by Sara Jafari
It physically hurt to be away from their families at such a time. That said, the place they once called home remained unchanged in their minds; so despite seeing it on the news and hearing from family all that was going on there, they couldn’t fully envisage the new Iran that was being talked about. But that didn’t mean Neda didn’t want to return there.
“Why would you say that?” she asked.
“You have something here—prospects. All I’ll ever be is a taxi driver or a shop worker. In England I’m nothing. I’m a loser.”
She sat next to him, took both his hands in hers. “Hossein, you’re not a loser.”
He pulled away, stood up, and crossed the room to put distance between them.
“I don’t want to limit you—you know that. But life here isn’t good for me. What am I meant to do?”
“Wait. Wait for me to finish my PhD. There’s only a year and a half left.”
“Neda, I know. I know.”
Her heart skittered momentarily. He couldn’t, she thought. But the way he looked at her, he seemed certain.
“Know what?”
“You’re pregnant, aren’t you?”
She said nothing, looked down at her wedding ring. Spun the gold band around her finger while she thought of something to say.
“Fucking answer me,” her husband said through gritted teeth.
“I think so, yes.”
He walked towards her, his face rigid. “Why didn’t you tell me? Did you not think I needed to know? And you say we’ll go back home. How? Now we’ve got a baby on the way and you want to finish your PhD. You’re setting down roots here. It doesn’t matter to you if I’m included in your plan, though, does it?”
Her head snapped up. “Hossein, don’t be like this.” She struggled to find the right words . “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t know how to. We didn’t plan this. It’s come at the worst time…”
“So, now you don’t even want my baby.”
“No! Hossein, no. Don’t say that.” She breathed unsteadily. “How did you find out?”
“For someone so clever, sometimes you can be dumb. You left the pregnancy test in the bin.”
He didn’t clean the flat, so she’d assumed he’d never look in the bins.
“You don’t have to be unkind,” she said.
“You know what, Neda jaan, I will be however I want to be.” He punched the wall, making her jump. “We’re fucking stuck here now. Even if we wanted to go back to Iran, everything there has changed too. Nothing’s the same.”
“So why are you angry at me?”
“I’m angry at everything.”
This was the first red flag from Hossein that Neda ignored. Three years afterwards his habitual discontent would develop into something much worse, something that would change their lives completely.
Soraya didn’t want to be at this party. She and Magnus had to be low-key after all that had happened, and not be seen out together. But she knew she needed to try to get things back to normal. That and the fact that Magnus had insisted she come.
They held hands on the way there, an act that made Soraya exceptionally paranoid that someone would see them, so she kept her head down as they walked. But when they got to the front door of the house where the party was being held and he’d pressed the bell, Magnus put both his hands in his jacket pockets.
They were standing outside a slightly run-down semi, a family house until landlords realized how much young people would pay to live so close to the university. Some of its former smartness had worn off—the low brick wall that separated it from the street crumbling, the brown paintwork chipped in places.
A redheaded man opened the door. He wore a crested rugby hoodie like Magnus’s.
“Mate,” he said loudly, grasping Magnus’s shoulder, before looking at Soraya, with an amused expression on his face. “This is her, then?”
She tried to smile but instead her mouth turned downwards.
“This is Tommy,” Magnus said.
“I’ve heard all about you, Sarah,” he said, peering at Soraya.
She looked behind her, already aware there was no one else there. “Sarah?”
Magnus shifted on his feet. “It’s Soraya,” he said to his friend. “He’s drunk, ignore him,” he whispered in her ear.
Tommy opened the door wider to let them in. As they entered Soraya began to lick her lips, hoping to remove the dark lipstick she wore. She suddenly felt the need to assimilate rather than stand out.
She could taste the testosterone in the house. Magnus’s presence next to her felt different.
The party seemed to be made up of
Men who engaged in sporting activity.
Girls who were excited by men who engaged in sporting activity.
But what stood out the most to her was
Everyone was white.
With the passing of time Soraya had slowly become somewhat white-passing. This was partly because her skin had naturally lightened, and she made a conscious effort to remove her perceived excess body hair. Beyond that, though, now that white people were trying to make themselves look ethnic, by tanning, dying their hair darker, and drawing their eyebrows thicker, people saw Soraya, who naturally had these features, as similar to those white people. At school, however, this was not the case. Her every difference was noted then—something to be made fun of. She was often called a “hairy Paki.” Now she experienced the same feeling of being on edge around her peers that she had then, and knew she didn’t belong here.
A group of people crowded around Magnus, guys handing him beer and girls sidling up close to him. Soraya was left to one side, behind everyone, unsure what to do.
She started writing a long message to Oliver about the entire situation, partly to have something to do with her hands. After a few minutes of this, Magnus must have realized she wasn’t standing next to him but was by the door on her phone.
“Soraya, what are you doing?” he said, laughing. The group had parted to let him through and they were all staring at her.
