Chapter Two

London

It was half-past four on a Friday afternoon – those revered and sacred minutes in a quiet, British suburban office, when the weekend had finally crept so close that the anticipation of it was pleasurable rather than agonising. Leyla looked forward to these two days hungrily, more excited by the prospect of release from her office, with its rain-flecked window and the grim brightness of its three fluorescent tubes, than by any particular plans. The low pall of the Surrey sky matched the relentlessly beige paint on the walls, which were not noticeably helped by the photographs and pictures that she had long ago hung on them. She took a sip of cooling tea and flicked open her notebook. A sentence had occurred to her as she had looked from the buzzing light tubes to the steely sky, and she wanted to get it down before she lost it. She did so, then carefully busied herself for a moment by closing the computer spread-sheet she had been working on, before she allowed herself to re-read the line. She nodded slightly, pleased. There was one good thing to be said for working with numbers all day – she could hardly keep up with the words that fought to spill out of her in the evenings.

During the last six months, she had almost completed a first novel, and she was surprised to find herself pleased with what she had produced. She had been daunted, at the start, by the sheer hubris of daring to put down on paper the sudden clusters of words that pep-pered her thoughts, and certainly she would not allow her mind the pleasure of imagining these snatched hours of writing, these short patches of consciousness detached from the regular, even shapes of the world about her, as a way of life that might one day come to fill all her days.

‘Leaving early?’ her father asked her with a grin. It was over an hour later, and he had caught sight of her trying to pass noiselessly through the open car park that his office overlooked. He did not care that his daily view consisted of two Mercedes, a Volvo, a Toyota and two Ford Fiestas; he liked to notice the flow of bodies in and out of the office. For Leyla, it seemed particularly harsh that, so close to Friday evening freedom, she should have heard the unmistakable, familiar tap on the window, and been forced to turn and walk back in to see him.

‘Hardly early,’ she said, with a quick smile. ‘It’s six. In fact you owe me an hour’s overtime.’

Sam laughed. His office was large, with an impressive boardroom table that remained completely unused, for there was no board to report to, and a stained mahogany desk broad enough to complement his tall, solid frame. He sat back in his wide leather chair, laced his hands behind his head, and said, with calculated casualness:

‘This is all going to belong to you and Yasmin one day, you know.’

It was a familiar lead-in, and she smiled even as she felt a misgiving hit her in the stomach.

‘But it won’t keep going without sales,’ he continued.

‘You know I’m no good at selling, Dad,’ she began, but her manner was too hesitant, her pitch too half-hearted. She hated to say things that disappointed him and, as a result, she realised that she couldn’t even sell him the idea that she was not a salesperson.

‘You don’t sell life insurance,’ her father assured her.

‘I know, I know,’ she replied. ‘It sells itself.’

‘Exactly,’ he smiled, pointing a finger at her. He was charming, she had to admit that.

‘Life insurance,’ he continued, ‘is a sure bet. We all know we’re going to die.’

She placed her notepad, briefcase and coat down in a heap on the floor. She had been clutching them against her as a kind of talisman, in the hope that he would be psychologically fooled into thinking that she was in a hurry to get home. But now there was no denying the truth – a full day pinned behind his desk, dealing with the paperwork he so disliked had left him thirsty for human contact, hungry for an audience. With relief, she remembered that she had an unbeatable way out, but he was so happily animated that she could not bear to play her card just yet.

‘You think I like selling? I’ve got news for you – I don’t.’

That was a blatant lie if ever she’d heard one. He loved selling.

He lived and died for it; and he did it superbly. He sold things all the time, even at home. He would delight in asking if she and her sister wanted their chicken curry with chapattis or rice – thereby ensuring that they accepted the curry itself without argument. It was the law of limited choices, he would explain. Never ask a potential client if he’d like to see you; ask him which time would be better for him. The psychology of it was interesting, but on the rare occasions she had tried the strategy, even to pin down errant photocopier repair men, it had not worked. ‘Would morning or afternoon be better for you today?’ she would gamely ask, only to be told that the next available slot was for the following Thursday. She felt sure that knowing how to approach the client was only half the battle; that one must also possess bottomless reserves of resolve, confidence, chutzpah. She felt a surge of admiration pass through her, that her father had found within this industry a passion and drive that made him endlessly inventive in his sales techniques, constantly excited, and extremely successful.

