Free The A-Z of Us by Jim Keeble

Where I’m going.’
    â€˜She’ll understand.’
    â€˜No. She won’t!’ My voice is more strident than I’d intended. ‘She’ll tell me that I’m being selfish and it’s about time I realized I can’t have everything in life. She’ll want answers!’
    He looks down, uncertain. Suddenly I want to hide away.
    â€˜Look, I’m sorry the place is such a mess. There’s a duvet on the bed in the back bedroom. Do you mind if I try and get some sleep? I’m knackered.’
    â€˜No problem. Wake me if you need anything.’
    â€˜Thanks Hopalong.’
    â€˜That’s what Molly called me.’
    â€˜Oh. Well. I’ve never been that original.’
    Before he can reply, I turn and disappear up the rickety wooden stairs, stepping quickly away.
    I can’t sleep. Again. It has crossed my mind that perhaps I’m getting depressed, a thought which depresses me. I’ve never considered myself a candidate for melancholia – such people are weak, or infirm, or living in conditions a thousand times worse than mine. I can’t feel depressed. As my mother is fond of pointing out, I’m too well-off, too comfortable. But here I am, feeling awful, an emotion that just won’t go away. I feel heavy, as if wearing lead. My stomach is as tight as a wrung towel.
    I think about Raj, about how he might be coping with the hotel, whether he’s getting any sleep, how his work is going, his ‘highly complex case’. I wonder, with a pang of panic, whether he’s told his parents yet.
    His mother won’t be surprised. The formidable Geeta Singh was tacitly against him marrying an English girl in the first place, even though, to her credit, she softened during our engagement (in no small part due to my steadfast and energetic attempts to learn and perform all the right Hindu ceremonies, and meet every single aunty and cousin in the family – there seemed to be hundreds). Raj’s father, the venerable Panjit Singh, was more overtly welcoming. A dentist in Croydon, he considered good teeth the mark of a good character, no matter what race or creed, and since my incisors have been praised by dental experts from Brent Cross to Bradford, he warmed to me.
    â€˜Fluoride pills, very responsible,” he nodded merrily, as I explained how each childhood morning our father ensured that Molly and I supplemented our Rice Krispies with a small orange tablet.
    I like Mr Singh. He always smells faintly of sandalwood and tobacco, and smiles when I enter the room. I feel sick now, curled on the sofa, thinking about his reaction to what I’ve done. I have proved him wrong. Despite my excellent teeth, I am a bad person, after all.
    Oh God. Have I just made the biggest mistake of my life? Have I just thrown something away, because of all the pressure I’m feeling, that will turn out to have been the most precious thing I’ve ever possessed? I imagine myself watching the
Antiques Roadshow
programme my mother loves so much, seeing a middle-aged woman showing the experts her household treasure.
    â€˜Oh my,’ the expert would say, looking at the woman’s item with brightening eyes. ‘It’s a Raj Singh. Very, very rare…’
    â€˜How much is it worth?’ the greedy little woman would ask, avariciously.
    The expert would take off his glasses, then place them back on the end of his nose once more with an impeccable sense of timing, and declare, solemnly:
    â€˜Well, I’m glad you’re sitting down, my dear. Because I have to tell you that your Raj Singh is nothing short of priceless!’
    I want to hurt myself. I wonder if I have the courage for self-harm. But I’m afraid of blades and needles and the glowing ends of cigarettes. I want to scream, but I have no voice.
    Why did I say those words? Some things are meant to remain locked away, aren’t they, spinning through cerebral voids, churning amidst