Page 53 of The Mismatch

‘Get off me!’ Baba exclaimed, pushing away from him.

Baba looked at Neda as though remembering for the first time that she was in fact there, watching everything fall apart. ‘I’m sorry.’ He shook his head and ran his fingers through his hair, before proceeding to yank on it.

‘Baba!’ Neda said. ‘What’s going on?’ She looked over to Hossein, whose gaze was cast down, and then to her uncle who had somehow sobered up and simply stared at his brother. All roads led to her father. ‘Baba?’

There was a long silence.

‘You coward,’ he muttered to Hossein. ‘We found out your husband has had a girlfriend for the past few years, and it overlapped with the khastegari,’ he explained to his daughter.

‘That’s not true—’ Hossein began. Neda raised her hand and gave him a deathly stare.

‘Let Baba finish.’

‘A girl came to me just now to tell me she “loves” Hossein, that he promised to marry her and then left her.’

All she could think in that moment was how much she wished she hadn’t heard those words. How she wished she could go on being ignorant, feeling special, feeling like she made the right choice. It was all ruined.Everything.

‘I was once with someone, it’s true. But we had a sigheh, Neda.’ Hossein’s voice was pleading as he watched her back away from him. Sigheh. A temporary marriage. ‘We realisedwe weren’t suited, and that’s when we separated. And then I met you, Neda. I swear on Allah, Neda, please believe me.’

She looked over to her dad, registered his expression of defeat. It was too late.

They all knew there was little to be done now.

CHAPTER 25

Soraya

Brighton, 2014

‘Wakey, wakey!’

Days after being ghosted by Magnus, Soraya woke from a deep sleep to find her bedroom door open and her mum’s silhouette in the doorway. Somehow it felt better to be in Brighton, rather than London, when she felt so burnt. In Brighton she could pretend she hadn’t been ruthlessly rejected because no one knew she had been seeing anyone to begin with.

‘It’s twelve o’clock. Why are you still asleep?’ her mum said, walking into the room. She pulled the blinds open, one by one, bringing too much light into the darkness. Soraya pulled the covers over her head. ‘Ey, why is your laptop on your bed while you sleep? I always tell you about the radiation!’

She’d fallen asleep working on an illustration of Nunhead Cemetery; it was the first time she’d attempted a landscape drawing. It looked more macabre than she had originally intended, but she appreciated the effect so far, despite it being unfinished.

‘I’ll get up in a minute,’ she groaned, and then on reflection groaned a second time. She was twenty-one years old, recently graduated, an adult, but in many ways it was asthough nothing had changed since she was fifteen. Hadn’t she slept until noon then, and hadn’t her mum always said ‘wakey, wakey’ then too?

How much longer would she be in this no-man’s-land of unemployment? Every entry-level job advert she saw – even unpaid work experience – listed a requirement for the candidate to have prior experience. You needed work experience for work experience. An outlandish cycle Soraya wasn’t sure how to bypass.

And she still hadn’t heard from Magnus. It had been three days. She checked when he was last online on Facebook Messenger and it was confirmed: he was ghosting her.

‘Parvin and I are going to Marks and Spencer today, get ready, we’re leaving in half an hour.’ Her mum had a smile in her voice; she loved M&S.

On the way there they passed Waterstones, and her mum saw the latest Jojo Moyes in the window. She ushered them inside to purchase it immediately.

‘Can I borrow that after you?’ Soraya asked.

‘Of course, darling.’

‘Mum, don’t you want to read something a bit different?’ Parvin said, picking up a book entitledThe Happiness of Pursuit. Soraya rolled her eyes.

‘Ah, my books bring me happiness, but thank you anyway, azizam.’

Soraya boughtGone Girlby Gillian Flynn. The film was tainted for her now since being stood up by Magnus, but she supposed she could at least enjoy the novel instead, when she was feeling a little less burnt that was.

On the way to M&S Parvin explained how inThe Happiness of Pursuitthere was a link between quests, challenging yourself, and happiness. ‘It’s about taking control of your life,’ Parvin continued. ‘Something we should all be aware of.’ Despite her initial resistance, Soraya began to be intrigued by the sound of the book. But it also made her nervous; did she feel unhappy because no intellectual challenge lay ahead for her now? What quest did she have to follow?