Chapter Twenty-Three
The coach journey back felt strange, more tense than the ride there, but that could have been because we were both awake the whole time. We were acting normally – I shared my sandwiches and cake with him, he shared his wrap and crisps with me; we chatted about the trek, browsed our phones, talked about books we were reading and podcasts we were listening to (he was a massive fan of self-help and productivity books and pods) – all the while being careful not to accidentally brush each other’s arms or get too close. He also revealed that he was more of a DC guy than a Marvel guy – which was a red flag in my eyes. DC Comics were so much darker than Marvel, which made me wonder if he was more complicated than he let on.
Malik was waiting for me when I arrived in Victoria at around ten in the evening, so I bid Zak a hasty farewell, relying on the blanket of darkness to hide his features from my unsuspecting brother. The two giggling girls hung around, obviously hoping to get onto the Tube with their crush. The thought annoyed me, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. Hugging Zara goodbye and waving to Adam and Zak, I jumped into Malik’s Beemer and didn’t look back.
The next few weeks were a blur of completing other items on the list:
13.WATCH CITIZEN KANE
Greatest movie of all time!!!!
‘Ma,’ I called as I stomped down the stairs in my PJs, ‘do you want to watch a movie?’
‘Ooh, the new Shah Rukh Khan one?’ Ma poked her head out of her bedroom excitedly. ‘I’ve been saving that for after Ramadan.’
‘Uh, not exactly,’ I replied vaguely. ‘It’s a classic. It’s supposed to be the GOAT.’
‘The goat?’ Ma looked baffled as she followed me downstairs and began rummaging through the snack cupboard for microwave popcorn. ‘A film about a goat?’
‘No .?.?. G.O.A.T. Greatest of All Time?’
‘Sure, why not?’ Ma obliged amicably as popping noises began to sound from the microwave, instantly transporting me to my childhood. We never used to go out much as a family – there wasn’t much time or money to spare – but one thing Ma always did was put on a film on a Friday night and we would sit together in our little living room after dinner, the coffee table laden with Morrisons’ own-brand snacks, watching the latest Bollywood blockbuster.
As the film began in black and white, with ominous music creating tension, I kept glancing at Ma to see if she was enjoying it.
Two hours and a very confused mother later, I could safely say that she hadn’t. And neither had I, to be honest. I wasn’t a film buff or critic to appreciate the lighting and cinematography enough for it to outweigh the subtlety of the story.
‘Well,’ she sighed when the sled was tossed into the fireplace and the end credits appeared, ‘that was .?.?. interesting. Maybe next time we can watch something more .?.?. colourful?’
‘What’s next on the list?’ Dina asked one evening. Mohammed was working nights, so she’d asked me if I wanted to come over and stay for a couple of days. I happily agreed; cuddles with Sami were long overdue. As soon as I got in, I persuaded Dina to take some time out for herself while I watched him and she gratefully accepted. While she went for a pregnancy massage and then came home to sort out her hospital bag, I fed Sami his dinner, bathed him and got him ready for bed. I did all this without flooding the house or getting his dinner all over the kitchen floor. It felt good to be helpful. Maybe I wasn’t entirely useless at all things domestic.
‘I haven’t checked yet,’ I said as I finished off the lamb and barley soup Dina had made. We had it with crusty bread and it was gorgeous, like I knew it would be and perfect for the chilly night. ‘Let’s have a look.’
Retrieving the notebook from my bag, I opened it to the page I had bookmarked and turned it over to see what number fourteen had in store.
‘Oh for God’s sake,’ I muttered, my stomach instantly churning. ‘I have to eat escargot.’
‘Oh no,’ Dina covered her mouth in horror. ‘Are they halal?’
‘I don’t know, but I’m not going to research it. Ignorance is bliss and all that.’
Dina made a face at me and I shrugged. I didn’t see why they wouldn’t be. They were practically the same as prawns. You couldn’t slaughter them with a prayer, like you did with chickens and sheep.
‘Do you have to do everything on the list?’ Dina asked as we took our bowls to the kitchen and cleared up. ‘It’s not sacred, Maya. You can miss things if you want.’
‘I can’t,’ I replied, panicking at the thought. ‘The whole point is to do everything on it. Otherwise, it’s meaningless. It won’t have the same effect.’
