Believing the Lie

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, Barbara has 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 forgot.”

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 that,” Angelina said firmly. She removed the scarf from around Barbara’s neck and with a few deft and maddening moves, she rearranged it. This put her closer to Barbara than she’d been before, and Barbara caught the scent of her: She was fragrant like a tropical flower. She also had the most flawless skin Barbara had ever seen. “There,” Angelina said. “Look in the mirror now, Barbara. Tell me what you think. It’s very easy to do. I’ll show you.”

Barbara went back into the bedroom within sight of those pills, which, this time, she refused to look at. She wanted to dislike Angelina — a woman who’d left her daughter and her daughter’s father to have a lengthy fling for which she’d actually been forgiven? — but she found that she couldn’t. This went some distance, she supposed, in explaining how and why Azhar had apparently forgiven her.

She saw her reflection and she had to admit it: The bloody woman knew how to tie a scarf. And now it was tied, properly, Barbara could see that it wasn’t actually the appropriate concomitant garment to the blouse. Damn it all, she thought. When would she learn?

She was about to emerge and ask Angelina if she and Hadiyyah would accompany her on her next adventure in Camden High Street since she hadn’t a great deal of money to waste on making the wrong sartorial decisions. But she heard the flat door open and the sounds of Taymullah Azhar arriving home. The last place she wanted to be found was in the bedroom he shared with the mother of his child, so she hastily untied the scarf, removed the blouse, shoved them back into the bag, and donned the pullover she’d worn to work that day.

When she rejoined them, Azhar was admiring the new paint on the walls, with Hadiyyah clinging onto his hand and Angelina linked to his arm. He turned, and his surprised face told Barbara that neither Hadiyyah nor her mother had mentioned her presence.

He said, “Barbara! Hullo. And what do you think of their handiwork?”

“I’m hiring them to do my digs next,” Barbara said, “although I’m demanding purple and orange for my colours. Think that’ll do me right, Hadiyyah?”

“No no no!” Hadiyyah cried.

Her parents laughed. Barbara smiled. Aren’t we all a happy family? she thought. Time to exit stage right. She said, “Leave you to your dinner,” and to Angelina specifically, “Thanks for the help with the scarf. I could see the difference. If I can get you to dress me every morning, I’ll be set for life.”

“Anytime,” Angelina said. “Truly.”

And the damn thing was, she meant it, Barbara thought. Maddening woman. If she’d merely cooperate and be a sodding cow, things would be so much easier.

She nodded a good night to them all and let herself out. She was surprised when Azhar followed her, but she understood when he lit a cigarette, something he would not do indoors now that nonsmoking Angelina had returned.

He said, “Congratulations, Barbara.”

She stopped, turned, and said, “For what?”

“Your teeth. I see they’ve been repaired, and they look very good. I expect people have been telling you that all day, so let me count myself among them.”

“Oh. Right. Ta. The guv — she’s ordered the entire thing. Well, not ordered exactly, ’cause she can’t do that in a personal matter like appearance. So let’s say she suggested it strenuously. She wants the hair fixed next. I don’t know where we go from there but I’ve a feeling it’ll involve liposuction and serious cosmetic surgery. When she’s finished with me, I expect I’ll be beating men off with a broom.”

“You’re making light of it and you shouldn’t,” Azhar told her. “No doubt Angelina and Hadiyyah have already told you — ”

“They haven’t actually,” Barbara cut in. “But thank you for the compliment, Azhar.”

So there was irony in a soap dish, she thought: a compliment from the very last man on earth who should have noticed her teeth and the very last man from whom she should have wanted notice in the first place. Well, it didn’t mean anything either way, she told herself.

On that set of lies, she walked on to her bungalow, bidding Taymullah Azhar good night.