by Storm Chase
“You should be grateful, woman! I should have left you in Atbara! I can send you back there any time I want to!”
“I wish you would!” she yelled back.
Hafiq threw up his arms in exasperation. To his dismay Lilly fell to the ground, curled up in a ball and covered her head. “Don’t hit me!”
He stood stunned. Then the anger flooded back. “Am I a coward now too? One who would strike a woman?”
He wanted to storm out, to leave this hellcat but to his horror he realised Lilly was crying. Hafiq was aghast. He knew she’d suffered. When she wept quietly in the night, thinking he didn’t know, he wanted to talk to her. But she was proud and he didn’t want to shame her. Now she was weeping and it was his fault. Hafiq felt a wave of remorse.
Carefully he touched her hair. When she didn’t push him away, he picked her up, hugging him to her.
“Don’t cry, Green Eyes. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“I know. I’m sorry too.”
Her eyes were red, her face blotched but Hafiq still thought she was beautiful. “Have a good cry,” he said. It was something his English mother used to say. It seemed to comfort Lilly, although he didn’t understand why crying could possibly be good. Maybe it was a woman’s thing.
“It’s just that my life seems to be just one damn thing after another,” Lilly hiccupped. “What am I going to do now?”
Hafiq chose his words carefully. “Maybe I didn’t rescue you but I do love you. I thought you loved me too.”
“I do,” Lilly said.
“You love me but you think I would hit you?” He could forgive her for calling him a pig, although he would have killed a man for saying this but her fear had hurt him.
“My father used to say, spare the rod and spoil the child,” Lilly confessed. “He made sure I wasn’t spoilt.”
Hafiq digested this. “You were wayward?”
“I wasn’t the son he wanted. He used to beat me three times a week. Not with his hands but with a cane. I never told anyone this before.”
Hafiq was furious but said nothing. He stroked her hair as he waited patiently for her to continue.
“My gym teacher saw the marks when I was in the shower one day. There was a terrible fuss. She called social services. They were going to take me away but my mum got sick so I lied and said it wasn’t him.”
Hafiq was surprised. “They would have taken you from your family because they beat you? That wouldn’t happen here.”
“I kind of gathered that,” Lilly said wanly.
“I will never hit you,” Hafiq said earnestly. “You will be my queen.”
“God, that sounds so corny,” Lilly laughed. Then, seeing his face, she kissed him quickly on the cheek. “It sounds nice but Hafiq, we are so different from each other. I mean, apart from everything else, I’m Christian and you are Muslim.”
He was mystified. “So what? It’s the same.”
“Is it?”
“Sure! It never bothered my English mother, so why should it bother you?”
“I won’t cover up.”
“Why would you? I’m not a fanatic,” Hafiq laughed. “Just don’t dance naked in the street.”
He loved the way she worried about unimportant things.
“But what about food? You eat differently from us, don’t you?”
“You seem to enjoy it.”
Yes... but what about alcohol? It’s illegal here, isn’t it?”
“Sure it is. That’s why I make a fortune from making araqi. What do you think I was doing in Atbara? I was buying dates and sugar. Can’t make booze without it.”
“You are a bootlegger?” Lilly couldn’t help laughing
Hafiq grinned at her. “Not exactly. I don’t make fake stuff; I make traditional wine from dates. It’s officially illegal but there are lots of us who drink. We just don’t do it in public.”
“Like dancing naked in the street.”
“Right.”
“I don’t really like alcohol,” Lilly confessed. “My father drank. It made him crazy.”
“So what is the problem?” Hafiq was baffled.
“I don’t know,” Lilly confessed. “I still get the shakes, you know? It’s OK when you’re here but I’m afraid to be alone.”
“I’m never leaving you.”
She smiled at the love in his voice. “And I may not be British anymore. I don’t think you can have two nationalities.”
“Then don’t tell them,” Hafiq said simply. “Anyway, it’s not like being British was helping you, was it?”
Lilly didn’t know what to say.
.
Hafiq looked into her eyes. “You love me and I love you. Everything else doesn’t matter. We’ll work it out.” He grinned at her. “Come on, let’s go to bed. I’ve heard that make-up sex is the best.”
Lilly couldn’t help laughing. “You’ve had tonnes of women and you’ve never had a fight?”
“Never liked any of them enough to bother arguing.”
She was silenced.
Hafiq kissed her. “Stay with me, green eyes. Stay, until you can think of a reason not to.”
Later, exhausted after a sexual marathon, Hafiq fell promptly asleep but Lilly lay curled up in his arms, staring at the night.
