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“This is the best day of my life,” Bisma says as she turns and gestures to the mass of tangled weeds and mud that is her new allotment.
“What about when I was born?” Imani asks.
"What about when you joined Lady Parts?” Saira says.
“What about the day I proposed?” Wasim asks.
“This is the best day of my life recently,” Bisma amends.
“I get that this is some amazing day for you, but I don’t get why the fuck we’re here,” Ayesha says.
“Ayesha! You know you can express yourself better than that in front of my daughter,” Bisma says.
“Sorry, Imani.”
Imani smiles, “It’s okay, mum says to ignore you anyway. You can’t help it.”
It’s wrong to swear at children, Ayesha thinks. Even if they’re precocious little mirrors of their mum.
“We’re here to provide manual labour and emotional support, you di- divvy,” Saira says. “So you can either grab that wheelbarrow or start talking positively.”
Ayesha grabs the wheelbarrow.
***
To Bisma’s joy, it turns out that the the old occupant’s sign had lied. They DID keep tools in the shed overnight and had left them when they’d had enough of this smallholding hippy dippy shit.
“Or it might be because they died,” Amina says, and then pauses, looking at the possibly dead person’s shovel in her hand.
“I’ll take that,” Saira says and takes the shovel out of Amina’s wobbly grip. “Can you run across to the shop and get more drinks? We’ll need them.” It’s one of those hot and still summer days that everyone starts out enjoying but complains about as soon as night hits and the humidity has you sweating through your sheets.
Amina agrees and Saira tries to hand her a tenner out of her wallet, which Amina refuses. Saira then pushes the note into Amina’s handbag. Amina reaches round Saira to shove the tenner into Saira’s back jean pocket and fails, stumbling into Saira’s chest with a squeak.
“Saira, when you’re done feeling Amina up I need some help over here,” Bisma shouts and then turns to grin at Ayesha.
Amina stutters her apologies while Saira just smiles, holding Amina’s forearms as if she’s gonna deck it as soon as she’s left to stand unaided. Which with Amina is always a possibility.
“They’re so awkward, it’s disgusting,” Ayesha mutters.
“Says you,” Bisma replies.
Which is fair, but Ayesha still replies with a reflexive, “Fuck off.”
***
“Can’t we just burn all the weeds off?” Momtaz asks as she stretches and rubs her lower back.
“Fire isn’t the answer to every problem,” Bisma says.
Momtaz sighs and crouches back down to stab at a dandelion with a trowel. “It can be if you’re not a wimp about it,” she mutters to Ayesha.
Ayesha hums her agreement but keeps weeding.
***
Amina comes back with water, first going to Imani who is sitting on a deck chair holding one end of some netting while Wasim cuts lengths off the roll. Then over to Saira who chugs down half the bottle, then pours the rest over her head and slicks her hair back. Saira stripped down to her vest when she started digging and it’s well …
It’s objectively hot, Ayesha thinks, even if it is Saira doing it. She watches as Amina reaches out to pat water from Saira’s face with her sleeve.
“That girl got most of her sex ed from her mum’s Mills and Boon books. I bet that really did it for her. How sad,” Momtaz says.
“Mmm, yeah,” Ayesha says, still staring as Saira rubs the back of her neck.
“Everyone gets horny. But right in front of my salad leaves?” Bisma says and flicks some dirt off her shovel in Ayesha’s direction.
***
Ayesha’s not horny for Saira, no matter what Bisma thinks. She just recognises Saira’s moves. But there’s something gentler, more hesitant about the way she treats Amina.
With Ayesha and Saira it wasn’t so much sexual tension as sexual aggro. Arguments that turned into fucking that led to song writing sessions without the constant urge to twat Saira with her drumsticks.
For a while anyway. Until Ayesha wanted to name whatever they were doing and Saira didn’t. Same as what came with Abdullah after, though he stuck it out much longer than Ayesha. Still a crash and burn in the end.
Ayesha sometimes thinks about it. Not the sex, more what came after, Saira’s hands on her, fingers tapping out chords on her bare skin. The closeness when their bodies and mouths were still.
***
The sun is dipping low by the time they finish. The ground is weed free with a fresh layer of topsoil over it. There are neat lines of tiny plants that Bisma had the band growing on their windowsills for the last few weeks.
Bisma is talking to some old Caribbean man about carrot fly or some shit, Imani limpeted to her side with half closed eyes.
Wasim and Momtaz are sat on the picnic blanket, picking through leftovers of the dinner Wasim brought from the chippy.
Saira and Amina aren’t there.
“Going for a piss,” Ayesha says to no one and everyone, and heads towards the track that leads to the park and its loos.
There’s a clump of trees just before the track turns into the park and that’s where Ayesha sees them. Saira and Amina, kissing soft and slow. Saira’s hand on Amina’s face until they break apart. Amina turning her face into Saira’s palm, and then steadying her hands on Saira’s shoulders to push up on her toes and peck Saira right on the nose. Ayesha is close enough to hear Saira’s surprised laugh.
Ayesha turns back before she can be seen and resigns herself to peeing in a bush.
***
Later, Saira comes and sits next to her on the picnic blanket and hands her a cigarette.
Ayesha takes a puff and then says, “If you hurt her, I’ll kick your head in.”
“I won’t,” Saira says.
“If she wants to tell the band what you’re doing, let her. She’s soft as fuck, but we need her. Don’t mess it up.” The again is unspoken.
Okay,” Saira says.
Ayesha looks Saira in the eyes and can’t see any hesitation in them.
“I can’t believe that nerd’s got a girlfriend and I’m single.”
Saira huffs a laugh, then leans into Ayesha and curls her arm around her waist.
“You’re a dick.”
“Takes one to know one.”