to Camden High Street. And she didn't know where we were going when we set off. It was something of a joke anyway. She was listening to some pop group and I was giving her aggro about them and she was saying how great they are and I decided to show her some real rock 'n' rock and I took her down to the Virgin Megastore but I didn't know it was forbidden and she didn't know where we were going." Barbara was out of breath. She felt like an adolescent getting caught for being out after curfew. She didn't much like it. She calmed herself and said, "If I'd known you'd forbidden her to go to Camden High Street, I never would have taken her there. I'm dead sorry, Azhar. She didn't mention it straightaway."
"Which is the source of my irritation with Hadiyyah," Azhar said. "She should have done so."
"But, like I said, she didn't know where we were going till we got there."
"Once you arrived, was she wearing a blindfold?"
"Of course not. But then it was too late. I didn't exactly give her a chance to say something."
"Hadiyyah should not need an invitation to be truthful."
"Okay. Agreed. It happened, and it won't happen again. At least let her keep the CD."
Azhar glanced away. His dark fingers-so slender, they looked like a girl's-moved beneath his trim jacket to the pocket of his pristine white shirt. He felt there and brought forth a packet of cigarettes. He shook one out, appeared to think about what to do next, and then offered the packet to Barbara. She took this as a positive sign. Their fingers brushed as she took a cigarette from him, and he lit a match that he shared with her.
"She wants you to stop smoking," Barbara told him.
"She wants many things. As do we all."
"You're angry. Come in. Let's talk about this."
He remained where he was.
"Azhar, listen. I know what you're worried about, Camden High Street and all that. But you can't protect her from everything. It's impossible."
He shook his head. "I don't seek to protect her from everything. I merely seek to do what's right. But I find that I don't always know what that is."
"Being exposed to Camden High Street isn't going to pollute her. And Buddy Holly"-here Barbara gestured with the CD-"isn't going to pollute her either."
"It's not Camden High Street or Buddy Holly that comprises my concern," Azhar said. "It is the lie, Barbara."
"Okay. I can see that. But it was only a lie of omission. She just didn't tell me when she could have told me. Or should have told me. Or whatever."
"That is not it at all."
"What is it, then?"
"She lied to me, Barbara."
"To you? About-"
"And this is something I will not accept."
"But when? When did she lie to you?"
"When I asked her about the CD. She said you had given it to her-"
"Azhar, that was true."
"-but she failed to include the information about where it had come from. That in itself slipped out when she was chatting about CDs in general. About how many there were to choose from at the Virgin Megastore."
"Bloody hell, Azhar, that's not a lie, is it?"
"No. But the outright denial of having been in the Virgin Megastore is. And this is something that I will not accept. Hadiyyah is not to start that with me. She will not begin lying. She will not. Not to me." His voice was so controlled and his features so rigid that Barbara realised far more was being discussed than his daughter's initial venture into prevarication.
She said, "Okay. I get it. But she feels wretched. Whatever your point is, I think you made it."
"I hope so. She must learn that there are consequences to the decisions she makes, and she must learn this as a child."
"I don't disagree. But..." Barbara drew in on her cigarette before she dropped it to the front step and ground it out. "It seems like making her admit her wrongdoing to me-sort of like in public?-is punishment enough. I think you should let her keep the CD."
"I've decided the consequences."
"You can bend, though, can't you?"
"Too far," he said, "and you break on the wheel of your own inconsistencies."
"What happens then?" Barbara asked him. When he didn't reply, she went on quietly with, "Hadiyyah and lying...This isn't really what it's all about. Is it, Azhar."
He replied, "I will not have her start," and he stepped back, preparatory to leaving. He added politely, "I have kept you from