Chapter Ten
Surrender
Hafiq was unhappy. The makeup sex had been everything he’d hoped for, although he didn’t think he’d make a habit of fighting with Lilly but for the first time in his life Hafiq was beginning to doubt himself.
Lilly was sweet but she had an absent air. He thought she was pining.
When he woke up, she’d been in the kitchen, cooking his breakfast. The maid was in tears and it took Hafiq twenty minutes to convince her that it was not a criticism.
Although he’d prevented Lilly from helping with the housework and settled her with a stack of magazines, she’d started weeding the window boxes. Hafiq was roused from his computer by the gardener, who was furious at having his domain interfered with, threatening to resign.
Having a wife was definitely a challenge. Luckily Lilly had understood that his people were frightened that they would find themselves out of work and starving on the street.
“I had no idea,” she said guilty. “Would it help if I had a bath and left stuff all over the floor? And messed up the garden path somehow?”
Now she was sitting in the alcove, looking out to sea. Hafiq didn’t like the look in her eyes. He suspected that she’d worry herself into trying to leave again. Somehow he had to keep her busy but he couldn’t think of anything for her to do. He would race through his paperwork and take her to bed again.
Hafiq was also unhappy to discover that Robinson had spread the news of his marriage. Text messages and voicemail from several sisters and three of his most formidable aunts meant he’d have half the family round by lunchtime.
On cue, the maid announced that there was a visitor at the gate. With a sigh of resignation Hafiq gave up on his paperwork. The next few hours were going to be hell.
Hafiq knew his brothers would be quietly envious but if the story of the market in Atbara came out, his aunts, cousins and sisters would tear strips off him. For a moment Hafiq wondered if he could persuade Lilly to tell them they’d met at the waterfront. Then he decided against it. There wasn’t any point; women had a way of scenting weakness. He’d take it like a man and may be have a drink or two.
The visitor was female but he’d never seen her before.
“Hafiq, this is Mrs Van Loon.”
Hafiq could see why Lilly didn’t look happy. The visitor was loud, over solicitous and totally fake. Hafiq recognised her as the wife of one of the South African traders. He knew her and her husband to be racist, arrogant and dumber than donkeys. Now she was in his home, bent on making trouble.
Hafiq wanted to throw her out but hesitated. Lilly might not like him taking decisions for her. He held his peace and smouldered.
“I heard about your troubles and as a fellow
Christian I came over instantly to offer comfort,” Mrs Van Loon crowed. “You poor girl! Tell me, did they really strip you quite naked in the public square?”
Hafiq seethed but Lilly’s education as a vicar’s daughter meant she was inured to nasty gossips who disguised their nosiness as religious compassion.
“Of course not, Mrs Van Loon,” Lilly said sweetly. “That sounds like a story from a romance novel.”
“Mr Robinson said you’d been abducted,” the woman insisted, “and we all know what happens when an African man gets his hands on an innocent, white girl. The people here are just savages!”
Seeing his temper flare, Lilly put a hand on Hafiq’s arm and willed him to let her deal with it. To her relief, he shut his mouth but his look was murderous.
Go for it! The voice inside shouted. We don’t have to turn the other cheek anymore. We’re free to do as we like. Sock it to her!
Lilly smiled sweetly. “I quite agree, Mrs Van Loon. I’ve been here for almost three weeks now and I think we haven’t spent more than twenty minutes a day out of bed.” She leaned forward confidentially. “I just love being savaged, don’t you?”
Mrs Van Loon stood up, quivering with rage. “I see I was quite mistaken to come here,” she announced. And with a snap of the heels that would have been envied by a Prussian Junker, she marched out of the house.
Lilly giggled. “Well, that’s torn it. I’m never going to be invited to join the Women’s Institute!”
Hafiq was laughing so much that he couldn’t answer. When he finally stopped, he saw that Lilly was considering something.
“You know, Hafiq, I don’t understand why they didn’t rape me.” She frowned in perplexity. “I kept expecting it, you know? I was so scared but they didn’t touch me.”
“They were perverts,” Hafiq said gently. He didn’t like this conversation. He didn’t want her to think about that time. But Lilly considered his words with interest.
“Oh! You mean they were gay?” She giggled. “I heard squeals at night but I thought it was monkeys!”
Hafiq was not amused. “It’s disgusting,” he muttered.
Lilly decided not to joke about loving thy fellow man. The cultural chasm between them gaped again.
“If you have a moment, I’d like to talk to you,” she said diffidently.
Hafiq mistook her hesitancy for sadness and felt his heart plunge. “Tell me,” he said gently.
“I’ve been thinking,” Lilly said. “You know I was never happy at home. I stayed because my mum got sick. She had spinal tumours.”
