Mae picked at some dirt on her jeans. ‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t apologise to me,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a dad who’s supportive and I’ve been around people who’ve had it far worse than me. I should be grateful that I’m able to actually graft. So, I don’t want to hear sorry from you. I want you to do something about your own situation.’
But how? Mae got the sentiment, and she felt sheepish that someone like Abdul-Raheem, who’d faced so many more obstacles in life than she had, was telling her to get her act together. If Mae had felt some sense of control she wouldn’t have failed university in the first place, though.
‘All I’m saying is I wish that you saw that it’s your life. It’s part of the reason I’m not angry or so upset that you broke up with me. I thought you were going to change things, but it doesn’t look like you are. Your family should be helping you to get where you want, not putting obstacles in the way.’
Mae gave a wry laugh. ‘Is that what they’re there for?’
‘They should be,’ he replied. ‘And if they’re not, then, well … the rest is up to you.’
‘What? Leave my family?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘But if they’re stopping you from being the person you want to be, then it’s time you made that stop.’
She wanted to say that that was the whole problem.
She didn’t know who she wanted to be.
Before she left for Farah and Bubblee’s house, her parents were in the middle of getting ready to leave as well, her dad grabbing her mum’s coat for her. They agreed that Mae could take the car and they’d get a taxi. She hadn’t been able to get the conversation with Abdul-Raheem out of her head. They’d ended it being normal enough, but she felt the impact of his words long after she’d put the phone down.
‘Well, off I go,’ she said to her parents. ‘Another day of babysitting.’
She’d have left the house without another word, just trudged on and left her parents to it if only her mum hadn’t responded.
‘Think of how hard it is for your sisters. The least you can do is help a little. You will know how hard it is when you have a family one day.’
Mae had never been the screaming and slamming door type. It was all kind of dramatic and who could do with that kind of tension? That was Bubblee’s domain. But in that moment she felt she might throw the door off its hinges.
‘Who the hell told them to have babies?’ shouted Mae.
Her parents stopped short. The arm of her mum’s coat dangled as she and her dad stared at her.
‘No one forced them, you know. They wanted the baby and decided to do this whole co-parenting thing, so why should I feel bad about it?’
‘Mae …’ said her dad.
‘It’s true.’
‘See how selfish she’s become?’ said her mum.
Mae couldn’t believe her ears, though she didn’t know why it surprised her.
‘Jay’s amma …’ said her dad.
Apparently the only thing her dad could ever do was repeat everyone’s name. Mae had always loved him because you couldn’t not love someone that gentle, but right then she wished he’d step up and be a proper father. Not just a husband who did whatever it took to prevent his wife losing her temper. Why couldn’t he put things in perspective for her mum? Why couldn’t he show her that she was being unreasonable and why wasn’t he doing something other than just staring at Mae helplessly? If it was Abdul-Raheem, he’d never have let someone get away with the injustice of such a comment. No, her ex-boyfriend always tried to do the right thing. Her ex-boyfriend who she cancelled dinner with, who she broke up with, only to be called selfish by her own mum. There was too much inside her for her to even have a retort. She wished she could abandon all promises to her sisters but there was nothing for it and she’d have to go. But she wasn’t going to say another word to her mum. She swept around, walked out of the house and slammed the door loud enough that even Bubblee would’ve been proud.
Farah had already left by the time Mae arrived, and Bubblee was too busy putting on lipstick to notice the way Mae’s eyes were fixed in a state of concentrated anger.
‘There’s food in the fridge. Sorry, couldn’t make anything special – just leftover bean salad and brown rice. She’ll be ready for sleep in about half an hour. Can you give her a quick bath as well, please? But make sure you feed her first. Better get started because it takes ages to get her to eat. Thanks so much,’ added Bubblee, giving Mae an air kiss and sweeping out of the house.
Bean salad? Mae threw her bag on the sofa, leaning over Zoya who was lying on her jungle gym.
‘I’m supposed to feed you as well as bathe you?’
Zoya looked up at her with Bambi-like eyes, which made Mae’s bubbling temperament come down to a simmer. Mae banged and slammed things as she got Zoya’s food out of the fridge, warmed it up and sat her in her high chair. Mae sniffed the dinner.
