The Midnight Library - Matt Haig Page 0,26

‘Where are you?’

‘What?’

‘You were meant to be here half an hour ago.’

‘Where?’

‘The ferry terminal. You’re selling tickets. I’ve got the correct number, right? This is Nora Seed I’m talking to?’

‘It’s one of them,’ sighed Nora, as she gently faded away.

Fish Tank

The shrewd-eyed librarian was back at her chessboard and hardly looked up as Nora arrived back.

‘Well, that was terrible.’

Mrs Elm smiled, wryly. ‘It just shows you, doesn’t it?’

‘Shows me what?’

‘Well, that you can choose choices but not outcomes. But I stand by what I said. It was a good choice. It just wasn’t a desired outcome.’

Nora studied Mrs Elm’s face. Was she enjoying this?

‘Why did I stay?’ Nora asked. ‘Why didn’t I just come home, after she died?’

Mrs Elm shrugged. ‘You got stuck. You were grieving. You were depressed. You know what depression is like.’

Nora understood this. She thought of a study she had read about somewhere, about fish. Fish were more like humans than most people think.

Fish get depression. They had done tests with zebrafish. They had a fish tank and they drew a horizontal line on the side of it, halfway down, in marker pen. Depressed fish stayed below the line. But give those same fish Prozac and they go above the line, to the top of their tanks, darting about like new.

Fish get depressed when they have a lack of stimulation. A lack of everything. When they are just there, floating in a tank that resembles nothing at all.

Maybe Australia had been her empty fish tank, once Izzy had gone. Maybe she just had no incentive to swim above the line. And maybe even Prozac – or fluoxetine – wasn’t enough to help her rise up. So she was just going to stay there in that flat, with Jojo, and never move until she was made to leave the country.

Maybe even suicide would have been too active. Maybe in some lives you just float around and expect nothing else and don’t even try to change. Maybe that was most lives.

‘Yes,’ said Nora, aloud now. ‘Maybe I got stuck. Maybe in every life I am stuck. I mean, maybe that’s just who I am. A starfish in every life is still a starfish. There isn’t a life where a starfish is a professor of aerospace engineering. And maybe there isn’t a life where I’m not stuck.’

‘Well, I think you are wrong.’

‘Okay, then. I would like to try the life where I am not stuck. What life would that be?’

‘Aren’t you supposed to tell me?’

Mrs Elm moved a queen to take a pawn, then turned the board around. ‘I’m afraid I am just the librarian.’

‘Librarians have knowledge. They guide you to the right books. The right worlds. They find the best places. Like soul-enhanced search engines.’

‘Exactly. But you also have to know what you like. What to type into the metaphorical search box. And sometimes you have to try a few things before that becomes clear.’

‘I haven’t got the stamina. I don’t think I can do this.’

‘The only way to learn is to live.’

‘Yes. So you keep saying.’

Nora exhaled heavily. It was interesting to know that she could exhale in the library. That she felt entirely in her body. That it felt normal. Because this place was definitely not normal. And the real physical her wasn’t here. It couldn’t be. And yet it was, to all intents and purposes, because she was – in some sense – there. Standing on a floor, as if gravity still existed.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I would like a life where I am successful.’

Mrs Elm tutted disapprovingly. ‘For someone who has read a lot of books, you aren’t very specific with your choice of words.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Success. What does that mean to you? Money?’

‘No. Well, maybe. But that wouldn’t be the defining feature.’

‘Well, then, what is success?’

Nora had no idea what success was. She had felt like a failure for so long.

Mrs Elm smiled, patiently. ‘Would you like to consult again with The Book of Regrets? Would you like to think about those bad decisions that turned you away from whatever you feel success is?’

Nora shook her head quickly, like a dog shaking off water. She didn’t want to be confronted with that long interminable list of mistakes and wrong turns again. She was depressed enough. And besides, she knew her regrets. Regrets don’t leave. They weren’t mosquito bites. They itch for ever.

‘No, they don’t,’ said Mrs Elm, reading her mind. ‘You don’t regret how you were with your cat. And nor do you regret not going