by Azi Ahmed
For some reason I hadn’t thought she would respond so logically. I pursued this in front of Dad. His reaction was just to sit on the sofa, flicking his eyes between Mum and me as we stood above him arguing. Every so often Mum would spin round to him for a reaction, but he wasn’t giving anything away. It was annoying as I expected more reaction from him. I expected him to say something at least. My brothers didn’t have to go through this, so why did I? Why did boys have different rules?
The second attempt was on a Tuesday evening when the shop was quiet and Mum and I were both sat at the table in the back room. Dad sat on the armchair reading the Daily Jang newspaper.
I was doing an art project on my drawing board, smudging the pastel colours with my thumb. Mum was picking small stones out of a bowl of dry lentils.
‘Why can’t I study away?’ I finally said, rubbing an invisible line out on my drawing.
‘Because girls don’t leave home before marriage,’ Mum replied, matter of fact. ‘We don’t want you getting into bad company.’
‘I could be doing that now,’ I replied. ‘You don’t know what I get up to when I say I’m going to college all day. But I’m not. There’s more to life than boys.’ It came out before I could stop myself. I had never spoken like this before.
The brushing noise of her fingers trailing through the lentils stopped. I held my breath, preparing for a telling off, only to be faced with a wall of silence. My eyes flickered up and I noticed she was lost for words. I wasn’t sure if this was because of my sudden upfront behaviour or by the words spoken. Either way, it worked, something happened. Dad looked up from his paper. Tears sprang to my eyes. I didn’t want either of them to see this weak side of me. Head down, I ran into the bathroom. I blew my nose as quietly as possible so they wouldn’t hear, and prayed the shop bell wouldn’t ring before the puffiness around my eyes reduced. It felt like I had been grieving for a life I’d lost before it had begun. I just couldn’t imagine a life like my sister’s or Shazia’s. I didn’t see myself as special or better, it just wasn’t me.
Finally, I came out of the bathroom and saw my dad stood outside looking down at me.
Did he hear my sniffling? Was he going to tell me off for speaking to Mum in that way?
‘I’m sorry I spoke to…’
I noticed he was looking at me in a peculiar way, almost straight through me.
‘You’ve always been self-sufficient. The shop will look after itself.’
It was like decrypting some World War Two code. At least with Mum she said what she thought.
‘Dad, I promise I will call every night, come home every weekend…’
He opened his arms and embraced me with the biggest hug I’d had in a long time.
Over the following few days the conversations between Mum and I were minimal. In the shop, I just called out the curry orders to her and Hajji and carried on serving at the front. If the order went wrong, we did not argue about it like we normally did, I just re-did it.
It came round to another Friday evening and the shop was chocka after the pubs closed, with people trying to get their orders in before we shut at 12 p.m. Mum handed me an order of lamb madras and Pillai rice she had prepared.
‘You can go!’ she shouted over the noise.
‘What?’ I shouted back, thinking she was saying something about the order.
‘Bristol.’ She touched my fingers as I took the foiled containers from her. ‘You can go.’
I was up all night not quite believing what Mum had said. Part of me thought I’d dreamt it and part feared she might change her mind.
The next morning I was up early and headed into college to tell Dave the good news. The canteen was surprisingly busy for that time of the year and I joined a table of six students trying to listen into their conversation. Someone was being congratulated for being accepted to Central Saint Martins.
I leaned over and looked down the table. ‘Where?’
‘Central Saint Martins in London … it’s one of the best art colleges.’
I was dumbstruck. I had never heard of the place, but if I had, I would have applied there instead. I suddenly felt this ball of adrenalin build up inside me. I felt like I’d been short-changed in some warped way. Just then, Dave walked in and headed over to the sandwich bar.
‘Dave.’ I sped up to him as he inspected a cheese roll wrapped in cling film. ‘I’ve changed my mind; I want to go to Saint Martins.’
Dave looked bemused, not knowing where this had come from, then threw me a sympathetic smile. ‘I think you have enough things to deal with … have you told your parents you’re leaving?’
My mind wasn’t on my parents any more; Bristol or London – it was the same story to them.
‘You’ll love it in Bristol,’ he continued, putting the sandwich back down and walking over to the drinks machine. ‘Besides, what makes you think you’re good enough to get into Saint Martins?’
That was the best thing Dave could have ever said to me. That night I lay awake and couldn’t get his words out of my head. He was someone I respected. Did he really think I wasn’t good enough to get in? The next morning I found myself in a phone box down the road from the house calling up Central Saint Martins.
The lady on the other end of the telephone was firm, telling me all the places were full this year but that I could come and see the degree show with a view to applying the following year. That evening I told Mum I was attending an art exhibition and might be a bit late home, but would prepare the salad bowls for the shop in the morning before going to college. I’d saved up enough money from the pizzas sold in the shop to buy a travel ticket.
With my big portfolio tucked under an armpit, I caught the train to London. I’d never been to the big city and got lost on the underground, finally rising up in the lift to ground level at Covent Garden, where the graphics building was then located on Long Acre. The entrance of the college was deserted. At the top of the stairs, I was faced with four doors with no labels. I spun round, not knowing which one to knock, then a man came out of one. He had a stocky build, was wearing an eccentric floral shirt, and had the most amazing moustache that curled up at each end.