Hafiq nodded but she could see that he didn’t understand.
“She lost the use of her legs. She was diagnosed when I was 15, just as there was all that fuss at school about my father beating me,” Lilly explained. “I wanted to leave home but I couldn’t leave her. I nursed her for four years.”
He hadn’t said a word but he was listening intently.
“She died a year ago and my father died two days later. He was drunk and people thought he crashed into the lamppost but I think he killed himself,” Lilly said. “He hated me but he loved my mum.”
Get on with it! Her secret self yawned.
“It took me a while to get everything sorted and then there was that mess with Ashton,” she talked on quickly as Hafiq growled at the name, “and I was all set for this new life, you see. I’m registered to start a hospitality course next month at Bath University.”
That was it. She was telling him she had to leave, Hafiq thought.
“Brother! Is this her? She’s beautiful!” It was a flock of his sisters, accompanied by a bevy of cousins. The blare of a car horn heralded the arrival of his brothers. No doubt the aunts, uncles and older folks weren’t far behind.
Lilly’s eyes were opened wide. “Is this your family?”
“Some of them.”
“How many of you are there?”
“I’ve got 18 brothers and 25 sisters or rather half brothers and sisters,” he explained casually. “There are a dozen or so aunts and uncles and their kids, say about 150 cousins. Then there are in-laws.”
“Oh my God!”
“Fourteen wives tend to lead to large families.”
Lilly was swept away by a crowd of the girls while the men pelted Hafiq with questions. He laughed and cracked jokes but Hafiq was worried. He didn’t doubt that Lilly loved him but she still wanted to leave him.
Perhaps if he let her go home and go to college, she’d come back to him. He hated the idea of her leaving and he was convinced she needed looking after but Lilly had made it clear she didn’t agree. Hafiq knew he could force her to stay but he couldn’t force her to change. He’d have to let her go. He loved her too much to make her sad.
If he pulled some strings, he could get in touch with the embassy at Khartoum. It would take a few weeks but he was fairly sure he’d manage something. Quietly sliding out from the party, Hafiq went to his office and picked up the phone.
Getting a line took forever. To keep himself from thinking, Hafiq played a game of Mah-jong solitaire. Mindlessly, he turned over and arranged Flower, Bamboo and Wind tiles.
“Hafiq?” It was Lilly. She was grinning from ear to ear. She was so lovely. Hafiq thought his heart would break. “You busy?”
“Never for you.”
She came and settled herself against his desk. Up close, she smelled like flowers. He had to stop himself reaching for her.
“Important call?”
“Having trouble getting through.” Privately he hoped the embassy had been bombed. Then it wouldn’t be his fault if it took years to get Lilly’s paperwork.
“I didn’t get to finish,” Lilly said. “I was awake all night thinking and I wanted to say to you...”
Here it comes, thought Hafiq. He steeled himself to take it like a man.
“I think you’re right. I love you and if you still want to, I’d like to try and make a go of it.”
It was his turn to gaze at her speechlessly.
“Hafiq? Did you hear me?”
“Yes. And yes, of course I want you to stay.” He dropped the phone on his desk and swept her up in his arms. As he was kissing her, a squawking sound came from the phone.
“Your call is through,” Lilly murmured in his ear. “Don’t you want to answer it?”
Reluctantly, Hafiq picked it up. To his delight, a recorded message said the embassy would be closed for emergency repairs for a week. The compound had been attacked again.
Lilly shrugged at the news. “I’ll write them a letter.” She giggled. “I’m so excited! Two of your sisters, I think they’re called Subin and Nafy? Or is it Yaya and Matida? I’m sorry but there are so many of them that I can’t tell them apart yet.”
Hafiq shrugged. “Why do you think we all call each other Brother and Sister?”
Lilly giggled again. She was deliriously happy. “Well anyway, they run a kindergarten and they’ve asked if I can come and teach English!” She looked at him doubtfully. “You’re not going to object, are you? I would love to do it and it would keep me busy.”
Hafiq grinned happily. “I won’t be making any more decisions for you,” he said assuming an air of virtue.
“Yeah, right,” Lilly said unbelievingly. “Your sisters have been telling me stories and if half of what they say is true...”
Hafiq frowned worriedly. “Did you tell them how we met?”
“They already knew all about it,” Lilly giggled. “They were going to roast you alive but I told them you were a real hero so now they’re all proud of you.”
He knew he shouldn’t say it but he couldn’t stop himself. “I knew the moment I saw you that you were a rare bargain.”
“Cheeky sod,” Lilly muttered. And then she kissed him.
Dear Reader,
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Thank
s,
Storm Chase
