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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 118811" data-attributes="member: 22">1983Masood Ahmed: When I brought you over from Karachi, it was going to be a fresh start.Zainab Masood: And it was.Masood: A big new life together, no more lies.Tamwar on Zainab’s past: They left all that in Pakistan.AJ Ahmed on “Return of the Jedi”: We [he and Masood] didn't see it, not together. It was 1983 and Mas had ...Masood: Other priorities.Tamwar: What happened?Masood: I grew up.Tamwar: You never saw “Jedi”. That was 1983. That was when you married Mum.Masood: She had different taste in films.Tamwar: You changed for her, didn't you?Masood: I loved your mother very much.Zainab to Masood: If you wanted a docile wife, you could have had your pick.Zainab to Masood: Don’t you remember our early days, how much we argued? And then the making up afterwards.Masood, speaking in 2011: Listen to your mother, Tamwar. It has worked for me for the past twenty-eight years.Masood to his son Syed: Before I married your mother I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t hold anything down.Extract from a court letter: "The marriage solemnised on the 17th of January 1983 at Newham Register Office East Ham between Zainab Masood and Masood Ahmed.”Zainab on Masood: He’s the only husband I ever had. Yusef Kahn: Not in Allah’s eyes.Syed to Masood: You married for love.Masood on his wedding day: I was so nervous, it was better to keep dancing.AJ on Masood and Zainab’s wedding day: So you didn’t look your best, Zainab — it was the eighties. We all looked a state.Zainab on AJ: The bane of my life, somebody who has caused me nothing but misery and despair.Zainab on Masood: Marrying him was the best thing that I ever did.Masood to Zainab: The day I married you, I thought I could walk on water, float on clouds. I thought I always would, we always would. I made a promise on that day to you and to myself that no harm would ever come to you.Masood to Zainab: We used to laugh all the time, every day. Every day when I was with you was a beautiful day. It was the best day. You used to look at me like I was the only man in the world.Masood on himself and Zainab: I always thought we would be what we were forever.Zainab: You know, Mas, you fall in love — you can’t eat, you can’t see anything but each other. How can that last? The world would be full of blind anorexics.Masood to Zainab: Right from the very start, I gave you your head and every year you charged on and I lost more ground. Maybe if I’d just stood up to you alittle bit more ... I was just happy to sit in your slipstream.Masood to Zainab: Deep inside, you don’t trust me. It’s always been there, right through our marriage, everything we’ve been through. That’s always been at the core of it.Inzamam Ahmed, Masood’s brother, speaking in 2008: Shabnam, you look just like your mother did at that age [twenty-two].Zainab: I’m tainted, a fallen woman, and in Inzamam’s eyes a fallen woman is fair game, whether she be married to his brother or not.Masood: You mean he made advances?Zainab: Many.Masood: You’re a Led Zeppelin fan.Yusef Kahn: Caught the bug at med school.Yusef: I was in the boxing club at university.Paul Trueman to Anthony: Third year juniors, you and that Sarah Wotsit, remember? All them poems you wrote her. You ain't even had a conversation.Garry Hobbs on geography: I had to drop out in the second year. I could never understand plate tectonics. I mean, who’s fault’s that?Charlie Slater on Big Mo: She never was any good at geography.Hazel Hobbs: I used to say to them when they called me to school or whatever, I used to say, “What you don’t understand is my Garry is special.”Jane Beale, Ian’s wife: That story [about] the sports day when you got that asthma attack — in the 800 metres, was it?Ian: I've never had asthma.Jane: When you couldn’t breathe, that’s what I’m talking about, and you had to drop out halfway through, and your mum was there and your Aunty Pauline and your Uncle Arthur, the whole flaming mob, and what was it [Pete] said to you in front of them?Ian: “Must have got you muddled up at the hospital because you’re no son of mine.” I hated him for saying that.Jake Moon on himself and Danny: Same parents, but we were different [mentally]. He had more realities than I had hot dinners. He didn’t like one world so you know what? He just popped off to the next.Jake: My brother’s head was turned way back.Jake on Danny: I knew we shouldn't have kept him locked up in that cupboard!Jake: It's always your fault. Even when we were ten, we'd be having fun and a bit of a laugh until you decided to start nicking cars or torching something. What was it, Dan? Did we not pay you enough attention?Danny Moon: I was ten. What did you expect?Ian Beale on his daughter Lucy: At her age [fourteen], I was out on the stall — I was helping set up, I was lugging crates around.Linda Clarke: That’s