So there we were, sitting in our finery, playing the perfect family unit to the outside world. I watched my parents trying to impress the waiters, desperately attempting to radiate cohesion and success. My mother kept reminding Ramy and me how grateful we should be to our father for taking us to such an expensive restaurant; as if by default, all I could tell him was how much I despised the afternoon. Everything I ate, I said was repulsive (it was extraordinarily delicious); any time they asked me a question, I asked them to stop talking to me; and when my parents spoke about how my behaviour would not be tolerated in Iraq, I told them that was fine by me. I believe I said, ‘I’m not Arab like you. I’m British.’ I also asked my mother if she had ever considered plastic surgery on her nose (which I had inherited), because ‘it’s really very disgusting, Mum.’ By the end of the lunch, I was resting my head on the napkin, pretending to be asleep, and as my father paid the bill, I told him it was the worst day of my life. I provoked him more than I ever had before, knowing that his rage would be tempered because we were in a dignified public space. In the end, my father said, ‘Once again, Amrou ruins everything.’
‘You’ve become a monster,’ said my mother mournfully. But I know you thought I was one already.
So, when my teachers talked about me as anything but a monster, my mother truly was confused. While I comfortably assumed the role of tormentor with my parents, I did everything in my power to be the school’s golden boy. Each morning, I arrived earlier than I needed to, just so I could bring the class register from the downstairs lobby to my teacher for when they came to do the name check. Before leaving the school each afternoon, I made sure to go around to every teacher I knew to say ‘Have a lovely evening.’ After a school trip, I would agonise over handwritten thank-you notes to every single teacher who attended. Before the Christmas and Easter holidays, absolutely every teacher and student I knew got a heartfelt card, regardless of my true feelings for them. My teachers would often comment to the rest of the year group about my impeccable manners, and it felt so nourishing to be viewed as someone innately good. The only competition I had in this department was my best friend Oliver; he, too, was a remarkably polite and considerate pupil – but perhaps more authentically so – and the race to Head Boy had us fighting it out in secret.
When Oliver got wind of what I was doing to earn the title of ‘register angel’, he too came to school earlier. During term, we would do whatever was in our power to get there first and to grab the register; this sometimes saw us sprinting from the school gates all the way to the register table at seven in the morning. When we wrote our extensive thank-you cards to teachers after trips, we’d compete over the length and presentation of our notes. For Oliver, it became a friendly game, but for me, it was a grave matter. I desperately needed my teachers to think of me as a good kid, because it was my only chance at feeling unconditionally loved by elders. If this slipped, all I would be was the tormented little devil screaming at home.
The double act became exhausting. At school I set impossible benchmarks for myself so that I could pretend I wasn’t rotten inside; at home I was a decaying mess. At school my sexuality was almost celebrated; at home it brought with it great peril. Like a cell undergoing mitosis, my sense of self was being severed into two opposing spaces, both of which brought with them enormous pressure. The divisions were only multiplying – over the course of my teenage years, my race was severed from my sexuality, my heritage came into conflict with my passions, and any sense of truth about who I was became completely concealed. This was until I discovered the magic of marine biology.
I DON’T WANT TO BE WHERE THE PEOPLE ARE
When there were no after-school clubs for me to stay behind for, I would tell my parents that there were, so I could wander around Barnes and delay going home. On one such afternoon, when I was thirteen, I stumbled upon a street in Mortlake I’d never ventured down before – and it was here that I encountered the Tropical and Marine shop for the first time.
In the shop window sat an enormous marine fish tank, teeming with colourful coral, free-flowing anemones, gloriously ornamented fish, and constantly undulating starfish. As I gazed at it, I felt something entirely new – a distinct sense of belonging. Have you ever seen or heard something – a film, a painting, something fleeting out of a car window, a song or a sound – and felt a sudden emotional clarity, as if whatever you’ve just encountered has always been part of you, and in that moment, both parts have finally been reunited? That’s what this felt like. I was deeply stirred by the way that the marine creatures moved so freely; how the soft corals and sea invertebrates seemed to exist without physical boundaries, like warrior shape-shifters; the way the fish regally flaunted their colourful costumes. That’s how I feel on the inside. In my soul, I’m that colourful; my sexuality, my gender – it’s free-moving, like in the tank. Maybe my soul doesn’t have any boundaries?
