Contemporary Chick Lit & Feminism: Pre-Reading

Warning: Please note that the excerpts and questions below, as well as in the reading session, will deal with the use of expletives, representation of sex, mental health, racial and ethnic prejudice, sexual harrassment and body image issues in chick lit, and you may therefore find them emotionally and mentally disturbing. If you believe that reading/participating may be traumatizing or a trigger for you, please do not read/participate.

Included below: critical work, chick lit definitions, blurbs, excerpts from Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones' Diary (1996), Ayisha Malik's Sofia Khan is Not Obliged (2015) and Candace Carty-Williams' Queenie (2019), questions for discussion and a note about the use of the excerpts. All excerpts are from the start of the novels, contain no spoilers and are accessible via either the publisher's website, Amazon or Google Books. There's about 20 pages from each text so should provide a clear indication of the ideas, themes and focus of the chick lit texts. The sections in the blue colour are the quotes we may specifically refer to in the session. Please don't worry if you don't get a chance to read them, the pre-reading is purely optional and discussion very informal - we hope you attend either way.

Critical Work

‘Many arguments related to the genre and its representation of gender have never been settled and are as relevant today as they were ten or fifteen years ago.’

Heike Missler, The Cultural Politics of Chick Lit: Popular Fiction, Postfeminism and Representation (London: Routledge, 2016), p. 2.

• To what extent does contemporary chick lit incorporate tropes of classic chick lit texts, while also demonstrating the changing experiences of womanhood?

‘This quest for a partner is entirely secondary to the ongoing battle chick lit's heroines are engaging with themselves.’

Alison Umminger, ‘Supersizing Bridget Jones: What’s Really Eating the Women in Chick Lit’, in Chick Lit: The New Woman’s Fiction, ed. by Suzanne Ferriss and Mallory Young, (New York: Routledge, 2006), pp. 239-252, (p. 240)

• Can chick lit still be classified under the genre of romance when as Umminger elucidates, the romantic elements are almost secondary to the primary focus of the woman protagonist’s own identity?

'In Britain venerated novelists such as Beryl Bainbridge and Doris Lessing have weighed in against the "chickerati." Bainbridge described chick lit as "a froth sort of thing" that "just wastes time." Lessing added, "It would be better, perhaps, if [female novelists] wrote books about their lives as they really saw them, and not these helpless girls, drunken, worrying about their weight" ("Bainbridge").'

Suzanne Ferriss and Mallory Young, Chick Lit: The New Woman’s Fiction (New York: Routledge, 2006), p. 9.

On the other hand, Helen fielding (2013) argues that her own work Bridget Jones’ Diary deals with the ‘sort of thing that millions of other women identified with’ and ‘represents women as they actually are in the age in which they are living.’

Helen Fielding, ‘The Bridget Jones Effect: How Life Has Changed For The Single Woman’, The Guardian (December 20, 2013) <https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/dec/20/

bridget-jones-effect-life-thirtysomething-single-woman> [accessed 19 March 2019]

• Are these comments justifiable or too critical?

• Are chick lit novels froth and a waste of time?

• Have you ever identified with a woman protagonist of a chick lit novel?

‘Chick lit is one of the few genres that is completely open to debut novelists and has offered incredible opportunities for young women to make an impact in the male-dominated publishing industry. (If that’s not feminist, what is?)’

Tara Gelsomino, ‘Growing Pains’ (2004) in Chick Lit: The New Woman’s Fiction, ed. by Suzanne Ferriss and Mallory Young (New York: Routledge, 2006), p. 12

‘In the past, feminism in Romance has been inspired by developments in the evolving politics and beliefs in the real-world feminist movement. Some critics deride Romance fiction as a disposable genre because the books are written and published so quickly. However, this gives writers the opportunity to be topical and on track with (and sometimes even ahead of) the zeitgeist. At best, romance novels can take feminist ideas that are discussed in academia and politics and share them with their readers. In the end, love (with happy endings) and feminism (in the form of female empowerment) form a couple that is made for each other.’

Natalie McCall, ‘Feminism and Popular Romance Fiction’, in Encyclopedia of Romance Fiction, ed. by Kristin Ramsdell (Santa Barbara: Greenwood, 2018), pp. 92–10 (p.100)

• Can romance fiction be feminist?

• What do we mean by this?

• Why or why not?

Definitions of ‘Chick Lit’

‘Sparked by the publication of Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones Diary in 1996 and catapulted to wider fame when Candice Bushnell’s Sex and the City (1997), a collection of essays she’d written as columns for The New York Observer, became a popular television series, Chick Lit typically features heroines (and friends) in their twenties and thirties (although some may focus on older characters), often living in an urban environment, dealing with work and interpersonal relationships of all kinds, and generally trying to sort out themselves and their lives.’

Kristin Ramsdell, Romance Fiction: A Guide to the Genre, Genreflecting Advisory Series, 2nd ed. (Santa Barbara, Calif: Libraries Unlimited, 2012), p. 93

Chicklitclub

https://www.chicklitclub.com/chicklitintro.html

‘Chick lit is a popular genre of contemporary fiction that focuses on the transformational journey of a woman or group of women. Storylines cover the many phases of life, from starting a career, dating, moving to a new location, marriage, motherhood, mid-life transitions, divorce and death.

Romance is a common element but is not the sole focus of the book – work, family or personal issues play a big part. Often these novels are humorous, while its writers don't shy away from the serious issues.

As bestselling author Jane Green once said: "I think what we did was introduce a genre that really held a mirror to women, and held it with great honesty and humour. I don't think there was a genre of books where women were able to read and say, 'I've been there. That's exactly what my life is like.'"’

Goodreads

https://www.goodreads.com/genres/chick-lit

‘Chick lit is genre fiction which addresses issues of modern womanhood, often humorously and lightheartedly. Although it sometimes includes romantic elements, chick lit is generally not considered a direct subcategory of the romance novel genre, because the heroine's relationship with her family or friends[CI2] is often just as important as her romantic relationships.’

Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chick_lit#:~:text=Chick%20lit%20or%20chick%20

literature,tribulations%20of%20their%20individual%20protagonists%22

‘The genre often addresses issues of modern womanhood—from romantic relationships to female friendships to matters in the workplace —in humorous and lighthearted ways.’

• How would you define chick lit?

• Do you think the definition is strict?

• Do you consider chick lit to be a sub-genre of romance, or a genre of its own?

• Does a chick lit text need a romantic focus?

• Do you think a male writer could write ‘chick’ lit?

Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones’ Diary (1996)

Blurb

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/307372/bridget-joness-diary-by-helen-fielding/

Bridget Jones’s Diary is the devastatingly self-aware, laugh-out-loud account of a year in the life of a thirty-something Singleton on a permanent doomed quest for self-improvement. Caught between the joys of Singleton fun, and the fear of dying alone and being found three weeks later half eaten by an Alsatian; tortured by Smug Married friends asking, “How’s your love life?” with lascivious, yet patronizing leers, Bridget resolves to: reduce the circumference of each thigh by 1.5 inches, visit the gym three times a week not just to buy a sandwich, form a functional relationship with a responsible adult and learn to program the VCR. With a blend of flighty charm, existential gloom, and endearing self-deprecation, Bridget Jones’s Diary has touched a raw nerve with millions of readers the world round. Read it and laugh—before you cry, “Bridget Jones is me!”

Excerpt available via Publisher’s Website

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/307372/bridget-joness-diary-by-helen-fielding/

Also, see: Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones’s Diary (London: Picador, 1997), pp. 7–26.

January: An Exceptionally Bad Start

Sunday 1 January

129 lbs. (but post-Christmas), alcohol units 14 (but effectively covers 2 days as 4 hours of party was on New Year's Day), cigarettes 22, calories 5424.

Food consumed today:

2 pkts Emmenthal cheese slices

14 cold new potatoes

2 Bloody Marys (count as food as contain Worcester sauce and tomatoes)

1/3 Ciabatta loaf with Brie

coriander leaves--1/2 packet

12 Milk Tray (best to get rid of all Christmas confectionery in one go and make fresh start tomorrow)

13 cocktail sticks securing cheese and pineapple

Portion Una Alconbury's turkey curry, peas and bananas

Portion Una Alconbury's Raspberry Surprise made with Bourbon biscuits, tinned raspberries, eight gallons of whipped cream, decorated with glacé cherries and angelica.

Noon. London: my flat. Ugh. The last thing on earth I feel physically, emotionally or mentally equipped to do is drive to Una and Geoffrey Alconbury's New Year's Day Turkey Curry Buffet in Grafton Underwood. Geoffrey and Una Alconbury are my parents' best friends and, as Uncle Geoffrey never tires of reminding me, have known me since I was running round the lawn with no clothes on. My mother rang up at 8:30 in the morning last August Bank Holiday and forced me to promise to go. She approached it via a cunningly circuitous route.

"Oh, hello, darling. I was just ringing to see what you wanted for Christmas."

"Christmas?"

"Would you like a surprise, darling?"

"No!" I bellowed. "Sorry. I mean ..."

"I wondered if you'd like a set of wheels for your suitcase."

"But I haven't got a suitcase."

"Why don't I get you a little suitcase with wheels attached. You know, like air hostesses have."

"I've already got a bag."

"Oh, darling, you can't go around with that tatty green canvas thing. You look like some sort of Mary Poppins person who's fallen on hard times. Just a little compact case with a pull-out handle. It's amazing how much you can get in. Do you want it in navy on red or red on navy?"

"Mum. It's eight-thirty in the morning. It's summer. It's very hot. I don't want an air-hostess bag."

"Julie Enderby's got one. She says she never uses anything else."

"Who's Julie Enderby?"

"You know Julie, darling! Mavis Enderby's daughter. Julie! The one that's got that super-dooper job at Arthur Andersen ..."

"Mum ..."

"Always takes it on her trips ..."

"I don't want a little bag with wheels on."

"I'll tell you what. Why don't Jamie, Daddy and I all club together and get you a proper new big suitcase and a set of wheels?"

Exhausted, I held the phone away from my ear, puzzling about where the missionary luggage-Christmas-gift zeal had stemmed from. When I put the phone back she was saying: "... in actual fact, you can get them with a compartment with bottles for your bubble bath and things. The other thing I thought of was a shopping cart."

"Is there anything you'd like for Christmas?" I said desperately, blinking in the dazzling Bank Holiday sunlight.

"No, no," she said airily. "I've got everything I need. Now, darling," she suddenly hissed, "you will be coming to Geoffrey and Una's New Year's Day Turkey Curry Buffet this year, won't you?"

"Ah. Actually, I ..." I panicked wildly. What could I pretend to be doing? "... think I might have to work on New Year's Day."

"That doesn't matter. You can drive up after work. Oh, did I mention? Malcolm and Elaine Darcy are coming and bringing Mark with them. Do you remember Mark, darling? He's one of those top-notch barristers. Masses of money. Divorced. It doesn't start till eight."

Oh God. Not another strangely dressed opera freak with bushy hair burgeoning from a side-part. "Mum, I've told you. I don't need to be fixed up with ..."

"Now come along, darling. Una and Geoffrey have been holding the New Year buffet since you were running round the lawn with no clothes on! Of course you're going to come. And you'll be able to use your new suitcase."

