Mira in the Present Tense

by Sita Brahmachari

  Tuesday, 31 May

  Mum and Dad are on the phone all day, letting people know the news. I can’t believe how much there is to do when someone dies. Dad has to arrange to register Nana’s death. It’s the same town hall he went to for mine and Krish’s birth certificates. That must feel really strange, to have a piece of paper in your hands that tells you the exact end date and time of your mother’s life.

  Nana’s left loads of instructions about the funeral and who she wants Mum and Dad to contact and who she wants Aunty Abi and Aunty Mel to call. It’s like she’s planned a great big party and our house has been turned into the planning office, only there’s nothing fun about it.

  The letterbox clanks and I run downstairs wishing it could be Millie with an escape plan. I would like more than anything else to get out of this house. If I had the courage, I would call Jidé back and ask if I could go over to his place. Instead of Millie or Jidé, a tall lady, as solid as a door, wearing square glasses, stands on our step. The way she nods toward me reminds me a bit of Moses—the coffin man, not the dog.

  “Is this the Levenson household?” she asks.

  I nod but don’t let her in. There’s something about her I don’t like—maybe it’s her smile, which is dead behind the eyes.

  “Who’s that?” Dad calls from the kitchen.

  “Tell your father that I’m the celebrant.”

  “She’s the celebrant,” I call back.

  Dad appears in the hallway and shakes hands with the woman, as if she’s someone quite important. I sit and listen to them talking for a while. This woman is going to be the person who keeps the funeral service together, like a priest but without the God bit. She calls herself a celebrant, because she says we will be celebrating the life of Nana Josie. That’s OK for her, because she never really knew my nana. How am I supposed to celebrate?

  I don’t see why we need her to do it anyway. I can’t understand why Nana chose this woman. She never liked people who spoke too slowly. “Controlling behavior,” Nana used to call it. Celebrant Lady does both as she sits with Mum and Dad, filling in forms and making notes, planning the schedule for Nana’s funeral.

  “And Mira here, she wants to read a poem or say something.” Dad smiles at me, probably trying to make me feel involved.

  “Ah,” sighs Celebrant Lady without looking my way. “When it comes down to it, it can be very difficult for children to deal with these big emotions. I can always read it out for you,” she says, half smiling in my direction. “What’s the name of your poem?”

  “I don’t know yet,” I lie. Just because I feel like being as unhelpful as possible toward her. “I know the music Nana wanted though,” I tell Dad.

  “Do you? That’s great. Tell me later,” whispers Dad, looking sideways at an impatient-looking Celebrant Lady.

  “Well, let me have the title and author of your poem as soon as you can and a copy, just in case,” she says, packing away her sensible black notebook.

  I can’t believe that this is actually her job. What she wants to do with her life. Plan other people’s funerals.

  When she’s gone, Mum and Dad are back on the phone. It’s as if Krish and me and Laila don’t exist anymore. Laila’s been plonked in front of the television in a little nest of cushions and Krish is sprawled out on the sofa, still in his pajamas. He hasn’t moved all day. I wander up to my room to find something to do. But there it is waiting for me…Nana’s easel. Every time I look at it, I can’t help but feel as if it’s calling me over. It’s something about the way it leans. Today, it’s bending even farther to the right than ever. I take out my charcoals. It’s as if I’m walking toward another human being, but I know it’s only an easel, made of wood and spattered with Nana Josie’s paint. I fix the canvas in place; it’s as if I have no choice…As I start to draw, I can feel something of Nana inside her easel. It must be all those hours she’s spent standing in front of it. I don’t even have to adjust the height. It fits.

