Page 29 of People Change

They lean in slowly, inch by inch, at the same time, their faces so close to each other that their breaths mingle together.

‘When you’re not drunk,’ he breathes.

She shakes her head. ‘But if I’m not drunk I won’t let myself have this.’

He moves his head back then, eyebrows cast together in a frown. ‘What do you mean?’

Millie comes out to the garden, half whispering, half shouting that they need to leave before her housemate, the live-in landlady, comes home in ten minutes.

The boldness and closeness that Shirin felt in that moment slips away, a heaviness instantly settling in her heart. Their conversation is not resumed.

Wetherby Prison

Then

Wetherby Young Offender Institution was an hour away. For the car ride, Kian’s mum brought a flask of chai, with three porcelain cups that clanked against each other in a plastic bag. When she asked if he wanted any, a packet of ginger biscuits also in hand, Kian shook his head. The thought of consuming anything right then was unpleasant and unfathomable. His stomach was in knots. It was the first time he had been to visit his brother since he had been sent away.

He hadn’t been yet on purpose. When his parents had asked why he didn’t want to come, he’d given them feeble excuses, like that he had already planned to play football with his friends Koyer, Ahmed and Teddy. That, without him, they wouldn’t be able to play against another team. Or that he’d forgotten he had homework to do that would take him all day. They’d never pushed, but he’d seen the confusion in the furrow of their brows. They couldn’t understand why Kian didn’t want to see his best friend – the person who’d defended him and been sent down because of it.

Breathe.

When they pulled into the car park outside the prison he wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but it wasn’t what stood beforehim. The building was more depressing in its mundanity than he’d thought it would be, not helped by the grey cloud-filled sky looming over it. The tall barbed-wired fences were a grim reminder of the purpose of the place they were walking towards.

‘They’ll do a search,’ his mum said, clutching her bag to her front, looking ahead as they walked towards the entrance. ‘Just let them do it. Your dad tried to argue with them one time and it didn’t go well.’ Kian’s father was walking ahead and turned round at this. He was sure his dad had more grey hair at his temples now, contrasting with his black hair. His dad frowned and opened his mouth to argue his point. ‘They wanted me to take my trousers off – I didn’t see them do that to anyone else!’

Kian looked from his mum to his dad, at first mildly amused, but then with a sense of dread that they could do that to him, too.

‘Payam, not now,’ his mum said, both gentle and firm. She turned to Kian with a softened expression. ‘It’ll be fine, don’t worry, azizam.’

She ran her fingers through his hair and he moved away from her, muttering, ‘Stop it.’

When they arrived at the reception they signed in and gave their passports to the receptionist to check. They put their belongings in a nearby locker. The guards were a mixture of races, which surprised Kian, because from the TV shows his mum watched, likeBad Girls, they were always white and mean-looking.

Kian and his parents were escorted to another room, where they were searched. They lightly patted his mum, butasked Kian and his dad to take off their jackets and shoes, and then their bodies were tapped with a roughness. It was like going through airport security. Whenever they went away, Kian, his dad and his brother were always asked to move to the side for a deeper search. It was because they were Middle Eastern. He would watch white families passing them by, not being violated by airport security, not being treated like criminals because of their race.

After they were searched, they were taken into a room with other visitors and sat in their assigned seats at the back. The visitor room was akin to a hospital waiting room. The seats they sat on were faux leather, grey and bulky, curved at the back, with no armrest. His mum sat in the middle, between Kian and his dad. There was a scuffed, orange coffee table in front of them, and on the other side of the table was a similar chair to the ones they were sitting on but this one was orange. There was no decoration, and he wondered whether this was to make the experience more depressing or whether it was so that the prisoners couldn’t use something as a weapon.

Looking around, Kian saw a blonde woman in her thirties with a young child on her lap to one side of him, and two Asian men who must have been in their early twenties to the other side. Directly across from them was an elderly couple. Despite their differences, he could see in all their faces a desperate kind of hope. It was the kind of expression that made him sad – like they were trying to be positive in the midst of a miserable situation. He saw so much of himself in it, and hadn’t realised that that was what he looked like, until he saw how obvious it was in others.

After a few minutes the prisoners flooded into the room. Kian shifted in his seat, before looking at his parents. His mum had her hands clasped tightly together, the tops of her fingers pink. His dad looked blankly ahead. He wanted them to say something, break the ice, make the moment less tense, but instead it dragged on.

Mehdi arrived in a blur. He was escorted by a police officer. At first Kian didn’t recognise his brother. It hadn’t been that long – just over a month – but Mehdi had the beginnings of a beard now and was visibly slimmer. He wore a baggy grey cotton sweatshirt and jogging bottoms, the same as all the other inmates who’d come out for their visits. He had shaved a slash in his left eyebrow, which was the first thing Kian noticed as Mehdi drew closer. His brother broke into a smile on seeing Kian, and he couldn’t help his own grin in return.

‘K,’ Mehdi said.

Kian half rose, but his mum put her hand on his thigh to push him back down. He remembered one of the rules was that they should remain seated, that they couldn’t hug. He plopped himself back down.

There was small talk, as his mum and dad asked Mehdi how he was doing, whether there was anything he needed, whether he had received the books and clothing he had requested. Mehdi barely read, so Kian was surprised when he’d asked his mum on the phone if she could get him Malcolm X’s biography. His mum had said he was taking Islam more seriously in prison. It wasn’t that Mehdi hadn’t been religious before. The whole family were Muslim, though they didn’treally practise it. The only time Kian had seen Mehdi pray was at their uncle’s funeral, when everyone had their heads bowed down as he was lowered into the coffin. Some of the people Mehdi had hung out with in the outside world had said things like ‘Inshallah’ and ‘Mashallah’, but Kian was pretty sure a few were drug dealers, which seemed at odds with their religion.

Kian struggled to look his brother in the eye. Their dad and mum asked them what they wanted from the vending machine, and Mehdi requested a KitKat and a Twix almost immediately. Kian shook his head and said he wasn’t hungry. He knew his parents were leaving them both alone because they thought it would be what they wanted. But it wasn’t what Kian wanted. He felt his heart quickening, his body clammy and cold. He wanted to get out of there.

‘You’re quiet,’ Mehdi said.

Kian looked up then, into his brother’s eyes, finally. There was a softness in them, a reminder that this was Mehdi, the boy he’d grown up playingTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtleswith, and who he loved. Whose life Kian had aided in fucking up.

Breathe.

‘What’s it like in here?’ Kian asked.