11:45 p.m. Ugh. First day of New Year has been day of horror. Cannot quite believe I am once again starting the year in a single bed in my parents' house. It is too humiliating at my age. I wonder if they'll smell it if I have a fag out of the window. Having skulked at home all day, hoping hangover would clear, I eventually gave up and set off for the Turkey Curry Buffet far too late. When I got to the Alconburys' and rang their entire-tune-of-town-hall-clock-style doorbell I was still in a strange world of my own--nauseous, vile-headed, acidic. I was also suffering from road-rage residue after inadvertently getting on to the M6 instead of the M1 and having to drive halfway to Birmingham before I could find anywhere to turn round. I was so furious I kept jamming my foot down to the floor on the accelerator pedal to give vent to my feelings, which is very dangerous. I watched resignedly as Una Alconbury's form--intriguingly deformed through the ripply glass door--bore down on me in a fuchsia two-piece.

"Bridget! We'd almost given you up for lost! Happy New Year! Just about to start without you." She seemed to manage to kiss me, get my coat off, hang it over the banister, wipe her lipstick off my cheek and make me feel incredibly guilty all in one movement, while I leaned against the ornament shelf for support.

"Sorry. I got lost."

"Lost? Durr! What are we going to do with you? Come on in!"

She led me through the frosted-glass doors into the lounge, shouting, "She got lost, everyone!"

"Bridget! Happy New Year!" said Geoffrey Alconbury, clad in a yellow diamond-patterned sweater. He did a jokey Bob Hope step then gave me the sort of hug which Boots would send straight to the police station.

"Hahumph," he said, going red in the face and pulling his trousers up by the waistband. "Which junction did you come off at?"

"Junction nineteen, but there was a diversion ..."

"Junction nineteen! Una, she came off at Junction nineteen! You've added an hour to your journey before you even started. Come on, let's get you a drink. How's your love life, anyway?"

Oh God. Why can't married people understand that this is no longer a polite question to ask? We wouldn't rush up to them and roar, "How's your marriage going? Still having sex?" Everyone knows that dating in your thirties is not the happy-go-lucky free-for-all it was when you were twenty-two and that the honest answer is more likely to be, "Actually, last night my married lover appeared wearing suspenders and a darling little Angora crop-top, told me he was gay/a sex addict/a narcotic addict/a commitment phobic and beat me up with a dildo," than, "Super, thanks." Not being a natural liar, I ended up mumbling shamefacedly to Geoffrey, "Fine," at which point he boomed, "So you still haven't got a feller!"

"Bridget! What are we going to do with you!" said Una. "You career girls! I don't know! Can't put it off forever, you know. Tick-tock-tick-tock."

"Yes. How does a woman manage to get to your age without being married?" roared Brian Enderby (married to Mavis, used to be president of the Rotary in Kettering), waving his sherry in the air. Fortunately my dad rescued me.

"I'm very pleased to see you, Bridget," he said, taking my arm. "Your mother has the entire Northamptonshire constabulary poised to comb the county with toothbrushes for your dismembered remains. Come and demonstrate your presence so I can start enjoying myself. How's the be-wheeled suitcase?"

"Big beyond all sense. How are the ear-hair clippers?"

"Oh, marvelously--you know--clippy."

It was all right, I suppose. I would have felt a bit mean if I hadn't turned up, but Mark Darcy ... Yuk. Every time my mother's rung up for weeks it's been, "Of course you remember the Darcys, darling. They came over when we were living in Buckingham and you and Mark played in the paddling pool!" or, "Oh! Did I mention Malcolm and Elaine are bringing Mark with them to Una's New Year's Day Turkey Curry Buffet? He's just back from America, apparently. Divorced. He's looking for a house in Holland Park. Apparently he had the most terrible time with his wife. Japanese. Very cruel race."

Then next time, as if out of the blue, "Do you remember Mark Darcy, darling? Malcolm and Elaine's son? He's one of these super-dooper top-notch lawyers. Divorced. Elaine says he works all the time and he's terribly lonely. I think he might be coming to Una's New Year's Day Turkey Curry Buffet, actually."

I don't know why she didn't just come out with it and say, "Darling, do shag Mark Darcy over the turkey curry, won't you? He's very rich."

"Come along and meet Mark," Una Alconbury singsonged before I'd even had time to get a drink down me. Being set up with a man against your will is one level of humiliation, but being literally dragged into it by Una Alconbury while caring for an acidic hangover, watched by an entire roomful of friends of your parents, is on another plane altogether.

The rich, divorced-by-cruel-wife Mark--quite tall--was standing with his back to the room, scrutinizing the contents of the Alconburys' bookshelves: mainly leather-bound series of books about the Third Reich, which Geoffrey sends off for from Reader's Digest. It struck me as pretty ridiculous to be called Mr. Darcy and to stand on your own looking snooty at a party. It's like being called Heathcliff and insisting on spending the entire evening in the garden, shouting "Cathy" and banging your head against a tree.

"Mark!" said Una, as if she was one of Santa Claus's fairies. "I've got someone nice for you to meet."

He turned round, revealing that what had seemed from the back like a harmless navy sweater was actually a V-neck diamond-patterned in shades of yellow and blue--as favored by the more elderly of the nation's sports reporters. As my friend Tom often remarks, it's amazing how much time and money can be saved in the world of dating by close attention to detail. A white sock here, a pair of red braces there, a gray slip-on shoe, a swastika, are as often as not all one needs to tell you there's no point writing down phone numbers and forking out for expensive lunches because it's never going to be a runner.

"Mark, this is Colin and Pam's daughter, Bridget," said Una, going all pink and fluttery. "Bridget works in publishing, don't you, Bridget?"

"I do indeed," I for some reason said, as if I were taking part in a Capital radio phone-in and was about to ask Una if I could "say hello" to my friends Jude, Sharon and Tom, my brother Jamie, everyone in the office, my mum and dad, and last of all all the people at the Turkey Curry Buffet.

"Well, I'll leave you two young people together," said Una. "Durr! I expect you're sick to death of us old fuddy-duddies."

"Not at all," said Mark Darcy awkwardly with a rather unsuccessful attempt at a smile, at which Una, after rolling her eyes, putting a hand to her bosom and giving a gay tinkling laugh, abandoned us with a toss of her head to a hideous silence.

"I. Um. Are you reading any, ah ... Have you read any good books lately?" he said.

Oh, for God's sake.

I racked my brain frantically to think when I last read a proper book. The trouble with working in publishing is that reading in your spare time is a bit like being a dustman and snuffling through the pig bin in the evening. I'm halfway through Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, which Jude lent me, but I didn't think Mark Darcy, though clearly odd, was ready to accept himself as a Martian quite yet. Then I had a brainwave.

"Backlash, actually, by Susan Faludi," I said triumphantly. Hah! I haven't exactly read it as such, but feel I have as Sharon has been ranting about it so much. Anyway, completely safe option as no way diamond-pattern-jumpered goody-goody would have read five-hundred-page feminist treatise.

"Ah. Really?" he said. "I read that when it first came out. Didn't you find there was rather a lot of special pleading?"

"Oh, well, not too much ...," I said wildly, racking my brains for a way to get off the subject. "Have you been staying with your parents over New Year?"

"Yes," he said eagerly. "You too?"

"Yes. No. I was at a party in London last night. Bit hungover, actually." I gabbed nervously so that Una and Mum wouldn't think I was so useless with men I was failing to talk to even Mark Darcy. "But then I do think New Year's resolutions can't technically be expected to begin on New Year's Day, don't you? Since, because it's an extension of New Year's Eve, smokers are already on a smoking roll and cannot be expected to stop abruptly on the stroke of midnight with so much nicotine in the system. Also dieting on New Year's Day isn't a good idea as you can't eat rationally but really need to be free to consume whatever is necessary, moment by moment, in order to ease your hangover. I think it would be much more sensible if resolutions began generally on January the second."

"Maybe you should get something to eat," he said, then suddenly bolted off toward the buffet, leaving me standing on my own by the bookshelf while everybody stared at me, thinking, "So that's why Bridget isn't married. She repulses men."

The worst of it was that Una Alconbury and Mum wouldn't leave it at that. They kept making me walk round with trays of gherkins and glasses of cream sherry in a desperate bid to throw me into Mark Darcy's path yet again. In the end they were so crazed with frustration that the second I got within four feet of him with the gherkins Una threw herself across the room like Will Carling and said, "Mark, you must take Bridget's telephone number before you go, then you can get in touch when you're in London."

I couldn't stop myself turning bright red. I could feel it climbing up my neck. Now Mark would think I'd put her up to it.

"I'm sure Bridget's life in London is quite full enough already, Mrs. Alconbury," he said. Humph. It's not that I wanted him to take my phone number or anything, but I didn't want him to make it perfectly obvious to everyone that he didn't want to. As I looked down I saw that he was wearing white socks with a yellow bumblebee motif.

"Can't I tempt you with a gherkin?" I said, to show I had had a genuine reason for coming over, which was quite definitely gherkin-based rather than phone-number-related.

"Thank you, no," he said, looking at me with some alarm.

"Sure? Stuffed olive?" I pressed on.

"No, really."

"Silverskin onion?" I encouraged. "Beetroot cube?"

"Thank you," he said desperately, taking an olive.

"Hope you enjoy it," I said triumphantly.

Toward the end I saw him being harangued by his mother and Una, who marched him over toward me and stood just behind while he said stiffly, "Do you need driving back to London? I'm staying here but I could get my car to take you."

"What, all on its own?" I said.

He blinked at me.

"Durr! Mark has a company car and a driver, silly," said Una.

"Thank you, that's very kind," I said. "But I shall be taking one of my trains in the morning."

2 a.m. Oh, why am I so unattractive? Why? Even a man who wears bumblebee socks thinks I am horrible. Hate the New Year. Hate everyone. Except Daniel Cleaver. Anyway, have got giant tray-sized bar of Cadbury's Dairy Milk left over from Christmas on dressing table, also amusing joke gin and tonic miniature. Am going to consume them and have fag.

Tuesday 3 January

130 lbs. (terrifying slide into obesity--why? why?), alcohol units 6 (excellent), cigarettes 23 (v.g.), calories 2472.

9 a.m. Ugh. Cannot face thought of going to work. Only thing which makes it tolerable is thought of seeing Daniel again, but even that is inadvisable since am fat, have spot on chin, and desire only to sit on cushion eating chocolate and watching Xmas specials. It seems wrong and unfair that Christmas, with its stressful and unmanageable financial and emotional challenges, should first be forced upon one wholly against one's will, then rudely snatched away just when one is starting to get into it. Was really beginning to enjoy the feeling that normal service was suspended and it was OK to lie in bed as long as you want, put anything you fancy into your mouth, and drink alcohol whenever it should chance to pass your way, even in the mornings. Now suddenly we are all supposed to snap into self-discipline like lean teenage greyhounds.

10 p.m. Ugh. Perpetua, slightly senior and therefore thinking she is in charge of me, was at her most obnoxious and bossy, going on and on to the point of utter boredom about latest half-million-pound property she is planning to buy with her rich-but-overbred boyfriend, Hugo: "Yars, yars, well it is north-facing but they've done something frightfully clever with the light."

I looked at her wistfully, her vast, bulbous bottom swathed in a tight red skirt with a bizarre three-quarter-length striped waistcoat strapped across it. What a blessing to be born with such Sloaney arrogance. Perpetua could be the size of a Renault Espace and not give it a thought. How many hours, months, years, have I spent worrying about weight while Perpetua has been happily looking for lamps with porcelain cats as bases around the Fulham Road? She is missing out on a source of happiness, anyway. It is proved by surveys that happiness does not come from love, wealth or power but the pursuit of attainable goals: and what is a diet if not that?

