The Worst of Me

  On the way back, Jonah and I fell a little behind the others, walking with our arms around each other, and we reached the school gates at the same time as Ian and Sophie.

  ‘Oh, hi Cass,’ Ian said.

  ‘Hi,’ Sophie said. One syllable, and it managed to sound silvery and breathy and feminine. I always thought I sounded like a teenage boy whose voice was just about to break.

  ‘Hi,’ I croaked.

  Jonah squeezed my waist.

  ‘I can’t remember . . . did Issy say you were coming round to her thing tonight?’ Ian said. ‘I’ll be passing through, obviously, so . . . might see you later?’

  ‘Um, yeah I might be,’ I said, feeling a bit helpless. Isobel hadn’t asked me round to hers, although we did usually spend Friday nights watching a film there. Josette’s party had been the only recent exception.

  ‘Girls’ night tonight, then?’ Jonah said, as we walked in. I’d told him that Ian had been my boyfriend before him, and he’d seemed reassuringly uninterested, just a little smirk playing around his mouth when he said he knew him. A good response, I thought.

  ‘It’s just what we usually . . .’

  ‘No, no! Only a crazy person would try to muscle in on a girls’ night. I’ll make sure my compadres and I get up to something appropriately manly as a response. Maybe we’ll start a fight in a snooker hall.’

  ‘Just make sure you don’t get Lewis into trouble. His mum’ll kill you.’

  During afternoon registration, Isobel leaned back on two chair legs and sang, ‘Caaass-i-deeee!’

  ‘Iiiiii-so-belllll!’ I sang back.

  ‘My place tonight for the usual? Or are you blowing us out for a hot date?’ She grinned around the pencil she was chewing. Good, so I was invited after all. In spite of the snub of Josette’s party, I’d really been the one neglecting my mates this week, not spending lunch hours with them and never going out in the evening because I was trying to bank good-girl points with my mum in the hope of negotiating longer weekend nights out.

  ‘Who is this hot date, anyway?’ Dee said, joining me as we headed out of the classroom. ‘Sorry you couldn’t make it last week, by the way, but the film was terrible anyway.’

  ‘No, I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘And I bet the film I ended up seeing was a lot worse. He’s called Jonah. I’ll point him out to you the next time I see him.’

  ‘Jonah . . . he’s not in our year, then? Sixth-former?’

  ‘One of the new ones.’

  ‘Ahh, okay.’ A look of disappointment, somehow, flashed over her face, but it was gone so quickly that I wondered if I’d imagined it.

  ‘What have you got next? Physics?’

  ‘Yeah. Double: over an hour of Mr Hapssen’s armpits. You?’

  ‘Freeeee period!’

  ‘They’re called study periods?’ she said sarcastically.

  I cackled like a Bond villain.

  Our form tutor called her over: ‘Diyanah, can I talk to you before you go?’

  ‘The day just gets better,’ she whispered to me. ‘We’ve got English later, right? I want to catch up with you.’

  ‘Yeah, last period. And me too. We can come up with something new to make people tut at us.’

  She winked.

  Chapter 6

  At first, it wasn’t even weird. It was just me and the girls, doing magazine quizzes, watching telly rather than the movie we’d rented because every time someone tried to put the DVD in, another of us would go, ‘Can I just see what happens in ’Stenders?’ or some other programme. And talking, and laughing and screaming sometimes so that Isobel’s mum came in and told us to keep it down.

  But then Ian came in and decided to join us. This had happened a few times since Ian and I broke up. Not to begin with, but when it became obvious that Ian and I were going to be cool with each other. Tonight, when he sat down, it was obvious that he was a bit drunk. He was louder even before he started talking: his breathing, bigger, clumsier movements, just a kind of buzz around him. He started off just talking about the programme we had on, then he suddenly said, ‘Cassidy?’ and everyone jumped.

  ‘Hey, Ian,’ I said, as if he’d just walked in the door.

  ‘So what’s the deal with Jonah? How long have you known him?’

  ‘Well, about as long as you, I guess,’ I said.

  ‘How come? Where did you meet him? In school?’

