The Wedding Countdown (36 page)

‘So,’ I finish, ‘that’s it. I need to go home as soon as possible.’

Nina spins around in her vast leather chair and silently surveys the stunning view.

‘Amelia,’ she says finally. ‘I’m going to say this to you once and once only. You are a gifted writer, perhaps one of the most gifted writers who’s ever worked for me, and you have a very bright future ahead in journalism if you so choose. I fully intend to offer you a permanent contract once you complete the internship, a contract which I suggest most strongly that you accept.’

Nina Singh, who never gives praise, has just told me that she thinks I have talent!

I wish I’d left the door ajar so Kareena could hear this!

‘Why would a talented young woman with a bright future ahead of her, a future she has worked and fought hard for, suddenly decide she wants to give it all up and accept an arranged marriage? An arranged marriage that her parents have agreed she can postpone while she establishes her career, with no pressure and no urgency? Why would an intelligent modern young woman in such a fortuitous position decide overnight to throw all that away? Unless she thought she had no choice?’

In the shiny glass Nina’s reflection catches my gaze.

‘I’m not an idiot, Amelia.’

‘I never thought you were!’

Nina spins around. ‘Then don’t treat me like one. I know something about being a vulnerable young woman in a man’s world, as I’m sure you are well aware. There’s only one reason why a woman wears dark glasses, smothers her face in foundation and has bruises on her wrists.’

Nina’s reputation as having the sharpest eyes in the magazine industry is legendary, but this is something else. No wonder no one in the office gets away with anything.

‘Don’t say anything,’ Nina continues. ‘I’m not accepting your resignation, Amelia. I want you to go away and think about this carefully. Get married if you must, that’s your affair, but sacrificing a promising career is a different matter altogether. Take a month’s leave and then give me your decision.’

I can hardly believe it. I was expecting to be bawled out for letting her down.

‘Don’t look so surprised.’ Her crimson mouth cracks into a smile. ‘I may not be quite Mary Poppins but neither am I the Wicked Witch of the West. You do what’s right for you, Amelia, but please don’t let whatever animal did this,’ she brushes her fingertips across my wrist, ‘ruin everything you’ve worked for.’

‘I won’t change my mind.’

‘In which case,’ says Nina opening her desk drawer and sliding in my resignation letter, ‘it won’t matter if I don’t open this, will it? One month, Amelia, and you can take that leave from today. Shut the door on your way out, please.’

And abruptly I’m dismissed. Nina returns her attention to her Power Mac and it’s as though I dreamed the warmth and understanding of only minutes before.

Dazed, I return to the office, pick up my bag and ignore the curious Raj. If I tell him I’m off to Pakistan to marry Subhi, he’ll freak out. Kareena will want to know every last detail and it’ll take me a month to get to the lobby. They’ll find out soon enough.

I glance at Wish’s desk, which is still unoccupied. Let him find out on the grapevine. I don’t care if I never see him again.

I ride the lift down to the lobby and wander outside. It hardly seems possible that in a matter of weeks I could be baking beneath the burnished disk of the Pakistani sun, breathing in the scent of jasmine and listening to the laughing waters of the fountains.

If I go.

I could change my mind.

Should I change my mind?

My fingers fumble in my bag for my phone. Maybe there’ll be a missed call from Wish? Or an answerphone message?

The screen remains blank. Of course it does. What else did I really expect?

I bite my lip, flip open my mobile and press the speed-dial button.

‘Mummy-
ji
?’ I say, my stomach turning cartwheels. ‘It’s Mills. I’ve got something to tell you. It’s about Subhi…’

Chapter 30

It’s ironic that nothing I’ve achieved in the past twenty-two years has made my parents as happy as my decision to marry Subhi. Ten A-starred GCSE grades? Yawn. Four grade-A A-levels? Whatever. A degree? Big deal. But from the second I told Mummy-
ji
I’d changed my mind about marrying Subhi, you’d think I’d split the atom or something. It’s really annoying to discover all those years of busting a gut to be the perfect daughter are eclipsed by something as arbitrary as agreeing to get married.

Honestly! I think, snapping my phone shut and massaging my left ear, which is ringing after twenty minutes of my mother’s shrieking, I could’ve been bunking off to go shopping or smoking behind the bike sheds for all the difference it’s made! What was the point of all that hard work?

