Can You See Me Now? Read online

  I saw the door to the girls’ toilets on my left and ducked in.

  I was washing my hands and trying to remember if the headmistress had said block F or H when a very tall, very skinny girl stepped out of one of the stalls. She came and stood next to me at the sink. I remember staring at her in the mirror. She was alarmingly pretty, with none of the spotty skin or facial hair that had haunted me since the day I turned twelve. She had a heart-shaped face and pouty lips, her deep black eyes framed by thick kohl. She was wearing a hijab, but the silky scarf was barely enough to contain what I could tell was a wild tangle of hair underneath. And though I would never have admitted it then, it was her easy beauty, that shock of the bright pink hijab against her creamy skin, that first made me want to be friends with her. At fifteen, I was convinced that if I hung out with the pretty, popular girls, I would somehow transform into one myself.

  ‘Do you mind?’

  I averted my eyes, embarrassed to have been caught staring, and she laughed. She leaned in and stuck her hands above mine under the stream of water.

  ‘I don’t like touching anything in here,’ she said, wiping her hands on her skirt. There were no hand dryers or even paper towels in the toilets. Of all the things that shocked me about this supposedly elite school that I had been shipped off to, the complete lack of hygiene struck me the most.

  ‘Are you new?’ she asked. I saw her eyes scan my face in the mirror and watched them soften as she took in my expression.

  I nodded, not trusting myself to speak as I blinked back the tears. I followed her lead, wiping my hands on my skirt instead of the filthy brown towel that was hung by the door. I handed her the timetable. ‘Do you know where this is? XI-R?’

  ‘That’s my class! Banerjee’s not great at orientations, is she?’ she smirked.

  It took me a second to realize that she had just referred to the headmistress by her last name alone.

  ‘Relax, she can’t hear us,’ she smiled. ‘I’m Noor, by the way.’

  ‘Alia.’

  ‘Okay, so, all year eleven classrooms are in block F, which is the tall one right next to the assembly ground. We’re in section R, so that’ll be top floor, by the water cooler.’ She picked up her backpack and slung it over one shoulder. ‘Come on, I’ll show you,’ she said, pushing the door open with her hip.

  I followed her out of the toilets and down yet another long corridor. She pointed out activity rooms, science labs and faculty lounges as we passed them, her voice rising over the commotion that was hundreds of students back on their first day of term. I had visited Westminster as part of a school group the year before and I could recognize the same whiff of power and entitlement in the halls at Wescott. I felt just as out of place here as I had done in Westminster that day, being led by a person clearly accustomed to sashaying down the corridors.

  But then, I suppose I felt out of place everywhere.

  ‘Homeroom starts in six minutes,’ she said, looking at her watch as we power-walked three flights up a concrete staircase. ‘Four periods before the break, and four after. Most seniors use the cafeteria in block H, but you can go wherever you want. There’s a—’

  ‘There’s more than one cafeteria?’

  ‘Yeah, there’s, like, four thousand students at Wescott.’

  ‘Oh, right.’

  One of the few things Mrs Banerjee had been at pains to explain was that students didn’t go from class to class in Wescott; instead, the teachers came to us. I tried to picture four thousand students cramming into this maze of narrow corridors and stairwells after every period and suddenly it made sense.

  I was about to thank Noor for the tour when I realized she was distracted. Her face broke into a grin as she waved at the girl waiting at the top of the stairs. ‘That’s Sabah,’ she said before running up the final few steps. I watched the two of them drape around each other while talking a million miles a minute, several weeks’ worth of chatter condensed into urgent whispers, interrupted only by giggles and shrieks.

  Sabah was pretty. Extremely pretty, with sparkling hazel eyes and dark brown hair pulled back into a sleek ponytail. Her nose and forehead were dotted with freckles and though she was slim, her face had a healthy fullness to it, giving her the kind of wholesome appearance that was every teenage girl’s dream.

  ‘Hey,’ Sabah said, taking me in with one sharp glance after I’d slogged my way up the remaining stairs. I could feel myself blush as her eyes lingered over my starched uniform. She was dressed in the same uniform that I was wearing, but while mine felt stiff and restrictive, Sabah looked like she had just stepped out of Teen Vogue. Her plaid skirt finished halfway down her thighs, her shirtsleeves were rolled up to reveal a delicate charm bracelet and her tie hung loose, top button undone. She was wearing the same white socks with the red stripe running through, but hers were scrunched down to her ankles, revealing ridiculously long legs for such a petite girl.