  It’s not like I’ve really thought about what I’m going to draw. I just pick up my mirror and place it on a shelf behind the easel, so that I can see myself and draw at the same time. This is my first-ever attempt at a self-portrait, and as soon as I start, I realize how difficult it’s going to be. It was much easier to draw Nana than it is to follow every detail of my own face. I work on it for hours, drawing in lines and smudging them out again. It’s not just the shape of the face that makes you look like you—you have to try and catch what’s coming to the surface. Like the day I understood that Nana was trapped in her body. No matter how accurate you are with the lines and proportions, if you can’t catch that, you can’t bring a person to life. Finally a face emerges that has something in it that belongs to me. That’s the best I can do for now.

  I am lying in bed staring at my first attempt at a self-portrait on Nana’s easel.

  Mum knocks on the door. She never used to knock.

  “Everything all right, Mira? You’ve been very quiet today.”

  Mum walks over to the easel, looking from me to the canvas.

  “That’s a very sad and somber you,” says Mum, wrapping her arms around me.

  I nod.

  For a while we just lie there together, looking at the girl in the picture, who is me.

  “She looks like I imagine you’ll look, when you’re older…maybe sixteen, but this terrible sadness will pass,” says Mum, moving the mirror back to the dressing table.

  “I just looked in the mirror and tried to draw what I saw,” I tell Mum.

  Now that I’ve finished, the easel’s straightened up. It’s not calling me over anymore.

  When I turn the light off, there is nothing sitting in the corner of the room watching me. It’s just Nana’s easel with my first attempt at a self-portrait sitting on it. It’s as if it’s peaceful now that I’ve done what it wanted. Can there be such a thing as a peaceful easel? Pat Print would say there could.

  Wednesday, 1 June

  I wake with an acid taste in my mouth and a dull ache in my belly…I know what’s coming and I actually want it to come right now. That way, by the time it’s Nana’s funeral, it will all be over. Today I feel like lying in bed, doing nothing, seeing no one.

  “I’ve got a job for you today,” says Mum, opening a box full of programs for Nana’s funeral. There are hundreds of them.

  “Are there that many people coming?”

  “It’s hard to know, Mira, but Josie wanted glitter, so glitter she must have.”

  For the cover of the program Nana chose a photo of her by the sea in Suffolk. She’s throwing a piece of wood into the waves for Claude, her Newfoundland. She wanted us—me, Krish, and Laila—to sprinkle glitter on the waves in the photo. So that’s what we try to do, but it’s impossible with Laila “helping,” because she either keeps trying to eat the glitter or just splodges it onto the cards. Mum says it doesn’t matter, but I think it does. Nana would have liked the idea of Laila joining in, but not if she made a mess of the cards. After ruining about five of them, Mum finally realizes that it’s just not going to work, so she takes her off to the swings.

  Krish sits in silence, carefully sprinkling just the right amount of glitter onto each wave. I have mixed the glitter to be the color of the Suffolk sea on a warm summer’s evening…silvery-blue.

  You know that there’s something wrong when Krish is this still and quiet.

  “I’ve done twenty—how about you, Krish?”

  That should wind him up enough to get a reaction. But Krish just counts his pile without looking up.

  “Fifteen,” he shrugs as if he doesn’t care.

  “Are you all right?”

  He doesn’t answer, but just carries on gluing and glittering.

  Glitter is sprinkled all over this house, but there is nothing here to celebrate.

  Thursday, 2 June

  Aunty Abi, Aunty Mel, and Piper arrive to take Krish off to buy a suit. His first-ever suit. I see that Mum’s already decided that I’m going to wear
what Nana bought me for my birthday, because she’s washed and ironed it and hung it on the back of my bedroom door. I wonder if she saw the blood. I suppose I have to wear it now because if she didn’t see it there’s no excuse not to wear it.

  When Piper sees Krish and me, he barks and jumps all over us, licking our faces like he’s really missed us.

  “Can we take him for a walk?” Krish pleads, jumping up and down in excitement. It’s the first time I’ve seen him anything like his usual lively self since Nana died.

  “After we’ve got your suit,” says Abi.

  “Boring!” sighs Krish.

