The Other Half of Happiness

by Ayisha Malik

  I had to forward the message to Foz, who was at work. She’d tell Hannah. Hannah would tell Suj and maybe she’ll do me a favour and tell my mum and sister.

  Every morning my hand instinctively flops to Conall’s side. That moment that I open my eyes and it’s dark, and there’s no sound, my heart feels so heavy I wonder whether I can even lift myself out of bed. But I do. Mainly because using the bedroom as a toilet would be the peak of depression. Bodily functions are such a hindrance to fully embracing misery.

  1.35 p.m. Suj came over. The speed with which she heard and then turned up at my doorstep had me sobbing in her arms.

  ‘I can’t fucking believe it,’ she said.

  We didn’t talk much. Told her I was tired and went to bed again. When I woke up she was sitting on the floor in the bedroom, the light of her phone illuminating her face.

  ‘Let’s go away somewhere,’ she said. ‘Just us.’

  I curled up, facing her. ‘I don’t want to go anywhere any more. I want to stay.’

  She nodded. ‘OK then. We’ll stay.’

  Why couldn’t she just be here because we were having lunch, or a catch-up date? Why was the fog of reality clouding each moment that should be day-to-day life?

  ‘We’ve been here before, Toffee,’ she said.

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘Bullshit hell.’

  I almost smiled, but it hurt my head. ‘What happened last time?’ I asked.

  ‘We got out of it, that’s what.’

  Saturday 8 June

  7.10 p.m. I’m going to have to begin all over again. It’s not even like two steps forward and three steps back; it’s back to the drawing board of life. Things hadn’t been ideal but dissatisfaction wasn’t disaster.

  What have I done?

  ‘Well,’ I said, putting my feet up on the cluttered coffee table, ‘at least splitting up with my husband means we’ve managed to get together.’

  Suj paced the room as Foz picked up the dirty plates and took a bite of my uneaten omelette. ‘You made this, didn’t you?’ she said, spitting it out.

  I nodded. ‘Maybe I’ll become a gourmet chef.’

  ‘Keep the ambition alive, but let’s not lose sight of reality, darling.’

  I almost laughed, but it managed to quell itself before it reached my mouth. In all the years I’ve known Foz I’ve never quite appreciated the calmness of her; the things she says when she doesn’t say anything. The aura of no-nonsense-ness.

  Hannah crossed her legs at the ankle and leaned forward as if she was about to conduct a therapy session. ‘Have you really thought this through?’

  I didn’t want to do this. I wanted him back, right beside me, complaining about something I’d done or said and then laughing at it in the same breath.

  ‘I don’t belong there,’ I said. ‘I can’t slot into that life he has – and I don’t want to be the reason he can’t do what he needs to.’

  ‘Which is?’

  I looked at Han. ‘Be a father to his son.’

  The photos of the family that Sean had put up were still on the mantelpiece. There was only one of Conall and me in the passage. It’s suitably cheesy: me looking at him and laughing, him with his hands out, looking at the ground also laughing. Laughter, laughter, laughter. Is this why Conall captures moments? Because he knows you just never get them again?

  ‘So. You actually told him to move?’ asked Han.

  Suj stopped pacing and looked at me.

  ‘Just telling him what he already wanted,’ I replied.

  ‘Oh, he’s such a knob,’ said Suj, looking at her phone.

  ‘To be fair, he didn’t suggest it.’

  ‘No, sorry, Toffee; I meant Charles.’

  She typed something on her phone as I fumbled around my dressing gown and got out a packet of cigarettes and lighter.

  ‘You started smoking again?’ exclaimed Suj. ‘Toffee! After all that shit with your dad. What are you doing to yourself?’

  ‘I’m not sure being alive right now is my best option.’

  Foz took the packet from me and lit one up too. After all of this, people will begin to find out. A series of humiliations every time a new person’s discovered what’s happened. Sofia ran away with a white man who’d lied about having a son and now they’re splitting up. It’s a culmination of everyone’s hedged bets, expectations and raised eyebrows that have been heaped upon my stupid optimism – and they will all see it. I thought of Auntie Reena: I don’t want people’s pity.

