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‘Yes, but that’s not the point. You should have brought her.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you’re her nanny. She’s your responsibility.’
‘No, Rashid. She’s your responsibility, but you like to pass it off to me and that’s a bad thing.’
‘Why?’
‘Because she’s becoming dependent on me. She’s bonding. Yesterday when I came home from our day out, Yousra was exhausted from trying to settle her.’
‘She started screaming when Yousra brought her down.’
They heard her coming, still crying as Yousra entered the apartments. ‘I’m sorry, Sheikha,’ the young woman said as Tora went to meet her, taking the child and hugging her to her chest.
‘It’s okay,’ Tora said, to both the baby and Yousra as Atiyah grabbed her hair in her tiny hands and her tears soaked her gown. ‘It’s okay.’ Tora sent Yousra off to fetch some warm milk as the baby snuffled into her, her cries slowly abating.
‘You see,’ she said, speaking softly to Rashid as she swayed. ‘I had to send her with Yousra as she’s become too attached to me. You need to get more carers or take care of her yourself.’
He looked taken aback. ‘But if she feels safe with you—’
‘I’m leaving, Rashid. Going home as soon as our marriage can be dissolved. Or had you forgotten?’
He shook his head. ‘So stay longer if Atiyah needs you. Do you need to go back straight away?’
‘Stay for how long? And then what? She grows even more dependent on me. How is that going to work? That’s no kind of solution.’
‘How much would it take to make you change your mind?’
She sighed as Yousra returned with the milk. ‘You know, Rashid, there are some things in the world that money can’t fix.’
‘Then show me how to do that,’ he growled as Tora sat down to feed Atiyah. ‘Show me how to hold her so she doesn’t cry.’
Tora blinked up at him. ‘Do you really mean it?’
‘Of course, I mean it. She is my sister. How do you think it makes me look if I do not know how to hold her?’
And Tora looked down at the infant, still snuffling, her eyes red-rimmed and puffy from crying. She could say no now, to save Atiyah any more distress, but that would be fair to neither of them. So instead she waited until the baby was a little more relaxed, her eyelids fluttering closed as she drank. ‘Then sit down and I’ll pass her over to you and maybe she won’t notice.’
Neither of them really believed that, but Rashid did as she suggested and Tora gently passed the baby over. Atiyah instantly jolted into awareness, her eyes wide open, her feeding stopped as she worked out what had changed in her world. ‘It’s okay, Atiyah, you’re safe,’ Tora crooned, even as she tried to show him how better to cradle the infant by relaxing and softening his arms.
Atiyah wasn’t convinced and in the end they both conceded defeat, letting Tora take her back.
‘I can’t stay,’ he said. ‘I have to go.’
Tora nodded, rocking the child in her arms a little as Atiyah resumed feeding, keeping her eyes open this time for any more tricks. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘It will get easier, I promise,’ and she couldn’t help smiling as he left, because Rashid had tried.
* * *
Tora’s words stayed with him as he made his way back through the palace to the meeting on foreign policy with a heavy heart made heavier by the fact that nothing seemed to work with Atiyah, even when he wanted it to. He’d tried. By God, he’d tried to do all the things Tora had told him, to relax and yet hold her securely so that she’d felt safe, to sway her gently without jerking, to comfort her.
‘There are some things in the world that money can’t fix.’ Didn’t he know it? She was preaching to the converted there. There was no amount of money he could throw at the predicament he was in and make it go away.
But surely her case was different. Why did she have to go? If she really cared about Atiyah and didn’t want to upset her, surely she could agree to stay a bit longer. She didn’t have to rush off. At least to give him enough time to get used to his new responsibilities.
Besides, he was intrigued by her, this woman who could be temptress, Madonna, businesswoman and even comforter. As she’d comforted him last night when he’d gone to her room with her quiet words and her sympathetic eyes.
And he didn’t want her to go.
Not yet.
