December 23rd. For five days Jamila would have to be Alison again.

"We can’t get used to that name of yours," her parents had said soon after she had told them of her embracing Islam. "I hope you don’t mind, but we’ll continue to call you Alison." What could she say? She did not want to spoil her visits to her family with arguments over names.

She had given her children easy names. The girls were called Laila and Muna and the boys Harun and Samir. No difficult letters for her parents to mispronounce. Even her parents’ friends commented what lovely names their grandchildren had. Maybe they were just polite. People were still polite in the small village in Cornwall where Jamila had grown up.

"Anybody coming for a walk before it gets dark?" Jamila called into the living room. No answer. The girls were glued to the television, Harun was playing with his Lego, and Samir was asleep on the sofa.

Jamila repeated her question.

"Is the ice cream van there?" Harun asked.

"Not in winter, love. It’s too cold for ice cream. But the sea is still there, and there’ll be big waves, because it’s a windy day today."

"Are you going to the shops too?" Laila asked.

"No," Jamila said, turning round, defeated. She would have to enjoy a solitary walk. This was the first Christmas her husband had not joined them for the family celebrations. His father in Algiers was not very well, and he wanted to be with him.

The sea was grey and threatening. The beach in winter was deserted. It was nearing the time for the sunset prayer, and the cloudy sky dimmed the little light that was still left even more. Jamila walked along the edge of the sea, the pebbles crunching under her Wellingtons, her headscarf being nearly blown off by the wind.

She walked past a bench at the seafront, noticing a man lying on it in a sleeping bag.

"Crazy," she thought. "He’ll freeze to death if he doesn’t move on for the night." When she reached the bench the man stirred and sat up. This gave Jamila a fright. She wouldn’t have looked at him otherwise, would have walked past with her head lowered, but fear lifted her head and she recognized the man: Charly. Charly. I should stop and ask him how he is. Charly had recognized her too. She could tell from the eyes. His black hair had gone grey and matted, his beard, reaching down to his chest, was uncared for, his face was swollen, his eyes were red. He looked sixty, not the forty he was, and he looked very ill. Jamila did not want to talk to him. Not now, not straight away, when he would notice the shock on her face. Charly, how could he have done this to himself?

While she walked on she remembered that her sister Lynda had told her a few years back that Charly had returned to the village. He had come off the heroin, she said, but you don’t want to know him now. He’s an alcoholic. He’s killing himself slowly.

Jamila’s heart was beating fast, her breath was shallow, and she felt heat in her cheeks. Twenty years ago she had been in love with Charly; he had been so beautiful and innocent. Jamila and Charly had been at college together. They both had decided to go to London, to escape a life in Cornwall working in the tourist industry. Charly had got a place at Music College to study percussion, and Jamila took a degree in English. The summers they spent in the village, on the beach. Marihuana relaxed them; peyote satisfied their longing for the unseen. It was Jamila who had introduced Charly to Castaneda’s books. She had become obsessed with Juan, Castaneda’s guide and spiritual teacher. While Jamila was fascinated by Juan and his methods of teaching Castaneda to overcome fear, Charly was fascinated only by one method, the peyote. Soon after, Charly fell in love with heroin.

The wind was blowing against Jamila, who was struggling on the pebbles, unable to suppress the memories, the memories of her last forty-eight hours with Charly.

Charly had promised to take her to a film. It had been his idea. He liked German films, he liked Fassbinder. When he hadn’t returned from his friends by eight, Jamila knew that it was going to be another evening without him. He often did this to her. Shoot up somewhere and forget her. This waiting for him, this absolute helplessness in having to accept that she would not be able to find him but would have to wait until he remembered her, made Jamila angry. When Jamila was angry she started baking. Twenty years later, Jamila could still smell the chocolate cake she baked that evening. She let it cool, in the fridge. By the time it was ready to be iced it was ten o’clock. By eleven she had eaten half the cake, by twelve the cake was gone and Jamila felt sick. At that point Jamila usually admitted to herself that her anger was a secondary feeling, covering up a truth that was too painful to contemplate: she had lost Charly’s heart. By one o’clock she was asleep, dreaming that Charly was standing over her bed with a knife.

