by Azi Ahmed
My sister was now happily married and had moved away, so it was just me at home with Mum and Dad. I tried to contact Shazia a few times to tell her I was back, but each time her mother-in-law answered and said she was ‘busy’. It was annoying, but at the same time, I felt relieved. My life had changed so much I wasn’t sure we would have much to talk about any more.
Mum continued to pursue me on the marriage front. It was draining. I wasn’t going to get married. There were two ways I could approach this: either I kept fighting this losing battle, or, for the sake of sanity, I could go along with it and stretch the process out with excuses.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ she said, flicking through the TV channels. ‘We could try to get you married to someone here.’ It was said like she was doing me a favour. ‘A woman is not happy without a man in her life,’ she offered wisely. ‘Without a husband she is not a woman.’
Perhaps marriage is something people do to keep loneliness at bay, I wanted to say; a distraction in their lives.
Mum was never good at silences. She reached for her handbag and brought out a wad of papers. At first, I thought it was paperwork for the shop and felt a trickle of relief that the conversation had moved on.
‘I spoke to a marriage bureau and they gave me these forms to fill out,’ she said, holding them out to me.
I took the papers, which looked like a job application, and flicked through. It mentioned caste.
‘What caste are we, Mum?’
‘Ah.’ Mum switched the television off and sat up. ‘It’s best we put my family caste down as it’s higher than your father’s.’
I was surprised Mum had been allowed to marry into a lower caste. Then I thought of Dad’s credentials: army man, educated and invited to England by the British government for his service in India.
I scanned through the rest of the form, and then a cheeky thought crossed my mind.
‘Most of it is general information about me,’ I said, ticking the boxes referring to me as divorced, with three children, aged forty-six. I handed it back and waited for the guilt to kick in – but nothing happened. Instead, I felt satisfied that I had implemented the first stage of my plan to string this process out as much as possible.
* * *
The second year at college was more structured, but with less handholding. We were left to do our own projects and only came together for briefings or to show our work. The studios were empty most of the day but I would go in to keep my routine. I hardly saw the teachers, but one day as I was sat in the deserted studio the head teacher spotted me and came over. He was a very quiet man with grey hair and round glasses. He looked like Harry Potter but forty years on.
‘Adi,’ he said, walking towards me. ‘Is it Adi or Abi?’
I didn’t take offence as a lot of people got my name wrong; Adi, Abi … I’d even been called ‘Asda’ once.
‘I got a call from a local publisher who is looking for someone to do their show cards,’ he announced.
I didn’t know what show cards were but agreed to go and see them about the job. The office was open plan with lots of people talking on the phone or on computers. It had a big, posh reception area, security guards and cameras. It was all very daunting but I tried not to show my nerves.
There wasn’t much of an interview. They asked my name and who had sent me and then showed me the job and told me what I’d be paid. There wasn’t much to making up show cards apart from sticking book jackets onto boards to be shipped off to bookshops to promote a new book.
The job was taking up most of my time outside college, though I did squeeze in the odd illustration for the magazine.
Soon after, my boss moved to a different publisher and offered me more work there. I couldn’t turn it down, not after waiting so long to fill up my time.
My daily routine expanded to working at one publisher in the morning until 8.30 a.m., spending the rest of the day at college, and then working evenings at the other publisher’s until midnight.
Towards the end of my second year, I began to wonder how I was going to spend my second summer in London. The work routine was set around my college time and I needed something to fill in the gaps during the holidays. I was sat in the computer room mulling it over when I overheard a postgrad student talk about a job they had just got with a design house in Soho. I called them up and got an interview. They thought I was also postgraduate and told me the pay was £12 an hour. My jaw dropped at the thought of earning almost £100 a day… that was how much my dad got a week. I finished the summer job with a list of contacts that I used to get freelance work during my final year, and by the time I left college I had set myself up as a self-employed designer.
It felt great but I soon realised my employment years were going to be more challenging than those spent at college. I sensed judgement being passed by my colleagues because of my accent, but when they discovered I had attended Central Saint Martins they changed their tune. I detested this stereotyping and wondered how they would react if I told them I had attended one of the roughest state schools in Manchester.
It didn’t bother me – if anything, it fired me to succeed. My mindset changed: I took a streamlined approach to life, choosing not to get involved with colleagues’ moaning and office politics. I became more selective about the people I socialised with, avoiding those who drained their energy on useless twitter about relationships, family conflicts and people at work. My focus was to save enough money to buy my own place.
When I was twenty-four years old, I bought my first flat. People at work thought my parents had given me the money, people who knew me laughed when I told them.
I’d been out of college for a few years by this point. The money kept coming in but the work became repetitive. I felt I’d reached a plateau and couldn’t see where I was going next. I reached out to my old teacher, Andrew, who urged me to stay ahead of the game and consider developing my CV if I wanted to step into something new.