‘But you’re not doing everything. You’re not doing a triathlon.’
‘I know, but I’m doing something that’s in the realm of possibility. Like I didn’t sign up for a physio course either, I’m doing what’s relevant to me.’
‘And eating snails that are possibly haram is relevant to you how?’
She had a point there.
‘Look, all I’m saying is, this list is great and all and it’s wonderful how it’s getting you to try new things and become a more confident person, but it’s not your purpose in life. We’re Muslim. Our purpose is to be the best people we can be, under the guidance of God. Why don’t you change it to eating something equally as gross as snails, like lamb balls or lamb brains or something?’
I made a face and she grinned triumphantly. ‘See? The thought sickens you, right? Do that instead, if you insist on doing it at all.’
‘Fine,’ I grumbled. ‘But you’re doing it with me.’
‘Deal. I’ll cook them, the Palestinian way.’
The next day, true to her word, I came back to Dina’s from work to find that she had indeed cooked something she called nkhe’et and baid ghanam for our dinner, which we would apparently eat with hot Arabic bread, salad and wedges of lemon.
The thought made my stomach turn, but I consoled myself with the fact that it wasn’t snails and it was halal. And since the entire Levant region enjoyed these delicacies, how bad could it be?
‘I can’t do this,’ I squeaked when we sat down to eat at the dining table, eyeing the bowl of beige lamb brains, patterned and squiggly. A shiver ran down the length of my spine and all the hairs on my body – and I had a LOT of hair on my body – stood on end. The testicles didn’t look as bad, they were fried in ghee and could have been any part of the body. I ate liver and heart when my mum cooked it, the Bengali way, heavy with spices. But this .?.?. there were no spices in sight. The brains looked just like .?.?. brains.
I swallowed down the bile that rose up my oesophagus and took a sip of water. ‘You go first,’ I told Dina, my voice strangled. ‘How are you not feeling sick right now? You’re the pregnant one!’
‘I like it,’ Dina laughed. Grabbing one of the flatbreads, she tore off a piece and scooped up some of the brains, squeezing lemon juice over them and then popping them into her mouth. ‘Mmm, so good,’ she murmured. ‘Not as good as Mama’s, but almost.’ I blanched.
‘When is your mum getting here?’ I asked, delaying the inevitable.
‘Next week, Insha’allah,’ she replied, taking another bite. ‘Don’t change the topic and hurry up and try some,’ she added.
Inhaling as deeply as possible, I recited a prayer, whispered ‘Bismillah’, and did the same as Dina. Mind over matter! Mind over matter! I chanted to myself over and over, as I chewed and swallowed it, gulping water to wash it down.
‘Well? What do you think?’
‘It’s not my thing,’ I admitted. The texture was horrible; pasty and mushy. If it wasn’t for the bread giving me something to chew, it would have all come right back up.
‘Have a piece of baid ghanam next,’ Dina instructed. She did the same thing with the bread and lemon and I followed suit. This wasn’t too bad. At least it was chewy and had flavour. It was like heart, but more tender.
And then I remembered that it was lamb testicles and once again, I fought the urge to retch.
‘OK, I’m done. Sorry, Dina, I can’t bring myself to eat anymore.’
Dina laughed and helped herself to a plateful. ‘It’s OK, I didn’t think you would. Go check the microwave, there’s something else there for you to have for dinner.’
‘What? You serious?’
‘I wasn’t going to let you starve, was I?’
In the microwave, I found a plate of chicken pesto pasta and I had never felt so relieved to find something so ordinary and inoffensive.
‘Thank you so much,’ I almost wept in relief when I returned to the dining room, avoiding the lamb’s bits that were at the centre of the table.
‘Now you can tick off that ridiculous item on that crazy list of yours.’
When I got home that evening, still feeling a bit queasy whenever I thought of the grey mush I had allowed into my mouth, I decided to distract myself by online-stalking Zak. It had become a bit of a habit for me.
Staring at his Instagram page, I wondered for the thousandth time why he hadn’t been in touch properly since Snowdon, aside from the occasional meme. Had I done or said something on that trip that had made him write me off, even as a friend? Or maybe I was looking into it too deeply and he was merely busy. He hadn’t posted anything on his page since then either. Analysing the feed that I had already memorised was proving to be utterly futile.