‘I don’t sell anything,’ he reiterated. ‘I just ask my client if he’s going to die? There’s only one answer. Then, I ask him – are you one hundred and fifty per cent happy that your wife and kids are going to be taken care of the way you want them to be, for the entire rest of their lives?’ He paused here, to recreate the dramatic tension of the moment. ‘You know what? They always hesitate. And then,’ he said, slapping his large fist into an equally capacious palm.

‘You’ve got ’em.’

She cleared her throat. It certainly did not sound difficult. Only two questions – you knew there was no dodging the first one, and the second was a zinger too. She pictured herself sitting before a potential client, probably the son of a prosperous, suburban busi-nessman who had been her father’s client previously. They would be sitting in the drawing room, with cups of tea before them. There would have to be some small talk (another thing she was poorly skilled at). And then, she would have to make her pitch. She tried to do so, now, in her head, but all that stood out was the imagined client’s shocked face when she told him with great force that he was definitely going to die. She pictured him: defensive, irritated, unhappy. She tried to move on to the next point, the main point, the part about his wife and children being taken care of, but could not. Her mind blanked, fully, utterly, and the chintz living room dropped out of her mind’s eye, leaving her with a string of words.

Gratefully she realised that she had located, without even looking for it, the opening sentence for her next chapter. She glanced in-voluntarily, longingly, at the notebook by her feet, then up at her father.

‘Maybe I can keep the business going on the admin side,’ she suggested. ‘Like I’m doing now.’

‘Administration is meaningless,’ he replied. ‘Unless there are sales. Sales bring in the money.’

He was right of course, and this afternoon’s short course in the joys of salesmanship was part of a much broader, ongoing education entitled Taking Over The Business. Leyla’s sister had already unceremoniously flunked this course when she had elected to spend two years after university working with an NGO in Kenya. Since her recent return she had resolutely refused Sam’s offers to join the business, instead insisting on working for a caterer with a view to starting her own food supply company, having been inspired by two years of goat stew and boiled mealies never to be without access to gnocchi, lemongrass or salmon roe ever again. Their father was merely mortified that three years of International Relations at a top British university had left his younger daughter a waitress.

‘I have a date with Ali this evening,’ Leyla said, trying to cover her desperation with an air of casual recollection.

As she had anticipated, this sentence successfully derailed the sales recruitment drive. Her father raised his eyebrows.

‘That’s good. Where are you going?’

‘Into town. We’re visiting a friend of his, then dinner.’

‘It’s Friday, you know. Your mother and I will be at the mosque.’

‘Dad, I believe in our religion. You know I do. I just don’t like to go when everyone else does.’ It was hard for her to push her point of view, and there were many areas in which she remained silent to avoid conflict, but in some, small aspects she knew she had to stand firm or be completely subsumed.

‘If you don’t go with everyone else, how will they know you’re a good Muslim?’

She laughed, grateful for his gracious capitulation.

‘Go on, then,’ he told her. ‘Don’t be home too late.’

‘I’m twenty three, Dad.’

He looked at her for a moment. ‘I know,’ he said, gently. She retrieved her coat and her keys and the precious notebook from the floor and then went to the door.

‘I won’t be late,’ she told him and she left, with an ache of regret in the base of her stomach. Regret that she found it so dispropor-tionately hard to live up to his reasonably pitched ideals, and regret that the brilliant sentence that had occurred to her a few moments before was now lost to her mind forever.

London, for Leyla, possessed a debonair glamour that was perhaps enhanced by only limited exposure to it when growing up in the shelter of its suburbs. In Ali’s car, sleek and silver and low to the ground, they piloted through Hyde Park, towards Mayfair. The sun was setting now, had lowered so far that it had escaped the shield of cloud that had concealed it all day, and was spread like a molten slice of liquid gold over the tops of the trees. The curling, unfurling ribbons of cloud that extended on each side were touched with pink and red.

