โLife is always an act,โ Mrs Elm said, as they watched her brother being pulled back from the waterโs edge by his friends. As he then watched a girl whose name sheโd long forgotten make an emergency call. โAnd you acted when it counted. You swam to that bank. You clawed yourself out. You coughed your guts out and had hypothermia but you crossed the river, against incredible odds. You found something inside you.โ
โYes. Bacteria. I was ill for weeks. I swallowed so much of that shitty water.โ โBut you lived. You had hope.โ
โYeah, well, I was losing it by the day.โ
She stared down, to see the grass shrink back into the stone, and looked back to catch the last sight of the water before it shimmered away and the sycamore tree dissolved into air along with her brother and his friends and her own young self.
๎ขe library looked exactly like the library again. But now the books were all back on the shelves and the lights had stopped ๏ฌickering.
โI was so stupid, doing that swim, just trying to impress people. I always thought Joe was better than me. I wanted him to like me.โ
โWhy did you think he was better than you? Because your parents did?โ
Nora felt angry at Mrs Elmโs directness. But maybe she had a point. โI always had to do what they wanted me to do in order to impress them. Joe had his issues, obviously. And I didnโt really understand those issues until I knew he was gay, but they say sibling rivalry isnโt about siblings but parents, and I always felt my parents just encouraged his dreams a bit more.โ
โLike music?โ โYeah.โ
โWhen he and Ravi decided they wanted to be rock stars, Mum and Dad bought Joe a guitar and then an electric piano.โ
โHow did that go?โ
โ๎ขe guitar bit went well. He could play โSmoke Onย ๎ขe Waterโ within a week of getting it, but he wasnโt into the piano and decided he didnโt want it cluttering up his room.โ
โAnd thatโs when you got it.โ Mrs Elm said this as a statement rather than a question. Sheย knew. Of course she knew.
โYeah.โ
โIt was moved into your room, and you welcomed it like a friend, and started learning to play it with steadfast determination. You spent your pocket money on piano-teaching guides andย Mozart for Beginnersย andย ๎ปe Beatles for Piano. Because you liked it. But also because you wanted to impress your older brother.โ
โI never told you all this.โ
A wry smile. โDonโt worry. I read the book.โ โRight. Course. Yeah. Got you.โ
โYou might need to stop worrying about other peopleโs approval, Nora,โ Mrs Elm said in a whisper, for added power and intimacy. โYou donโt need a permission slip to be yourโโ
โYes. I get it.โ
And she did get it.
Every life she had tried so far since entering the library had really been someone elseโs dream.ย ๎ขe married life in the pub had been Danโs dream.
๎ขe trip to Australia had been Izzyโs dream, and her regret about not going had been a guilt for her best friend more than a sorrow for herself.ย ๎ขe dream of her becoming a swimming champion belonged to her father. And okay, so it was true that she had been interested in the Arctic and being a glaciologist when she was younger, but that had been steered quite signi๏ฌcantly by her chats with Mrs Elm herself, back in the school library. Andย ๎ขe Labyrinths, well, that had always been her brotherโs dream.
Maybe there was no perfect life for her, but somewhere, surely, there was a life worth living. And if she was to ๏ฌnd a life truly worth living, she realised she would have to cast a wider net.
Mrs Elm was right.ย ๎ขe game wasnโt over. No player should give up if there were pieces still le๎ย on the board.
She straightened her back and stood up tall.
โYou need to choose more lives from the bottom or top shelves. You have been seeking to undo your most obvious regrets.ย ๎ขe books on the higher and lower shelves are the lives a little bit further removed. Lives you are still living in one universe or another but not ones you have been imagining or mourning or thinking about.ย ๎ขey are lives you could live but never dreamed of.โ
โSo theyโre unhappy lives?โ
โSome will be, some wonโt be. Itโs just they are not the mostย obviousย lives.
๎ขey are ones which might require a little imagination to reach. But I am sure you can get there . . .โ
โCanโt you guide me?โ
Mrs Elm smiled. โI could read you a poem. Librarians like poems.โ And then she quoted Robert Frost. โTwo roads diverged in a wood, and I โ / I took the one less travelled by, / And that has made all the di๏ฌerence . . .โ
โWhat if there are more than two roads diverging in the wood? What if there are more roads than trees? What if there is no end to the choices you could make? What would Robert Frost do then?โ
She remembered studying Aristotle as a ๏ฌrst-year Philosophy student. And being a bit depressed by his idea that excellence was never an accident.
๎ขat excellent outcomes were the result of โthe wise choice of many alternativesโ. And here she was, in the privileged position of being able to sample these many alternatives. It was a shortcut to wisdom and maybe a shortcut to happiness too. She saw it now not as a burden but a gi๎ย to be cherished.
โLook at that chessboard we put back in place,โ said Mrs Elm, so๎ly. โLook at how ordered and safe and peaceful it looks now, before a game starts. Itโs a beautiful thing. But it is boring. It is dead. And yet the moment you make a move on that board, things change.ย ๎ขings begin to get more chaotic. And that chaos builds with every single move you make.โ
She took a seat at the chess table, opposite Mrs Elm. She stared down at the board and moved a pawn two spaces forward.
Mrs Elm mirrored the move on her side of the board.
โItโs an easy game to play,โ she told Nora. โBut a hard one to master. Every move you make opens a whole new world of possibility.โ
Nora moved one of her knights.ย ๎ขey progressed like this for a little while.
Mrs Elm provided a commentary. โAt the beginning of a game, there are no variations.ย ๎ขere is only one way to set up a board.ย ๎ขere are nine million variations a๎er the ๏ฌrst six moves. And a๎er eight moves there are two hundred and eighty-eight billion di๏ฌerent positions. And those possibilities keep growing.ย ๎ขere are more possible ways to play a game of chess than the amount of atoms in the observable universe. So it gets very messy. And there is no right way to play; there are many ways. In chess, as in life, possibility is the basis of everything. Every hope, every dream, every regret, every moment of living.โ
Eventually, Nora won the game. She had a sneaky suspicion that Mrs Elm hadย letย her, but still she was feeling a bit better.
โOkey-dokey,โ said Mrs Elm. โNow, time for a book, I reckon. What do you say?โ
Nora gazed along the bookshelves. If only they had more speci๏ฌc titles. If only there was one that saidย Perfect Life Right Here.
Her initial instinct had been to ignore Mrs Elmโs question. But where there were books, there was always the temptation to open them. And she realised it was the same with lives.
Mrs Elm repeated something she said earlier.
โNever underestimate the big importance of small things.โ
๎ขis was useful, as it turned out.
โI want,โ she said, โa gentle life.ย ๎ขe life where I worked with animals. Where I chose the animal shelter job โ where I did my work experience at school โ over the one at Stringย ๎ขeory. Yes. Give me that one, please.โ