  ‘No, I, er, it was just at a café, I mean, we were both in . . .’ I trailed off, because I could tell the others were finding the conversation as weird as me.

  ‘I dunno,’ Ian said. ‘I probably shouldn’t say anything. But I’m not sure he’s a nice guy. I know there’s no reason you should listen to me, and that it’s weird me saying that and —’

  ‘It is weird,’ Isobel said. ‘Shut up, Ian.’

  ‘Yeah, sorry,’ Ian said. He ran his hand over his hair. Then he sat with us in silence for another couple of minutes, while I tried to work out how I was going to ask him the right questions to follow this up. But just as I was getting them straight in my head, he’d stood up again and walked out without a word.

  ‘Has he said something to you?’ I asked Isobel.

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘So . . . ?’ I frowned. ‘What does he mean? He must have said something.’

  ‘He would seem to be a bit . . . jealous? Could that be it?’ Finian said.

  ‘I mean, guys, it could be,’ Isobel said. ‘But he’s – no offence, Cass – properly loved up. I mean, they get on really well, him and Soph. Honestly, though, he hasn’t said anything to me. I would have said. Well, maybe I wouldn’t, but I would say now. I promise.’

  ‘You can still be jealous even if you have a new girlfriend, can’t you?’ Finian said. ‘You can still have feelings for someone even if you’ve moved on. I read somewhere that it’s worse for boys than girls, in fact.’

  ‘What does he know about Jonah, though?’ Kim asked.

  I could see on their faces that they were running through the possibilities. It was embarrassing and annoying, and I wanted to run after Ian and yell at him. The only possible explanation was jealousy, and I knew all about still having feelings for someone even when you’d fallen for someone else. Like, if they were ever yours, you still own a piece of them. But I would never let feelings like that show. Ian and Sophie had been going out for months now and I would have died rather than walk into a room full of Ian’s friends and say something bitchy about Sophie.

  ‘Shall we put the film on?’ Isobel said, and everyone agreed.

  On Saturday morning I had a shopping date with Sam. He’d agreed to restyle me to ‘match’ Jonah. His theory was that it was really important that a couple looked like a couple, like they belonged with each other, and not like they’d ‘both received invitations to a party with different dress codes written on them’. But Sam and Jonah hadn’t met, so Sam needed to make sure we were talking about the same person.

  ‘Otherwise,’ Sam said, ‘I’m going to style you as someone else’s girlfriend, and when you get around to meeting him sparks will fly.’

  ‘If only things worked like that!’

  ‘He’s the black-haired white Malton boy, right?’ Sam said.

  ‘Well, there can’t just be one.’

  ‘The one I’m thinking of is very good looking.’

  ‘I’m obviously going to agree with that.’

  ‘Friends with a big block of blond beefcake – the aforementioned rugby player? And a weirdy beardy.’

  ‘That’s definitely him.’

  ‘I think the trouble is, we would do better styling him to match you.’

  ‘Aw, Sam, thank you! I think . . .’

  We headed round the usual places, Sam relaxing in changing rooms while I made myself hot and sweaty squeezing into clothes that I thought would tear, tangling myself up in underslips and realising too late that there was a side zip. More than once, I caught him trying to hide a smirk.

  ‘Okay, Sam, what’s the look we’re going for???
?

  ‘Ali MacGraw.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘As long as I know, you don’t have to worry. You can google her later.’

  ‘Has she got curly hair?’

  ‘No. The opposite. Very very straight.’

  ‘Then it’s never gonna happen.’

  ‘Can’t we straighten your hair?’

  ‘You’re always telling me not to straighten my hair.’

  ‘And I’m right. Never straighten it. Okay, try these.’ He handed me a pair of white trousers.

  ‘You have to be kidding.’

  ‘Wait till you see the full look.’

  I ended up buying a drop-waisted sailor-suit dress, which might sound hideous but honestly, you’d like it. Well, maybe you wouldn’t, but it suited me. Yes, Sam picked it.

  As we were heading into the bus station, we ran into Dee and her older sister Afiqah. There was twenty minutes till our bus, and we waited with them in the coffee shop. Afiqah was at university, but she lived at home.

