A Matter of Marriage

by Lesley Jorgensen

Genres: Women's Fiction

Synopsis

Debut novelist Lesley Jørgensen delivers a rich, funny delight of a novel in which the “marriage plot” is on dazzling display. But as scandals, secrets, culture clashes, and misunderstandings abound—how will anyone find time for love? 
Mrs. Begum is the doting, anxious mother of three grown children—Tariq, an art curator with a secret he’s not quite ready to share with his parents; her baby, Shunduri, the pampered princess of the family; and her daughter Rohimum, who has returned home to rural England in shame. Mrs. Begum is determined to marry them off, and marry them off well. But where to start? 
 
Mrs. Begum’s husband, the fastidious, stuffy Dr. Choudhury, has moved the family to a cottage on the grounds of Bourne Abbey, a grand but crumbling estate whose restoration he is overseeing. There, the Choudhury family lives alongside the estate’s youngish heirs—Henry and Richard.
 
The Bournes and the Choudhurys are equally snared in the spider-web of centuries-old tradition, but the Abbey itself houses a mystery that will reveal long-hidden entanglements—ones that the two families never anticipated…

Release date: December 2, 2014

Publisher: Berkley

Print pages: 464

Sample

One

HOW CAN A good wife and loving mother end up with not one but three unmarriageable children? Mrs. Begum rocked back on her heels on the sitting-room floor, in the middle of a patch of late-afternoon sunshine and with the comfortable sound of Dr. Choudhury’s newspaper behind her, and chewed contemplatively on the wad of paan tucked into her cheek. She patted the photos spread out on the carpet. How handsome-clever they were. At least she could say that, for all the pain they had given her mother’s heart. They could not have grown so beautiful for nothing.

She picked up a photo of Tariq, in his robes on graduation day, and sighed with pleasure. Like a young Shah Rukh Khan he was, so proud and handsome, despite that dirty beard. Tall and light-skinned like his father, but her own face, not his father’s, Inshallah. And book-clever like Dr. Choudhury but without being a fool in the world.

Except for that fundamental business. Dressing like a village elder and talking that way too. “No smoking,” he had said to his father. “It’s a drug, against the Qur’an, as bad as alcohol.” His own father.

“How about honor your father and mother then, boy?” Dr. Choudhury had said. Not that the boy knew the first thing about that, going off to South Africa almost two years ago now. Not a visit for all of that time. What had they come to UK for, if not for him, and then he leaves them to go somewhere else. No wonder she had a hole in her heart.

Ten months you carry them in your womb, then they turn around and stab you in your heart. A mother’s lot, yes, she understood that, but why did he have to abandon them? What did it say about the love in their family, that it could not hold him close, stop him from flying away from them all as if they had died?

Mrs. Begum sat back on her haunches and sucked noisily on the paan, feeling the betel nut’s relaxing buzz start to run through her blood. Yes, she knew all about pain, from her own children. She stroked the line of light in the photo that followed Tariq’s perfect, straight nose, just like her own. What a lucky boy, not to have his father’s nose. Or sticky-out ears like Prince Charles. The Queen had done the best she could for Charles, the first time. Just a pity she had not managed Diana a bit more. Of course a motherless girl neglected by her husband was going to go off the railways—she could have told the Queen that. Warned her.

She looked up, toward the sitting-room window where, even from the floor, Bourne Abbey could be seen, balancing its bulk on the hilltop opposite. As big as Masjid al-Haram that one, and twice as much trouble, taking them away from their little house in Oxford and the Bangla community there. Though, given the curse that this family was under, probably a good thing that there was no community here.

Mrs. Begum turned to the other photo of Tariq and gave a heavy sigh. This was one of Mrs. Guri’s nephew Hakeem’s artistic efforts, with Tariq a few years younger, clean-shaven and much less stern, wearing his best deep-blue sherwani with the silver embroidery and looking dreamily past the photographer. That was his first year away at Oxford, before he became so angry about Dr. Choudhury’s occasional pipe and Rohimun’s blue-jeans.

Mrs. Begum, still squatting on the carpet, put Tariq aside and turned to the pile of eligible matches in front of her, each with its studio photo attached. Everyone now gave out these fancy ceevees, just like Hakeem had said: age, height, favorite Bollywood heroes. And the boys too: favorite sports, good jobs, what car they drove. Inky, ponky, poo . . . how does one choose? All nice girls and boys, all looking the same.

