The Khan Saima Mir (best short novels TXT) 📖

‘Things change.’

‘That they do,’ he agreed. ‘You and I being whatever we are…and me sending Ahad to this poncy school with all these middle-class white boys in blazers and hats. What has happened to us?’

‘You always said I was the champagne socialist.’

‘It’s true. But you were right. About everything. Public school does give you a great network. Amazing what having a child does to one’s perspective,’ Elyas said. ‘But you always did see things more clearly than I did. I always envied that about you.’

‘You mean I had vision and you were wearing bifocals?’ she said.

Elyas laughed. ‘Like Butch and Sundance? And we both know how that ended.’ She smiled, and for a moment they were an ordinary couple.

‘This is not the Wild West,’ she said. ‘And going out in a blaze of gunfire is not on the cards for us.’

‘I used to feel as though I was playing snap while all the white kids played poker. I fought hard to get where I am. Up against rich boys who played tennis in the afternoons and went to country clubs on weekends. Guys whose fathers made calls to get them wherever they wanted to be.’

‘And now our son is one of those entitled types,’ Jia said, raising an eyebrow.

‘Isn’t that our whole problem? We want things and then when we get them we don’t feel we deserve them? I don’t want Ahad to struggle just because of my principles. The older I get, the more I understand that values and ideals get lost along the path; you lose a few and damage some of the others. We’re all compromising in some way or other. People talk about underachievement and a lack of brown kids at the top – well, you can’t be what you can’t see. People recruit in their own image, or pick someone they know. That’s how the ladder is climbed. At least your company seems to be giving young people a network.’

‘My father believed in the network,’ Jia said. ‘He ran his life on it and sent us to the best schools to build it. But networks have their own class system, and when your father is the kind of law lord who’ll have your kneecaps shot off, and NOT the kind that adjudicates British law, it’s not that straightforward. That’s what I want these guys to have, a future without shame of where they came from, you know?’ It was easy to be around Elyas; that was why she was with him. He accepted her for who she was, without judgement. But there were things about her that he didn’t know, and things she didn’t believe he would take well. So she gave him what she could, and kept what she couldn’t locked away.

‘Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if my parents had stayed in Pakistan,’ he said.

‘I know where I’d be: sporting a Hermès Birkin as I was being driven around by my chauffeur,’ said Jia.

‘You do that now,’ Elyas said. She realised she missed her youth and the lightness he had brought to it, that time when she couldn’t tell where she ended and he began. And now she only met him in the darkness of a bedroom or here in the park. The two parts of their relationship were divided; something inside her wanted to find a way to bridge them. But what was that bridge? The mundane daily tasks of shopping lists, lunch and laundry-basket arguments? She had an army of men ready to go to war at her command, on land and online, but she couldn’t navigate a relationship outside that world.

She looked up and a tall good-looking man waved at her from across the grass. He was waiting by the play area with an old-fashioned pram. His wife, a handsome woman, was keeping an eye on their five-year-old son. The little boy was confidently climbing the steps to the slide. The man looked familiar.

‘I know that guy. Who is he?’ Elyas asked.

‘That is Marcus Massey. He’s an investment banker,’ she said.

‘Why do I know his face?’ Elyas said.

‘Maybe you covered the story? Marcus was accused of assaulting – sexually assaulting – a trainee risk analyst. She dropped the charges. Story was, Massey’s father put the screws on her father’s business contacts and paid her off too.’

‘I suppose the police couldn’t do anything about it?’

Jia shook her head. ‘I knew her. She used to work with me. Power makes men unfit for normal life.’

Elyas saw that something in her had hardened and it frightened him. But he couldn’t say whether he was afraid for her or of her. ‘Jia, what’s going on?’ he said. ‘I’m worried about you.’

‘Nothing,’ she replied. ‘Let’s get a coffee, the weather is changing.’ Elyas felt the warmth of her against him as she took his arm and led him towards the café. It was the first time she’d touched him in public.

She waited at a table while he bought the drinks. ‘So, are we going to talk about what happened between us?’ he asked, tearing open a sugar sachet and pouring it into her cup.

‘No,’ she said matter-of-factly.

‘Why not?’ he asked.

She sipped her tea slowly. ‘There’s nothing to say. It was all such a long time ago,’ and she turned away from him, caught between wanting to talk and not talk; and then she saw Ahad walking towards them, which settled the matter.

It began to rain and Elyas went to get the car, leaving Ahad waiting with Jia. The silence was uncomfortable. She took her phone from her pocket and began flicking through emails, more out of habit than obligation. This was how it had been for months, her not speaking, him pretending it was OK. But today would be different. Ahad had decided it so. ‘Why did you hate your father?’ he asked.

Jia looked up from her phone. ‘What makes you think I hated him?’

‘Because I hated you too.’

She put her phone down. That she was important enough in his life to