Well, my fantastic job of course. I won’t deny I love working at
GupShup
and I’m still reeling from Nina’s unexpected praise but I can’t imagine Subhi will be keen on his new wife working. Most Pakistani husbands are very traditional in that respect. And even if he doesn’t mind, commuting from Lahore to London is hardly practical is it? So what’s been the point of it all?

Back home the bush telegraph will be going mad as Mum tells the good news to everyone she knows. The whole of Bradford will know by teatime. Auntie Bee will be bitching away about what a waste of time and money my education was: I should have got engaged at birth and married at twenty-one; no, make that eighteen; no, actually on my sixteenth birthday bash. Mummy-
ji
is already planning my
shaadi
and I’ve promised faithfully to come home on Thursday so we can set the whole business in motion.

I can’t face going back into the office. Raj and Kareena will only pester me about my talk with Nina and I don’t know if I can keep my news to myself. I switch off my mobile. If Wish does phone it won’t do him any harm to discover I’m now the one who’s unavailable.

I’ll trawl the shops for a while. After the events of the past twenty-four hours I reckon the least I deserve is a little retail therapy.

‘Where the Hell have you been?’ Is Eve’s charming greeting when four hours later I stagger into the flat and dump my bulging shopping bags onto the floor.

‘And hello to you too,’ I say, flexing fingers numb from where the bag handles have cut into them. ‘I’ve been shopping.’

‘I’ve been frantic,’ says Eve. ‘You went out in such a state this morning and your phone’s been switched off. I didn’t know what to think.’

‘We were worried at work,’ Nish adds. ‘Raj said Nina called you into her office and then you stormed out. He thought you’d been sacked.’

I roll my eyes. Trust Raj to put two and two together and make twenty-two.

‘Nina gave me some time off. I told her I’m getting married and handed in my resignation. She wouldn’t accept it and gave me leave instead.’

‘Oh. My. God.’ Eve sinks onto the sofa. ‘You’re never going through with it?’

‘I told you this morning I’d decided to marry Subhi. I’m through with all the dating crap. It’s brought me nothing but misery. I’ve spoken to my parents and they’re delighted, so I’m going home on Thursday to help with the arrangements. My father says we’ll fly to Pakistan in two weeks’ time.’

Eve is stunned into silence.

Nish looks worried. ‘Are you sure this is what you want? I know Raza turned out to be a bastard–’

‘I told Nish all about it,’ Eve says quickly when she sees my face.

‘But marriage is a major step!’ Nish gasps. ‘Mills, you were so sure you wanted to find your own husband.’

‘Yeah. And what a success that’s turned out to be. Raza, Dawud, Micky, Basim, Aadam. Shall I go on? Even Wish is just as bad!’

‘What’s Wish got to do with it?’ asks Nish, looking confused.

‘I don’t want to talk about Wish.’ I pull a red sweater out of my bag. ‘Look at this! Isn’t it gorgeous? Reduced by fifty percent.’

And it’ll cover the bruises on my arms when I go home. I don’t want Mummy-
ji
asking any awkward questions or Daddy-
ji
and the rest of my male rellies coming to London to beat the crap out of Raza for daring to assault the
izzat
of an Ali clan member. On the other hand I have every intention of showing Fizz…

‘Never mind the bloody jumper,’ Eve snaps. ‘What’s the matter with you? Tell her, Nish!’

‘Switch on your mobile,’ says Nish. ‘Don’t argue, Mills; just do it and listen to the messages.’

To shut her up I do as I’m told. I have seven messages: two from Nish, three from Eve, one from my mother telling me breathlessly about some gorgeous fabric she’s seen, and then one from Wish asking me to call him. Oddly he’s on a payphone, which cuts out mid message. Nice try, Wish, but I’m not taking the bait,
shukriya
very much, no matter how many times you insist you’ve something really important to tell me.

‘Happy now?’ I say, lobbing the phone onto the coffee table.

‘What did he say?’ asks Nish.

‘Just some crap about wanting to speak to me. Apparently he has something that he has to say.’ I laugh and am horrified at the harshness of the sound. ‘It’s probably some pathetic explanation for why he left me alone with his psychopath friend and hasn’t bothered to explain why he set me up.’ I busy myself folding the red sweater so that my friends can’t see that my eyes have filled. ‘I’m not interested.’

‘In that case,’ says Nish, ‘you won’t want to know that Wish had a motorbike crash last night, will you?’

The jumper slithers from my fingers.

‘A bike crash?’

