I Can't Think Straight (3 page)

During the last six months, she had almost completed a first novel, and she was surprised to find herself pleased with what she had produced. She had been daunted, at the start, by the sheer hubris of daring to put down on paper the sudden clusters of words that pep-pered her thoughts, and certainly she would not allow her mind the pleasure of imagining these snatched hours of writing, these short patches of consciousness detached from the regular, even shapes of the world about her, as a way of life that might one day come to fill all her days.

‘Leaving early?’ her father asked her with a grin. It was over an hour later, and he had caught sight of her trying to pass noiselessly through the open car park that his office overlooked. He did not care that his daily view consisted of two Mercedes, a Volvo, a Toyota and two Ford Fiestas; he liked to notice the flow of bodies in and out of the office. For Leyla, it seemed particularly harsh that, so close to Friday evening freedom, she should have heard the unmistakable, familiar tap on the window, and been forced to turn and walk back in to see him.

‘Hardly early,’ she said, with a quick smile. ‘It’s six. In fact you owe me an hour’s overtime.’

Sam laughed. His office was large, with an impressive boardroom table that remained completely unused, for there was no board to report to, and a stained mahogany desk broad enough to complement his tall, solid frame. He sat back in his wide leather chair, laced his hands behind his head, and said, with calculated casualness:

‘This is all going to belong to you and Yasmin one day, you know.’

It was a familiar lead-in, and she smiled even as she felt a misgiving hit her in the stomach.

‘But it won’t keep going without sales,’ he continued.

‘You know I’m no good at selling, Dad,’ she began, but her manner was too hesitant, her pitch too half-hearted. She hated to say things that disappointed him and, as a result, she realised that she couldn’t even sell him the idea that she was not a salesperson.

‘You don’t sell life insurance,’ her father assured her.

‘I know, I know,’ she replied. ‘It sells itself.’

‘Exactly,’ he smiled, pointing a finger at her. He was charming, she had to admit that.

‘Life insurance,’ he continued, ‘is a sure bet. We all know we’re going to die.’

She placed her notepad, briefcase and coat down in a heap on the floor. She had been clutching them against her as a kind of talisman, in the hope that he would be psychologically fooled into thinking that she was in a hurry to get home. But now there was no denying the truth – a full day pinned behind his desk, dealing with the paperwork he so disliked had left him thirsty for human contact, hungry for an audience. With relief, she remembered that she had an unbeatable way out, but he was so happily animated that she could not bear to play her card just yet.

‘You think I like selling? I’ve got news for you – I don’t.’

That was a blatant lie if ever she’d heard one. He loved selling.

He lived and died for it; and he did it superbly. He sold things all the time, even at home. He would delight in asking if she and her sister wanted their chicken curry with chapattis or rice – thereby ensuring that they accepted the curry itself without argument. It was the law of limited choices, he would explain. Never ask a potential client if he’d like to see you; ask him which time would be better for him. The psychology of it was interesting, but on the rare occasions she had tried the strategy, even to pin down errant photocopier repair men, it had not worked. ‘Would morning or afternoon be better for you today?’ she would gamely ask, only to be told that the next available slot was for the following Thursday. She felt sure that knowing how to approach the client was only half the battle; that one must also possess bottomless reserves of resolve, confidence, chutzpah. She felt a surge of admiration pass through her, that her father had found within this industry a passion and drive that made him endlessly inventive in his sales techniques, constantly excited, and extremely successful.

‘I don’t sell anything,’ he reiterated. ‘I just ask my client if he’s going to die? There’s only one answer. Then, I ask him – are you one hundred and fifty per cent happy that your wife and kids are going to be taken care of the way you want them to be, for the entire rest of their lives?’ He paused here, to recreate the dramatic tension of the moment. ‘You know what? They always hesitate. And then,’ he said, slapping his large fist into an equally capacious palm.

‘You’ve got ’em.’

