The Midnight Library. Matt Haig
as if it was flashing on and off, right there as she looked at it. The regret was ‘I regret not yet having children.’
‘That is a regret that sometimes is and sometimes isn’t,’ explained Mrs Elm, again somehow reading her mind. ‘There are a few of those.’
From the age of 34 onwards, in the longest chapter at the end of the book, there were a lot of Dan-specific regrets. These were quite strong and bold, and played in her head like an ongoing fortissimo chord in a Haydn concerto.
‘I regret being cruel to Dan.’ ‘I regret breaking up with Dan.’ ‘I regret not living in a country pub with Dan.’
As she stared down at the pages, she thought now of the man she had so nearly married.
Regret Overload
She’d met Dan while living with Izzy in Tooting. Big smile, short beard. Visually, a TV vet. Fun, curious. He drank quite a bit, but always seemed immune to hangovers.
He had studied Art History and put his in-depth knowledge of Rubens and Tintoretto to incredible use by becoming head of PR for a brand of protein flapjacks. He did, however, have a dream. And his dream was to run a pub in the countryside. A dream he wanted to share with her. With Nora.
And she got carried away with his enthusiasm. Got engaged. But suddenly she had realised she didn’t want to marry him.
Deep down, she was scared of becoming her mother. She didn’t want to replicate her parents’ marriage.
Still staring blankly at The Book of Regrets, she wondered if her parents had ever been in love or if they had got married because marriage was something you did at the appropriate time with the nearest available person. A game where you grabbed the first person you could find when the music stopped.
She had never wanted to play that game.
Bertrand Russell wrote that ‘To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three-parts dead’. Maybe that was her problem. Maybe she was just scared of living. But Bertrand Russell had more marriages and affairs than hot dinners, so perhaps he was no one to give advice.
When her mum died three months before the wedding Nora’s grief was immense. Though she had suggested that the date should be put back, it somehow never was, and Nora’s grief fused with depression and anxiety and the feeling that her life was out of her own control. The wedding seemed such a symptom of this chaotic feeling, that she felt tied to a train track, and the only way she could loosen the ropes and free herself was to pull out of the wedding. Though, in reality, staying in Bedford and being single, and letting Izzy down about their Australia plans, and starting work at String Theory, and getting a cat, had all felt like the opposite of freedom.
‘Oh no,’ said Mrs Elm, breaking Nora’s thoughts. ‘It’s too much for you.’
And suddenly she was back feeling all this contrition, all that pain of letting people down and letting herself down, the pain she had tried to escape less than an hour ago. The regrets began to swarm together. In fact, while staring at the open pages of the book, the pain was actually worse than it had been wandering around Bedford. The power of all the regrets simultaneously emanating from the book was becoming agony. The weight of guilt and remorse and sorrow too strong. She leaned back on her elbows, dropped the heavy book and squeezed her eyes shut. She could hardly breathe, as if invisible hands were around her neck.
‘Make it stop!’
‘Close it now,’ instructed Mrs Elm. ‘Close the book. Not just your eyes. Close it. You have to do it yourself.’
So Nora, feeling like she was about to pass out, sat back up and placed her hand under the front cover. It felt even heavier now but she managed to close the book and gasped in relief.
Every Life Begins Now
‘Well?’
Mrs Elm had her arms folded. Though she looked identical to the Mrs Elm Nora had always known, her manner was definitely a little more brusque. It was Mrs Elm but also somehow not Mrs Elm. It was quite confusing.
‘Well what?’ Nora said, still gasping, still relieved she could no longer feel the intensity of all her regrets simultaneously.
‘Which regret stands out? Which decision would you like to undo? Which life would you like to try on?’
She said that, precisely. Try on. As if this was a clothes shop and Nora could choose a life as easily as a T-shirt. It felt like a cruel game.
‘That was agony. I felt like I was about to be strangled. What is the point of this?’
As Nora looked up, she noticed the lights for the first time. Just naked bulbs hanging down from wires attached to the ceiling, which seemed like a normal kind of light-grey ceiling. Except it was a ceiling that reached no walls. Like the floor here, it went on for ever.
‘The point is there is a strong possibility that your old life is over. You wanted to die and maybe you will. And you will need somewhere to go to. Somewhere to land. Another life. So, you need to think hard. This library is called the Midnight Library, because every new life on offer here begins now. And now is midnight. It begins now. All these futures. That’s what is here. That’s what your books represent. Every other immediate present and ongoing future you could have had.’
‘So there are no pasts in there?’
‘No. Just the consequence of them. But those books are also written. And I know them all. But they are not for you to read.’
‘And when does each life end?’
‘It could be seconds. Or hours. Or it could be days. Months. More. If you have found a life you truly want to live, then you get to live it until you die of old age. If you really want to live a life hard enough, you don’t have to worry. You will stay there as if you have always been there. Because in one universe you have always been there. The book will never be returned, so to speak. It becomes less of a loan and more of a gift. The moment you decide you want that life, really want it, then everything that exists in your head now, including this Midnight Library, will eventually be a memory so vague and intangible it will hardly be there at all.’
One of the lights flickered overhead.
‘The only danger,’ continued Mrs Elm, more ominously, ‘is when you’re here. Between lives. If you lose the will to carry on, it will affect your root life – your original life. And that could lead to the destruction of this place. You’d be gone for ever. You’d be dead. And so would your access to all this.’
‘That’s what I want. I want to be dead. I would be dead because I want to be. That’s why I took the overdose. I want to die.’
‘Well, maybe. Or maybe not. After all, you’re still here.’
Nora tried to get her head around this. ‘So, how do I return to the library? If I’m stuck in a life even worse than the one I’ve just left?’
‘It can be subtle, but as soon as disappointment is felt in full, you’ll come back here. Sometimes the feeling creeps up, other times it comes all at once. If it never arrives, you’ll stay put, and you will be happy there, by definition. It couldn’t be simpler. So: pick something you would have done differently, and I will find you the book. That is to say, the life.’
Nora stared down at The Book of Regrets lying closed on the yellow-brown floor tiles.
She remembered chatting late at night with Dan about his dream of owning a quaint little pub in the country. His enthusiasm had been infectious, and it had almost become her dream too. ‘I wish I hadn’t left Dan. And that I was still in a relationship with him. I regret us not staying together and working towards that dream. Is there a life where we are still together?’
‘Of course,’ said Mrs Elm.
The books in the library