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really has given his word to Mutti then nothing either of us say or do can make any difference. I don’t mean that my parents will starve me/lock me in the cellar/beat me until I agree to marry Subhi. Not all Asian parents are into honour killings or smuggling their daughters off to Pakistan, as the tabloids would have you believe. But I would have no choice, all the same.
    Izzat , honour, is everything in an Asian family. If Daddy- ji ’s given his word and I refuse to obey him, then my family will lose their izzat . They will be shamed, named and blamed before everyone they know. If they lose their izzat because of me I would lose them forever. My brother and sisters would be shamed too and their hopes of marriage blighted.
    So no pressure then.
    The bottom line is if Dad has already promised me to Subhi then I’m stuffed. The choice is to marry a man I don’t love or destroy my family.
    Simple.
    ‘Stop chewing your nails, Mills,’ orders my mother, plopping two mugs onto the coffee table. ‘Your hands look terrible.’
    ‘You’d chew your nails if you’d just been told you were being sent to Pakistan to marry a total stranger,’ I snap.
    Mum sighs. ‘Subhi sounds fine, Mills. Why can’t you trust us on this?’
    ‘Sounds fine?’ I squeak. ‘That’s OK then. I’ll just fetch my passport, shall I?’
    ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
    ‘Ridiculous? You promise me to some stranger in Pakistan without even mentioning it, and I’m being ridiculous?’
    ‘Mills, calm down. Nothing’s properly arranged.’ Mum toys with her wedding ring, which has sunk into her flesh. ‘Do you really think we’d give our word without talking to you first?’
    My heartbeat slows. ‘Daddy- ji hasn’t given his word yet?’ I cross fingers, toes and anything else that is crossable.
    ‘Of course he hasn’t,’ Mummy- ji says. ‘He’s only discussed it with Mutti. Nothing’s been formalised. We wanted to talk to you first.’
    Thank you, Allah!
    ‘Mummy- ji , I love you!’ I throw my arms around her. ‘ Shukriya ! Thank you!’
    ‘I love you too, Mills,’ she strokes my cheek. ‘We both do. Now what’s really the matter?’
    This is it. Truth time.
    I push my hair behind my ears and take the plunge. Full credit to my mother because, as I cautiously approach the subject of my internship at GupShup and moving to London, she doesn’t gag me but listens until I run out of steam.
    ‘But Mills,’ says Mummy- ji eventually, ‘what are you really trying to say? Do you want the freedom to meet men? Is that why you really want to go to London?’
    ‘I want to go to London because I want to be a journalist! I want to make my own life!’ I feel like banging my head against the wall in frustration.
    ‘But supposing you never come back and never get married? Like your cousin Mariya?’
    Here we go. Mariya, who, incidentally, is a barrister, left home to practise law and the last I heard was doing fabulously well in the States, where she was earning mind-boggling amounts of money and living in Manhattan. Most parents would die of pride but not my uncle and auntie, who apparently walk around with their faces to the ground and haven’t looked anyone in the eye since 2007. Why? I hear you ask. Isn’t it obvious? Mariya refused to come back to Bradford and marry their choice of eligible goat-herder.
    ‘She’s just like those Sexy in the City girls,’ tuts my mother.
    Lucky, lucky Mariya, I think, imagining the piles of Jimmy Choos and Manolo Blahniks in her brownstone town house. But Mummy- ji won’t want to hear this, so I arrange my features into a sorrowful expression.
    ‘Look how she has turned her back on her becharay parents without so much as a second glance, those parents who brought her up with such pride and love.’
    This could go on until the cows come home. ‘Mummy- ji !’ I interrupt. ‘I’m not Mariya! I know the difference between right and wrong. I know my limits. I don’t want to lose my family,