  I felt myself shrink under her scrutiny.

  ‘Hi, I’m Alia,’ I managed to say before she spun around.

  ‘Come on, we’re already late,’ she said, linking her arm through Noor’s and marching down the corridor to the classroom. She leaned in to whisper something into Noor’s ear and Noor swatted her away.

  All I could do was imagine what she might have said, what words she would have used to dismiss me.

  ‘Here we are,’ Noor said, turning to me and swinging the door open.

  The room was crammed full of desks, arranged in pairs and lined up in four rows. Students were scattered in groups of twos and threes across the classroom, leaning on desks, the girls talking in shrill voices and the boys pretending to ignore them. Though the layout and scale was very different to my comprehensive in London, somehow it felt exactly the same.

  ‘Pick any desk you want,’ Noor called out as Sabah dragged her over to a group of girls clustered around the window, all of them slim, all of them gorgeous. I watched for a minute as the girls rearranged themselves to let Noor and Sabah claim their spots at the centre. Noor dumped her backpack on the floor and hoisted herself on top of a desk.

  In less than a few seconds, the group closed around them and all I could see of Noor was a flash of her hijab and her distinctly non-regulation trainers resting on the chair.

  I took a deep breath and made my way over to an empty seat at the back of the room. I reminded myself that I didn’t need friends. I’d been fine on my own in London and I would be fine here.

  I slipped into the chair and busied myself with studying the timetable that I already knew by heart.

  ALIA

  Fifteen years ago

  I nearly jumped with relief when the bell rang, signalling the start of the forty-minute lunch break. I swept my notebook and pens into my backpack and zipped it shut. The homeroom teacher had left some sign-up sheets on her desk and a group of girls had clustered around it.

  I waited till they had trickled away, their attention seized by a group of boys, and then stepped through the aisle. I flicked through the sheets, amazed at the sheer number of options. There were at least fifteen different clubs and a dozen activities coming up in the first term alone, everything from the traditional swim team to a model United Nations conference and a social outreach society.

  I watched the girl I had spent the morning sitting next to walk out with not so much as a glance in my direction. I chided myself for the unwanted flutter of disappointment. I had already decided to spend the lunch break reading. I knew that over time these faces would become familiar but until then the thought of walking into a packed cafeteria on the first day of school and trying to work out where to sit filled me with dread.

  I was scrawling my name on the sign-up sheet for the track team when Noor and Sabah sauntered over.

  ‘Hey,’ Noor said, as Sabah put her and Noor’s names down on a couple of sheets in elaborate looping letters. Even her handwriting was prettier than mine.

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘Are you going for lunch?’

&
nbsp; The only thing worse than facing hundreds of new faces at lunch was admitting to one of them that I wasn’t brave enough to go.

  ‘Yeah, in a minute. Are you?’ I asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

  ‘There, done,’ Sabah said, straightening up to face Noor and me.

  A look passed between them, and I could sense some sort of agreement being reached. I tried not to get my hopes up.

  ‘Yep, do you want to walk with us?’

  ‘Sure,’ I shrugged, even as my heart spun cartwheels inside my chest.

  The seniors’ cafeteria was on the ground floor in the block across from us. Noor and Sabah led the way, arms linked, pleated skirts swaying in sync. I tried to keep up with them in the narrow corridor but every few steps I’d have to hang back to let someone pass.

  One of the boys from my bus route waved at me from across the courtyard as we crossed it on our way to the cafeteria.

  ‘You know him?’ Sabah asked.

  ‘Dhruv? He was at my bus stop this morning. Why?’

  ‘He’s a senior, and newly single.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘And super hot,’ Noor grinned.

  I could feel the colour rising in my cheeks.

  ‘You don’t have a boyfriend, do you?’ Sabah asked.

  ‘No,’ I said, then noticing the satisfaction creeping up Sabah’s face, I added, ‘Not anymore, I mean. I broke up with Chris when we moved here. Long distance,’ I said with a shudder. The lie was only small but it sent a ripple of excitement through me, especially when I saw that the girls were suitably impressed.