In the morning she started worrying. Charly had not come home, and he had not called. Usually he would remember during the night that he had a girlfriend and phone her and tell her he was sorry. Sometimes that phone call would wake her at three, sometimes at five in the morning, and rather than soothing her it increased her anger.

But that morning she wished he had woken her at night. Her imagination ran riot. Charly overdosed, was in hospital. Charly was caught buying. Charly in a police cell. Or maybe, Charly in some other woman’s bed. She phoned two of his friends. They hadn’t seen him since last night. He left around midnight. Alone? Yes.

When Jamila returned home from her lectures that day there was still no sign from Charly. By then she was scared. She sat on the sofa and smoked the last of their marihuana. For three hours she was calm, then she started baking again. The bananas in the fruit bowl had gone black. She made some banana bread with raisins and nuts. She ate it still hot with butter and jam. At ten o’clock Charly’s friend phoned.

"He owes me," he said. "He promised to deliver today."

"I know nothing about it," Jamila said. "I haven’t seen him since yesterday morning."

The man didn’t say any more, didn’t want to hear women’s complaints.

By two o’clock she fell asleep, the bread in the stomach a stone, the stone growing and growing, until it filled her chest.

"Something has happened to him," she said to herself the next morning. She almost wanted it to be true, because how else could she forgive him for not having bothered to phone her? She made a few phone calls that brought no relief. She phoned her best friend and started to cry.

"Go to your lecture," her friend said. "That’ll take your mind off him. If something awful had happened you would know it by now."

When Jamila returned home from her lecture, Charly was asleep in their bed. A girl she didn’t know was lying beside him, dressed.

Jamila still blushed remembering how she woke them and screamed abuse at them. The girl never said a word. She simply got up, went to the bathroom, and five minutes later had left the flat.

Charly didn’t want to explain anything either.

"I have nothing to say," he repeated.

"You make a decision now," Jamila demanded. "Me or the drug,"

It took him two hours to pack his belongings and disappear from her life.

Jamila couldn’t afford the flat on her own and took in a Turkish student. Sirit let Jamila cry and bake and listened to her story.

"Where’s my life going?" Jamila would ask her. "I’m missing something, there’s a big hole inside me, and neither Charly nor drugs can fill it."

Sirit was a Muslim and had an Egyptian friend who visited her once or twice a week. At that time, Jamila knew nothing about Islam. Sirit never spoke about it. The only thing she told Jamila was that she didn’t eat pork. "I shouldn’t drink either," she said but Jamila knew that Sirit liked wine. One day Jamila entered Sirit’s room to borrow her scissors from her desk drawer. Sirit was out shopping and Jamila was unaware that her Egyptian friend was visiting. When she opened the door and saw him standing in front of the desk bent over at the waist, she was somehow taken aback.

"I’m sorry," she said. "I didn’t know you were here. I only want to get the scissors." But the man did not answer. He ignored her completely and threw himself to the floor.

"He’s praying," Jamila suddenly thought. Sometime somebody had told her that Muslims prostrate themselves when they pray. The man got up again and repeated another cycle of bowing and prostrating. Jamila could not stop watching him.

"He’s communicating with his Lord," she thought. Watching him made her weak. She sat down on Sirit’s bed. Her body was by now utterly exhausted. From deep within herself a thought formed and vibrated through all her limbs: "This is your prayer."

Jamila lay down on Sirit’s bed and accepted the order. Later she would always say that that moment was the moment she accepted Islam. It was a moment when she knew with her body, her soul and her intellect that this was her path.

It was dark by the time Jamila returned to her parents’ house. Laila ran into the hall as soon as she opened the front door.

"Mum, Dad phoned while you were out. He said that he’ll stay a week longer than planned."

Ahmad had not seen his parents for over a decade. They wouldn’t want him to leave just after ten days. Jamila had said so at the time, when he booked his ticket, but he was adamant that he couldn’t afford another week off. Jamila had never met Ahmad’s parents, only two of his brothers had ever visited them in England.

On Christmas Day, Jamila’s sister Lynda, her boyfriend, Jamila’s brother and her aunt and uncle were sitting round the dinner table. Jamila had brought the turkey, slaughtered according to Islamic laws, and asked God to forgive her for sitting at a table where alcohol was consumed.

