The Worst of Me (9 page)

I ended up reading everything, trying to find something that told me either way that things were good or bad. And I started getting why Nashriq was so angry. When Christianity came up, it was always one little group of extremists, usually deep in rural America. When it was Islam, it was always ‘Muslims believe . . .’ Even my friends’ criticism of creationist teaching – which I’d think of as a Christian thing – seemed to blame Muslims for forcing school curriculums to be altered to suit them. Even more worryingly, there were sexist comments about girls at school who covered their hair. By Steve, the dodgiest of the group, but that didn’t mean the others thought differently. I felt for Nashriq, my friend’s brother, who
I’d known for years, and who slotted sincerely and persistently into the increasingly intense discussion. I felt sorry for my boyfriend, who had managed to walk into a fight. I needed someone to tell me what I thought. I needed to talk to everyone. Starting with Jonah.

Saturdays were Jonah’s nights with the boys. I’d been given access to the last one, but I didn’t assume there was a standing invitation and I’d heard nothing from him yet about his plans. It might have been a good idea to talk to all of them together. As usual, I’d already imagined the conversation Jonah and I would have about this on my own, supplying all of his answers, remembering his shrugs and smiles and moves. In fairness to him, he was only Imaginary Jonah, but I wasn’t all that happy with what he’d said.

I decided to let him come and find me. I’d always found that when the other person had to work out that you were sulking before you could even start arguing, it gave you the upper hand in an argument. But that was with Ian. Things were very different with Jonah. It was scary to admit it – maybe stupidly, with a relationship
this new – but there was a lot about Jonah I didn’t know. Not this stuff at school – his
boundaries
. What made him angry. How far his sense of humour would hold. How much he trusted me not to judge him. How much he liked me. All of these doubts made me think it was going to be horrible asking him. The best thing to do right now was wait.

Right now, I couldn’t face anyone else. I sat upstairs in my room, not watching telly or listening to music or reading. I could hear my mum and Paul talking in the kitchen together.

Sam texted with a joke about the day’s shopping. I could tell he was trying hard to avoid talking about what Dee had said. Then a text from Jonah.

Blokes have insisted on proper blokes’ night. Say I’m turning girly. Missing you badly: must see you tomorrow to make up for it.

He’s nice,
I thought.
He’s nice, and I would be able to tell if he weren’t nice. This is going to be easy.

Paul was making his way through a TV chef’s recipe book, so everything he cooked was complicated and he worked hard to get compliments for it. He sat there saying things like, ‘I was a bit worried about this at one stage, but I think it’s turned out okay?’ and ‘Is it a bit too garlicky/spicy/creamy?’ when the garlickyness or creaminess was what was nicest about it. It was usually nice, but I would have happily found my own dinner,
even if it was instant noodles or a Mars bar, rather than sit and say, ‘No, this is delicious! Thank you so much for making it!’ When I didn’t say that, my mum would always say: ‘Paul, this is delicious, thank you so much for making it.
Isn’t it, Cassidy?
’ And a compliment that consists of ‘yeah’ is not, in my opinion, worth making, and sounds forced, to say the least.

Although both of them had a problem with me going out too much, it was obvious that me being home was a bigger problem. It was impossible for me to forget my mum reassuring Paul that I’d move out one day, and I didn’t doubt that both of them would start to find life easier when that happened. Conversations were awkward and always played over a background of unspoken anger.

‘How’s school going this year, Cassie?’ Paul said. I didn’t like him calling me Cassie. It sounded like a little girl’s name in his mouth, and he hadn’t earned the right to trim me down. ‘Do you feel as if the pressure is really on now?’

I thought there was probably a lecture lurking behind this question, or some kind of encouraging pep talk, which would be worse. I changed the subject.

‘Is it fair to say you don’t like Muslims, Paul?’ I said. I could hear myself sounding somewhere between a total bitch and slightly unhinged.

‘What kind of question is that?’ my mum said.

‘It’s not fair at all. Or true,’ Paul said at the same time. ‘Yes, I’m a Christian, but I don’t think I have the right to say that the faith I was brought up to believe in is more valid than other faiths.’ He leaned back in his chair to look as though he was now considering the question seriously. ‘Actually, I lived with two Arabs – a Saudi and an Iraqi – at university, we enjoyed discussing religion, and in fact, I’d say that it would be harder for me to understand an atheist than a Muslim.’

