Page 52 of The Work Husband

Please don’t let her be ringing to ask for help arranging her wedding, I thought. I’d been meaning to think of a tactful way to contact her and ask if it was still going ahead, hoping to learn that somehow she’d managed to persuade her father that this wouldn’t make her happy.

But what with everything that had been going on with Sam and now Jamie, her problems had slipped lower down my priority list than they deserved to be.

‘Not so good.’ Her voice was muffled – I wondered whether she was speaking through the black niqab that covered her mouth or if she’d been crying.

Or whether there was someone nearby who she didn’t want to overhear her conversation.

‘I’m sorry, Zahra. Do you need help? What can I do?’

‘Can you meet me later this morning?’

‘Sure. Shall we go for coffee?’

‘Just a walk.’ Her words came out quickly now. ‘Meet me in Hyde Park, by Speakers’ Corner, okay? At half ten?’

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘I’ll see you there.’

But she’d already ended the call.

Fortunately, neither Jasper nor Jamie were in the office, so I didn’t have to fabricate an excuse for leaving half an hour after I’d arrived when I had no arranged meeting in the shared diary. I chugged down a coffee, answered a couple of emails and then left, deciding I might as well walk the short distance through Mayfair to meet Zahra.

It was a gorgeous day – last night’s rain had left everything cleansed and sparkling, and several degrees cooler than it had been. Still, when I saw Zahra waiting for me under the shade of an oak tree, I thought how hot she must be feeling. But her clothes had been developed for wear in the literal desert; presumably the people whose idea it had been knew what they were doing. That or they just didn’t care whether women were too hot or not – or expected them to stay indoors.

I hurried over to her, and we exchanged a quick hug.

‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s walk. I’m staying at my auntie’s place. She said it was okay for me to go out, but she’ll get twitchy if I’m too long, so we’ll need to be quick.’

This seemed like quite the contrast to the freedom Zahra had had when I saw her previously, when it had apparently been fine for her to spend a morning shopping and an afternoon at the ballet. But what did I know – she’d evidently been permitted to spend years at university in Cambridge, presumably unchaperoned. I’d never asked her about this aspect of her life – it had seemed too intrusive and too fraught with the risk of causing offence.

‘What’s happened, Zahra?’ I asked as we walked. She had quite a pace on and was almost as difficult to keep up with as Jamie. ‘Is there a problem?’

‘My dad is freaking out.’ She looked at me sideways. ‘Remember those photos you took of me when we were trying on clothes?’

‘Of course.’ I’d thought nothing of it at the time – I’d snapped pictures of her in the various garments, sometimes capturing angles the mirror couldn’t to help her make her choices, sometimes catching her as she posed, laughing, her head tilted and her hip jutting like a fashion model, and AirDropped them to her when we’d finished. ‘What… Has something happened with them?’

‘I put them on my Instagram,’ she said. ‘Same as I often do. It’s locked down like you won’t believe – only my sisters and a few of my friends have access. But now my dad’s seen them, and he’s going absolutely mental.’

My brain whirled. I didn’t understand – the full complexity of what was and wasn’t permitted in Zahra’s religion or more specifically within her family was a mystery to me. But clearly, what she and I had done or what she’d posted on her private social media had crossed a line.

And I’d been there. I’d been behind the camera. Therefore, what was happening was at least partly my fault. Guilt washed over me at the thought.

Zahra’s uncle Ahmet and his wife were among Devereaux Partners’ highest-spending clients. If he complained about me to Jasper, I’d be in a world of pain – but that seemed inconsequential compared to the trouble Zahra herself might be in.

‘What’s he going to do?’ I asked. ‘Your dad, I mean.’

‘Apart from giving me a massive lecture about what’s inappropriate behaviour for a married woman, which he’s already done? Make me one, as soon as he can.’

‘So your marriage – your wedding, I mean – it’s going ahead?’

‘Dad says so.’ She walked even faster, and I realised she was letting out pent-up anger and tension in the only way she could. ‘He says it’s going to happen back home in Riyadh in the autumn at the latest. Hamza – he’s my second cousin – he’s been married before, and he’s got kids older than me. He’s all right – but he’s an old man, Georgia. He’s like… sixty. I can’t imagine…’

I couldn’t imagine either. This vibrant girl, younger than I was, marrying a man my own father’s age. Her dreams of a PhD and a career in science or academia being torn away from her. Having to leave the country she loved and her friends here.

And it might be all my fault.

‘I’m so sorry.’ The words felt hopelessly inadequate. ‘I don’t know what to say, Zahra. I don’t know what to do.’

‘I needed to talk to someone,’ she said. ‘Because the thing is – even if Hamza wasn’t a bloody granddad with a massive belly and bad teeth, I wouldn’t want to marry him. I wouldn’t want to if he was the last man on the planet.’