by Rashad Salim
If you walked into any Yr 11 class, you saw boys on one side and girls on the other and the boys’ side were divided into small groups by colour. There had been hostility between black and brown at my school for as long as I could remember. If you had managed to avoid it for the first few years you were fortunate because it was almost guaranteed to happen in your GCSE days. There was no reversing this process.
“You know she’s Jermaine’s girl?” he asked.
The question jabbed at my heart.
“...Do you?”
“What makes you say that? I never got that impression.”
“Ask around,” he said. “I’m sure I seen him hogging her all to himself.”
“Whatever.”
“Them boys catch you pulling those Romeo moves on Juliet and they’re gonna beat the shit out of you,” he said and leaned closer to me. “And then I might have to do something about that.”
“Don’t worry. I can handle them.”
“Forget her,” he said. “You’d have to be bonkers to hook up with her. Even if them niggers didn’t fuck you up for it, everyone else will make your life hell over it.”
He was right about that. But I didn’t care. I was so obsessed with the girl that it didn’t matter to me. I often thought about her when I wasn’t at school. I thought about us together and what it might be like and I was fully aware these were delusions. But like I said, I didn’t care.
I was in love with her and I wanted her like I hadn’t wanted anyone in a long time.
“Also, don’t forget about you know who,” he said and tilted his head indicating behind us. “She was asking me about you while you were on that mission.”
I looked behind us and saw Seema at the other end of the class.
“Fuck knows why you haven’t tapped that yet,” he said.
I remember wondering how Sajid would’ve reacted if he knew I had already done plenty of fooling around with Seema.
I remember watching Seema sitting there in a short skirt with her legs crossed and regretting having pursued her. I knew she had been in love with me for a long time before we started meeting up in secret and got frisky whenever we could during the previous school year.
It wasn’t until she had discovered make-up and grew breasts that I finally gave in to temptation and asked her out. I was never serious about her the way she had been with me and I quickly got tired of her constant dramatic antics and complaints. I broke up with her before the start of the summer holidays earlier that year and she had taken it as bad as most girls would’ve taken their first break up.
I on the other hand had been relieved.
The problem was she was still more in love with me than ever. She often wrote long love letters to me and e-mailed them to me on days where we hardly saw each other at school. She told me how much she missed having me and I’d tell her it wasn’t the end of the world and how it was for the best.
The more I tried to convince her I wasn’t good for her, the more she tried to get back together with me and when I rejected her charms and acts of seduction, which were very difficult to resist, she took out her anger on me during the times we were together at school.
Of course all of this just gave away too many clues to everyone else at school and by the time I had discovered Chantelle, I wasn’t sure if Seema had still kept our relationship a secret and poured her heart out to any of her friends.
We had agreed to never tell anyone of our relationship to protect it from outside interference. The last thing she needed was a reputation and wouldn’t have appreciated me talking with other guys about her - not that I ever wanted to talk to other guys about the girls I was chasing. Not even my best friend.
It wasn’t that I couldn’t trust Sajid, I just wasn’t comfortable with him being privy to knowledge about me and Seema. I thought he might get careless and let it slip out into the open.
I didn’t want to take any chances of anything complicating my chances with Chantelle - especially while Seema was still obsessed with me. I knew things could get very complicated. And during that final year of school they did.
14
Chantelle and I caught a bus to her flat nearby. On the way there we made small talk about what we had got up to over the years since we last saw each other.
I told her how after we left secondary school I enrolled at a college a few towns away where I spent two years studying A Levels.
It was obvious to her why I didn’t stay on at the school’s sixth form - an attempt to escape all the stigma and scandal over what had happened towards the end of the final school term – so I glossed over that era and mercifully she didn’t bother prodding me about it no matter how curious she might have been about it during that period.
She told me how she had been a hairdresser for a while and how she enjoyed it. I told her I always thought she’d be good at it - and not just out of politeness.
She asked about what I was doing career wise and I filled her in on my graduate trainee scheme and the times I had in North London during my university days. We talked about that for a while and she laughed at a lot of the dumbass things my friends and I had got up to as students.
It was all harmless stuff and helped keep our conversation light.
We talked about a lot of things but had not mentioned anything from our joint past but I knew that I had to even if she didn’t. There were many things I wanted to tell her but I was still unsure if there was any point in bringing up the past.
When we arrived at her flat I was still overly trying hard to keep her laughing and smiling because on the inside I was nervous. We had barely spoken since school had ended over half a decade earlier and suddenly here I was invited back to her place to shower. I wasn’t sure if it was just for that.
Once we were inside, Chantelle told me where the bathroom was and I thanked her again before I made my way there. I took off my clothes and stepped into the shower and couldn’t help but relive all the pivotal moments of the beginning and end of my relationship with her.