I had grown very accustomed to boundaries. I had spliced myself into different sections that existed in segregated spaces. But here was a parallel universe where everything was fluid. I inched closer to the tank and was hypnotised by the way all the creatures interacted with each other. Cleaner shrimp politely mowed the scales of a fish that was half purple, half yellow; the corals, each with their own distinct texture and colour scheme, seemed to flow as one formless mass with the current of the water. They were united by their diversity, not divided, like I had learnt to become. Out from the sand emerged starfish, along with hermit crabs and snails, hoovering the sand-bed like a harmonious social collective. I was dazzled by the so-called sand sifter starfish, and the way its multiple, separate limbs, each with their own sense of character, could come together as one entity; the factions of my identity felt like tectonic plates at constant risk of an earthquake. An adorable cylinder-shaped fish emerged from under a rock, its golden sheen with emerald spots iridescent under the tank’s UV light, creating an Egyptian-tone shimmer that reminded me of a dress my mother had worn once in Dubai. And then I met a tube-like structure from which emerged a fan of patterned feathers (a ‘feather duster’); it was entrancing, infinitely complicated, yet utterly simple, millions and millions of molecules coming together to caress the ocean water calmly, its texture as silky as Mama’s hair. I edged as close as I could to see inside the creature, but my sudden movement caused the feather structure to retreat into its tube. I was desperate to dive inside this wormhole with it, for this new world clearly had so much to teach me.
When I got home, my parents remarked that I was unusually calm – in fact, I was in a hypnotic daze. With a wave of possibility rushing inside me, I spent the evening surfing the Internet, wanting to delve deeper into the mysteries of aquatic wonder. I stayed glued to the computer screen, learning of a universe that was untroubled by the strict boundaries that governed human beings on land.
In the marine world, gender fluidity and non-conformism are the status quo. There are sea slugs called nudibranchs that defy sexual categorisation, containing both female and male reproductive organs, giving and receiving in each sexual encounter, with kaleidoscopic patterns to rival those of a resplendent drag queen. Marine snail sea hares are able to change sex at will; cuttlefish can alter the pigments of their exterior with the sartorial flexibility of Alexander McQueen, and can disguise themselves as the opposite gender as a social tool; while a male seahorse is something of an underwater feminist, sharing the labour of pregnancy by carrying and ‘birthing’ the young. This was where I needed to be. I mean, it just seemed so damn woke in the ocean.
It was at this moment that I began to realise I wasn’t fully a man. Now that I have the language to express myself, I identify as non-binary. I like to be referred to with them/they pronouns, which helps me to feel that my gender is as fluid as the uninhibited curves of an oceanic nirvana; when people correctly use my preferred pronouns, it relaxes me, as if I’m being soaked in a lavender bath, making me feel seen as a person free from gender binaries. But when I was gaz
ing into the limitless ocean world as a teenager, all I knew was that its boundlessness had an affinity with my gender. I stayed up late that night and thought about my mother, and about how it was her I most closely identified with in the Middle East. I had so few linguistic, emotional or social tools to comprehend my gender dysphoria back then, but as I learnt of these polymorphous beings whose bodies or colours didn’t restrict them, I felt an aching sense of connection.
Gender dysphoria is a complicated and often scary experience – it can manifest in frustration and anxiety, as if your own body is at odds with how you perceive your own gender. When I close my eyes, I don’t see or feel my internal self as a man, but instead as a gender-fluid being that’s always changing, always moving, liberated from the shackles of masculinity. But when I open my eyes and meet the gazes of others, I’m snapped back into the simple gender codes society has so primitively constructed. It wasn’t until discovering drag later in my life that I truly had the power to appease my gender dysphoria. And marine biology, of all things, was the unexpected start of this journey.
