No Sex in the City (13 page)

‘Irresistible?’ I offer.

Ruby grins. ‘That will do.’

Lisa smiles. ‘It’s been a long time since I’ve met somebody who’s had that effect on me.’

Ruby isn’t buying. ‘Come on. I don’t believe you. No intense animal magnetism?’

Lisa thinks for a moment. ‘Nope. Not since uni.’

‘Christ, it must be a side effect of working with women who only experience the worst in men.’

‘Give me some credit. I’m intelligent enough to distinguish between scumbags and decent guys.’

‘So basically the last guy you took any interest in was Jerry at uni?’ Ruby asks.

Lisa, who is finding the whole conversation amusing, nods.

Ruby studies Lisa’s face. ‘I thought the whole celibacy thing was because deep down your mum’s nagging was working and you hadn’t truly turned your back on your religion.’

Lisa laughs loudly. ‘
Celibacy?
You make me sound so ...’

‘So
me
!’ I say and we all laugh.

‘If my soulmate came along and I actually had the time to notice, sure I’d be interested. But in the meantime I’m not interested in the occasional fling or casual relationship. That’s not because I’m religious. It’s because I’m just not a
casual
person. I don’t fling anything or anybody to the side. I’m never going to be a short-term loan. I need full-term, and exorbitant rates of interest.’

‘That is so lame,’ Ruby says, hitting Lisa playfully on the shoulder.

‘I know,’ Lisa says, grinning. ‘But it’s true. I’m intense and I need meaning and connection, and casual sex just isn’t going to deliver that to me.’

‘Would you be with Alex if you had the chance?’ I ask Ruby.

‘Maybe. I don’t know ... Well, no, not if it was just casual, although God knows I’d love to. But that’s not me either. I know this confident exterior is deceiving, but deep down I’m old-fashioned too. Not as prehistoric as
you
, Esma. The sky won’t fall on me if I’m not married first.’

‘Thanks for putting it that way,’ I say dryly.

She winks. ‘But I need commitment, and given it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find a guy who doesn’t expect sex after one or two dates, I’m beginning to think I might die a virgin.’

‘But you’re not a virgin,’ I say.

Ruby sighs. ‘It’s been so long, my hymen has probably grafted back together.’

Monday morning
‘I have issues,’ Nirvana says flatly as soon as I answer her call. ‘Not with Anil, or his stepdad. With his mum. She’s clearly suffering from mummy’s boy syndrome.’ (You don’t say!) ‘She gets up in the morning as he’s leaving for work to iron his work shirts for him. He laughs it off. He thinks it’s sweet. This is not good.’

Wednesday morning
‘At dinner last night she asked me if I could cook Indian food. I told her the truth. I don’t particularly like cooking. She coughed into her vindaloo. Anil laughed and gave me a hug. I could have sworn she muttered a prayer under her breath.’

Sunday evening
‘I think she’s stingy. She doesn’t look that way when you meet her with the two-carat ring and Mercedes-Benz, but I caught her washing
used
foil. It was all greasy from the butter chicken. Esma, I think this is going to be a problem.’ At today’s Teenzone session we’re working on a new project. Using donated suitcases, the class are painting their personal stories into the suitcases. When they’ve finished, we’re going to take photographs of the painted suitcases and create an exhibition space at our next fundraising event.

Sonny and Faraj are mucking around with the paintbrushes, while Miriam and Ahmed, who hate being separated and are working beside one another, are bent low over the table, mixing colours. I walk over to Christina, who’s tracing the image of a church onto her suitcase, and ask her what it means.

‘It is the church we used to visiting in Iraq,’ she says without looking up. She’s focused on the pattern, and her features – small blue eyes, ginger eyelashes, thin light eyebrows and a dusting of freckles on her nose – are all scrunched up in concentration. ‘It was burnt down. I do not remembering every detail of it. But I remembering there was one window. My parents liking to sit in the chairs near this window. Hanging next to this window was a picture of Jesus. He was bending and holding the cross. I wanting to painting that on my suitcase.’

