‘Maybe I overreacted about the Eid clothes,’ I said.
‘You always do, Mum.’
‘I just wanted everything to be perfect, you know?’
‘I can’t be like you, Mum. I can’t pretend to be different people all the time You have Eid clothes and you have Christmas and Easter dresses for Granny and Grandpa. You wear different clothes to your Pakistani friends’ houses and then completely different ones for your English friends! I just want to be me.’
I put my arm around her.
‘How did I produce such a wise soul as you?’ I smiled. ‘I love that you want to be yourself. That is exactly what I want for you, sweet Sofia. That’s what I want for myself too.’
She looked at me as if she could see inside my head.
‘Go on then, Mum, I dare you! At Christmas, wear your Pakistani clothes to Granny and Grandad’s place with Uncle Peter and Aunt Lucy and all the English neighbours. And next Eid, wear one of your little flippy dresses and ankle boots from Butterfly!’
‘OK, now I feel ill!’
I tried to imagine how it would feel to just ‘be myself’. The idea made me anxious. I didn’t know what ‘myself’ would look like. Or rather, it made me anxious to imagine how other people would react if I was simply ‘myself’.
Sofia put shots of her henna-decorated hands on Instagram before getting up to leave. She stopped at the door and turned around.
‘Look, promise you won’t tell Naila Aunty, but I saw Seema on the bus with her friends, and she was off her head. She was so drunk she didn’t even notice me.’
‘Oh no! Are you sure it was her?’
Naila would be devastated.
‘It was her. I know everyone thinks she’s wonderful, and Naila Aunty was telling Nani how Seema listens to her Namaz app every night, but she obviously isn’t that perfect. Anyway, I don’t want to snitch on her but yeah, at least I don’t do that, even if I didn’t wear my Eid clothes!’
Poor Naila. I wondered if she knew? I wasn’t sure what to do. If I told Naila that Sofia had told me this, she might not believe it. Sofia had also asked me not to say anything.
I went to find Naila.
‘We’ve declared a ceasefire!’ I smiled. ‘It’s so confusing, especially for our kids. All the culture mish-mash. And I don’t want to be too strict. I want to make sure that Sofia can talk to me.’
‘That’s true.’
‘Does Seema talk to you about parties and stuff? This is the age they start trying all kinds of things, right? Alcohol, boys. Terrifying!’
I laughed, watching Naila’s face for clues.
‘Seema knows what she’s allowed and what’s off bounds. I’m sorry you’re having issues with Sofia, but you really need to define the boundaries more clearly. Luckily Seema’s not the rebellious sort.’
I put my arm around Naila, pulling her close.
‘Ah, it’s hard being mums to teenagers, isn’t it?’
I’d keep reminding Naila to check in with Seema. I was sure Sofia didn’t tell me everything, either.
Eleven
4 weeks to May 30th
Tom dropped his iPad next to me on the bed. I scanned the email. The American bank had postponed the final interview due to a three-month hiring freeze.
I felt myself shaking and bit my lip, trying to control it. That meant no interview until August. Tom stood at the window with his back to me, his head bent.
I went up to him.
‘I’m so sorry, darling. I’m sure they’ll still call you for the interview in a few weeks.’
‘You’re sure, are you? What if they extend the hiring freeze? How do you know I’ll get a job ever again?’
He was shouting but he stopped when he saw my expression.
‘I shouldn’t be taking it out on you.’
‘You can take it out on me!’ I said.
I smiled and took his hand, just wanting to take his pain away somehow. He put his arms around me and I held on to him, clutching his shirt. Our lives felt precarious, as if any sharp movement would make everything collapse.
I rubbed his back gently. ‘Why don’t you come to the hospital with us?’ I said.
I was taking Baba to have an ECG at St George’s and I felt uneasy leaving Tom alone. There was a new kind of panic in his voice, that I’d never heard before. It scared me.