“Sorry, I was just replying to a message.”
He placed one hand on the small of her back and began introducing her to the group as simply “Soraya.”
The guys he introduced her to were loud, large, and confident. They looked her straight in the face for a long while, as though they couldn’t understand what he was doing with her. And in that moment, she didn’t understand either.
The evening mostly consisted of Magnus being swept away by some friend or other, and Soraya sitting alone watching men play beer pong, or else observing the technique of slim yet busty girls who flirted with the boys before slinking away with them somewhere.
She could always hear Magnus—his booming laugh echoed off the walls as he encouraged his friends to down drinks and made crass jokes.
When one girl said she wouldn’t down a drink that contained a mixture of beer, vodka, and white wine, he said, “Go to the kitchen where you belong then!” The girl laughed, hit his shoulder, and downed it while maintaining eye contact with him.
Soraya had to leave the room at that point.
In the living room an entire wall was filled with magazine cutouts of naked women. Their round, large breasts caught her eye frequently, tauntingly. She remembered the Facebook picture of Magnus semi-naked in this house, against the lewd wall, and wondered yet again why he thought it was OK, or why anyone here thought a wall of glamour models was appropriate for a living room. The thought of the men actually cutting these pictures out of magazines and then collaging them on the wall was weird and sad.
She tried engaging in conversations with people, but while they were drunk or high on cocaine, she was sober and small talk often fizzled out. She wasn’t in the mood to drink or take drugs.
So she sat alone on a sinking so
fa, picking at her split ends.
The sofa suddenly sank considerably lower, which made her fall sideways into the person who had sat down. It was Tommy.
“Sarah,” he said loudly, putting a hand on her shoulder. “What are you doing here alone?”
She wriggled out of his grasp. “It’s Soraya.”
He bit his lip theatrically. “Whoops,” he said. “You having a good time?”
“Yeah, it’s fine.”
He put his hand on her shoulder again and whispered in her ear. “Come on, tell me, did it really happen?” When he spoke a speck of spit hit her cheek.
“What are you talking about?” she asked, ignoring his saliva on her face. She moved her head back.
“Have you guys, you know, shagged?” He shook his head, laughing. “I feel like I was cheated out of fifty quid. So, come on, is it true?”
Her mouth was wide open.
“What are you on about?”
“The lads put a bet on whether Magnus could, um…” He trailed off, belatedly realizing this news would not be welcome.
“Could what?”
He slapped her shoulder in what he clearly thought was a friendly gesture. She noticed his red eyes. He reminded her of Mr. Blobby in that moment. An absolute mess.
“It was a little challenge. Nothing derogatory, honestly. You must know Magnus is a top shagger and all that? Everyone knows. We just thought it was funny that he was struggling to do it with you.” In trying to reassure her, he continued metaphorically jabbing her in the stomach.
Her jaw was tight from suppressing the urge to reply to this, and her forefinger busy working at a flake of skin on her thumb while her mind was reeling.
A girl approached them. Holding a can of beer, she crouched before them, a smile on her face.
“Tommy, are you scaring Soraya off?”
“No!” he said, at the same time as she said, “Yeah, he is.”
“I’m Rosie, by the way.” She had mermaid-like hair and her jeans were low-rise, exposing her navel. “I’ve heard all about you.”
Soraya felt she was on display, like a monkey at a zoo.
“Right,” she said. “Do you know about the bet too?”
Rosie’s face colored and she looked confused. Tommy was silent.
“Magnus bet the ‘lads’ that he could sleep with me, it seems. So you didn’t hear anything about that?” Soraya said to her.
Rosie looked from Soraya to Tommy, her pink lips set in a frozen smile.
“No. I mean, Magnus told me you’re…you know…but I don’t think he was involved in a bet.”
She gave Soraya a sympathetic smile that irritated her. She disliked it when girls like Rosie acted as if they were looking out for other females; it always rang fake.
A thin blond girl ran into the room then, naked apart from pink boy shorts, and began running around, giggling drunkenly. Following her was a completely naked man, who was cupping his genitals with his hands. Everyone began cheering, Rosie included. Everyone but Soraya, it seemed.
“Go on, Lucy!” they called. Magnus’s Lucy? The girl who was in love with him?
“What the fuck is going on?” Soraya muttered to herself.
When they left to streak in another room, it looked like Rosie was about to get up, so Soraya asked, “What did Magnus tell you then?”
“Well, that you’re a virgin.” She said the last word quietly, like she had just said Soraya was part of ISIS. If Rosie really had been looking out for a fellow woman, she wouldn’t have said that in front of Tommy.
He let out a howl of triumph. “I knew he was fucking lying! Imagine, Magnus Evans, who’s slept with fifty girls, is now going out with a virgin.” He laughed.
Fifty girls.
