‘So many trucks,’ Iman was saying. She was watching the road as if she herself were driving. She could neither drive nor afford to take lessons and admired Salma’s flair in overtaking the slower vehicles. ‘Even if I ever get my licence, I won’t drive on these big roads. I’ll stick to the city.’
‘When you get your licence,’ Salma corrected her. ‘Say inshallah.’
‘Inshallah.’
‘It’s you, Moni, who really needs to drive.’ Salma glanced up at the mirror. ‘It will help you with Adam. Make taking up lessons your resolution after we get back from this holiday. Honestly, it will change your life.’
Moni smiled but didn’t reply. Salma was right of course, but she had no energy for self-improvement. Nor could she be bothered to explain to Salma that she used to drive before she moved to Scotland. All she needed were a few refresher lessons and to study the British Highway Code, then take the test. Perhaps. The old Moni wouldn’t have hesitated. Before his birth and after his birth. That was her life, split right in the middle. Adam was her first baby and she didn’t know what to expect. When he was born he looked odd and couldn’t feed, but she wasn’t sure what was wrong. She had no one to compare him with. Then it was one hammer blow after the other, extra days in the hospital, the doctors not sure what was wrong. Denial, clutching at straws, the minute-by-minute challenge to cope. A long time, or so it felt, before the correct diagnosis, the reality check, the sinking in of the truth that Adam was not a healthy, normal baby.
She rallied and did her best, ears alert when the doctor spoke. The urgency of it all. The steepest learning curve. Oh yes, getting an MBA had been much easier, standing up to male colleagues at work a doddle in comparison. All her resources, all her intelligence, were needed to be a mother to Adam and not let that role floor her. And in the meantime, she let herself go. Weight gain and no time to cut her toenails, to moisturise her elbows or buy deodorant when it ran out. Sleep became a treat. A nap the only gift she wanted. The news on the television screens burnt past her throughout each hectic day and meant nothing. The world could go to hell for all she cared. No one on the whole of planet Earth could possibly be suffering more than her.
Sitting in the back seat of Salma’s car, soothed by the rain and the rhythmic swipe of the wipers, tired from crying and the stress of leaving Adam for the first time, Moni allowed herself to fall asleep.
Iman looked out of the window. Green fields swept past her, hay rolled up in stacks, cows with their heads sloped down as if they were praying. She could hear the wind outside the closed window, beneath the sound of the traffic. Again, I am disappointed, she thought. Last night she had dared to hope and at first not even packed any sanitary towels. Then when she got up for the dawn prayer, there was the tangible failure. I am still young, she told herself. Everyone says so. Still plenty of time. Young women my age aren’t even thinking of settling down, let alone having children.
Iman had been first married off at the age of fifteen. She had walked home from school and just as she rested her bag on the floor, standing in her school uniform, was told that there was a suitor waiting to see her in the living room. ‘Hurry and change,’ her mother had said in a voice that meant there would be no negotiation. ‘I took a dress out for you.’ In the bedroom that she shared with her four younger sisters, Iman found the dress laid out on the bed, one that she didn’t particularly like, and there was no time to bathe. It was a hasty marriage, for no good reason, except that a year later her new husband died at the hands of government forces in the very first uprising against Assad. People said, ‘It was as if he knew he didn’t have a long time to live, that’s why he was so keen to get married.’ Iman cried theatrically, then grumbled at the restrictions of the mourning period, then, once it was over, started to enjoy her ‘young widow’ status. Among her still unmarried friends, she became not only the most beautiful but the one with the sad tale and the experience. She could hold court if she wanted to, or drape her long black hair over a cushion during a sleepover and, while the others twittered away, hold back her secret knowledge. For her second marriage, she inspected and rejected one suitor after the other, annoying her family and providing material for plenty of gossip. Out of the many, she cherry-picked the most ambitious. He was the one who brought her to Britain.
Salma, Moni and Iman heading out. Salma was the oldest but not the tallest. Moni was the tallest and the fattest. Iman had the best hair, Moni the best teeth, Salma was the most stylish. Moni had a postgraduate degree but no job. Salma’s rate for a full-body sports massage had doubled since she first started out. There was little that Iman was qualified for. Salma still spoke English with an accent, Iman’s English was poor, and Moni spoke English well but most of the time she couldn’t be bothered