Eve nods. ‘That’s what we’ve been trying to tell you.’

‘Wish called Jamal this afternoon,’ says Nish. ‘He had a crash last night not long after he left Raza’s flat.’

In my mind’s eye I see Wish screaming away from Tanners Wharf on his bike, the face behind the tinted visor set and angry. No wonder he never came back to check on Raza.

‘Is he OK?’

‘It was an ambulance job,’ Nish tells me. ‘But as far as I know he’s going to be fine.’

‘Get her some water!’ I hear Eve say, but it sounds like she’s talking from very far away. There’s a rushing sound in my ears and my legs have turned into overcooked noodles. Moments later I’m sitting on the sofa sipping iced water and feeling very peculiar.

‘Sorry, babes.’ Nish pushes the hair back from my face. ‘I didn’t mean to shock you. But at least you now know why he wasn’t able to call in sick.’

‘And why he didn’t call me,’ I say quietly.

‘All the stuff Raza said about the bet was bollocks,’ says Nish. ‘Jamal says that’s just the type of nasty trick he’d play.’

I hardly hear her. Instead I’m seeing visions of Wish lying broken on the road and believing I was willingly about to sleep with Raza. He didn’t abandon me. He hasn’t been ignoring me. The
bechara
guy is lying injured in hospital.

‘Jamal says he’s going to be fine,’ Nish continues. ‘He’s got concussion, some nasty cuts and bruises, but nothing serious. The doctors were keeping him in because he’d had a head injury.’

His poor head...

‘Can we go to the hospital?’ I ask, because it’s suddenly desperately important I see for myself that he’s fine and tell him I’m sorry for listening to Raza’s poison. ‘Could you drive me there, Eve?’

‘Sure,’ says Eve, as though I haven’t spent hours today saying the most horrendous things about Wish. ‘I’ll grab my keys.’

One of the best things about Eve: she never demands explanations. She doesn’t question why I have to go.

But then she doesn’t need to. Eve already knows why.

Even though it’s the evening the hospital is buzzing. Serious-looking doctors stride along purposefully, stethoscopes flung over their shoulders; porters trundle trolleys past and a steady stream of visitors pours through the front doors. Swallowing nervously, I make my way through the maze of lino-floored corridors and follow the sporadic signs to the ward where Jamal said Wish is staying. En route Eve pulled in to our local Spar and grabbed some seedless grapes and magazines for Wish, plus a packet of Silk Cut, which she chain-smoked all the way to the hospital. My stomach did nervous origami throughout the journey. What on earth was I going to say to Wish?

‘Sorry?’ suggested Eve, pulling up outside the hospital and tipping me out into the night. ‘I totally misjudged you? Give us a snog?’

I sigh as I push open the heavy doors to the ward. I guess that would cover it really. Apart from the last bit, of course.

This hospital wing is a casualty of the crumbling NHS. I can almost see the germs waving at me as I wander across the sticky floor, and the fetid air is a positive germ orgy. I scan the ward for Wish. An old lady is yelling incoherently from behind the raised bars of her bed; across the ward a man is ringing a buzzer and the television babbles away to itself while somebody yells for a bedpan.

And there’s no sign of Wish anywhere.

‘Excuse me,’ I call to a passing nurse. ‘I’m looking for Wish?’

The shadows under her eyes are so dark she could double as a panda but she still manages to smile at me. I really must see if I can do an investigation into the state of the NHS for
GupShup
. The realities behind the headlines, or something. I can even interview Wish if he’s still talking to me.

Then I remember I won’t be working for
GupShup
any more because I’m going to marry Subhi, and my stomach churns.

‘Are you all right?’ asks the nurse.

To be honest, I don’t think I am, but there’s nothing the medical profession can do about it.

‘I’m looking for a friend of mine who was admitted last night,’ I tell her. ‘He had a motorbike crash?’

‘Oh, Wish!’ Her face splits into a smile. ‘He livened the place up no end, he did. I’m sorry, love, he’s gone.’

‘Allah-
ji
! He’s not...’

‘Bless you, no! Of course he isn’t! He discharged himself a few hours ago. He said he could see we needed the beds and there was no way he was going to take one when somebody who was really sick could use it.’

‘He’s gone home?’

The nurse nods. ‘His fiancée picked him up. It was so sweet. She couldn’t keep her hands off him. Not that I can blame her! He’s a looker, your friend Wish, isn’t he?’