‘Yes, can I help?’ He bent forward, sticking one ear inches away from my face.
Perhaps he thinks I have a quiet voice, I thought. I spoke extra loud, asking if I could see a first-year tutor because I wanted to apply to come this summer. The man repeated word-for-word what the woman on the phone had told me.
‘But I’ve travelled three hours on the train.’ I persisted. ‘Can they not spare ten minutes, please?’
He could see the desperation on my face. He went quiet for a moment then asked me to wait there and disappeared through one of the doors.
I stood still and gathered my thoughts, not quite believing I was here. Only yesterday I was feeling ecstatic about Mum letting me go to Bristol. A part of me waited for the doubt to kick in, but it didn’t. This was where I wanted to be and I wasn’t leaving until I gave it my best shot.
The man suddenly came out of a different door and waved me in. I followed him inside where three tutors were sat having a drink. They were probably in the middle of enjoying their end-of-year get-together and I was disturbing them, I thought guiltily.
Quickly, I opened my portfolio and ran through my work. (I had a two o’clock train to catch, which would get me back in time to open the shop.) The interview was mainly made up of questions on why I’d come here today. I told them the truth: from the moment that I’d heard Saint Martins being mentioned just twenty-four hours ago in my college canteen, to getting on the train this morning and being here. They flicked through my pieces of work then said I would get a letter from them in the morning.
I nodded my head, my only concern now being catching the train back to Manchester.
That night I tossed and turned in bed at the day’s events, then rose early and hovered around the front door of the house, waiting for the postman. Yesterday’s events felt surreal now. Only
the letter would tell me if it had really happened.
The post eventually fell on the mat.
I stared at the white envelope addressed to me with a Central Saint Martins stamp on the front.
I opened it and smiled uncontrollably as I read the words: Accepted at the college this September.
CHAPTER THREE
THE BIG CITY
I LEFT HOME with two carrier bags and a set of tasbih prayer beads. Perhaps it was out of habit or the ritual I was brought up with from my mosque days, but somehow my day didn’t feel right without repeating a line from the Koran over each of the hundred beads and saying a prayer.
Waking up for the first time in the Tooting Broadway halls of residence felt strange. I’d never been away from home before, not even on sleepovers as a kid. I couldn’t hear my mum calling from the kitchen; I didn’t have to think about cutting the salad before the shop opened, or cooking Dad’s dinner.
Judging from the corridor noise of students on their way to college, I knew I had overslept.
I decided to wear a pink flowery top, velvet jacket, and maroon lipstick, with a range of bright eyeshadow colours making my eyes look like butterflies on my first day of college. Most of my clothes were bright and silky with bold flowers. I still wore my gold bangles that weighed heavy, made marks on my wrist and jingled all the time. I also wore a gold necklace with red and green stones and dangly Indian-style earrings.
The first thing that struck me as I walked down Tooting High Street was the number of Afro-Caribbeans. I’d never seen so many in my life.
The train station was crowded by my standards, and after talking to the ticket officer I bought a weekly travel pass and headed down the escalator for the train.
People on the train didn’t speak and the whole carriage was silent – very strange. I sat next to a woman and started talking. She looked down at her bags, making sure they were still there, and then got off at the next stop. How weird, I thought, thinking back to my bus journeys in Manchester where everyone talked. Never mind, once they see me on the train a few times we will get chatting. For some reason, I assumed I would see the same people on the train in the same carriage the next day, as I did on the bus in Manchester.
When I arrived at college I got another surprise: the students didn’t look at all as I expected. Less conventional than Manchester, they didn’t seem to wear high-street fashion. Instead, they wore weird clothes, listened to strange music, and a lot of them smoked. Girls looked unfeminine with their scruffy jeans and baggy jumpers, and wearing no make-up, not even eyeliner. I wondered what they thought of me in my conventional jeans and flat, comfortable shoes.
Living at the halls became an issue. I longed to cook chapattis and hot curry, which the kitchen didn’t facilitate. Students would get drunk, be sick, then spend their weekend in bed. Perhaps they took this freedom and independence for granted, but to me it was a waste of life.
Now I didn’t have the kebab shop in the evenings and weekends, I was going mad with boredom. I tried to find a job in a fashionable clothes shop in Covent Garden but they didn’t seem impressed with my kebab shop CV. Working in another kebab shop would be like taking a step back.
I moved out of the halls after the first term into a bedsit in Wood Green. It was a dreary place, but felt more like living in society than the isolated student hub of the halls. I couldn’t stand being surrounded by students any more. I wanted to meet different people. I felt removed from life.
The fear of being financially deprived always played at the back of my mind. I remember the jumble-sale clothes Mum made me wear to school, and sometimes having to leave home in the morning without breakfast because there was no food in the fridge. Thankfully, in those days the government supplied milk for kids at schools. Secondary school was worse, when my parents started up their businesses. I had to wear the same uniform every year, while others, whose parents didn’t work, received government allowances for new ones each year. I remember once being laughed at by a girl because I had a big hole in my shoe – my parents couldn’t afford new ones.
