Chapter 1 - Marked Indelibly

PART ONE

Chapter 1 – Marked indelibly

A kiss goodbye, your twisted shell
As rice grains and roses fall at your feet – My Chemical Romance, Drowning Lessons

When they were 11 years old, twins Sajan and Raveena Thapa had moved from Rochdale to South Manchester, leaving behind their cousins, close friends and schoolmates so their father could start a new job as the headmaster of the local secondary school. The twins now looked back at their time in Rochdale with rose tinted glasses, the memories they had were of friends and of good times, but their parents Talwar and Garima Thapa remembered things slightly differently. A time marked indelibly by thinly veiled racism, a time of scraping by and a time of tension in a home built for 4 but holding 6.

Talwar Singh Thapa and his four children, the eldest brother Shoorveer, daughter Katha and the young twins Raveena and Sajan had left their small and cramped home and moved into a much larger house in a town on the inner side of the ring road, and an area that was still predominantly white. Where they had moved from had been safe from the riots that had erupted in Oldham, but the area they moved to seemed a lot friendlier at first glance. Whilst within the motorway ring road, there were elements of green parks and gardens, a local community trying to establish itself and a flourishing local market. The family thought it could happy here. Talwar took a job as the headmaster of the local Secondary school, the same school that all of his children attended, and maybe that was the cause of the bullying suffered by the young Sajan. Sajan was bookish and though nothing came naturally to him, he struggled through and persevered with his studies to maintain a slightly above average academic record as to not embarrass his father. For Raveena things came much easier, an incredibly bright girl, sporty and confident, the two twins were separated for the first time.

Sajan took this hard, his schoolwork suffering as a result, and maybe this caused the bullying. It could just be that some children seem to be a magnet for bullies. These sensitive few who always seem to be caught on the back foot, or be in the wrong place at the wrong time, or wear the wrong clothes or just run afoul of the wrong bully, these sensitive few are caught by the tides of life and are buffeted, try as they might to find their footing. It was this way for Sajan, for on the very first day in his new school, on the first lesson apart from the sister he’d been with almost every waking hour of every day; the river of life coursed him into the path of Thomas Prince, and the tide washed over him.

Sajan wasn’t a tall boy, his father was not a tall man and the tallest Sajan would ever reach would be 5” 8. He was not the sporty child his sister was,  he suffered from an over-indulgent mother and grandmother who would often overfeed the boy who had drifted slowly from chubby to distinctly fat as a way of expressing their love for him. Contrasted with his sister who was the same height but far more inclined to dance, run and enjoyed most sports, Sajan was affectionately called butterball by his mother. Thomas Prince knew nothing of the comfort eating, triggered by loneliness and anxiety or of the fear of injury which kept Sajan from enjoying sports; all he saw was a small fat child, timidly looking round near his locker on what was this boy first day.

A few years older than Sajan, Thomas Prince enjoyed what school offered to him. He wasn’t a stupid boy and understood what his teachers and tutors told him, and whilst he dismissed it in the safe and secure knowledge that one day he would grow up to be a professional footballer, Thomas still relished each lesson.

Each day gave him the chance to shine and become the centre of attention he deserved to be, he knew his classmates and friends thought he was hilarious and he thought that even the teachers found him funny. Thomas Prince excelled in sports and believed himself to be a well-liked boy with the world at his feet. So when Thomas Prince saw Sajan Thapa stood in the corridor, short and fat, with his hair in a traditional topknot and books piled under his arm, a spark of mischief lit his eyes and Thomas did what came naturally to him.

Thomas struck.

Not a strike to the face, the body or even a limb, Thomas struck with the simple high spirits of a schoolboy. A strike to the books held in the arms of the new boy, a strike with laughter in mind. A strike not calculated to cause physical harm, but to cause distress and the new boy to abandon all dignity by crawling on the floor to pick them up. Anyone with an understanding of pack dynamics would understand what this was as soon as they saw it, posturing by the alpha to cement his status, and it may have even worked.

It could have worked, if not for the second strike.

Much like the first, this strike was not intended to cause any true harm to the boy, but as the boy lunged after the books now tumbling down through his arms, Thomas pushed him into the lockers he was stood next to. Thomas pushed, and pushed far too hard. He knew this as soon as he’d done it. It may have been because the boy was off balance or childish high spirits, but the push designed to cause the boy to lose his footing caused Sajan to crash head first into the lockers. His glasses splintered, his arms and legs went limp and as he slumped to the floor a small trickle of blood followed him from the dint made in the metal by his head.