Soon Tariq would be back at last from those godless South Africans. What better time, when he would be feeling the first full rush of family love, to talk quietly one night of future plans, just mother and son. To say, how nice-nice it would be to see him happy and settled, now that she was beginning to feel her age. And then she would get up to make chai, leaving the photos and ceevees of all these pretty girls on the table. What man could resist a peek? Planting the seed, that was the important thing.

And Shunduri, her baby, look how stylish she had become, what a modern girl with her good bank job and studying still at the polytechnic. Surely she would be finished soon. And then a good boy for her, someone to keep her busy with lots of babies and a nice house. Not too near: it must be visits for a week or a month, not this next-door-just-a-cup-of-tea business.

Mrs. Begum picked up Shunduri’s photos, a whole bundle: each time a different sari, different jewelry. No smiles, chin as high as the sky, eyes half closed, breasts thrust forward. What had Hakeem been thinking of? Only one or two of them were suitable for a marriage ceevee. It was all her father’s fault. Calling her Shunduri, Beauty, was asking for trouble, and Dr. Choudhury should have known better.

Mrs. Begum selected the photo of Shunduri that most closely approximated maidenly modesty and thrust it up and behind her. It smacked into Dr. Choudhury’s wall of newspaper, and she felt his knees jump.

“What a beautiful daughter, nah?” Dr. Choudhury hurrumphed, and Mrs. Begum felt the photo pushed back into her hand. She thrust it up again. “Beautiful, nah?”

An irritated cough. “Yes, yes.”

She could hear the newspaper being put aside now, so she swiftly retracted Shunduri’s photo and picked up one of Tariq’s. “What a handsome boy. A good boy.”

Silence. An annoyed-but-listening silence.

She held up one of the prospective brides’ photos next to the photo of Tariq. “Mrs. Guri, you know, Hakeem’s auntie just here yesterday, said this girl very homely, does not go out. A good family.”

“Why are they wanting to send their daughter to South Africa then?”

She huffed sharply and turned to face her husband. “Tariq is coming home any day now. Any day.”

“Any day, any day for months now.”

“He called, two-days-ago-now. He said soon.”

Dr. Choudhury leaned toward her and tapped Shunduri’s photo with one long finger. “And what is the community going to think of this number-one silly girl? Maybe she thinks if she looks like a Bollywood actress she will get a hero in Mumbai.” He snorted at his own humor and sat back, reaching for the newspaper.

Mrs. Begum’s quick retort—“How could you say this of your own daughter?”—was lost as her paan was swallowed prematurely. By the time she had finished hawking, Dr. Choudhury’s newspaper was held firmly in place, in a manner designed to resist further photographic incursions.

Well then. She turned her back on him once more and pulled out a manila envelope from underneath the other photos. She gently slid its contents partway into her palm, trying to ignore the burning lump that the paan was becoming, just below her breastbone. More eight-by-ten glossies, these of a pretty young woman, short and slight, with long rippling dark hair, but no Bollywood poses here.

Her Rohimun, Munni, her first daughter, Tariq’s favorite sister, the other knife in her mother’s heart. Half smiling, half frowning, herchunna crooked and her fingers hooked into her bracelets as if she was trying to pull them off. As she probably had been. Mrs. Begum blinked tears and pressed her lips together. Look at Munni’s nails: broken and dirty as if she’d been planting rice in the paddies, not studying at that expensive royal college. Fine arts indeed. More like dirty arts: stinky oil paints that ruined good clothes, got in her hair and made her smell like Mrs. Darby’s port-and-stilton.

And what did that oh-so-so-big Royal College of Arts scholarship get Rohimun in the end? Her face in the papers like some pub-girl, laughing with men. Ruined for marriage, lost to her family, a blight on Shunduri’s prospects and maybe even Tariq’s. The pain in Mrs. Begum’s diaphragm climbed higher, and she burped quietly. She must put less lime powder in her paan.

There was a faint rustle behind her, and she sat perfectly still with Rohimun’s photos fanned out in her hand. The little room with its briar rose wallpaper, Taj Mahal clock and peacock fan fell silent. Nothing was said, but she knew that he had seen, and that nothing would be said.

After a short while, Mrs. Begum slid Rohimun’s photos back into their envelope and wiped her face with a corner of her sari. She bundled up Tariq, Shunduri and all the eligibles’ ceevees and stood up briskly. No more spilt milk, as Mrs. Darby would say. Time to make a curry of what remains. She would talk again to Dr. Choudhury.