when he wasn’t up chimneys!Ian: At fourteen, I was running round collecting conkers, not dropping me knickers for some wannabe ASBO.Ian to Lucy: When I was your age [fourteen], if I wanted to let off some steam, do you know what I used to do? I used to put me headphones on and I’d jump to me music. We used to call it pogoing. Your Uncle Mark made this [mixtape] for me. I was having a hard time with my dad, but this really helped.Track listing on "Ian’s Punk Tape":1. Timebomb - The Ramones.2. I Fought The Law - The Clash3. White Wedding - Billy Idol4. Riot - Dead Kennedys5. Ever Fallen In Love - Buzzcocks6. Hersham Boys - Sham 697. London Calling - The Clash8. I Wanna Be Sedated - The Ramones9. God Save The Queen - Sex Pistols10. Going Underground - The Jam11. Outside View - Eater12. Borstal Breakout - Sham 6913. What Do I Get - BuzzcocksMark Fowler to Ian: I remember Pete talking to us when we were about fourteen or fifteen. I think we were at Leigh on Sea or somewhere. He said, "Boys, you're becoming men and I got two bits of advice for you. One, never play cards for money and two, never drink from a bottle of wine with a screw top."Peggy Mitchell: I never was any good on red wine.Ian on Pete: Do you know what he used to say? “Stick to what you know. Do what you’re good at. Keep your head down.”Pauline Fowler to Mark: You were just [fifteen] when you got involved with that Nick Cotton.Mark on Nick: I thought he was the business. Easy to think when you're fifteen and trying to make a name for yourself.Ashley Cotton, Nick’s son: [Were] you scared of him?Mark: Maybe.Ian: Nick pinched some calculators and he got Mark to help him flog them.Nick to Mark: I remember what a thieving little Nazi you used to be. Forgotten all those little jobs we used to do, all the fun we had mugging little old ladies?Mark: You were poison.Nick: Don't remember you complaining when it came to sharing out the cash or taking a few happy pills on account.Ian to Mark: I found you once doing something out of order.Ian: Nick got Mark to try some heroin. He sniffed smack. Only once or twice, like. Mark didn't like it.Mark on heroin: It just made me sick.Ian on Mark: He stopped taking it, never touched it again.Max Branning: I remember when I was fourteen. Got mullered. Got into all my dad’s spirits. Put a little bit of each one into a milk bottle, took it to a house party. Downed it in one to impress some bird. I don’t know how I got home, but when I woke up I had one shoe on and a bust lip.Tanya: Is there a moral to this tale?Max: Put me off milk.Tanya: Didn’t your dad kill you?Max: No, he never found out.Mark: I got in with this [racist] crowd and we did a bit of this and we did a bit of that. I was a kid. When you're a kid, you look for something to belong to — like supporting Walford and not one of the bigger clubs — and anyone who don't agree with you, well, they just don't belong.Arthur Fowler: We're talking about people, not football.Mark: I didn't know that then. I was just a boy. I didn't know any better. I never hurt anyone.Arthur: This is something else we can blame on Nick Cotton, is it?Mark: Nick Cotton wasn't the only one at it. In those days, half the school was at it. Do you remember that Brian Baker? You must remember kids like that at school, Ricky.Ricky Butcher: Like what?Mark: Fascists.Arthur: I haven't raised my hand to Mark since he was fifteen.Derek Harkinson on his son Alex: He always was a bright little lad, even if a little forthright in his opinion. Always did like doing things his way.Derek on his daughter Mary: Mary always said that she wanted to be like her dad.Derek to Mary: You were always the one who looked like me when you were young.Robert, Derek's future lover: You [Derek] came over to me.Derek on Robert: He looked like a young Jimmy Stewart. He was witty, intelligent. I know it sounds corny, but he made me feel like me for the first time ever.Derek: I loved you.Robert: I loved you too. We had some amazing times together.Derek: And it ended in disaster.Robert: Wasn't all like that.Pauline: How ever did you manage to tell [your wife you were gay]?Derek: Didn't have much choice. I'd fallen in love with somebody else and she came home one night and found us together.Derek on his marriage: It's a relationship that wasn't for me, that's all. A lot of men found themselves in my position in those days.Robert: Your marriage was over the minute you faced up to who you really are, not because of us or whoever else it might have been — because you should never have married in the first place.Derek: Yes, but I was, and there was no need for me to break my kids' hearts.Derek: Alexander was eight when I left.Derek on Mary: She was six years old when I walked out.Pauline: How ever could you give them up?Derek: I tried writing after Cynthia threw me out, just to let them know I was thinking about them. All my letters came back unopened and I just gave up hope. What I did to