No one was laughing. No one even spoke. The silence of the moment dragged out, broken only by the gasping of Sajan as he slid closer to the floor. His journey seemed to take an age, and Thomas saw it all. Colours were brighter, the air tasted sharp and no one else seemed to move. The spell was broken and someone, Thomas was never sure who grabbed him by the arm and dragged him into a classroom.

He was told to wait. Again, time seemed to slip. Thomas felt a wave of uncontrolled emotions building in his chest, but fought them back as he thought about what he’d done and what may happen to him. Hot heat erupted on his head, his palms were sweating and his breath was coming in short gasps, it felt like he’d been sat in this room for days and no time at all, when without warning the door burst in and Mr Greenhauld stormed into the room, followed by a class prefect and a new teacher Thomas didn’t recognise.

“Thomas! Just what the hell were you thinking?” Mr Greenhauld spluttered out.  Generally a favourite of Thomas’, Greenhauld was the PE teacher and was forgiving of Thomas’ over-enthusiastic tackles and checks, and when he’d been caught before swaggering through the school, Greenhauld had turned a blind eye. Greenhauld had even turned a blind eye to Thomas when once he’d been caught taking the lunch box of another fat child that had run into Thomas Prince, but this time Greenhauld couldn’t look away.

“Well? Answer me? What are you thinking? You were seen attacking that boy unprovoked!”

“I… I’m sorry sir… it was just… just a joke… I didn’t…”

“A joke, Prince? Just a joke? I don’t think many people would have found that very funny.” Mr Greenhauld was seething, and the second teacher glared down at Prince.

“Thomas, I am Mr Hall, I saw the whole event from my classroom and so did Easton here,” said the second teacher, indicating a young boy with hair that reached down to his neck. “We saw everything, and I’d like to know why you felt the need to attack the young boy on sight? Had Sajan said something to you?”

“N-n-no sir… I… just…”

“Listen to me, Prince. I’ve heard about you swaggering around these corridors, throwing your weight about, but do you expect me to believe you just took it upon yourself to concuss that poor boy on the spur of the moment for no reason? Come on now, I heard you liked being a clown, but not a thug.”

Something in the wave of emotions inside Thomas changed. From an undirected froth, he could almost feel something sharp and hard within the boiling pool within him. The edge was of rage; the accusation had struck home and sparked off the flint of rage.

“It was a JOKE sir, honest. A joke!”

“And why, pray tell, did this joke result in the headmasters’ son being sent to the hospital on his first day? Did you go out of your way to pick him out? Did you think it made you a big bad guy? Did it make you feel good to slam the son of the headmaster into a wall?”

The anger was bubbling within him now, Thomas lost control.

“I didn’t know he was the son of the head, god it was just a joke I didn’t mean to hurt him that bad. Honest, I didn’t know he was the son of the head sir,” Thomas spat back. These outbursts had drawn a small crowd at the door of the classroom, but Thomas didn’t see, couldn’t see. His anger at being called out in front of his friends was burning up inside, consuming him, and then he made another mistake. “I didn’t know who he was, I thought he was just another Paki!”

Silence boomed, a wave of echoing nothingness amplifying his words. The crowd at the door stared at Thomas in disbelief for a few seconds before the whispering started. Mr Greenhauld took Thomas by the shoulder and looked him straight in the eye.

“Now Thomas, we’re… urm we are going to go and find Mr Thapa, and we’re going to apologise to him now,”  he said softly. Glancing over his shoulder at the group in the doorway. “And you lot, haven’t you got somewhere to be?” The sharpness returning to his voice.

The story swept through the school like a virus, and like a virus, it mutated with every telling. Sometimes a little, so close to the truth that it might have past for it in a bad light. Sometimes it changed a lot, wherein Thomas Prince, the now reviled school racist had hunted and chased down Sajan Thapa through the corridors, screaming slurs at the boy as he ran.

Thomas excluded from school for three weeks, and during this time the rumours of his racism burned through the student body, scorching away most of the fond memories that they had of the once captain of the football team. Ostracised from by his friends and cast out from his teams, Thomas spent the three weeks seething and raging against his bad luck, his teachers, his friends and against Sajan.

Never once did he believe this was his fault. He looked back on the events of that morning, that morning that had cost him so much, and as he thought about it, that swelling tightness of emotions returned.

The feeling of sharpness, awareness and the acuteness of sensation returned and this time Thomas recognised it. The feeling he’d had as he watched Sajan Thapa slump to the floor, blood oozing from the side of his head, was joy. Pure and undiluted.