"I do it for the sake of my parents," she told Him after the sunset prayer. "They love me."

Jamila’s husband was easygoing concerning this issue.

"They aren’t Muslims," he said. "Even if they were, it’s not up to you to teach them or shun them. God won’t ask you about what they do."

In the evening, Jamila’s sister sat down beside her on the sofa.

"When are you going back to London?" she asked.

"On the 28th, at least that was the plan until Ahmad phoned that he would stay on another week."

"When does school start then?"

"The children go back on the 6th, but we teachers have to be there on the 5th." Jamila did not want to think of all the essays she had to mark before the end of the holidays.

"I’m asking because Charly has died yesterday," Lynda blurted out. "His sister phoned me this morning. He had come home for Christmas, after sleeping rough for the last two years. He must have known that his time was up. His mother found him in bed in the morning, already cold and stiff. You may want to stay for the funeral."

Jamila thought for one short moment that she could stop herself from crying but ended up producing a gasping gurgling sound before she gave in and let her tears flow freely. Her children, alarmed by this, stopped playing Monopoly.

"Mummy, what’s wrong? Has Grandfather died? Why are you crying?" Muna was hugging her; Samir had climbed onto her lap.

"Somebody your mother loved a long time ago has died," Lynda said. "Go and finish your game, then your mother will tell you all about it."

Jamila sat with her head in her hands, not wanting to talk, not wanting to explain. This is not the time to tell the children about their mother’s past.

Only a few weeks back Jamila had a discussion with a convert sister.

"I won’t ever mention my past to the children," the sister had said. "Never. They’ll think they can do what their mother did."

At the time, Jamila was convinced of the opposite. "No, they won’t. Not if you tell them honestly how unhappy you were, about the pain of that time. This was our time of ignorance, why would you want to deny it?" But now Jamila wasn’t so sure anymore.

After the night prayer she sat on the prayer rug and asked God to help her answer the questions of her children in the perfect way.

"I want them to be protected from repeating my mistakes," she said. "I want them to know that nothing tastes as sweet as the love for You."

Later in the evening Jamila was relieved to find that only Laila had not forgotten the incident. Laila was nearly fourteen, a quiet girl who struggled to contain her hormone-induced emotional states on a daily basis.

"Was this man your boyfriend?" she asked Jamila in a shy voice.

"Yes," Jamila answered. She was not going to lie. "At that time I was not a Muslim. I was a confused young woman longing for love."

Laila looked at her.

"Did you love him?" she asked. Jamila’s throat was tight; she suddenly felt very tired and didn’t know what to say.

"Did you love him more than you love Dad?" Jamila detected fear in Laila’s voice.

"No, Laila, this is not a thought you should ever have." Jamila was panicking now. She didn’t want her daughter to imagine things that she couldn’t possibly know.

"Dad and I married for the sake of God. When we married we weren’t in love. I loved your father because he loved God, because he loved God as much as I did. And slowly, when you share your life as husband and wife and strive to make your life pleasing to God, God puts a deep love into your heart for your soul mate. This love is deeper than anything you can imagine. It is active, you work for it, you are in charge of it. Before I was a Muslim I didn’t know about this love. I fell in love. Falling in love is just an emotion, it comes and goes. It’s based on physical attraction or on emotional needs, but these things change."

Laila cuddled up to Jamila.

"I know what you mean," she said. "I had this crush on a boy in my year for a long time. Don’t worry, nothing ever happened. I didn’t even talk to him. And then one day after not seeing him for two weeks over the Easter holidays, I didn’t feel anything for him anymore. I know that this kind of love doesn’t last."

Jamila let out a big sigh. She thanked God silently for His help.

"I’ll have to go to the funeral," she said to Laila. "We’ll stay here another five days. Granny thinks it’s necessary to support Charly’s parents and sisters. I agree with her. I’ve known them since I was at kindergarten."

Jamila watched Laila get up and walk to the door. Before she opened it she turned round with a smile.

"I’ll tell Muna that we’ll be here for New Year’s Eve. Granddad said he’ll buy fireworks if we are around."