Page 90 - James Caan - The Real Deal

The Real Deal

comment had actually come down to one thing: where’s the
money? If I didn’t come up with the money, I guessed I would
probably never see Aisha again.
I had no idea what kind of money was involved. I knew how
much the rent was on the shop, but nothing else. I decided not to
panic too much until I knew what the other costs were. Over the
next couple of days we totted up the costs of fixtures and fittings and
buying the stock. The idea was that she would buy in 50 per cent of
the stock and the other 50 per cent would be her own designs.
Aisha knew someone in the display department of Miss Selfridge
who was getting rid of old fittings, so that saved us some money,
but the other costs kept adding up. In the end, the figure we came
to was £60,000. I had no idea where I was going to find my share.
Sure, I was earning good money, but £30k represented about half
my annual salary. Even if I poached an entire sales team I couldn’t
earn that kind of cash in the timeframe.
By now, it had definitely become more about dating than
business, and we had started to go out socially. Aisha had been
given the same level of freedom I had enjoyed growing up. Her
parents were pretty liberal, which made her quite unusual for an
Asian girl. I remember being with my brother in a nightclub when
Aisha turned up in a metallic electric-blue jumpsuit. She really was
the epitome of a fashion designer, wearing black lipstick and thick
black eyeliner, and I can still see my brother’s face as he took her
in: Where did she come from?
When I took Aisha to meet my parents they had a similar reaction:
they had never met anyone like her either. I hadn’t taken a girl home
before, so they knew I was serious. Everyone was very polite, but my
dad – typically – wasted no time in getting to the point:
‘So your name is Patel – where does that name come from?’
Aisha patiently explained that her grandmother was from
Burma and her mum was from Bombay. The fact that her family
was from India and mine from Pakistan had to be discussed. The

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