Page 59 of The Mismatch

‘I get the feeling you’re only after me for my looks.’

‘Obviously.’ She was smiling when suddenly Magnus grew serious. He looked at her, really looked at her.

‘I’m glad we’re OK again,’ he said, before kissing her long and hard. Then he was on top of her, making his descent down the bed, pressing his palms to either side of her upper thighs. His fingers tightened against her underwear as he pulled, ripping them apart. She barely had time to be annoyed because what he did next made her very, very happy.

CHAPTER 27

Soraya

Brighton, 2014

Soraya remembered a conversation she’d heard her mum having with her khale. She wasn’t even meant to be listening, and didn’t suppose her mum thought anything of it at the time. She certainly doubted her mum would ever realise that Soraya had thought about it ever since on a weekly, sometimes daily, basis, even though it occurred just before she left for university, three years ago now.

‘Poor girl,’ her mum said in Farsi into the phone receiver. ‘Yes, but it will be better than her husband leaving her because she didn’t bleed.’

Then her mum laughed softly, though it wasn’t real, Soraya knew that. It was a trait she had inherited from her own mum, a nervous tic when silence would be too telling. Another thing women needed to stop doing, but did anyway.

‘I never said she won’t bleed, Rabeh. You need to relax. I’m the uptight one, not you.’

Her mum glanced up then to find Soraya watching her. She looked away quickly but continued sitting at the kitchen table, hearing nothing but her mum’s conversation and the low hum of the fridge-freezer.

Tyzer, their orange cat, jumped up onto the wooden table and Soraya stroked his rough fur. She leant in to his body, inhaled his weirdly warm smell, before giving him a peck on his small head.

When her mum finished her conversation she shooed Tyzer off the table. ‘All this hair everywhere,’ she muttered. That was the reason they were never allowed a dog; dog hair was considered unclean and would make praying difficult. Soraya often wondered why cats were considered different from dogs in this respect. One of many questions she never asked.

‘What were you saying to Khale Rabeh?’

‘Fatima’s wedding is in two weeks and she was worrying about all the preparations.’

Her mum sat down next to Soraya and began opening the letters on the table, shaking her head at the bills. ‘Stupid TV licence.’ She couldn’t understand why they had to pay for Sky, the television itself, the electricity it used,andthe extra monthly TV licence.

‘Did you say something about blood?’ Soraya’s Farsi skills were poor, but her understanding was much better than her ability to speak it.

‘Yes, her fiancé’s family are very old-fashioned and want to make sure she’s a virgin, so they’re asking for the bed sheets from the wedding night.’

Soraya’s jaw dropped. She snapped it shut then opened it again to speak. ‘That’s still a thing?’ She remembered inThe Bloody ChamberBluebeard joking about wanting to wave thebloody sheet around. She thought it was something that only happened in ancient times or fairy tales.

‘So they hand the sheet to his mum? Isn’t that really gross?’

Her mum shrugged. ‘It’s just the way it is. She’s getting a test done by a doctor beforehand, just in case she doesn’t bleed, and then she’ll have a certificate confirming she’s a virgin. That’s what Rabeh was worrying about – your cousin is scared about the pain of the test.’

There was a silence until her mum said, ‘Thisis why it’s important to be a good girl.’

Soraya wasn’t sure why this was a valid reason – to have a painful test to prove you’re a ‘good girl’.

‘You don’t say that to Amir. Does the boy have to have a test to see if he’s a good boy?’

Her mum laughed then and shook her head. ‘No,’ was all she said. It was as though she knew how ridiculous the double standard was but didn’t care. How could she not care?

And yet here Soraya was, having just done things that definitely did not make her a good girl with Magnus, a white atheist she would most definitely never marry. A man whose body count, if you will, topped most people’s at the university.

Could she imagine herself ever having sex with him? The thought terrified her. She imagined a splattering of blood, an inescapable sense of regret immediately afterwards. Once it was done there was no going back. That was the awful thing about losing your virginity; when it was gone, it was gone. But what even was virginity? How could something you weren’t fully conscious of be so important?

Soraya would be the first person to say virginity was a construct, that women weren’t objects to be kept shiny and new, and yet when it came to herself, she sometimes wondered whether she did indeed want that. Granted, her liaison with Magnus had left her feeling somewhat used – they had, after all, engaged in some sexual activity, even if they had not gone all the way. And then she realised how fucked up her own analogy was and pushed the thought from her mind, resolving not to think about it again until she really needed to.

It was only when they were together, when his hand trailed up her thigh and his breath was on her neck, that she wanted it to all be over. She wanted to give in and no longer think about whether she would go to hell, or whether she would one day be engaged to a Muslim man who would make her take a test, and whether she would feel shame after. But unfortunately, she could never quite let herself go to that extent.

CHAPTER 28