Over 14 million people tuned in to see NADIYA win 2015’s Great British Bake Off. Since then she has captured the heart of the nation. A columnist for The Times and Essentials, Nadiya is also a regular reporter for The One Show and presented a two-part series, The Chronicles of Nadiya, on BBC One. She is the author of Nadiya’s Kitchen (Michael Joseph), Bake Me a Story (Hodder) and has been named as one of the top five most influential Asians in the UK.
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First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2019
Copyright © Nadiya Hussain 2019
Nadiya Hussain asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Ebook Edition © January 2019 ISBN: 9780008192327
‘I want to be an archaeologist,’ I said, ‘You can’t be an archaeologist, your parents are not rich enough, it will be a miracle if you make it to university.’ I didn’t become an archaeologist or go to university. I did something else. I remembered her words and followed every dream. Unkind words bloom the unlikeliest of passions. This is dedicated to the dreamer in you.
Contents
Farah liked bustling around. She was perpetually busy when not at her job; her hands at work on a curry, washing clothes, fluffing pillows and inspecting areas of her now smaller home. At least it’s easier to manage. She was going to be positive. She paused to try and listen for what Mustafa might be doing upstairs. Maybe he was still lying in bed. It was ten o’clock in the morning but his sleeping habits were never predictable any more. Or perhaps he was just looking out of the window, like he’d taken to doing. There was a time when she’d have asked what he was thinking. Now she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to know.
He came downstairs, managing to grunt a good morning as he opened the fridge.
‘Why is it stacked with so much stuff?’ he asked.
Farah was spraying Pledge on to the coffee table, wiping it down with a cloth.
‘For the sandwiches I’m making for Mae’s party later,’ she replied.
His brows furrowed as he snapped: ‘Where’s the mango juice?’
Farah swept into the kitchen and looked inside the fridge with him. ‘It must’ve been finished.’
He slammed the door shut and she jumped. ‘For God’s sake. You have the thing heaving with stuff for Mae but no mango juice.’
She folded her arms and clenched her jaw, looking up at him. Her husband was a stranger to her in these moments, because, before the accident, in all the years they’d been married, he’d never lost his temper with her, or anyone for that matter. It hadn’t yet failed to surprise her when his mood took a turn. He opened the fridge door once more and slammed it shut again. His face was enraged as he glowered at her but she didn’t move an inch. She waited. He stood there for a few more moments before thundering out of the room and she heard him slam the front door behind him.
Farah took a deep breath, because the last thing she needed was increased blood pressure. My husband is alive. She repeated this to herself every time she thought of him lying in his coma after the car accident. He had been punished enough for his mistake. Mustafa had crashed his car after finding out that her brother Jay had lost all of the money he was supposed to be investing in their business and