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‘I’m so sorry,’ replied Fatti, looking at everyone. ‘The nausea just won’t…’
She wasn’t able to make the end of the sentence before leaping up to run to the bathroom, Ash following her.
‘My poor daughter,’ said her mum. ‘But she has a good husband.’
Bubblee thought she saw Farah bristle. Perhaps she was imagining things?
‘You girls never answer me,’ said their mum. ‘I will learn to use this WhatsUp myself.’
‘Firstly, you’d need a phone that was made this century,’ replied Bubblee.
‘Hmm?’ Her mum looked confused. ‘Can I use my iPad?’
‘Well, yes, but…’ Bubblee couldn’t be bothered to finish explaining. ‘Don’t worry, Farah will get you a new phone when I leave.’
Her mouth went dry as she said this; her stomach twisted in an all-too-familiar knot of anxiety. It felt like an overreaction but she’d begun to have a physical reaction to going back to London.
‘Or maybe I will just stay.’
Farah frowned. ‘What about work?’
Bubblee moved uneasily on the sofa. There was nothing for it. She had to tell her family the truth.
‘Actually… well, in all honesty I resigned.’
‘What?’ said Farah.
Fatti and Ash walked into the room, Ash supporting Fatti as he said they were going to go home so she could rest.
‘Sorry,’ said Fatti.
‘Stop apologizing, honey,’ said Ash. ‘They understand.’
They both left.
Farah had hardly taken her eyes off Bubblee. ‘But your work is your life.’
This didn’t make Bubblee’s stomach settle very well.
‘Bubblee,’ said their dad, leaning forward. ‘You don’t have your job?’
‘Why didn’t you tell us?’ asked their mum with a look that was far too much like satisfaction.
‘Because of that look,’ Bubblee mumbled.
‘What?’ said her mum.
‘Because there was already enough going on here, wasn’t there?’
‘What about your flat where you were living?’ asked Farah.
Bubblee paused. ‘I’ve given it up. Couldn’t afford to stay without the job.’
‘Oh,’ replied Farah.
‘So then you must stay,’ said her dad, hardly watering down his smile or his pleasure.
Her mum cleared her throat. ‘Yes,’ she said, apparently unsure. ‘Maybe one week? Two?’
This was different. Normally her mum would’ve been ecstatic at the idea of Bubblee staying home for as long as possible – moving back home, in fact.
‘You don’t sound that pleased, Amma?’ said Bubblee, a smile on her lips.
Wasn’t that just the way? There was a time her mum would’ve begged her to stay home and now it was Bubblee who was the beggar. How could she afford to live in London without a job? What was she meant to do with her life?
‘Of course she is pleased,’ said her dad, rubbing his hands together. ‘We both are.’
Their mum played with the edge of her paisley-patterned sari. ‘Your abba likes to answer for me.’
Farah and Bubblee looked at their dad. He shifted his gaze to the carpet before looking up and smiling at Bubblee.
‘One daughter gone and another is back.’
‘Not permanently,’ said Bubblee, leaning forward. ‘It’s just until I sort out what I want to do. I won’t be here for ever. Anyway, I can stay with Sasha in London as long as I need when I decide to get back.’
He just met this with another smile. There were parents in the world who’d have been steeped in disappointment at their child leaving a job; asking why they left, pushing for future plans and giving lectures on responsibility and motivation. But no, Bubblee’s mum felt the only important thing to say was: ‘Maybe now you will have time to find a husband and settle down at last.’
Bubblee gave an exasperated sigh. ‘No, Mum. I have not given up one dream just to follow yours.’
She felt her face flush, her heart beat faster. Why couldn’t her mum be a friend to her the way she seemed to be to Fatti? Why did she never understand things? It shouldn’t matter how different a bunch of sisters were, their mum should be able to have a relationship with each of them, irrespective of differences of opinion or beliefs.
‘So what are you going to do?’ said their mum.
‘Jay’s amma,’ her dad interrupted, putting out his hand as if to tell her to wait a moment.
‘You ask her then,’ she replied.
He cleared his throat, his voice much softer. ‘Bubblee – what are you going to do?’
There was a pause as Bubblee looked at her parents in pure hopelessness. What was she going to do?
‘Why don’t we have some dinner?’ said Farah. ‘Abba, Amma, let’s talk about this later, okay?’
In that moment Bubblee’s heart swelled with a gratitude for Farah that she couldn’t remember having felt for a while.