‘Did you arrange that just for me?’ she asked.

Ali looked out of her window. ‘What?’ he asked.

She pointed, hiding her surprise that he had not noticed the glow of light beyond the window. ‘The sunset,’ she said.

He looked again, then smiled. ‘Oh yes. It’s beautiful.’

They parked beneath a streetlamp that had just begun to glow yellow and walked past the grand facades of old buildings, gleaming in the soft dusk. Glimpses of other lives attracted her to the windows that they passed. There were high ceilings and sparkling lights; in one framed, brief tableau she saw two waiters setting a long table.

In another, the soft glow of firelight played on two armchairs where newspapers were being read in a club.

‘How do you know Tala?’ Leyla asked as they walked.

‘Her first fiancé was my best friend at university. I met Tala through him.’

‘First fiancé? How many has she had?’

Ali grinned. ‘She’s currently on number four.’

‘Four?!’ There was a profligacy to this number, as it related to betrothals, that left Leyla momentarily breathless with surprise.

‘He’s a lovely guy, from Jordan. I think this one will stick. And then she’ll spend more time in Jordan and less here in London. Her family has houses in both places.’

‘So where does she work?’ Leyla asked.

‘She’s always helped her father in the family businesses. But she’s been trying to set up something of her own from London. Working with Palestinian suppliers. Her family is Palestinian, originally.’

‘Refugees?’ she asked, startled.

He laughed. ‘I suppose all Palestinians are; but they were lucky.

They had a business in Jordan before Palestine was lost, so they came out of it much better than most.’

They reached the front door of an imposing, white stuccoed house, and Ali rang the bell. Their eyes met as Leyla straightened the line of her blouse.

‘What’s the matter?’ he asked. ‘You nervous?’

She nodded and he touched her hand kindly.

‘Tala’s great. Trust me, you’ll love her.’

It struck Leyla as strange that they had ostensibly come to visit Ali’s friend Tala, but had so far met only her parents. She sat forward in her antique chair, attentive and polite, holding a fragile, miniature glass cup whose rim was delicately threaded with gold. The glass was filled with a sweet, amber tea in which an escaped mint leaf floated.

Leyla sipped at it, watching the parents with interest, especially the mother, for after a week at work in the restrained, self-deprecating and often colourless atmosphere of an office in Surrey, Reema appeared to her to be somewhat exaggerated as a person. While Tala’s father and Ali fell deep into a conversation about business, Reema inserted a cigarette into an improbably long holder and lit it with a miniature gold palm tree that erupted into flame. There followed a quiet moment in which Leyla sipped at her tea while Reema enjoyed in peace the first, deep inhalation of nicotine, before she turned her attention to her guest as she hissed a stream of pungent smoke into the room.

‘So, how long have you and Ali been dating?’

Leyla hesitated. ‘About two months.’ In truth, the actual time had blurred into a larger block of her life that she could not immediately grasp hold of. Reema’s appraising eyes flickered over Leyla.

‘And? Does he want to marry you?’

Taken aback, she laughed. ‘I don’t know.’

In fact, she suspected that he was very much interested in marrying her. She had not gained this awareness from any deep issuing of emotion on his part, but because it was commonly understood amongst their friends and family and wider community, that Ali had decided to ‘settle down’. And since she came from the same religious background as he, and since he had the advantage of money, business acumen and charm it would have been inconceivable for her to turn him down when he asked for a date. She herself hadn’t thought it reasonable to say no without meeting him, although she was surprised that he had even asked her. She was not sociable, and lacked enthusiasm for more than occasional invitations out. She was fit (she ran most mornings, around the quiet sprawling roads that surrounded their house), and slim as a result, but shopping for clothes bored and confused her, and so she never had the perfect outfit for any given situation, but would make do with the few good pieces that she had, and which her sister Yasmin had helped her pick out.

It had occurred to Leyla after Ali continued calling her that perhaps he found her general gaucheness artless and appealing in some way.

