Believing the Lie by Elizabeth George

together. God, what was
wrong
with her? she wondered.
    She remembered the bag in her hand, the scarf and blouse within it. “Bought something in the high street. I reckoned Hadiyyah’s approval is all I need to wear it tomorrow.”
    “Yes, yes!” Hadiyyah cried. “Let’s see, Barbara. Mummy, Barbarahas been making herself over. She’s been buying new clothes and everything. She wanted to go to Marks and Spencer at first, but I wouldn’t let her. Well, we bought a skirt there, didn’t we, Barbara, but that was
all
because I told her only
grannies
ever go to Marks and Spencer—”
    “Not exactly true, darling,” Angelina said.
    “Well,
you
always said—”
    “I say many silly things you’re to take no notice of. Barbara, show us. Put it on, in fact.”
    “Oh yes, will you put it on?” Hadiyyah said. “You
must
put it on. You c’n use my room—”
    “Which is chaos unleashed,” Angelina said. “Use Hari’s and mine, Barbara. Meanwhile, we’ll make the tea.”
    Thus Barbara found herself in the last place she actually would have chosen to be: in the bedroom of Angelina Upman and Hadiyyah’s father, Taymullah Azhar. She closed the door behind her with a tiny expulsion of breath. All right, she told herself, she could do this. All she had to do was take the blouse from the bag, unfold it, whip off the pullover she had on…She didn’t have to look at anything but what was directly in front of her.
    Which, naturally, she found impossible to do, and she didn’t want to begin to think why. What she saw was what she expected to see: the signs of a man and woman who were partners to each other and specifically partners in the one way necessary to create a child. Not that they were attempting to create another, since Angelina’s birth control pills were on the bedside table next to a clock radio. But contained within the fact of them was also the fact of what they meant.
    So bloody what? Barbara asked herself. What the dickens had she expected and what business was it of hers anyway? Taymullah Azhar and Angelina Upman were doing the deed. Better said, they had
resumed
doing the deed at some point after Angelina’s sudden reappearance in Azhar’s life. The fact that she’d left him for another man was now apparently forgiven and forgotten, and there was an end to it. Everyone got to live happily whatever. Barbara told herself it behooved her to do likewise.
    She buttoned the blouse and tried to smooth out its wrinkles. She took out the scarf she’d bought to go with it, and she wound this inexpertly round her neck. She moved to a mirror on the back of the door and gazed at herself. She wanted to retch. She should have gone for the torte, she decided. It would have cost less and been infinitely more satisfying.
    “Are you changed, Barbara?” Hadiyyah asked from behind the closed door. “Mummy wants to know do you need any help.”
    “No. Got it,” Barbara called. “I’m coming out. You ready? Have your sunglasses on? Be prepared to be dazzled.”
    Silence greeted her. Then Hadiyyah and her mother spoke at once: “A striking choice, Barbara,” came from Angelina, while, “Oh no! You forgot about the jawline and the neckline!” came from Hadiyyah, this latter in something of a wail, to which she added, “They’re s’posed to mirror each other, Barbara, and you for
got
.”
    Another fashion disaster, Barbara thought. There really
was
a reason she’d spent the last fifteen years of her life wearing slogan-fronted tee shirts and drawstring trousers.
    Angelina hastened to say, “Hadiyyah, that’s not true.”
    “But she’s meant to choose rounded and she’s chosen—”
    “Darling, she’s only failed to use the scarf as it’s meant to be used. One can still create the effect by rounding the scarf. One doesn’t want to be limited by believing that only a single kind of neckline…Here, Barbara, let me show you.”
    “But, Mummy, the colour—”
    “—is perfect and I’m pleased you see