‘No!’ I said defensively. Ma raised an eyebrow and I looked down, slightly embarrassed to have this conversation. ‘Well, not entirely. But it did make me think. I’m twenty-seven and I’ve never been on a date, let alone had a child. Who knows when or if I’ll ever meet someone worthy enough to marry? I need to create a future that I’ll be content with if I end up alone.’
‘And what if going back to university makes it harder for you to settle down? Where will you find the time to meet someone? You know I’m happy to put the word out, if that’s what you want—’
‘I could meet someone there!’ I interrupted hastily, before she decided to put her matchmaking headscarf on. ‘But that’s not the point. The point is to go out in the world and make something of my life, instead of waiting around for life to happen to me.’
Ma sighed and stood up. ‘I think you should go back to university if it’s something you want to do, but not because you’re bored. It’s going to be tough doing it while working. No more loafing around in bed watching TV all night and sleeping in until late at the weekend, going out on Friday nights. You’ll be too busy.’
She left my room, taking with her my laundry basket and some of the wind in my sails. I was so excited about this, but now I felt deflated, despite her reaction being reasonable. Everyone was going to question my motives for going back to studying at this age instead of putting all my time and energy into securing a husband. I needed to find a way to deal with them instead of letting it get to me. I wondered what Noah was going to tell everyone about going back to studying now, at nearly thirty. I bet no one would question his motives. He would be seen as driven, motivated, striving for success. No one would ask him if it would hinder his chances of settling down. In fact, it would make him a more attractive marriage candidate.
My phone rang as I was reading through my applications. Glancing at the caller ID, I saw Dina’s smiling face looking out at me. We had taken that picture together a few years ago in Hyde Park, the day she got the worst sunburn of her life. It was one of those scorching, humid days when the whole of London seemed to be out in the park, pink and white flesh glistening and burning under the heat as they lay there baking on the grass like rotisserie chickens. My toffee-coloured skin did all right in heat, but poor Dina’s marshmallow complexion didn’t fare as well. She was sore for days afterwards and refused to go out without a sunshade and medical-grade factor 100 sunscreen for the rest of the summer.
‘Hey, Dina,’ I said with forced cheeriness. I didn’t want her to realise how disoriented I’d felt since she shared her news with me. If our lives were a racetrack, she was more than halfway through the race, jumping effortlessly over all the hurdles, whereas I was still casually strolling along the plain tarmac, tripping over every rock and stone.
‘Hey, Maya,’ Dina sang out. There was nothing forced about her good mood. I could feel it radiating through the phone. ‘I have so much to tell you! Are you free tonight?’
Of course I was free. I was always bloody free, wasn’t I? The childish, petty part of me wanted to pretend I had plans of epic proportions. But the more rational, mature part of me knew that playing games would only deepen the crack in our friendship.
‘Yeah, I am. Do you want to come over? Have dinner with us?’
‘I need to have dinner at home, Mohammed’s been moaning about how he hasn’t seen me much lately. Like it’s my fault he’s been on-call all week. But I can come round after Sami’s gone to bed, like nine-ish?’
‘See you in a bit.’
‘Later!’
‘What’s this about going back to university?’ Baba walked into the dining room as I set the table for five; the fifth being Nani, my maternal grandmother. From the kitchen came the aroma of garlic, chillies and gochujang and my stomach growled in response. Dina was missing out; Ma’s cooking is seriously the best. Better than anything I have ever eaten in a restaurant. Her hands are like magic, turning everything she touches into a thing of beauty. And she doesn’t only cook Bengali curries either, although those were amazing as well, given that she learnt from both my grandmothers. Nani loves east-Asian food, so that night’s dinner was tom yum soup, vegetable spring rolls, pad thai, dynamite shrimp and Korean fried chicken. Heaven.
‘I want to do a master’s in Law,’ I replied, avoiding his gaze as I set out cutlery and chopsticks on the placemats.
‘Education is never wasted,’ he mused. ‘Although it would have been better if you did it straight after your degree. How are you going to pay for it?’
Nearly all my dad’s concerns began or ended with, ‘How are you going to pay for it?’ I didn’t – couldn’t – blame him. He’s a first-generation Bengali Brit who came to the UK at twenty-three years old, got beaten up almost daily for being a ‘smelly Paki’ and had to work hard to make it to where he is today. Which isn’t anything spectacular – he works for the social services department at Tower Hamlets council – but it’s not like he had anything handed to him on a silver platter. He worked in a restaurant for pennies every spare moment, throughout school and college, so he could save up to go to uni without getting in debt. Even now, he does GCSE maths tutoring two evenings a week because he’s not only used to grafting, but he’s also petrified that a rainy day will come and he won’t have the back-up funds for it. I’m pretty sure he has saved up enough to see us through a tsunami.
‘I’m going to apply for a scholarship,’ I told him. ‘I’m only going to do it if I get the funding for it. And I’ll do it part-time, so I can work at the same time.’
