Finding Mr Perfectly Fine

Sabs parks up in the open garage adjacent to the house and we enter quietly, mindful of the fact that the kids are asleep. Her husband, who I respectfully call ‘Dhulabhai’ in Bengali, is also asleep by the looks of things, sprawled out on the beige L-shaped sofa with his laptop still whirring on the coffee table.

‘Go and have a shower and change and I’ll get you some food,’ Sabs instructs, showing me to the guest room where I’ll be staying for the week. Like the rest of the house, it’s beautiful, with designer wallpaper, a plush cream leather bed and mirrored side tables. I do as she says and ten minutes later I’m digging into roast chicken, veggies, crispy roasted potatoes and delicious home-made gravy. It seems that everything my cousin touches turns to gold. I say this to her, and she guffaws loudly, not caring that Dhulabhai is trying to sleep a few metres away.

‘Yeah, I have magic fingers,’ she says with a not-so-humble shrug. ‘You should see me at work and the stuff I have to do to make these brides presentable.’

‘Like what?’ I ask, intrigued.

‘Like last week, my bride made me put foundation on her knees because she didn’t want her husband to see her dark knees on their wedding night.’

‘Are you for real?’

‘Yep. And covering up bacne is, like, a given on most days. I have to disinfect all my brushes and sponges between each job.’

And there’s me thinking being a famous makeup artist in Dubai was a glamorous job to have.

*

The next few days pass by in a blissful blur of shopping, eating, pampering and playing with the kids; ten-year-old Maaryah, eight-year-old Ibrahim, or Ibby as we call him, and three-year-old Musa. Maaryah’s the sweetest tween ever, who sews and bakes and sneaks into my room for chats and makeovers. Ibby’s really quiet and sits around gaming whenever he’s not at school but likes snuggling next to me when we watch movies together. It’s the first time I’m meeting Musa, and he’s nothing like his older siblings. He can’t sit still and if he’s not jumping up and down on the sofas, then he’s cannonballing into the pool.

All the food in Dubai is halal so I go to town eating anything and everything I want – to hell with Jordan and his meal plan. Beauty treatments are also a lot cheaper so Sabs and I spend an entire day at a beautiful ladies-only spa getting a hammam treatment done (the craziest bath experience when you get scrubbed to death until you turn a lighter shade), a full-body massage, a facial and mani/pedi. I get a haircut too, and some much-needed high and lowlights, and by the end of it, I feel absolutely amazing. Not quite a new woman, as the emotional scars I have run a lot deeper, but I’m getting there.

Adam hasn’t got in touch with me at all. You’d think he’d text me to see if I’m OK, ask why I’m not at work, but nothing. He has no idea where in the world I am because I’m not posting anything on socials (this is supposed to be a family emergency, remember) but it’s as though he doesn’t care. In fact, it’s beginning to feel like I dreamt up the kiss, the punch, the restaurant, everything. It obviously didn’t mean much to him, so I’ve decided to put that entire night into a locked box and throw away the key. I’m not going to let ‘what ifs’ get in the way of my life anymore. I need to focus on the here and the now.

Hamza, the sweetie, has been messaging constantly to check if I’m OK. At least there’s someone who still cares about me. For now, at least. I’m still in two minds whether or not to tell him about the kiss.

‘Don’t you bloody dare!’ Sabina shrieks when I tentatively confess how guilty I’m feeling. We’re at the spa, chilling in the relaxation room and sipping on green tea after all our treatments. Thankfully we’re the only ones here because her scream shatters the silence. Relaxation, it seems, is over. ‘You can’t tell him!’

‘But it’s like I cheated on him,’ I explain. ‘I’d be a lying snake if I didn’t.’

‘You haven’t cheated on him,’ she insists. ‘It wasn’t real. It was an act.’

‘I know, but I was completely into it.’

‘So? Adam is bloody gorgeous. If he suddenly appeared in this spa and snogged me as prep for an upcoming movie role, I would be into it, too. Trust me. Hamza does NOT need to know. It will unnecessarily complicate everything.’

‘Hiding this from him now that I’ve met his family doesn’t feel right,’ I say, looking down at my freshly painted toes.

Sabina sighs. ‘Before I got married, Tel wanted to know about my past and you know what I told him?’

‘What?’

‘Nothing. I told him nothing because he didn’t need to know. All it would do is make him paranoid and jealous about things that were completely irrelevant. And by the way, Islamically you don’t have to reveal your past sins to your husband. Did you know that?’

‘Er, I didn’t,’ I admit, wondering where this sudden religious knowledge has come from. Sabina wears hijab and prays five times a day, but I sort of assumed that it was a habitual thing.

‘Yep. I learnt it in the Islamic Studies class I go to every week.’

‘I can’t believe you go to Islamic Studies classes.’ I giggle, imagining her in a room full of abaya-clad women with her red lipstick and heels.

‘That’s not the point. The point is, men – especially Arab men – are paranoid, jealous and often irrational creatures. You tell him this and he’ll never forget.’

‘That’s a pretty harsh generalisation of Arab men,’ I mutter.

‘There’s no smoke without fire, babe.’

We spend most of the next day Asian-clothes shopping in a place called Meena Bazaar, where Sabs persuades me to not only buy two sarees, but gold bangles as well, because it’s so much cheaper out here. Apparently gold is an investment and the prices are always rising. I listen to her advice and invest in a beautiful pair of bangles with intricate designs etched along the rims.

On the way home we pick up cheap but delicious shawarmas from a roadside joint and then sit by the pool in the garden to eat them. It’s so quiet and peaceful out here, with the sound of the water lapping against the edges of the pool. The sky is pitch-black, dotted with a million stars, more than I’ve ever seen in London, and it’s lovely and warm at this time of the night. I take a moment to sit back and enjoy the serenity while it lasts.