By the time the main courses arrived, we had finally abandoned the topic of dancing and had moved on to more normal subjects, like work, family and my list. It had taken a while, but I was seeing glimpses of the pre-Snowdon Zakariya again. Fun, smart, considerate, unassuming. I confessed that I was seeing a therapist and instead of bolting at the admission, he listened attentively. Although to be fair, I did keep stressing the fact that I was only doing it because of the list.
‘I think we could all benefit from a professional perspective sometimes,’ he said simply. ‘Maybe if it wasn’t so uncommon in our culture, there would be less trauma that keeps getting passed down through the generations.’
After polishing off our food, we went in search of mishti and tea for dessert. We walked through Whitechapel in comfortable silence and this time, whenever his arm brushed against mine, he didn’t yank it away like I had a contagious disease. I had to suppress my natural urge to slide my arm into his and hold on to him as we walked. It wasn’t something I had experienced much, that desire to be physically close to someone and not in a sexual way, but out of companionship.
‘Can I ask you something?’ I asked when we stopped at the tea shack and Zakariya insisted on buying me a karak chai and a massive piece of orange, crispy jalebi dripping with syrup.
‘Anything,’ he replied, smiling at me.
‘Why did you disappear?’ I asked quietly, looking down at the Styrofoam cup I held in my cold hands. ‘We went to Snowdon, I thought we were friends and then you suddenly just ghosted me. What happened?’
Zakariya looked uncomfortable then, the smile fading from his lips. ‘I didn’t ghost you. I . . . I just—’
‘You just what?’ I interrupted his stammering. ‘You just thought it was OK to treat me like that? Friends aren’t supposed to do that.’
‘I didn’t disappear,’ he said, getting agitated. ‘I just didn’t proactively seek you out. If I had seen you somewhere, I would have talked to you. Why wouldn’t I? We’re friends, right?’
‘Friends like those girls you were flirting with in Snowdon?’ I blurted without thinking.
‘What?’ His brows furrowed, Zakariya stared at me as though I had just announced that I had seen him fly off in a UFO.
‘Snowdon? You went off with a group of girls and basically just ghosted me ever since.’
‘What are you talking about?’ he said, stopping so abruptly that I almost knocked into him. ‘They were kids! They wanted to talk about the charity. Why do you care who I talk to?’
‘I don’t care!’
‘So why are we arguing?’
‘Because you ghosted me!’
‘I didn’t!’ Frustrated, he waved his hand in the air to emphasise his point, forgetting that he was holding a cup of tea in his hand. The tea went flying and I yelped and jumped back, narrowly avoiding the hot liquid from staining my clothes.
‘I’m so sorry!’ he said, staring miserably at his own shirt, now soaked in tea.
‘Are you OK? Here, let me help you!’ I handed him my cup and paper bag and attempted to wipe his chest with some tissues I found in my bag. I did it instinctively, but after a moment or two I realised that I was standing much too close to him. So close that I could smell his musky scent. The gesture was supposed to be practical and helpful, but I heard him draw a sharp breath and, suddenly, it became intimate.
Without thinking, I let my hand linger on his chest for a brief second. Time froze and I could feel the warmth of his skin and the steady thumping of his heart beneath the cotton of his shirt. What would happen if I stayed like this forever? At that moment, I wished more than anything that I could stay like this forever, in the middle of Whitechapel, home to thousands of Bengalis. Where any one of them could see us and report our inappropriate behaviour to our parents.
Snatching my hand away, I bustled over to the overflowing bins a few metres away and carefully dropped the tissues on top, so as not to touch the rim or any of the rubbish.
‘All good?’ I asked, coming back over to him to relieve him of my cup and bag. Our fingers brushed and a spark flew through me, making my heart strain against my ribcage.
‘All good,’ he murmured, looking down at me, holding onto my bag for a second longer than necessary before he let it go.
‘It’s getting late,’ I said, trying to inject reality into the charged atmosphere. The way he was looking at me was unnerving; it was as though he was seeing right through my confident, indifferent facade and straight into my soul, where he was reading an entire book about who I was and what I was feeling.
‘It is,’ he echoed, his voice low and husky. ‘Shall we go? I have my car so I can drop you home.’
I knew I should reject the invitation. The atmosphere was too charged and I needed to remove myself from this intoxicating moment, but I couldn’t bring myself to end the night so abruptly.
‘Sure,’ I said, trying to keep my voice steady and not betray the plethora of emotions that I was experiencing; everything from fear to elation. As we walked silently over to his car, I lied to myself repeatedly, telling myself that I was reading too much into the moment and nothing was happening between us.
Deep down, I was well aware of something brewing. It wasn’t blossoming love or anything cheesy like that. It was worse, it was a storm.
Zakariya opened the door for me and once again, I was hit by a wave of desire to be held by him. I had spent my entire life being mindful of my behaviour as a Muslim. Intimacy was after marriage, end of. Was I about to ruin it by putting myself in a dangerous situation with a guy who had no interest in marrying me and was about to piss off to another country?
‘Actually, I think I’m going to take the Tube,’ I said quickly, when I was already halfway into the car. Before my hormones made me change my mind, I moved back, narrowly missing bumping into him with my ample bum cheeks.
‘I need to . . . um . . . stop off and drop this . . . thing off to my friend on my way home,’ I stammered as I turned to face him. Would he object? Would he be annoyed? Would he try and persuade me to accept the ride? If he did, I knew I would be too weak to resist. A part of me wanted him to protest.
‘Oh. OK,’ he said, the confusion written all over his face. ‘Thanks for a lovely evening. Insha’allah see you soon?’
‘Insha’allah,’ I repeated. God willing. ‘Goodnight.’
With that, I walked away from Zakariya and his alluring broodiness and headed towards the train station.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
‘So, then what happened?’ Dina demanded when she came over the next day with Sami and baby Sama. Aunty Noura had finally left to go back to Australia and we were both secretly relieved, although a little worried about how Dina would cope on her own.
We were up in my room enjoying tea and biscuits after dinner and prayers. Dina was breastfeeding Sama pretty much 24/7, dropping biscuit crumbs all over the baby blanket as she did so. Ma and Baba were entertaining Sami downstairs and he was thriving off all the attention. Ma loved children and was fussing over him like a grandmother hen, feeding him all sorts of sugary things that Dina would never have allowed had it been anyone else offering. During dinner, Ma kept making comments like, ‘Who knows when I’ll be a Nani or a Dadi?’, scowling first at me and then at my brother.
‘Nothing, I got on the train and I haven’t heard from him since,’ I admitted, as I dunked a cake rusk into my tea for a moment too long and watched the whole thing collapse into the bottom of my mug.
‘Maybe you should text him,’ Dina mused.
‘Why? I don’t have anything to say.’