‘Why?’ I ask gently, crouching down beside her.

She shrugs. ‘I do not know. I just remembering that picture. Staring at it when I was more little. Sometimes I feeling I left Jesus behind in my country,’ she says matter-of-factly.

‘But don’t you take faith with you wherever you are?’

She smiles. ‘Yes. We going to the Iraqi church here. But it is not being the same for me. I have many more things in my mind and I forgetting faith sometimes. Maybe if I paint it, I will not forget.’

‘I met an extraordinary woman today,’ Lisa declares as we drive home together in my car. ‘Twenty-one, from Somalia. She lost a lot of her family in the famine.’ She shakes her head slowly. ‘Do you think some people are just born with a bigger capacity to cope with death and grief? I mean, how the hell do you live day in and day out watching loved ones die of starvation?’

I shrug. ‘I don’t know. But how can we know? We’ve never really been challenged in life. Sometimes I feel embarrassed in class. Like I should be apologising for having it so good.’

She throws me a sidelong glance. ‘You know what bugs me? Sometimes I catch myself feeling good about my work. Congratulating myself for being so caring.’ She rolls her eyes. ‘Then I go home and do my best to forget about all the tragic stories I’ve heard.’

‘Yeah, I know. It reminds me about what that guy, I can’t remember his name, wrote:
We’re victims of weapons of mass distraction
.’

‘I like that,’ she says, nodding thoughtfully.

I know I’m not a superficial person – I care and I do a bit more than the average person on the street – but I also know that I’m capable of switching off. When I think about the students I work with, my worries seem meaningless in comparison. But does that mean I’m supposed to accept everything that happens to me – Dad’s debt, being unhappy at work – just because I’m grateful that I don’t live in a war zone, or that there’s always food on our table? Do I sit back and accept that I don’t need to strive for things to be better because, when measured against those less fortunate, I’ve been blessed with the best out of life?

When I talk to Lisa about this, she tells me not to beat myself up because I’m fortunate enough to have been born in a peaceful, affluent country. ‘Sometimes that kind of guilt can stop us acting, and that’s no good to anyone. At least you’re doing something, and all you can do is hope that it makes a small difference to people’s lives.’

I nod slowly, musing over her words, and then say, ‘To be honest, sometimes I also feel that my focus on finding Mr Bloody Right feels trivial in comparison to the things we struggle with at the centre. At the same time, I guess that while finding a partner might not be as essential to life as being safe and secure, it’s at the heart of life.’

‘Of course it is,’ Lisa says. ‘It’s not at the heart of mine, I have to say, but for most people it is – including people who’ve been on leaky boats and locked up in detention! We’ve seen some happy endings here, haven’t we? Mohamed and Fariha met through the centre last year and ended up getting married. There’s nothing selfish or frivolous about wanting to find love.’

‘I wonder if I’ll meet a guy who feels the same way as we do.’ I laugh. ‘I just need to meet the male equivalent of you. Somebody who’s interested in ideas and life and social justice – all the complicated, messy stuff.’

She giggles. ‘Did I tell you what happened with my mum last night? She suggested I go to a Jewish singles party with my cousin. You pay the lady organising it and then you attend a dinner party with about fifteen other single Jews. I refused.’

‘I’m sure you did better than that.’

‘Okay, so I told her I’d rather kill myself than go. Figuratively speaking of course. So in true form she carried on and vowed to kill herself first if I don’t go. Trust my mum to match me on a suicide vow. You can’t win with that woman.’

My fingers hover over the keyboard as I stare at my computer screen. I hesitate before pressing enter, then squeeze my eyes shut and let out a yelp. I toss my MacBook to the side and lie on my bed, staring up at the ceiling fan as it turns round and round.

I’ve

created

an

online

dating

profile.