  ‘Where are you planning to go?’ said Han. ‘I mean, you can’t stay here, can you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I replied, observing the plume of smoke swirl out of my mouth.

  Deal with the physical matter. (Forget the emotions of heartbreak.) Where do you live? (Without the person you were meant to spend forever with.) What do you take with you? (Don’t think of everything you have to leave behind.) How will you survive, financially? (Worry about spiritual survival after.)

  I watched Suj look at her phone again. ‘Why is Charles a knob?’ I asked.

  She flicked her hand in the air. ‘Doesn’t matter.’

  ‘I bet it does,’ I said, looking at Foz.

  She nodded.

  ‘We all have the capacity to be knobs,’ said Han.

  The four of us contemplated this and agreed that this was probably a profound truth.

  ‘What about Conall?’ added Han. ‘Is he just going to live there forever? What about his work? I mean, hopefully Eamonn recovers, but then what will he do? Go back to Karachi?’

  I took another drag of my cigarette. ‘He can go to hell for all I care.’

  Seeing as I’m there it only seems fair that he should be too. Just then I noticed Suj staring towards the door. When I turned round there was Conall, squinting through the smoke, with a bag in his hand.

  ‘Already there, Sofe.’

  12.05 a.m. What is it that makes you ache for a person? How does a feeling manifest itself as something so physical? If I could understand how, I could undo it; like an exorcism for feelings.

  Conall coughed, looking at the ashtray that was full of cigarette butts.

  ‘Well, it’s not as if I can drink my sorrows away,’ I said.

  He paused. ‘I want you to stay here.’

  For a second I didn’t understand what he meant. Then it dawned on me. ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m not living here any more. I’ll get my things and leave.’

  ‘Where will you go?’

  I don’t know. When there are so many broken pieces how do you even begin to put things back together? How do you create something new from the splintered fragments of something old?

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I’ll stay with Foz or something.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘It’s got nothing to do with you any more, has it?’

  He was about to say something when there was banging at the door.

  ‘Conall, where have you both been?’ exclaimed Mum as he went to open it.

  God, please, somehow transport me out of this place.

  Mum came in, wincing at the smell of smoke. ‘Uff, who has been smoking?’

  Conall looked at me.

  ‘Soffoo, what are you looking like in that dressing gown?’

  Her eyes rested on the ashtray. Heartbreak’s made me reckless.

  ‘Haw hai,’ she said, looking at us expectantly.

  ‘It’s me,’ said Conall.

  She tutted as she took the ashtray and emptied its contents into the bin. ‘Disgusting habit. You know her baba used to smoke? Look where he ended up.’

  ‘It’s not Conall, Mum. It’s me.’ Maybe it is me. Maybe I’m just not wife material.

  ‘Hain?’

  ‘They’re my cigarettes. I smoke.’

  She paused.

  ‘Maybe you should sit down,’ Conall said to Mum.

  ‘Soffoo . . .’ She sat down in a daze then looked up at me. ‘But –’

  ‘-Listen,’ said Conall to Mum,
sitting on the coffee table opposite her.

  I went and sat next to him, my leg touching his and me missing the feel of it already.

  ‘Mum –’

  ‘You are smoking . . . cigarettes?’

  ‘You were right, Mum. We’re too different,’ I said.

  Here was me, picking up the first broken fragment of this relationship. She looked at both of us again. Conall looked at the ground; the one that seemed to be taken from under me every time I had to open my mouth.

  ‘Conall’s moving back to Ireland. To be with Eamonn, and I’m . . .’ The words snagged in my throat. ‘I’m staying in London.’

  Mum kept looking between me and Conall. ‘Soffoo . . . you are smoking? But you were so good in school.’

  Who’d have thought that that was the tragedy here?

  ‘Mum,’ I said, leaning forward to make her understand. ‘Conall and I . . . we’re . . .’ I couldn’t get the words out, because as soon as they fell out so would my tears and I didn’t want to cry in front of Mum. Certainly not Conall.