On way home in end-of-Christmas denial I bought a packet of cut-price chocolate tree decorations and a £3.69 bottle of sparkling wine from Norway, Pakistan or similar. I guzzled them by the light of the Christmas tree, together with a couple of mince pies, the last of the Christmas cake and some Stilton, while watching Eastenders, imagining it was a Christmas special.

Now, though, I feel ashamed and repulsive. I can actually feel the fat splurging out from my body. Never mind. Sometimes you have to sink to a nadir of toxic fat envelopment in order to emerge, phoenix-like, from the chemical wasteland as a purged and beautiful Michelle Pfeiffer figure. Tomorrow new Spartan health and beauty regime will begin.

Mmmm. Daniel Cleaver, though. Love his wicked dissolute air, while being v. successful and clever. He was being v. funny today, telling everyone about his aunt thinking the onyx kitchen-roll holder his mother had given her for Christmas was a model of a penis. Was really v. amusing about it. Also asked me if I got anything nice for Christmas in rather flirty way. Think might wear short black skirt tomorrow.

Wednesday 4 January

131 lbs. (state of emergency now as if fat has been stored in capsule form over Christmas and is being slowly released under skin), alcohol units 5 (better), cigarettes 20, calories 700 (v.g.).

4 p.m. Office. State of emergency. Jude just rang up from her portable phone in flood of tears, and eventually managed to explain, in a sheep's voice, that she had just had to excuse herself from a board meeting (Jude is Head of Futures at Brightlings) as she was about to burst into tears and was now trapped in the ladies' with Alice Cooper eyes and no makeup bag. Her boyfriend, Vile Richard (self-indulgent commitment phobic), whom she has been seeing on and off for eighteen months, had chucked her for asking him if he wanted to come on holiday with her.

Typical, but Jude naturally was blaming it all on herself.

"I'm co-dependent. I asked for too much to satisfy my own neediness rather than need. Oh, if only I could turn back the clock."

I immediately called Sharon and an emergency summit has been scheduled for 6:30 in Café Rouge. I hope I can get away without bloody Perpetua kicking up.

11 p.m. Strident evening. Sharon immediately launched into her theory on the Richard situation: "Emotional fuckwittage," which is spreading like wildfire among men over thirty. As women glide from their twenties to thirties, Shazzer argues, the balance of power subtly shifts. Even the most outrageous minxes lose their nerve, wrestling with the first twinges of existential angst: fears of dying alone and being found three weeks later half-eaten by an Alsatian. Stereotypical notions of shelves, spinning wheels and sexual scrapheaps conspire to make you feel stupid, no matter how much time you spend thinking about Goldie Hawn and Susan Sarandon.

"And men like Richard," fumed Sharon, "play on the chink in the armor to wriggle out of commitment, maturity, honor and the natural progression of things between a man and a woman."

By this time Jude and I were going, "Shhh, shhh," out of the corners of our mouths and sinking down into our coats. After all, there is nothing so unattractive to a man as strident feminism.

"How dare he say you were getting too serious by asking to go on holiday with him?" yelled Sharon. "What is he talking about?"

Thinking moonily about Daniel Cleaver, I ventured that not all men are like Richard. At which point Sharon started on a long illustrative list of emotional fuckwittage in progress in our friends: one whose boyfriend of thirteen years refuses even to discuss living together; another who went out with a man four times who then chucked her because it was getting too serious; another who was pursued by a bloke for three months with impassioned proposals of marriage, only to find him ducking out three weeks after she succumbed and repeating the whole process with her best friend.

"We women are only vulnerable because we are a pioneer generation daring to refuse to compromise in love and relying on our own economic power. In twenty years' time men won't even dare start with fuckwittage because we will just laugh in their faces," bellowed Sharon.

At this point Alex Walker, who works in Sharon's company, strolled in with a stunning blonde who was about eight times as attractive as him. He ambled over to us to say hi.

"Is this your new girlfriend?" asked Sharon.

"Well. Huh. You know, she thinks she is, but we're not going out, we're just sleeping together. I ought to stop it really, but, well ...," he said, smugly.

"Oh, that is just such crap, you cowardly, dysfunctional little schmuck. Right. I'm going to talk to that woman," said Sharon, getting up. Jude and I forcibly restrained her while Alex, looking panic-stricken, rushed back to continue his fuckwittage unrumbled.

Eventually the three of us worked out a strategy for Jude. She must stop beating herself over the head with Women Who Love Too Much and instead think more toward Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, which will help her to see Richard's behavior less as a sign that she is co-dependent and loving too much and more in the light of him being like a Martian rubber band which needs to stretch away in order to come back.

"Yes, but does that mean I should call him or not?" said Jude.

"No," said Sharon, just as I was saying, "Yes."

After Jude had gone--because she has to get up at 5:45 to go to the gym and see her personal shopper before work starts at 8:30 (mad)--Sharon and I suddenly were filled with remorse and self-loathing for not advising Jude simply to get rid of Vile Richard because he is vile. But then, as Sharon pointed out, last time we did that they got back together and she told him everything we'd said in a fit of reconciliatory confession and now it is cripplingly embarrassing every time we see him and he thinks we are the Bitch Queens from Hell--which, as Jude points out, is a misapprehension because, although we have discovered our Inner Bitches, we have not yet unlocked them.

Thursday 5 January

129 lbs. (excellent progress--2 lbs. of fat spontaneously combusted through joy and sexual promise), alcohol units 6 (v.g. for party), cigarettes 12 (continuing good work), calories 1258 (love has eradicated need to pig out).

11 a.m. Office. Oh my God. Daniel Cleaver just sent me a message. Was trying to work on CV without Perpetua noticing (in preparation for improving career) when Message Pending suddenly flashed up on top of screen.

Delighted by, well, anything--as always am if is not work--I quickly pressed RMS Execute and nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw Cleave at the bottom of the message. I instantly thought he had been able to tap into the computer and see that I was not getting on with my work. But then I read the message:

Message Jones

You appear to have forgotten your skirt. As I think is made perfectly clear in your contract of employment, staff are expected to be fully dressed at all times.

Cleave

Hah! Undeniably flirtatious. Thought for a little while whilst pretending to study tedious-beyond-belief manuscript from lunatic. Have never messaged Daniel Cleaver before but brilliant thing about messaging system is you can be really quite cheeky and informal, even to your boss. Also can spend ages practicing. This is what sent.

Message Cleave

Sir, am appalled by message. Whilst skirt could reasonably be described as a little on the skimpy side (thrift being ever our watchword in editorial), consider it gross misrepresentation to describe said skirt as absent, and considering contacting union.

Jones

Waited in frenzy of excitement for reply. Sure enough. Message Pending quickly flashed up. Pressed RMS:

Will whoever has thoughtlessly removed the edited script of KAFKA'S MOTORBIKE from my desk PLEASE have the decency to return it immediately.

Diane

Aargh. After that: zilch.

Noon. Oh God. Daniel has not replied. Must be furious. Maybe he was being serious about the skirt. Oh God oh God. Have been seduced by informality of messaging medium into being impertinent to boss.

12:10. Maybe he has not got it yet. If only could get message back. Think will go for walk and see if can somehow go into Daniel's office and erase it.

12:15. Hah. All explained. He is in meeting with Simon from Marketing. He gave me a look when walked past. Aha. Ahahahaha. Message Pending:

Message Jones

If walking past office was attempt to demonstrate presence of skirt can only say that it has failed parlously. Skirt is indisputably absent. Is skirt off sick?

Cleave

Message Pending then flashed up again--immediately.

Message Jones

If skirt is indeed sick, please look into how many days sick leave skirt has taken in previous twelvemonth. Spasmodic nature of recent skirt attendance suggests malingering.

Cleave

Just sending back:

Message Cleave

Skirt is demonstrably neither sick nor abscent. Appalled by management's blatently sizist attitude to skirt. Obsessive interest in skirt suggests management sick rather than skirt.

Jones

Hmm. Think will cross last bit out as contains mild accusation of sexual harassment whereas v. much enjoying being sexually harassed by Daniel Cleaver.

Aaargh. Perpetua just walked past and started reading over shoulder. Just managed to press Alt Screen in nick of time but big mistake as merely put CV back up on screen.

"Do let me know when you've finished reading, won't you?" said Perpetua, with a nasty smirk. "I'd hate to feel you were being underused."

The second she was safely back on the phone--"I mean frankly, Mr. Birkett, what is the point in putting three to four bedrooms when it is going to be obvious the second we appear that bedroom four is an airing cupboard?"--I got back to work. This is what I am about to send.

Message Cleave

Skirt is demonstrably neither sick nor abscent. Appalled by management's blatently sizist attitude to skirt. Considering appeal to industrial tribunal, tabloids, etc.

Jones

Oh dear. This was return message.

Message Jones

Absent, Jones, not abscent. Blatantly, not blatently. Please attempt to acquire at least perfunctory grasp of spelling. Though by no means trying to suggest language fixed rather than constantly adapting, fluctuating tool of communication (cf Hoenigswald) computer spell check might help.

Cleave

Was just feeling crestfallen when Daniel walked past with Simon from Marketing and shot a very sexy look at my skirt with one eyebrow raised. Love the lovely computer messaging. Must work on spelling, though. After all, have degree in English.

Friday 6 January

5:45 p.m. Could not be more joyous. Computer messaging re. presence or otherwise of skirt continued obsessively all afternoon. Cannot imagine respected boss did stroke of work. Weird scenario with Perpetua (penultimate boss), since knew I was messaging and v. angry, but fact that was messaging ultimate boss gave self conflicting feelings of loyalty--distinctly unlevel playing field where anyone with ounce of sense would say ultimate boss should hold sway.

Last message read:

Message Jones

Wish to send bouquet to ailing skirt over weekend. Please supply home contact no asap as cannot, for obvious reasons, rely on given spelling of "Jones" to search in file.

Cleave

Yesssss! Yessssss! Daniel Cleaver wants my phone no. Am marvelous. Am irresistible Sex Goddess. Hurrah!

Ayisha Malik, Sofia Khan is Not Obliged (2015)

Blurb

https://www.ayishamalik.com/book-details

Unlucky in love once again after her sort-of-boyfriend/possible-marriage-partner-to be proves a little too close to his parents, Sofia Khan is ready to renounce men for good. Or at least she was, until her boss persuades her to write a tell-all expose about the Muslim dating scene.

As her woes become her work, Sofia must lean on the support of her brilliant friends, baffled colleagues and baffling parents as she seeks stories for her book. But in amongst the marriage-crazy relatives, racist tube passengers and polygamy-inclined friends, could there be a lingering possibility that she might just be falling in love?

Excerpt available via Google Books

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=kRl5CgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

Also, see: Ayisha Malik, Sofia Khan Is Not Obliged (London: Zaffre, 2019), pp. 3–20.

SEPTEMBER 2011

I Was Told There’d Be Light

Thursday 1 September

‘Fight the Good Fight’ by Yes, I’m Muslim, Please Get Over It

On www.sofiasblog.co.uk

You’d have thought that a break-up just before Ramadan would have inspired some kind of empathy from extended family members.

‘O-ho,’ one auntie might’ve said, ‘I’m sorry that your potential husband wanted you to live with his family and a hole-in-the-wall.’

Perhaps even a show of shock – a gasp, a hand to the chest or to the mouth . . . ‘Hain? A hole-in-the wall? What is this?’