He talked about a new Master’s degree that focused on converging technologies and the emerging digital age of the internet. It was part time so I could keep working and earning a living. It was now the mid-1990s and the internet was simmering in the background.
I finished the degree in the late ’90s, just as the internet boom kicked off. The FT had started a section on ‘Internet & Technology’, which I read on a regular basis. One morning an article about an internet start-up in the States, which focused on marketing rather than the technology, caught my eye.
I finalised a business plan, closely related to internet marketing technology I’d read about in the newspaper, to set up my own company and went to a few banks for a loan. All the banks turned me down. Disheartening as it was, I decided to get myself set up from my bedroom. It took many long and lonely months of blagging to build up enough corporate clients to receive seed capital and office space. What surprised me most was when I’d meet clients and they would ask me if Mr Ahmed was attending. I would reply, ‘I am Miss Ahmed,’ then sit down.
Throughout all of this my parents knew nothing about my internet business, Master’s degree or property interests. They still thought I was a painter. I continued to fob Mum off by saying I had a temporary job and would return home afterwards. I knew this would never happen. London gave me a life that made returning home impossible. It gave me independence, a place to build my career, and opportunities to meet a tapestry of interesting people. The only downside was leading a double life with my parents. It made me feel both guilty and confused, but it was the price I had to pay.
Everything was ticking along nicely and my life was full and very busy. Soon, however, I became restless.
One day I shared my concerns with an old friend whom I’d met at a publishing house where I was working previously. She jokingly suggested I join the Territorial Army.
‘What’s that?’ I asked.
CHAPTER FOUR
FEMALE SELECTION
I DIDN’T KNOW the army had a part-time unit or that they allow
ed women to join. I laughed at the idea. This world was so alien to me. More importantly, I couldn’t just walk away from my company and the responsibilities that went along with it. However, a part-time version could work. I remembered seeing The Krypton Factor on TV when I was a kid and the assault course in operation at some army barracks, and this gave me a vision of the Territorial Army as a fun recreation hobby I could do on the side while running the company.
However, there was also something intriguing about entering into another, new world, yet somehow familiar because of my father’s background.
I rang the TA general enquiries line and ordered an information pack. The brochure had a list of all the units the army encompassed. They all looked interesting but my eye kept going back to the SAS blurb. It was described as the elite force. If I was going to go for it, I was going for the best, just as I had with Central Saint Martins.
I had no idea what ‘SAS’ stood for, though I did remember a vague clip of the Libyan Embassy siege being televised when I was a kid.
The next day I dialled the number provided for the unit; after being put on hold for a couple of minutes, I was transferred to someone who gave me a date and time to go in and see an officer at the Chelsea Barracks in London. I was surprised that they didn’t ask about my qualifications or skillset – not even why I wanted to join.
I didn’t tell my family I had an interview nor did I have any plans to; they didn’t need to know everything I was doing in London. I did tell my friend that I had contacted the army, at her suggestion, and got an interview with the SAS. She laughed and told me that I had obviously made a mistake and that it must be some other unit that I was going to see. I let it go and never mentioned it again.
* * *
‘Name?’
‘Azi … Azi Ahmed.’
I smiled nervously at the security officer sat in a Portakabin guarding the barracks’ gates. He picked up the phone and punched four numbers, his eyes locked into mine as he waited for an answer.
My long hair was flying everywhere, the strands over my face catching on my pink lip gloss. I glanced over my shoulder onto the King’s Road; it was dark, wet and busy with traffic.
I had no idea what roles were available and had brought a copy of my CV detailing my work and qualifications. I also put down that I enjoyed going to the gym because I wanted to do the physical army training as well as office-based work.
‘Ah, good evening. I have a Miss Ahmed here to see you.’ The security officer was now speaking down the phone. ‘Yes, no problem … OK … yes … will do.’
He put the phone down, leaned out of the Portakabin and pointed inside the barracks.
‘OK … straight across, through the gates, second right, to the end, up the first set of stairs and someone will meet you there.’
For some reason I thought I’d be taken there by him or someone would come down and take me up as I’d experienced in previous interviews. I picked up my handbag from the small ledge between us and made my way across the blackened courtyard, wide eyed.
Frantically I repeated the directions in my head. What gates? I couldn’t see any and began to panic, thinking I should go back and ask the security guard if he could come with me. The place was so quiet I could hear my stilettos clicking against the concrete. A cold wind blew up my trouser leg and I wished I’d put a jumper beneath my jacket, as my thermal vest wasn’t working.
Through sheer luck I found the gates the security guard was talking about and headed up. A man dressed in khaki uniform with black boots and a sandy beret was waiting. He was tall and ginger. I stopped and stared up at him. It was the first time I had seen anyone wearing army uniform in real life and it made him look intimidating, especially with no smile.
‘Miss Ahmed?’ he asked, giving me the once over.
I nodded, putting my hand out to him to shake.
‘I’ll take you up,’ he said, ignoring my hand and punching a combination into the metal keypad behind, to release a gate. I followed him inside and down the dimly lit corridor, trying to keep up with his fast pace.