Cynthia was terrible. She must have talked to them about me. I don't blame them for not wanting to know. I didn't deserve my children after what I'd done.Alex Harkinson, Derek's son: He turned his back on two little kids and went off to have his sordid affair. He was the guilty one. My mother paid for his sins.Derek to Alex: What happened was all my fault. I never pretended otherwise. I never stopped loving you and Mary. I just happened to love somebody else as well and because of that, I lost you both.Alex: You lost us? Well, maybe you can stop and think what it was like to wake up that morning and find you gone. It didn't matter to me then who was right and who was wrong. I was eight years old and I needed you.Mary Harkinson to Derek: Being older than me, when you left, [Alex] took it all so badly. And his way of dealing with that was trying to protect me and Mum. He became the man of the family. I don't remember very much, just Mother crying. She used to rely on me. Even though I was the youngest, it was always my bedroom she came into when she couldn't sleep.Pauline on Cynthia: What happened the last time you saw her?Derek: I was outside the school trying to catch a glimpse of the kids, and Cynthia said I shouldn't be there and she was right. The moment I started talking to Mary, Cynthia started yelling that I was trying to take her away. And then somebody else went and called the police. I think it was one of the worst momentsof my life, worse even than the divorce. Couldn't sleep afterwards. I just used to lie awake thinking about it. What it did to the kids I don't even want to bring myself to imagine.Derek: "Gross misconduct," it said on the letter. Those were the exact words. There were certain aspects of my private life that were considered unsuitable, one in particular [his sexual orientation].Pauline: They fired you for that?Derek: They showed me the letter and I jumped before I was pushed.Ash Ferreira on Derek: He used to be a teacher for years.Derek: I loved teaching. I was good at it. Then a few bigots made a fuss and I had to give it all up. Ever since then I've just had one downbeat job after another.Derek: When Cynthia and I first broke up, I found it very hard living with other people, being the lodger.Robert: You move in with me for a couple of months, wake up one morning and you've just gone. No note, nothing.Derek: I didn't feel I could breathe.Robert: All right, I admit I was a fusspot sometimes. We'd have got over it. It was a stupid row. You didn't have to leave. You just disappeared.Derek: It was the most difficult thing I've ever done in my life.Robert: I looked everywhere for you. I even put something in the local personals -"And the eyes that knew me well,Love with silent tears may fill.When the few that ne'er forget,Love will fondly name my name."Derek: Yes.Robert: You saw it? Why didn't you reply, let me know you were at least alive?Derek: I don't know. I was angry with you for making me feel so inadequate. I had every intention of coming back, but when I calmed down I realised you were right. I did need to grow up. I'm not sure I could have done that if I'd stayed with you. I set out to call you several times. It just got harder and harder to pick up the phone. I thought about it every day and then one day, I didn't think about it. I moved away and it became my past rather than my present.Robert: You [ran] away.Derek: I had no option.Robert: Too easy. I could have given you [a second chance] if you'd stayed with me. We could have worked through any problems we had.Derek: Perhaps I needed an excuse to run away.Robert: Why?Derek: Scared.Robert: Of what?Derek: Everything.Robert: You should have told me. I never stopped loving you.Rod Norman: I used to muck about a bit [on the guitar].Barry Clark to Rod: I really used to reckon you. When I first met you, you were the only one who could really play. That first gig you did at The Grapes, they all went wild over you. I was sixteen. I never forgot it. It blew me mind.Rod: You must have been out of your box the times you heard me sing.Jack Branning, speaking to his niece Lauren in 2008: It goes in twenty year cycles. What you’re wearing now, me and your mum wore it in the eighties — big hair, bright-coloured clobber — and that was just the boys!Tanya: I didn’t have you down as a New Romantic!Jack: I was eleven, all right? You’re allowed a dip in your cool when you’re eleven. Anyway, I was into it — flicked hair, frilly shirts.Tanya: Lipgloss, eyeliner?Jack: It was the eighties!Kim Fox: I kissed a girl once. I thought it was a boy. Then it turned out he wasn’t. It was the eighties, a very different time.Manda Best: I was a New Romantic girl - Spandau Ballet, Depeche Mode.Michelle Fowler: What was going through your mind when you were growing up?Sharon Mitchell: Duran Duran. Ooh, and that bloke out of Spandau Ballet, the tall dark number.Kat Slater: I used to fancy Simon Le Bon.Shirley Carter: I