  ‘We’re going our separate ways,’ said Conall.

  It was like a pellet of truth, puncturing any hope there might’ve been. She looked at both of us; her expression changing from shock to defiance.

  ‘You think I have rocks in my head?’ she said.

  My instinct was to glance at Conall, but it’s better to try and kill that as soon as possible.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Soffoo, I am not born tomorrow. I was married for thirty-five years; you think I can’t see when a husband and wife have problems? You think I don’t see your red, red eyes?’

  I felt Conall’s gaze on me.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘You will make this work. Me and your baba gave you too easy life, this is the problem. You children walk away from everything as if it’s nothing. Did you see me run away every time marriage got hard? Hmm? Conall,’ she said, turning to him. ‘You are sensible. What is this?’

  Where was his I should never have married you now?

  ‘It’s my fault,’ he finally said.

  ‘I can’t believe you let her smoke!’ said Mum. ‘You must call your mother and father.’

  She began planning some kind of family intervention. Perhaps I should’ve told her that my mother-in-law was probably sending off for a marriage licence for Conall and Claire this very second.

  ‘No, Mum. That’s it.’

  ‘And where will you live?’

  ‘Here,’ he said.

  ‘No. Not here,’ I replied.

  Mum’s fierce gaze rested on both of us. ‘No,’ she said. ‘She will come live with me –’

  ‘I can’t,’ I interrupted.

  ‘Soffoo, you listen to your mama for once. You stay with me, and when you come home, Conall, you will both talk to each other and stop ruining everyone’s life.’

  Reality certainly has a way of pissing on your sentimental ideas of moving on.

  ‘She’ll stay here,’ said Conall, looking Mum in the eye. ‘But you need to understand,’ he added, shifting forward, looking her in the eye. ‘This is over.’

  And here was Conall, taking the fragment from me, and crushing it to dust.

  Sunday 9 June

  8.20 a.m.

  From: Sakib Awaan

  To: Sofia Khan

  Subject: And another one

  Hi Sofia,

  Sorry about the weekend email. Though you know it’s a sort of rule of thumb for me. (Did you know that ‘rule of thumb’ comes from an old English law that stated you couldn’t beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb?)

  Anyway, how are you? Just wanted to send you another MS. Have you got any more chapters for your book to show me?

  I looked towards my door, wondering if Conall was awake or not. He said he’s going to leave tomorrow for Ireland. This time he won’t be coming back. How can I possibly go through the farce of writing a book about marriage when my own is falling apart? I reread Sakib’s email.

  8.40 a.m.

  To: Sakib Awaan

  From: Sofia Khan

  Subject: Muslim Marriage Book

  Hi Sakib,

  I think you should know that Conall and I have decided to separate. Given this, continuing with the book feels disingenuous.

  I know this is inconvenient, unprofessional and without warning but I hope it doesn’t affect my job as a reader. I’ll send back the advance and sort out any paperwork you need.

  I’m really very sorry.

  8.48 a.m.

  To: Sofia Khan

  From: Sakib Awaan

  Subject: Re: Muslim Marriage Book

  Sofia, I’m very sorry to hear that.

  Can you come into the office tomorrow?

  Think we should talk this through, properly.

  Sakib

  I wish Sakib could understand that I can barely get out of bed. But there was no reason for me to sound more pathetic than I already feel.

  9.45 a.m. Bumped into Conall on the way to the bathroom. Awkward dance of you-go-first. I’m getting out of this place because while he’s here, all I want to do is crawl into bed with him and hold on to him forever.

  12.15 p.m. ‘Oh, Sofe.’

  Maars hugged me as well as she could, balancing Adam on her hip as I entered her home. I took him from her and watched him drool as he grabbed my face.

  ‘He’s missed you,’ she said.

  We passed the kitchen and went up a few steps into the living room. ‘Mum’s going on about your cigarettes.’