  ‘I’m thinking of not going to university,’ Sam said, biting the chocolate off a Twix.

  ‘Why not?’ Afiqah said.

  ‘First of all, I’m not that bright, so I would have to work really hard to get there. Then I’d have to work really hard if I got there. And what for? It’s no real help in getting a job.’

  ‘Well that’s not true,’ Afiqah said. ‘And what about, you know, sounds corny, but the life experience? And you’re not really convincing me that this is why.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Sam said. ‘It’s not about the work, and it’s not about the job. It’s . . . I don’t think I would like the people there.’

  ‘There are so many kinds of people there,’ Afiqah said. ‘You’d like someone. There would be someone for you. I don’t mean romantically. Although, you know, in terms of meeting other guys you’d be hard pressed to find anywhere as cool and understanding as university.’

  ‘Again, I know all that is true,’ Sam said. ‘But there seems to be a university personality that everyone there shares, and it’s sort of . . . desperately having fun.’

  Afiqah laughed. ‘Am I one of these desperate funsters?’

  Sam paused, his lips twitched with a smile. ‘You’re just naturally fun,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll take that,’ Afiqah said. ‘Listen, don’t set yourself off on a path where you define yourself by this decision. You’ll get used to telling people, it’ll be a part of you: “Oh, I’m not going to university.” You’ll like saying it, you’ll enjoy the response and get better at shocking them with it. And then it becomes harder every year to break free from it.’

  He rubbed his hair with his hands. ‘You’re so smart. I can see myself doing that, actually,’ he said. ‘Oh, look, sorry, I didn’t mean to make this a counselling session about me for me! Everyone talk about other things now!’

  ‘Well, now my mind’s gone blank,’ Dee said.

  ‘We could talk about Cassidy’s hot new boyfriend,’ Sam said.

  Dee started to say something and then stopped very quickly, so this weird half-word came out of her mouth but she didn’t correct it. She glanced at her sister, who glanced back.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘What?’ she said.

  ‘What were you going to say? And what was with the look?’

  ‘There was no look!’ Dee said.

  ‘Oh, there was a look,’ I said.

  Dee pushed herself away from the table with both hands. ‘Pffff,’ she said.

  I just waited. Sam didn’t say anything.

  ‘Your boy and his friends making names for themselves,’ Dee said. ‘I don’t think they’re good names, and I don’t know how serious it is.’

  I felt sick to the stomach. And in her face, I recognised Ian’s expression at Isobel’s house.

  ‘Malton boys are never popular,’ Sam said. ‘It’s a jealousy thing. And some of them are hotties, so that goes double.’

  ‘What is it, Dee?’ I said. ‘What are people saying? And who’s saying it?’

  ‘There’s . . .’ She stopped, thought, carried on. ‘There’s some guys who’ve been saying they’re racists. And quite seriously. Like they’ve got something to prove. I know you, and I know you wouldn’t go out with a racist, and obviously if he was a racist, it would have come up, right?’

  I frowned. ‘This is just crazy. Of course they’re not racist.’

  ‘Look, you know them, and I don’t, Cass,’ Dee said.

  ‘But why?’ I said. I looked at my watch. The bus would be here soon, and Dee and Afiqah went a different way. I didn’t mind missing mine if I could get to the bottom of this.

  ‘I don’t know much about it,’ Dee said. ‘There’s some kind of online project some sixth-formers have been working on, including my brother. And there’s a lot of fighting on it, they’re talking about closing it down because it’s too controversial or argumentative or . . . disruptive, or one of those things. And your boyfriend – Joe, Jonah? – is one of the ones in the middle of it all.’

  ‘You have looked it up, then?’ Afiqah said.

  ‘Barely,’ Dee said. ‘After Nash told me about it, I had a look. I mean arguably what they’re saying isn’t racist, it’s against all religions. But you can’t decontextualise statements.’

  My head got woolly when people were using words like ‘decontextualise’, particularly when I was already reeling. I knew what she was talking about, they’d mentioned it a lot, laughing at how riled up the old school boys were getting.

  ‘Religion?’ I said, dumbly. They talked about religion all the time. They were very very anti. ‘What’s that got to do with racism?’

