‘Do you still play tennis?’ she asked.
‘Yes. I am on the board now.’
‘Of the club?’ She laughed out loud. ‘That’s such a grown-up thing to do. That’s what people our parents’ age did when we were young. And we used to be frightened of them. Remember. They would tell us off for messing up the net. ‘‘Whatever you do, don’t touch that net, don’t lower it, don’t raise it. Leave it alone.’’ Even though it was sagging, filthy and full of holes!’
‘We have brand new nets now,’ he said, a familiar bristle in his voice. ‘In excellent condition.’ So quickly defensive. She remembered the effort of circling him, humouring him, mindful of stepping on his toes. All this she had done with goodwill, without complaint. Full of energy she had been, optimistic and hopeful, flexible as only the young could be flexible. Photocopying past exam papers for him, queuing so he didn’t need to, allowing him to win every card game and every tennis set, yet, at the end, she had completely floored him. But they would not talk about that today, not yet the reproach. That would be too intimate, too close and revealing. Safer the banter.
‘You haven’t changed at all, Salma.’
‘That profile picture you’re seeing is old.’
‘How old?’
‘Last summer.’
‘See, I’m right. You haven’t changed one bit.’
She liked hearing this. Of course she did. ‘I don’t play tennis any more, but I do keep fit. Then I’m on my feet all day, always busy.’
He understood straight away that ‘on her feet’ was a reference to work. He said, ‘I was so sorry to hear about your PLAB exams.’ There was warmth in his voice, a genuine understanding of that loss. No one else in the world had really cared. Not her parents far away, unable to comprehend that their daughter, the doctor, was not considered a doctor in Britain. Not David for whom her choices were her choices, who asked her questions and innocently believed her every answer. Do you want this badly? Are you sure? What could she be sure about with baby number two on the way by the time she had already failed the exam twice? He would cook so she could study, babysit so she could nap, but it hadn’t been enough. To pass the exams needed too much of an overhaul, a surge to join an altogether higher league, and she was not able enough, not prepared enough. Sometimes she felt that David did not want to dirty his hands with her complications, specifically these complications that arose from that other continent, the guts and terrain she came from. But then he would be generous and considerate; so open and trusting that she would regret her complaints and find herself flooded with gratitude.
‘Salma, you are a doctor and these exams were just an obstacle.’
‘That’s life,’ she said on the phone, the bitterness surfacing through. ‘People here complain about the health service being strained, doctors working long hours and yet they make it incredibly difficult for medical graduates from abroad to qualify.’
‘You should have persisted,’ he said. ‘You should have cracked these exam requirements whatever it took. Made sacrifices. Got help. Come on, it’s not like you to give up.’
She liked this reproach, his unshaking belief in her. But he hadn’t known her as a mother, hadn’t seen what pregnancy and sleepless nights did to her, time and again. It almost submerged her once and for all, but it didn’t. She wouldn’t be on the phone now with him if it had. Motherhood hadn’t enslaved her, but it did dent her resolve, put her in her place.
‘I tried, Amir. I tried my best. The circumstances were against me.’
‘Nonsense. You needed help that’s all, a bit of support. Your husband isn’t a doctor, is he?’
His voice was neutral, but she knew it was a dig that did not require a reply. Amir was the surgeon now, his private clinic stuffed full of patients, his reputation high, the money coming in. No doubt his wife had a full-time maid, a beach house overlooking the Mediterranean, private schools for the kids.
‘Do it now,’ he was saying. ‘It’s never too late. Sit those exams again.’
For a second, the old ambition surged through her. It flared up like lust. She was conscious of her elbow touching her breast as she held up the phone, her hips brushing the column she was standing against. ‘Or I could just pack it up and return home. Rewind the clock.’ Her voice had an edge to it, an uneven attempt to sound flirty.
‘I would be at the airport waiting for you.’
She could visualise it. To be whisked away, to be young again. ‘Don’t you have better things to do? I reckon you’re busy.’
‘Every day is the same as the one before it,’ he said. ‘My wife is Japanese.’
‘Really? I didn’t know.’
He laughed. ‘Metaphorically.’
She didn’t get the joke and imagined her children heckling in the background: ‘Racist!’
Amir began to explain. ‘She’s super-efficient, methodical and organised . . .’ He suddenly stopped as if caught out. He didn’t want to talk about his wife any more.
Salma rescued the silence with chatter. The Wimbledon matches. It turned out he was following the coverage even more regularly than she was. They were the same people but heavier and slower, their responses taking more time, their words loaded with assumptions, presumptions and the solidity of the past. She told him about Lady Evelyn. Her wedding in 1891 was in the All Saints Church in Cairo. As a gift, the Khedive sent palms and flowers to decorate the church.
‘What was she doing