When the ceevees were back on her recipe shelf nice-and-tidy, Mrs. Begum loaded up the pandan tray, her pride and joy, real silver, so heavy, nah? With its eight (eight! No one had as many!) matching silver bowls, brimming with their separate loads of fresh betel leaves, cumin seeds, aromatic cloves, dried tobacco leaves, pink perfumed sugar balls, acrid lime powder with its own lid and silver spoon, finely chopped betel nuts and, last but not least, the whole betel nuts, with the deadly little betel knife lying alongside.

With arms at full stretch, she hauled it from kitchen to sitting room, laid it on the tiny, twisty-legged occasional table next to her husband’s chair, and only then saw the photos of Rohimun on the floor, tipped out of their envelope. Dr. Choudhury was turned away from them, his shoulders drawn up and his fingers plucking at trouser corduroy as he stared unblinking at the wallpaper. Mrs. Begum thought suddenly of her uncle the tailor who had been so thin when he died, and drew close to her husband’s chair.

“I have made hidol satni.” His favorite. “And dahl.”

He was silent, and she drew closer. She could see the top of his head: the white hair that ran straight back from his forehead was overlain by a few longer strands that crossed from left to right, and some of these had been displaced, exposing small squares and rectangles of scalp. Mrs. Begum’s right hand crept out and started to order them and then her left hand came as well, to smooth down. Dr. Choudhury did not appear to notice, but after a while he withdrew his gaze from the wall and picked up the latest Roopmilan-Mumbai sari catalogue. His shoulders relaxed, his head tilted back to rest against a chair wing and he looked up from the pages.

Her hands moved to adjust her bracelets. “I will make you a hot salad too.”

The phone shrilled, and Mrs. Begum was in the hall before her husband had even managed to uncross his legs. At the telephone table, she stopped, took a breath and re-tucked the front pleats of her sari. It might be the Women’s Institute. But then Dr. Choudhury arrived in the hall, and she snatched up the handpiece. This call was not going to be answered like some fresh-out-of-the-village type, waiting for the caller to speak.

“Windsorr Cott-hage.” She paused. Mrs. Darby didn’t know everything. “Salaamalaikum.”

“Alaikumsalaam, Amma. Amma, I’m so tired like you wouldn’t believe. And the weather in London’s bin so stinking hot, yaah?”

“Aah, Baby!”

“Amma, what’s happenin’ wiv Affa, big sister? Have you heard from her? She was in the papers again! She was at some party, yaah . . .”

“What are you eating? When are you coming to visit your father?”

“Nah, Amma, the newspapers. Have you seen dem?”

“Papers-papers. What does your mother want with papers, when no one visits us as they should? We are getting old on our own while you are a Londoni modern girl.”

“Amma, I’m busy here like you wouldn’t believe: the bank, yaah . . .”

Mrs. Begum saw her husband reaching out to take the receiver and sidestepped to the right, still holding the phone. He followed, but in doing so was left square in front of the hall mirror and seemed to become distracted. She thought quickly, her desire to see her youngest child at war with her need to protect Rohimun from Shunduri’s loose tongue. Surely she could manage both.

“Aah, Baby, so much has been happening here. Too much is happening to this family . . .”

“What? Amma, what’s happenin’? Amma!”

“Your father is a wreck . . . What will the community be saying . . .” Mrs. Begum ended her disjointed hints with a convincing sniff and passed the receiver to her husband. Shunduri would not be able to resist coming down now, her mouth wide open like a little bird, for family drama, tears and shoutings, especially if it was Rohimun who was in trouble.

Dr. Choudhury grasped the phone and spoke absently to the mirror. “Aah . . . Baby . . . yes . . .” He slid his thumb between tie and shirtfront and slowly stroked his fingers down the length of the tie. “How are your studies?”

Mrs. Begum watched him closely, fairly certain that he would say nothing that would make Shunduri stay put in London. She hurried off to the kitchen, his voice echoing behind her.

“No, your mother may have. I only take The Times . . .”

—

MRS. GURI’S OTHER comments, the ones that Mrs. Begum hadn’t repeated to her husband, came back to her now. They had been made without preliminaries as Mrs. Guri sat in Mrs. Begum’s kitchen yesterday, with as much eyelid-drooping and table-pointing as if she had been asked for her matchmaking advice.

“Oh, Mrs. Begum, your daughter Shunduri, she is so busy, nah, I wonder she has time for her studies.”

