I Can't Think Straight (16 page)

The previous week, in the coffee shop down the road from the office where she had stopped to pick up a drink, she was flirted with by the female barista. And not more than a few days later, she found it almost unfathomable when after a party at the home of some friends, a young woman whom she had spent almost an hour talking to about music, casually asked her if she’d like to go out the following week.

‘Go out?’ Leyla had asked, encompassing perhaps a little less eloquence than she would have hoped.

The girl nodded, blue eyes smiling. ‘Like on a date,’ the girl clarified. Leyla knew she had not contained her surprise enough because she saw alarm touch the features opposite her.

‘Sorry, I thought you might be..I mean, I’m gay. I thought…’

Leyla tried to convey her nonchalance with a casual flicking back of her hair, but succeeded only in knocking over a candle that sat on the table behind her. Once the two of them had managed to stamp out a flaming paper napkin and had scraped up the hot wax, Leyla felt able to reply.

‘No, that’s fine,’ she stuttered. And then, before her courage should fail, she added. ‘I’d love to’

It was now the day before that date and Leyla had already forgotten exactly what she had talked about with the blue-eyed girl that had drawn her to accept the offer. Nevertheless, something about the certainty of the moment’s attraction, the solidity of a date, whether anything came of it or not, had spurred her to have a talk with her parents. A serious talk. The kind of talk she had never had occasion to trouble them with yet in her life.

As she pulled into the driveway and got out of the car, Leyla felt nauseous. It was approaching eight in the evening, and between the time she had left the office ten minutes before, and the moment that she arrived at her home, the world had darkened. The pleasant nuances of the late summer twilight had dispersed, covered over by a bleaker, more ominously grey hue. She looked up at the house. It looked dark and deserted, a haunted mansion within whose cavernous walls only the parsimonious spirit of her mother flitted from bedroom to living room, conserving the electric lights. Her father was in London with a client. Yasmin was out of town for three days working on a catering job. Though Leyla would have preferred to speak to her sister first, the blind craving, the overwhelming need she had felt building all week would no longer be held back.

She pushed open the door, and spent a minute divesting herself of her coat, briefcase and umbrella. By the time she moved forward into the large hallway, she had run through ten different introduc-tions to the subject on her mind and every muscle in her slim body was generally tuned to an unbearably fine pitch of tension. So when Maya leaped out at her from the shadowed staircase, uttering a primal yell and brandishing a poker, Leyla felt her heart flirting with a cardiac arrest. She staggered back against the wood-panelled wall, almost panting.

‘Oh, it’s you!’ said Maya.

‘Who the hell were you expecting? Jack the Ripper?’ Leyla asked, unable to articulate more than a ragged whisper.

‘Watch your language,’ Maya countenanced. ‘I heard someone sneaking around. I’m on my own here, you know. No-one else is going to protect me.’

Without further explanation she turned and went back to the living room, where she replaced the poker among the other useless fire-tending paraphernalia that rested by the gas-fed hearth, and sat down in front of the television.

‘Mum, I need to talk to you,’ Leyla began, but she was at a disadvantage, for she was now competing for airspace with a soap opera.

Maya’s eyes were fixed doggedly on the screen where a tired-looking older woman had just discovered that her drug-addicted daughter was pregnant. This cheered Maya immensely. It relieved her beyond expression to see before her the acute suffering of other people, even characters on a screen (because after all, these characters were based on real life) and to be able to favourably compare her own problems with theirs.

‘Mum!’

Maya became aware of Leyla’s insistent voice in the background.

She sighed. At least her daughters were home with her, not running around having sex with strange men. She ought to be thankful, and in recognition of this newly felt gratitude, Maya heroically switched off the television in order to listen to her daughter.

The sudden silence, combined with Maya’s expectant eyes upon her, startled Leyla and she found that she could not speak.

‘I’m making some pasta,’ Maya said, quickly leading the way to the kitchen, for there was something about the mutely pleading way her child was looking at her that was making her nervous.

‘You’re not sick are you?’ Maya asked.

‘No, I’m fine. Really good, in fact.’ Leyla cleared her throat. ‘Really happy, actually.’ She coughed, for her voice felt seized and thick.

