Being Emily. Anne Donovan
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too. Then when ah got up and peed the nice feelin went. Was that sexy too? Was any feelin inside you?
Fiona? Mammy came in the bedroom. Ah’m gonnae get the twins aff tae bed.
Okay.
Mammy stroked my hair. Sorry, hen. Your da’s watchin the TV but if you want some peace you can read in the kitchen. She smiled at me.
Ah wanted tae ask her, but somehow the words didnae come.
Four Years Later
WHEN I FIRST knew Jas his front teeth had wee jaggy bits across their biting edge like a wean’s. Serrated. Most folk’s teeth wear tae a straight edge by the time they’re about fourteen but in sixth year at school his were like mini-saws. I could feel them when we were kissing, hours spent tangling with passion in a quiet bit of wasteground on the edge of the park. We never really done anything much, just kissed till wur lips swelled up. Every time it seemed as if we’d be carried away by it, one of us would pull back or move the other’s haund away fae the danger spot and we’d break, talk for a while until the moment passed. Sometimes, lying in bed at night, I’d imagine what it’d be like for him tae put his haunds under my claes, touch my naked skin. In the beds across fae mines were Mona, an unidentifiable lump under her downie, and Rona, wan airm thrown out of the covers, white in the light of the streetlamp.
How did Jas sleep? What would it be like to lie beside him, coorie like spoons all night long?
It seems weird we never spoke about it, since we spent all the rest of our time talking, never ran out of conversation. He never anyway. Always something on his mind; big things, never trivia.
Look at this, he’d say, showing me something he’d cut out the newspaper about fossil fuels. Or he’d start a conversation wi my da. So what do you think of the situation in Iraq, Mr O’Connell? D’you think we should end the sanctions?
Da cairried on watching Countdown wi the sound turned doon; I knew he was making up words in his heid while he answered Jas.
Havenae a scooby aboot politics son, but these things’ll never hurt the government – it’s always the ordinary folk end up suffering.
Jas didnae know the meaning of the word casual; everything was important to him and if it wasnae important, what was the point in talking aboot it? Why gossip aboot some daft popstar’s lovelife when you could discuss the meaning of life, why watch soaps when you could read about the molecular composition of polymers?
And he didnae just talk about things, he done them. He was aye writing letters for Amnesty or campaigning for something on the school council. Or studying. Or working. Probably the only time he wasnae daeing something purposeful was when he was with me.
I met Jas when I moved to the non-denominational (or – as my da called it – proddy) school in sixth year. I wanted to dae Advanced Highers in English, Art and History and St Philomena’s couldnae timetable them thegether. They tried tae persuade me to change one of the subjects, then suggested I go to Burnside just for History but it seemed less complicated tae move school – it was only for a year. And though I’d been dead happy at St Phil’s when I was younger, after all the stuff that had happened this past year, I was glad enough tae go where no one knew me.
I met Jas the first day when he came up to me after English and thrust a photocopied leaflet about the debating club in ma haund.
‘Is multiculturalism the new racism?’
I went alang cause I’d nothin else to dae efter school on Friday and Friday is a day when you want to have something to dae. I thought it’d be good to get tae know some folk at school but it was just Jas and two of his pals and a couple of fourth-year girls who wanted to get off with the sixth years. And me. Clocked in a dusty classroom wi the desks moved back and stacked upside doon so you could see the chuggie stuck tae the underside.
Jas was electrifying. I wasnae convinced by all he said, but he said it wi a passion that was infectious. He had these beautiful haunds, long and spidery like the winter branches of trees, and he moved them as he spoke, like someone daeing calligraphy in the air. The other guy never stood a chance; he plodded through his well-prepared and well-meaning speech at a steady pace, stopping at regular intervals tae pause, look at us and sum up his point in a deeper voice afore lifting the next index card. He said all the things I’d ever been told about respecting different cultures and religions, about us all co-existing in some happy melting-pot of a city.
But Jas.
I am sick, sick, sick of being a Sikh.
He looked round, dark eyes taking in each of us.
Not because I am unhappy with my religion or my culture or my family heritage, but because so-called multiculturalism has stolen Sikhism, has tamed it and made it cute and cuddly. He put on a patronising adult voice, the kind of voice people use when they’re trying to humour a three-year-old.
Oh, look at the cute little Asian boy with his hanky tied round his heid, that’s because he’s growing his hair. It’s his religion, you know.
Oh, why don’t we all make paper lanterns this week in the Art lesson because it’s Diwali? Maybe Jaswinder could tell us about it. Then next week Hassan can tell us about Eid. Then it’ll be time to start learning the carols for our Christmas concert.
If I had a fiver for every time I’d told my primary school class about friggin Diwali I’d be a millionaire. But making lanterns every November or drawing pictures of the five Ks doesnae mean they understand anything about being a Sikh – it’s just paying lip service to the real diversity of our culture and smoothing over the racism and suspicion that divides us, even those of us who tick the brown boxes in the ethnic monitoring forms we need to fill in in the name of equal opportunities – Sikh and Muslim, Hindu and Sikh.
And I don’t have time in the four minutes allowed me to even get started on those of mixed race – those who should be the zenith, the culmination of our so-called multicultural society (if we really believed in it). Yes I am referring to those of mixed race, who, rather than being what we aspire to, far from being the epitome of multiculturalism, are in fact an embarrassment as they can’t be done, ticked off on a multicultural calendar by making something symbolic out of coloured paper, or placed in the correct box on the multicoloured form. No, they fit nowhere, not even with their own family.
Efter the debate, predictably, was won by Jas, he and the other guy shook haunds and the fourth-year lassies fluttered round him. I sloped off out the room and heided doon the road.
SO. MS HARRIS crossed her legs and clicked the top of her pen. Today I thought we’d go round the group so each of you can say what topic you’re proposing for your dissertation and why you chose it. I’d like you to give us some idea of the areas you intend to explore. Is that clear?
She looked round us, sat in a circle on scabby plastic chairs. Of course it was clear. Everything she said and done was clear. She spoke wi a precision that was quite different fae the sloppy way the kids done, every other word like, yeah, dunno, whatever. But it was also different fae the way the other teachers spoke. They mumbled or tailed away their sentences, turned their back on you while they were explaining things or failed tae make eye contact. Ms Harris was young – 26, 27 mibbe – and everything about her was perfect. The other young teachers were either buttoned up as if they were wearing their parents’ clothes or else sloppy like they’d fallen out of bed, but she wore the kind of clothes that managed to look quite cool but perfectly appropriate for a teacher – little cardigans with glittery bits on them, silky skirts that never creased, funky shoes. Even her specs had a designer label. She knew her stuff too – was always prepared, never seemed harassed. Of course the sixth year werenae likely to gie teachers up cheek but some of them