For his part, he had proved intelligent, articulate and adept, eager to learn, well-travelled and generous. And after several weeks she was indifferent to him, except as a friend; in that capacity she was deeply attached to him. As far as she could ascertain, he might be happy to stride into a marriage on the basis of this friendship, whereas she could not. And they were still together because while she suspected all this to be true, she could not bring herself to be presumptuous enough to take his intentions for granted, and so she could not speak of the marriage issue until he did. For now, therefore, they remained good friends and Leyla studiously ignored the fact that, in her mind, they seemed to be steering in different directions.

‘Tala’s engagement party was last week in Jordan. The best party anyone had seen in Amman for some time,’ Reema reminisced with a smile. ‘Tala’s the eldest. My middle one, Lamia, got married straight out of college. She’s very beautiful, though.’

Leyla hesitated, unsure she had heard this last comment correctly, thereby giving Reema time to toss in another question.

‘What does your father do?’ Reema inhaled again, hungrily.

Footsteps were moving quickly down the hallway. Leyla had an instant mental picture of a rich, well-dressed Middle Eastern daughter with immaculate hair, nails and make-up, accessorised and high-heeled to within an inch of her life. Instead, a tall young woman in jeans strode in and shook her head at Reema.

‘Stop interrogating the poor girl, Mama.’

Leyla stood up quickly, watching as Ali grasped Tala in a bear hug and when Tala turned to her, Leyla held out a hand, friendly but formal. Tala regarded the hand with an air of amusement before leaning to kiss the girl on both cheeks. Leyla smiled and recipro-cated, not wanting to appear awkward, although she was. She had never learned how to decide when to offer a hand versus a kiss.

Other people seemed to drift easily into the right method for the right person; there must be some intricate web of body language that Leyla had not grasped, or perhaps it was her innate reserve that held her back more easily than it urged her forward. Tala smiled, noting the indecision in Leyla’s movement.

‘Sorry to break your British reserve,’ Tala said. ‘But we always kiss in the Middle East.’ She paused and leaned forward conspirato-rially. ‘Usually just before we slit your throat…’

Leyla smiled and took in the young woman before her. Tala wore a soft shirt, open at the throat to reveal a thin, plain gold chain. Her nails were short and unpolished, her shoes immaculate, but flat and practical. Her hair was curly and untamed, and it lent her an air of slight madness, as though the thoughts in her head were springing directly out through her scalp. Leyla became aware that her face was advertising her surprise because Tala was watching her, amused.

‘You’re not what I expected.’ Leyla spoke the most coherent sentence floating in her head and then closed her eyes slightly against her own forthrightness.

‘That’s because Ali paints me as a rich, spoilt princess,’ Tala replied dryly.

‘Isn’t it true?’ he asked her with gentle sarcasm.

‘I’m not a princess,’ she replied with a smile.

‘Just rich and spoilt,’ her father noted, filling in the gap with the punchline that Tala had deliberately left open for him.

She smiled and sat on the floor, waving away offers of a seat. Her gaze moved back to Leyla.

‘And are you what my mother expected? I heard her giving you the third degree, even from the hallway.’

Reema cleared her throat in preparation for her own defence, which evidently her daughter was going to make necessary tonight.

Even in front of guests, she had a habit of ignoring social niceties that was unbecoming and occasionally embarrassing.

‘I’m not sure,’ Leyla said, with a lack of wit that she immediately regretted.

‘Mama.’ Her mother addressed Tala in the Arabic style, by using her own title. ‘I was having a polite conversation. She is a lovely girl.’ Reema’s eyes again passed over Leyla as she made this pro-nouncement, taking in the well-proportioned features, the glossy dark hair (which could be styled a little more) and the figure which was acceptable, although the girl clearly lacked the awareness of how to enhance her natural assets. She looked to be decent enough, perhaps lacking a little polish, but there was still the matter of her father’s work that had to be flushed out.

‘How many people work in your family’s business?’ Reema asked, by way of subtly gauging the size of the concern.

