Page 6 of People Change

Mehdi’s face had crumpled at the news. His usually smooth face, quietly confident, broken.

‘The sentence can be halved with good behaviour,’ their lawyer told them afterwards. ‘So one year, really. I know it’s not what we wanted, but it could have been much worse.’

Kian imagined his brother in prison, as it’s portrayed on TV, being forced into a gang, or beaten up in the showers orsomething. He imagined Mehdi lonely, wanting his family. He felt his eyes prickling, so he slapped himself hard across the face and focused on that pain instead. He tried to think of anything other than his brother being incarcerated for one whole year.

Book Launch

Now

They are handed lukewarm wine in small paper cups. Shirin requests Shloer. It is sickly sweet but mostly resembles Prosecco, which is what she really wants. The room is buzzing with chatter and subdued laughter, and people are spilling out onto the pavement outside. It is a July evening and everyone is clinging to summer, to the light and sun and warmth, to the jubilation of it all, which they will inevitably long for again, come winter. It has been five days since Shirin saw Kian.

Hana guides Shirin now through the crowd to Abigail Underwood. Shirin and Hana were friends with Abigail at university but, since they graduated, slowly they grew apart, as many people do. They are now more like acquaintances who see each other at events, and who like each other’s Instagram pictures. They go over to Abigail to congratulate her on the release of her debut novel.

‘It’s such a gorgeous book,’ Hana says to Abigail, clutching said novel,My Corner Shop, as though it is something very dear to her. Ten minutes earlier both Shirin and Hana had complained that itisspendy at £17.99, and they had wondered whether they could get away with not buying one, whether Abigail would notice and be offended. In the end it was theguilt that they should support their peers, and small businesses – like this independent bookshop in Peckham – that propelled them to purchase a copy each.

‘Thank you,’ Abigail says. Her eyes are bright and her movements skittish. Despite these telltale signs of nerves, she puts both her arms around Hana and Shirin and says something patronising like, ‘We’re all doing so well since uni. I’m so proud of us.’

Shirin and Hana look past Abigail’s shoulder to each other and exchange A Look. They ask Abigail to sign their books, which she does, writing a different inspirational message in each one. In Shirin’s she says,I hope this encourages you to follow your dreams. It is mildly insulting because sheisfollowing her dreams and believes herself successful in such aims.

People are hovering around Abigail to speak to her, so Hana says she is going to have a fag, and Shirin keenly follows. Outside the air is cool, with a welcome breeze. They stand by the side of the shop, in the small outdoor seating area. Shirin is wearing a pink midi dress and mules. While she enjoys her outfit, she cannot escape the fact that her sense of fashion is influenced by her colleagues at Hoffman Books. They all wear mules in the summer and thick gold jewellery, as she is tonight. Following Hana’s previous comments, she washed out the peach colour in her hair. It is now bleach-blonde, cut into a long bob, and she is in desperate need of a root-bleach, with her dark roots peeking through. She has pinned her fringe away from her face with gold hair-clips and is in two minds about cutting her fringe back shorter orletting it grow. It is a constant battle every six months, as she inevitably succumbs to the curious lure of the full fringe.

Hana is wearing a kimono crop top and high-waisted black trousers. A thin strip of her stomach is showing and the skin there is smooth and tan. She customised the top herself and makes a point of telling people it’s okay when she does it, because she’s half Japanese. No one ever asks, but it is information she is keen to share, presumably to shame others for appropriating her culture.

Shirin has been friends with Hana since their first year at university. They met at the student union. Hana was sitting alone at a picnic table in the smoking area, her long dark hair partially covering her face. She looked like a goth, and Shirin had thought that was a cool, admirable look. In fact she still thinks that, though Hana no longer dresses as a goth. Shirin asked if she and the two people she was with could sit there for a bit. Hana let them, and an hour later Shirin’s hall-mates had left to dance, while Hana and Shirin were embroiled in conversation about some celebrity – likely Justin, and whether he was back together with Selena. It turned out Hana wasn’t at Queen Mary’s, but Central Saint Martins. She’d come to the student union with her friend, who did go there. Said friend had got with someone, leaving Hana behind. Shirin thinks it was fate that brought them together. That if Hana’s friend hadn’t got with someone that night, so much of their lives would be different. For their three years at university they were a duo, they went to every party, every event, together. They were inseparable.