  ‘What about you?’ I asked as we climbed up the short flight of stairs at the entrance of the cafeteria.

  ‘Noor doesn’t really do boyfriends,’ Sabah said.

  ‘Oh, of course, I –’ I stammered, mortified that I hadn’t clocked the significance of her hijab.

  ‘No, no, nothing like that. All of this’ – Noor twirled – ‘is for my parents. What she means is, I prefer not to be tied down at sixteen. Not like Sabah, who’s been in love with the same boy since we were, like, eight.’

  ‘What can I say, unlike some people, I have no interest in getting half the swim team’s opinion on which bra matches —ouch,’ Sabah squealed as Noor pinched her arm.

  It didn’t take a genius to figure out this banter was part of their act and the sudden stab of longing took me by surprise.

  These girls were seriously cool.

  We pushed the double doors open and stepped into a large hall lined with long wooden tables and benches. A huge skylight and massive windows overlooking the main courtyard lit up the room and turned what would otherwise have been a claustrophobic space into something open and welcoming. Or as open as it can be with the entire senior class crammed into it.

  I felt the burn of hundreds of eyes on me as we weaved through the hordes of students to get to the snack station.

  ‘Wow,’ I muttered. I tugged at my skirt self-consciously.

  Sabah laughed and took my arm, pulling me to the front of the queue. ‘This is what happens when you’re with Noor. You’ll get used to it.’

  ‘Boys, this is Alia. She’s new, so be nice,’ Noor said as we approached a table along the back wall.

  ‘Vineet,’ Noor said, pointing to the ridiculously good-looking boy who was still in his cricket jersey. ‘Mohit.’ The dark one with tightly curled black hair and rimmed glasses. ‘Yash.’ The one who barely looked up; he was taller than the others and clearly belonged in a computer lab.

  After a chorus of uninterested hellos, the boys went back to dissing the Campion School cricket team, and we went back to ignoring them. The message was clear: I might be at their table today but I had to earn the right to be part of the group.

  ‘So you moved here? From London?’ Sabah asked, dumping her bag of Cheetos on the table as she slid in next to Vineet. With his deep olive skin and floppy Nick Carter-esque hair, I didn’t need anyone to tell me he was the Ken to her Barbie.

  ‘My parents got transferred to Turkey,’ I said, sitting down across from her. ‘I would’ve gone with them but they weren’t having it. Too dangerous, apparently. I’m living with my grandparents now, which is cool because I can basically do anything I want.’

  Noor sat down next to me. ‘What do your parents do?’

  We were sitting at a table next to the windows. Though the cafeteria was busy, bustling with students trying to find an empty seat, there were only six of us on a table large enough for ten. It was obvious, even to me, that this was the top table. I’d learn later that being from London gave me instant cool quotient, but for the moment, I couldn’t quite believe that I was eating lunch with girls like Noor and Sabah. It felt crucial to build up a picture of myself that would fit in with them, even if that meant stretching the truth a little. This was supposed to be a fresh start, after all.

  ‘They’re diplomats,’ I said, which was technically true.

  ‘Nice,’ Noor said. She reached across the table to help herself to a handful of Cheetos.

  ‘What was your school like in London?’ Sabah asked. Her poise unnerved me.

  ‘Small. We had five hundred students there in total.’

  ‘Wow.’

  ‘Yeah, everyone knew everyone,’ I said, breaking off a small piece of the samosa I had bought.

  ‘Did you live close by?’

  ‘Kind of. It was, like, a fifteen-minute walk.’

  ‘It’s so cute how you can walk everywhere in London. My aunt lives there, near Notting Hill,’ Sabah said, by way of explanation.

  ‘That’s not too far from where we are.’ I paused to correct myself. ‘Were. Kensington.’ Even back then, I knew how to play to my audience. As Noor and Sabah quizzed me about my life in London, my state-funded comprehensive in Harrow quickly became a grammar school in Kensington, and our damp two-bedroom flat became a Victorian red-brick a quick stroll from the palace.

  ‘What, you mean, Buckingham Palace?’

  ‘No, don’t be silly. Kensington Palace. Buckingham Palace is so touristy,’ I said, adopting the slightly haughty tone that Sabah had used with me earlier but to my dismay, her attention was elsewhere.

