Believing the Lie - Elizabeth George [183]
Barbara said, “I c’n help you put this in order as well.”
“Tea first,” Angelina said.
The kitchen was untouched. Angelina made the tea and took it to a small table that sat beneath a high window through which a patch of sunlight gleamed. She said, “Thank God Hadiyyah’s in school. She would have been frightened. I doubt she’s ever seen Hari like that.”
Barbara took the inference. Angelina herself had “seen Hari like that.” She said to her, “Like I said, I was on my way to ask his help.”
“Hari’s? How?”
Barbara explained. Angelina lifted her teacup as she listened. She had lovely hands like the rest of her, and their tapered fingers bore shapely nails of a uniform length. She said, “He’ll know someone. He’ll want to help you. He likes you enormously, Barbara. You mustn’t think that this”— she tilted her head in the direction of the sitting room— “is an indication of anything but two similar temperaments crashing into each other. We’ll both get over it. We usually do.”
“That’s good to know.”
Angelina took a sip of tea. “It’s stupid how arguments between partners grow from nothing. One makes a suggestion that the other doesn’t care for and before you know it, tempers flare. Things get said. It’s ridiculous.”
To this Barbara didn’t know what to say. She didn’t have a partner, had never had one, and had no possibility of some chance encounter leading her to having one. So arguing with one? Hurling objects at one? There was small likelihood that she’d find herself having that experience any time soon. Still, she made a mumbling, “’S hell, that, eh?” and hoped that would suffice.
“You know about Hari’s wife, don’t you?” Angelina asked. “I expect he’s told you: how he left her but there’s never been a divorce.”
Barbara felt a bit prickly with this direction of conversation. “Well. Right. Yeah. I mean, more or less.”
“He left her for me. I was a student. Not his, of course. I’ve no brain for science. But we met at lunch one day. It was crowded, and he asked to share my table. I liked his… well, I quite liked his gravity, his thoughtfulness. I liked his confidence, the way he didn’t feel he had to answer quickly or amusingly in a conversation. He was very real. That appealed to me.”
“I c’n see how it would.” For it appealed to Barbara as well, and long had done. Taymullah Azhar had appeared from the first to be exactly who he seemed to be.
“I didn’t want him to leave her. I loved him— I love him— but to break up a man’s home… I never saw myself as such a woman. But then there was Hadiyyah. When Hari knew I was pregnant, he’d hear of nothing else but our being together. I could have ended the pregnancy, of course. But this was ours, you see, and I couldn’t face not having her.” She leaned forward and briefly touched Barbara’s hand. “Can you imagine a world without Hadiyyah in it?”
It was a simple question with an equally simple answer. “Can’t,” Barbara said.
“Anyway, I’ve wanted her to meet her siblings, Hari’s other children. But he won’t hear of it.”
“That was the row?”
“We’ve gone through it before. It’s the only thing we ever argue about. The answer’s always the same. ‘That will not happen,’ as if he determines the course everyone’s life is supposed to take. When he says that sort of thing, I don’t react well. Nor do I react well when he declares that he and I will not be giving her a sibling either. ‘I have three children,’ he says. ‘I will have no more.’”
“He might change his mind.”
“He hasn’t in years and I can’t think of a single reason why he would.”
“Behind his back, then? Without him knowing?”
“Take Hadiyyah to meet her siblings, you mean?” Angelina shook her head. “I’ve no idea where they are. I’ve no idea what their names are or who their mother is. She might have returned to Pakistan, for all he’s told me about her.”
“There’s always an accidental pregnancy, I suppose. But it’s a bit low, that, eh?”
“He’d never forgive it. And I’ve already asked him to forgive