‘About one in three,’ Leyla quipped. It was a habit of hers, when she was self-conscious, to fall back on small jokes but she was immediately sorry for it. Reema regarded her blankly, and only the fact that she began the ritual of preparing another cigarette prevented Leyla from withering entirely under the older woman’s gaze.

Tala, however, laughed.

‘There are ten of us here,’ Leyla replied quickly. ‘And about ten in Africa – we have a couple of offices there.’

This pleased Reema immensely. ‘A worldwide operation,’ she said. An overblown and inaccurate vision of her father’s business as a multi-national conglomerate passed briefly through Leyla’s mind as she smiled politely at Reema.

‘Mama,’ Tala said. ‘Ease up on the questions. She’s marrying Ali, not me.’

Everyone laughed, but beneath the stretched tension of Reema’s powdered face, her cheeks burned. It was an easy, flippant comment, but Tala’s referral to marriage, to herself in relation to this girl; the throwaway suggestion of union between two women, set Reema’s teeth on edge. She reached for the flaming palm tree once more and waited for the first drag on her cigarette to relax her.

‘I hear you’re getting married,’ offered Leyla. ‘Congratulations.

That’s wonderful news.’

Reema sat back and listened and decided that she liked this girl Leyla after all.

‘You’re welcome to come to the wedding, if you like, it’s in six weeks,’ offered Tala. ‘Have you been to Jordan?’

Leyla had been nowhere in the Middle East. It spoke to her of starry nights and sand dunes (both images gleaned from 970’s Turkish Delight advertisements). It suggested liquid, smoky eyes glimpsed over a hijab, cardamom-infused coffee and romantic souks. She tried to communicate this to Tala with the necessary tone of irony, aware that Reema was regarding her strangely.

‘The souk in Amman is a dump,’ Tala informed her. ‘But I can have someone take you there if you like.’

‘That’s kind of you,’ Leyla replied. She was secretly shocked by the presumption that the sudden wedding invitation would be accepted. ‘But I’m afraid I won’t be able to come. I have to work.’

‘Do you like it?’

‘What?’

‘Your work?’

Leyla hesitated. ‘Mostly. It’s finance and numbers, mainly.’

‘But it’s not your passion?’

She did not know how to answer such a question. It was the first time she had ever been asked it. She looked at Tala’s eyes, softly brown, intent, alive.

‘No,’ she replied. ‘Not my passion.’

Apparently unconscious of the impression she was making, Tala reached for the small tray of syrup-drenched pastries that accompanied the tea, offering them around before putting one into her mouth.

‘Mama, we’re having dinner in an hour,’ Reema said reproachful-ly. ‘And there is not a millimetre to spare in your wedding dress.’

‘I’m not going to starve for another six weeks, Mama.’ Tala ate another pastry and looked at Leyla. ‘Join us for dinner?’

‘I don’t know, we…’ she looked to Ali, but he was explaining supply chain economics to Tala’s father. Quickly Leyla cast around for another question to ask.

‘Will you get married in a mosque?’ she asked, falling back on the wedding plans as an acceptable avenue for small talk. But she noticed Reema’s eyebrows meet in a frown.

‘A church,’ Reema corrected. ‘A church.’

‘Not all Arabs are Muslims,’ Tala said.

‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed…’Leyla began, but Tala interrupted her.

‘Are you a Muslim?’

Leyla wondered if Tala simply did not know how to ask questions about the weather. She sat up as she nodded. The ornate, carved chair in which she sat was becoming uncomfortable, but she felt an unusual pulse of energy moving through her limbs.

‘Why?’ Tala asked.

‘Mama, what kind of a question is that?’ Reema demanded. ‘Because she was born a Muslim.’

‘No, she wasn’t,’ said Tala.

‘Weren’t you?’ Reema asked. Leyla felt her mouth opening uncertainly and then closing again, but Tala left no time for any reply.

‘She was born female and a certain race,’ Tala told her mother.

‘And if she’d been adopted by a Jewish family, she’d have been Jewish.’Reema sat back and exhaled a stream of cigarette smoke in relief.

‘Thank God she wasn’t adopted. What the Middle East doesn’t need is more Jews!’