  Krish hardly ever wears anything except sports clothes or, if he’s being really smart, jeans. So going shopping for a suit is not exactly his idea of heaven. I would love to go out and choose something to wear, something I really like, but I wouldn’t go today, not to try things on…just in case. One thing that does make Krish happy is the fact that Aunty Mel has taken the roof off her beaten-up old sports car. As they drive off, Krish waves like the queen, probably to make me jealous. Irritating though he is, I’m actually pleased he’s more his old self again.

  I lie on my bed for most of the day, flicking through Nana’s giant art books…her art books and her collection of catalogs from all the exhibitions she ever went to in her life…she left them all to me.

  The phone rings. Mum’s voice is shrieking at the same unbearable pitch as the smoke alarm. Suddenly the atmosphere in the house is charged. To make matters worse, Laila sets up her wailing. I jump off my bed and listen from the landing.

  “What do you mean, run off? How long ago?” Mum fires question after question down the phone. I run downstairs to see that Mum’s face has turned Payne’s Gray. Dad’s rocking Laila, too fast, backward and forward, straining to hear what’s going on over Laila’s wailing. Mum’s holding her hand over her mouth, trying to calm herself down. She looks as if she can’t believe what she’s hearing.

  “OK! Sam and Mira will come over to look with you. If we don’t find him in an hour, we’ll call the police.”

  Dad hands Laila to Mum.

  “Abi’s on her mobile,” says Mum. “They’re looking over the Heath for him.”

  “Get your shoes on, Mira,” orders Dad.

  Suddenly we are speeding toward the Heath. This is the second time in a month I’ve been in a car with my dad in a total panic. Pat Print was right: a lot can happen in a month. We’re taking the same route that we always took to the hospice and that’s what gives me the idea.

  “Maybe he’s gone to the hospice.”

  “Why would he do that, Mira?”

  “I don’t know. He’s been very quiet since Nana died.”

  “It’s worth a try, I suppose,” Dad says, picking up his mobile to call them, but right at that moment his phone rings.

  “Uma…where? Mira thought he might…Ran all that way…Have you called Abi? Good. I’ll pick him up.”

  Dad smiles his “you know best” smile at me, and we drive, a bit less dangerously than before to the hospice. When we arrive in reception, Headscarf Lady gives Dad and me a huge hug…It feels like we’re coming home.

  “He’s upstairs, with Joe. He ran all the way from the other side of the Heath. Can you believe it?” Headscarf Lady says, buzzing us up.

  I can. That’s no farther than one of his competition runs.

  When we get to the Family Room, Krish is playing table football with Joe. He looks worried when he sees Dad, as if he’s going to get told off, but Dad just scoops him up and holds him in his arms as if he’s Laila’s size. It would look ridiculous now if Dad tried to carry me like that.

  “We would have brought you, if you’d asked us, Krish.”

  “I wanted to see Joe,” sobs Krish.

  “That’s all right, mate,” says Joe, patting Krish on the back. “We just had a few things we needed to sort out.”

  Dad sits on one side of Krish and Joe on the other, each with an arm around him. He looks tiny sandwiched between them, almost disappearing into the folds of the sofa. As Dad and Joe talk, Krish’s eyes grow heavy and he falls fast asleep. I don’t think he’s slept since the day he gave Nana his painting.

  “Looks like he’s out for the count,” smiles Joe.

  Dad shakes Joe’s hand, pats him on the back, hoists Krish up over his shoulder and carries him along the corridor, down in the lift, and out past Headscarf Lady.

  “Bless him!” she says. “He must have tired himself out with all that running.”

  Dad settles Krish into the backseat, and he stirs for a moment, opens his eyes, and nestles his head into the curve of my shoulder. Normally, this would really irritate me, but not today.

  Just as we’re about to set off, Dad adjusts the rear-view mirror and, as he does, he catches sight of his own face and stares at himself, smoothing his fingers over the map of lines fanning from the corners of his eyes.

  “I’ve aged more this month than any other month of my life. There are whole years where I’ve aged less than this, Mira,” sighs Dad.

