The Woman who Loved an Octopus and other Saint's Tales (12 page)

Aneesa was my best friend, all the way from Year Four. I'd known Tariq as well, obviously, but only as Aneesa's brother, not, like, as a person.

Then one day I went back to her house for tea after school. It was during Ramadan and I'd fasted all day along with her. I was fourteen and very earnest. All my other friends had long since discovered boys and flirting and dancing and snogging, only I was still into books. I was a bit of a late starter. Aneesa was a little bit into boys and flirting, but she had also just discovered History. What she called ‘our own history' – of where her parents had come from, Pakistan and India; and the Partition and the fight for Independence and stuff even before that. She said that suddenly her horizon had become dramatically bigger.

Aneesa is like that. Always off on a quest somewhere, being
inspired
by things.

Anyway, I hadn't really known about all the stuff she was talking about now; not really known, you know? Not like things that happened to real people like her Mum or her Dad. They'd just been things from the history books in school, or on the telly sometimes. Not
real
.

So I was sort of interested too, and thought I'd do a project about the Partition for history; it'd be dead easy really, I'd just have to follow Aneesa round for a bit and basically record everything she said, and then write that down properly and find a few pictures and stuff in the library, and there I'd be, project done.

So I went home with her that day for tea, and there was Tariq like I'd seen him dozens of times before, in the door to her room; I can still see him now, standing there and smiling at her and then at me and suddenly it was like I'd never really seen him before, like there was a spotlight trained on him so that I could see nothing else, only that smile and those eyes and what a beautiful neck he had and I thought, I want to be a vampire and bite him. And then Aneesa said something and I'd no idea what. I went beet red and mumbled something, and Tariq smiled again and went to his room, and I had to try to say something intelligent to Aneesa, and pretend my brain hadn't turned into a jellyfish.

Well, you know. I was in love, basically.

He was gorgeous, Tariq was. We went about holding hands a lot, and going off into the dunes and kissing and stuff, and it was great. I said, I don't want to do anything, you know, really really serious, not yet, and he was cool with that, and I think maybe he was relieved as well, because he'd not gone out with anyone before either.

I don't know why my parents were such ages finding out; I mean, it's not like we tried to hide anything. There wasn't anything
to
hide, if you know what I mean, we weren't
doing
anything, nothing really really serious; not like Karen in my class who got pregnant and had to leave before her GCSEs. I didn't want that, I wanted to go on to college or maybe university and do something with my life, you know, and so did he, we had time; we could wait.

And I'd got some condoms out of a machine, just in case.

Funny, really, because I thought I was being grown up and sensible. I'd got them just in case, because sometimes I thought, I don't really want to wait, I want to, you know,
do it
, like, now! Because what we were doing felt so good. And if we did, it'd be better to have something handy. But my Mum found them in my jeans pocket when she turned them out for the wash, although I'd asked her not to do that anymore, I thought I was old enough to do my own clothes, you know. But she said she'd had a machine nearly full, and was looking for something to put in it to fill it up, and so she just went through my clothes which were on the floor anyway, she said, as though that was a reason. And she said it just went to show that obviously I
had
things to hide and that was why I didn't want her to go through them, which was
not true
.

Anyway, I came home that evening and there were the condoms, on my plate at the tea table, if you please. And Mum and Da with faces like thunder, demanding an explanation. So I told them the truth.

I thought they'd praise me for my forethought.

Did they, hell! They set up a lament about how I obviously didn't trust them enough to come and talk to them and get advice before embarking on such a big step.
(
The word ‘sex' wasn't mentioned
once
.)

I said we hadn't really embarked on anything yet, and that I didn't see why I should get advice if we weren't doing anything. Or even if we did.

I can see that that was a tactical error now, but at the time I was just really peed off that they were behaving like I was a little kid, when I'd been acting really sensibly and responsibly and everything.

I said, ‘You
knew
I was going out with Tariq, we've been going out for ages!'

And my Da said that as far as he and Mum knew that had only been a kids' thing, only because I was friends with Aneesa. And how were they supposed to know if I didn't tell them?

‘Well, excuse me,' I said, ‘if I've been going out with a boy for almost two years and haven't said anything about having split up, then obviously I'm still going out with him, right?'

Wrong. It was only much later that I thought, maybe Mum and Da didn't
want
to know, maybe they didn't
want
to take Tariq and me seriously because they were hoping I'd grow out of him or something?

I mean, excuse me. I thought they were the adults. Adults are supposed to be mature, innit. You'd think I'd come home and told them I was
pregnant
, the way they carried on. And then it slowly came out that they weren't only peed off about the condoms and me growing up and all, but about who I was going to use them with, if you know what I mean. That's when my Da said that stupid sentence.

‘We've got nothing against Tariq,' he said – and that was obviously not true anyway. ‘We've got nothing against Tariq, but we must think about your future.'

I really wanted to point out that I
had
thought about the future, that that was why I'd bought the flaming rubbers, but I'm not completely stupid and I reckoned it wasn't a good time to say that just then.

So my Da went on, ‘If he was one of the New Middle Class, now. They have very capable doctors and solicitors.'

I didn't even get it at first. ‘Who,' I said. ‘
They?'

‘People like Tariq's father and mother,' my Da said without blushing. My Mum looked uncomfortable.

