Unicorn by Amrou Al-Kadhi

Author:Amrou Al-Kadhi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2019-08-02T09:59:33+00:00

Once Christianity had collapsed on me, I spent a lot of time at Eton jumping from group to group, activity to activity, hoping that something new would eventually stick. I compulsively attended as many extra-curricular talks for each and every subject. The speech from a guest lecturer who came to talk about early medieval runes? I was there. The Russian Society play where two pupils performed entirely in Russian? Front row, babe. The rare-board-game members club – you betcha! In this latest iteration of my OCD, I pursued each and every school offering as the potential glue to my crumbling identity.

In the summer before my second year, I went to the British Museum for some coursework research, but really I was going to mine a new identity. That part of London is a notorious spot for collectors, with everything from rare book and coin dealers to vintage-comic stores and stamp archives. My identity was about as robust as a prismic hologram by this point, and it was looking for any kind of shape in which to solidify. As I circled Russell Square, I feigned a passion for all the quirky collector shops. At the comic store I asked for their ‘rarest comic’, and was presented with a gaudy little thing in a plastic sleeve. Could this be the new me? Could I be that vintage individual outsider, who collects comic books, who lives in the curious world of superheroes? Such was the process as I went from shop to shop, sampling the different identities as if they were clothes on a sale rack. I concluded the fickle afternoon by forking out fifty quid for a pseudo-rare coin from the Elizabethan age, which I kept in a beautiful little box, even though it was quite hideous and of no interest to me whatsoever.

I also applied to be a member of Eton’s more exclusive societies, the ones that vetted their members. I tried for a foreign exchange programme to an American school that I had absolutely no desire to go on. Next, I decided to try out the school’s prestigious wine tasting society – yes, in case you’re wondering, I know how this sounds – and I was put on the waiting list. Thankfully, I knew someone on the inside.

One of my History of Art teachers was a delightfully camp man, who could be spotted trotting to the indoor swimming pool every morning with a bright pink towel in his hand. One of my other History of Art teachers, when not at Eton, wore leather chaps and could be spotted topless in Ibiza with his husband, a former pupil. Safe to say, I collected the ones who ‘got me’. Mr Pink Towel was my favourite beak at the entire school, and being taught by him was like living in a Carry On film, a camp explosion of British romp that lay dormant in regular British society. Ever the gay godfather, he got me into the wine tasting club. Other than myself, it was attended only by white students, one of whom was linked to the Rothschilds.

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