‘I’m fine, don’t worry. I’m going over to Mum and Dad’s. Their lawn mower is broken. I’ll see if I can fix it.’
By the time he got back, I’d be home.
My chest felt tight. We’d been relying on this job. The headhunter had said the interview was just a formality, and that the American bank had already decided to hire him. We had twenty-eight days before all our money finished. In four weeks, we’d be penniless, homeless. The words expanded inside my head until I felt them pressing against my skull.
Everything was suddenly clear.
‘Tom, I think we should sell the house.’
‘That’s not…’
‘Just hear me out. We can move out of the Village, get something smaller. The job market is so uncertain and you don’t need this kind of stress.’
What I could never have contemplated a month earlier seemed the obvious choice now. I loved this house, but I loved us more.
He took my hand and held it to his chest. I felt his heart beating.
‘I’ve thought about that too, but the property market has crashed, Faiza. We’d lose money if we sold now. It would take months, anyway, and by then things will have stabilised in the City.’
‘There’s no harm checking. It would give us so many more options. Maybe you could start that solar power business you’ve always talked about? And we don’t want to use up all our savings either, do we?’ I said.
I felt his muscles relax a little. Perhaps I could persuade him.
‘OK, but let’s revisit this in three months?’
I didn’t argue. I knew what had to be done. I’d get the house valued and get a quick offer. I was sure that he would feel relief, not anger, once it was a real possibility. He’d agree to sell it once I presented it to him as a ready solution to our problems.
As soon as he left, I called Naila. Her brother Shaan was an estate agent. When I told her that under the circumstances – the economic slump, the job market – I thought it would be wise to buy something smaller and free up some money, she didn’t agree.
‘I think it’s a terrible idea. Once you move out of the Village, you can never afford to buy back. You live right next to Wimbledon Tennis. The value’s just going to go up in future. Besides, you have three kids, so you can’t get something that much smaller, can you? What about their schools and their friends? Who will drive out to see you in the middle of nowhere? What will everyone say? And what about your parents? They only bought their flat to be close to you.’
I had agonised over the same things, but none of those mattered any more. If we defaulted on the mortgage, we’d lose the house anyway.
Tom was still subdued when he got back. There had been a phone-in on the radio earlier, when I was driving Baba to the hospital. The discussion was about a recent spate of City suicides. Middle-aged men, with families but without jobs, jumping off buildings. It had broken my heart to hear about them, but it had also left me terrified when I thought about Tom. Stress was a killer, they’d said. I knew selling the house was the right decision.
Twelve
I lay in bed, listening to the sounds of our sleeping house; the mechanical hiccup of the digital clock, air bubbles gurgling through the pipes in the radiators. I forced myself to stay still, so that I wouldn’t disturb Tom. My stillness intensified the thoughts churning in my head, the questions on a loop, without any answers. How would we pay the bills? How could I put things right? What would happen if he found out what I had done? It had been like this all week.
Images would flash into my mind unexpectedly, like vicious kicks catching me off guard; as I ate lunch with Tom, took a shower, watched Alex at football pra
ctice, or at school pickup as I chatted in a group. I imagined the fear on Tom’s face, bleeding into disgust as he realised the money was gone; Tom not loving me anymore and leaving me; the looks on the children’s faces when I told them they’d have to leave their friends, their schools, our home. My parents’ eyes, full of worry and reproach. The shock might be too much for Baba.
A tear trickled down my cheek and pooled into my ear. As others followed, it became difficult to quell my snuffles. I slipped out of bed and went downstairs, huddling my feet up on the sofa and pressing my fingertips against my swollen eyelids.
Shaan, the estate agent, was coming over the next morning, but I still needed to find a job.
I turned on my laptop. Sam said I had to keep applying and that it was a numbers game. Tom’s headhunter had not been optimistic for me, but said he would let us know if something came along. It would be easier to tell Tom the truth, once I had a job. I could offer him something besides my betrayal: a job, a plan, something to show that I was trying to put things right.