‘Mmmm, cauliflower and cheese. That’s pretty gross, isn’t it?’ Tone was everything, she’d heard, so as long as Mae sounded positive and happy she could be talking about killing her whole family and it wouldn’t make a difference. Selfish? Mae? The words banged down on her again like a two-tonne truck. It was just so unfair. It was one thing to help everyone and not be appreciated, but to be called selfish when no one cared about what was happening in her own life was just too far. Maybe Abdul-Raheem was right. She was beginning to forget the reasons she broke up with him. Why did she feel he’d hinder her figuring her life out? She gave a spoonful of the food to Zoya, who took it in for about a second before spitting it out.
‘Don’t think you understand the concept of eating, Z. You swallow.’
This time though, when Mae tried to put the spoon in her mouth, Zoya clamped her lips shut and turned her head away.
‘Don’t listen to me,’ said Mae. ‘It’s delicious really. Look at all those delicious lumps of cauliflower that haven’t been blended properly? Mmmm.’
But it didn’t matter how hard Mae tried, Zoya refused to open her mouth and got so tired of the entire thing that she started to cry.
‘All right, all right,’ said Mae, putting the bowl and spoon down. ‘What do you want then?’
Mae picked up her phone and called Bubblee to ask what she should feed her instead, except she didn’t answer. She rang Farah and she didn’t answer either. What kind of parents left their child alone and didn’t glue themselves to the phone? By this time Zoya’s crying had got louder.
‘Why’re you crying? I’m not force-feeding you any more.’
Mae left her to her tears and buttered some soft white bread to give to her instead. This, however, didn’t produce a more favourable effect – Zoya continued to whine.
‘Bean salad?’
It couldn’t be bad for her, could it? Mae mashed up the beans and other bits of vegetables to make it more digestible. She managed to get a spoonful into Zoya’s mouth without her spitting it back out. It wasn’t easy getting her to eat it. Zoya kept smacking at the spoon, shaking her head, banging on the high-chair table and going red-faced, but at least she ate something. Although she did spit in Mae’s face, with some of the bean salad’s remnants flying into Mae’s hair.
‘All right then, come on. Up we go for our bath.’
Zoya was still whining even though Mae was swaying her, singing to her, doing whatever she could. She filled the baby tub with water and baby bath as Zoya thrashed her arms and legs on the bathroom mat. Mae needed to have a quick pee. She lifted the toilet lid and just as she was relieving herself Zoya let out a cry so loud Mae thought something had stabbed her. She finished peeing, got up and pulled her trousers up, quickly washing her hands as Zoya’s face began to go red. What was wrong with her? She stripped Zoya’s clothes off and realised that there was yellow, slimy poo, all down Zoya’s back, sticking to the Babygro.
‘Ew, gross,’ exclaimed Mae, lifting the offending item as far away from her as possible.
She bunched it up and flung it on the floor as
her niece’s cries got louder. Mae looked around madly for Zoya’s rattle that she was sure she’d brought upstairs with her. She saw the handle poking out from under the Babygro, which she threw behind her, forgetting that she hadn’t put the lid on the toilet back down.
‘Oh shit,’ she exclaimed, looking between Zoya still in a nappy and the Babygro that had landed in the toilet.
Not only had she not put the lid down, but she’d also forgotten to flush.
‘Oh God. Oh God, oh God, oh God,’ she said, as she reached into the toilet, having to put her hand in her own urine to get the Babygro back.
‘Ewww,’ she repeated as she threw the garment in the sink, Zoya’s crying getting even louder. ‘Okay, sorry, sorry.’
Mae took off her niece’s nappy, wondering how on earth you’re meant to protect your hands from getting dirty when a baby’s exploded what seemed like a week’s worth of food. She turned Zoya this way and that, the poo getting all over the bathroom mat because Mae had forgotten to put down the plastic one for changing. Mae got one baby wipe after another, trying to clean it all before putting Zoya in the tub. The bin was now overflowing with all the wipes that she’d used. Thankfully, Zoya began to quieten down, still whimpering, but at least not screaming, as Mae lifted her into the tub. Unfortunately, she hadn’t quite got all of the poo off as she saw bits of it float to the top of the water.