hate George Michael. I always have. Pepsi and Shirley should have drowned him when they had the chance in that swimming pool.Heather Trott: I got dressed up for the Cinderella’s disco like Pepsi and Shirley. I had a white mini-dress with fluorescent necklace and bangles. Mummy says, “Where you going, girl? You look like the back end of a carnival float.” I just went on me way. Nothing was going to stop me because the theme was "Club Tropicana”. They had plastic fruit everywhere and pretend cocktails with little umbrellas, and I watched while all the girls were dancing like on Top of the Pops and I wished that I could dance like that.Shirley Carter: Why didn’t you?Heather: I did. They were all stood round in a big circle, pointing and laughing at me except it was more like screaming. I tried to walk off before the last chorus but they kept shoving me back. There was this lad, Craig Harper. He came up to me, put his arm round me and said, “Don’t worry. It’ll be all right. Come with me.” And I did. And then all of sudden he’s pushing me in this bathtub and it’s what they fill the cocktails in and I can’t hear anything because it’s in my ears and I can’t scream because it’s in my mouth.Shirley: I wish I’d have been there.Heather: Mummy just looked at me like, “What did you expect?” I ran up to me bedroom and after I got changed, I played all [Wham!]’s singles in order and it started not to hurt anymore.Heather, holding George Michael’s espadrille: It fell off when George was wrestled to the ground when leaving a gig. Just think, his sweaty foot was in that.Al Jenkins: The first film you saw at the cinema?Roxy Mitchell: “ET”. Cried my eyes out.Al: Me too — that bit where you think he’s going to die.Phil Mitchell, speaking about New Forest Bob in 2013: I’ve known the geezer thirty years.Frank Driver, policeman, speaking about Ollie Walters in 2013: Thirty years we’ve worked together.Barry Clark on serving time in prison: It was [1983]. I still see the geezer I nicked the car from.Alan Jackson: I got questioned [by the police] once when I was sixteen.Nigel Bates: What for?Alan: Getting in the cinema without paying.Alan: I got caught [by the DSS] stacking shelves when I just left school.Louise Raymond on smoking: I gave up [in 1983].Johnny Allen on smoking: Gave it up some years back.Shirley Carter on smoking: I’ve been meaning to give up for years. I can never find a reason to do it though.Ronnie Mitchell on cigarettes: Coffin nails. That’s what my nan used to call them.Ethel Skinner: When I was [sixty seven], I could keep going all night.Den Watts: Cock Mussel from Hackney. Frank Butcher: He dresses up as a Pearly King and cracks gags.Pete Beale: Right Hackney winkle.Den: We had him here [the Vic, in 1983]. Appalling. Someone threw a dart at him to get him off.Pete: Who was it threw that dart at him?Arthur Fowler: It would have been me if I'd had one handy.Phil: We've had some good nights out though, haven't we? What was the best one, do you reckon?Grant Mitchell: Nigel's twenty-first. No, no, no — Pontin's, 1983. Bognor Regis. All of us, we went down for the week, spring bank holiday.Phil: That's right, we did, didn't we? Six of us in a chalet.Grant: Lagged down all week.Phil and Grant in union: The clubhouse!Phil: That was a good night.Grant: I know. I don't believe we did [a striptease].Phil: We were brilliant, weren't we?Grant: Yeah, yeah we were.Phil: How did it start, do you remember?Grant: Talent contest. Stegsy bet us fifty quid each we didn't have the bottle.Phil: Yeah, that's right. And what was it? ‘Kung Fu Fighting’.Derek Harkinson: I went to [a holiday camp] once. The things I could tell you. I think it must be to do with being shut away from the rest of the world or something. When people get there, they go mad — drinking, dancing all night, sometimes all the next day as well. It's worse than the Last Days of Babylon.Phil: Here Grant, remember them birds we used to pull up the West End, mate? We didn't half meet some sorts up the West End, birds out on the pull looking for geezers.Grant: I could always pull the birds, but that was just indoor olympics. Otherwise, I was happy out with my mates or with my head stuck under an engine.Phil: Every Friday night, that's when we was happy — mates, a few pints and not a care in the world.Grant: It was only because we had nobody to go home to, that's all.Phil: No, it was good.Phil: Signals. Always been my trouble, that has. Can never read them right. Everyone else seems to be able to. I mean, the lads was always pointing out women, you know. They knew exactly which ones were up for it and which ones weren't, but I could never tell.Grant on Phil: We are talking about the bloke that wallpapered half his bedroom so he could get girls round to see his decorating. Three years I think you kept that one going. The next day I'd get a blow by blow account, "This one was easy, that one was hard work." You always were a devious