Maya’s internal problem-detecting antennae shot up at this unusual response, and quivered tremulously, probing the air around her daughter. This triple, insistent reply, combined with Leyla’s anxiety and phlegmy cough made her instantly alert. Briskly and with mild panic, she stirred at the boiling pasta, willing it to cook quickly.

‘Ali called,’ she said, over her shoulder. Just the mention of his name reassured Maya in some way and she smiled. ‘He’s a wonderful boy.’

Leyla took a short step into the kitchen. ‘I’m not happy with him, Mum.’

‘Then Aunty Gulshan’s son is looking for someone,’ suggested Maya, not without an air of desperation. ‘He’s very successful!’

‘He’s a bookie.’

‘And tall and handsome,’ persisted Maya.

‘He’s six foot seven,’ replied Leyla. ‘All I can see is his navel.’

‘Well, then, you’ll have tall children!’

‘Mum, I can’t be happy with him!’ Leyla coughed again. ‘The same way I’m not happy with Ali. And I’ve always known why, but I was hoping the reason I thought was the reason might not really be the reason, and that things might change, but they never have.

And now I know for sure that what I’ve been feeling all these years is actually the right thing and there’s nothing wrong with it….’

‘Do you want cheese on this?’ Maya asked, her head having momentarily disappeared in the burst of steam that issued as she desperately dumped the half-cooked spaghetti into a colander. Her voice was pitched at a level that suggested rapidly mounting hyste-ria, for even amongst the confused torrent of her daughter’s rushing words, it was becoming all too clear to her that Leyla was about to confess something horrible, something Maya would rather not hear, ever.

‘Mum, please listen, I’m just trying to say…’

‘There’s olive oil over there, if you want it.’ Maya moved to the table, then changed her mind, picked up her plate and made for the relative safety of the living room, where the television stood only feet away, ready, just waiting to be turned on.

‘Mum,’ Leyla said, following her, confused but determined. ‘I’m gay!’If Maya had been able to scream and faint without feeling embarrassed, she would have done so but, as it was, she simply remained rooted to the spot, her plate of overly al dente pasta (free of cheese or oil) in one hand, and the television remote control in the other. In the hallway, the muffled sound of the front door slamming reached them both, followed by a cheery confirmation from Sam that he was home.

As her husband strode in, Maya became aware that she was standing like a statue, lips quivering in shock, armed only with the congealing spaghetti. She watched Sam’s anxious gaze go from his wife to his daughter.

‘What did I miss?’ he asked.

Leyla looked at him, tears in her eyes. ‘I’m gay,’ she whispered.

Sam stared in disbelief. ‘But I’ve only been gone two hours.’

He looked at Leyla’s pale, uncertain face regarding him with forlorn hope, then looked down. This news was certainly a surprise to him, mainly because he had never taken a moment to consider his childrens’ private lives, except when Maya regaled him with the virtues of one or other of their boyfriends and, even then, he paid minimal attention, since he could not really say that he much cared who either of them was with, as long as they were decent, and as long as he did not have to picture them sleeping with his daughter.

Leyla turned to her mother. ‘You always said you just wanted us to be happy.’

‘I lied,’ Maya reassured her. She sniffed back the tears of anger she felt stinging her eyes.

‘Don’t cry, please, Mum,’ Leyla said. Maya detected a note of regret in her daughter’s voice. She cried.

‘Who did this to you?’ she demanded through her sobs.

‘Mum, I haven’t caught a disease. I’m just gay, like I have brown hair.’

When would she stop saying that word? Irate, Maya turned on her.‘First you stop coming to mosque, now you are up to your neck in sin!’

‘It’s not a sin.’

‘It’s a huge sin!’

‘According to who?’ Leyla was close to tears now.

‘According to God!’ Maya yelled.

‘What kind of a God is that? I don’t accept it!’ Leyla yelled back.

‘Then you will burn in hell,’ stated Maya, her eyes piercing Leyla’s with a righteous fury that gave her the courage to confront this appalling deviance and call it by its proper name.

‘That’s enough.’ Sam’s firm voice cut through the thick air and brought Maya to a stop. Incensed, she glared at him, paused to toss the plate of ruined pasta on the table and stormed upstairs.

Leyla looked down and stared at the rug. It was a swirling pattern that had flecks of beige and russet but which was primarily brown, a choice her mother had made because it would be easier to clean. She felt her father’s arm around her, felt him holding out his capacious handkerchief which she took gratefully.