In the first year of college, we were left to experiment freely on art projects to bring out our individual styles. Mine was bright colours. It didn’t matter what the brief was or materials supplied, I just went for bright colours. The teachers concluded it was because of my background, no matter how much I insisted it was my personal style.
A few months in, I learnt how prestigious the art college was and how many famous people had previously attended. Most of the students in my year either had parents who were big in the art world or came from wealthy overseas families. I tried not to let it get to me, but it was difficult to connect with people who had no idea what it was like to live on a budget in a bedsit and not be able to discuss art careers with their family.
However, the teachers seemed to notice. Andrew, the head of our year, was a handsome, softly spoken man who reminded me of my dad in his younger years. He told me I had a disadvantaged background compared to most students and if I wanted to stay ahead, I would have to learn the new Apple computer programmes that had just come in. It was a new technology and everyone was in the same boat. The college had just set up a computer room with a handful of these new computers. As expected, they were in high demand and difficult to get on.
Andrew suggested I talk to Robert, the man with the amazing curling moustache, who I had met at my interview, to see if I could get onto the computer classes he ran outside college hours. Finally, I had found something to replace the kebab shop. I missed being busy. I would leave the bedsit at 6 a.m. to attend the early-bird classes, then stay behind after college and go in at the weekends.
It also brought me closer to the teachers, who drew me into interesting debates, the biggest one being about religion. All my life I had thought Jesus was Muslim because he is mentioned in the Koran, until one day Andrew told me he was Jewish. It left me stunned for days. Does this mean Islam accepts the Jewish religion? I asked myself. If so, why do we have separate books, and why wasn’t any of this explained to me at the mosque? I remembered the religious wars between Muslims, Christians and Jews, when I was growing up: the poisonous enmity between Catholics and Protestants during the IRA bombings; the Sunnis’ and Shiites’ seven-year war in Iran and Iraq. I wanted to find out about these other religions and began with the Brompton Oratory Church. It was magical. I discovered that names mentioned in the Bible, like Abraham, Isaac and Sarah, were also in the Koran. The best part was, when I bought an English translation of the Koran, half the stories were the same as those in the Bible. I began to wonder, who copied who?
The experience set me off on a journey visiting synagogues, Hindu temples, Buddhist retreats and even a couple of cult groups to get a handle on how religion became so powerful that it made people kill one another. I never got the answer, but throughout this journey I recited my prayers from the Koran. Islam was my faith and always would be, though I now had to accept Jesus was not Muslim, I also didn’t believe he was Jewish or Christian, but perhaps a mixture of all three.
Towards the end of the year, Robert offered me a place on the summer computing course. I hesitated, as I had a limited grant, which meant that I couldn’t afford to stay in London during the holidays. It had been playing on my mind for some time and I had done another round of shop interviews but hadn’t got anywhere.
I was taken aback when Andrew offered me his home to stay in because he was off to France.
The house was situated in south London on a leafy street. I arrived with a carrier bag of clothes. Andrew handed me a set of keys and showed me around. I left the bag in the main bedroom, where he’d laid clean sheets on the bed, then followed him downstairs, all the time looking out for his wife. We sat at the kitchen table having a cup of tea, running through how the heating and water worked, when I heard the front door close. It’s her, I thought, imagining Andrew’s wife to be a pretty blonde, perhaps French.
A man entered and touched Andrew affectionately on the shoulde
r. My mind went to their bed upstairs, the one I would be sleeping in, and I began to panic. ‘You’re gay!’ I screamed inside. I wanted to find an excuse to leave but couldn’t think of one. Then I stopped myself, suddenly feeling ashamed. Neither Andrew nor his partner was judging me for being Pakistani like most of the people I grew up with had. Instead, Andrew had welcomed me with open arms and had kindly offered me his home. He didn’t have to do this, nor did he have to mentor me the way he had. I thought back to Mark’s partner and how insulted he had looked at my hostility. I had no right to judge what people did in their personal lives. I smiled at the man, then shook his hand and planted a big kiss on his cheek.
Towards the end of the summer break, I called up loads of design houses for work experience and finally got a place at a magazine publisher based in the city. The work was rewarding and the art director allowed me to use the computers, which had the latest graphic programs installed, so I could learn how to use them.
The offices had a 24-hour security guard, who the art director introduced me to. She said I could go into the offices in the evenings and at weekends to use her computer to practise. Later she commissioned me to do a computer illustration for one of the magazines and I was paid a whopping £40. What was more satisfying than the money, though, was seeing my name in print. By the end of the summer, I had learnt three new programmes and had been offered regular illustration work for a magazine. I moved back to my bedsit just before college began again. I now had money in the bank and felt like I was finally settling into the city.
My visits home continued. Hajji was also doing my job now, serving at the front of the shop. He didn’t look pleased about it and totally blanked me when I’d go in and say hello. The last time we’d worked together before I left, I had supervised him putting an order together, which included a tandoori chicken he forgot to take out of the microwave, so the customer went home with an empty box … of course, I got the blame.