The gravity, the sheer enormity of this decision, strikes me when I consider that I’ve boycotted the entire online dating scene for the past ten years. At university it was very popular among my Turkish friends to meet guys in Turkey through ICQ. Some of them even met up with the guys when they visited on family holidays. Most of the guys turned out to be total losers and the complete opposite of their profiles (‘uni student’ was actually a middle-aged kebab-stand owner; ‘entrepreneur’ in fact sold cheap trinkets to tourists in the bazaar; ‘good-looking guy’ was fat and balding). Two friends did find their husband through the net, though. One of them now lives in Turkey and the other brought her man here. They are both, as far as I am aware, very happy, and therefore form part of the fairy-tale circle one pretends to disdain but secretly hopes to join one day.

On this site I can ‘purchase’ contacts (presumably the payment requirement filters out people who aren’t serious), and ‘kisses’ are for free.

I have lost all dignity and have made myself available on the open market. I am commercial merchandise now, selling my heart through the online shopping mall, albeit with certain conditions (my usual checklist).

I call Lisa and confess the loss of my RSVP virginity to her.

‘You’re an idiot,’ she happily chides me. ‘There’s nothing wrong with it.’

Ruby is delighted. ‘It’s about bloody time.’

There is a flurry of activity overnight. A new product on the market. Instant interest.

Dear Esma

I’d like to catch up for a coffee to discuss my résumé. It needs work and seeing as you’re in the industry, it’d be great to get some insider feedback.

Damn. I shouldn’t have put my job as part of my profile.

Hi, I’m interested in getting to know you better. I’m also a Muslim. I’ve tried the Muslim online dating site but didn’t have much luck there, so I bit the bullet and gave this site a try. Look forward to you contacting me.

Hmm. I’m not sure. Why should I pay for the contact when
he’s
initiating? Ruby warned me about this. Lots of tight-arses out there, she said, who will expect you to pay for the first contact (an email). I send a message back:

Hi, it’d be nice to get in touch. Send me an email telling me more about yourself

I thought I’d be inundated by contacts through RSVP. But I haven’t heard back from the guy who was interested in getting to know me more. I can only assume one thing: just like Ruby warned me, he’s a tight-arse. Asking me to make the contact (and therefore pay) and giving me the flick when I didn’t.

I’ve had some other messages, the combined effect of which has convinced me that the majority of guys are pathetic, sad, idiotic losers who are socially dysfunctional.

Sample of evidence to support my sweeping generalisation:

Are you attractive? You MUST be attractive. Intelligence is a bonus but not a necessity. Look forward to your reply.

Me: Intelligence is a MUST for me. So goodbye.

So when you say you’re a Muslim, do you wear that tea towel on your head? Cos I really hate that. It’s oppressive. Have you assimilated since you moved here?

Me: I occasionally wear a tea towel on my head. I’ve been known to wear a tablecloth and nappy too. I am very oppressed and degraded and in need of rescue. I would say I am assimilated given I was born here.

Hi.

Me: Have you developed early-onset arthritis in your fingers? Even so, two letters masquerading as a message is inexcusable. Not to mention you can still hold a pen in your mouth and type with that.

Senem and Farouk are at our place for dinner tonight. Dad’s shift has changed again and it’s a rare treat for us all to have dinner together. Mum is cheerful and upbeat, hovering around us like a flight attendant in first class, serving more food onto our plates, refilling our glasses and ignoring our appeals to stop fussing and just sit down. But Mum’s never really known how to sit still. If the house is her workplace, then hosting dinner is where she earns her KPIs, and this is one woman who won’t accept anything less than a glowing performance appraisal.

Dad’s just as excited to be home having dinner with us and is also fussing, in his own way. Tugging at Mum’s sleeve every time she nears him and pleading with her to sit down beside him, coaxing Senem to eat more (‘You’re too thin’), edging the plates of food closer to Farouk (who is, of course, the ‘son he never had’, but still the Son-In-Law and must therefore be pampered and impressed, even though Farouk is so easy-going that he wouldn’t care if Mum and Dad served him a TV dinner) and periodically patting me on the hand and smiling at me with sadness and affection.