Believing the Lie - Elizabeth George [11]
Carefully, Ian set his wineglass on the table. He knew he should get the meat and carve it, get the veg and serve them, sit, eat, and let the rest go. Go upstairs afterwards and have each other properly. But on this night of all nights, he couldn’t bring himself to do anything more but say what he’d already said to his partner more than a dozen times and what he’d sworn he wouldn’t say tonight: “You asked me to come out and I did. For you. Not for myself, because it didn’t matter to me and even if it had, there were too many people involved and what I did— for you— was as good as stabbing them through their throats. And that was fine by me because it was what you wanted, and I finally realised— ”
“I know all this.”
“Three years is long enough to hide, you said. You said, ‘Tonight you decide.’ In front of them you said it, Kav, and in front of them I decided. Then I walked out. With you. Have you any idea— ”
“Of course I do. D’you think I’m a stone? I have a bloody idea, Ian. But we’re not talking about just living together, are we? We’re talking about marriage. And we’re talking about my parents.”
“People adjust,” Ian said. “That’s what you told me.”
“People. Yes. Other people. They adjust. But not them. We’ve been through this before. In my culture— their culture— ”
“You’re part of this culture now. All of you.”
“That’s not how it works. One doesn’t just flee to a foreign country, take some magic pill one night, and wake up the next morning with an entirely different system of values. It doesn’t happen that way. And as the only son— the only child, for God’s sake— I have… Oh Christ, Ian, you know all this. Why can’t you be happy with what we have? With how things are?”
“Because how things are is a lie. You’re not my lodger. I’m not your landlord. D’you actually think they’ll believe that forever?”
“They believe what I tell them,” he said. “I live here. They live there. This works and it will continue to work. Anything else, and they won’t understand. They don’t need to know.”
“So that they can do what? Keep presenting you with suitable Iranian teenagers to marry? Fresh off the boat or the plane or whatever and eager to give your parents grandbabies?”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“It’s happening already. How many have they arranged for you to meet so far? A dozen? More? And at what point do you just cave in and marry because you can’t take the pressure from them any longer and you start to feel your duty too much and then what do you expect to have? One life here and another in Manchester, her down there— whoever she is— waiting for the babies and me up here and… goddamn it, look at me.” Ian wanted to kick the table over, sending the crockery flying and the cutlery spinning across the floor. Something was building within him, and he knew an explosion was on its way. He headed for the door, for the hallan that would take him to the kitchen and from there outside.
Kaveh’s voice was sharper when he said, “Where’re you going?”
“Out. The lake. Wherever. I don’t know. I just need to get out.”
“Come on, Ian. Don’t be this way. What we have— ”
“What we have is nothing.”
“That isn’t true. Come back and I’ll show you.”
But Ian knew where showing you would lead, which was where showing you always led, which was to a place having nothing to do with the change he sought. He left the house without looking back.
EN ROUTE TO BRYANBARROW
CUMBRIA
Tim Cresswell slouched in the back seat of the Volvo. He tried to close his ears to the sound of his little sister begging their mother once again to let them live with her. “Please please extra pretty please, Mummy” was the way she put it. She was, Tim knew, trying to charm their mother into thinking she was actually missing something without her children in constant attendance. Not that anything Gracie might say or the way she might say it would do any good. Niamh Cresswell had no intention of allowing them to live with her in Grange-over-Sands. She had fish to fry that had nothing to do with any responsibility