I went to the shop every single afternoon for the next two weeks, like a pilgrim who’d finally found their church. The space was in fact remarkably spiritual. Dimmed ceiling bulbs and overhead UV lights gave the tanks glowing halos, as if they were prophets harbouring secret truths. The luminescent patterns on the corals and fish felt similar to those of Kitenge fabric, and if you blurred your eyes, it looked like a congregation in a Nigerian church, with the tentacles waving like arms up in praise. The shop was quiet and meditative, for vibrations would upset the fish. Humans were being asked to learn from them, and to handle the creatures with complete respect.
The shop was owned by an uncommonly kind Indian couple (let’s call them Anita and Ahi), and in the same way that the elderly librarian grows curious about Matilda during her daily visits, so too did Anita and Ahi begin to wonder about me. I didn’t have the ability to verbalise just what an intense experience I was having, nor the emotional resources to fully understand them myself. So I told them I wanted a tank, and pretty soon I acquired a very humble tropical-water aquarium. It became my pride and joy.
There are three kinds of tank you can get as an aquarium keeper. The simplest, cold-water tanks, use cold fresh water, and house goldfish and the like; tropical tanks use warm, well filtered fresh water, and can house more exciting creatures, such as Malawi Cichlids and colourful guppies. Marine tanks are a whole different ballgame, not only much pricier, but requiring scientific precision and round-the-clock attention. I got the hang of the tropical game pretty quickly, and soon boasted a fully functioning alternative ecosystem inside my room. Whenever a comment from my parents worried me, whenever a mark escaped me in a piece of homework, whenever DR. ABC came knocking, whenever a pair of upside-down slippers cost me sin points, the tank provided solace, and as with my experience in improv class, I became lost in its continual present, the underwater wonderland my only priority.
Just like my thirst to climb to the top set in French, I was desperate to elevate my aquarium keeping into the big leagues. My first port of call was to become a member of an online aquarium-keeping forum (my profile name was ‘New Kid’). At first, the forum was a place for me to ask questions if something was concerning me about my tank. Quite quickly, however, I became the go-to person for all tropical water woes, and the elation this provided was quite something. When someone would post that their fish were swimming weirdly after they washed their entire tank, including the gravel, New Kid would jump to the rescue – ‘Hi PuckerFish089 – it is imperative that you never clean out your gravel; at most you should only replace half of the water in your tank, and clean any debris off the gravel by using a siphon. As a tank develops, the gravel becomes a bed of bacteria to help filtrate the poisonous nitrate, and as such your fish are struggling to breathe right now. Here’s what I recommend …’ I would scour the forum for any tropical-related issues, relishing the buzz of status this brought me each time. To Allah, I was a sinner; to my parents a problem child; to white people, an outsider; to Arabs, an outsider – but on this forum, I was boss.
I needed an excuse to get a job at the aquatics store. As if the universe knew I was destined to be among coral, the perfect one presented itself when our year group was encouraged to enrol in the Duke of Edinburgh scheme. We were promised that obtaining the award would improve our chances at university admission, though somehow, I don’t think an aptitude for orienteering has any real leverage. The course required us not only to acquire a compass, camping, and cartography skills – unsurprisingly, I never used these skills during my History of Art degree – but also to do some community service, as well as take up a hobby. As I flicked through the long checklist of DofE-approved hobbies, as if rummaging through a vintage bargain bucket of hideous jumpers, there it was, hiding amidst the never-ending list, the very thing I was looking for: AQUARIUM KEEPING.