When I finally came to terms with the fact that stalking Zak wasn’t going to make him magically contact me, I decided to reach out to him myself. Before I lost the nerve, I quickly typed out the first interesting thing I thought of. I hit send and it was only after the message was released into the ether, once it was too late to backtrack, that I thought to proofread.
And when I glanced over what I had written .?.?. SHIT. I stared at the two little blue ticks that meant it could no longer be unsent:
MAYA: Did another item on the list and had to eat lamb balls.
I had written BALLS instead of brAINS. For God’s sake!
I was contemplating throwing my phone behind my headboard so I wouldn’t be able to look at it again until I somehow managed to retrieve it when I saw that he was typing a reply.
My breath trapped in my lungs, I waited.
Zakariya is typing .?.?.
Then the typing stopped and there was no response.
When Ramadan came along, I decided to take a break from the list and thinking about Zakariya and connect with God instead.
I spent the four weeks being as Islamic as I possibly could: waking up for dawn prayers, attending the nightly Tarawih prayers at Wightman Road Mosque, abstaining not only from eating and drinking, but lying, swearing, backbiting and gossiping. Arabic classes were paused during the Holy Month as they clashed with iftar time and I barely heard from Zakariya the whole time, apart from one of those generic ‘Ramadan Kareem’ WhatsApps I got on the first day.
Despite there being no classes, I still practised my Arabic whenever I could. I watched TikToks and listened to audio classes. I wanted Ustadha Salma to be proud of me when we returned.
Ramadan wasn’t all fasting, praying and reading the Qur’an, though. We also saw more relatives than we had seen the entire year. My aunts, uncles and other friends and relatives hosted elaborate iftar parties and we returned the favour. It all became a bit too much because every Bengali cooked the same thing for iftar. By the end of the month, I wanted to hurl the plates of pakoras and samosas across the room. But that wasn’t the reason why I refused to attend the last few iftar parties. I was sick of everyone asking me why I was still single.
‘I can’t take it anymore,’ I complained to the twins. It was an hour after we had finished eating and the three of us collapsed onto Pinky’s bed after the mammoth clean-up session which, as usual, the men didn’t bother participating in.
‘Me neither,’ Pretty moaned. ‘I can’t stand the sight of pulao and Deshi roast chicken, anymore. All I want for iftar is something plain and simple, like a chicken and mushroom pie or a roast dinner.’
‘I would kill for a roast dinner,’ Pinky agreed, unwrapping her hijab and pulling her fuchsia hair out of its bun. ‘But stop talking about food! I feel so sick, I’ve eaten way too much.’
‘That’s not the only thing I can’t take,’ I groaned, rubbing my swollen belly. ‘I can’t take people asking me about when I’m going to get married. It’s driving me insane!’
‘To be fair, you’ve always been a sandwich short of a picnic, Maya,’ Pretty giggled.
‘Why are all our idioms so anglicised?’ Pinky mused. ‘When have any of us ever taken a sandwich to a picnic?’
‘If you mention the word “samosa” or “pakora”, I will literally kill you,’ Pretty threatened.
‘Guys! Stay on topic,’ I implored. ‘How do you cope with all the comments about your marital status?’
Pretty looked uncomfortable. ‘We don’t get it as much as you,’ she admitted reluctantly. ‘You being on the shelf longer than us and all that.’
‘In fact, when you’re around, it eases the pressure on us,’ Pinky added.
‘Thanks a bunch,’ I said, half-heartedly throwing a cushion at Pretty.
‘We aim to please,’ both twins said in unison, proceeding to cackle at how funny they thought they were. With a sigh, I picked up my now-lukewarm cup of tea and vowed to stay at home and pray for the rest of Ramadan.
The first weekend after Eid-ul-Fitr, Lucy and I arranged to try doing the pond swim again. Well, to be more accurate, Lucy arranged it and virtually bullied me into agreeing. I could hardly say no after she had booked tickets in advance and when it was my list and my life-changing journey she was trying to help me with.
