soon.”

  “Why would you want to start your periods?”

  “I dunno, I’m just ready for a change,” grins Millie.

  Thursday, 26 May

  Jidé and Ben join Millie and me on our high wall at break, but somehow there is nothing much for us to say to each other, altogether like this.

  After a while Ben and Jidé wander off, leaving Millie and me on our own. I wonder what she’s not saying to me about Ben, because I know what I’m not saying to her about Jidé, and even though we sit here side by side, like we always do, we might as well be at opposite ends of the courtyard.

  I watch Nana sleep. This is the first time I’ve visited her when she hasn’t even known I’m here. Doris, Dr. Clem, and Question Mark come and go, more often than before. All I can do is watch her sleep and wait. She is waiting now…and we are waiting…for the end.

  Friday, 27 May

  When I see the empty bed, I am sick all over the floor. I hear someone screaming like a siren. That someone is me. Question Mark appears, sits me down, and helps me clean myself up.

  “Your nana has been moved to a room of her own,” he says. “Don’t you remember, we told you yesterday.”

  I don’t remember.

  “Is she going to die soon?” I ask.

  “She’s very weak now, Mira,” he says, walking me to Nana’s new room. Question Mark’s hand is smooth and cool, like powdered silk. The moment my hand’s in his, I start to feel calm.

  no entry reads the sign on Nana’s door. Question Mark says that Nana Josie doesn’t want any other visitors, only “immediate family.” I ask what “immediate family” means. Dad says it means “only us.”

  I open the door, but somehow it still feels like I shouldn’t go in, so I stand in the doorway watching Nana. Her Dying Room has a view onto those enormous Hampstead houses that look like the ones in Mary Poppins that rise up and up “to the highest heights.”

  Right outside the Dying Room there are two huge oak trees just coming into flower. The window takes up one whole side of the room. The sun streams in and shines on Nana’s face, warming her blankets. Dad asks if he should close the blinds, but Nana smiles no with her mouth. She’s enjoying sunbathing.

  Nana talks silently now as much as she can. I think she’s saving her energy for dying. I sit next to her. I don’t dare lie on the bed anymore, because she’s so thin I might squash her. I gaze out the window and across the street. I can see straight into what looks like an artist’s studio. There are two enormous windows on either side of the room so that, through the far window, I glimpse the green of the Heath stretching out into the distance.

  “They must have a great view of London,” I say.

  “Perfect,” Nana whispers. Her voice is dry and scratchy. “I’d like to see that room.”

  “Just imagine, Nana, if I open this window, and they open theirs, you could fly out of here across the street, into that room and then straight out the other side.”

  Nana is smiling and squeezing my hand. “How’s someone someone?” she whispers, smiling.

  There doesn’t seem much point denying it now.

  “He’s fine,” I whisper, smiling back.

  Then suddenly Nana starts to cough. I think I’ve been making her talk too much. Doris comes in and props her up on her pillows. Nana calls Doris “the poet” because of the way she sings when she talks, so you almost forget the meaning of the words; you can just taste something sweet in your mouth.

  Doris sits in the sunshine on Nana’s bed. She takes a little white bag from the trolley. Inside it is a soft stick, like a toothbrush the size of a cotton bud, which she smoothes around Nana’s teeth. Afterward, she takes out a tiny sponge, which she dips into drinking water and squeezes into Nana’s mouth. Doris’s hands are small and shiny like they’ve been rubbed in oil. I think it’s a shame that she has to slide her beautiful hands into those chalky white gloves. Doris dips the sponge in water again and touches it against Nana’s lips so gently, dab, dab, dab. I do not think I have ever seen anyone do anything with more love than Doris performs Nana’s tooth-brushing ceremony.

  Nana sighs and closes her eyes. Question Mark walks silently in and asks Nana if she’s comfortable. She nods twice with her eyes closed. Everything seems to have slowed down here in the Dying Room. There is nothing on Nana’s bedside table. No art books, no paintings, no fruit, no water…no water.

  I try to hold Nana’s hand, but her fingers are all curled up.

  Krish brings Nana his Aboriginal picture. My mum has mounted it on a board, so it looks even better. He doesn’t say anything, but he holds it up for her to see.

  She just stares at it, lost in the millions of colors swirling around and around. Then she looks at Krish and mouths “thank you” and Krish bows his head onto Nana’s knee. After a while he is very still and his breathing is quiet. He has fallen asleep. She lifts her hand and places it on his head; just the effort of that movement makes her breathless. I tell Nana that Krish spent all night finishing this picture. She gestures for me to prop it up on her bedside table. As I leave the room, Nana is lost somewhere among the billions of colored dots.

  On the way out, we drop into the Family Room. Mum’s talking to Jay who’s brought a fruit salad for Nana. When Jay opens the fridge door and sees that Nana’s shelf is full of little plastic boxes of food that haven’t been touched, she puts the fruit salad back in her bag and empties Nana’s shelf. Tears roll down her cheeks as she wipes the shelf clean.

  In the hospice people talk with their eyes, with a quiet hand on your arm or a nod. You have to really look to see what’s going on. Twice today, I have seen Dr. Clem and Doris in silent conversation with my dad and Aunty Abi. They have these conversations where no words escape when they pass each other in the corridor. After one of these silent conversations my dad walks off to the Family Room with his head and eyes bowed.

  Saturday, 28 May

  Question Mark calls from the hospice.

  I put on my watch. It’s the first time I’ve worn it since my birthday. I took it off because I thought maybe it was making time speed up…maybe the watch had something to do with Nana’s coffin arriving and my periods starting, and I thought if I took it off it might make it all slow down, but now I know there’s no going back. Some things you can’t change, no matter who or what you pray to.

  When we arrive, Headscarf Lady quickly buzzes us through the secu
rity door. Usually she has a little chat or makes a joke, but today she just nods and bows her head. As we walk through the doors, I hear her speaking on the intercom.

  “The Levenson family are on their way up.”

  Doris is waiting for us. She has her head lowered. She holds out her arm for us to follow her into the Family Room, where we sit down on the comfy chairs to hear the news. She folds her hands together on her knees and sits very still for a moment. She has a gentle, sad smile on her face.

  “Josie died this morning. Mark and I were here with her, and Abi sat with her all night.” She soothes over these words in her honey voice. “She passed so peacefully, like a feather on a breeze.”

  “What time did she die?” Krish asks.

  “A few minutes after ten o’clock this morning.”

  These are the things you have to know…the date and the time people die and are born. That was the first question people asked when Laila was born.

  The moment when Nana died, when her heart stopped beating, we were driving past Hampstead Heath on our way to the hospice. I think I know the exact moment because I checked my watch at exactly 10:05 a.m. At exactly 10:05 a.m., eighteen minutes ago, I looked up at the people: young people, old people, children, walking dogs in the sunshine, great big dogs, tiny yapping dogs, all sorts of dogs. I remember having the thought that all these people could be my Nana Josie in different parts of her life, and then I thought about something that made me feel happy. When Nana is dead and I walk on the Heath or in Suffolk…I could always step into the exact same footprints as she did. Even with my math, I worked out that Nana has done so much walking in these places that the probability of stepping where she once did could be quite high. That thought made me feel happy at exactly 10:05 a.m. That was the moment my Nana’s heartbeat stopped. I suppose that is a number fact.

  The no entry sign is still up in Nana’s Dying Room. Aunty Abi sits in the armchair next to her bed. Dad and Aunty Abi give each other a long hug. Dad’s back is heaving up and down and he’s making a horrible strangled crying noise. Aunty Abi is calm, but her eyes are sore and puffy.