I trawled through the jobs website but I was getting nowhere. I texted Sam. It was late but she would see it when she woke up the next morning.
SOS. Any more ideas re job hunt?? xx
She replied instantly.
Let me think. Why are you up? xx
Why are YOU up?!! xx
Sam was always in bed by ten, whereas I loved to stay up once everyone was asleep, and have half an hour to myself, watching Netflix, scrolling through Instagram, or buying dresses online that I hid before Tom got home from work.
We decided to speak on the phone instead of texting.
‘Do you remember my friend Daniella? She’s a top headhunter in the City. She’s away right now but I’ll call her as soon as she’s back and ask if she can help,’ Sam offered.
I started to feel calmer.
‘So, why are you up so late?’ I said.
‘Admin for the builder. Guess what else I’m doing at half-past midnight on a Wednesday?’ said Sam.
‘Eating chocolate, watching porn, buying boots on Net-a-Porter?’ I laughed.
‘I wish. So, Rupert was throwing a big do for the in-laws’ fiftieth anniversary in October. It was all decided, but James says that, as the older brother, it’s his place to host the party, not Rupert’s. Rupert was getting a celebrity chef, Tatler, all his usual over-the-top-stuff.’
She paused to take an angry breath.
‘OK…?’ I said.
‘James wants to make sure we outdo whatever Rupert was planning. His mother keeps texting me Rupert’s plans, expecting us to match them. I just got a text saying, “Rupert was having Jamie Cullum”. That was it. The whole text!’
‘Oh no, that is a nightmare, although her text is funny in a grotesque way.’
‘James really believes that if he doesn’t do a good job, his parents won’t love him. He might even be right.’
That was some high-level dysfunctional shit, I thought. To Sam, I said, ‘Listen, you’re juggling so many things. Get a party planner, you can afford it. In fact, ask your mum-in-law to text the party planner direct. Tell her it’s your new number exclusively for the party. Actually, we should all have burner phones just for our mothers-in-law!’
Sam laughed, then sighed.
‘This party means so much to James. I have to get it right.’
I decided to check my emails before I went to bed. The one from Ahmed’s therapist jumped out first: Outstanding invoices.
Ahmed was still having fortnightly sessions for his anxiety and we couldn’t risk stopping them. I’d asked the GP to refer him to the NHS. The GP, a young woman wearing a designer shirt-dress and an Apple watch, had been understanding.
‘Of course. There is a waiting list, as I’m sure you can imagine, of around sixteen weeks. In the meantime, if things deteriorate to the point where he ever mentions harming himself, or…’ She paused, then continued, ‘Or, if he mentions suicide, then we can get him seen urgently.’
I nodded mutely. The image of Ahmed harming himself made me feel sick. His therapist had never mentioned anything like that, nor had Ahmed. The thought lodged itself like a bullet in my brain. I couldn’t let this notion exist anywhere, not even just in the GP’s mind.
‘I think you may have misunderstood. My son does need to continue the therapy because he was bullied and it’s led to some anxiety issues – but there’s never been any suggestion that he… I mean, his therapist has never mentioned…’
I couldn’t bring myself to even say it. I felt the tears in my eyes and looked down, embarrassed.
‘I’m so sorry. Of course, I don’t know your son’s case and I didn’t mean to suggest he might harm himself. It’s just something we need to tell everyone who is on the waiting list, in case their situation deteriorates. I should have made that clearer.’
The visit to the GP had not solved the immediate problem. I had to find the money for the private sessions until the NHS referral came through.
Even if Daniella could help me get a City job, it would take weeks. I decided to search for something that I could start straight away in the meantime. I froze when I saw, ‘Butterfly, Wimbledon Village. Sales Assistant Immediate Start’. Biffy, the owner, might overlook my lack of experience because my friends and I were great customers. I was an expert in her merchandise.
The job was perfect, except for one thing. When I imagined myself standing behind the counter, instead of at the other side, I knew it would spark off the gossip mill. It was too close to home. It would be better to be working away from the Village so I applied for three similar jobs in Covent Garden instead.