‘Mama, please!’ Tala closed her eyes, shook her head and sat back.

Out in the hallway Rani, the housekeeper who, as always, had travelled with Reema from Jordan, pushed out the swing door from the kitchen with her ample backside, for her hands were holding a silver tray carrying a crystal tumbler of water. She paused for a moment in the dim corridor, listening briefly as Reema expounded on politics and religion. She spat into the water, and then, with a slight flourish, dropped in a tablet of soluble painkiller that fizzed its way up the glass.

Leyla felt the room spin for a moment, but the moment passed.

She forced herself to focus on the arrival of an Indian housekeeper, bearing a small gilt tray upon which a glass of effervescent liquid rested.

‘Your headache medicine, Madam,’ Rani said. Leyla watched the housekeeper intently, seeking respite from the aggression of the conversation, but found instead that the woman’s eyes held what seemed like a malicious gleam as she watched Reema lift the glass to her lips.

‘I don’t have a headache,’ Reema remembered suddenly. Rani’s face dropped as she pushed the tray nearer.

‘But it is seven o’clock, Madam. Your usual headache time.’

Despite the logic of this reply, Reema dismissed her with a flick of the hand, then rose and excused herself. She had no more than three quarters of an hour to re-apply her make up and get dressed for dinner. Even from the hallway, she could hear Tala’s hectoring tone. The girl was lucky anyone would marry her, she thought to herself, let alone a gem like Hani.

‘You didn’t answer my question,’ Tala said.

‘I’m not Jewish,’ Leyla answered with a slight smile.

Tala laughed. ‘Why not?’

‘Why aren’t you?’

‘I don’t subscribe to any religion,’ Tala explained.

‘So you live without any faith?’ asked Leyla, feeling more controlled now, more like her father. She waited for a response, but for a few moments Tala only met her gaze intently.

‘I didn’t say that,’ she said gently.

Disarmed and disconcerted, Leyla looked away. ‘Why should my beliefs offend you?’

‘They don’t,’ Tala smiled. ‘I just want to know why they don’t offend you.’

Leyla suddenly longed for just a small touch of her father’s sales techniques. He would never have let the conversation get this far out of hand. He would already have converted to Islam the woman with the expressive hair, sitting on the floor.

‘Okay,’ Leyla said, desperately. ‘I’ve been brought up to follow this religion, this path. Is that so bad?’ Leyla detected an edge of whining defensiveness in her own ears that was not attractive.

‘Yes’ Tala said. ‘Why aren’t you Jewish? Just by choosing one of these paths, you’re implying there’s something better about the one chosen, aren’t you?’

‘Maybe not better, just preferred,’ Leyla replied.

‘But did you prefer Islam? Or do you prefer it because it’s what you were brought up with? How would your parents feel if you ‘preferred’ Judaism?’

‘It’s more than a preference,’ Leyla said, desperately. ‘It’s faith.’

‘I see,’ Tala said, smiling. ‘Faith. So no questioning allowed.’

‘You just questioned me.’

‘And you didn’t proclaim a fatwa on my head,’ she laughed.

‘Thank you!’

The cold wind of the London night caught Leyla with violence on the side of her head as they left. Ali reached for her hand, but she could not bring herself to take hold of something which brought so little comfort, so little emotion of any kind. She felt raw, as though the scars had been picked from old, dried wounds, and the exposed cuts were now being dipped into salt water. She glanced up, towards the old lamps of the park, to the gracious brick buildings whose warm interiors spoke of comfortable, pleasurable lives. But these gave her not an ounce of consolation, no salve to spread over the mental beating she had just received.

They got into the car.

‘Did you like them?’ he asked.

‘Oh, yes,’ she replied and she was speaking the truth, at least partly. Some corner of her battered mind was grateful for the exchange that had just happened, was inspired by the simple, yet undeniably clear possibilities that this unknown girl had casually placed before her, as though offering a tray of sweetmeats. But the rest of her was relieved to sink into the leather seats of Ali’s car and to shut the door and enclose herself in the small, warm space with only him beside her.

Date: 2015-02-28; view: 640