little git.Grant: I used to pull more birds than you.Phil: You mean I was a bit choosier than you.Grant: What do you mean?Phil: I liked my birds to have their own hair and teeth. If they'd had a wash before they come out, then all the better.Grant to Phil: You always used to write [the names of my girlfriends] on the toilet wall, and their phone numbers. Every girlfriend I had ended up going ex- directory.Grant to Phil: Remember when we had that flat up the Commercial Road? Pulled those two birds and took them back to our place. We met at the fridge 3.30 in the morning.Phil: We went back to each other's rooms.Grant: Didn't seem to bother them, did it?Phil: I notice you made sure I woke up next to the ugly one.Grant: That was the one you couldn't get rid of, wasn't it?Phil: She was in love, wasn't she? Three weeks she followed me around.Grant: We were good together then. No one could touch us. Went everywhere like we owned the place. And the wind ups!Evonne Cooper to Phil: And then there was the time you took us to that dodgy nightclub in Ilford. You were rotten drunk, punched the doorman, and we spent the rest of the night down the police station. You always did know how to show a girl a good time. I always had a bit of a thing for your Grant.Grant: I used to be a good amateur [boxer].Phil: I remember your last fight. You hit the geezer with a bucket.Grant: That was after the fight.Phil: After he beat you.Grant: He got lucky.Phil: Lucky? He looked like he was playing the tom toms. Some of the punters started getting up to dance.Billy Mitchell: I used to know a cuts man years ago. Strange old game. Never get none of the glory. Years roll by, you see all these no hopers come and go, andthen maybe one day, one day — you see a real contender. Can you imagine that feeling? From being this little wheel in this big machine, a little moment in the sun. Bell dings, right, for the end of the eleventh. His face is all covered in claret, right? That's your moment, isn't it? That is your moment in the sun. "Cuts man, fix him up!" So up you step, right? And you got your vaseline, you got your little iron-y thing to iron the bumps out — but for them five seconds, you are the man.Eddie Moon: I’ve seen fighters collapse before. Some of them get back up.Cindy Beale, reading the marriage certificate of Sharon's biological mother: This is dated 1983. They were married in Lambeth. Ronald Philip Hanley, aged 36, retail manager. Carol Ann Stretton, aged 31, spinster, secretary. Father, Thomas Peter Stretton, salesman.Ian to Sharon: I can remember when we were younger, you used to terrify us. Remember what you did to Adrian Newey?Sharon: Who?Ian: Adrian Newey - spotty kid, big teeth. Yeah, big teeth — until he had one missing in the centre because he took the mick out of your big pink fluffy jacket. And then there was the girl who you tipped the dinner all over her head, Tracy ...Sharon: Summers.Michelle: You had all the blokes after you.Sharon: No, I didn't.Michelle: You did.Sharon: All right, some of them might have been interested, but they never lasted long. Not once me dad got near them anyway. They were all terrified of him. I could never have anyone walk me home in case he was there.Michelle: He weren't that bad.Sharon: He was funny though. I mean, someone would walk me home and by the time me dad was finished with his list of dos and don'ts, the poor lad was a nervous wreck. And all he'd done was walk me home from school. Then Angie would have a go at Dad, saying, "Let her have some fun," and he'd start on her and I'd end up in the bedroom listening to them arguing all night.Sharon on herself: The kid kneeling on the landing listening to Mum and Dad having yet another row, knowing life would never be the same again.Sharon: Most of what I remember from home was Mum and Dad arguing, going from room to room slamming doors.Michelle: Did you ever hear what they were arguing about?Sharon: Sometimes, but mostly it was just two muffled voices — first one, then the other. I used to convince meself it was me they were arguing about.Michelle: And it wasn't?Sharon: Sometimes, maybe. They didn't need a reason. They were just intent on tearing each other apart. It's like they only came to life when they were laying into each other, as though they needed it somehow.Michelle: Must have been horrible.Sharon: Sometimes. It had its moments. I remember straight after they'd had a row, they used to use me to show the other one how nice they were. I mean, Dad would throw a tenner at me and me mum would take a sudden interest in what I was doing at school. Pathetic, really.Sharon: My dad got Roly [a pet poodle] for me.Sharon: There was one Sunday morning, I was sitting in [the Vic kitchen] doing my maths homework. They were effing and blinding as usual so I shut the door on them. Two minutes later, Mum burst in, all flush and wild-eyed, telling me my dad was scum and men were nothing but cheats and liars. Then