‘Well, a few of our school friends, Amanda, Nina, Sylvia, Jodie—’

‘No, what I meant is who is coming from our neighborhood?’

‘Oh! Uh… Mary—’

‘Fat Mary?’ interjects Billie.

‘Yes.’

‘You invited Fat Mary?’ Billie repeats, shocked.

‘Yeah, I did.’

‘Why?’ both Billie and I ask in unison.

Lana takes a sip of tea and looks at Billie. ‘Sometimes on my way to visit you, I’d take the way past the flats where we used to live so I could look at our old homes. That one time Mary was coming up the street. I crossed the road to avoid her, but she then crossed the road to join me. She took my hand and said she’d heard that mother had died. “Sorrow is how we learn to love,” she told me.

‘I was shocked. Is this really the woman who tanks up on a bottle of Cava, squeezes into a Lycra dress every Saturday night and goes up the road to look for a stranger to have sex with? “I know what you’re thinking, but it is just something to do in this sad world,” she said. I realized that I had misjudged her. She was so much more. We became friends.’

I look at Lana and suppress the annoyance I feel. This conversation has gone askew. ‘So Fat Mary is coming. Who else from our neighborhood?’

‘Oh my God!’ Billie cries suddenly. She looks totally revolted.

‘What?’ Lana asks.

‘Is that woman eating a chicken foot?’

Lana and I turn in the direction of her gaze. Indeed something resembling a dark brown chicken foot with the claws still attached is dangling from the woman’s chopsticks. Sickened, I watch her delicately nibble at one end. What can be in a chicken foot? Skin, gristle, and in the pads—fat. Uh! yuck. The thought turns my stomach and I turn away.

‘For God’s sake don’t stare,’ Lana whispers.

‘I’d rather starve than eat one of those,’ Billie declares.

‘It’s meant to be a delicacy,’ Lana informs.

I feel like screaming with frustration. Once again the conversation is drifting away from what I want to talk about. I realize I have no choice but to reveal my hand. ‘What about Jack? Is he coming?’ I ask as casually as I can.

Both Lana and Billie look at each other.

‘Jack has been invited, but I don’t know if he will come.’

That look they exchanged. There is more to this and I know exactly what to do to find out. When at an impasse, leave.

‘I need to go to the toilet. Be back soon,’ I say, and smoothly slide off the chair. I make it around the wall, behind where our table is, and drop my purse. Then I crouch down and pretend to be picking up stuff that has rolled to the floor while I hear every word of their conversation.

‘Has he not been in touch then?’ Billie asks.

‘No. I really hoped he would come.’

‘He’s hurting, babe.’

‘I guess I always thought he would give me away at my wedding.’

‘It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t. You’re marrying the man of your dreams.’

‘I know, I know. I don’t want to be selfish, but I love him so much and I really thought he’d be there, forever. To be honest I even find it hard to imagine getting married without him. And… He promised he’d give me away.’ Her voice breaks, and she says something else, but I am interrupted by a stupid woman who has squatted down beside me.

‘Here, let me help you,’ the do-gooder says cheerfully, picking up my mobile phone and lipstick. I could have hit her. Because of her meddling I didn’t hear the rest of Lana’s words or Billie’s reply. I snatch my phone and lipstick out of her hand and she shakes her head, surprised and disgusted by my rude behavior.

She stands up in a huff. ‘Whatever,’ she says, and marches away.

Two more women talking loudly in Chinese come towards me, and I have no choice but to stuff my things into my bag and stand. Irritated that I missed the most important part of the conversation, I head in the direction of the Ladies. I stand in front of the mirror and look at my reflection for a minute, my brain working frantically. Have Lana and Jack fallen out? My heart bursts with joy at the thought. I check my teeth for lipstick and then I go back to the table.

Both of them turn smiling faces towards me.

‘We were just reminiscing about the past. About that time Billie didn’t want to do PE and she told her teacher that she didn’t want to change into her shorts because her legs were full of bruises where her mother had beat her.’

‘How was I to know that Social Services would turn up at my door that evening?’

‘Her mother made her take her trousers off and show the two women her legs.’

Billie makes a face. ‘They should have seen the backs of my legs after they left! Crimson and purple.’

‘We could hear the slaps and wallops from our flat,’ Lana adds, laughing gleefully with the memory.

I titter politely to show interest.

‘At least I wasn’t a vain crybaby like you.’ Billie looks at me. ‘Once she took a pair of scissors to her own hair, made a total mess, and her mother had to cut what was left real close to her head. That afternoon she goes to buy an ice cream and the ice cream van guy says to her, “Here you go, sonny.” What does madam do? She throws the ice cream on the ground in a hissy fit and runs home bawling, “He thought I was a boy.”’

‘I was only six then,’ Lana defends, and then… They both look at me. Obviously wanting me to share the highlights of my childhood with them. I blink. My stories. Oh no! Under no circumstances am I returning to my friendless state or the horror that my despicable fat self endured. I cover the fact that my lips are quivering by taking a drink. A question pops into my head.

‘You were in Iran for a year. What was it like?’

That sobers Lana up plenty.

‘Iran is very beautiful, but when I first went there I was very sad. At that time it felt like my life was ruined. I was crazy about a man I could never have and I was pregnant with his child. I hardly went out and I never mixed with our neighbors. I couldn’t speak Farsi anyway, so there was no real interaction, but they were always smiling at me, always nice—’

‘Nice! Aren’t they mostly terrorists?’

Lana’s eyes flash. ‘When you read the papers and listen to the news have a care. You are listening to that particular piece of news above all else that is happening in the world because somebody wants you to hear that. Have you ever wondered, Julie why we need to hear that Justin Bieber has been arrested for some minor infringement twenty times a day? Did nothing else important happen that day?’

I frown. Justin Bieber being arrested is important news—well, I want to know about it, anyway. And they repeat the news so that all his millions of fans get to hear about it. I glance quickly at Billie, but she is nodding in agreement. Seems I am the odd one out.

‘After my mother died,’ Lana continues, ‘I saw my neighbors, the ordinary Iranians, for what they really are. I thought I was sad before, but when she was suddenly taken away from me I became lost. I couldn’t do anything. I sat staring at a wall all day.

‘I know you won’t understand, but over the years our roles had changed. I was no longer the child, but the caregiver, the mother. I cried for her as a mother cries for her child. I could not bear to see her broken body, but neighbors, they were amazing. Though it was not their way—they are Muslims—they cleaned off the red polish on her toenails and painted them pale pink, powdered her face, colored her lips with her favorite lipstick, and placed her favorite rosary in her hand.’

The memory must still be very painful, because Lana’s eyes glisten with tears. She bends her head and stares at the tablecloth.

‘They shined my shoes for me, Julie! And the men, they arranged everything. The coffin—it had a brass nameplate and a satin and lace interior, the funeral in a sunny chapel, the Christian cemetery plot across town. Everything was done properly, with the greatest respect. They even laid one of Sorab’s toys inside the coffin.’