Page 15 of The Mismatch

‘I don’t know … you aren’t very assertive, are you?’

Soraya bit her lip, held her phone tightly and looked out of her bedroom window. She could see the railway tracks from New Cross Gate station, a train slowly moving past. It was all rather grey. She studied the scene closely, her nose almost to the glass. The people on the train were smaller than ants, going about their lives.

‘I just got rejected from a job,’ she said finally.

‘Oh – they said you were timid?’

‘Well, yeah.’ Her breath steamed up the window, so Soraya sat back and drew a love heart with her index finger in the condensation.

‘Well, you can always work on that.’

Soraya didn’t want to work on it; she didn’t want to have to change herself, and quite frankly she didn’t even want the job that badly. She wanted a job in which she could be timid and that would be fine – but what job was that?

There was a pause.

Soraya lay down on her bed, put her feet up against her slanted wall, not sure how to word what she would say next. ‘Do you ever get Muslim guilt?’

Despite it being a made-up phrase, Parvin knew what she meant. ‘Sometimes, but then I remember we aren’t hurting anyone, so why does it matter?’

Whilst Parvin’s words were not quite what the Quran decreed, they gave reassurance all the same.

‘Why? Are you seeing a boy or something?’ she pressed.

‘Not really,’ Soraya muttered.

‘Care to elaborate?’

‘Nope.’

‘Oh, quit worrying and start living, Soraya,’ Parvin continued. ‘Maybe that’s why you’re so timid, you’re always stuck in your own head.’

That comment made her want to say some not very timid things in reply. She settled for, ‘Well, that was rude.’

‘But remember to be careful,’ Parvin added, a strange edge to her voice.

‘Careful?’

‘Like … you know.’ And then she whispered, ‘Remember to always use protection.’

Soraya’s cheeks coloured, the urge to hang up even greater. ‘OK, stop. I’m not stupid.’

‘No need to get snappy. Aren’t you going to ask what’s new here?’

‘Fine. What’s new?’

‘Well, for starters, Amir has a new girlfriend. She’s very quiet. Almost too quiet.’

‘Huh?’

‘She came round for dinner,again! She’s only twenty, which I thought was a bit weird. They talk about getting engaged a lot, but I’m not sure she’s that into it.’

Soraya could feel her irritation turning to outrage. It was one thing for him to have ‘secret’ girlfriends, of whom he had many, but another to flaunt them around whilst simultaneously preaching about Islam to his sisters. And her mum and dad’s lack of care about the whole situation brought her anger all the way home. Soraya breathed in deeply, telling herself,It’s nothing new.

‘That’s quite a big age gap … interesting. Wait, why do you think she isn’t into it?’

‘She just giggled whenever it was brought up. She was quite timid, actually.’

‘Like me, you mean?’