she calmed down and she sat [at the table]. She said she could see what her and Dad were doing to me and she was really sorry. She wished she could change it but she couldn't and then she said that unless I really, really wanted a child more than anything else in the world, then her advice to me was never have one.Pauline on Angie: One night, she got me and Kathy drunk. We ended up doing the flamenco out in the Square.Pauline to Sharon: That night we were all doing the flamenco, your mum said she wanted to leave the Vic, get out of Walford for good. I think she was serious. She said she wasn't going to let a pub rule her life. She had ideas, big ones.Sharon: Mum said a lot she didn't mean.Pauline: No, she was going to get a night club, go upmarket. Grab some of the glitz and glamour she reckoned she was born to. Your mum already had a name picked out for her place [Angie's Den].Tom Banks to Sharon: You know how close Mum was [to Angie].Tom: Your dad and mum, the way things were for you — I had no idea.Sharon: It was common knowledge round here. You and Mark were too busy playing with your bikes to notice.Tom: I noticed you even then.Sharon: Oh, did you now?Sharon: Me and Tom knew each other when he had acne and I had pink fluffy jumpers.Sharon: I looked such a state — blue eyeliner, pink frosted lipstick, Roly's haircut.Tom: And you were the best looking girl in the class.Sharon on Tom: His hair had a life of its own. Even his spots had spots. There was something about him. Made me laugh.Tom: Back then, all I wanted was Sharon.Tom: When we were kids, I was totally besotted with you.Sharon: Were you?Tom: Like you wouldn't believe. I wanted to ask you out, but I thought I better go make something of myself before I did.Tom on Sharon: I used to write her letters in school, love letters I suppose. I never sent them.Extract from an unsent letter, written in Tom's Class 4B English exercise book: "Dearest Sharon, I am desperate to go out with you. Every time I see you I feel like my heart is melting with the fear of it'll never happen. I hope you don't think I'm silly but this is my third letter to you ..."Alfie Moon: I'm so glad I'm not [a teenager] anymore — worrying about your image, teenage spots, getting the knock back.Kat: Get knocked back a lot, did you?Alfie: Me?? No, I'm not talking about me, I'm talking about my mates! Used to cut them right up.Max to Ian’s son, Peter Beale: I remember what it was like when I was [fourteen]. I was sneaking around, sending messages [to girls]. Do you reckon I don’t know all those nasty little thoughts running around in your head?Lofty Holloway: I used to tell girls that I played the violin. It was a bit of a drag going on dates with a violin case, and you knew that they were going to ask you to play one day. I went out with one girl six times — me, her and the violin case. I got fed up with it. I said I would meet her at Mile End Station and I just never turned up. I never saw her again. Still, at least I didn't have to go on dates with a violin case no more. There was one girl, I told her I was a trainee ballet dancer.Dot on Harvey Goldsmith: Him what used to run the sweatshop down the Mile End Road. I ain't seem him for years.Sue Osman on herself and Ali: When we got married, we had to have half of our [wedding invitation] cards done in Turkish. Trying to find a Turkish typesetter in Walford was crazy.Sue: Why did you marry me? I'm such a bitch.Ali Osman: Because I fancied you. Why did you marry me?Sue: Because I'm soft in the head.Sue to her brother-in-law Mehmet: I used to be quite beautiful once. You used to fancy me when [me and Ali] first got married. I could tell. You were looking at me sometimes. I never said anything, but I could feel it.Sue: I didn't convert [to the Muslim faith].Sue to Ali: I remember what it was like when we lived [with your family] — you right under the thumb and Mehmet adored whatever he did. And you, you did all the work, you took all the blame. And as for me, well, whatever I tried to do, and boy did I try, I got that pitying smile from your mum, patiently trying to tell me that wasn't how things got done back home, back in Cyprus. And I did all that for you. Don't you remember how hard we worked to get out of that place? How we wanted to show them how we could do it? Only thing I ever did for them was produce a grandson.Zainab to Masood: All these years, since the fire, when you brought me to England, everything’s always been about the children, watching them grow up to bebig and strong.Zainab: Do you remember when we moved into our first place?Masood: Oh yeah. We did all [the moving of furniture] ourselves.Zainab: We were so scared we’d break something, all our heirlooms and things.Masood: Do your remember our first flat, Zee? Our little love nest.Zainab: With no central heating.Masood: But we had our love to keep us warm.</blockquote>

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