Setting up a marine aquarium is a labour-intensive process that’s not for the faint-hearted, taking weeks upon weeks before you’re allowed to put any fish or coral inside it. After a year of swotting up, and saving up from many Saturdays working at the Mortlake marine stockist, my parents helped me purchase my prized 350-litre tank on eBay, complete with advanced filters, a hanging UV light (which I had to drill into my bedroom ceiling), a bizarre contraption called a protein skimmer to remove wasteful organic compounds, as well as filter pads to remove any phosphate (which is toxic to sea-invertebrates like anemones). After a week of meticulous assembly – I worked alone; no one was allowed near it – it was up and running, glowing in the corner of my bedroom like a jewelled shrine. It was now time to put some salt water inside it. Watch out, world. Anita and Ahi gifted me gallons of specially prepared salt water, which was extremely difficult to cultivate at home. The pair had become my surrogate weekend parents. Every Saturday morning, Anita would greet me with a specially prepared cup of tea – her trick was to soak the teabag for much longer than is usually done – and we’d catch up about her week. I was fascinated by how their family functioned outside the shop. ‘What are your kids like?’ ‘Are they happy?’ ‘What are the rules in your house?’ ‘Do your kids wear funny clothes?’ ‘Would you mind if they did?’ ‘Are you proud of your kids?’
After my morning tea and obtrusive and inappropriate interrogation, Ahi would introduce me to all the new livestock we needed to shift; from bright blue starfish to spiky lionfish, Ahi knew I’d be able to sell the prized goods to customers. I was extremely good at this, often able to convince parents to spend that little extra on hi-tech filters for their fucking lucky kids. And then there were the creatures that were not for sale. I harboured a particular love for a pair of clownfish that lived in a glorious and ethereal red anemone, which had been their home for over five years (longer than I had been in London). From Ahi – who I viewed as something of a wizard – I learnt about the magical biology of clownfish. Clownfish live their early years with no assigned sex, free from gender rules; later in life, they develop matriarchal communities, where the larger female fish chooses a partner out of the male fish who clean their housing anemone (that’s right – the queen fish has a hareem of male slaves). The tentacular anemone in this tank – its gooey threads caressing the orange and white striped duo – was their protector, keeping safe their gender-fluidity with its notorious sting. How I longed for my own protective anemone.
My parents never came into the shop. My mother hates all animals – she’s ‘allergic’ – and my father was usually watching, playing, or talking about football. But on the day I got my salt water, my parents were forced to come inside to help me carry the gallons to the car. Mama, who treated every public excursion like the Met Gala, was dressed head to toe in designer leather and Manolo Blahnik heels. She looked around the shop, seeing only filth. So overwhelmed by ‘the smell’, and in fear for her ‘allergies’, she went outside and waited, agreeing only to carry the water gallons from the shop exterior to the car.
My father stared gormlessly into nothing, wearing an expression of profound boredom on his face that suggested he saw only containers of tomorrow’s sushi. How could he not see that he’d just stepped into an alien utopia?
Our house in Chiswick was very narrow, and my bedroom was on the third floor. When we arrived back with the salt water, the whole family worked like a colony of ants to get the containers from the car all the way to the top tier; my brother, my mother, my father and I stationed ourselves in successive positions as we lugged the huge water containers from person to person up the stairs, like the world’s most pathetic relay race. It was very moving to see my family work so arduously to satisfy my deepest passion. For thirty minutes, they silently transported salt water up to my room, and it was the safest I’d felt with them in a while. It’s funny, isn’t it, the way we tell people we love them? My parents trudging salt water up a flight of stairs like obliging labourers was their version of an ‘I accept you’. They knew how important this tank was to me.
Once the salt water was in, I spent hours calibrating the water with a complicated weighing utensil so it was at optimum salt pressure (a specific gravity measure of 1.025, since you ask). I was then forced to wait three whole days for the tank to settle, before I was allowed to move to the next stage of the emotionally high-octane process. When your tank is operating effectively – with a salt pressure and temperature that are stable and hospitable for marine life – the next task is placing rock and sand from the sea into the tank. ‘Rock and sand?’ you cry. ‘Is that it?!’ But oh boy, it’s more magical a time than I can ever express to you. For the rock and sand is actually living and breathing, concealing surreptitious sea creatures, an underwater pick-and-mix of marine goodies that will only reveal themselves to you when they are ready. Every morning before school, and seconds after I returned home, I’d run to my tank and hunt for indications of life.
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