Callum Hayes liked to think that he'd made good of his time at university. He had just started his second year at Stepchurch, a new-build Poly in East London, and people were starting to know his name. It wasn't the best university out there, but his A-Levels hardly set the world on fire. At the time he'd blamed this on external circumstances, such as having done his GCSEs and A-Levels at the same sub-par, working class state school. That was before his personal responsibility kick, however – he now made the fault his own for being too lazy to move schools, and for dicking around in class when he should have been studying.
He first started to lean to the right wing a few months since he started his degree, which was in journalism. He enjoyed the newspapers and wanted to write them, but knew little of the politics pages. His first introduction to the political 'sphere' was when he realised how left wing Stepchurch was. Most students he stayed with and encountered were socialists, anarchists or even communists. He knew nothing of what these terms meant, but he knew they didn't make sense to him. After not too long he started to read up on politics, getting information both from books, the internet and the few societies that were right wing. He came to understand himself as what those in the nineteenth-century called a liberal and what those thereafter called a libertarian. It made sense really: both the far left and the far right (he'd encountered the latter in his exploration of campus conservatives, and he instantly disliked them as much as their enemies) seemed like utter twats to him, there had to be a middle ground. He'd started a blog, the Stepchurch Sentinel (it sounded more like a superhero than a blog, but still) about student politics on campus, and it had grown both popular and controversial. Some read it with nodded agreement, some tore through it looking for holes to pick, but readers were readers. He quite enjoyed his campus notoriety, getting recognised at the Union bar and in the corridors.
This evening was busier than usual. He was in the library finishing off a paper; it was due in a week, but he'd developed an obsessive need to finish early and proofread. It was approaching a quarter to eight, which meant he had to head out. He packed up relatively quickly and header to the front of the library. He headed out to the corridor and there she was – Fatima Ahmed, the closest thing he had to a nemesis at Stepchurch. She was the Student Union's Diversity Officer, whatever that entailed. She was a fairly hostile reader and commenter of the blog, which she'd had in her sights ever since she got voted in. If it had been paper-based or more closely linked to the school she would have had no problem censoring it, but this was his own private blog. They'd had several fierce debates – they were both part of the active debate circuit, and found themselves at odds on most issues.
Callum would have thought of Fatima as quite pretty if he didn't dislike her so much. She was tall, around five nine by his measure, and a larger woman. She seemed to be equal (far) distance from obese and petite, fat but not outrageously so. She was quite dark compared to most Pakistanis he knew, with deep olive skin and a chubby, yet sharp and angular, face. She was fairly religious, and wore a loose-fitting hijab and abaya that left something to the imagination, making it difficult to work out exactly how big she was. She was older than him; something of a mature student at 24. He was only nineteen, and looked the opposite: he was white without much of a tan, slim with only the faintest signs of toning, and blonde. Maybe their status as opposites was why he thought of her as attractive.
"Hi," she said cooly. She was from the East End like him, but instead of his Cockney accent she had more of a rudegirl twang. It made people underestimate her, which was their mistake, as Fatima was extremely intelligent, being able to run rings around even the lecturers sometimes. Even if Callum considered her cause stupid, he couldn't deny she had the mental edge over him.
"Hi," he said, equally cooly. He'd convinced her to do an interview for the Sentinel, which would essentially manifest as an explosive debate. The Stepchurch Union was going to have a vote on whether to disaffiliate with the National Union of Students over the election of Malia Bouattia as President. She was extremely controversial about Israel, ISIS and the right, and many other unions had voted to disaffiliate as a protest. Stepchurch was taking the same vote, and Callum was planning to vote to leave, while Fatima was firmly 'stay'. This interview/debate was of mutual benefit: she wanted a dress rehearsal before the main debate, and he wanted to get her to admit the leave campaign had a good point. More than this, they both wanted to crush each other.
"Did you get my email?" he asked.
She shook her head. "Haven't checked them. Why, what's going on?"
"We can't do the interview on campus, apparently," he said. "There are only a couple of seminar rooms that aren't locked up, and the cleaners are going through those. I asked Facilities about it and they warned me off."
"Okay," she said, rolling her eyes. "What about the coffee place over the road?"
"Closes at six on Wednesdays. Fuck knows why."
"My house share is about a ten minute walk away," she said. "They're all out tonight I think. We could do it in the living room?"
He raised his eyebrows. "You sure?"
She shrugged nonchalantly, and he saw the power play at once. She was demonstrating how unthreatening he was, and the lack of harm he could do her.
"Okay, good," he said. They headed out the front and she led him through the Stepchurch evening. They exchanged about five words of forced pleasantries throughout; Callum had never spent much one-on-one time with Fatima, and now he did, the dislike was evident. He realised how deeply he shared it, and they walked the last few minutes in a stony silence. Eventually they reached a new build house on a T-junction. Fatima ushered him in and closed the door behind them. The place seemed empty, and none of the lights were on. They were in a small hallway, the living room just beyond it.
"Shoes off, please," she said. He obliged, and looked over as she removed her shoes, and also her socks. He wasn't surprised. The humidity was insane, and he could tell her socks were dripping with sweat. Fatima had large, elegant feet, the same dark colour as her face. He had a slight thing about feet, and these were better than average. He looked away, conscious he was staring.
"Do you want a tea or coffee, or anything?" she asked.
"Just water, please," he said politely. She turned left into a small kitchen and produced two glasses, one each. She brought him into the front room and they sat down on the settee.
"Okay," he said, producing a Dictaphone from his pocket. "Here's how this works. I'll record our interview, then type it up for the blog tomorrow. Once I do that I'll send it over to you, you can have a look, highlight anything you think is wrong or add in anything the recorder missed. Once we're both happy with it I'll publish it."
"Right," she said.
"Okay," he said. "First question-"
"Can I ask the first question?" she asked, cutting in.
"I...uh, okay," he said.
"Thanks," she said, taking a sip of water. "So why Malia? What don't you like? It's cause she's Muslim, right?"
