Finding Mr Perfectly Fine

‘Yeah, yeah, that’s all well and good, Zara, but you can’t marry someone you don’t bloody fancy. How are you going to do the dirty with him? How are you going to have kids? Lie back and think of England?’

‘What does that phrase actually mean?’ Samia muses. ‘Like, why would you think about England when you can think of other stuff, like what you need to do at work the next day?’

Sabina looks at her as if she’s crazy. ‘Why would you think of work in the middle of the deed?’

‘Why would you think of England?’ Samia retorts, her expression serious.

‘Er, can we change the subject? All this vulgar talk is putting me off my food,’ Amina groans. I look at her wiped-clean plate and so does everyone else, and we all burst out laughing while she turns pink.

‘I meant my next helping!’ she wails, covering her blushing cheeks and making us laugh harder.

The rest of dinner and dessert passes by in a similar fashion with Sabina bestowing her wisdom on us in the way only she can, with her strong London accent and tactless comments; Amina moaning about her colleagues in the Muslim charity she works for and cracking us up with her impressions of the chairman; Yasmin telling us all about her friends in uni and all the wild things they get up to, and Samia finally filling us in on her trip to Zimbabwe. By this point, I’ve nearly forgotten the animosity I felt towards her and I decide to try and let it go. You can’t force someone to confide in you and it’s up to her who she wants to share her business with. It has, however, made me more mindful of how honest I am with her about my own life and problems.

‘I can’t believe you lived without a washing machine for two months,’ Sabina says, part-awed and part-horrified. ‘You never used to even change your own sheets, so how did you manage to hand-wash your clothes?’

‘Washing my clothes was the least of my worries,’ Samia admits. ‘There was no hot water. I took a cold bath every morning with one bucket of water. Even after two months I never got used to the sensation of ice-cold water hitting my hot, sweaty body. It was hard.’

‘It must have been amazing, though,’ Amina says wistfully.

‘It was,’ Samia affirms, eating the last spoonful of chocolate cake. ‘It taught me a lot about myself and gave me a lot of perspective. Before I went, I started obsessing over getting married, if I would find someone, or would I be still single at almost thirty like Zara.’

Ouch.Even when I’m trying to be zen and trying to move on from all this marriage malarkey, the Universe still goes and plants comments like that right in my face. I wait for her to reveal the agreement she made with her dad about meeting suitors, but she doesn’t.

‘Sorry, no offence, Zara,’ she continues. ‘Anyway. When I got there, the fact that my First World Problems are super-trivial really hit me. Babies crying themselves to sleep out of hunger? Now that’s a real problem.’

There’s a long silence after that. I mean, what could anyone possibly say?

After dinner, we climb back into the Range, the vibe slightly more subdued than it was earlier on. Until Samia starts moaning that she has to sit squashed between Yasmin and Amina instead of riding shotgun, and my sisters nudge each other and murmur, ‘First world problems.’ This naturally has the rest of us (minus Samaritan Samia) in hysterics and, once again, we’re in the mood to party.

Since Sabs and Sam are hijabis, we can’t exactly hit a club next, so we head for where every other Not-Overly-Religious Muslim girl goes for a bit of a laugh; a shisha café. As we sing at the top of our lungs, Sabina weaves in and out of the Friday night Central London traffic, almost colliding with other road users too many times to count.

‘We’re heeeeere,’ she finally calls out, coming to a screeching halt outside one of my old haunts in Bayswater.

‘You can’t park here, it’s a double yellow,’ I tell her as she gets ready to leave the car right there on the main road.

‘Oh, bloody hell,’ she huffs. ‘Why isn’t there valet parking anywhere around here?’ She’s obviously become a bit of a diva after all these years in Dubai, and of course, the rest of us scream, ‘First world problems!’ and start laughing all over again.

‘I haven’t been here in years,’ I murmur when we walk up to the joint, Arabic music emanating from the open door. We step inside, inhaling the sweet, fruity fragrance of the hookah floating in the air, and with it comes a wave of old memories.

I’ve been avoiding this place because Tariq and I used to come here every week and I’m terrified of bumping into him. I don’t want to mention this, though, so I plaster a grin on my face and follow my sisters and cousins through the restaurant to the outdoor area. Pretty Ottoman-inspired lanterns and fairy lights twinkle amongst the shrubs, and Gulf-style red and black upholstery covers the low sofas. It reminds me of the Middle East, but where exactly in the Arab peninsula I’m supposed to be, I’m not sure, because there’s a little bit of everything in the eclectic décor.

It’s nearing the end of June now and the weather in London is warm and muggy, so I take my blazer off as we sit down and am immediately greeted with ‘oohs’ from the girls as they all lean in to touch my newly toned biceps. I push them away and laugh uncomfortably, looking around the restaurant to see if he’s here. The garden is crowded and noisy with the hum of voices, occasional laughter, and Lebanese pop music playing in the background. The tables consist of mostly Arabs and Asians in their twenties enjoying their Friday night, but I don’t see him.

Once our orders are taken, we settle back and chill. We’ve gone for two pipes between us; pineapple and coconut, and grape and mint, and after a few puffs I feel relaxed and a tad woozy. It’s been so long since I’ve smoked this stuff that I’ve become a bit of a lightweight. Yasmin, however, is somewhat of a connoisseur it seems, because she handles the tongs like a pro and blows out perfect rings.

‘How’s Fufu doing? She seemed a bit down when I came to the house,’ Sabina asks once we’re all comfortably settled in, smoking lazily and sipping on our mocktails.

My sisters and I exchange glances and Amina decides to fill Sabina in.

‘Mum’s completely stressed out with trying to Zara a husband,’ she reveals, doing her best to avoid my stare. ‘She’s scared she’s never going to get married because she’s too fussy.’

This is news to me. I’ve been so absorbed in my own dramas that I hadn’t noticed a change in my mum’s usual neurotic behaviour. I look away.

‘Too fussy?’ Sabina raises a perfectly shaped eyebrow.

‘Because she keeps saying no to everyone,’ Yasmin butts in, blowing another smoke ring. I’m tempted to lean over and ruin it.

‘The atmosphere at home is pretty tense right now,’ she continues. ‘There’ve been no new proposals and with each day that passes, another hair on Mum’s head turns grey. She’s terrified that one of us will end up like Ruby – forty-one years old, unmarried and probably unable to have kids.’