Not that the salaries any of them were paying would be enough to save our house.
Thirteen
26 days to May 30th
Shaan, the estate agent, was coming to do the evaluation. Tom had taken Sofia and her friends to their cross-country training in Guildford and I suggested he popped in to see his parents while he waited for Sofia to finish so he’d be out all morning.
When I called Shaan, initially he also advised me against selling in this market. However, if I was determined, he knew people, some overseas, who were looking to pick up bargains at the moment. He could probably find us a buyer within a few days, he said.
‘Maybe we can get a famous tennis player to snap it up.’
I led Shaan from room to room and he took measurements with his laser tape. I kept thinking, irrationally, that Tom might come home and catch me in the act and, more rationally, that I was a terrible person to have someone sizing up our house, our home, behind Tom’s back. This was no longer a little lie about how much a dress had cost, or paying an exorbitant amount for a birthday party that Ahmed had set his heart on. I had deliberately constructed a scaffold of lies around myself to keep Tom out. I knew it was wrong but I was only doing this to protect him, to protect us. It didn’t make me feel any better, though. My stomach churned with shame and regret.
Shaan took photos on his phone, admiring the minimalist marble of the white kitchen, the gleaming parquet, the walls painted the sheerest dove-grey, the Murano chandelier and the pitch-perfect shutters on the windows. As he shot each room from various angles, I saw what he couldn’t: the different stages of each child in every room. The long-gone highchairs in the kitchen, the skittles Ahmed set up in the hallway to improvise a bowling alley, Sofia and me watching In the Night Garden after nursery on the TV-room sofa. The dining room with French windows looking onto the garden, and the long table, where every family birthday had taken place: Tom’s, mine, the children’s, Ami’s and Baba’s, Farrah’s, Tom’s parents’, and his brother Peter’s. So many cakes, so much happiness, over so many years. We’d moved here when Sofia was just two.
‘I’m going to put these photos in an e-brochure and send them out to potential buyers this afternoon. It’s a stunning house,’ said Shaan.
It all sounded positive. I didn’t think about losing our home or what I would tell people. I only focussed on saving my
family. Once Shaan had a buyer, I’d speak to Tom, and persuade him that selling the house made sense. He might secretly be relieved, under the circumstances.
In the utility room extension, Shaan paused to peer behind the tumble dryer, using the torch on his phone. Then he pushed the dryer aside to look more closely. He went out to the garden, saying that he had to check something. I read my texts to make sure Tom hadn’t messaged that he was coming back early. I was eager for Shaan to leave as soon as he could.
When he came back in a few minutes later, Shaan was frowning. He had the same expression on his face as when he was eleven and Naila and I used to shout at him to get out of the room.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
‘How long’s this crack been in the wall?’
‘I don’t know. Why? We can get it fixed, don’t worry.’
‘I’m afraid it’s not that simple,’ he said.
I felt the nerves in my neck harden. I couldn’t bring myself to ask him why.
‘I’m so sorry, Faiza Baji, but this is subsidence. I don’t know the extent of it without getting a survey. It may not be bad, but there’s no way you can sell the house quickly in this state. This could take months to sort out.’
Shaan touched my arm. I tried to say something, but couldn’t.
All our safety nets had disappeared.
Fourteen
25 days to May 30th
When I woke up my heart was racing, even though my head was still on the pillow and my only activity so far had been to open my eyes. It felt as if my insides were being trampled by a runaway horse.
I grabbed my phone and as I did every morning now, before anything else, opened up the calendar. Twenty-five days. Less than a month.
My breathing got faster, out of control. I went down to the living room, but there was no escape. I sat in my silent house, clenching my hands until they hurt. I looked around at the family photographs and Alex’s drawings, which I had pinned up on the bookshelves. It felt as if I was taking inventory of a life that was about to disappear.
Would I Lie to You? Page 7