Nope. An entire month and all my aunties (even the occasional uncle) felt compassion was redundant. For spiritual sustenance, they used their obsession with marriage instead. There was no sympathy at the mention of my no longer marrying the lawyer, and no shock when I explained why the hole-in-the-wall was an impediment to marital bliss. At every iftari party to break fast, all I did was wait seventeen hours to have a decent samosa, and instead I had nothing but the question of marriage shoved down my throat.

‘Maria is getting married, Sofia. Now it is your turn, nah?’

I tried! I did! But what normal human being would ask another human being to live with a cohort of mother, father, brother and sister-in-law with two children, complete with a sister and brother-in-law and three children next door, and a hole-in-the-wall joining the two houses? (Just writing that sentence about so many people confused me; imagine living with them.) I had to pretend it was the chilli sauce that made my eyes water.

Every time someone mentions the ‘M’ word, they become monochrome to me – like the first half of The Wizard of Oz – and at least Dorothy was looking for something more interesting. Home. If little old Dot was Muslim (and not that much older, to be honest), that wizard would be an eligible husband, they’d get married and she’d spend her days popping out babies and choosing suitable flooring. (Not that I have anything against babies or flooring – both are reasonable pastimes if you’re into that kind of thing.) On the plus side, she’d not have to worry about things like pouring water into authors’ champagne, or being thirty and waking up to her parents clattering around the house.But it seems that this is life. The yellow brick road is paved with babies and just too many questions about the ‘M’ word . . .

7 a.m. The truth is, if your (ex) boyfriend has a habit of shaking his leg and all you want to do is chop off the limb in question, you’re probably not that in love with him – despite any affection that might bubble to the surface. (Incidentally, if you don’t have any kind of physical relationship with someone, can they really be your boyfriend? Shouldn’t there be a word for someone between a friend and a potential husband?) And then of course there’s the hole-in-the-wall. After a month of fasting and praying, and praying and fasting, I decided to write a list, because as Anaïs Nin said, ‘We write to taste life twice.’ I’m not sure she knew what she was talking about: we write to get rid of the taste certain morsels of life leave us with. But I don’t think I should be accused of never giving things a chance and writing is very useful for reference’s sake. Now where the hell is it. Ah, here we are:

Post-Ramadan/Hole-In-The-Wall resolutions:

•Give up smoking. Especially when Hannah says, ‘Some Islamic scholars say it’s haram. “Haram” is just “harm” without an extra “a”.’ Sigh. Knowledge is so inconvenient sometimes. (I do think it’s rather good of me not to judge her potential poly-gamous marriage given her raised eyebrows whenever I decide to get a fag out.)

•I’ll maintain my philosophical take on the entire Imran and hole-in-the-wall situ. There are people who like walls, and there are people who like holes-in-the-wall, and that is that.

•I’ll also unglue the phone from my hand. One should be selective with their checking if Imran has emailed / Facebooked / texted/ whatsapped/ tweeted/ instagrammed/ pinterested etc.

•Which leads me to the importance of being a brilliant publicist. I won’t PR my way into a comfortable afterlife, but surely serving literature is like serving education, and education is the pinnacle of Islamic philosophy. Not sure how my current campaign for Shain Murphy’s Facts About Hippos book fits in, but then life is mysterious sometimes. Also I can prove that wearing a hijab does not make me a social pariah. I will not get sacked for being a practising Muslim. Getting sacked for being a shit book publicist, however, may be unavoidable.

•I won’t eat the entire coI won’t eat the entire contents of fridge to make up for severe Ramadan calorie cutback where my body went into shock and believed itself to be in a state of famine. (What I’ve lost in weight, I’ve gained in spirituality. I think.)

•Since I’m on the path to enlightenment I’ll also avoid any (unintentional, of course) hojabi tendencies. I.e. stay away from jersey, Lycra, tight-knit material that leave little to the imagination, and expose what can only be described as the wrong type of lady-lumps. This, I think, is rather a win-win for myself and society. (My community spirit begins.)

•More importantly – sod relationships. It’s either that or sod what I want, and I’d really rather do the former. So what if Imran and I wanted different things? That’s the way life rolls; downhill, some might say. Emotional dependency is bad for personal growth. (And a little too good for physical growth. Obviously.) As a woman of the twenty-first century, I should be enlightened enough to not obsess over my single status. I’m going to do more meaningful things. Voluntary work? Help London’s homeless? Bake cakes for people? (Learn to bake?) The list is endless.

I checked my phone to see if Imran had texted a belated Happy Eid. He had not. Maria burst into my room in her bathrobe and threw a bunch of swatches on my bed. It’s now four months until her wedding to Tahir. Her dress is going to be maroon, so everything has to be a shade of maroon. I wouldn’t be surprised if she took down my curtains and used them for the stage’s backdrop. I want to say: keep the curtains, dear; you’ll need them for covering that hole you’ll probably end up living with. She went through my wardrobe, leaving puddled footsteps on the flooring as I picked up one of the swatches.

‘This is one of the many reasons I’ve turned my back on marriage,’ I said.

‘Yeah, right.’

She doesn’t understand the spiritual transformation of the past month. Images of hazelnut Dairy Milk only occasionally punctuated the formation of my new Zen-like personality. If life were meant to be spent in a constant attempt to be with someone, I’d have been born in Lahore in, well, the 90s.

‘I can’t find my black pointies,’ she said, stretching so far into my wardrobe she was in danger of getting lost in there. She emerged with said black heels and inspected them. ‘Thanks for scuffing them.’

I got out of bed and rummaged around for a black marker.

‘Don’t worry,’ I said, lifting the marker in the air, trying to take the shoes. Maars snatched them back.

It was my face, I think. Perhaps I looked hurt, or just pathetic, because Maars then looked at me the way she and my parents have been making a habit of and said, ‘Oh, it’s fine. Gives them a vintage look. Here, have them.’

She tried to hand the shoes to me.

‘I don’t want them,’ I replied.

A person only accepts sympathy in the form of presents if they need it. And I don’t need it.

‘Are you OK?’ she asked.

I bunched my hair up in a clip and straightened out my bed sheets.

‘I’m fine,’ I said, for perhaps the thousandth time. Just to prove how fine, I turned to her and did a jig on the spot followed by jazz hands.

Maria looked at me, adjusting the towel on her head. ‘Freak.’

‘Look at these walls,’ I said, caressing the smooth Egyptian Cotton paint. I rested my cheek against the wall and gave it a kiss. ‘Every morning I wake up and look at the fullness of them and think . . . Ah, this is how God intended walls to be.’

Maars sat on the bed. ‘Living with a hole-in-the-wall was taking it a bit far.’

Exactly. That’s not living with the in-laws, that’s living in an institution. But she has decided to live with the in-laws (without a hole-in-the-wall, which apparently makes all the difference) and anyway, Dad came thumping up the stairs and appeared at the door.

‘I’m leaving your mother.’ He rested both hands on his poorly back and puffed out his chest.

‘We know, Dad. Any decade now . . .’ I said.

Mum appeared from behind Dad and made him jump. It’s really rather impressive that such ampleness can move around so noiselessly.

‘Hai!’ Dad exclaimed. ‘You gave me a heart attack.’

‘No such luck.’ She shoved a tray in front of him. ‘Take your dogskin.’

Dad threw the Digoxin into his mouth, gulping it down with a glass of water. I hope Mum doesn’t go around saying she gives her husband dogskin. People already think Muslims are weird enough. Mum set the tray on my bed and handed Maria and me a plate of toast.

‘Look how kamzor you’ve become,’ she said to me.

Kamzor? I might be in danger of looking many things, but frail is not one of them. Three faces collectively leaned in and peered at me. I knocked on the wall.

‘But isn’t it better to have complete walls than a fat face?’ I asked. (Rhetorically, obviously.)

‘See her fussiness,’ said Mum, looking at Dad.

Dad came and placed my hand on the wall. ‘Now tell me,’ he said, walking to the other side. ‘How big was this hole?’

That’s the thing – I didn’t know. Did it have a door? Did the door have a lock? Or were the two houses separated by those long strings of beads where you can hear and see from one living room what’s going on in the next; people swishing in and out at will. Did this mean the family had voyeuristic tendencies?

‘But what if they have one big, big house?’ said Mum. She looked at Maars who was nibbling her toast. ‘At least we should have seen before Soffoo said no.’

‘What? said Maria. ‘She said no. End of.’

‘Thank you.’ Love Maars.

It’s so weird how our parents are constantly nagging us to get married when they’re ready to leg it out of their own marriage at any given opportunity. Is that what they think life is: a combination of resilience and resignation? No, thank you. They didn’t have choices – which is depressing – but surely they should be pleased that we’ve managed to inherit some. Though I suspect this much choice is not what they intended.

‘Kismet,’ I said, widening my eyes. ‘Can’t fight destiny, Mum.’

‘Le, kismet told you, say “no” .’

‘Kismet, right now, tells me I need the toilet.’

With which I walked past the family congregation and locked myself in the bathroom.

7.05 a.m. Wish I could have a fag. I could lean out of the window, but surely the fumes will penetrate the gap between the door and floor? Also, I’d have to go back into my room, lift the mattress for my secret stash and bring it back into the bathroom without being caught by either parent. (Which will make me feel as if I’m sixteen rather than thirty. Not particularly good for my sense of self.) Perhaps I should just jump out of the window and that will be the end of it.

Except I’m being a saint-like offspring to my immigrant parents.

8.15 a.m. What is the point of being a saint-like daughter to immigrant parents when my decisions are met with derision?

Mum took one look at my scarf and then outside at what promises to be a scorching day.

‘Hai hai, you want to die from heat?’

Dad was armed with his tool-belt in an attempt to fix the kitchen light. I pat him on the back.

‘Yes, Mum. One day I’ll sweat to death in my hijab.’

Mum fixed a roller in her hair as she told me about her friend Nargis’s daughter, who put on a hijab and had some gang follow her after work, calling her a Paki and telling her to go back home. Her daughter was so scared she took the hijab off the next day.

‘She should’ve said I am going home . . . Around the corner!’

‘Exactly,’ said Maria, taking two maroon swatches and checking them against the light.

‘O-ho! Bastard,’ Dad exclaimed. Not sure if he was talking about the kitchen light or the gang.

‘Your hair’s your one beauty – all covered up,’ said Mum, looking at my head.

I suppose since Mum created me, and I created the hijab situation, covering my hair must feel like a personal affront to her. It’s not you, Mum, it’s me. Honestly, it’s bad enough having Imran prefer spending a lifetime in a weird extended family living situation, but to have to explain what you do or don’t put on your head is really the limit.

‘Acha, maybe put on some more makeup.’ Mum looked at my apparently frail features. ‘Or you’ll look like one of those Gontonomo Bay wives.’

Dad looked over his shoulder and pointed the screwdriver at Mum. ‘Mehnaz . . .’

‘But at least they have husbands,’ she added, and was so impressed with this joke she began laughing out loud, hitting Dad on the back. He turned around and grabbed her by the shoulder, waving the screwdriver in the air.

‘Girls, your mama has loose screws in her brain. I will fix it.’

‘Haw, look at the time. Soffoo, you’ll be late.’ With which Mum handed me a banana and pushed me out of the kitchen, moaning about my state of being wrapped up in too much material and her state of being wrapped up in anxiety.

Angry-looking, tattooed next-door neighbour witnessed Mum trying to loosen my scarf to at least show that I have a reasonably long neck. He looks exactly like the type of person to tell me to go back home – even though he knows where I live. But no one ever said racists were sensible.