‘Hmm,’ Baba said non-committally. I knew that ‘hmm’. It was the prelude to the real issue on his mind. I went into the kitchen to bring the bowls of food to the table, bracing myself for the next line of questioning, when the doorbell rang, saving me from the inquisition.
‘NANI!’ I cried out as I opened the door to find my little grandmother on the other side in her usual beige trench and a white headscarf pinned neatly under her chin. My uncle waved from his car that was parked on the kerb and I guided Nani into the house and helped her with her coat. As always, she was in a simple saree underneath. She always wore various shades of white, beige, cream or, if feeling particularly rebellious, blossom pink or light grey. In our culture, widows are supposed to wear white and Nani tried to adhere to that custom as closely as possible.
‘Yallah, amar Maya ni?’ Nani always greeted me like this and it made me smile each time. Of course it was me. Who else was it?
‘Bala asoin ni, Nani?’ I asked her how she was, as I hung her coat up and took her through to the dining room. ‘Ma Chinese khani randi soin afnar lagi.’ This wasn’t entirely true. Ma had cooked a combination of Chinese, Thai and Korean food for Nani, but going into that much detail would have required me to explain the nuances and my basic Sylheti was inadequate for that sort of technical conversation.
‘Don’t you think it’s time we started finding suitors for you?’ Baba continued when Nani was deposited at the table next to him and as I carefully set down the bowls of steaming hot soup. Malik, as always, sat expectantly, not bothering to offer any help. ‘I mean, by all means, study if you want, but you need to progress in other areas of your life as well.’
‘Yeah, Maya,’ Malik chose that moment to participate, grinning evilly at me. ‘You need to progress in other areas of your life. Our lineage is at risk of dying out.’
‘Pretty sure lineage continues via the male heir, not the female heir,’ I retorted. ‘What, or shall I say, whom are you progressing with right now?’
Malik glared at me and I stuck my tongue out at him like a five-year-old. ‘Don’t start things you don’t want to finish, little bro.’
‘Kita mati rai?’ Nani asked what we were talking about and Baba gave her the lowdown as I scurried away back to the kitchen to bring the rest of the food out.
‘Eh-reh,’ Ma called out to Baba from the kitchen, where she was putting the final garnishes on the noodles. ‘We’ve spoken about this. Maya will find someone when she’s ready.’
‘And why has no one spoken to me about it?’ Nani demanded, in Sylheti of course, because despite living in England for nearly fifty years, she still pretended she couldn’t speak a word of the language. ‘I’m only the head of the family, that’s all.’
‘We didn’t really speak about it,’ Baba replied, glaring at Ma. ‘You spoke and I listened, but now that she’s about to embark on a two-year course, things have changed. Are we going to wait another two years before we start looking? These things take time and the moment she’s on the other side of thirty . . .’
Baba let the implication dangle in the air like a dead fly stuck to a web.
‘Look,’ I interrupted, before my parents got into an argument over me and my lacklustre love life, ‘I’m open to meeting people, OK? You do what you have to do and I’ll do what I have to do.’
‘What?’ Ma stared at me from the doorway as I sat down in my usual seat. ‘Are you saying we can put the word out? Look at biodatas?’
‘If you want to look at dodgy marriage CVs that basically say everything about nothing, that’s up to you. Just don’t expect me to meet anyone who is shorter than me, without a decent job, or outside the M25.’
‘Deal!’ Ma beamed at us as she placed the bowl of sweet, spicy and tangy noodles in front of us with a flourish. ‘Let’s eat.’
Throughout dinner, all my parents and grandmother spoke about was how they were going to find me a husband. They talked about creating a ‘biodata’ for me, a Bengali version of a marriage CV that detailed everything any prospective partner’s parents would want to know about me: my age, height, occupation, education and family background, complete with a carefully styled photo that showed me in the best possible ‘light’. And that wasn’t just a phrase; they literally meant that they needed a picture where I didn’t look too dark-skinned. Nani was adamant that we get it done before she left for her annual trip to Bangladesh in a few days, so she could vet the contents.
As I listened to them go on and on about which uncle to speak to, which aunty to visit, whose wedding to attend to show me off, I felt my skin prickle with unease. This is normal, I told myself, over and over again. Everyone does it. The fact that you HAVEN’T been doing this for the past four years is what’s weird.
I didn’t enjoy a single bite of my food and even Malik kept darting worried glances in my direction. As soon as my parents finished eating, I leapt up from the table and cleared away quickly, so I would be free before Dina arrived. The knock on the door came as I was drying the last dish and I ran to open it before Ma could.
‘Come upstairs!’ I said, closing the front door firmly behind her and all but dragging her up the stairs to my room. Being older than Malik, I was lucky enough to get the second double bedroom in our little house, while he was stuck with the box room which could barely accommodate his ego, let alone all his swag. I felt bad for him; he earnt so much money and could be living it up in a bachelor pad in Canary Wharf. Instead, he chose to do the ‘proper’ Bengali thing and stay at home with our parents.