‘Isn’t the definition of having a faith, in a god, that you would
have
to believe your god was best?’ I said.

Paul put down his fork. He couldn’t eat and speak at the same time. When he did this, I always thought it was rude to keep stuffing food in my face while he spoke. Although part of me always wanted to be rude to Paul, another part of me obediently put the fork down, even though I wasn’t even being asked to.

‘If it makes you feel any better, Cassie, my god
is
the best,’ he said, and winked at my mum. ‘But it’s polite not to tell other people that.’ Then he and my mum chuckled as if this was brilliant stand-up comedy.

‘Why are you talking to Paul as if he’s an evangelist?’ Mum said.

‘Believe it or not, it’s actually a school project,’ Paul said. ‘I had a glance at the website Cassie’s been on this afternoon and there’s a bunch of kids talking about exactly this.’

‘Why did you “have a glance” at that website?’

Paul shrugged. ‘You pointed it out to me in the first place. I clicked on history to find a web page I’d closed and then I opened it up again because the title was interesting. If you’re trying to hide your browsing history, maybe you ought to furtively delete the cache every time you leave the computer.’

‘Look, Cass,’ my mum said. ‘You’re overreacting. No one is trying to spy on you.’

‘I am struggling to understand why Paul —’

‘Cassidy. You use my computer all day long. If Paul has work things he needs to deal with in the evenings, more often than not I tell him you’re probably doing research for your homework and can he leave it a minute, when I know that what you’re really doing is looking at pictures of popstars on heat.com. Oh no! I know that you’ve looked at heat.com, call the European Court of Human Rights! We have both been treading on eggshells around you, and I’m really sick of it. You’re not easy to live with —’

‘Don’t I know it!’ I said. ‘I heard you telling Paul you can’t wait to see the back of me.’

‘Cassidy, that’s completely untrue,’ Paul said, but by this point my mum was crying. She scraped her chair back and walked out of the kitchen.

‘That,’ Paul said, leaning low to look me in the eye, ‘was a really shitty thing to say.’ He spoke quietly, but
the swearing was a total shock and his voice was horrible and made me shiver all over. He moved suddenly and I jumped, bracing myself. He went after my mum. I was left staring at the half-eaten bowls of pasta, hugging my arms.

I wanted to go to my room, but that would put me close to them, close enough to hear them breathing. So I had to stay downstairs. I didn’t know whether to clear away their food. What if they came back to eat it? What if they came back and said they couldn’t believe I hadn’t even cleared the kitchen? So I did nothing, bracing myself for the criticism. And I was furious, furiouser at being the one made to feel guilty and worried.

I wrote a text to Jonah and left it in my outbox unsent while I considered my options. I was too nervous to call him. He and his mates would be watching a film or hanging out in a pub or something, he’d be mortified if he had to take a call from his crazy weeping girlfriend. Although . . . I wasn’t weeping. I was dry-eyed and cold and still angry. But I couldn’t call Jonah because I barely knew him. Even with our closeness, that flame that ran underneath my skin when he touched me, that look he gave me that told me he got me, I couldn’t ask him anything, I couldn’t talk to him or expect anything from him. I couldn’t trust him not to be horrible. He was just some guy I knew, who’d made me smile, a lot.

And then the weirdest thought came into my brain: I should go to bed with Jonah tonight. Not just to strike out at my mother for making me share a house with a man I hated – this was something I needed. I wanted to lose myself in Jonah, trust him, be so close to him that nothing could hurt that. Yes, I was angry too. It was like hundreds of men in a mine, banging on the door to be let out. I didn’t want that strength, that anger inside me. I wanted someone to hold me tight and calm me, to wrap me up in their arms the way my dad had when I was a little girl. I didn’t know if I’d get that feeling from him. I had no way of knowing he wouldn’t turn cold the moment it was over. I had no access from this side to the Jonah on the other side, even less to my own emotions. But anyway, I called him.

Whatever happened, it was going to make a story for my children. Well, my darlings, as it happens I lost my virginity with a
racist
.

At ten o’ clock Jonah and I were still walking around the streets near my house watching the strange late-night joggers. They tended to be old – white-haired, low-breasted men in sagging vests that showed all of their armpits, or tight leggings under tight nylon underpants that made them look like pensioned-off superheroes.