Mrs. Begum had smiled and wrapped another paan leaf, with consternation in her heart. “Yes, yes, a very busy girl, a good girl, the bank . . .” Mrs. Guri had leaned forward, close enough for Mrs. Begum to smell the thick smear of Vicks under her nose. “Oh, Mrs. Begum, I know she is a good girl. A beautiful girl. But . . .”

Trouble follows beauty. Mrs. Begum finished the saying in her head, smiled and thought how Vicks would be of no help to Mrs. Guri if she was kicked in her fat face. What had she seen or heard to be giving such a warning?

“Have you thought, has your husband thought . . . There are so many good families looking for their sons now.” Mrs. Guri waited.

“We are not an old-fashioned family to be rushing her before she has finished her studies.”

“Such a lovely girl. So many friends. Do you know her friends?”

Mrs. Begum sat up a little straighter. “She is coming down this weekend.”

Mrs. Guri nodded, her cheeks jiggling a little. “That is as it should be. You are a very lucky mother to have her come to you at this time . . .”

Before it is too late. Mrs. Begum knew exactly what she meant, but smiled at the old gossip as airily as she could over the tightening in her stomach.

Mrs. Guri glanced at the clock and swallowed the last of her chai with finality. Selecting a paan, she tucked it into a corner of her cheek and dipped into her Harrods bag for a touch more Vicks before announcing she must go as Ahmed would be back now.

Mrs. Begum walked the fat, matchmaking, troublemaking cockroach to the door with fear in her bowels. If Mrs. Guri, knowing everyone in Brick Lane, in Tower Hamlets, was telling her this, what was it she knew? Or, rather, who? One last effort must be made, despite her anger.

“In London . . . is everyone . . . your daughters and their families well?”

Mrs. Guri slowed but was not so silly as to give a triumphant smile. “All well.”

“Inshallah.” Both women spoke at the same time, and they smiled as they walked outside and down the garden path. Across the road, Mrs. Guri’s son-in-law Ahmed was crouching by his car, rather forlornly wiping at a crumpled bumper with some paper towels.

They were almost at the gate now, and Mrs. Begum was growing desperate. She did not have Mrs. Guri’s London connections and her knowledge of the families and of reputations and rumors. She put her hand on Mrs. Guri’s upper arm, and her fingers sank in as if it was Mrs. Darby’s chocolate mousse.

“Perhaps you could let people know, that Shunduri is ready . . .”

Mrs. Guri, visibly gratified, stopped at the gate and rested against the post. She was waiting for more. Ahmed straightened when he saw them, then went back to trying to smooth the dent.

Mrs. Begum clasped her hands together. “I . . . a mother always worries . . . and London is so far away . . . You know all the best families.”

Mrs. Guri looked back at the house, and Mrs. Begum turned to look with her, at the Windsor Cottage brass plate that she had put up only this morning: just the right size, not too big, not too small, and with that veneer of hastily acquired verdigris, so hurtful to her house-proud instincts, but on a sharp-eyed walk through the village, apparently so necessary for the proper country look. She cursed country-look in her thoughts as she followed Mrs. Guri’s eyes. Why did country-look have to be so different to town-look? Why this need for falling-down and dirty?

Nothing was said. Mrs. Begum again swallowed her pride. “Please.”

Mrs. Guri nodded in gracious acknowledgement. “Mrs. Begum, you should never worry, you have good children.” She paused, then spoke again, in a lower voice. “Niece Indra, you know, my niece, Hakeem’s sister that married the doctor? She saw one night, Shunduri talking to a boy in his car. But it was dark, so easy to make mistakes . . .”

“Aah, yes,” said Mrs. Begum bitterly. “So easy.”

Mrs. Guri took a reviving sniff. “We all have these problems. These modern children, they think they must have everything . . . that they deserve happiness. What can you do?”

“Aaah,” they both said.

Mrs. Guri’s own eldest daughter—four children and two broken noses in three years and now on indefinite nyeri, family-visit, with her parents—was before them both, and Mrs. Begum’s anger faded. What could any of them do for their children’s happiness and safety, except pray?

Mrs. Guri touched Mrs. Begum’s shoulder and said with genuine kindness, “We will do our best to find her a good husband.”

“Inshallah.” Both women had spoken together again, this time with no animosity.

