Chapter 62

Nurul.

Nurul thinks that the phone has frozen. The face of Daniel’s mum is not moving anymore. Could the news that her son is dating someone from another country be so bad that it freezes the call?

The woman’s lips twitch. No, the phone wasn’t frozen, it was just her—which is even worse. Nurul’s heart sinks. Because now Daniel’s mum will say that she forbids Daniel from dating an Indonesian girl—and that’s even before she knows anything about her marital status. And Daniel, who strikes Nurul as a good man, will never consider her as a girlfriend or life partner.

“That’s fine,” Daniel’s mum says. “We are all human beings,” she adds, as a concession.

Relief floods Nurul.

Yes, it has taken Daniel’s mum a few moments to recover from the shock of discovering her son was dating an Indonesian girl and to decide what to say, but she’s accepted Nurul eventually, and it hasn’t taken her very long either.

With his mother’s blessing secured, now all Nurul has to secure is Daniel’s heart, which might prove a lot more difficult. This is the problem with doing things back-to-front, but actually Nurul hadn’t meant to do anything at all. She had only come to see him for a paracetamol.

She smiles at his mother, then turns to Daniel.

“I had actually come to ask you for a paracetamol,” she tells him.

“Ah.”

Nurul isn’t sure if that’s a disappointed “ah” or a “I finally understand” kind of “ah”. But if he thought that she had come to introduce herself to his mother and fake herself as his girlfriend, it’s good that they’ve clarified this.

“Do you work there too?” his mother asks Nurul while he rummages in his fishing bag for the paracetamol.

“Yes.”

“How long have you known each other?”

Nurul realizes that Daniel’s mum intends to grill her for information. But there’s one information that Nurul is sure the woman won’t like: that Nurul has already been married and is divorced.

If the woman asks her that, Nurul could pretend that she doesn’t understand the question. Unless, of course, the woman asks her son to translate for her. Nurul doesn’t want to lie. The only option is to cut this interview short.

Daniel has found the paracetamol and hands it to Nurul with the same urgency as if it were a life-saving drug. He must be as keen to end this call as she is.

“Thank you, Daniel. Goodnight,” Nurul tells him, then turns to the screen to say goodnight to his mother.

“That’s not a proper goodnight,” his mum protests. “You should kiss each other.”

This is all her own fault, Nurul thinks. Daniel will be mad at her, and with good reason. She shouldn’t have pretended that she could understand Tagalog, and she shouldn’t have answered his mother’s questions. She turns to him with an apology in her eyes. She expects him to look angry or, at least, a little irritated. Instead, he just looks shaken.

He must tell his mum that it was all a misunderstanding, that Nurul isn’t his girlfriend, that she’s only a friend—or at least, she thought she was, but she’s probably not anymore, not after this. Maybe he’s waiting for Nurul to say it. Should she do it?

But before Nurul can decide, Daniel leans over and kisses her on the cheek.

“No! A proper kiss!” his mother protests through the phone’s screen.

Daniel’s cheeks are flushed with embarrassment. He looks like someone who has already been stretched to the limit and can’t go any further.

Maybe he’s gay?

No, he can’t be. He was smitten with Luz. He likes women, but maybe he just doesn’t like her.

Daniel takes a deep breath. He must be about to tell his mum that it was all a prank and Nurul is just a colleague—he won’t call her a friend after what she’s just done.

Instead, Daniel closes his eyes and kisses her on the lips.

Nurul feels the tickle of his breath, the softness of his lips and the muskiness of his scent. And she’s a little stunned.

She has never been kissed so gently. So sweetly.

She wishes his mother would find something wrong in the kiss and ask for another one—even if Nurul couldn’t find a single thing wrong in that kiss at all.

“Good. I’ll leave you two now. Nice to have met you, Nurul. Goodnight,” the woman says and ends the call.

Nurul and Daniel look at each other, a little stunned by that kiss.

“I thought I was the one saying goodnight and leaving you two together,” Nurul says after the phone has been silent for a few moments.

“I thought that too. I’m sorry, my mum can be a difficult woman,” he says, scratching the back of his neck shyly.

“You’re not the one who should apologize,” Nurul says. “I caused all this.”

Because she answered “yes” when his mother asked her if she was Daniel’s girlfriend. However, she only did it because she had misunderstood the question. But why didn’t Daniel tell his mum the truth?

