This is my response to the exercise in The Scrivener’s Forge on point of view, examining an incident from the point of view of two different characters.

Ayesha came to him.

“Zami, I’m pregnant.”

He said the usual silly things men say – What? How? Why? Are you sure?

‘It will be all right, won’t it?’ she asked. ‘You must marry me.’

‘Your brothers will never allow it,” he temporised.

“My brothers and father will kill me if I have a baby and I am unmarried.”

The moment of betrayal is always agonising. You recite for yourself all the reasons that make it right.  There’s duty. There’s the uncomfortable truth that you already have a wife and two vaguely C of E kids.  And those are good justifications. But you can only betray what you first love.

He walked away. He looked back once, and shed a tear.

…………………………………………………………………..

Ayesha tracked him down.

“Zami, I’m pregnant.”

She searched his eyes as he stammered and asked all the stupid, obvious, irrelevant questions. She wanted to see love there, concern, and maybe even joy. She saw fear.

‘It will be all right, won’t it?’ she asked. ‘You must marry me.’

‘Your brothers will never allow it,’

How could he not understand? “My brothers and father will kill me if I have a baby and I am unmarried.”

The sound of her voice came to her through the numb bone of her skull flat, factual, unemotional. But her body shook.

She saw it in his eyes before he said anything. She saw his need for her, perhaps even caring. But his love was insufficient. Or maybe his duty was misplaced. Either way, she understood this was going to be her problem, not theirs. Men were animals, just like Mama said. Her arm lashed out, intending to slap him.

He flinched but didn’t draw away. She stopped her hand, an inch from his face, caressed his cheek and then spat in his face.