Mrs. Guri rested one hand on her stomach. “They are only safe in your womb, nah? Then your sorrows start.” She brought one plump hand up to her face, pinched the bridge of her nose and squeezed her eyes shut, as if trying to recall. “He is a businessman, I think . . . Phones and cameras.”

Tears sprang to Mrs. Begum’s eyes. She had no pride left now, none at all. “Can you ask? Find out the important things?”

Mrs. Guri nodded heavily. “Yes, yes,” and pushed her bulk off the gatepost. It did not spring back.

Likewise, the mood of the two women, as they walked together across the roadway to Ahmed’s car, was unusually subdued. The current of strong emotions, genuine feelings, that flowed between them was not a comfortable thing, and so it was with some relief that Mrs. Begum, nodding and smiling, accepted her friend’s parting shot (an offer of Brasso for Windsor Cottage’s name plate) to resume the usual community hostilities.

—

MRS. BEGUM, STANDING in the kitchen and remembering every word of that visit, was aware that it would be a month, maybe more, before Mrs. Guri could return with news, and so much could happen in a month. If Mrs. Guri was telling her about one time, that meant many times, enough gossip to get her big bottom into Ahmed’s car for a two-hour drive to give her this sorrow and receive the satisfaction of Mrs. Begum begging for her matchmaking help. Images of Mrs. Begum’s own hasty marriage flashed before her eyes, and she gave a little moan. Baby. Shunduri must be brought back home before it was too late.

Phones. Businessman-businessman. Every gundah, yob, in the community was a businessman. All it meant was that there was no job and no family occupation, no restaurant or shop for them to attach themselves to. That they were boys alone and liable to go off into any direction. And Shunduri. She thumped the rice saucepan down hard on the stove and blue flames bellied. So busy with bank. Did Shunduri think her mother was born yesterday? This boy must be made to realize that Baby was not a girl without family.

And if he was halfway eligible . . . Mrs. Begum stirred the basmati vigorously. Rohimun’s antics had ruined this family. If he was onegrain eligible, then pressure could, must, be brought to bear. Mrs. Guri had not acquired her reputation as a matchmaker through her sugarcane sweetness. Mrs. Begum had heard here in UK of funchaits, the community councils of elders, being called, with the attendant beatings, to force love-match couples to wed, and of the girls who were getting too modern and were shipped off to Bangladesh to be married to traditional men who controlled their wives with traditional methods.

This phones-businessman, whoever he was, would be no match for the combined forces of Mrs. Guri and herself. The way things were going, Baby would be the only Choudhury daughter to marry within the community. And if this could be managed, the damage to the family’s reputation caused by Rohimun would be partially repaired. Even if it meant a funchait, this would be done.

Look at Princess Margaret when she was young: what a mess cleaned up there with just a little pressure from her affa, her big sister the Queen. Not a first-rate marriage perhaps, but the royal family would have known not to expect first-rate after that fuss with a man who had been married before. She must speak again to her neighbor Mrs. Darby, with her knowledge of all things royal, about how it had been done.

As for Rohimun . . . Mrs. Begum abandoned the rice and began to chop onions, tears filling the corners of her eyes. Perhaps marriage was possible if it was outside the community. Dodi and Diana. Yes, Dodi and Diana: such a thing could be managed. She just needed to be more practical, more accepting than the Queen and Prince Philip had been. Yes, it was for her, Mrs. Begum, to learn from their mistakes and acknowledge that, for Rohimun, even a mixed marriage would be a blessing. Rohimun was like that poor foolish girl Diana in other ways too: she needed a marital anchor, otherwise she was likely to drift into dangerous waters. As indeed she had.

Mrs. Begum scraped the onions into a saucepan and threw in a pinch of the big rock-salt crystals that Tariq had persuaded her, years ago now, to use instead of the fine-ground salt that everyone so admired in Bangladesh. Sons were always less predictable: they had more choices, more freedom to get away from family influences. With his looks, she had expected love-trouble at university as a certainty, yet all Tariq’s love then seemed to be for family and for Allah, peace be upon Him. And his precious art pictures. And it had turned out to be Tariq rather than her daughters who had been so sick for home at that time. Although of course he had been away in South Africa these last one-two years with no such yearning.

Twenty-seven was not too late for a man to marry in UK. Look at Prince Charles. Tariq just needed to be steered, no, nudged, very slightly, in the right direction. A nice homely girl. Someone to keep her mother-in-law company, be interested in the garden and the kitchen. Such a girl was considerably more likely to give her grandchildren than Rohimun or Shunduri. Tariq would be home soon, she could feel it in her stomach, ever since that phone call two days ago: the first since he’d left. Family was becoming more important to him.