  ‘Again, this is not my opinion, I really don’t know enough,’ Dee said. ‘But what people – well, Nashriq and his mates – are saying is that they seem to have a particular problem with Muslims. And there are a lot of Muslims at our school who are getting pretty upset about the way they’re talking, and, well, as far as I know it’s all hitting the fan.’

  I felt my skin turn red. They did talk about Muslims with me there – it seemed like a taboo-breaking way of joking, because everyone knew Muslims didn’t let anyone talk about their religion. Was that a racist way of thinking? Was it even true?

  ‘But they’re not being racist,’ I said. ‘It’s about them rejecting all organised religion. Because it starts wars, it’s the reason almost everyone on the planet who’s fighting is fighting. The Catholic church’s line on contraception and the spread of AIDS. The oppression of women. Homophobic attacks.’

  I tried to make this sound all blah blah blah, as if everyone agreed about these things, but I knew I was on shaky ground. Not because Dee and her sister were religious – as far as I knew they weren’t. They didn’t drink, but they’d always joined in Christmas stuff at primary school and their mum dressed like my mum, but better. The problem was that I was using borrowed arguments and if my friends had followed up on anything I would have been lost, and have had to admit it. The clever thing would have been to admit right from the start that I didn’t know what I was talking about. I didn’t look at Sam. Including homophobia on my bluffed list was a cheap shot that I knew wouldn’t come off well.

  Dee spoke carefully. ‘Honestly? I would say that there is not much there that is, by itself, racist, as we understand racist. But Nash has been getting a lot more political recently.’

  ‘Maybe it’s got something to do with him arguing about this at school all the time,’ Afiqah said. They shared a smile.

  ‘So in a way, quite honestly, I think Nashriq is looking to be offended,’ Dee said. ‘But, in a way . . .’

  ‘You’re offended?’ I said.

  ‘Some of it is not good. But like I said, it’s mainly about . . .’ She breathed out and began again slowly, trying to unravel a tangle of thoughts. ‘The context is that we are living in a country where there is a lot of mistrust and false assumptions, especially about Muslims, and your . . . friends are posting links to news stories about hum
an rights abuses in Islamic countries. But you could start listing abuse of human rights all over the world and you would never stop. And yes, there would be Islamic countries on that list, but as far as your friends are concerned that’s it, stop there, forget about atrocities in non-Muslim countries. The sites they’re linking to are often dodgy, and the stories are written in a way that’s designed to make people look uncivilised and barbaric. And it’s just like, “There, look what they’re like!” But a lot of it.’

  ‘You’re making it sound like BNP literature,’ I said.

  ‘Look, there’s our bus,’ Dee said. ‘Why don’t you go home, read it – just search the school website, discussions, and think about it. I’m sure you know what you’re doing, and you know them better than me. Maybe they don’t know what they’re doing, maybe if you talk to Jonah he’d be surprised there was this reaction.’

  After they’d gone, Sam and I sat quietly. Sam stirred the dry foam at the bottom of his paper cup.

  ‘That’ll be our bus now,’ he said.

  ‘Sam.’

  ‘It’ll be fine,’ he said. ‘It’s obviously a sixth-form thing. Or a Malton-Bond thing. Or a dick-measuring thing.’

  ‘Maybe it’s not him,’ I said. ‘When I’ve heard them talking, it’s really Steve who’s into this, the others are just giving Steve the excuse to listen to the sound of his own voice.’

  ‘It’ll be fine,’ he said again, but we both stared out of the bus window on the way back, and when we reached my stop I felt almost too exhausted to walk home.

  ‘I’m sure that’s homework,’ Paul said, in his annoying ‘joke’ voice, when I was clicking on the school site to find the discussion. I really didn’t have time to joke about how much time I wasted on the internet.

  ‘How about you look at the writing at the top of the window,’ I said flatly, not looking up. ‘Oh yes, Samuel Bond School, my school, that would in fact make it homework, wouldn’t it? And it’s Saturday, and if I have homework I don’t actually have to do it today, but it turns out I am doing. So I’m trying to work out what your problem with this is . . .’ I narrowed one eye, as if really considering it.