As Farah and her mum went into the kitchen she heard their muffled conversation, while her dad just kept giving her encouraging smiles.
‘I’m okay, Abba,’ said Bubblee.
‘Don’t worry, don’t worry.’
Her dad was very good at vague affirmations, at least.
Dinner was a quiet affair. Her mum made some allusions to weddings and decided to cite as many women as possible from their community who’d got married recently to ‘very good men’.
‘Jay’s abba, shall we go to bed?’ asked their mum after they’d cleaned up, had tea and settled in the living room again.
Their dad was watching the news, eyes glued to the television.
‘Hmm? Yes, I’m coming.’
‘Fancy watching a film, or are you going home?’ Bubblee asked Farah.
Farah hesitated. ‘Actually, I’ve just messaged Mus to say I might stay over here tonight.’
‘Farah, you shouldn’t leave your husband alone like this,’ said their mum.
‘No,’ added Bubblee. ‘Grown men never know how to look after themselves.’
‘Bubblee, when you are married you will see,’ said their mum.
Bubblee simply sighed and pretended to read something on her phone. It was actually the job vacancy at her gallery that she was looking at. At first it was a tab she opened every day. Now it remained open and she refreshed it every time she picked her phone up.
‘He’s fine,’ replied Farah. ‘He’s already in bed, anyway. I suppose he’s tired.’
‘Jay’s abba, do you hear that? Bed.’
He looked up for a second. ‘I will be up.’
Their mum paused, giving him not quite so pleasant a look, before leaving the room and walking up the stairs.
It was half an hour later when their mum’s voice came booming from upstairs, calling for their dad. He sighed, switched off the television and looked at Farah and Bubblee.
‘Goodnight, my girls.’
Before leaving the room, he turned around and said: ‘Farah, one night here is enough, yes?’
With a smile, he turned back and walked towards his waiting wife. Bubblee raised her eyebrows at Farah.
‘It just never stops annoying me,’ said Bubblee. ‘The backwardness of this place.’
Farah shrugged. ‘You can’t change people’s views when they get to that age.’
Bubblee paused. ‘But you were in the kitchen with Mum, trying to change her views on my getting married anyway, weren’t you?’
Farah stood up and adjusted the cushion from the sofa their dad had just vacated. She looked around the room for other things to fix.
‘Mum’s Mum,’ she replied before her eyes settled on Bubblee. ‘That’s a big decision you made. Leaving work.’
‘It made itself.’
Farah turned the sofa her dad had been sitting on away from the television and opposite Bubblee. ‘You didn’t tell me, any of us.’
‘In the grand scheme of things it’s not important, is it, Farah?’ Bubblee knew this could lead into another silent argument, leaving things unsaid while feelings brimmed.
‘You’re still angry about what I said that day, aren’t you?’
‘What do you think?’
Farah crossed her legs at the ankle, looking so composed Bubblee thought that no matter what happened, Farah would never fall apart.
‘Bubs, I didn’t have enough sympathy in me for both of us. I’m sorry.’
She looked earnest.
‘Yet I managed to have some for you,’ replied Bubblee.
Bubblee felt like a miser; an emotional Scrooge. Never had she really considered her lack of compassion, not until this moment when she was recounting how she had managed to give some to her sister who was unable to conceive a baby. Perhaps she was always too engrossed in her work and becoming an artist. The two shouldn’t be mutually exclusive but compassion also required the time to listen and she had very little of that when she was in London.
‘You know that feeling that you were made to do something?’ said Farah.
Bubblee raised her eyebrows.
‘Sorry, yes, you do. I feel as though my life’s somehow incomplete, that there’s this gaping hole that can only be filled with a baby.’
‘Are you sure it’s just the baby?’ said Bubblee. ‘I know you said you felt like this before the accident, but since then it just seems… like you’ve become obsessed in a way.’
Bubblee could see Farah retreat; an invisible barrier appeared. But she couldn’t stop now – she had to say it or what was the point?
‘In a way that feels… not wholly present.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘Just that you’d never have let Mustafa go home alone like that before, or stay the night here.’
‘So? Why is everyone making such a big deal of this?’
Bubblee quietly sighed. ‘Okay, it doesn’t matter.’
Her own refrain surprised her.
‘I guess you think you also failed at creating something,’ said Farah.
‘Created plenty – just nothing worth anyone actually seeing,’ said Bubblee wryly.
‘You might find something else?’
‘Will you do the same if you can’t have a baby?’