Jonah had been in the pub with his friends when I
called, but he left straight away, telling me not to worry. I stayed outside, walking along the same bit of pavement, the time stretching to forever, the cold and dark making everything scary, and when I saw his face I knew I was safe.

I didn’t talk about the things people at school had been saying. The pressure of keeping something from him was always there, but my heart answered the same way every time: I don’t even care. I’d read enough of it to know that at most the fuss was exaggerated. Everyone was jealous, the whole school, especially Ian.

‘I’m fun, you know,’ I said. ‘Because since you met me, you’d be forgiven for imagining that I spend most of the time being all lonerish and tragic. But I’m not. You’ve known me a fortnight and I’ve been as much fun as Christmas in Albert Square, but it’s just been – honestly – a weird two weeks.’

‘I think you’re fun,’ he said, nudging me with his shoulder.

‘And the mad thing is,’ I said, ‘this has been a great two weeks.’

‘Cassidy,’ Jonah said. ‘You don’t have to explain yourself. I’m not seeing all this angst you’re angsting about. I’m not confused about who you are. You’re just a very cool, very hot, non-airhead. Clever people think a lot. Thinking will get you down sometimes.’

‘I’m not clever,’ I said.

He pursed his lips, nodded. ‘Yeaahh.’

I wrapped my arms more tightly around him. ‘Why are you so nice to me?’

‘Most people are nice,’ Jonah said. ‘It’s not entirely selfless in my case, though.’ He kissed my face. ‘Okay, it’s too cold. Where am I taking you now? Back to my house, or shall we just take you back home?’

‘I don’t want to go home.’

‘But it’s a good idea to go back with me,’ Jonah said. ‘Put them on edge. And you’ll be brave with me. We’ll just march in, exchange pleasantries, put some music on and snog in your room.’

We held hands as we walked in the door. Paul was on his way upstairs with two mugs of tea, I guessed that my mum was taking a bath. He looked surprised to see Jonah and, as Jonah had predicted, this unsettled him. His whispery threateningness disappeared: he was instantly nervous, being over-polite and trying to shake hands. Our house looked dark and untidy, small and overstuffed, too hot, everything carpeted and cushioned. It was so different from Jonah’s house, with its high ceilings and wooden floors, where his parents laughed with Jonah’s friends and gave us all wine.

‘Can I make you a cup of tea?’ he said. ‘The kettle’ll still be hot.’

‘That’s okay,’ I said. ‘We’re fine, I think.’

‘Okay,’ Paul said. ‘Well, your mother and I are having an early night. If you’re watching TV, not too loud, eh?’

He seemed normal and reasonable. Maybe Jonah was wondering if I was a drama queen.

‘Most parents behave around strangers,’ Jonah said, when we were in the kitchen and I was looking for snacks. ‘The ones you have to watch out for are the ones who make a point of keeping up the crazy act in front of your friends. I used to go out with a girl, when I was younger – about fourteen? – and she was giving her mum a bit of lip and her mum thrashed her, on the bottom, in front of me.’

‘Wow.’

‘It was so messed up. She wanted to infantilise her, remind her that she was a kid. Seemed to go on for ages. It was totally alien to me, that kind of power struggle, because my parents are . . .’

‘Sane?’

‘Far from it! They’re quite accommodating, though. They don’t try to put me down as a way of storing up intimidation for later. I was almost hoping Paul would ask me more questions, or at least warn me not to lay a finger on you.’

‘You didn’t think Paul was that bad?’

‘No.’

‘But you didn’t think I’ve been making it all up?’

‘It sucks, but he’s probably not worse than a lot of dads.’

He’s not a dad,
I didn’t say. I found some nuts, just so we had something to pick at if the conversation got difficult, and poured us both glasses of water. My mouth felt fuzzy and I wondered if I could go and brush my teeth. I looked around me, wondering what to do next.

‘We could stay down here,’ I said. ‘It’s further away from them. But there’s no door.’ I already felt like a different person with him, with everything exposed. When he didn’t know anything about me, I could be cool. Now, it was all too obvious. He was different too, maybe because I was being weird, maybe because he was disappointed. ‘We’d be able to hear them, I can always hear them talking in the next room, which obviously means they’d —’