Page 46 of People Change

‘Did Salma go home, too, for New Year’s Eve?’ Shirin doesn’t particularly want to know but is testing something.

‘Her family lives in London, so she stayed there.’

‘Right. Cool,’ she says.

‘We broke up, by the way.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yeah. It just didn’t make sense to start something new now.’

She nods, looks up to his lips, then to his eyes, and they are even closer now. It is so at odds with their conversation, and so unlike Shirin. She is not sure what he means, but either way she is not taking it in. All she knows is that Kian is single – the reasons why are irrelevant. Even if he was unavailable, she thinks the normal rules wouldn’t apply, not with Kian. It is dangerous. She can feel his breath on her face. His fresh, citrus aftershave. She feels this longing within her to lean even closer into it. She thinks they are for sure going to kiss – of course they are – when Phoebe calls from the other room that the taxis are here, and for everyone to down their drinks.

New Year’s Day

Shirin and Phoebe are seated at Ethel’s, a café often frequented by young mothers and which serves various specialist teas and all-day breakfasts. On the table between them are eggs, pancakes and hash browns. Phoebe wanted a bit of everything and ordered various plates to pick from.

At 8 a.m. Phoebe texted Shirin to see if they were still on for brunch and if anything had happened between her and Kian. Shirin repliedYes, and that she would tell her in person.

Sitting opposite her now, it’s clear that Phoebe is either very skilled at acting or maybe she does not recognise that they had an argument. ‘Did you guys … then?’ Phoebe asks between bites of crispy hash brown. ‘Doesn’t he have a girlfriend?’

Shirin is wearing the same outfit from last night, with a black jumper that Kian lent her. It is a struggle to look her friend in the eye.

The night before, Kian took Shirin aside from the dance floor at about 1 a.m. and said he was going home. She wanted to go home too, though she was staying with Phoebe, a person who by this point she resolutely did not want to go homewith. Just beforehand, she had been in the smoking area with Phoebe. And it was in the smoking area that Shirin first saw him: Tom. One of Rob and Jordan’s friends from their schooldays. He was among a crowd of people smoking their cigarettes jubilantly after the countdown. If she had kept her head down half a minute longer, perhaps not looked in his direction at that moment, she might not have known he was there too. But she had.

‘Is that who I think it is?’ Shirin asked Phoebe. ‘Tom Possitt?’

‘Oh, yeah, it is,’ Phoebe replied. She was hammered by this point, seated on one of the benches, her head resting against a wooden support beam. ‘He’s alright now, you know.’

‘Alright?’ Shirin repeated, her voice unexpectedly sharp. ‘He’s a huge racist. That doesn’t go away with age.’

‘I don’t remember that.’

‘He was awful. How don’t you remember?’

‘It was years ago now, anyways,’ Phoebe slurred, waving her hand in the air to meanLeave it.

Shirin knew Phoebe didn’t really get the hard parts of her school experience, but this was different. Phoebe was reimagining their school experience, whitewashing it as though Phoebe’s own experience was in some way akin to Shirin’s. Like she could ever understand how it was for Shirin.

‘How can you say that?’ Shirin asked, trying to keep her voice neutral but failing. ‘He and the others terrorised me. What the fuck?’

And just when she thought Phoebe would get the memo, would apologise, like a normal human being, she did the exact opposite and waved Tom down. Tom caught Phoebe’s signals and made his way towards them – and Shirin was so surprised by this that she simply stood there. Then Tom was next to her, his shoulder almost touching hers as he greeted Phoebe.

‘You’re alright now, aren’t you, Tom?’ Phoebe said, patting his back.

Tom’s face was fatter now, compared to back then. His teeth a pale yellow. His eyes a bright green. He laughed at Phoebe, like it was all a joke. Turned to Shirin and said hello, said she looked great now, that he had seen she was working down in London. He asked her how it was, and she said nothing, looking between her close friend and her enemy like this was a terrible dream.

She considered leaving wordlessly, had her shoulder poised to turn, but then thought of her Maman Bozorg. About how she needed to defend herself, even if it frightened her, even if it was easier to run.

‘Don’t talk to me, you racist prick,’ she said through gritted teeth, jabbing her finger in Tom’s face. Then she turned to Phoebe. ‘And you – you should know better.’ She pushed her way out of the crowd of people and made her way to the dance floor, where she bumped into Kian, who had just retrieved his coat to leave.

And this was why Shirin did not want to crash at Phoebe’s, as originally planned. Her dad thought she was going to Phoebe’s house to spend New Year’s Eve, so she couldn’t return home. She explained this to Kian.

‘Jesus. You can crash at mine, if you like,’ he said. And so she went back to his.

She had never been to his house before, though she had walked past it many times back in the day. He lived in Kirk Ella, the posh part of Hull, much further away from the club than her own family house. When the taxi dropped them off, she asked if his parents would be home. Kian told her they were at a party in Leeds and they had booked a hotel for the night there.

As she entered the house, she noticed the way the floor was tiled, the hallway large and open. She left her heels by the door, walking barefoot into the house, though there were slippers for visitors in a box next to the shoe rack. It was much neater than Shirin’s mother’s past method of frantically searching the bathroom and garden for plastic slippers, when Iranian visitors arrived.