9.10 a.m. Oh my actual God. What just happened? I stepped onto the escalators at Tooting Broadway station thinking about my last exchange with Imran.

‘But girls move in with the in-laws all the time,’ he said. ‘It’s normal.’

Normal? Whose normal? I suppose another reason to not marry someone is differing ideas on concept of normality.

‘Why can’t you make a compromise?’ he asked, looking at me with that impenetrable stare he has – as if nothing could move him. Nothing has moved him – certainly not out of his family home. I wasn’t sure whether to cry or throw my coffee in his face. It was just so absurd. But then one person’s absurdity is another person’s obsession. You make the compromise. No, you make the compromise. No, you do it . . . How about no one does it and we all live uncompromised ever after?

‘Remember one of the first times we went out?’ he said. ‘You were pissed off because no one offered an old man a seat on the train and you forced someone to get up for him?’ He finally cracked a smile. ‘Everything you say, everything you do, there’s fire in your belly. And you wear a hijab.’ He glanced at me. ‘You should never change.’

That made something constrict in my chest. I don’t care for I love yous – they’re for people who don’t know any better. You should never change is the culmination of all your flaws made necessary: the imperfect sum of an imperfect past, which turned out to be a good thing for someone.

‘Do you really think you’ll find someone who adores you as much as I do?’

Thanks. I hadn’t realised I was a puppy. Sigh. Logically speaking, it’s not as if it’s the end of the world, but it’s the end of something. I’m not fond of endings.

I was brought back to the present as people flooded out of the train. Before the doors closed I made a run for it, accidentally bumping into a man who was walking towards me. Accidentally. I heard him mumble something, but the doors were beeping and I was too busy pushing through the rush of people to really hear. As I stepped into the (non-air-conditioned) crammed carriage, the word finally penetrated my commute-fogged brain. I turned around, mouth open in delayed realisation. Terrorist? Me? What the actual fuck! I tiptoed and angled my head to catch sight of the perpetrator of this most unexpected opinion. The tube doors were still open. I saw him turn around to disentangle his jacket that had got caught in someone’s briefcase. Someone else got stuck between the doors.

Please stand clear of the closing doors.

No one heard him. Everyone just carried on reading their papers, listening to their iPods as if someone hadn’t just pulled normality from under my feet and smacked my head against some bizarre reality. In my daze, I got my book out from my bag. Forget him, I rationalised to myself, you should be used to racist abuse, Sofia. Such flimsy words make no difference to me. It was a decent rationale, but didn’t quite do the job of putting my world back into balance. I stared at the ground and looked at my shoes: my lovely, teal, snakeskin, peep-toes (which, by the way, are offset perfectly by my coral scarf). I was like, hang on – I don’t look like a terrorist.

Ladies and gentlemen are reminded to keep clear of the closing doors as it can cause disruption to services. Thank you.

I looked up, and just as the doors were about to close, a very clear bout of logic possessed me.

‘Oi,’ I shouted. ‘Terrorists don’t wear vintage shoes, you ignorant wanker!’

I kind of hoped my usefully loud voice would carry. Of all the things in the world I could be, that was the brush he decided to tar me with. But what was the point in my outburst? The doors had already closed between us and he was long gone. You know who wasn’t gone? Me. Surrounded by a tube full of people who were now casting me sideward glances and inching away tentatively. How is anyone meant to explain reasonably to a train full of people that they are not a terrorist? I mean, I work in publishing for goodness sake! So I did the next best thing and in poised fashion focused on my book (or pretended to focus, as how was such a thing possible?). Unfortunately I didn’t take into account that I was reading The Reluctant Fundamentalist.

I need a fag.

9.35 a.m. Terrorist! T-E-R-R-O-R-I-S-T. The word keeps knocking around in my head, denting and scratching the surface of my, quite frankly, already fragile brain. It’s giving me a headache. My innards declared a state of emergency. I sat on the step in the empty smoking area at the back of the building. Managed to bum a cigarette from Colleen in reception.

‘All right?’

Charlie from the post room, who seems to live in a perpetual state of annoyance, came out with a trolley, his gold bracelet glinting in the sun, as a van pulled in.

‘Do you have a light?’ I asked.

He reached into his pocket and threw it towards me.

‘Haven’t seen you here for a while.’

‘I was fasting.’ I inhaled the smoke and looked at the lovely thin white stick: the embodiment of nicotine and guilt.

‘Oh yeah, you’re Muslim.’ I do wonder why Charlie thinks I walk around with this neon-sign-of-a-cloth on my head. Actually, I suspect he doesn’t think about it at all. I fiddled about with my phone, and had an urge to text Imran to say: Can you believe it? Can you actually believe I was called a terrorist?

Oh, bollocks. Late for meeting!

10.35 a.m. I walked into the conference room for our catch-up meeting and finger-sniffing Brammers had popped out to get her notes.

‘Nice scarf, Sweetu,’ said Katie.

Which was nice of Katie to say, because Mr Racist clearly didn’t think so.

‘Is it from Zara?’ she asked.

‘Huh?’

‘Are you OK?’

So I told her what happened. As soon as I uttered the words, Katie bellowed, ‘Everyone, listen! Guys! Sofe was just called a terrorist on the Northern line!’

Fleur’s head shot up. ‘What?’ Then there was a general outcry of, ‘How ghastly!’ ‘No!’ ‘What an awful thing to say.’

Katie put a plate of biscuits in front of me as Fleur brought me a cup of coffee. I looked around the table at my fellow publicists’ concerned white faces and told them about terrorists not wearing vintage shoes. Everyone exploded with exclamations of, ‘No. You didn’t!’

I bloody well did, and they bloody well don’t. It was like that time Katie and I were at Paddington waiting for a train to Bath for an author event.

‘Do you remember that mad brown man?’ I asked Katie.

She nodded. ‘Don’t worry. You’re not going to hell for being friends with a white person.’

He made my chips go cold,’ I mumbled. And my blood, to be quite honest. A person really does get it from everyone sometimes. Every time I think, Hurrah! No one cares about my scarf, some miserable random person calls me a terrorist (or Paki, ninja, bomber – you get the idea). I took out my notepad and pen as Katie patted me on the shoulder.

‘I should just wear a niqab if I’m going to get called a terrorist. At least I wouldn’t have to worry about wearing lipstick,’ I added.

A few of the girls laughed. I don’t know why. It wasn’t a joke. Brammers came in wiping what appeared to be some dried-up vomit on her Armani suit jacket – the juxtaposed lifestyle of publicity director and mother of three.

‘Alex threw up on me just as I was leaving home,’ she explained. ‘Right, everyone. Before we start our catch-up, anyone have ideas for me to take to the editorial meeting? Make them good.’

Every month, Brammers uses catch-up meeting to try and get us to come up with ideas, which she can then take to editorial and bask in the triumph of being more than just publicity. Every month she fails. I was supposed to have thought of ideas on the way to work and I would have done if someone didn’t think I spent my time Googling chemical formulas. I began doodling a house in my notebook, while looking at my phone, briefly wishing Imran would call, the way he used to, just because he wanted to hear the sound of my voice. No one was more aware of Imran’s affectionate stream of consciousness than me and my phone provider. One of the issues about the whole ‘being alone’ stance is not having anyone to share the world’s problems with. A person’s been scooped out of your life and so you speak into a pit of nothingness. Or you don’t speak at all, depending on your tendency towards soliloquy. I’d say my tendency ranges between average to excessive.

Fleur went through her list of points, including potentially writing a book called The Virgin Cyclist, which would’ve been funny – I imagined myself on the book’s cover – under normal circumstances.

‘Sofia? Sofia?’

Brammers looked at my blank face, which nicely complemented my blank brain. I experienced a tie-dye of emotions in the shape of holes-in-the-wall, professionalism and racists as I glanced at my drawing.

‘I don’t suppose anyone would like to read about my string of God-awful dates?’

I’m still undecided as to whether saying something is better than saying nothing at all. I tried to give my most winning smile, which, I think people would agree, was quite a deal given the state of affairs.

‘Yes, well, intriguing as that might be, we’ve published three dating books in the past year,’ replied Brammers.

She was about to move on when I said, ‘Bet no one else’s boyfriend ever asked them to live with their parents and a hole-in-the wall.’

I was too busy figuring out how one draws a hole-in-the-wall to notice everyone looking at me.

‘Your boyfriend asked you to live with his parents and a hole-in-the-wall?’ asked Brammers.

‘Yes.’

Emma pushed back her fringe. ‘Your boyfriend wanted you to move in with him and his parents, and a what?’

Trust me to get a career in quite possibly the most white-centric, middle-class industry there is. I explained to the confused faces about the conjoined house, living with the in-laws, and, of course, the hole that holds the entire story together. After I’d explained about common Asian practice, not only did I feel like a black sheep, but I would’ve quite liked to be a sheep. Sheep are not judged.

‘But why?’ asked Emma.

God, Emma asks a lot of questions. I find this to be a problem. Not the questions, per se, just the assumption that I have answers. I’m not an anthropologist.

‘Can’t be arsed to hire a removal van?’ I suggested. ‘Problems cutting the cord? Filial sense of obligation to immigrant parents?’

‘And do men move in with their wives’ parents?’ Brammers asked. She was taking notes, I saw with some alarm.

‘No. It’s always the woman,’ I said, agitation rising in me.

‘Gosh,’ said Emma. ‘It’s so difficult for you, isn’t it? Did you read the Metro yesterday? About the Asian girl in Birmingham?’

Fleur put her highlighter down. ‘Awful. Just because she wanted to go to university.’

Don’t know what that had to do with me and the hole-in-the-wall (HITW?).

‘Well, there was no gun to my head,’ I said.

Brammers looked intrigued. ‘Could there have been?’

‘No, no,’ I said, waving my hand. ‘I just mean, a person can say no. I said no.’

OK, we all know the HITW is a whack situ, but there was no need for everyone to look so uncomfortable: as if Asians were alla bunch of lunatics. There are crazier things that happen. Then Hannah sprang to mind.

‘It’s not like he asked me to be a co-wife.’

‘A co-wife?’ Brammers had her pen at the ready again. I mean, a HITW was one thing, polygamy was another. So I explained my friend’s whole being a second wife scenario.

‘But that’s not even legal!’ Fleur exclaimed, going red in the face.

Err, hello! Neither is murder, but that doesn’t stop people.

‘Is your friend mad?’ asked Emma.

Brammers scratched her head. ‘This is fascinating, Sofia. Just the kind of thing The Times would love.’ Which isn’t particularly helpful as Hannah hates The Times.

‘Yeah,’ I said, laughing, ‘Someone should write a book about it.’ I carried on doodling, but there was a pause.

‘Sofia,’ said Brammers, shaking her head and smiling. ‘This is an amazing idea.’

‘What?’

‘A book about Muslim dating.’

‘Oh, no. No,’ I said, picking up a chocolate digestive. ‘I’ll gag on my biscuit.’

‘It’d give a fascinating insight into modern Muslim dating and marriage.’

I sighed. Who’d have thought my parents and the publishing industry would share such similar interests?

‘What other situations are there, dating-wise?’ she asked.

I shrugged. I’d been through a hole-in-the-wall or two, and Hannah wanted to marry a married man, but conjoined houses and co-wives do not a book make.

Katie then said, ‘Remember that guy you once met? The beardie?’

‘The one who called me a disco hijabi?’ And, by the way, suggested my clothes weren’t that bad – they just needed to be painted black. Gloomy bastard.