Nurul doesn’t dare ask him, in case he gives her an answer she doesn’t like. She’d rather keep hoping that he didn’t say it because he wished it was true.

“Also, you kiss very well,” she blurts out before she knows what she’s saying.

“So do you,” he replies, looking shyly at his hands in his lap.

“You’re just saying this because you’re being polite, but it was you who kissed me. I didn’t do anything.”

“Then you owe me a kiss,” he says with a smile.

Nurul already longs for another touch of his lips so she doesn’t need to be asked twice. She leans forward and lays her lips on his. It’s not a peck. It’s a slow and languorous kiss. Daniel responds eagerly. She parts her lips and their tongues meet. He tastes of sugar, mint and man.

Nurul’s husband didn’t kiss like this. Nurul didn’t know that kisses like this even existed in real life.

Daniel circles her waist and pulls her to himself. Nurul melts against him and puts her arms around his neck. It’s the solid, strong neck of a solid, strong man. A small sigh of pleasure bubbles up from her throat.

When they eventually pull apart to take a breath, she’s even hungrier for another kiss than she was before.

Daniel’s pupils are large and dark, full of desire.

“This kiss was even better. Do you think we can improve even more?” Nurul suggests cheekily.

He smiles.

“There’s only one way to find out.”

***

Alessandro.

Alessandro didn’t fake himself sick. So here he is again in the visiting room, in front of the thick glass.

Rosalia is wearing a tight pink top that does nothing to hide her thinness and lack of tits. Alessandro likes his women round and comfortable, with breasts like pillows. It would take three or four of Rosalia to make one like that.

And yet, for some reason he can’t put his finger on, he’s been looking forward to seeing her.

“Hi. How are you?” she asks him.

In answer to her question, he simply grunts. She’s silent for a beat.

“Aren’t you going to ask me how I am?” she asks.

“Why would I do that? I don’t care,” he says with bravado.

But even as he says this, he wonders what she’s left behind to come and see him. A house to tidy up? A brood of children? A job? He’s under no illusion that she’s come here for his sake—no, she’s only come because his mother sent her. Does she work for his mother?

But he doesn’t ask her any of these questions. He won’t show her that he’s interested.

“You would ask me how I am out of politeness, even if you don’t care about my answer. You can just pretend to be interested in the answer.”

“And what would be the answer, if I asked you?”

“The answer would be, ‘I’m very well, thank you’.”

She smiles.

“Is that all?”

“Yes. You see, it wasn’t that difficult. It didn’t take too much of our time.”

Alessandro feels strangely disappointed. He was curious to find out more about her.

“Have you left any children at home?” he asks.

“They’re in school. I’ve got two boys,” she says and waits.

Alessandro realizes that she’s waiting for him to ask the next question. He has a brain wave. He should ask how old they are.

“How old are they?”

She smiles. He must have hit the target.

“Ten and twelve. Have you done anything nice since we last saw each other?”

Alessandro realizes that she’s training him to make polite conversation. He’s never done polite conversation before. He only knows how to bark orders to his underlings or take orders from Zio Pino. Even the conversations with his mother have only ever been functional—the passage of necessary information in the least number of words.

He’s intrigued by this strange woman. She’s certainly from the same background as him—they were at school together, she speaks in dialect like him, and she doesn’t look posh—but he senses a quiet confidence in her that isn’t steeped in aggression. He hasn’t seen anyone like her before.

He notices that she hasn’t got a wedding ring. She’s not married, then, but that doesn’t mean that she hasn’t got a man. These days, most people just live together. Alessandro doesn’t like that. He’s a traditional man. He prefers marriage and proper legal bonds. Marriage is the one and only place where he likes the law and wants it followed to the letter. No cheating.

“Is the children’s father still around?” he asks her.

Rosalia’s face clouds.

Wrong question. He’s made a mistake. He’s angry with himself but he’s not sure if it’s because he’s made a mistake and failed her test, or because he’s upset her.

“This is an intrusive question, and you have worded it badly too. Change topic,” she says.

“Okay. Am I allowed to start again?” he asks her.

“Absolutely. We’re exactly in the place for starting again,” she says.

Alessandro has never seen a jail as a place to start again. More like a place of banishment, punishment and, if one is very unwise or unlucky, death. But maybe she has a point. And he’s curious to find out.