This is going to be the second post for my idea of Book Talk- where I will give quotes and exerts from the finished books that I loved best. I hope to do at least two a month. Meet Me In Bombay is very special to me. I fell deeply in thrall of the Male Lead before chapter one, and I only loved him more as the story progressed. This never happens- I always need a bit of time to warm up to the love interest… Luke, though… you know the silly saying, #boysinbooksarebetter? This… right here. Let’s start with the prologue- an old man writing to the woman he desperately wants to remember.
‘A letter to somebody, from somebody else
Tonight, I cannot recall what year it is. Try as I might, I can’t think how long I’ve been in here, in this residential home that’s really a hospital- this place of the old, the infirm, the forgotten… and the forgetful. I asked a nurse- a young woman with freckles and a quiet voice-to remind me, but she wouldn’t. She said I would panic again, that I mustn’t fret; that time isn’t important. And yet, it feels so important to me. I am sure, you see, that I’ve been in this place too long. I have an awful sense I’ve been here for many years.
I know that it was 1915 when I became a patient. I remember that much at least. And that I marked the date in the book I was given then: a leather bound journal, handed to me during my first session with Dr. Arnold to take note of all the things my broken memory mightn’t keep hold of. Anything that comes to you, Arnold said, jot it down directly. His words have stayed with me; for all I’ve forgotten, I can hear his voice even now, picture the open fire in his study, feel its warmth, quite as though I am still sitting before it, my skin prickling beneath my convalescent blues. View your past as a puzzle, he said, one you must slot together. Don’t let any piece slide away. I haven’t seen Arnold in a long time. I cannot recall when or why we parted. Perhaps he gave up on my puzzle.
Something I could never do myself.
Today, after morning tea, I fell asleep quite suddenly. It happens like that. I never fight it. My dreams are all I have left of that other world: the one I’m sure I once belonged to. It was full of heat, light, and color; so much life. There was a party on the banks of a sea. Nothing like the tame affairs we hold here- no finger sandwiches, diluted cordial, and crackers that don’t make bangs. It was loud, packed with people; the music of a ragtime band.
A figure, a woman in a silk dress, stood in the darkness with her back to me, gloved fingers touching a chair.
It was you. I am certain it was you.
The sky seemed to explode above. I watched you look up, the arch of your neck. I waited for you to turn, to see me. Something-a memory?-told me you would.
Cheers filled the night, the opening cords of a song I cannot place, and still, I waited.
Slowly, you dipped your head. Your chin tilted, over your bare shoulder; the hint of your cheekbone coming round.
I held my breath. Even as I slept in my chair, I wasn’t breathing. When I woke, as I always wake before you allow me a glimpse of your face, there were tears on my cheeks.
I have no recollection of what you look like, and yet I know that if I saw you, I’d recognize you instantly. I am certain you are beautiful. I want to think we were happy together once. I try to believe our story was a wonderful one. But I am here, old and alone, and you are not, so I don’t know how that can have been.
To return to you is all I need, yet it feels more impossible with each passing day. Because however often I dream these dreams, however patiently I wait for my broken mind to conjure just one starting clue that might lead me back to you- an initial, the name of a place, just who you are to me, or if you’re even alive. I try so hard, every hour of every day, to remember, but sometimes I can’t even recall that I am meant to be remembering your name.
And I still have no idea, after all these many, many years, of where I’ve been, what events took me from you, how I came to be in that hospital in 1915.
Or who on earth I am.’
The desperate longing, the desire to know for so long… it moved me. All I needed were those lines and I would have followed that narrative anywhere. I was charmed, enthralled… and heartbroken for this man. Through the book there are several more notes, memories/ dreams… and they are by far my favorite parts. While I loved seeing Maddy and Luke together, Luke trying to heal and remember… that’s what moved me.
And why I own a copy of this book to force all my book buds to read so that they, too, will love Luke. If you want my actual review of the book you will find it here: https://garabrandtreviews.wordpress.com/2021/01/12/meet-me-in-bombay-jenny-ashcroft/
So, what do you think? Are you reading the book?
Garabrandtreviews 