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 it 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 letter box and require her to cut the stems herself. Weeks later they remain in her living room, dead, exuding a pungent sewer odor.
Each day she returns from work and goes straight to her bed, eating family-size 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.
In between sleep, round and round she wonders what it would have been like if she had stood up to Lilian, if she had said that she was going to Tehran and not taken no for an answer. The Shirin in her teens and early twenties would have done that. She misses that person who cared little of what people thought of her, of what she should do. It’s only really with seeing Kian again that she’s realized how much she’s changed in that way, how much of herself she’s lost, and how much that has impacted her twenties. She had grown to think the Shirin of the past was someone she didn’t like, but actually, it’s this version of herself that’s the problem.
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 and 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 knockoff 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 for 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 blond 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 facade.
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.”
Shirin shrugs. “It’s life, isn’t it?” Not realizing she’s mimicking Maman Bozorg’s words. She thinks she notices Hana watching her, though she doesn’t say anything, doesn’t add anything to the conversation. It has continued to be strange between them, their closeness morphing into awkwardness. Even over text, they have less to say to each other, so it fizzles out quickly. “I’m surprised you actually came,” Shirin says.
“Well, you said his last one was so good,” Hana says. “I thought I need to see Jasper in action myself.”
Shirin’s eyes keep glancing at the door, like Kian will walk through it at any minute, which makes no sense at all. “This is the first time I’ve been in Brixton since Kian left last month,” she says, thinking aloud.
They both give her pinched faces. “Do you guys talk much?” Millie asks.
“We sometimes text, or FaceTime, but it’s probably better that we don’t too much. It’s too confusing otherwise.” Her voice is empty, like she is trying to convince herself. What she wants to say is that she doesn’t want them to talk too much because a year is such a long time; before long, Kian will find someone in New York and her heart will be broken again. She misses him in such a different way from all those years they were apart. There was so much hurt and anger back then, it clouded her longing for him, for their friendship. Now the happy memories make it even harder. That and the fact that Kian didn’t once bring up try ing long-distance with her, and it’s something she’s realized she wanted him to suggest but didn’t dare bring up herself for fear of rejection.
“Maybe when he comes back you guys can get together properly?” Millie says, as though this will cheer Shirin up.
She doesn’t want any more false hope, which is why she shakes her head and replies, “If he wanted us to be together, he wouldn’t have been so opposed to long-distance.”
“But you didn’t even ask him to do that yourself,” Hana adds a bit too quickly, as though forgetting that she’s meant to be tiptoeing around Shirin’s feelings.
“He made it very clear he wanted to be free in New York,” Shirin says before asking, “Where’s Henry?” Not that she is particularly looking forward to seeing him, but he is always at the center of these events—and she needs to change the subject.
Millie rolls her eyes. “We had a fight. We’re always arguing lately… I was telling Hana, before you arrived, that I’m thinking maybe we aren’t quite right for each other after all.” Shirin leans forward ever so slightly; it is reflexive. She catches Hana’s eye and it is gleaming in a finally kind of way.
With this news, she can be distracted.
“And I said she can do so much better,” Hana says.
“What do you argue about?” Shirin asks.
Initially it looks like Millie isn’t going to respond, or if she is, she’ll say something generic, but then she also leans in and says, “He can be so toxic, you know. Puts me down, to make himself feel better when he’s done wrong.”
Shirin shakes her head. “Damn. You do deserve better. I always thought he was a bit…”
“Let’s just say it. He’s an arsehole,” Hana interjects, waving her hand in the air. “An arsehole with a huge dick.” Shirin gasps at this candidness and hits Hana in the stomach jokingly, while Millie bursts out laughing, covering her mouth. “And you can’t get annoyed at me for saying it because you shouldn’t have shown it to us that one time.”
“It is a pretty good dick,” Millie says, at first forlorn, and then they all burst out laughing again at the ridiculousness. It is the first time in a very long time that Shirin has laughed so effortlessly.