Hana arrived in Shirin’s life when she needed her most. When Shirin and Kian had stopped talking, she’d acutelyrealised how much she had been holding her breath around her home-town friends, that there were certain subjects she did not broach because it would be uncomfortable, and potentially painful. With Hana it was never like that. Though, despite her early realisation that with Hana she could speak unrestrained and be truly accepted, Shirin did not tell her about the things that happened to her during her school days. In fact, she hasn’t told anyone she’s met in adulthood about that time, adopting the approach that if you don’t speak about something, it never happened.

There are clusters of people around them now, making connections and introductions. Shirin and Hana are not included in this. They lean against the shop window, and Hana lights up. ‘I can’t believe Abigail wrote a book,’ Hana says. ‘Who has the time for that?’

Shirin looks at the inside cover, at the blurb there. TheGuardianhas praised it as being a ‘Superb future classic’, and theIndependentas ‘A shrewd look at being working-class today … a breathtaking debut.’ Shirin reads this aloud, to annoy Hana.

‘Is she really working-class, though?’ Hana asks. She is not quiet when she says this, and Shirin tells her toshh. ‘At uni she was all about wearing vintage Burberry that was her mum’s, or that Prada backpack that she says she got cheap, but how cheap can a Prada backpack really be?’

‘You can wear designer clothes and be working-class,’ Shirin says.

Hana turns to her, blows a puff of smoke out of the right corner of her mouth, away from Shirin. ‘That makes no sense.’

‘It’s not black and white,’ Shirin says, though she does not quite know the parameters. She does know that what Hana is saying is likely incorrect, with envy clouding her words.

‘Maybe I should write a book,’ Hana muses. ‘About all the fuckboys I’ve met. I can set it in Japan. That’d get publishers excited, right?’

Shirin snorts. ‘Yeah, right. Since when did you want to write a book, anyway?’ Hana has always wanted to be a stylist. She studied Fashion Communication at Central Saint Martins, though partway through her course she came to the realisation that she didn’t want to be a journalist. She would put off writing essays until the night before, eventually producing something quick and scrappy. She left university with a 2.2, with minimal effort. She is intelligent, but refuses to put work into things she does not care about, which Shirin thinks might be smarter than people who put too much of their time into things that add little joy or value to their lives.

‘Well, I have a lot to say,’ Hana retorts. Her face is tight now. Shirin does not doubt that Hana has enough stories to fill a novel. Despite them being close friends for so many years and divulging everything about themselves to each other, there are still things Shirin doesn’t know about Hana. She has never been to her family house, where she currently lives, in Woolwich – a temporary measure until she finds full-time work. Hana says her family are weird about people visiting. Shirin has never questioned internally what that means, let alone out loud.

‘You could write a really great book,’ Shirin soothes. ‘A novel for the millennial times.’ She moves her hand ahead ofher as she speaks, as though the words are written in the stars, or the equivalent newspaper headlines.

‘I’m going to do it one day.’

‘I’m not doubting it,’ Shirin says, doubting it.

Hana will forget about this new-found dream of hers tonight, or when the shininess of Abigail’s launch party has worn off. Shirin has seen this happen many times; Hana’s mind flip-flops between dreams and goals because she is easily influenced by others. She shuts her eyes and inhales Hana’s smoke.

‘Why did you leave the party on Saturday so early, anyway?’ Hana asks. ‘You never said.’

‘I had a headache,’ Shirin lies, badly.

Hana takes another long drag, before saying, ‘Right, sure you did. Does this have anything to do with the guy you were talking to?’