‘You sure you’re OK with doing this?’ I asked her, as we stood shivering in our full-length swimming gear by the edge of the pond, staring at the green water in apprehension. It was bigger than I expected, so Lucy and I decided to swim just one lap and had left our towels on the other side of the pond. Spring had arrived, but despite what the deceptive, cornflower-blue sky and daffodils suggested, it was still cold when it was windy. I was petrified of jumping into the ice-cold water that awaited below, more so than when I had had to eat lambs’ testicles and brains. This was going to be, by far, the hardest challenge yet.
‘Of course,’ Lucy replied. ‘I was going to do it before, wasn’t I?’
‘Yeah, but that was before you had a go at me for making you do stuff on the list with me,’ I replied.
‘Oh, yeah. Sorry about that.’
‘What was going on with you, Luce? There’s no way that was just hanger.’
‘Nah, it wasn’t.’
I waited for her to tell me more despite it being an inappropriate time and setting for such a deep conversation. Eventually, she sighed. ‘Some stuff has been going on with a guy I’m seeing on and off,’ she replied. ‘I don’t really want to go into it, but I’m sorry for taking it out on you.’
‘It’s OK,’ I replied, reaching over and giving her arm a squeeze. ‘I’m sorry for making you do this stuff with me. It’s not your list or your commitment; it was wrong of me to drag you along on this journey.’
‘Hey,’ Lucy interrupted. ‘No one can make me do anything, OK? I’ve been doing this with you because I want to support you. If there’s something I really don’t want to do, I’ll tell you.’
‘Promise?’
‘Promise. Now shall we do this or not?’
‘Count of three?’
Turning to face the water, we counted down, still holding hands. On ‘three’, I took a deep breath, squeezed my eyes shut and jumped in.
The feeling was like nothing I had experienced before. The cold didn’t engulf me – it beat the crap out of me. It was like being electrocuted. Every inch of my skin was shocked senseless.
Gasping as I came up for air, I found Lucy, who looked equally as stunned as I did. A moment later, adrenaline kicked in and once we became acclimatised to the water, I felt more alive than I had done in a long time.
‘Shall we d-do the l-lap?’ Lucy managed to say, her mouth frozen. I nodded, because talking would be too difficult and swam after her, my limbs slicing through the water like a knife through butter. Lucy was clearly a more competent swimmer than me in terms of form, but while my style was basic and I looked like a dog paddling in a pond, I was quite strong and had a lot of stamina, thanks to all the running I had been doing for the past seven months. Halfway through the never-ending swim, I almost began to feel warm, as every part of my body united with the rest, working in unison to move through the water.
We swam silently and I focused my mind on the task rather than letting it cloud up with worrying thoughts like it usually did. Would I ever see Noah again? Did Zakariya hate me? Why was he ignoring me? Was he really going to move to Dubai? Why hadn’t I received a university offer yet? What if I failed the course? What if I lost my job because I was too busy studying? I pushed it all aside and swam until there was nothing there but the water and me.
‘OK, I’m done,’ Lucy panted when we finally reached the other side, reminding me that it was the water, me AND her. I nodded, too exhausted to speak. I had somehow pushed my muscles through the burn and felt like I was going to collapse – and possibly drown.
Dragging myself out of the pond, I welcomed the towels that were waiting for us and dried off as fast as I could, my entire body shaking uncontrollably from the cold, as I part shuffled, part ran towards the changing rooms before I turned into an ice cube. I don’t know how I peeled my wetsuit off with my numb fingers. It felt like it took forever, but I finally managed to shower and change into the woolly onesie I had brought to wear. The cold shower was nothing compared to swimming in the pond.
When I got back to Lucy, she was sitting on a bench drinking tea from a Thermos and eating banana cake. I joined her and took out my own flask, taking a long swig before gratefully accepting a piece of cake. We sat there in silence, the hot tea warming us up from the inside and gently defrosting us. The tip of Lucy’s nose was bright red and her usually shiny, blonde locks were a frizzy mess, sticking out of her head like a lion’s mane. Mine was no doubt worse, but I didn’t care. I had just swum outdoors for the first time like a complete BOSS. If I could do that and eat questionable parts of an animal without throwing up, I could do anything.
Lucy grinned at me as though reading my thoughts and I smiled back. We didn’t need to talk; we both knew exactly how the other was feeling. And it was pretty bloody amazing.