Would I Lie to You? by Aliya Ali-Afzal

Author:Aliya Ali-Afzal [Ali-Afzal, Aliya]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781800245693
Publisher: Head of Zeus

Forty

I was becoming obsessed with my job and my work spilled into my evenings and weekends too. Everything depended on my getting the bonus.

One morning I noticed that Sofia was very quiet. I only saw her briefly and she had her ear pods in, clearly indicating her desire to not engage in conversation. I was uneasy all day, although Tom said that she seemed fine. Perhaps it was my guilt at being away from home that was the issue, not Sofia, but I decided to leave work early. I hoped that my absence at the daily Deliveroo desk dinner in the office would not count as a black mark.

I’d been trying to find time to look through her university choices and used this as an excuse to go into her room. She shifted to make room for me on her bed and I lay down next to her as we looked at university courses on her laptop.

‘Besides Oxford, I want to choose universities where there’s a good international mix. I mean places that aren’t too “white”.’

I frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘We had a talk by some alumni and there was a girl whose parents were from Pakistan. She went to a university where almost everyone was white. She said I should go somewhere more diverse and I think she’s right.’

‘OK, but why should that matter? Most of your school friends are white, and you’re half white. I mean, I can understand that if her parents are from Pakistan, she may have experienced some racism; sadly, that’s far too common. But I’m sure it won’t be an issue for you.’

Sofia looked at me then looked away, as if she wanted to say something, but was hesitating.

‘What?’ I said.

She shrugged.

‘It is an issue, Mum. I’m English, but then I have the Pakistani half of me. All my genes are mixed up and no one understands what it’s like. People can be mean.’

I put my hand over hers and gave it a squeeze. Sofia had never mentioned anything like this before. I knew it wasn’t always easy, but things were different now to when I was growing up. Besides, if our children were Pakistani and English, I thought their mixed heritage meant that they might get a little more acceptance than I had. There had been the incident at Ahmed’s old school. But I thought the bullies would have picked on him about anything because he was shy. Now I wondered if I had been wrong.

‘Has someone said anything to you about being mixed race?’

She shook her head. ‘No, it was worse than that.’

I couldn’t bear the thought of my children being attacked just for being who they were. I put my arm around her.

‘Tell me what happened,’ I said, already furious that someone had made my daughter look this sad.

She stared at her laptop as she spoke.

‘I was at a party on Saturday, someone Meg knows from another school. There was a boy, Ben, who seemed really nice and I think he liked me too.

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