Page 127 of The Mismatch

‘This is weird,’ Soraya said.

Amir and Parvin were dressed conservatively, Amir in a button-up shirt and trousers, and Parvin in a long flowing dress. As ever, Soraya did not get the dress-code memo and wore a minidress with thick tights and an oversized jumper. Neda was thinking about telling her to change when there was a knock on the door.

They all froze for a second. Neda made her way towards the door, but before that she hissed, ‘Amir, be nice to the boy.’

Of course, Neda didn’t like that Laleh and Matthew were still unmarried, but she’d lost the right to have an opinion on the matter when she allowed her child to be disowned. She knew that, at least.

He grumbled something in response. His tone reminded her of Hossein’s.

‘You’ve had girlfriends, you can’t talk, remember that,’ she shot back. There was a definite change in the family dynamics. Amir’s misdeeds, which formerly had been left to slide, she now called him out on. She was reconsidering what had been ingrained in her thinking: that exceptions were always to be made for men. She’d always known it was wrong, the way she treated her daughters differently from her son, but had ignored her own misgivings, too caught up in Hossein to check herself.

But that was changing now.

It was a start.

Through the stained glass in the front door Neda could make out three figures. Sixteen years had led to this point. So much lost time, so many missed firsts. Would her daughter hate her? Would her granddaughter be scared, resentful even, of the family that disowned her mother because of her?

She wrung her hands three times, needing to release her nerves.

With her eyes closed, Neda turned the handle and opened the door.

Standing before her was her long-lost daughter. Laleh. She was taller now, perhaps after a growth spurt in her later teenage years. Next to her stood an even taller man and behind them a young girl. Matthew was slender, with thick circular glasses and curly hair. His skin was almost translucent, mirrored in their daughter who was pale with black curly hair. Her eyes were large. She stood nervously behind her father, despite him trying to push her in front.

‘Hello, Mum.’ Laleh’s voice cracked.

‘Darling,’ Neda said.

Neda saw so much of herself in Laleh, but she was her own woman now. There were small lines by Laleh’s eyes, Neda hoped from laughing. It was one thing to see her daughter grown up in pictures, but to see her standing before her left Neda almost speechless.

Zara was her mother’s daughter. In fact, Neda was sure if she’d seen her in the street she would have known instinctively that this was her granddaughter. Zara had Laleh’s strong jaw and soft hazel eyes, but she also had her father’s solid, straight nose.

Neda’s heart hurt from wanting to know everything about the women before her, understanding she should have done this much, much sooner. She blinked past the tears and turned her gaze to the man.

‘Hi, I’m Matthew,’ Laleh’s partner said, his voice polite and measured. He gave her a small wave, whilst simultaneously attempting an equally small bow. She imagined Laleh had briefed him on the fact that Muslim women couldn’t shake hands with men.

‘Hi,’ Zara said quietly, her Scottish accent audible, shifting her weight nervously from leg to leg.

‘Do you know who I am?’ Neda asked Zara in the tone she adopted whenever she addressed anyone under the age of sixteen.

They had spoken on the phone several times, usually on Zara’s birthday, but their conversations were always short. They didn’t know each other well enough to have a rapport.

Neda had to raise her head to look Zara in the eye while she spoke. The girl was tall for a recently turned fifteen-year-old.

She nodded. ‘Yeah, you’re my grandma?’ She looked to her mother as she spoke.

Neda smiled and then covered her mouth, eyes brimming with yet more tears. It was not the hesitation in her granddaughter’s voice that made her tearful, but rather the possibility of redemption the child’s visit here represented. Neda realised she was being given another chance at a relationship with her granddaughter and daughter. This time she would be assertive, fair, an ally to all her family. Shewould be everything she had wanted Maman to be to her, instead of letting history repeat itself.

‘Come in, come in, everyone!’ Neda said, not meeting their gaze for fear she would start crying.

As they removed their shoes by the front door, she offered them plastic slippers to wear inside. Laleh accepted but Matthew and Zara declined.

‘It’s part of Iranian culture to wear slippers inside the house,’ Laleh explained to Zara.

‘Yes, it’s a lot more hygienic and comfortable,’ Neda chimed in, proud of her daughter for remembering. ‘Have you had a long journey to get here?’

‘We came to London on Friday and did some sightseeing yesterday,’ Matthew said. ‘And then got the train to Brighton this morning. It gave us an excuse to go to London as a family at least!’ Neda detected a slight lisp to his voice and wondered if it came out more with nerves. He had an air of softness about him, quite unlike the men she had grown up around.

‘Ah, that sounds lovely,’ she said.