  I turned around to see what she was looking at.

  Two girls wearing matching Nike trainers were approaching our table. There was something menacing in their gait, and I found myself shrinking back in my seat.

  The tall one, who I would later come to know as Nivedita, or Niv, slid in next to Noor. Her friend hovered at the end of the table, looking as uncomfortable as I felt.

  ‘Enjoy the holidays, Niv?’ Noor asked.

  ‘Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to.’

  ‘All I did was tell my friends what I saw. There’s no rule against that, is there?’ Noor said, her face the picture of innocence.

  ‘Oh yeah? You know, you aren’t the only one who can tell people what you saw. You think you’re so high and mighty, walking around like you own this place.’ She brought her face closer to Noor’s, looking her square in the eyes. ‘I know where you really went for the holidays. I saw you. And if you don’t—’

  Sabah, who had been a silent observer until now, leaned across the table and put her hand on Niv’s wrist, stopping her mid-sentence. She smiled sweetly, and for a second I was fooled. ‘You do know you can get expelled for cheating on a final, don’t you? I still have those chits I found,’ she said. ‘Not that I’ll need them. Everyone knows how you get your perfect scores.’

  Niv shook her wrist free, rubbing it with her other hand where Sabah’s grip had left an angry red mark. ‘No one is going to believe you.’

  ‘Really? Shall we walk into Banerjee’s office and see?’

  I looked at Sabah, this dainty, innocent-looking girl who had until now seemed a bit uptight, but harmless overall. The ferocity underneath her girly exterior dazzled me.

  ‘I didn’t think so,’ Sabah said after a minute, picking up a single cheesy puff from her never-ending bag of Cheetos. ‘You can go now,�
�� she said to Niv, before popping it in her mouth.

  ALIA

  Outside the house, people are milling about talking and sipping chai out of disposable plastic cups. A marquee has been set up in the back garden. Politicians, bureaucrats and industrialists elbow for space as TV presenters broadcast comments and interviews to thousands of homes live across the country. A couple of reporters approach me and I oblige them with a short, teary comment. Optics is everything.

  I learned that the hard way.

  The scandal, when it broke, stayed in the papers for months afterwards. It had to, considering the people involved: Noor, the daughter of a cabinet minister; Vineet, the son of the city’s most prominent property developer; and me, the cast-off daughter of two civil servants. Sabah, in contrast, had had it easier to begin with, until someone let spill the details of what had really gone on at our parties and, overnight, she was the mastermind, the one who had led us down the path of total ruin. The coverage was brutal. In the absence of real facts, the media whipped up a storm, one ludicrous story at a time. Opinion pieces about the dangers of allowing girls too much freedom, articles condemning the school administration, books claiming to reveal the ‘real’ truth. Within days, stricter rules came into force in schools across the city, from the obvious to the utterly bizarre: longer skirts, mandatory counselling sessions, no after-school activities, no mobile phones, no outside food. Though the courts ensured we were never officially named, it was one thing banning the national media from printing our names, quite another trying to keep it from the mouths of gossipy teenagers. Our identities were, quite possibly, the worst kept secret of the time.

  It had worried me, when I decided to run for office. I questioned myself incessantly. Did I really think I could escape that? Not only walk away scot-free but also build a life based on a mistake that had destroyed so many? Turns out, the world loves nothing more than a good redemption story and, in some ways, the media attention helped more than it harmed. I gave one single interview – an hour-long exclusive on CTV the week before I declared my candidacy. I spoke frankly about the school, about teenage mental health, about Noor and Sabah and what friendships like that could do to a naive teenager. It had been Arjun who suggested I do the interview. Take control of the narrative, he’d said. We hadn’t been married then, but I trusted him. I took his advice. The country had loved it; it was better than any exposé or true crime documentary. They were hearing directly from one of the infamous Wescott Four. The non-profit I had set up as a young student saw a 200 per cent hike in donations that quarter and when I ran for office a few months later, I won by a landslide. Somehow, by admitting my guilt on national television, by talking about my anguish over trying and failing to help Noor, I had become a symbol for innocent girls who had been led astray. The country came together in their support for me and with one interview, the worst thing I had ever done became the foundation for the rest of my life.