Believing the Lie Read Online Free PDF Page B

smile, “Want to feel how much?”
    “Hmmm. No. Let’s let it build.”
    “Bastard.”
    “I thought that’s how you like it, Ian.”
    “First time you’ve smiled since you walked in the door. Tough day?”
    “Not really,” Kav said. “Just a lot of work and not enough help. You?”
    “No.” They both drank then, eyes on each other. Kav smiled again. Ian moved towards him. Kav moved away. He tried to make it look as if his attention had been caught by the gleam of cutlery or the low bowl of flowers on the table, but Ian wasn’t deceived. What he thought in reaction was what any man would think when he’s twelve years older than his lover and he’s given up everything to be with him.
    At twenty-eight there would be any number of reasons Kavehcould give in explanation of why he wasn’t ready to settle down. Ian wasn’t prepared to hear them, however, because he knew there was only one that served as the truth. This truth was a form of hypocrisy, and the presence of hypocrisy was central to every argument they’d had in the last year.
    “Know what today is?” Ian asked, raising his glass again.
    Kav nodded but he looked chagrined. “Day we met. I’d forgotten. Too much going on up at Ireleth Hall, I think. But then—” He indicated the table. Ian knew he meant not only the setup but also the trouble he’d gone to with the dinner. “When I saw this, it came to me. And I feel like a bloody wretch, Ian. I’ve nothing for you.”
    “Ah. No matter,” Ian told him. “What I want is right here and it’s yours to give.”
    “You’ve already got it, haven’t you?”
    “You know what I mean.”
    Kaveh walked to the window and flicked the heavy closed curtains open a crack as if to check where the daylight had gone to, but Ian knew that he was trying to work out what it was he wanted to say and the thought that he might want to say what Ian didn’t want to hear caused his head to begin its telltale throbbing and a flash of bright stars to course across his vision. He blinked hard as Kaveh spoke.
    “Signing a book in a registry office doesn’t make us any more official than we already are.”
    “That’s bollocks,” Ian said. “It makes us more than official. It makes us legal. It gives us standing in the community and, what’s more important, it tells the world—”
    “We don’t need standing. We already have it as individuals.”
    “—and what’s more important,” Ian repeated, “it tells the world—”
    “Well, that’s just it, isn’t it?” Kaveh said sharply. “The world, Ian. Think about it. The world. And everyone in it.”
    Carefully, Ian set his wineglass on the table. He knew he should get the meat and carve it, get the veg and serve them, sit, eat, and let the rest go. Go upstairs afterwards and have each other properly. But on this night of all nights, he couldn’t bring himself to do anythingmore but say what he’d already said to his partner more than a dozen times and what he’d sworn he wouldn’t say tonight: “You asked me to come out and I did. For you. Not for myself, because it didn’t matter to me and even if it had, there were too many people involved and what I did—for you—was as good as stabbing them through their throats. And that was fine by me because it was what you wanted, and I finally realised—”
    “I
know
all this.”
    “Three years is long enough to hide, you said. You said, ‘Tonight you decide.’ In
front
of them you said it, Kav, and in front of them I decided. Then I walked out. With you. Have you
any
idea—”
    “Of course I do. D’you think I’m a stone? I
have
a bloody idea, Ian. But we’re not talking about just living together, are we? We’re talking about marriage.
And
we’re talking about my
parents
.”
    “People adjust,” Ian said. “That’s what you told me.”
    “People. Yes. Other people. They adjust. But not them. We’ve been through this before. In my culture—
their
culture—”
    “You’re part of this