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Like the slice of a guillotine, the atmosphere snaps into the before and after. There’s a long moment of stunned, frosty silence, before one of the men mutters darkly, “Yeah, we don’t read or endorse The Daily Toot here.” Leaning closer into the microphone, he adds in a grave tone, “I’d like to take this moment to reassure listeners that fascist rags such as The Faily Pollute are expresslyforbiddenwithin the walls of these studios. On behalf of the rest of the radio staff here, we are all deeply sorry for my colleague’s verbal transgression. We know this is your listening safe space, so if you feel like you’ve been adversely affected by any of the issues this episode has raised, we have resources on our website to help you cope.”
Beside me, Rory’s smirk widens like this couldn’t have worked out any better. From the sounds of it, acknowledging written material from the other side seems like a sackable offense never mind a faux pas. When the radio swiftly cuts to a vapid song by an Antiro-approved artist, Rory clicks it off, looking rather pleased with himself.
I still feel a sense of horror, like their sound waves have landed on my skin and tainted me. I want to wash away their sleaze and dirt.
“They want their views to be respected yet they talk like this?” Danny asks. “I feel like I’m being too generous when I say those men should be in mental institutions, not the media.”
“It appeals to men. The shit, sad, failed kind. It’s why the Antiro movement is made up of something like eighty percent men.”
“Then God knows what the twenty percent of women are doing there,” I say with a sudden twist of anger.
“Acts of self-harm?” Rory suggests, and I nod, despondent. “If this is happening right now, tomorrow I need to strike while the iron’s hot. I need to take down Hodgson.”
“How?”
“Same method. Let him do the talking. It’s perfect.”
“I really hope those presenters are reported to the police. Their comments about Arabella were vile.”
“What do you expect the police to do?” Rory asks sincerely. “Drape themselves in the Antiro flag? Pose for pictures with the top minds of Antiro HQ? If these bolt-headed balloons flung a chimpanzee out the House of Commons windows, they’d still be applauded, and probably made to look the victim. Our protectors aregone, little saint. They aren’t on our side. No one is.”
He’s right. I saw the police once in Edinburgh, acting like Antiro’s guard dogs. The police probably wouldn’t even bother turning up for us, which suggests they don’t care, meaning the establishment doesn’t care, so society doesn’t care, and Antiro continues living their dream of thinking they’re owed the world.
“But they were so horrible to her,” I whisper. “How is that accountability? Crossing boundaries just to say the cruelest things? How isthatmeant to inspire positive growth?”
Quietly, Danny adds, “I feel, tonight, she’s been excommunicated.”
I swallow. Rory’s happy — he’s delighted. But I… I don’t know. Ifeelthe backlash about to wash Arabella away, and it’s immense. Maybe I should be happy, too. But now, having listened to those men, it’s as though I’m peering through my fingers while Arabella is fed to the wolves.
“Arabella’s going to be in for it, isn’t she,” I murmur dismally as I massage my ankle, “if not even her side backs her. If there was a way for us to stop it—”
“No,” Rory counters, voice firm. “When she goes low, we go high? You honestly believe in that, after all the shit she’s put us through? Threatening us, even tonight? Fuck that. Letherfeel what it’s like to be us, if only for a moment. If she wants tolerance, here’s her reminder that it’s supposed to work both ways. I’ve had enough of Arabella demanding her opinion should be respected above everyone else’s. So let’s make it happen. Let her words blast out of every corner of the media until it haunts her dreams. Let this be a lesson for her on the realities of public life.”
I bite my lip. Arabella’s proved time and time again that she demands respect to the point of favoritism while showing precisely none for us. She screamed at the presence of books she couldn’t tolerate and grew livid when respect and courtesy were extended to us by Dr. Moncrieff.
When Rory catches my anxious expression, he adds, “The news cycle’s rapid these days. She’ll be purged from memory within the week.”
“It won’t be purged from hers, though,” I point out quietly, and Rory shrugs like it isn’t his problem.
“She’d call it accountability, wouldn’t she? She’dlaughif it was us.”
“You have no sympathy at all?” Danny asks Rory, his voice curious and free from judgment.
But Rory just answers, “Perhaps if she hadn’t wasted so much time bootlicking these idiots while throwing us all under the bus. The radio reaction confirms what we’ve always known: no matter how much you dance for their side, they’ll still spit you out. No matter what you say, you’ll never say it well enough, when all they ever do is rewrite the rules.”
The news will properly break in Lochkelvin this week. I find myself irritated that the radio never focused once on Finlay, who made excellent retorts and did Lochkelvin proud. The only thing that mattered was Arabella, and how much she does or doesn’t make dicks hard, and how accurately she does or doesn’t parrot Antiro’s approved talking points. She’s been villainized so badly by three adult men when all she’d ever wanted was Antiro’s validation. From the hatred they found for her within their bitter, corrupt hearts, she may as well be on our side.
If this doesn’t make her see the ugliness of the movement she’s pompously aligned herself with, I don’t know what will.
I find myself feeling tremendously sorry for Arabella — and to her, pity from me is probably the worst punishment that exists in the world.
33
“She said no,” Danny whispers the following day, standing in the classical literature section. He flips open a copy ofTreasure Island, pretending to read it while murmuring through the gap in the bookshelf, “Said it wasn’t student business.”
“Fuck that,” Rory mutters, nursing his temple. “We’re going to have to go and look for this bloody unicorn ourselves. Could be outside. Could beanywhere.”
A student passes between us and we fall obligingly silent. I turn to the wall of shelves opposite them, where Dr. Moncrieff had been honest with his views.
