Page 42 of People Change

‘I’m sad that you’re sad,’ she says, a part-truth.

‘Tell the truth. What’s going on?’

‘Well … I feel unhappy, even though I’ve got the life I always wanted,’ she begins, testing the words out loud. ‘I’m not sure I want this life, any more. And it’s hard to explain, but I feel like the things I’ve been trying to forget about my past – bad things that happened – are coming back to haunt me. Like I can’t escape them any more, and it’s only making me more miserable.’

‘Oh, Shirin, your maman should be there for you, instead of hiding here.’ There is derision in her voice. ‘Always hiding, leaving her only daughter in England all alone.’

‘I have my dad,’ Shirin lies.

‘I know that man, he’s as useless as her.’ Shirin laughs at this. ‘I’m sorry, my azizam. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt, though, it’s that you shouldn’t dwell on your past if you want to be happy in this life. Each hardship moulds us into who we are today; each thing that happens to us was meant to be, Allah willed it. Look forward instead, to what you want your life to look likenow, not what you wanted it to look like. You’re young, you have time to do anything you want.’

Shirin knows the words are wise and true but she struggles to internalise them. It is so much easier said than done. She thinks her grandmother knows she is thinking this, for she continues.

‘I am so proud of my granddaughter.’ She places her hand on top of Shirin’s. ‘I know you will find your way.’ She points to a patterned box on the mantelpiece and asks Shirin to bring it over. Next to it are school pictures of Shirin, when she had thick dark hair, with the tops of her ears poking out and an awkward half-smile on her face. When Shirin returns with the box, she gives it to Maman Bozorg, who opens it carefully. Inside are various pieces of gold jewellery: earrings, necklaces and bangles. She digs inside, takes out a small scarlet cloth case, and gives it to Shirin.

Shirin pulls the drawstring apart and feels inside. Within is a delicate gold oval locket. The front is striped, in a croissant pattern, with white gold and yellow gold, the back shiny and smooth.

‘Open it,’ she says.

When she does as her Maman Bozorg asks, Shirin sees inside the locket are two mini photographs. On the left side is a picture of Maman Bozorg and Shirin when she was a baby. She is wearing a sailor’s outfit and is seated on her grandmother’s lap. Her grandmother is much younger in the picture, her face freer of wrinkles, her blue eyes bright as always. On the other side is Baba Bozorg when he was in the army – his stoic face unsmiling, though proud.

Her Baba Bozorg was in the army in his younger years, but in his older age he worked as a cleric. He continued to weara freshly pressed suit, and everything he did was controlled, neat. He was so different from Maman Bozorg, who slept in most days, rushed cooking dinner because she was distracted by the soaps she was watching or hot gossip she had heard from her neighbours. This difference, unlike for Shirin’s mum and dad, complemented their relationship, gave it a depth and texture they needed in order to be married over forty years and not want to leave each other. They bickered, of course, but not for a moment would they consider a life without each other. Neither of them had relished the thought, as Shirin’s parents had. She was twelve when Baba Bozorg died. She took a week off school to go to Tehran with her mum and dad. The trip is a blur to her now, but she distinctly remembers her mother’s wails in the graveyard, the women around them dressed in black chadors, which makes the scene even more distorted in her memories.

‘This is beautiful,’ Shirin says now.

‘It’s yours, azizam. I want you to keep this, and whenever you feel lonely or uncertain of yourself, remember I’m here for you, no matter how far away I am. And Baba Bozorg. He’s looking down on you. He loved you so much, Shirin. We all do. Your maman and baba too, but they’re stupid, not as wise as you and I.’

Shirin feels her eyes filling up, but laughs at Maman Bozorg’s final dig. ‘Thank you,’ she says.

Her grandmother puts her hand over Shirin’s again now. Her hand is large and covers Shirin’s easily. The weight and warmth of it is comforting, like Shirin is no longer expectedto carry the burden any more, like everything in England is so small when she is around so much love.

‘Don’t ever let anyone bother you. We’re Iranian, Shirin jan, we don’t let people bother us,’ Maman Bozorg says.

‘I didn’t say anyone was,’ Shirin says slowly.

‘I know these things. I know what you’re feeling. You need to stand up for yourself. I’m not there to do it for you in England, so you have to promise me that you’ll stand up for yourself?’

She rolls her eyes light-heartedly, but Maman Bozorg tells her to promise, and Shirin finally relents – because she thinks: Actually, yes, I’d like to make this promise. She wants to stand up for herself, to no longer cower away from things that bother her. Because her Maman Bozorg is right: if Shirin doesn’t back herself, no one will.

And even though she didn’t say exactly what was bothering her, or the intricacies of it all, she feels supported by Maman Bozorg. Supported in an unconditional way, when before it felt like all the love around her was only conditional. It is the respite she didn’t know she urgently needed.

She spends the rest of the day sitting next to Maman Bozorg watching Iranian soaps, listening to her grandmother’s commentary, eating shirini and drinking chai. There is no urge to check her work emails or Twitter, where publishing news and hot takes are so often rampant and overwhelming. She is content and present. This is the love she has desperately needed.

Humber Bridge

Then

They had agreed to meet by the entrance of the Humber Bridge Country Park. It was the first time Shirin and Kian had hung out during a weekend. She’d told him that her dad had gone to Iran without her mum, so it would be easier for them to meet. He didn’t need it explained to him that her parents wouldn’t want them to see each other. His parents were fairly liberal, as were Shirin’s, but there were limitations to their liberalism.

Locals went to the country park to walk their dogs. Kian used to have picnics on the table benches there, when family from Iran came to visit. His mum would pack egg-mayonnaise sandwiches, and salad olivieh, with tough, delicious Iranian bread. It was Hull’s most picturesque area. If you looked at the bridge in a certain light you might have thought you were in San Francisco. Emphasis onmight. Now Kian went with his friends and willed time to speed on as they rode their bikes through the woody marshes, and ended their trip watching the sunset while throwing pebbles across the river. The water was grey and dirty-looking most of the time because the sky was grey most of the time. Sometimes they saw people wading into the water, their trousers rolledup, mudlarking, and they would come out with random objects like a quarter of a teacup, with a look of absolute triumph on their faces. His friends from Foxview, Koyer and Teddy, would make fun of them, say it wassad, and Kian would laugh along, but not really mean it. If it made them happy, what did it really matter?

Today, the sky was a baby blue, the air crisp. As Shirin walked towards him, he realised he had never seen her in clothes other than her school uniform. She was wearing black leggings with ankle boots, an oversized cream jumper, and the same puffer jacket she wore to school. He noticed her eyelids were lighter, glistening with glitter. It made her eyes look bigger, and he thought that if she wore make-up at school she would definitely get more attention from boys.

He shoved both his hands in his pockets, straining the fabric as he pushed inwards. ‘What time do you call this?’ he said, his tone light compared to his heavy heart.

A glimmer of a smile traced her eyes and lips, but as she drew near, he could see a hollowness within her. He had never seen her look so deflated. It took him aback. ‘Well, it was a trek to get here,’ she said in a wry tone.

Together, they made their way up the steps to the country park, which Kian had long ago counted to be 105 steps exactly. Halfway up he could hear Shirin muttering something likeJesus Christ. He stifled a laugh, which he was sure she heard because she turned to give him daggers, which only made it harder not to laugh out loud.