Page 101 of The Mismatch

It was after his third failed attempt that Neda made the decision finally to move, to uproot her family and start afresh somewhere new. The summer after she handed in her thesis, the family moved to Brighton. It was easier to blame Liverpool, and the people Hossein spent time with there, for the destruction of their family. Brighton was their beacon of hope. By the sea – and hadn’t Maman always told her water was calming? Could aid almost any ailment? Could the sea, then, save Hossein?

They left suddenly and without much thought for the logistics, but it turned out OK. It had to.

Neda became both housewife and breadwinner. They had lived in England for ten years at this point and had been made British citizens.

Occasionally she indulged in fantasies of leaving Hossein, telling herself she had the power in their relationship, but she knew she would never do it. She couldn’t leave him when he was so vulnerable, so dependent. What would he do without her? Where would he go? She knew he would end up homeless. Or, worse, dead. She had resigned herself to looking after him – perhaps this was Allah testing her.

Being an older sibling, Neda was aware that all her life she had been made to look after others. She was seeing the effect of this in her relationship with her husband. Objectively, she knew they were equals, that he shouldn’t need her, much as she didn’t need him. And yet she found herself mothering him, putting his needs above hers. It was in realising this that she finally accepted the life before her. It was hard, but she knew what she had to do, knew what her role was to be, and how somewhere inside herself she even enjoyed it. Enjoyed carrying the load because without it what would she do? There would be emptiness, and what was more frightening than the unknown?

Their new life soon had a rhythm. Yes, Hossein was an absentee husband and father, but sometimes,sometimes, he showed he still cared. He watched television with the children and seemed absorbed in their interests; he even took them to school every morning on the way to the pharmacy to collecthis medication. He occasionally bought Neda bouquets of flowers, saying ‘but you’re the most beautiful flower’, which made her smile.

It was when his mother died suddenly in 1990 from a brain tumour that he entered the pit of depression. He did not cry when he found out. He simply went straight to bed and stayed there for twenty-four hours.

The entire family went to Iran for the first time in twelve years.

Humid air greeted her as she stepped off the plane; it felt like home.

At the airport they were met by their family, holding red roses and signs that read ‘The Nazari family’. Her own maman and baba were there, at one in the morning. Her usually stony-eyed father had tears in his eyes instead as he hugged her and whispered in her ear, ‘Don’t be gone for so long next time, eh?’

Both Amir and Parvin sat on her lap on the car journey home and seemed to marvel at the fact that in Iran it was acceptable to have more than five people in a car.

‘Isn’t this … illegal?’ Laleh said. She was sitting on her father’s lap.

‘She looks so worried!’ Baba said to Neda. ‘Tell her it’s OK, everyone does this here,’ he chuckled.

Neda translated for her baba.

‘She does know a bit of Farsi, she’s just shy,’ she added quickly to her family.

Hossein said nothing, his gaze focused on the outside. He had been like this since he found out about his mother: silent.Neda herself hadn’t yet experienced such a grief, so could only imagine what he was feeling. She wondered whether if he wasn’t on drugs his reaction would be different, whether it would be something she could understand better.

Neither family was told about his addiction.

The country they once knew had become alien to Hossein and Neda. The shops and restaurants they remembered vividly had closed down, and the streets were full of women in black chadors. Gone were the days of the miniskirt. Neda remembered when wearing a small hijab was considered unusual, black chadors expensive and rare.

Tehran was run-down, its former brightness seemed to have dulled. The coffeehouse where Hossein had proposed to Neda was now boarded up, and Baba said it would be renovated into a takeaway soon.

The funeral was a blur of wailing, with Hossein’s sisters pounding their hands on their mother’s grave. Amir and Parvin hid behind Laleh’s leg. Hossein remained dry-eyed.

During the will reading, he was given the entirety of his mother’s savings and the family house as he was the only man. He distributed the money evenly among his sisters, keeping enough for his own family to buy a five-bedroomed house in Brighton. Somewhere along the way he must have resigned himself to the fact that they would stay in England forever. Perhaps seeing the changed Iran made him realise his memories of a life he would return to were just that: memories. Life would never be the same for him, not now his mother had died, not since he became an addict.

CHAPTER 48

Soraya

Brighton, 2014

Christmas was always a confusing time for the Nazari family. Soraya had spent her childhood trying to get them into the Western spirit to conform and for the sake of the presents. But each year was different. One year they would have a Christmas tree, another year they would get presents or else make a big feast, but it was never quite in sync, all the traditions never observed together in harmony.

It was only when she was eighteen that Soraya gave up. This was also in part because at university she finally met people who didn’t celebrate Christmas at all, and for once wasn’t regarded with wonder because her Muslim Iranian family didn’t fully celebrate the holiday.

So Christmas for the Nazaris was like any other day, except they did have one special meal that they ate together, including her dad. And they watched theEastEndersandCoronation StreetChristmas specials.

When Soraya returned home there were subtle signs acknowledging something serious had happened: her mum was attentive, bordering on clingy. Parvin was formal; she said hello and goodbye to Soraya when Amir was nearby, but if they were alone together was stony in her silence. Sorayawasn’t sure why her sister was annoyed with her – she was the one who’d always told her to date. Then, when her dad hit Soraya, her sister had just stood there, as though it was all Soraya’s fault for getting caught. She should be the one to be ignoring Parvin, but she didn’t have the energy to retaliate. Her sister’s lack of empathy had become the topic of many rants delivered to Oliver. So she avoided Parvin around the house.

Her dad, however, didn’t engage with Soraya on any level, pretending she was invisible. This she preferred. Amir was the only one who acted normally with her, because no one had told him what had happened.

She messaged Oliver and Priya to organise a meet-up to plan their literary journal idea once and for all. She needed something to look forward to. If Magnus was thriving, she needed to do something as well.