‘Right, well, that wasn’t very clever, was it? Why didn’t I first wash your bum with water?’
It was too late for regret though since Mae would have to fill the tub with clean water. She had her hands under Zoya’s arm, pulling her out of the bath when Zoya gave her a blank kind of look. That’s when she threw up the entire contents of the bean salad all over Mae’s arms, down her own stomach and into the tub. Mae retched, willing herself not to vomit as Zoya dangled over the tub of filth. Mae looked away from the bits of beans and corn, floating around in the water. She’d make it, she would not throw up. But just as she’d conjured the energy to lift her niece fully out of the tub, Zoya threw up again and Mae couldn’t hold in her own bile. She put Zoya down as gently as she could – given the circumstance – on to the floor, no plastic mat to be found, as Mae threw up in the toilet, missing it by about two seconds and half an inch. For a moment, Mae thought the sound of her retching had distracted her niece from her own crying. It was only when she looked over that she saw the lull in crying was because Zoya was too busy doing a runny poo all over the bathroom mat.
‘Oh nooooo. No, no, no, no, no.’
Mae wanted to actually cry as she wiped her mouth, dragged her knees over to Zoya, turning her head away from the stench. Just then her phone rang.
‘Hello?’ she barked, without seeing who it is.
‘Listen, I just wanted to say sorry for how I spo—’
But before Abdul-Raheem could finish his sentence, Mae cried: ‘Help me, please.’
Abdul-Raheem was at Bubblee and Farah’s house in twenty minutes. Mae had washed Zoya down with the shower as well as she could and if Farah or Bubblee complained that this wasn’t a proper bath, Mae would throw Zoya’s dirty nappy at them. When she answered the door she didn’t have a chance to check how she looked in the mirror. Abdul-Raheem’s expression was enough to tell her it might not be great, but it was apparently amusing.
‘Thank God you’re here,’ she said, almost jumping on him.
She would have embraced him fully if Zoya wasn’t hanging on her hip.
‘Is this the thing that’s got you all rattled then?’ he said, looking at Zoya and putting his arms out to her.
Her niece didn’t hesitate before reaching out to him, looking up at him as she blew bubbles from her mouth.
‘Rattled? Are you kidding me? It was like something out of a horror film in that bathroom. It still is,’ she said.
‘Right,’ he replied, handing Zoya back to Mae. ‘This way?’ he asked, already running up the stairs.
‘To the left,’ Mae shouted as she looked at Zoya’s now calm face.
She gave her milk, took her upstairs into the nursery and put her in her grow bag and into her cot. Mae stroked her head and wondered how something so cute could be so terrible at the same time.
‘You’re a little piece of … well. You know what you are.’
Mae planted a kiss on Zoya’s head, took the baby monitor and closed the door, leaving it ajar for a little light.
She peeked into the bathroom to see Abdul-Raheem on his hands and knees, wiping remnants of Zoya’s vomit and poo from the tiles. He’d hosed down the mat with the shower, emptied the baby’s tub, cleaned the adult tub and had also wiped clean all traces of Mae’s own vomit. Perhaps it didn’t look or sound romantic, but it certainly felt it to Mae.
‘Glamorous life, isn’t it?’ she said.
‘Way to spend an evening,’ he replied, getting up. ‘Cleaned the mat but it’ll have to go in the wash.’
‘Leave that to my sisters. I think we’ve done enough already.’
She paused and looked at him, wanting to tell him how grateful she was for him coming, for him just being who he was, but how was she meant to do that when he was no longer her boyfriend?
‘Thanks,’ she said eventually. ‘You know … for all of this.’
He smiled. ‘Is she asleep?’
Mae looked at the baby monitor. ‘Getting there. All that throwing up must’ve really taken it out of her.’
Just then there was a ring on the doorbell and Mae’s heart skipped a beat. Who could it be? A look of panic must’ve come over her as Abdul-Raheem said: ‘That must be the pizza I ordered.’