I tried to make conversation with him about the cold weather outside but his boots squeaked loudly on the polished parquet flooring making it awkward. It was a strange atmosphere. It felt like I had stepped into a different world, a world I didn’t belong to, but for some reason I’d decided to be here. It made me both scared and excited.
Ginger stopped abruptly outside one of the many office doors. I skidded behind, missing him by a couple of inches.
He knocked twice on the door.
‘Come in,’ a voice called from inside.
Ginger opened the door and let me go through. The room looked like a normal office; a few framed certificates on the wall and a large desk in the middle where an officer sat busily scribbling away. His face resembled that of a squirrel: high cheekbones, a pointy jaw line, with short spiked hair on top of his head.
His eyes flicked to a chair across from him. ‘Take a seat.’
I bounced into the room and looked round at Ginger, expecting him to come in or at least say something, but instead he closed the door and disappeared. What was it with this place? Nobody smiled! Why all the seriousness? Normally when I went for interviews, there was lots of small talk before and after. Here they hadn’t even offered me a glass of water.
I did as I was told, feeling my mouth dry up as I put my handbag down on the floor and crossed my legs.
He made me wait some time before putting his pen down, shuffling the papers to one side and leaning back in his chair, hands behind head. ‘So, you want to join the unit?’
I thought back to my friend’s comment about mistaking the unit and nodded. ‘The SAS … yes.’
‘Pardon?’
‘Sorry … yes, please.’ I could feel a tingling above my lips but didn’t dare wipe the sweat away.
‘Which unit have you come from?’
I stared at him blankly.
What did he mean by this? My CV didn’t say anything about units, just the design companies I’d worked for and details of my paintings. Perhaps I should have researched the SAS before coming here, I thought, so I could understand his question, but then again I didn’t research Central Saint Martins before I rocked up.
‘I haven’t come from another unit,’ I finally said, then started telling him the story about my friend suggesting I join up, and that I was considering doing the job full time in the future if it was enjoyable.
He watched me with a poker face, which only made me talk faster and I probably sounded like I was speaking gibberish.
‘Miss Ahmed,’ he interjected with a bored expression. ‘You need basic military training at one of the other units for a few years, followed by officer training.’ He took a long pause. ‘Then, if you’re still interested, we can sit down and have another chat.’
I stared at him. This wasn’t how I imagined the interview going. I didn’t know how to respond. I had no idea what he expected, nor did he ask anything about me, so there wasn’t much to discuss. A part of me wanted to reach into my handbag and bring out my CV, but I thought it best to keep up the verbal interaction. ‘Isn’t there…’
He shook his head before I finished. ‘It doesn’t work like that round here.’
Why the hell did you get me to come here tonight then? I thought angrily. Was this some sort of charade, or a complete misunderstanding? I wasn’t asked about my military experience on the phone, nor was it explained to me that I needed to be at officer level to enter. How the hell could they make a mistake like that? How many Ahmeds were there in this place? I thought.
A loud knock on the door interrupted my laser-beam stare at him. A man wearing smart uniform, with dark, slicked-back hair walked in. ‘John, do you have the file for the overseas training next year?’ he spoke in a very posh accent.
I didn’t bother looking around. I was still cross with the officer’s behaviour. I’d never been treated in this cold manner at an interview before. Why was he being so horrible t
o me? Or was he just being ‘army-like’?
The officer jumped up from his chair and stood to attention, then leaned to one side of his desk and began sieving through a pile of files.
‘Yes, sir, right here.’ The officer handed the man a blue file and their eyes locked for a moment. ‘This is Ahmed.’ The officer introduced. ‘Ahmed – the colonel.’
The colonel! I sprang to my feet, scraping the chair leg loudly against the floor and quickly offering my hand. He was very tall, well over six feet.
‘Ahmed’s come to find out more about the unit, sir. We’ve been discussing the possibility of officer training then reviewing her position at a later date.’
The colonel smiled at me and started asking me questions about what I did for a living.
By this time I’d clocked on that they were clearly not interested in my paintings and internet company and so I needed another tactic. Then it came to me and I told him about Dad’s time in the British Indian Army. I prayed the colonel wouldn’t ask any difficult questions like which unit my father was in or which rank he had held. I had no idea because he had never talked about it. Luckily, the colonel just listened then tucked the file under his arm and left the room.
I didn’t know what he had made of it. It was a weak attempt and perhaps not relevant but I gave it my best. It suddenly dawned on me that I’d only thought about Dad’s army life as I stood in front of the colonel and wondered why I hadn’t thought about putting it on my CV, which was still sitting in my handbag.
I sat back down and looked across at the officer, who was now scribbling something down.
‘I suggest your first point of contact is general enquiries,’ he said, handing me a piece of paper. ‘They will take it from there.’
I glanced at the number, which was the same one I’d called to order the brochure, then back at him. He was now busy sifting through some files.