‘If I could help it, I would,’ Leyla said, blowing her nose. ‘But I can’t.’

‘I know,’ he replied. ‘I know.’

* * *

When Tala shivered back into consciousness, she found herself lying in the salon, on an antique chaise longue, like a Victorian heroine from a third-rate novel. Above her as she woke were the faces of her mother and Zina. Zina’s frowning concern brought back to Tala’s mind all that had overwhelmed her in the bedroom, and she shut her eyes again, only to find her mother’s pointed, burgundy-painted fingernail applied to her stomach.

‘Stay awake, mama,’ she exhorted. ‘It’s better for you.’

Tala doubted this to be true. On the contrary, the slip back into giddy blackness was more than appealing – it was seductive.

It would be such sensual pleasure to glide away from Reema’s pok-ing finger, from Zina’s intent perception, and to simply drift into the soothing darkness of sleep, where she would not have to think about what to tell Hani, how to tell him. She opened her eyes again and sat up, which was not easy against the assorted, solicitous hands that encouraged her back onto the sofa. She could now hear her father in the background, ordering mint tea, and she was grateful, for it struck her fractious mind as a good idea. Perhaps the scalding, soothing, sugary liquid could give her the sustenance she so desperately craved. Her mother got up, assuring her that she had just the thing to cure this kind of fainting spell upstairs in her bathroom.

This left her with Zina, who held her hand tightly, while her father paced in the background.

‘What is it, Tala?’ Zina whispered. ‘What happened?’

Tala swallowed. ‘I’m not sure,’ she lied. Her eyes went to her father, who cast glances of concern towards her. ‘Zina, I need to talk to Baba. Alone.’

Zina nodded, and damped down her own curiosity, her own wish that Tala would confide in her, and left the room, closing the heavy door with a discreet click behind her.

Tala swung her legs off the sofa and tried to stand up, but Omar was next to her in a moment, guiding her down.

‘Just sit a while. You’ve had a shock.’

Tentatively, he sat down opposite her and played with his watch strap while he waited for her to speak, but the silent moments dripped by, sitting heavily on him, and once he had checked every metal link of the watch and found each one satisfactory, he realized that he might have to open the conversation himself.

‘I have a strange sense of déjà vu,’ he offered. ‘I feel we have been here before.’

Guiltily, Tala looked away. ‘I’m sorry, Baba.’

Omar nodded, and stood up again to continue pacing.

‘Tala, everyone gets nervous,’ he said. ‘It’s normal. But sometimes you have to ignore it, keep moving till you get past it. If you are in love it will be okay.’

Tala stared at the floor. The polished wood, the edges of the Persian carpet that lay within her line of vision. She traced the patterns of the grain, the rich threads of the carpet with her eyes. Her lips parted, wanting to say something, to admit something, that she knew what it was to be in love, but that she wasn’t in love with Hani.

‘It’s not nerves,’ she said. ‘You see, Baba, I don’t love him. Not like I should. It’s not that I’m not sure,’ she continued, the words rushing out now. ‘I wake up every morning suffocated by the idea of living here in Amman, of living with him, I realize now that I have been dreading my wedding day, every day. Dreading it.’

She had certainly spoken longer paragraphs to her father over the course of the years, but never one that held such frank emotion, and for a moment Tala blushed at what he must think of her. For she could not quite bring herself to look up and see for herself. Her eyes remained fixed on the floor, while she listened to the measured tread of his shoes, and saw the tops of them come into her eyeline, felt him standing over her. In the background, somewhere in a hallway, she could hear her mother’s voice approaching.

‘Go and tell Hani,’ Omar said. ‘Go before your mother comes. It will be okay.’

* * *

‘I was hoping you’d surprise me,’ Hani said. Taking her hand, he pulled her into his own office, away from the small reception area.

The building was large, recently renovated, but his small personal space comprised only a battered desk set amid peeling walls.

‘They’re painting it next week,’ he said, following the flicker of her gaze. ‘They should get your mother to interior design the whole place.’

He was smiling, and there was room for her to smile too, to add a laughing comment about how Reema would have him sit on a gilded chair at a cut glass table, but she could not lay out such banal banter now, when she was preparing to crush his expectations. Expectations that she had given him.