While I wait for Sam to call back, I check Adam’s various social media to see if he has updated anything but there isn’t even a new story, let alone a post.
I try to spend the rest of the day lazing around in bed, waiting for Sam to call me back and Adam to update his social media, but my plan is short-lived when my mum phones me – yes, phones me from downstairs – and tells me to get my butt in the kitchen and learn how to make a Bengali fish curry.
‘Mum,’ I groan. ‘I’m tired and I don’t want to stink of fish! I’ll have to have another shower!’
‘You’re happy to eat it though, aren’t you? Come down right now. Who’s going to marry a woman who can’t cook basic curries?’
I want to tell her that Hamza isn’t fussed about Bengali curries in the slightest, but I obviously can’t since she doesn’t even know that he exists. When I drag myself downstairs, I find a huge scaly fish resting on a tray by the sink. I stare at it queasily and the one eye that’s facing me stares back.
‘What am I supposed to do with this?’ I ask her, swallowing nervously.
‘Scale it,’ she says. ‘Like, this, look.’ She grabs the fish and a knife and starts scraping it so the scales fall off, and then hands me the knife and waits for me to do the same.
‘Right. OK,’ I say bravely and tentatively reach out to stop the slimy fish from sliding off the tray while I attempt scaling it with the other hand, all the while trying to conceal my shudders.
‘I have another biodata,’ Mum begins casually, deftly dicing up onions into tiny pieces like she’s Jamie Oliver.
‘No thanks,’ I respond lightly.
There’s a pause and for a second I’m fooled into believing that the silence indicates the end of the conversation.
‘“No thanks”?’ she mimics me in a threatening tone. ‘Unless you’ve found a potential husband, I believe the correct answer is, “Sure, Mum, please send it to me”.’
‘I have, actually,’ I mutter under my breath.
‘What?’ Mum spins around and stares at me.
Shit. She heard me.
‘There’s someone I’m interested in,’ I say, keeping my voice steady, my gaze fixed on the fish.
‘And you’re telling me now?’
‘When was I supposed to tell you? When I wasn’t interested?’
Mum sighs and I know she’s struggling to bite back whatever sarcastic response that’s on the tip of her tongue.
‘OK,’ she says stiffly, as she starts adding various ground spices to the onion, ginger and garlic mixture that’s been melting away in the pan. The kitchen instantly fills with the intense fragrance of curry. ‘Tell me about this person you’re “interested in” then.’
‘His name’s Hamza,’ I begin slowly as I continue to descale the fish, wincing as a bone pricks me for the tenth time. I decide to lead with the stuff my mum would be happy about before telling her that he’s not Bengali. ‘He’s thirty-two. A chartered accountant for a top firm in London. His dad’s a doctor, so is his sister. His mum’s a teacher. They live in West London.’
‘Hmmm,’ Mum says, pondering all the positive information I’ve given her. ‘How tall is he?’
‘He’s over six feet, around six feet two I think,’ I reply.
‘Does he live with his family?’
‘Yes, for now. But he already owns a flat in South London somewhere, I think London Bridge, which he’s been renting out.’
‘Smart,’ Mum muses. ‘All this sounds fantastic, Zara, but you know the main thing is his bari and zaath. I can’t have you marrying anyone from any old azeh bazeh family. Where in Bangladesh are they from?’
This is it. The moment of truth.
Marrying outside our culture isn’t as big a deal as it used to be. When my distantly related ‘cousin’ got married to a white guy twenty years ago, all hell broke loose. Her parents threatened to disown her, her mum called my mum in tears, various uncles and aunts vowed to boycott the wedding to show their displeasure. Since then, things have changed but no one in my immediate family has broken out of the mould like that.
‘That’s the thing,’ I begin nervously, putting down the knife and turning to face her.
‘I knew it!’ she wails, slamming a lid onto one of the pans so hard that I’m surprised it doesn’t splinter into a thousand shards of glass. ‘I knew that you’d go and find a khom zaath! How many times have I told you that family background is everything?’