‘Oh my God,’ she replied, both relieved and thankful, because pizza – whilst not being a doner kebab – was real food. Something her sisters didn’t think of but her ex-boyfriend did. ‘I actually love you.’
Turned out that Mae, as well as other things, was vomiting words too.
Abdul-Raheem seemed to stiffen.
‘Sorry I—’
‘Don’t worry. I know that’s the baby formula talking,’ he joked, washing his hands.
I love you?
The doorbell rang again and he touched Mae’s arm as he went to answer it. Mae looked in the mirror at her dishevelled hair and flushed face.
‘What the hell is wrong with you?’ she whispered to herself. ‘Did you just tell your ex-boyfriend that you loved him? In a bathroom?’
She smacked her face with her hand, wishing that her filter system wasn’t so extreme. At university, she was barely able to say two words to people, and at home she blurted out everything that came into her head.
Which was when she realised: she did love him.
What did this mean? Should she ask to get back together with him?
‘Whoa there,’ she said, pointing to herself in the mirror. ‘Did any of the baby formula powder get into your head?’
Or was it the simple effect of being relieved that there was someone to help? What if anyone else had come in – say, Barry? Would she have declared her love to him too?
‘Not likely,’ she said, half troubled and half relieved by this.
Then she tried to picture someone fit. Someone she’d actually fancied, or could fancy – like Dilek’s boyfriend, Marcus. Or the cute man at the bar that night she got drunk? Unfortunately, neither of them were conjuring the same kind of feelings.
Ji Su? Yes. She would’ve told her she loved her, but she wouldn’t have wanted to kiss her like she wanted to kiss Abdul-Raheem.
‘Oh, this is bad. This is really bad.’
‘Are you going to come downstairs or talk to yourself in the mirror for a bit longer?’
Mae started at Abdul-Raheem in the doorway. She tried to smile.
‘Quite nice talking to yourself, isn’t it?’ she said.
He just cleared his throat and went back down the stairs. Mae took a deep breath and would address this like a proper adult: she’d ignore it completely and pretend it never happened. That she didn’t feel this way about him because sh
e couldn’t go back and forth like this, making decisions and not being able to stick to them. Abdul-Raheem was already sitting at the table, pizza box open, two slices on his plate and two on Mae’s plate, as she sat down with him.
‘Good weather today.’
‘Mae—’
‘So nice when it’s not raining and spoiling everyone’s summer fun, right?’
‘Mae—’
‘I mean, wouldn’t be great to be at work when it’s this hot because of the horse’s arse and all that but—’
‘Mae.’
Her heart was beating so fast she wondered if it might jump out of her chest, just like the words ‘I love you’ had jumped out of her mouth. Abdul-Raheem dragged his chair towards her and took her hands in his. How could someone come to mean so much to another person in such a short space of time? Ji Su drifted into Mae’s thoughts and she felt a pang of regret that she couldn’t share what was happening in her life. That she didn’t know what was happening in Ji Su’s life either. How quickly relationships can form and how much quicker they can break. Mae looked at Abdul-Raheem’s lovely, open face; the sharp edges of his jawline, the curl of his lashes, the small mark just under his eye where someone had split his skin open with their fist. How could she even think about comparing him to the likes of Marcus, the guy at the bar and … Barry? What the hell? He put his hand now to her face, stroking her cheek and Mae wanted to climb on to his lap and kiss him. But she knew she couldn’t.
‘I don’t know if you said that back there because I was cleaning up your vomit, and I know we’re not together any more so maybe I shouldn’t say this because … I don’t want to confuse you, not when I know you’re trying to focus on yourself, but …’ He paused and stared at her. ‘You should know … I love you too.’
‘Shut your face,’ she replied. ‘You do not.’
He laughed. ‘Not quite the response I thought I’d get.’
‘You love me? Even after I broke up with you?’
‘Of course. Only made me like you more. I mean, I didn’t like it. I don’t like it but I can’t help how I feel.’
‘Really?’
‘Really. You’re an idiot to not realise it.’
The Hopes and Triumphs of the Amir Sisters Page 18