Page 60 of People Change

‘I, like many of you, couldn’t avoid the outcry surrounding Rob Grayson’s memoir being published – and then his deal being cancelled. It bothered me that the sole reason his publishers pulled the book was because of bullying and endless tirades by people who hadn’t even read it. Objectivity is so important in our business. Our goal should simply be to publish great books. Does it matter really, then, who it is that we are publishing? Or maybe that’s the point: it does matter. And we want to publish everyone, to embrace freedom of speechfor all. Diverse, inclusive publishing also means publishing people whose opinions you may not agree with. That is the true definition of diversity.

‘Rob Grayson is an inspiration. I met with him and I heard from him how he climbed up the social ladder – from being a working-class kid in Hull to being an internationally renowned comedian.

‘So, if you’ve not already gathered, Hoffman will be publishing Rob Grayson’s memoir,Free to Speak, this September. It’s not the same book as the one that was first signed up. It’s better. It’s a book calling for action. It will make you think about everything we see online, and it explores how cancel culture is very real and harmful to our society. We plan to make this the book absolutelyeveryonewill be talking about.’

Shirin’s mouth is dry and her body feels like it is failing her. Her mind, however, is wondering: How? It’s a non-fiction title and no one in her team has mentioned it in any of their meetings. It is impossible.

‘Of course none of this would be possible without the work of Lilian Rees and Florence Ainsworth, who very speedily whipped the material into shape. So I’d like to give them a big thank-you.AndI’m very excited to announce that Rob will be coming in next week to speak about his book and sign some limited-edition bound excerpts,’ David says.

Everyone around her begins to clap. Shirin raises her hands to mimic them, but she cannot put her hands together. Every element of her life is like a domino, and one by one they are falling down around her, leaving nothing upright. She keeps working hard to put them back up. But, unlike the other times in which she’s felt herself crumbling, it is anger that prevails now.

She looks at David, Florence, Lilian and at the headshot of Rob. She is seething. Shirin was not able to take time off to see her grandmother before she passed away. When she tries to sleep she can hear Maman Bozorg’s voice when she said it would make her year if Shirin were to visit. Instead of another wave of sadness passing over her now, she is determined and strangely relieved that she has finally fallen out of love with her job. She has accepted it. She will never be respected in this job, or treated as an equal to her peers. So now she will do her Maman Bozorg proud and stand up for what she believes in. She will stand up for herself.

Rob Grayson destroyed so much ten years ago. She thinks more and more of what Kian said – that back then, Rob’s treatment of Shirin wasn’t taken seriously. She can see it clearly for what it is now, that she was abused; that’s why she struggles to move on from it. Scars were left by him, and he got away with it. Well, she won’t let him do it again. She won’t let him succeed without a fight.

Too Far

Then

Kian had thought it would be fitting if it rained the day everything changed yet again, but no, the sun was shining radiantly, marking summer’s arrival. That day everyone sat in the fields at lunch, looking up at the cloudless sky. Kian had kicked a football with Connor and the other boys and then they spent ten minutes lying down, their boot bags under their heads as they shut their eyes and soaked in the sun.

Something Shirin had said the day before had stuck with him. She was always trying to convince him to take his art seriously, and often he didn’t believe her when she said he was talented or that he should pursue it. But they were making their final A-level decisions this week and, in one last bid, she’d told him it wasn’t fair what his parents were doing to him.

‘Theyhaven’t done anything,’ he’d said.

‘Are you sure? Or do you just want to think that?’ she had said. ‘They’re projecting onto you – they want to make up for what happened to Mehdi with you, but that isn’t how life works. Remember it’s your life, not his, not theirs.’

He knew this, but hearing it said aloud, when he had started to doubt his decision, had changed things. He’d spentthe rest of the day pondering the answer, and he’d woken up with something like clarity. Kian had risen from sleep realising it was true – it was his life, and if he wanted to study Art, he should. So it was on this day that he’d asked his form tutor to amend his selection of A-levels. She’d been uninterested as she’d amended his form, which had somewhat dampened the momentous moment.

After school, he went to meet Shirin. They sometimes took a detour on the way home from school and got milkshakes from a dessert restaurant owned by a Turkish man, who often chucked free things into their order because he said they looked like his children. It was a bit weird, but they always took it anyway.

She’d told Kian to meet her outside the Home Tech room, because she needed to collect the things she’d made earlier in the day. He had been in Science, which was at the opposite end of the school to Food Tech, and by the time he’d made his way to the cooking block the school was almost empty. Students tended to clear out of the school grounds rapidly. The school buses were across the field and always left ridiculously early, so everyone had to run across the field to make it. Kian didn’t live too far away, so he would walk, though he often saw the agitated way Connor tapped his finger against the table when they were held behind in their final class of the day.

That day he was feeling content for the first time in a long while. He had heard that they would be releasing Mehdi from prison in two months, that his sentence was being halved for good behaviour. The end was finally in view.

As he walked down the long corridor to the Home Tech room, he heard them before he saw them.

‘Are youcrying?’ Jordan said mockingly.

‘Just leave me alone,’ Shirin said. ‘Please.’

‘Oh, come on,’ Rob said. ‘It looked shit anyway.’

It sounded like there was a struggle, grunts and pushing.

‘Maybe we should leave it …’ Tom said.

Kian turned the corner and entered the classroom, to see Jordan, Rob and Tom standing around Shirin, who had her head bent low. On the floor were a dozen or so smushed-up cupcakes.

The boys pushed her around in a circle like she weighed nothing, and she struggled against them, attempting to scratch their faces, but then Rob pushed her down on the floor, holding her hands behind her back. Jordan loomed over her, a predatory look on his face.

Kian didn’t even think, really. He strode towards them, grabbed a rolling pin off one of the countertops and swung it towards Jordan, who was closest. It struck his head and he bounced away, hit the countertop and crumpled against it. Kian struck him a second time on his back, the impact making a cracking sound.

Tom’s face was pink and he immediately looked terrified and ran out of the room, narrowly avoiding Kian in the process. Rob let go of Shirin to move towards him, but Kian had his hand already raised and punched Rob hard in the face, like Mehdi had taught him. Rob fell to the ground, his nose bloodied.

‘Fucking leave her alone,’ Kian shouted. He thought of all the nasty things Rob had said and done, and then kicked Rob in the ribs, which made him shrivel up, curling into a ball on the floor, rolling over the cakes he had ruined. He kicked him twice, three times, and in the distance he could hear Shirin saying, ‘Stop,’ but he couldn’t.

He didn’t see Jordan get up, and that was when Jordan grabbed him by his shirt and smacked Kian across the side of his face. Shirin shouted something and pulled Jordan off him. They were a fighting mass, limbs flying, yelling gutturally. They only stopped when the Home Tech teacher came in, shouting, ‘What is going on?’