She cleared her throat. It certainly did not sound difficult. Only two questions – you knew there was no dodging the first one, and the second was a zinger too. She pictured herself sitting before a potential client, probably the son of a prosperous, suburban busi-nessman who had been her father’s client previously. They would be sitting in the drawing room, with cups of tea before them. There would have to be some small talk (another thing she was poorly skilled at). And then, she would have to make her pitch. She tried to do so, now, in her head, but all that stood out was the imagined client’s shocked face when she told him with great force that he was definitely going to die. She pictured him: defensive, irritated, unhappy. She tried to move on to the next point, the main point, the part about his wife and children being taken care of, but could not. Her mind blanked, fully, utterly, and the chintz living room dropped out of her mind’s eye, leaving her with a string of words.

Gratefully she realised that she had located, without even looking for it, the opening sentence for her next chapter. She glanced in-voluntarily, longingly, at the notebook by her feet, then up at her father.

‘Maybe I can keep the business going on the admin side,’ she suggested. ‘Like I’m doing now.’

‘Administration is meaningless,’ he replied. ‘Unless there are sales. Sales bring in the money.’

He was right of course, and this afternoon’s short course in the joys of salesmanship was part of a much broader, ongoing education entitled Taking Over The Business. Leyla’s sister had already unceremoniously flunked this course when she had elected to spend two years after university working with an NGO in Kenya. Since her recent return she had resolutely refused Sam’s offers to join the business, instead insisting on working for a caterer with a view to starting her own food supply company, having been inspired by two years of goat stew and boiled mealies never to be without access to gnocchi, lemongrass or salmon roe ever again. Their father was merely mortified that three years of International Relations at a top British university had left his younger daughter a waitress.

‘I have a date with Ali this evening,’ Leyla said, trying to cover her desperation with an air of casual recollection.

As she had anticipated, this sentence successfully derailed the sales recruitment drive. Her father raised his eyebrows.

‘That’s good. Where are you going?’

‘Into town. We’re visiting a friend of his, then dinner.’

‘It’s Friday, you know. Your mother and I will be at the mosque.’

‘Dad, I believe in our religion. You know I do. I just don’t like to go when everyone else does.’ It was hard for her to push her point of view, and there were many areas in which she remained silent to avoid conflict, but in some, small aspects she knew she had to stand firm or be completely subsumed.

‘If you don’t go with everyone else, how will they know you’re a good Muslim?’

She laughed, grateful for his gracious capitulation.

‘Go on, then,’ he told her. ‘Don’t be home too late.’

‘I’m twenty three, Dad.’

He looked at her for a moment. ‘I know,’ he said, gently. She retrieved her coat and her keys and the precious notebook from the floor and then went to the door.

‘I won’t be late,’ she told him and she left, with an ache of regret in the base of her stomach. Regret that she found it so dispropor-tionately hard to live up to his reasonably pitched ideals, and regret that the brilliant sentence that had occurred to her a few moments before was now lost to her mind forever.

London, for Leyla, possessed a debonair glamour that was perhaps enhanced by only limited exposure to it when growing up in the shelter of its suburbs. In Ali’s car, sleek and silver and low to the ground, they piloted through Hyde Park, towards Mayfair. The sun was setting now, had lowered so far that it had escaped the shield of cloud that had concealed it all day, and was spread like a molten slice of liquid gold over the tops of the trees. The curling, unfurling ribbons of cloud that extended on each side were touched with pink and red.

‘Did you arrange that just for me?’ she asked.

Ali looked out of her window. ‘What?’ he asked.

She pointed, hiding her surprise that he had not noticed the glow of light beyond the window. ‘The sunset,’ she said.

He looked again, then smiled. ‘Oh yes. It’s beautiful.’

They parked beneath a streetlamp that had just begun to glow yellow and walked past the grand facades of old buildings, gleaming in the soft dusk. Glimpses of other lives attracted her to the windows that they passed. There were high ceilings and sparkling lights; in one framed, brief tableau she saw two waiters setting a long table.

In another, the soft glow of firelight played on two armchairs where newspapers were being read in a club.

‘How do you know Tala?’ Leyla asked as they walked.

‘Her first fiancé was my best friend at university. I met Tala through him.’