‘You mustn't think that we've got anything against them!' she said.

I still didn't get it. ‘Why should you?' I asked, and she went red and pressed her lips together.

‘What've Tariq's Mum and Dad got to do with it, anyway?' I said. ‘I mean, it's not like we're going to get
married
or anything. I mean, not for ages, anyway.'

‘I should think not,' my Da said, and that's when I finally clicked.

‘But we might,' I said – to see if I was right.

‘That's exactly what your mother and I are worried about,' my Da said pompously. ‘You're far too young to make that sort of decision. You've no idea what a marriage with somebody from this sort of... um... background will mean.'

‘What background?' I asked, all innocent.

‘You know perfectly well what I mean!' he said, getting annoyed.

‘Yes,' I said. ‘You're a flaming racist, that's what!
You want to tell me that I can't go out with Tariq because he's Asian. You don't want us to stay together and maybe get married and have kids because then your precious grandchildren would be mixed race and Muslim. You probably think Tariq and Aneesa and their Mum and Dad are
terrorists
because they're Muslims!'

I was screaming by then, I was
so
furious!

‘I think that's really disgusting and small-minded of you,' I said, and I said that on purpose because my Da was always going round saying how open-minded we were in our house, and not like other people; and how we always travelled abroad and broadened our minds and stuff, and were really clever and progressive. So I said, ‘That's really small-minded of you' – because it
was
.

And I said, ‘And we haven't flaming
done
anything yet anyway, but you don't believe me, do you, you don't
trust
me! You've such filthy minds and you're stupid racists, you're not thinking about my future at all, are you, you're thinking about what the neighbours will say, and Gran and Taid! And I'm ashamed that you're my parents, I wish Mr and Mrs Ahmed were my parents!'

And then I ran out of the house like a little kid, and banged the door and went on a bus and went to the beach. I always go to the sea when I'm upset or worried or happy.

When Tariq and I first got together I had to go on a three hour walk along the sea front because I was so happy. We had our first kiss there as well, in the dunes. It was really romantic even though it's such a touristy place and we were knee deep in fish-and-chip wrappers and stuff; it was still great, and he tasted really, really wonderful with the sea salt on his lips.

I was thinking of that as I sat on the bus on the way down to the sea front, and I started to cry. I was in such a rage, and I thought of how happy we were together, Tariq and me, and how Mum and Da didn't see that at all, how it didn't matter to them.

And then I thought, All right, if they don't want me like that, then I'm moving out. It wasn't just the thing with the condoms, and how they talked about Tariq. There'd been other things as well. Like that time when they'd stopped me going to the cinema with my mates because it was two days before my fifteenth birthday, and we wanted to see a Certificate 15 film, and my Da had rung up the cinema and told them that his underage daughter was trying to get into that film, and they stopped me going in! It was just, like, so humiliating! So anyway, there I sat on that bus, thinking about all that stuff, and suddenly I thought: I can't stand this one more day. I'm moving out.

And, you know, I was thinking at the back of my mind that I'd only move out as a sort of warning. Or to show Mum and Da that I was almost grown up, and that I was a real person, an almost-adult person who could make her own decisions, and that I wanted to be treated like an adult, you know?

I stomped up and down the sea front, and then I went really close to the sea, and it was a windy day and really big, noisy waves, and I went and screamed and screamed into the waves until I was all hoarse. But afterwards I felt better.

I rang Tariq on my mobile and told him what had happened, and that I had decided to move out. He was worried at first, and said, ‘What are you going to live on?' But I said I'd thought about that, and I would get a job and stuff, work in a call-centre or whatever, and that I thought anyway it would only be for a bit, until my parents saw that we were serious.

He wasn't really sure at first, but then we met up and we talked it all through, and slowly he was beginning to like the idea as well.

So anyway, that's what we did. We found this little flat, and I thought I'd probably have to work the checkouts at Kwik Save, but I was really lucky and got this job in an office; not great but it paid for my half of the rent and stuff, and I loved the independence.

Mum and Da didn't believe it at first when I told them what I was going to do, and that I was moving in with Tariq. I thought they'd take me more seriously, but instead they started yelling and screaming at me, and then they said they were going to stop me because I was too young, and it was against the law and they'd get an injunction or something and go to court – I mean, I couldn't believe it. I thought we'd sit down and talk.

And they just never came round.

It's been more than a year now and they're not even talking to me. I mean, I still try to ring them from time to time but they just put the phone down when they hear my voice, even Mum. I don't know why. It makes me really sad, and even Tariq can't always help. How can they be like that?

We moved to Liverpool, Tariq and me, a few weeks ago, because it was just getting too difficult back home. His parents are sort of OK about us – well, I mean, they did have forty fits, but they'd never throw Tariq out, you know what I mean? And they didn't call me names, ever. And Aneesa's really great and supportive and everything, but it was doing me in having to walk past my house in the street and knowing I couldn't go there. I tried, but my parents were just really icy and said they didn't think we'd have anything to talk about. I'd made my bed and now I must lie in it, and it wasn't any good coming to them for help. That just set me off again and I screamed at them until they closed the door in my face.

Shit.

Aneesa is still living at home, and since I've got the new job here and she got her new computer, we've been on the email all the time.