“I’m not a virgin,” said Soraya. It sounded feeble after what she’d just heard. Fifty…
Rosie put a hand on Soraya’s wrist. She wanted to yank it away. “It’s OK, it’s not a bad thing.”
“Don’t you ever just want to fuck though?” Tommy asked.
Rosie rolled her eyes, and they began discussing whether it was wrong that Soraya was a virgin. But she couldn’t hear them properly anymore.
She scrambled to her feet, adrenaline going into overtime.
Magnus sat on a wooden chair in the kitchen, talking to two other boys. Her jacket and bag were slung over the chairback. Without saying anything, she yanked her jacket away, causing him to jump slightly.
He turned, and when he saw it was Soraya standing there he laughed, as though it was all a joke.
And maybe it had been all along.
He knew she was a virgin. And he had only been seeing her as part of a bet. She’d been right about him all along.
“I’m going,” she said to him through gritted teeth.
She had to push past bodies to get to the front door. Leaving this party would be her salvation. She could process what she’d just heard once she was outside, away from the music, the people, the feeling of Magnus’s eyes on her retreating back.
Except, it wasn’t that simple. His hand was on her arm, pulling her to him in the packed hallway.
“What’s going on? What’s happened?” he asked, his voice harsh with drunkenness.
She shoved him away, ignoring curious looks from those around them.
“Just get away from me. I know. I know about everything. You make me sick!”
His mouth hung open, eyes squinting as he struggled to comprehend her words. She didn’t give him time to think of an excuse, or attempt to explain himself; instead she pried the front door open and slammed it behind her.
Once outside she was determined to keep walking and not stop until she was a safe distance away from the house.
It was dark, the streetlights illuminating only isolated spots, leaving some areas in shadow. Soraya set off at a quick pace, hugging herself to keep warm. She often walked alone late at night in South London, and although she probably shouldn’t she usually felt safe. It wasn’t fear of the unknown that made her walk quickly.
Ahead she could see the main road, the red buses passing, people walking.
For now, she refused to think about what Tommy had said. She wanted to consider his words properly when she was home.
And yet the pieces were finally slotting together. Why else would Magnus have been so eager, so willing to wait? He had even said he was falling in love with her. But was it all a game for him? And had she been stupid enough to fall for it, fall for him? They hadn’t even gone all the way, which made her wonder if part of the bet was the other stuff they had done. That thought made her feel physically sick.
When she reached the main road, it was busy with people, a world away from where she had been moments ago, and she let out her breath. Her hands were shaking.
“Do you have twenty pence?” someone asked her as she passed a corner shop. She couldn’t look at them or utter a word in reply but stared blankly ahead. “Are you OK, love?” the person continued. But she kept on walking, fingers playing with the keys in her pocket. She let them dig into her palm and pressed the metal harder and harder, until she snapped out of whatever spell she was under.
At the bus stop, the board said her bus would arrive in twenty-three minutes. She didn’t want to walk, although it would take the same amount of time to catch the bus as it would to return on foot. She didn’t have enough money in her bank account to justify getting an Uber. So, she sat on the bench, watching the cars go by.
A group of girls in the shelter were talking animatedly.
After a few minutes she felt a familiar presence next to her. Her heart quickened, her stomach turning unexpectedly hollow.
“You need to leave me alone.” Despite the coldness of her tone she was shaking. She clasped her hands tight together.
“Soraya?” Magnus touched her hand and s
he snatched it away. Her breathing was unsteady. She refused to meet his eye.
“Just go away.”
She could feel him looking at her.
On the other side of the road was a homeless man, wrapped in a blanket, asleep. By his side were chicken-shop boxes.
“I don’t know what you think you heard—”
She snapped her head around then.
“What I think I heard? Your friend straight out told me you were only with me for a bet.” Her raised voice quivered on the last word. “That all of this was so you could win fifty quid after sleeping with me. That’s what messing with another person is worth to you—just fifty quid. You knew I hadn’t been with anyone before, you knew it all along.” She shook her head, rage coloring her senses. “I don’t even know why you’re standing here. You don’t have to pretend to like me anymore. You can go back to your stupid fucking friends.”
“Oh, come on, kiss and make up!” one drunk girl said to them. The others cackled at her interruption. Upon seeing Soraya’s answering glare they laughed even harder. Tears prickled her eyes.
Magnus stood in front of Soraya, blocking the girls from view.
“I know it sounds bad—”
“Was all of this a game for you? To sleep with a virgin? To prove you could do it, oh, so effortlessly?”
“Obviously not—”
“Even when I told you about my dad, you didn’t think you should stop? Or was it too funny to stop? Is that why you invited me to the party, so you could all laugh at me?”
“Soraya, it isn’t like that.” He closed his eyes momentarily, but then something in him changed. His jaw clenched and the streetlights cast a shadow over his face. It made him look different. “Who are you to talk?” he asked her then.