Oh God, oh God, oh God. Was it my fault? I looked up at the sky, in case I got a sign whether it was or not. Did I give my sister the evil eye? It’s not as if I wanted to marry her husband – just that, what would it be like to come home to someone who loves you? What’s worse is that I can never stop my tears from falling and everyone looks at me like I’m this pathetic person. How do you make yourself disappear? So you can feel what you feel without worrying about what other people see?
When we got home after the second day at the hospital Mum and Dad insisted that Farah come and stay with us – we’d all be together under one house, just like old times.
‘Apart from Jay,’ said Mae without looking up from her phone.
‘Look at this,’ said Bubblee, picking up the local newspaper. ‘Front page news.’
She skimmed through it and dropped it on the table. Mae went to read the article.
‘Car accident leaves old lady’s prize-winning poodle in need of veterinary care.’ Mae laughed. ‘The victim …’ She looked up. ‘… That’d be our bro-in-law – is in a coma. He is thought to be in a critical but stable condition.’
‘This place,’ said Bubblee, shaking her head. ‘A poodle’s disturbed and it’s front-page news.’
‘Marnie was complaining about the traffic on Bingham Road because of the branch that fell from the tree,’ added Dad.
‘That’s Mrs Lemington,’ I said. ‘She loves her dog. We should probably send her something.’
Farah stared at the page and didn’t say anything.
‘Animals matter more than humans here.’ Mum shook her head as she went straight into the kitchen and I followed her to help prepare dinner for everyone. Bubblee loomed in the doorway.
‘This is just typical.’
How does she manage to fill a room like that without being fat? I always seem to fill it in the wrong way – not knowing where to put myself – where to shift or pause. But not Bubblee. She enters a room and people have to look. You can’t not look at beauty: her brown hair, chopped and cut messily; her big eyes darting between Mum and Dad; rose-bud mouth pursed in her usual annoyed way. All this and living her independent life in London, not being tied to what people tell her; knowing what she wants and then just going out to get it. It’s almost as if she knows she has a right to it. Or at least a right to try. I suppose everyone has that right, but how do some people just feel it? I’m told she and I have the same eyes, but I don’t see it. I see nothing of myself in any of my sisters.
‘When was the last time Dad entered the kitchen?’ Bubblee added, putting down her patchwork bag that bulged at the seams.
She walked in and I had a sudden feeling of the room being too full, a need to be in my own space, within my four walls.
‘Is this how you’ll speak to your husband when you’re married?’ said Mum, looking at her. ‘You should go and borrow some clothes from Faru. I’m not letting a boy see you like that in such tight jeans and T-shirt.’
‘What boy?’ said Bubblee as I got the ghee out of the cupboard.
‘You’ll see him tomorrow,’ replied Mum.
Tomorrow! I remembered. I had a hand-modelling shoot tomorrow. When I told Mum that I’d cancel it she said: ‘No, no, no. You must still go. I want to add it to my pile.’
She opened her drawer to show the plastic wallet she has of all my hand-modelling pictures.
‘Bubblee will drive you.’ She looked over at her. ‘And you’ll wear something nice when you both come after to the hospital.’
‘No, I won’t,’ answered Bubblee.
‘Bubblee – for so long your dad and me have let you do what you want. Do you know the talk we have to hear when people know you live in London?’
Why don’t my parents ask me about marriage? Do they think I’m too fat and unattractive to be married? They wouldn’t be wrong, but aren’t your parents at least meant to see the best in you? Isn’t that the point? Dad was standing behind Bubblee. She didn’t see him until he said: ‘Malik.’
Bubblee turned to look at him.
‘Your amma and I have talked about it and we think it would be very good if you married him.’ He glanced over at Mum who was staring at Bubblee, a frown etched in her brows.
I opened the can of ghee, trying to concentrate on the sizzling onions, trying to forget that Malik – last I remembered – was thirty-two. Only two years older than me – wasn’t that the perfect age for me? I reached into the cupboard and got the cheese tube out, squirting it in my mouth while they weren’t looking.
‘But I don’t even know him,’ Bubblee exclaimed. ‘Anyway, I have to go back to London tomorrow. Sasha has an exhibition and I promised I’d be there.’
Mum adjusted her purple sari and lit the hob. ‘Sasha is not more important than your family.’
‘You shouldn’t spend so much time with just one girl,’ said Dad, clearing his throat. ‘Please, Bubblee,’ he said, taking her hand. ‘Open your mind that you might like something that your parents think is good for you. Why would we want to see you unhappy?’
‘But I’m happy now,’ she replied.
Mum and Dad were both turned towards Bubblee – me hovering in the background, frying onions. I wondered: what does happiness really feel like?
*
The following day everyone else went to the hospital as Bubblee drove me to my shoot. She’d given in and worn a pair of jeans with a kaftan, which made me think that sometimes she could do things, against her principles, just to keep the peace. She’d called Sasha and let her know she wouldn’t make her exhibition.
‘And no-one appreciates it,’ she said to me, one hand gripping the steering wheel and the other resting on the gear-stick. ‘That I’m putting my life on hold. It’s all expected.’
Weird how she didn’t expect it of herself.
‘Farah needs us all here,’ I said.
She took a deep sigh. ‘I know, I know. God, there’s no need to make me feel worse than they do. It’s just Mum is impossible and Dad nods at everything she says. It’s infuriating.’
‘At least it’s not the other way around,’ I replied.
Let’s face it, Bubblee would’ve been up in feminist arms.
‘Doesn’t make much difference, given that Mum’s intent on ruling my life and telling me what to do. All because it’s expected that I’ll get married. It’s expected that I’ll be a good little wife.’ She beeped at someone, who I’m pretty sure had the right of way. ‘Like good old Farah.’
We all know that Bubblee’s ideals – however weird they seem to me – stop her from liking the fact that Mustafa married our sister, but I never understood the strength of her opposition to it. It’s not as if we get to like everything in life, but we accept it and get on with it. There are a thousand and one things I’d change about mine: not having a driver’s licence being one of them; losing weight; being able to walk into a room with the same confidence that all my sisters seem to have. I might cry about it in my own room but I don’t make a song and dance about it to everyone – how uncomfortable would that be? There are some things that you just keep to yourself.
‘Did something happen?’ I asked her.
‘What do you mean?’
‘For you to hate Mustafa so much.’
She paused at a traffic light. ‘I don’t hate him. He’s fine.’
‘Then