I had gotten to talk to Chantelle quite regularly after that lunchtime where we had our first conversation and it turned out Jermaine wasn’t her boyfriend. She was single and I couldn’t have been happier about that.
We were alone in a secluded part of the school grounds after school soon after - behind the massive dumpsters and away from anyone else’s sight - when I leaned in, put my hands on her hips and kissed her.
It was one of the happiest moments of my life.
That was right before the Christmas holidays. Chantelle and I tried to see each other as often as possible and talked every day after that.
Never before had I wanted the Christmas holidays to end so quickly so that I could see her every day.
We would secretly meet up after school in places where we thought nobody would see us. I’d often pass her in the corridor at school and give her a knowing look and she’d smile back at me without saying a word and it used to whet my appetite for her even more. I could never get enough of her.
This went on for months and when rumours began to circulate we had always denied them. Jermaine and his boys began to let me know I was on their radar but nothing happened between us.
It wasn’t until a PE class about two months before we graduated that tension really began to escalate.
The PE class was a combination of different form classes so there were boys from my class like Sajid and boys from Chantelle’s class like Jermaine and Elroy.
We were playing basketball. Sajid and I were on the same team while Jermaine and Elroy were on the opposition team. I tried to shoot for the basket and Elroy shoved me hard.
I was shit at basketball and there was little chance of the ball going in so he didn’t have anything to worry as far as my skills were concerned.
I fell on my back and my head hit the floor of the PE hall. It could’ve been worse but my back had broken my fall so although hurt like hell I wasn’t really injured.
I heard our teacher, Mr Benson,
blow the whistle and I looked up from the floor in time to see Sajid dart towards Elroy and deliver a right hook that landed on his chin.
Elroy collapsed.
Sajid had knocked him out and for a second no one else moved.
Then everything went manic.
Benson rushed over to Sajid and grabbed him in a headlock, pulling him away as Jermaine tried to attack him. Some of the boys circled around Elroy and were checking to see how badly he was hurt while Jermaine and a few other black boys were scuffling with some of Sajid’s unruly friends. They had all forgotten about me and I sat there on the floor frozen, wondering what I was meant to do. It all happened so quickly.
Right after the lesson Sajid got suspended from school for a day while Elroy got away with attacking me during the basketball game.
The PE lesson was in the morning but by lunchtime everyone at school knew what had happened.
I was pissed off about Sajid being suspended and so were a lot of other Asian boys at school. Jermaine and most of the black boys in our school year were pissed off too but for a different reason: one of theirs had been knocked out cold by one of us.
Naturally they wanted revenge.
There was no unity at school by classes, the way it had been back in Year 7 when we were all little children fresh out of primary school. Now that we were almost adults’ unity was based on colour. It didn’t matter what class you were in - if you had picked a side in this feud it was based on the colour of your skin.
The next day Sajid was absent from school and the uproar about what happened the day before was still going strong.
The Asian boys had a theory about the difference between how Sajid and Elroy had been dealt with by the teachers and they weren’t shy about letting the teachers know.
It was widely observed that a lot of the black boys at school enjoyed a kind of leniency from the teachers that was never offered to boys of other races where bad behaviour was concerned.
Asian boys claimed to have been treated with much more severity and suffered greater punishments than black boys, who were repeat offenders and always got off lightly for their bad behaviour.
If a black boy had knocked out a brown boy the way Sajid had handled Elroy, he’d have been handed a referral disciplinary or even just given detention.
Most of the trouble at school was committed by black boys and everyone knew it. This was a damn fact and it made me as angry as any other Asian lad about the difference in treatment.
While the Asian boys were letting their anger build to the point where they were ready to take it out on the black boys, the black boys were reeling and I knew they were going to hit back twice as hard. They always did.
It was only a matter of time before that happened and before the end of term, a full scale race riot would break out that would change my life.
15
When I stepped out the shower I put my T shirt and jeans back on and walked out of the bathroom. Chantelle came out of the kitchen with two glasses of orange juice and handed me one of them.
I took the glass, thanked her and sat down on the sofa. She sat on the armchair opposite me and had a long sip of her drink. I looked around at her living room.
“This is a nice place you have,” I said.
“Thank you.”
“You live with family? Or flatmates?”
“It’s me and my brother,” she said.
“Thom?”
She nodded. “My mum comes and goes but it’s mostly just me and Thom.”
I remembered how her dad had left her mother when she was in primary school and decided not to ask about him.
I took another sip of my drink and we sat in silence for a while.
“So,” I said. She looked at me expectantly. “Are you with anyone these days?”
“Not really. You?”
“Nah.”
“Really?” She genuinely seemed surprised.
I nodded.
She crossed her legs and stared into the middle distance.
“Listen, Chantelle,” I said and put the glass down. “I’ve been thinking...” She watched me patiently. “...I’ve been thinking about back in the day.”