‘This is good, Sofia; this is very good.’ I could see the vein in Brammers’s forehead protruding. ‘We could think of all types of things – forced marriages, honour killings.’

Oh my God. You read about that kind of stuff in the papers but no one I ever knew was forced to marry someone. The only reason my dad might brandish a knife would be to make sure a man doesn’t step out of line. Mum would probably offer him a lifetime of chicken biryani.

‘Illicit sex stories . . .’ Brammers added.

‘Sex?’ I asked. ‘What’s that?’

Apparently this wasn’t funny because only Katie let out a stifled laugh, whilst the others weren’t sure whether to laugh or be shocked. Indeed, my friends, indeed.

Brammers nodded passionately. ‘The sexual politics of double standards . . .’

I straightened up in my seat. OK, if you were to do a survey then I’m guessing there would be far more Muslim women that are virgins than men, but talk about limited observation – as if this double standard is just a Muslim phenomenon.

‘It’s all a bit dark, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘I couldn’t really say I have much experience with the whole forced marriage, honour killing thing.’

I impersonated the Psycho knife-killing scene to properly demonstrate my point.

‘So a funny Muslim dating book?’ Brammer’s vein was practically doing a jig. ...

Candace Carty-Williams, Queenie (2019)

Blurb

https://www.waterstones.com/book/queenie/candice-carty-williams/9781409180074

Published on a wave of critical acclaim – and breathless enthusiasm from our booksellers – Candice Carty-Williams’ luminous debut is a joy-filled, painfully funny coming-of-age story set in modern Britain. Fabulous but flawed, defiant but vulnerable, Queenie Jenkins is one of the great fictional creations of the twenty-first century, and her story is, by turns, hilariously funny, dramatic and movingly tender.

Caught between the Jamaican British family who don’t seem to understand her, a job that’s not all it promised and a man she just can’t get over, Queenie’s life seems to be steadily spiralling out of control. Desperately trying to navigate her way through a hot mess of shifting cultures and toxic relationships and emerge with a shred of dignity, her missteps and misadventures will provoke howls of laughter and tears of pity – frequently on the same page.

Tackling issues as diverse as mental health, race, class and consent with a light yet sure touch, Queenie is refreshingly candid, delightfully compassionate and bracingly real. The perfect fable for a frenetic and confusing time, Carty-Williams’ stellar novel is undoubtedly one of the year’s most exciting debuts and announces its author as a fresh and vibrant new voice in British literature.

Excerpt available via Google Books

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=NhBmDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ViewAPI&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

Also, see: Candice Carty-Williams, Queenie (London: Trapeze, 2020), pp. 1–23.

Queenie

In the stirrups now.

Wish you were here . . .

I LOCKED MY phone and carried on looking at the ceiling before unlocking it and sending a follow-up “xx.” That would prove to Tom that I wasn’t as emotionally detached as he accuses me of being.

“Can you just bring your bottom riiiiight to the edge of the exam table?” the doctor asked as I inched myself down closer to her face. Honestly, I’ve no idea how they do it.

“Deep breath, please!”

She said a bit too cheerfully, and with no further warning inserted what felt like the world’s least ergonomic dildo into me and moved it around like a joystick. She placed a cold hand on my stomach, pressing down every few seconds and pursing her lips every time I squealed. To divert my attention from this manipulation of my insides, I checked my phone. No reply.

“So, what do you do . . . Queenie?” the doctor asked, glancing at my chart. Wasn’t it enough that she could literally see inside of me? Did she need to know about my day job?

“I work at a newspaper,” I said, lifting my head up to make eye contact when I responded, as it seemed like the polite thing to do.

“That’s a fancy career!” She pressed on, plunging her way back in. “What do you do at the newspaper?”

“I work at The Daily Read. The—ouch—culture section. Listings and reviews and—”

“In the technology department? That makes sense,” she said. I hoisted myself up on my elbows to correct her, but stopped when I saw how concerned she looked. I glanced at the nurse behind her, who looked just as concerned, and then back at the doctor. She still looked concerned. I couldn’t see my own face but guessed that my expression mirrored both of theirs.

“Hold on a tick, we’re just going to—Ash, could you just get Dr. Smith in here?” The nurse bustled out.

Many uncomfortable minutes passed before the nurse came back in with another doctor, a man who looked as standard as his surname would suggest.

“Let’s get a closer look . . .” Dr. Smith said, bending down and peering between my legs.

“What’s wrong? Can you not find it?” I asked, worried that the IUD had maybe been absorbed into my womb, the way I still worried that every tampon I’d ever inserted was still knocking about inside me.

“What do you think, Ray?” the first doctor asked her colleague.

“We might need to get Dr. Ellison in here, you know,” Dr. Smith replied, straightening up and putting his hands on his hips.

“I saw a cleaner mopping up some sick in the hallway, why don’t you get him in here to have a look too?” I asked all three hospital staff as they stared quizzically at the ultrasound.

“Aha! Look, the IUD is there!” the original doctor said, pointing at a speck on my on-screen uterus with the excitement of someone who’d just discovered a new planet. Relieved, I lay back on the exam table. “But could you pop your clothes back on and have a seat in the waiting room? We just need to have a quick word, and then we’ll call you back in.”

Never, ever trust a Gemini man.” I plonked myself down on a chair next to Aunt Maggie. “Here—” she said, holding out a bottle of anti- bacterial hand gel. She squeezed some into my palm, and as soon as I rubbed it in, she grabbed my hand to consolidate her point. I’d thought that Maggie coming with me would be a calming and firm adult presence, but instead she was just transferring her germ OCD onto me.

I tried to focus on the peeling gynecology unit sign on the wall to stop myself from pulling my hand out of her grip.

“You know I don’t believe in astrology, Maggie.” She squeezed my hand tighter, I suppose by way of punishment. I slithered my hand out of hers and crossed my arms, tucking my hands into my armpits so she couldn’t grab at them again.

“Your generation don’t believe in anything,” my aunt told me. “But listen to what I’m telling you, it’s for your own good. Gemini men, they are takers. They will take every single thing from you, and they will drain you. They will never give to you, ever, because it’s not about you, it’s always about them. And they will leave you broken, in a heap on the floor. I’ve seen it happen a million times, Queenie.”

The woman opposite raised a palm to the ceiling and mm-hmm-ed in agreement.

“As you know, I steer clear of all men, apart from our Lord and Father, because I haven’t had time for them since 1981, but believe you me, it’s the Gemini ones you need to watch yourself with. Get yourself involved with a man born in June, and there’ll be trouble.”

I chanced an interjection—“But Tom was born in June”—and instantly regretted it.

“Oh! Exactly! This is what I’m saying!” Maggie exclaimed. “And where is he, please?” She looked at me quizzically. “You’re here at the hospital and he’s nowhere to be seen!” I opened my mouth to make the point that not all men born at a certain time of year were variations of

Lucifer walking the earth and ultimately shut her down; but, always wanting to fully explore any subject, Maggie had more to say. In the increasingly busy waiting room, she continued to use her best outside voice to lecture me (and everyone sitting around us by way of volume), and though I was too anxious about the goings-on of my womb to take any of it in, the woman opposite us nodded along aggressively, staring at Maggie’s auburn wig as though it could fall off at any minute.

“. . . if you get involved with a Gemini man, you’ll regret it. They like the chase—trust me. The pursuit of a woman makes them feel strong, it makes them feel good, and it makes them think they have a purpose in life. And we all know that unless men have a purpose, they feel aimless. But Gemini men are a whole different story,” Maggie continued with awe-inspiring enthusiasm. “When they do finally get the woman, they’ll drop her. Drop her like they didn’t even know her. Gemini men don’t mind who they hurt, who they have to use, who they have to step over—they don’t even bloody notice.”

“Are you sure you don’t mean white men, Maggie?” I asked, narrowing my eyes. Her line of fire sounded a little too specific.

“You can take it how you want to,” she said, folding her arms and pursing her lips. “You’re the one who thought she found her white savior. And look!”

Maggie is a big woman. In all ways. She has a new and even more surprising wig made every week, she doesn’t like to wear black because it’s too depressing, and she has to wear more than one pattern at any given time, even when she’s pottering around the house, because “Jesus wants life to be about color.” The obsession with color is a nod to her fleeting career as an artist, a career in which she never created anything but hype around herself. Maggie is also intensely religious, but the less ever said about that, the better. My aunt and grandmother always use religion as a stick to beat everyone with, and even to dwell on it for more than one second would be to entertain something I had no time for.

I sat on the edge of my seat to prevent the hospital staff from screaming my full name out this time around. “What’s to stop them from looking me up when I’ve gone?” I asked Maggie, trying to derail her rant. “What are the rules?”

“Who’s looking you up?” she asked me.

“Anyone in the waiting room?” I answered quietly.

“You’re not a celebrity, Queenie,” Maggie said. “Don’t be so paranoid.”

“Queenie Jenkins?” the nurse from before bellowed. I patted Maggie on the knee to signify that I was about to go in, and jumped up; she didn’t stop talking.

The nurse didn’t smile back at me; instead she placed a hand gently on my shoulder and trotted me down the clinical corridor and led me back into the room that smelled like someone had spilled a bucket of bleach.

I glanced nervously at the machine with the intrusive attachment that had bothered me earlier as it hummed lowly in the corner.

“You can put your things back down there,” she said, and pointed to a chair by the door. For the second time, maybe more so this time, I wished it had been Tom there in that chair, but I didn’t have time to lament because the nurse was staring at me, so threw my bag on it.

“Can you remove your tights and your underwear and put your legs back in the stirrups? I’ll go and get the doctor.”

“Again?” I asked, throwing my head back like a surly teenager.

“Mmm. Yes, please.” She left the room. I should have worn sweatpants for this, both because I would live in them if I could, and because tights are a complete faff. Putting them on requires half dance, half contortion, and should only be done once in a day, in a

private sphere. I got my phone out to text my best friend, who was probably doing something less horrifying with her afternoon.

Queenie:

Darcy. They’re asking to examine me

for the second time! I’ll have had

this machine in me more times than

Tom in the last few weeks

The doctor, a brisk woman with kind eyes that had clearly seen a lot of women’s fear, swept back into the room. She spoke very slowly, explaining that she was going to have one more check of something.

I sat up.

“What are you looking for? You said the IUD was there.” She responded by snapping on a pair of latex gloves, so I lay back down.

“Okay,” she said after a pause and a prod. “I’ve asked another doctor for a second opinion. And having had another look, it’s just that—well, is there any chance you were pregnant, Queenie?” I sat up again; my stomach muscles would be shocked into thinking that I

was exercising at this rate.

“I’m sorry, what do you mean?”

“Well,” the doctor said, peering at the ultrasound, “it looks like you’ve had a miscarriage.”

I lifted my hand to my mouth, forgetting that I was holding anything. My phone slipped out of my grip and onto the floor. The doctor paid no attention to my reaction and continued looking at the screen.

“Why?” I asked, desperate for her to look at me, to acknowledge that this news might have affected me in some way.

“It can happen with most forms of contraception,” she told me clinically, her eyes that I’d previously thought were kind still fixed on the screen. “Most women just don’t know about it. At least it’s done the job.”

I lay back on the examination table long after she’d left the room.

*

“Oh, you two will have beautiful children,” Tom’s grandmother said, staring at us from across the table. Joyce had cataracts, but she could still see the future, it seemed.

“Your lovely soft brown skin, Queenie, but lighter. Like a lovely milky coffee. Not too dark! And Tom’s green eyes. Your big hair, Queenie, those dark eyelashes, but Tom’s nice straight nose.” I looked around to see if anyone else at the table was shocked by what she

said, but apparently it was acceptable.

