The Worst of Me (8 page)

‘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 human 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.

‘Terrific, you’re in that kind of mood,’ Paul said. ‘I can’t joke with you, I can’t talk to you, I can only make you unfathomably angry.’

I didn’t answer, just kept clicking, typing things into
search boxes. I’d found Jonah’s username – everyone at school had to use the same format, their initials and then a four digit code based on their birthday and school year. And Nashriq, Dom, Steve, a lot of other sixth-form boys I didn’t know. Lewis popped up now and again to supply dorky science facts against creationism.

On the whole, though, it was like Dee had said. There were dozens of links posted by Jonah, Dom and Steve to stories about oppression in the Middle East and Asia, consequences of Sharia law, honour killings, bombings of girls’ schools, execution. In between these were long threads of discussion, Jonah’s side getting more sarcastic as Nashriq’s side got angrier. It was hard to keep a clear head when I was trying to read it. And some of the posts had been deleted by a school moderator, but the replies were left, making it obvious what had been said.

Nash:
You’re free to believe all religion is ‘mumbo jumbo from bongo bongo land’ if you like, but it is a very simplistic view. To compare Islam to witch doctors just shows how little you understand.

Whether an all-powerful being created Earth or whether it just randomly appeared out of absolute nothingness is something everyone needs to work out for themselves. Religion should not be used to answer questions about science and it’s misleading to say all followers of religion use it for that reason. There are
Christians who don’t believe in evolution and Christians who’ve furthered scientific advancement. There have been great Islamic scientists throughout history. There doesn’t have to be a conflict
.

You have also misrepresented ‘Islamic law’ as you call it (i.e. the Madhahib) but it’s clear, given the level of your debate up to now, that you haven’t read anything about the thing you’re mocking. The simple fact is that portraying Islam as a deeply divided group of sects, all constantly fighting over minor interpretations is false. I won’t pretend the Islamic community is a shining example of unity, but there are beliefs that are important to us that do unite us. NOT violent beliefs.

Steve:
Muslims are united? Presumably you all agree with the parts of the Koran that say the sun orbits the Earth, not to mention the belief that all homosexuals and adulterous women should be stoned to death.

Nashriq’s posts were angry, but clear and clever, and made sense to me. My friends’ posts were more like taunts, especially Steve’s, and Steve didn’t listen to a word Nash said, he just kept repeating whatever he’d said. But even so . . . Jonah’s links made depressing reading. If the horrible things they claimed were happening in Islamic countries were true, then wasn’t it right that Jonah and his friends showed people what was really going on, what the consequences of religious beliefs were? They didn’t only talk about Muslims:
there were posts about zealous Christians in America, too: creationists, polygamists, Christians who believed that American soldiers deserved to die, not because they were fighting wars and killing people, but because the US army allowed homosexuals to enlist – they went to soldiers’ funerals to scream hate-filled taunts. But reading about them wouldn’t make me believe that an average British vicar had the same opinions, just because they were all Christians. So why did Nashriq think my friends were attacking the whole Islamic religion, just because they were pointing out abuses in the name of Islam? And, even if that was their intention, how was it the same as racism?