“What about? Anything in particular?”
I nodded.
“The riot?” she asked.
“...Yeah.”
After I left school I told myself I had done everything to avoid the riot from happening but in the years since I realised it wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for me.
I wondered what I regretted more: unintentionally triggering a race riot that caused the breakdown of our relationship or letting the break up become permanent by running away from Chantelle.
She was quiet again.
“I’m sorry for everything,” I said and looked at her. “I never meant for any of it-”
“It’s okay,” she said. “It’s all in the past now.”
“Not for me it isn’t.”
“Why?”
I sighed. “I’ve been thinking about us for years and wondering what might have been.”
“We were just kids,” she said and shrugged. “You don’t have to be sorry.”
“I loved you,” I said. “I’ve never loved anyone like I loved you. Not before or since.”
“Don’t relive your mistakes.”
I thought that over. “...You regret ever being with me?”
“Come on, Ali...”
“Do you?” I asked as softly as possible.
“We were just kids and we didn’t think things through,” she said.
I couldn’t argue with it. “I got a lot of regrets, babe. But I don’t regret you.”
She gave me another one of her sympathetic half-smiles that only made me feel foolish. I decided to leave but not before I had let her know certain things.
“You were a sweet boy, Ali. You still are. And I suppose you got scared... But come on now. Be real. You can’t fight everything. That’s just the way the world is.”
I nodded in defeat and made my way to where my jacket was draped. She didn’t stop me like I had hoped.
“I heard about your store.”
That caught me off guard. I collected my jacket and looked at her.
“Yeah,” I said. “Damn shame, I know.”
“Was it a gang thing?” she asked. “Thom was telling me how it was the Lion Crew.”
I had intended to thank her again for the shower and tell her some bullshit parting to get the hell out of there but now my mind was on the arson again.
“The Lion Crew?” The name meant nothing to me.
“Yeah,” she said. “They’re a local gang. Just a bunch of kids they are but lately they’ve been getting out of hand more and more.”
I made a mental note reminding myself to Google the gang name later.
“I’m not sure if it was a gang thing,” I said. “But it might be. The police told me they had witnesses who saw some black boys fleeing the scene of the crime.”
I then remembered how I thought Defenders of Islam could’ve been involved too and let out a laugh over my silly assumptions.
“What’s funny about that?”
“Nothing,” I said. “It’s just that at first I thought it was them fundamentalist clowns Defenders of Islam. They used to do a lot of protests against big supermarket chains.”
Chantelle had a blank expression.
“You know who I’m talking about, right? Those fools with big beards? Like Bilal from back in the day?”
“Oh yeah,” she said. “I get you now. He’s the one whose nose Sajid broke that time?”
I simply nodded. I never corrected anyone who held the belief that Sajid had been responsible for that. The truth belonged in the past where I preferred it remained buried.
“Look, I really gotta run now.”
She got up from the floor and straightened out her clothes.
I thanked her for the shower and she walked me out into the hallway.
When I reached the front door I turned
around to face her. “Was nice seeing you again,” I said.
She moved towards me, going in for a hug and I wrapped my arms around her tighter than I thought I would. I held her there for a moment and could still feel her hands on me. It felt good and she smelled good and I didn’t want to let go. When we broke free, it was slow and I couldn’t resist from taking her hands in mine and giving them a kiss.
She batted her eyelids at me and I knew there was still something she felt for me beneath the surface. I just had to bring it out if I wanted.
I decided there and then that I would try to woo her back again. I had no stigma to be scared of this time around.
“Babe,” I whispered. “I’m gonna call you up one of these days, okay?”
“Okay,” she whispered back.
“And if I asked you out would you say yes?”
She smiled. “You’ll just have to call me up and find out, won’t you?”
I leaned in and gave her a quick kiss on the lips.
She didn’t flinch. “Take care.”
“See ya,” I said and walked out of the door.
I was feeling good for having spent time with her when I turned around and saw her brother in the corridor staring at me.
Thom looked like he wanted to beat the shit out of me.
It was obvious I had just showered and that Thom was mentally connecting dots that weren’t there.
16
“Hey, Thom,” I gave him a smile.
“Who are you?”
“My name’s Ali.” I stuck my hand out. “I went to school with your sister.”
He gave me a suspicious look before shaking my hand.
“You don’t remember me, do you?”
“Should I?”
“I dunno,” I said. “The last time I saw you, you were about this tall.” I raised my hand to show him and held it at his chest level. “If I remember correctly, you used to have an afro too.”
He tilted his head and frowned but seemed more relaxed now. “Did you used to go out with my sister?”
“Yeah, for a little while,” I said. “Listen, Thom... there’s something I wanted to ask you. Chantelle says you told her some Lion Crew petrol bombed that Bestco store. Is that true?”