“I don’t think that you can pick and choose like a facial composite, Joyce,” I said, fiddling with the pepper grinder.

“True,” Joyce said. “It’s a shame, that.”

Later on when we were in bed, I turned to Tom and put my book down. “What’s wrong with my nose?”

“What do you mean?” Tom asked, concentrating on whatever tech article he was reading on his phone.

“Your grandma. At dinner she said that our future baby should have your nice straight nose.”

“Ignore her. She’s just being old, isn’t she?” Tom said, putting his phone down on the bedside table. “Your nose is nice and squishy. It might be my favorite thing about your face.”

“Oh. Thanks, I guess,” I said, picking my book back up. “Well, let’s hope that our children don’t get any of my squashed features.”

“I said squishy, not squashed. And I’d rather our kids looked more like you than me, your face is more interesting than mine. And I love your nose, almost as much as I love you,” Tom said, booping me on the appendage in question with a finger.

He moved so that I could nuzzle into him. I did, and although I wasn’t a person who ever felt particularly safe, did, but just for a second.

“So you’ve thought about it?” I asked, looking up at him.

“Your nose? Sure, I think you’ve got a lovely nose.” He rested his chin on my forehead.

“No, our children. Future babies.”

“Yeah, I’ve got it planned out. In six years when we’ve got a house and I’ve forced you down the aisle, we’ll have children,” Tom said, smiling. “Three is the right amount.”

“Three?”

“One is selfish, two means they’ll always be competing, but when you have three they can start looking after each other as soon as the eldest is eight.”

“Okay, okay. Three coffee-colored babies. But milky, right? Just like Grandma ordered.”

*

Queenie:

Tom, hello

Queenie:

Are you seeing my messages?

Queenie:

I’ll call when I’m on my way home

Queenie:

Got to go to the chemist and get some pills

Queenie:

Let me know if you need me to bring anything home

I sat in the corridor staring at my phone’s smashed screen, waiting for Tom to reply. A few minutes passed, and eventually, no reply later, I walked back toward the waiting room. I could hear Maggie talking as I made my way toward her.

“One day, years ago now, my ex-husband told me he was popping out for petrol, and do you know what? He was gone fifteen hours! When he got back, I said, ‘Terrence, where did you get the petrol, Scotland?’” She paused for effect. “I told him to get out after that. I had a baby to look after, I had my bills to pay, I couldn’t deal with any man’s nonsense.” Maggie paused to adjust her bosom. “The day after he left I went to the doctor and I said, ‘Listen, tie my tubes in a knot, I’m not having any more!’ I’m telling you. The one I’ve got is fifteen now, all she gives me is trouble. It’s all about makeup and boys and fake eyelashes and making videos for YouTube. This isn’t what my mum came over from Jamaica for, for her granddaughter to be throwing away her education.” Maggie folded and unfolded her arms. “I go to church, and I pray, I pray for myself, I pray for my daughter, for my niece. I just have to hope He’s listening, Marina.”

How were my aunt and this stranger already on first-name terms? I hadn’t been gone that long. I threw myself down next to my aunt. Marina, sitting opposite, was nodding vigorously although Maggie had finished speaking.

“What did they say?” Maggie asked, pulling out the hand gel again.

“Nothing really! Just women’s problems, you know.” I swerved the question.

“What women’s problems?” Maggie is a first-generation Jamaican and therefore a woman entitled to information about others.

“Just women’s problems!” I said, forcing what I hoped was a convincing smile.

Maggie and I stood at the bus stop outside the hospital. She spoke about something I couldn’t quite pay attention to as I looked up at the three gigantic tower blocks looming opposite, so high up that dark clouds almost hid their tops. I kept my head tilted back, hoping that if I did it long enough the tears that were brimming in my eyes wouldn’t fall out.

“Queenie, what did the doctor say?” My aunt narrowed her eyes at me. “I don’t buy this ‘women’s problems’ rubbish. Do I have to pry it out of you?” Why did I think I’d got her off the topic earlier?

“She wanted to look at my cervix, Maggie,” I said, hoping that would get her off my case. “Something about it being narrow?”

She looked at me, annoyance and then shock contorting her face. “Pardon? Must you embarrass me?” she said through gritted teeth, looking around. “We do not talk about our vees in public.”

“But I didn’t say vagina, I said cervix,” I replied. Her lips tightened. “Anyway, the bus is here!”

The 136 crawled down Lewisham High Street, Maggie speaking a hundred words for each yard we moved.

“You know, back in the day, when Mum came over, they used to put implants and IUDs in black women without us knowing to stop us getting pregnant.” She cocked her head. “To stop us procreating. That is true, you know!” She raised her eyebrows. “Mum’s friend Glynda, the one who eats Mum out of house and home when she visits? Well, she couldn’t get pregnant for years and she had no idea why. So you shouldn’t even have had that thing put in in the first place, politically as well as physically. You don’t know what it’s doing to you.”

She was talking so frantically and moving so drastically to support her chat that her gigantic plastic earrings were providing a soundtrack to her words.

“Black women’s bodies don’t work well with this sort of thing. Have you read up on it? Chemical imbalances, the absorption to our melanin—that affects the pineal and pituitary glands. Swelling also.”

Maggie stopped talking to call Diana, so I tried to call Tom. The first three times it had rung out, but now it was going to voice mail. It was past six, he’d be out of work by now.

“Is he still not answering?” Maggie asked.

“Huh?” I looked out the window. “Who, Tom? Yeah, he sent me a text to say that he’d see me at home.” She knew I was lying, but my stop was coming up so she couldn’t interrogate me about it.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come to church with me on Sunday? All are welcome. Even you, with that IUD.” She looked at me out of the side of her eyes. “God will save even the most wanton. . . .”

I rolled my eyes and stood up. “I’ll call you tomorrow,” I said before I pinballed my way down the bus, careful not to touch anything or anyone with my hands, and stepped off.

I stood waving at my aunt as the doors closed and the bus pulled away. It’s a family thing. It is an annoying and time-wasting thing.

When I got home, the flat was cold. I ran a bath and wriggled out of my clothes. I crinkled my nose at the goo from the ultrasound that had stuck itself to the gusset of my knickers and chucked them into the wash basket. I doubled over and sat on the edge of the bath. The bleeding had stopped, but the cramps hadn’t.

I wrapped my hair in my headscarf and stepped into the bath. I sat in the water and prodded at my stomach, wincing as I hit tender spots. Why had this happened? I was twenty-five; I wasn’t going to have a baby. Obviously. But it would have been nice to have the choice. Having a contraceptive placed in my body wholly suggested that I was not wanting to have a baby; so, yes, my choice would be to not actually carry a child to term and then raise it—but that wasn’t the point. “Would I have been ready?” I asked myself aloud, stroking my stomach tenderly. My mum was twenty-five when she got pregnant with me. I guess that says everything about how unprepared I’d be. I lay back, numbness cloaking my body as the hot water swathed my cold skin.

Midnight, and Tom still wasn’t home. I couldn’t sleep because my womb felt like it was trying to make its way out of my body, so I assembled some boxes and started to wrap up and pack my half of our separated belongings in the living room so it at least looked like I was going somewhere soon. A snow globe from Paris, mine and Tom’s first holiday together; a comically ugly porcelain donkey from Spain, our second holiday together; and a Turkish eye ornament from our third. I wrapped all of these memories of our relationship with care, swaddling them in layers of newspaper and sealing them with tape. I moved on to the plates, then the mugs, before I stopped to get the donkey back out of the box. I unwrapped it and put it back on the mantelpiece. If I was going to leave a reminder of our relationship, it was going to be the thing I didn’t want in my new place. I carried on wrapping until I got into a frenzy of paper and tape, only pausing when I got to two mugs on the drying rack. One embossed with a T, the other with a Q.

*

“Why have you got so much stuff?” Tom asked, leaning on a cardboard box marked miscellaneous 7 and wiping sweat from his forehead. “I’ve only got a few hoodies and two pairs of socks.”

“I don’t know, maybe I’ve become a hoarder without noticing?” I said, cupping his face in my hands. “But you wanted to live with me, so you’re going to have to live with it all.”

“Fine, I regret nothing,” Tom said, kissing me on the forehead. “Queenie, you have a very dry forehead for someone who is meant to be lifting boxes.”

“Yes, maybe so, but I am organizing, as opposed to lifting,” I told him. “And making sure that the boxes marked kitchen are in the kitchen.”

“Well, if you’re going to be in the kitchen, could you at least make some tea?”

“Yes, now that you mention it, your clever girlfriend has just found the box with the kettle and bought milk and tea bags on the way here,” I said. “But I don’t know where the mugs are.”

“Look in my rucksack, my mum bought us mugs. Moving-in present, she said.”

I found Tom’s rucksack in the hallway and, when I opened it, found two gift boxes containing a white mug each. I washed them out and made us tea, plucking the hot tea bags out with my fingers in the absence of a spoon. “How do your fingers not burn?” Tom asked, walking into the kitchen, a box under his arm.

“They do, I just don’t talk about it,” I said, handing him a hot mug. “These are fancy, where did she get these from?”

“No idea,” Tom said, taking a sip.

“Oh, hold on, you’ve got the Q mug.” I reached out for it.

“This one’s going to be mine.” He lifted it out of my reach. “Like you’re mine,” Tom said, putting an arm around me.

“Do you know,” I said, “whatever tone you’d said that in, it would have sounded creepy and possessive.”

“Creepy and possessive.” Tom took a sip of tea. “Were they the qualities that initially drew you to me?” He laughed.

*

I packed until I was exhausted, falling asleep on the sofa boxed in by years of accumulatively unimportant stuff that I probably didn’t need to continue carting through life. When I woke up the next morning, my alarm chirping obnoxiously from the bedroom, Tom still wasn’t back. I sat on the Tube to work, doubling over when pain ripped through my stomach. A woman handed me a plastic bag, saying, “If you’re going to be sick, can you at least do it in here? Nobody wants to see a splattering so early in the morning.” I snuck in late, turned my computer on, and fake-smiled my way through the morning. The television listings got confused with the club listings, and I asked Leigh to fix it before our boss, Gina, noticed. One day he’s going to tell me to do my work myself, but as long as I listen to him talking about his own work and his boyfriend Don’s faltering DJ career in great detail, he lets me get away with a lot.

At midday, I walked over to Darcy’s desk, a gray metallic dock in the quiet corner of the office that she shared with Silent Jean, the world’s oldest and The Daily Read’s longest-employed subeditor. She was a ghostly pale waif of a woman who didn’t fit with the aesthetic of a flashy news institution, one who seemed to hate me without having ever spoken to me. Or to anyone, actually.

“Good afternoon, Jean,” I said, bowing. She tutted, nodding swiftly before putting her surprisingly snazzy earphones in. I placed both hands on Darcy’s head and began to plait her thick, heavy brown hair, an activity that, thankfully, she found as satisfying as I did, so no HR summons for me.

“Please keep doing that. It is literally the most soothing thing,” she said. I looked at her screen and began to read the e-mail she was composing aloud:

Simon, you just can’t expect me to reconfigure my wants and my needs to suit you. Knowing that I’m at a different point of my life to you, instead of understanding it you almost use it as a weapon—

Silent Jean looked at us and sighed surprisingly loudly for someone who rarely exercised her vocal cords. “Queenie! Privacy, please!” Darcy snapped, turning to look at me. Her bright blue eyes looked through my dark brown ones.