‘First fiancé? How many has she had?’

Ali grinned. ‘She’s currently on number four.’

‘Four?!’ There was a profligacy to this number, as it related to betrothals, that left Leyla momentarily breathless with surprise.

‘He’s a lovely guy, from Jordan. I think this one will stick. And then she’ll spend more time in Jordan and less here in London. Her family has houses in both places.’

‘So where does she work?’ Leyla asked.

‘She’s always helped her father in the family businesses. But she’s been trying to set up something of her own from London. Working with Palestinian suppliers. Her family is Palestinian, originally.’

‘Refugees?’ she asked, startled.

He laughed. ‘I suppose all Palestinians are; but they were lucky.

They had a business in Jordan before Palestine was lost, so they came out of it much better than most.’

They reached the front door of an imposing, white stuccoed house, and Ali rang the bell. Their eyes met as Leyla straightened the line of her blouse.

‘What’s the matter?’ he asked. ‘You nervous?’

She nodded and he touched her hand kindly.

‘Tala’s great. Trust me, you’ll love her.’

It struck Leyla as strange that they had ostensibly come to visit Ali’s friend Tala, but had so far met only her parents. She sat forward in her antique chair, attentive and polite, holding a fragile, miniature glass cup whose rim was delicately threaded with gold. The glass was filled with a sweet, amber tea in which an escaped mint leaf floated.

Leyla sipped at it, watching the parents with interest, especially the mother, for after a week at work in the restrained, self-deprecating and often colourless atmosphere of an office in Surrey, Reema appeared to her to be somewhat exaggerated as a person. While Tala’s father and Ali fell deep into a conversation about business, Reema inserted a cigarette into an improbably long holder and lit it with a miniature gold palm tree that erupted into flame. There followed a quiet moment in which Leyla sipped at her tea while Reema enjoyed in peace the first, deep inhalation of nicotine, before she turned her attention to her guest as she hissed a stream of pungent smoke into the room.

‘So, how long have you and Ali been dating?’

Leyla hesitated. ‘About two months.’ In truth, the actual time had blurred into a larger block of her life that she could not immediately grasp hold of. Reema’s appraising eyes flickered over Leyla.

‘And? Does he want to marry you?’

Taken aback, she laughed. ‘I don’t know.’

In fact, she suspected that he was very much interested in marrying her. She had not gained this awareness from any deep issuing of emotion on his part, but because it was commonly understood amongst their friends and family and wider community, that Ali had decided to ‘settle down’. And since she came from the same religious background as he, and since he had the advantage of money, business acumen and charm it would have been inconceivable for her to turn him down when he asked for a date. She herself hadn’t thought it reasonable to say no without meeting him, although she was surprised that he had even asked her. She was not sociable, and lacked enthusiasm for more than occasional invitations out. She was fit (she ran most mornings, around the quiet sprawling roads that surrounded their house), and slim as a result, but shopping for clothes bored and confused her, and so she never had the perfect outfit for any given situation, but would make do with the few good pieces that she had, and which her sister Yasmin had helped her pick out.

It had occurred to Leyla after Ali continued calling her that perhaps he found her general gaucheness artless and appealing in some way.

For his part, he had proved intelligent, articulate and adept, eager to learn, well-travelled and generous. And after several weeks she was indifferent to him, except as a friend; in that capacity she was deeply attached to him. As far as she could ascertain, he might be happy to stride into a marriage on the basis of this friendship, whereas she could not. And they were still together because while she suspected all this to be true, she could not bring herself to be presumptuous enough to take his intentions for granted, and so she could not speak of the marriage issue until he did. For now, therefore, they remained good friends and Leyla studiously ignored the fact that, in her mind, they seemed to be steering in different directions.

‘Tala’s engagement party was last week in Jordan. The best party anyone had seen in Amman for some time,’ Reema reminisced with a smile. ‘Tala’s the eldest. My middle one, Lamia, got married straight out of college. She’s very beautiful, though.’

Leyla hesitated, unsure she had heard this last comment correctly, thereby giving Reema time to toss in another question.