  Me too, I think to myself.

  Friday, 3 June

  Krish has been bugging me all day. I want to tell him to get out of my room, but after yesterday I can’t risk upsetting him.

  “Why did you run off like that anyway?” I ask him.

  “I didn’t think about it. I just ran,” Krish shrugs.

  “What did you want to talk to Joe about?”

  “Will you two get into bed,” Dad yells up the stairs. “It’s a big day tomorrow.”

  When Krish finally leaves me in peace, I turn the light off, close my eyes, and try to think of nothing. I am beginning to drift off when I hear the door open and somebody creeping on tiptoe around my room. In the half-light from the hallway I see Krish heading over to the easel. I don’t move an inch, but I clearly see him place Nana’s charm on the little ridge where the canvas sits.

  I whisper his name. “Krish.” He jumps and stumbles, crumpling himself and the easel into a great clattering mess on the floor. It’s strange that Krish is such a good runner, because he often falls over; like Laila’s spinning top, he’s only got his balance when he’s moving fast.

  “Why did you take it?” I whisper.

  “She never actually gave me something, like she gave things to you,” I hear Krish’s tiny hurt voice cutting through the darkness.

  The light switch snaps on and I shield my eyes from the blinding brightness.

  “What on earth is going on in here?” shouts Dad, staring at Krish as he tries to untangle himself from the easel.

  “Nothing.”

  I jump in quickly before Krish has a chance to answer. “He just fell.”

  “Please go to bed,” Dad pleads, picking up my portrait and having a good look at it.

  “Is this you?”

  I nod.

  “It’s good…makes you look older than you are though,” says Dad as he bends down to pick up the easel. Then he drops down onto his knees and starts rummaging around on the floor.

  “You’ll never guess what I’ve found…” Dad stands up triumphantly and hands me Nana Josie’s charm. “Shall I take it and fix it onto your bracelet so you can wear it tomorrow? It must have been there all the time,” he says as I hand him the bracelet to fix the charm onto.

  “It must have been,” I say, looking over to Krish, who’s refusing to meet my eye.

  Dad kisses me and Krish good night and practically skips down the stairs.

  The sound of waves fills every sense in my body, as if the sea is flowing in and out of me. I hear a little girl humming…in and out flow the waves in even patterns…a sweet lullaby…in and out softly sighing shhhhhhhh. The girl floats toward me. She’s holding her fingers to her lips. Shhhhhhh sound the waves in and out, somewhere inside me, but still she floats on, the waves appearing and disappearing from my sight, a little girl of about four years old.

  “Who are you?” I call to her, but I know who she is. She has Jidé’s face, his eyes, his exp
ression.

  “Shhhhhh,” answer the waves. She holds her finger to her lips and hums.

  “What’s your name?” I whisper.

  “Shhhhhhhh,” echoes the sea.

  The girl’s lips are sealed.

  Then I catch sight of it under the waves, Jidé’s bright orange cloth shining through the gray water, floating toward me. I follow it through the wave, grabbing at it until it’s safely in my hands. Shhhhhh, sighs the sea. Then the little girl takes her finger from her mouth, smiles at me, and sings.

  Saturday, 4 June

  The first thing I do when I wake up is look for Jidé’s piece of orange cloth. It was the kind of dream that follows you from night into the day. Of course when the sleep wears off, I realize it’s not real…but I discover something that is.

  It had to be today of all days. I take the charcoal and draw a pair of moon-shaped earrings on my self-portrait. Something good has got to come out of having periods.

  At breakfast Dad takes hold of my hand and attaches the charm bracelet to my wrist. He struggles with the catch for a few moments before he finally closes the clasp. I look up at him and see that his eyes are full of tears.

  “Your nana was very proud of you, Mira.”

  Krish keeps glancing my way with a worried look on his face. He thinks I’m going to tell. I shake my head to reassure him. I won’t tell because I think I understand how he felt.