Page 58 of People Change

She does not understand.

‘Yes, indeed, I’m very happy with the work you’re doing.’

Shirin smiles; it is a closed-lipped smile and of course she doesn’t mean it, because really her heart is pounding anxiously. ‘I mean, obviously Florence recently got promoted …’

Lilian sits up straight, both hands on her lap, her large engagement ring shimmering in the light, the picture of formality. ‘Yes, she did. Listen, Shirin, you shouldn’t compare yourself to your colleagues. Focus on yourself.’

It is so vague and shaming, and she isn’t sure what to say. ‘Yes, of course. It’s just that we have similar experience and have been working here the same amount of time, so I wondered …’

‘I’m not meant to say this, it’s highly unprofessional of me, but the thing is, Shirin, Florence’s situation is quite different from yours. She got a job offer elsewhere – and she is such an asset to the team – so we matched her offer. I’m being transparent because I know it can be confusing when someone in the same position as you moves ahead quicker, but we don’t want to lose any of you, so that’s what happened.’

‘Oh, okay. Does that mean the editor position is still open?’

Lilian shakes her head. ‘I’m afraid not. But we can discuss all this in your next review.’

Her next review is in May. Three months away.

Shirin says something non-committal and pathetic like, ‘Okay, great!’ Inside she is withering.

There are so many things she wants to say, but she can’t find the words to do so politely. She is defeated. When she speaks up she is not heard. She cannot use her allotted annual leave to see her grandmother. The promotion she was grasping for is no longer in reach. And Kian has left her. Everything that gave her joy, everything that she was striving for, is disappearing.

And then it is confirmed; two days after Shirin had planned to visit Tehran, her mum rings her in the afternoon. She never calls. Shirin gets up from her desk and only answers the call when she is away from her colleagues, down the corridor by the lifts.

‘Your Maman Bozorg has passed away,’ her mum says.

Shirin’s body no longer feels like her own, her vision blurry. ‘How?’ she barely manages to ask.

‘The stupid hospitals here.’ Her mum’s voice is shaking. ‘She was doing much better, but then she got an infection. It happened so quickly – so, so quickly. I can’t believe my maman is gone.’ Her voice breaks.

When the call ends, Shirin goes into the toilets, into one of the cubicles, grabs a wad of toilet roll and buries her face in it. She cries silent tears, wanting to scream, wanting to bang her head against the door. She wishes, so badly, she could have said goodbye to her Maman Bozorg, that she could have told her in person that she loves her, before she passed away. That she had been granted permission to go to Tehran and see her sweet Maman Bozorg’s face one last time.

Grief

Grief is a strange thing. Each hour is different. Shirin oscillates from hopelessness to anger; an absence of faith to praying solemnly for her Maman Bozorg; apathy to existential dread that makes her feel physically sick, but also out of her body.

She travels to Tehran for seven days. Lilian allows her this as compassionate leave, and Shirin wishes she had shown such apparent kindness sooner. The trip is a blur. At the funeral Maman Bozorg’s children wail, pound the floor with their bare fists. Her own mother sobs into her handkerchief, head bowed, and Shirin holds her, keeping in her own sobs, letting singular tears slide down her face instead. Her grandmother’s face is etched into the marble gravestone. In the picture she is smiling, her eyes crinkled, the rest of her face devoid of the wrinkles that decorated her face and showed that she had enjoyed life.

They stay in Maman Bozorg’s house, though Shirin and her mother are in the same bedroom, Shirin on the futon once more. They cannot bear to go into Maman Bozorg’s room. In the kitchen, the freezer is stocked to the brim with expensive meats that Maman Bozorg was saving;Shirin’s mum tells her with a forlorn expression that this was not an expected turn of events. When Shirin leaves Tehran she is glad; she has spent the week holding her mother up, and when she descends into London she allows herself to be, to crumble.

She receives deliveries of flowers from her friends, Phoebe included. They come in cardboard boxes through the letterbox and require her to cut the stems herself. Weeks later they remain in her living room, dead, exuding a pungent sewer odour.

Each day she returns from work and goes straight to her bed, eating family-sized pizzas under her duvet or a share-size bag of Tangy Cheese Doritos for dinner, or sometimes nothing at all. She takes Night Nurse before bed, but still wrestles with sleep and listlessness, thinking more and more that she wants to die, though she's not sure if she really means it.

She speaks to Kian sometimes over FaceTime. He’ll be in a coffee shop, or on the move. One time he showed her Central Park and he looked truly happy. The smile she gave him then was almost genuine too. When he found out about her Maman Bozorg he offered to come back to London, and she told him not to be silly, that she was truly fine. She can be convincing when she needs to be, especially over the phone.

It is desperately lonely, this life that she leads. She badly wants someone to lean on, but everyone in her life is preoccupied with other matters. Their empty texts and online flower deliveries mean little; they don’t fill the void inside her. She wishes she could speak to someone, get help,so she can leave this hole she has found herself in, but therapy isn’t her reality. She is on an embarrassingly low salary, in a role that appears glamorous but is sucking away at her soul bit by bit.

After a month of this she visits her GP’s surgery, experiences angry receptionists, uninterested doctors, and leaves with a printout about mindfulness and a three-month repeat prescription for sertraline. As she walks past Roman Road market, past the vendors selling clothes with the Topshop labels cut out, fabric and knock-off designer bags, she dries her teary eyes and decides she has to pick herself back up. No one will do it for her.

The first social event Shirin goes to after Maman Bozorg’s passing is another one of Jasper’s gigs in Brixton. The doorman checks her name on the list. As he scans the page, she finds herself and points it out to him. He crosses her name off and indicates for her to enter. The pub is loud with chatter before the show starts. She spots Hana across the room, her dark hair wavy, so shiny it looks like spun silk. Next to her a blonde head, which she assumes is Millie. As she weaves through bodies to get to them, she feels herself going funny. She is not ready for social interactions. It is different at work; there it is much easier to put on a façade.

When she draws closer, she sees Hana say something to Millie, then Millie turns and they both greet her, overly animated. Millie hugs her, this time not to be annoying, because she squeezes Shirin and whispers in her ear, ‘I’m so happy to see you.’

Hana gives her a nod and says she looks amazing and compliments her on her outfit, saying her coat is gorgeous, and is it new? To which Shirin says no, she got it last year from Cos on sale. They both smile at her, clutching their drinks, like she is fragile and might break at any moment.

‘Stop acting weird,’ Shirin says, unbuttoning her coat. ‘I’m honestly fine.’

Millie leans forward, rubbing her lips together nervously. ‘But it’s okay if you’re not – it’s been hard for you.’