  I shrugged. She stood at the doorway, folding her arms as I made small talk with Adam. If only all small talk could be this easy.

  ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ she asked.

  Why does everyone make it feel like there’s an option? No one wants to split from their husband. Watching Adam, I realised: Conall and I will never go through sleepless nights together because of a crying baby; we’ll never play in the park with our son or daughter; watch them take part in a school play or be at their graduation. A whole future erased at the push of a verbal button. The sob seemed to come from nowhere. I wasn’t going to cry today. But grief doesn’t just swell inside you; it knocks you over when you least expect it. Before I knew it Maars was by my side and rocking me in her arms. I held on to Adam as if he was the thread in the seams of my sanity.

  ‘Come on,’ said Maars. ‘Let’s get you to lie down. I’ll make your favourite; lasagne. And I’ll get Tahir to bring muffins on his way home,’ she added as we made our way to the guest bedroom.

  ‘Last thing I need is to be divorced and fat,’ I said, wiping the water dribbling from my nose.

  Maars took Adam and put him in his cot as she tucked me into bed. All I remember is her stroking my hair until I fell asleep.

  11.15 p.m. Maars dropped me home and I think Conall’s in his bedroom. After tomorrow, I don’t know when I’ll see him again.

  Monday 10 June

  10.20 a.m. Katie cornered me before I went into Sakib’s office.

  ‘Sweetu.’ She stared at my face. ‘You have to start answering my calls.’

  I nodded. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. Listen, I’ve been reading up on different kinds of bereavement and . . . well, this is sort of like that.’

  Why was the light in this office so bright?

  ‘They say, when you’ve lost all hope you just have to understand that the people who love you the most carry it for you. Until you’re ready to have it back again.’

  I was going to cry.

  ‘I’m holding on to it for now,’ she said. ‘Don’t you worry.’

  She kissed me, gave me a nod and headed back to her seat. Wish I could tell her I love her. I’m guessing she knows.

  When I knocked on Sakib’s door he wasn’t there so I just went in, sat down and waited. About five minutes passed when I heard: ‘How are you feeling?’

  I looked up to see Sakib, smiling down at me.

  ‘I’m just dandy,’ I s
aid. I lifted my head up which felt rather heavier than usual – on account of a headache rather than a sizeable brain.

  ‘So . . .’ he began. ‘You’re alone now?’

  Doesn’t mince his words, does he? The words were pellets hitting me like a machine gun. Du-du-du-du-du-du-du. Why is it such a taboo word, anyway? What’s wrong with being alone? I mean, we’re all alone in life – and death come to think of it. I spread out my hands.

  ‘So it seems.’

  He nodded. ‘Your email . . .’ he began.

  ‘Sorry.’

  He put his hand out as if to say, not to worry. ‘It’s a dilemma.’

  No shit. My eyes settled on an MS on his table: How to Build a Life. Sakib opened his drawer and offered me a biscuit.

  Which is when I burst into tears.

  How was he to know that’s exactly what Conall used to do when I had dating problems? Biscuits used to do the trick then. I need something a lot more hardcore now. Sakib looked so alarmed I wasn’t sure what to do. Stop crying, Sofia. STOP.

  ‘Ready?’ he asked.

  No, I’m not fucking ready. I nodded.

  He leaned forward. ‘I’m a very good agony aunt. Well, I like to think I offer good advice, anyway,’ he added.

  I tucked my hands between my knees.

  ‘On a professional level this isn’t great for you or me,’ he said. As he leaned back, he added, ‘But this is personal: I want to give you a few weeks to decide, and if you still don’t want to go ahead, then I’ll understand. If you ask me, though – it’d be a mistake. You have to think long-term.’

  I can barely think about how I’m going to put one step in front of the other and he’s asking me to consider the bigger picture. Good advice indeed. Then Mum’s voice came into my head: Soffoo, you didn’t think when you married a gora. You just did what you wanted. What would happen if I just quit now? What does the professional future hold?

  ‘How can I write a book about marriage when I’m not in one?’ I said.