And if there was a secret there, in the background, it could be managed. Camilla had not wrecked that royal marriage; it was Diana’s loneliness and lack of family help—Mrs. Darby and Mrs. Begum both agreed on that. A second wife, or mistress as they called her in UK, could stabilize an unhappy marriage, give a difficult husband someone else to bother, give both women a break. It could even have its own harmonies, especially if one of the wives, for some reason, was barren.

Mrs. Begum bent over the hissing onions and sniffed. Something was missing. Haldi. She took a generous teaspoonful of the golden turmeric powder, spice of weddings and all things fishy, and scattered it over the onion. Time to blend all the ingredients together now, and then wait, while the onions caramelized and the spices roasted, for the hidden flavors to reveal themselves.

Two

BABY WAS LOOKING good tonight. Shunduri stood back from the mirror and tossed her hair, tilted her head and affected to stare blankly as though at an admirer, conscious of length of leg and height of breast. She was never going to be one of those Asian girls who lost the plot as soon as they were married, getting fat and not doing their hair or nails; spending all their time watching Bollywood movies and filling their faces with samosas and pick ’n’ mix. When she married, she was going to be like Posh Spice, getting thinner and younger and better dressed every year, handsome rich husband, a flash car of her own. Yaah.

Affa, big sister Rohimun, had been stacking on the weight and not even betrothed yet. And probably never, now that everyone knew she had a gora boyfriend. Shunduri sniffed and tossed her hair again, watching its glossy swing under the bedroom light. Served Rohimun right, always criticizing her taste in clothes and friends, telling her she shouldn’t read rubbish, dissing her London Vogue and her Desi and Bollywood mags. What you need is serious reading to improve your mind, Baby.

Shunduri held her hands out in front of her: baby-blue nails, tipped in silver glitter. Perfect. As they should be—she’d only just finished doing them. She looked in the mirror again. Sass & Bide leggings in the same pale blue as her nails and a tight scarlet choli, the blouse taken from her latest sari. Scarlet stilettos, and blue and silver toenails. Without taking her eyes from the mirror, she picked up the matching veil from the bed, tucked one corner into the top of her leggings, wrapped it once around her waist then draped it diagonally across her torso, pulling it tight across her breasts before pinning it on her shoulder.

Shunduri turned sideways to admire the five feet of veil that hung down her back and the neatness of her bum in the shiny pants, visible through the draped chiffon. Then she grabbed her hairbrush, tipped her head over and brushed her hair vigorously before straightening up and enveloping herself in a cloud of Silhouette extra-strong hold.

Why hadn’t she gotten Mum’s hair? It was so unfair being stuck with Dad’s fine strands, though no one could say she hadn’t made the most of them. Not that she’d ever wanted a great big rope of the stuff like Affa had: just a bit more thickness, so she could grow it to her shoulderblades and not have to use hot rollers every time she needed a bit of volume. Affa had the hair alright, but what a waste. All she did was wear it down in a tangled mess, no styling whatsoever, or plait it back like a village girl. Shunduri would never let herself go like that. It was just a matter of making an effort, not being lazy. No one likes a slob.

She stared in the mirror again. Her legs were looking even longer tonight in leggings and three-inch heels, not to mention what the balconette bra was doing to her bust. Nothing much in the waist department despite all her dieting, but her stomach was as flat as a board, unlike Rohimun’s. Why she’d let herself go now, Shunduri couldn’t understand. Just when she was getting herself into the papers too. If she’d played her cards right with that blue-blooded boyfriend of hers, she could have been London’s first Desi It-girl.

Not that he was her type. She, Shunduri Choudhury, would never go out with a gora, a Christian: she was a true Muslim girl. But despite that, she’d done her best for Rohimun when she’d turned up that time. No money in her purse, not even a change of clothes, and crying on her doorstep as if Shunduri was the big sister. She’d looked after her, gotten in takeaway and fed her, put sheets on the couch and found some clothes that fit her (no easy task). And then Shunduri had called Simon, just to let him know the score, that Rohimun had family who cared, yaah, and then, before you know it, they were back together again. Not that Rohimun’d ever thanked her.

Just went to show, Affa knew nothing about men. About relationships. If she wasn’t careful, she’d lose Simon, and then who’d marry her? Shunduri stalked into