“Uh-oh. What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Lots,” I groaned, banging my head down on her partition so loudly that Silent Jean jumped in her seat.

“Right, let’s go, come on!” she chirped, looking apologetically at Jean and sweeping me up and away. She’s the most intuitive of my best friends, though Darcy has known me the shortest amount of time; that we’ve worked together and spent every weekday talking to each other for the last three and a bit years has meant that we know each other better than we know ourselves.

She’s very beautiful, with a complexion as rosy as her outlook, and looks like one of those wartime girls whose pictures their army husbands would kiss at night. You might think that that aesthetic doesn’t really have a place in the present day, but she makes it work. Darcy bundled me into the lift, forcing me to step on the foot of a man I hadn’t seen before—he was dressed in a tweed jacket with glasses too big for a face that I would have thought was handsome if my entire brain weren’t concentrated on heartbreak. He looked at me and opened his mouth to complain, but instead stared until he looked down at his phone. “It’ll be all right, Queenie,” Darcy whispered, putting her arm around my shoulders.

“You don’t even know what’s wrong,” I whispered back at her. “So you can’t say that.” The lift zoomed to the ground floor and we bundled out, words of sadness and betrayal and abandonment firing out of my mouth at a hundred miles per hour.

“I just don’t know what to do! Things have been so bad for such a long time, Darcy. It’s relentless,” I told her, my pace quickening the more irritated I got with my stupid situation. “We argue every single day, about absolutely everything, so much that he’s started going back home to stay with his parents at the weekends, and when it’s really bad, he stays there in the week and commutes! From Peterborough! Then this weekend, when we really got into it, he told me that he needed a break, and that he thought I should move out.”

“Yeesh.” Darcy winced. “Did he mean it? Or was he just angry?”

“Darcy, I have no fucking idea. We stayed up all night talking and bickering about it, and I agreed to move out for three months, after which point we could revisit things.”

“Why are you the one moving out when he can go and stay with his parents? It’s not like you have that option.” Darcy linked her arm through mine.

“He said he can afford to stay on in the flat because my entry-level wage is nothing in comparison to his big-boy fucking Web developer salary.”

“Is that a direct quote?” Darcy asked, horrified.

“He’s always been like that about money, so I shouldn’t be surprised that he’s using it against me.” Darcy squeezed my arm tighter to her. “I just don’t understand why he isn’t better at understanding that he needs to lean into all of my stuff. He knows I love him,” I huffed. “Why doesn’t he fucking see that?”

My expletives weren’t suitable for a public dining space, so Darcy herded me away from the cafeteria and toward the tiny park near our office. I guess it can be called a park even though it’s really only patches of damp earth and bare branches surrounding what is mainly concrete, but it’s nice to have something resembling greenery in central London. We warded off the sharp October air by huddling together on a wooden bench that wobbled dangerously, especially when my gesticulating really tested it.

“He knows that I have stuff, he’s always known about my stuff, so why can’t he be understanding?” I looked at Darcy for a response but carried on talking before she could say anything. “It could all be fine. We have a break, I move out for a bit, sort my head out; then in a few months, all fine, I move back in and we’re happy forever,” I assured myself.

“Like an interracial Ross and Rachel?” Darcy offered.

“Friends is the only reference you could think of?” I asked her. “There weren’t really even any black people in Friends.”

“I think you just need to give him a bit of time, and a bit of space.

Once you get out of there, he’ll realize how hard it is not having you around,” Darcy said. She is very solutions-driven, a welcome counter to my impulsiveness and inability to think things through. “Have you been sleeping together?”

“No, not that I haven’t been trying.” I sighed. “He thinks it’s a bad idea. It’s been a month since we had sex.” Darcy winced again.

“It’s killing me.” I threw my hands to the sky in mock exasperation. “I just wish it could all be fine,” I said, resting my head on Darcy’s shoulder. “What if this is the end?”

“It’s not the end!” Darcy assured me. “Tom loves you, he’s just hurting. You’re both in pain, don’t forget that. His pride will be in pieces because of this whole break thing. Men don’t like to admit that they’ve failed at anything, let alone relationships. I once suggested a break to Simon, and in response, he booked a triple session with his therapist and then got his eyebrow pierced. Things will get better.” Darcy rested her head on mine. “Oh! What did they say at the hospital yesterday, by the way? You know, the scan thing?”

“Oh, all fine.” There was no point in telling her. “It’s just stress or something.”

“Tom went with you, though, right?” “No, he went back to Peterborough on Sunday evening. Haven’t seen or heard from him since.”

“Are you kidding?” Darcy squawked. “Do you need to come and stay with me and Simon for a couple of nights? Are you still having those stomach pains? We can look after you.”

“No, I’m all right,” I said. I wasn’t hurting anymore, but in place of the pain was something else, something sitting heavy that I couldn’t quite identify.

Wanting to kill some time before I got home to reminders of my disintegrating relationship, I went to Brixton for some Jamaican bun, hoping that I could kick-start my appetite with my favorite comfort food. I climbed the steps out of the Underground and stood catching my breath at the top.

I inhaled a little too hard, and the smell of incense from the street sellers made me sneeze as I turned into the market. I hopped over a puddle that looked as suspicious as it smelled sour and carried on weaving through what always felt like thousands of people. I made it into Brixton Village and followed a route to the Caribbean bakery that was etched in my memories of Saturday shopping trips with my grandmother. I turned a corner and went to walk straight into the bakery, but was instead faced with a trendy burger bar full of young couples. The men were all wearing colorful oversize shirts, and their female companions were all wearing colorful overpriced coats.

I frowned and retraced my steps, turning various corners in my search and convincing myself that I’d dreamt the bakery’s existence before going back to the burger shop. I stood for a minute, trying to recall some sort of memory of going there.

*

“Hullo, hullo, how you keeping, Susie?” My grandmother smiled at the plump Jamaican woman behind the counter. The whole bakery smelled so sweet. And not sickly sweet: it smelled sugary, and warm, and familiar. I stood on tiptoe and looked over, seeing how her pristine white apron strained over her soft, round stomach.

“I’m good, tank you, darlin’, you good?” the woman replied, flashing a gold tooth at me. “And the little one, she getting big!”

“Too big!” my grandmother cackled her reply. I looked up at her and scowled.

“Why you fixin’ up your face like that? She’s just saying you’re growin’ up,” an older Jamaican man stepping out of the back room reassured me.

“This one is too sensitive, Peter.” My grandmother dismissed me with one hand. “Anyway, let me get a bun—not that one, the big one. No, no, the biggest one. That’s it—and two hard dough bread, one bulla, and a likkle pound cake for my husband, put a smile on him sour face,” she joked with the shopkeepers. The woman handed a giant brown bag of baked goods over to me with a smile. “Haffi help Grandma, she won’t be around forever.”

“Why Susie haffi be so morbid?” my grandmother asked me in a tight-lipped whisper as we walked out. “Sometimes Jamaicans are too overfamiliar.”

*

With the memory confirming that I was right, I walked with renewed purpose over to the fish stall opposite as the image and the smell of the bakery dissipated in my head.

“Excuse me?” I said to a fishmonger as he slopped some octopuses that were on display into a basin. “Was there a bakery opposite here?” I pointed to the burger bar, its neon lighting shining on other shops and stalls that I noticed had SHUT DOWN and RELOCATED signs across their shutters. The fishmonger said nothing.

“It had a dark-green front, bread in the windows? I can’t remember the name?” I continued, trying not to look at the octopus activities while talking about food I actually liked eating.

“Gone,” the fishmonger finally said, throwing the basin down and wiping his hands on his apron. “Couldn’t afford the rent,” he added in broken English. “Then these people came.” He gestured to the burger bar.

“What?” I yelped. “How much is the rent?” How could it have been raised so much that people who were forced to come specifically to Brixton, to make lives here and create a community here, would be pushed out to make room for corporate-friendly burger bars? He shrugged and walked away, his waterproof boots squeaking on the wet floor with each step.

*

Queenie

Tom, are you home tonight?

Let me know

I stood at the bus stop, the pains in my stomach starting up again. I bent over and took a deep breath, and when I straightened up, a black BMW pulled up in front of me, the bass pumping from it hitting me with each beat. The passenger window rolled down and fragrant smoke seeped out and toward me. I took a step back.

“Eh, big batty,” a familiar voice laughed.

It was my old neighbor Adi, a very compact and handsome Pakistani man with facial hair so precise it looked like it had been styled with a laser. “How’s that big bum since you left the ends? Ready for me yet?” He laughed again.

“Adi! Stop!” I said, embarrassed, stepping toward the car. “People can hear you!”

The minute I moved into my dad’s house, Adi had been on my case relentlessly, before and after his lavish desi wedding to his girlfriend of eight years. Whenever I bumped into him, he’d talk very matter-of-factly and at excessive length about black women being forbidden fruit to Muslim men, but mainly he gave me lots of chat about big black bottoms.

“Let me give you a lift, innit.” He smiled. “But not if you’re gonna be sick. I saw you bending over.”

“I’m fine, thanks,” I said, giving him a thumbs-up.

“Then get in the car, there’s a bus coming up behind me.” He leaned over and opened the passenger door from his seat.

I opened my mouth to say no again, but a pain like no other made my legs feel weak. I climbed into the BMW. “Watch the leather!” he said, his voice higher than I’d ever heard it. “These are custom seats.”

As soon as I closed the door, Adi sped off so quickly that I felt like I was in a g-force simulator. “Let me just do my seat belt,” I said, reaching clumsily behind the seat for it. “You’re safe with me, innit.” He smiled again and put his hand on my thigh. His thick silver wedding ring flashed at me.

“Adi,” I said, removing it. “Both hands on the wheel.”

“So as I was saying,” he started, “is that big bum ready for me? It’s looking bigger, you know.”

“It’s exactly the same size, Adi.” I sighed. Why had I gotten into the car? It would have been better if I’d just collapsed at the bus stop. My phone buzzed in my pocket. I took it out and read the message from Tom on the screen, feeling my stomach drop.

Tom:

Just saw your text. Not back

tonight.

“I can change your life, you know, Queenie.” Adi put his hand back on my thigh. “Girl like you, man like me? I can guarantee you’ve never had sex so good.”

I let it stay there.

*

Questions for Discussion

• How do the texts fit with your definition of the genre? What can you identify as key features of chick lit?

• Can you spot any connections between classic chick lit text Bridget Jones’ Diary and the two newer works? Can you see any similarities or differences between the three texts?

• Each of the novels show complications connected to future or past romantic relationships, do you see any elements or hints at romantic relationships?

• Each of the novels portray questions of women’s appearance, do you see an interrogation of these expectations for women, or an embrace?

• Each of the texts show friendships between women, to what extent do friends play a big part in the chick lit genre?

• Each text shows a form of harassment, do you think this is a key feature of chick lit? To what extent do the illustrations of the harassment change? How is racial prejudice connected to this? How are men shown in the novels?

• Apply feminist criticism, how do these works engage with their contemporary feminism? Do they explicitly reference feminism, or encompass feminist ideology? Does the ‘feminism’ change from the older work to the newer publications?

Note about Excerpts

The excerpts above have been posted to inform discussion around different topics in popular romance for the Romance Reading Group community. They are framed by notes and/or discussion questions for the purposes of criticism and scholarship, under the guidelines of Fair Use. We have respect for the authors and their intellectual property, and we encourage our community to buy the books. Passages that may spoil the book plot have not been included.