“I think,” she replied, “that he’ll be happy to.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
BARBARA HAVERS TURNED ON THE TELEVISION TO ACCOMPANY her morning ritual of Pop-Tarts, a fag, and coffee. It was cold as the dickens in her bungalow, and she went to the window to see if snow had fallen during the night. It hadn’t, but a sheen of ice on the concrete path from the front of the house gleamed with black menace in the security light that hung from the roof. She returned to her crumpled bed and considered dropping back into it while the electric fire did something to ward off the chill, but she knew she couldn’t spare the time, so she ripped the top blanket off and wrapped it round herself before she shivered her way to the kitchen and put the kettle on.
Behind her, The Big Breakfast was regaling its viewers with the latest celebrity gossip. This mostly involved who was currently who else’s partner-always a burning question for the British public, it seemed-and who had thrown over whom for whom else.
Barbara scowled and poured boiling water into the coffee press. She bent over the sink and tapped her finger against the fag that dangled from her lips, dislodging ash in the vicinity of the drain. God, they were obsessed, she thought. Partner this, partner that. Did anyone stay alone for five minutes…other than she herself, of course? It seemed that the national pastime was moving from one relationship to the next with as little downtime in between as possible. A single woman was an accepted failure as a human being, and everywhere you looked, the message blasted you between the eyes.
She carried her Pop-Tart to the table and went back for the coffee. She directed the remote at the television screen and she punched it off. She felt raw, far too close to the point of having to think of her partnerless life. She could hear the remark Azhar had made about whether she would ever find herself in the fortunate position of having children, and she did not want to venture within fifty yards of thinking of that. So she took a large bite of Pop-Tart and went in search of something to distract her from the consideration of her neighbour, his comment about her marital and maternal state, and the memory of that front door which had not opened when she had last knocked upon it. She found this distraction in her man from Lubbock. She put the CD on and cranked up the volume.
Buddy Holly was still raving on at the end of her second Pop-Tart, and her third cup of coffee. Indeed, he was celebrating his short life with such passion-and at such a volume-that as she headed for the bathroom and her morning shower, she nearly missed hearing the telephone’s ring.
She quieted Buddy and answered, to find a familiar voice saying her name. “Barbara, dear, is that you?” It was Mrs. Flo-Florence Magentry, to the general public-at whose Greenford home Barbara’s mother had been living for the past fifteen months with several other elderly ladies in similar need of care.
“Me and none other,” Barbara said. “Hi, Mrs. Flo. You’re up and about early. Everything okay with Mum?”
“Oh it is, it is,” Mrs. Flo said. “We’re all dandy out here. Mum’s asked for porridge this morning, and she’s tucked right into it. Lovely appetite, she’s got today. She’s been mentioning you since yesterday lunchtime.”
It was not Mrs. Flo’s way to induce guilt in the relatives of her ladies, but Barbara felt it anyway. She hadn’t been out to see her mum in several weeks-she looked at the calendar and realised it had actually been five-and it didn’t take much to make her feel like a selfish cow who’d abandoned her calf. So she felt the need to excuse herself to Mrs. Flo and she said, “I’ve been working on these murders…the young boys? You might have read about it. It’s been a rough case, and time’s dead crucial. Has Mum-”
“Barbie, dear, you’re not to go on like that,” Mrs. Flo said. “I just wanted you to know Mum’s had a few good days. She’s been here, and she still is. So I thought that as she’s a bit more in the present and out of the Blitz, it might be good to take time for an examination of her personals. We might be able to do it without sedating her, which I always think is preferable, don’t you?”
“Bloody hell, yes,” Barbara said. “If you’ll make the appointment, I’ll take her.”
“Of course, dear, there’s no guarantee that she’ll be herself when you have to take her. As I said, there have been a few good days recently, but you know how it is.”
“I do,” Barbara said. “But make the appointment anyway. I can cope if we have to sedate her.” She could steel herself to it, she told herself: her mum slumped into the passenger seat of the Mini, slack of jaw and bleary of eye. That would be nearly unbearable to behold, but it would be infinitely preferable to trying to explain, to her disintegrating ability to understand, what was about to happen to her when she was asked to put her legs into the ghastly stirrups in the doctor’s surgery.
So Barbara and Mrs. Flo reached an agreement, which consisted of a range of days when Barbara could drive out to Greenford for the appointment. Then they rang off, and Barbara was left with the rueful knowledge that she wasn’t as childless as she looked to the outside world. For certainly her mother stood in place of progeny. Not exactly what Barbara had in mind for herself, but there it was. The cosmic forces governing the universe were always willing to give you a variation of what you thought your life was meant to be like.
She headed for the bathroom again, only to have the telephone ring a second time. She decided to let her answer machine take the call, and she left the room to turn the shower on. But from the bathroom, the voice she heard was male this time, which suggested the night had brought another development in the case, so she hurried back out in time to hear Taymullah Azhar saying, “…the number up here should you need to get in touch with us.”
She snatched up the receiver, saying, “Azhar? Hello? Are you there?” And where was there? she wondered.
“Ah, Barbara,” he said. “I hope I did not awaken you? Hadiyyah and I have come to Lancaster for a conference at the university, and I realised that I did not ask anyone to collect our post prior to our leaving. Could you-”
“Shouldn’t she be at school? Is she on holiday? Half-term?”
“Yes, of course,” he said. “That is to say, she should be at school. But I could not leave her alone in London, so we’ve brought her schoolwork with us. She does it here in the hotel room while I’m at my meetings. It is, I know, not the best arrangement, but she’s safe and she keeps the door locked while I’m gone.”
“Azhar, she shouldn’t…” Barbara stopped herself. That way led to disagreement. She said instead, “You could have left her with me. I would have been happy to have her here. I’d always be happy to have her here. I knocked you up the other morning. No one came to the door.”
“Ah. We would have been here in Lancaster,” he said.
“Oh. I heard music-”
“My meagre attempt to thwart burglars.”
Barbara felt unaccountably relieved by this information. “D’you want me to check the flat, then? Have you left a key? Because I could collect the post and go in and…” She realised how bloody happy she was to hear his voice and how much she wanted to accommodate him. She didn’t like this at all, so she stopped herself from going on. He was, after all, still the man who thought her unfortunately unpartnered in life.
He said, “You are very kind, Barbara. If you would claim our mail, I’d ask nothing more of you.”
“Will do, then,” she said cheerfully. “How’s my mate?”
“I believe she misses you. She is still asleep or I would bring her to the phone.”
Barbara was grateful for the information. She knew he hadn’t needed to give it to her. She said, “Azhar, about the CD, about the row…you know…what I said about your…about Hadiyyah’s mum being gone…” She wasn’t sure where to go with this, and she didn’t want to reiterate her remarks in order to remind him of what she was about to apologise for. She said, “I was out of order with what I said. Sorry.”