Page 20 of People Change

The last part makes Kian scoff, like the thought is unimaginable. Their drinks are brought over and set down on the wooden table. The latte art is impressive, and Shirin gazesat it briefly before using her teaspoon to stir the rosetta away. Kian leaves his as it is and takes a long sip. His hands are large and make the teacup look especially tiny.

‘It’s fine,’ he eventually says. ‘It’s not like my parents haven’t said the same thing to me. So, to answer your question, I just did what I wanted, even though they didn’t like it. It was easier at uni, because when my brother came back from … you know … they were so busy wanting to fix his life that they focused less on me. At least I was going to uni, you know? At least one of us was. But now, doing a Masters in Art, they don’t get it. They think it’s a waste of money and time.’

‘What do you think?’

He looks up at her, surprised by the question. ‘I think I need this. In Manchester I was only working admin jobs while I did my art on the side. If I was lucky, I’d be involved in tiny exhibitions, but because I was so tired from work, I never felt like I focused on my art. And now I’m excited,’ he says, and she can see it in his eyes. ‘For the first time in ages, I’m excited by the future. Jesus, I sound depressing, don’t I? But it’s true.’

She smiles. ‘We’re old now, Kian: it’s okay for us to be depressing. I do need you to back up a bit though – since when do you go to the mosque?’ She wants to say,You never used to, but ten years have passed; of course he’s not the same boy as back then. People change.

‘My dad got cancer just when I graduated from uni. So I moved home for a bit and it really shook me up. It made me realise that we’re all going to die. And the thought of nothing happening after – it fucked me up. That my dad would simplybe gone if his treatment didn’t work. So, as a family, we started going to the mosque. I’m not perfect, obviously, but it really helped me get out of a dark time. I like to go sometimes even now, to balance myself, I guess.’

‘I’m sorry you went through that with your dad,’ she says, looking away from his eyes to his ear, because she is never good at comforting people, even people she cares about. ‘How is he doing now?’

‘He’s recovered, touch wood.’ He knocks his knuckles on the table and smiles. ‘Sorry, I’ve offloaded on you for the last fifteen minutes. I bet you think I’ve not changed at all,’ he says, the tops of his cheeks lightly pink, like he is embarrassed.

Her heart begins to beat quicker and she takes a long sip of her drink to give herself some composure time.

‘Don’t be silly,’ she says. ‘I’m interested. And you have changed. The Kian I knew at school definitely wouldn’t be going to the mosque. Nor would he be doing a Masters in Art.’

‘Do you ever go to the mosque?’ he asks, bypassing her comment completely.

The waitress returns to bring them a slice of lemon cheesecake and two spoons, and she is glad of the interruption because questions like this remind her of her mild identity crisis. She often feels this way around her friends who are Muslim. Shirin’s relationship with her religion is confused. In fact it always has been, but the gulf between her saying she is Muslim and her actually doing what Muslims are supposed to do has only got bigger. Her parents were never strictly religious, though they warned her to stay away from boys and to coverherself – fairly standard stuff. If she ever told her parents she was scared of dying one day, something she keeps to herself now, she would be scolded that a true Muslim knows what will happen next: God will protect us. She is not sure God will protect her, though, or whether she deserves protecting.

‘No, not really,’ she says, thinking Kian might push it, but instead he nods. Because he says nothing – and because she dislikes the silence – she continues. ‘It feels too late for me now – to try and go to the mosque, I mean.’

The one thing she doesn’t want is for Kian to preach at her. Or maybe she does. Maybe she is saying this to see what he will do – to see whether he is the same as he was when they were younger: kind and solid. She walks the fine line with Mariam, but it’s not like that with every friend. Mariam is patient with her, never tells her what she should or shouldn’t be doing. It is refreshing, and Shirin knows not everyone is like that.

Her warmth towards Kian is almost threatened, but then he says, ‘It’s never too late. And it doesn’t make you any less of a good person, you know, that you don’t go.’

God, even now he knows exactly what she is thinking. She feels this stinging in her eyes and it is humiliating. She bites the inside of her cheek hard, letting her incisors really dig into her stupid fleshy mouth. It helps to focus the pain elsewhere. She waves her hand in the air dismissively. ‘It’s fine,’ she says, echoing him.

‘I want to know about you,’ he says. ‘You always said you’d get the fuck out of Hull and be a big-shot editor – looks like you did it.’

She scoffs, loudly. ‘Hardly. I’m an assistant editor – still.’

He shrugs, taking another spoonful of the cheesecake. ‘You still got out.’ The way he says it, though, is like it’s an accusation – like she abandoned him. Or maybe that’s just because she’s always felt guilty for the way they left things. And because, in some ways, she knows she did abandon him when he needed her most.

When they’ve finished their drinks, Kian offers to show her his studio. On the walk there, she asks him about his brother. There is warmth in Kian’s eyes when he speaks about him now. It is so different from before, she realises. His brother and his imprisonment at such a young age brought Kian so much pain; he shouldered the burden, even though it wasn’t his fault. Though he would never accept that.

‘I’ve got into mindfulness,’ Kian confesses, giving Shirin a cautious sidelong look.

She bursts out laughing and then apologises. ‘That’s very Zen of you.’

They have gone down a side street, with terraced houses, which upon further inspection belong to the university, with placards proclaiming them as the counsellor’s room or the history office. It is typical of London universities, whose campuses are spread far out – not really a campus at all.

‘Hey, it helps. I’d recommend it. You know, since you mentioned that you struggle with anxiety.’ He says this last part quieter – and Shirin remembers she told him and immediately feels irrationally pathetic. She thinks he mightsee this on her face because he says, ‘But who am I to talk? I’m pretty fucked up myself.’

She turns to him and frowns. ‘Youdon’t seem fucked up at all.’ And she means this. Kian appears emotionally intelligent – a trait very few men, Shirin has realised, possess – and he has coped with so much, while seemingly appearing much more stable than Shirin, who thinks about death every night and perpetually has an existential crisis, and she has had minimal tragic life events thus far. She is the one who cannot bear to think about the past – about the specific moment when she and Kian stopped speaking. If Kian is fucked up, what does that make her?

‘Well, we haven’t actually spoken in ten years, so I don’t think you’re the best judge of that,’ he jokes, and she is reeling, thinking: How can he make a joke of that? She is so taken aback she lets out a pathetic little laugh, and then clears her throat.

As they walk further down the street, the car horns and hum of motor engines become more and more distant. When they round the corner, they walk through gates to the silver building that she saw all the way from the station and wondered at. He tells her this is the Ben Pimlott Building, where the art studios are, and that people call it the ‘Squiggle’ building for short. He taps his pass onto a metal sensor by the doors, which automatically open. The entryway is sparse, with cream floor tiles and white walls. They climb two flights of metal stairs, until they reach his corner of the studio.

‘You know what I realised recently?’ she says.

‘What?’

The lights are automatic and turn on one by one as they make their way further down the floor.