‘You won’t get anywhere working like a dog for him. Earning shit money.’
He arranged the blue sofa cushions in the middle of the room.
‘Take the bed,’ Ardashir said.
‘I’m good here.’
‘I said take the fucking bed.’
The next day, Tochi was pulling down the chairs from their tables when Ardashir answered the restaurant door. It was the same man who’d come into the kitchen with Sukhjit. He stood there shaking the cold off his small shoulders, flicking out his feet. He seemed to hate standing still. He even spoke fast.
‘What you doing, man? It’s New Year’s fucking Day.’
‘Do you want a drink?’ Ardashir said.
‘Not all alkies, dude. So where is he? This him?’ he asked, looking at Tochi. ‘You got your NI card?’
Tochi looked to Ardashir who said he’d get one in the week. ‘As long as you get his CSA card.’
The man shrugged. ‘Coming out his pay, in any case.’
‘How much?’ Ardashir asked.
‘That’s between me and Freshy Jo here.’
‘How much?’ he asked again.
‘You his fucking pimp?’
They agreed on a figure, which was about four times his current wage. They shook hands.
‘I’m Virender. Vinny. And you’re lucky, you know that? I’ve just got a new contract. A top-of-the-motherfucking-range hotel. Should knock the smile off Sukh’s face.’
‘When can he start?’ Ardashir asked.
‘I’ll speak to Sukh. But say I’ll pick him up next Saturday. I’m down south anyway. Have your suitcase ready to go. Acha?’
On his last morning Tochi tidied away the sofa cushions and sat on the straight chair, red rucksack at his feet. Ardashir placed a pair of leather workboots on the floor. They looked old and used but stronger than his own.
‘You’ll need them.’
‘I’ll buy some.’
‘I’d like you to take them, but suit yourself.’
He sat on the bed and swigged from his bottle. They said nothing until a few hours later when a white van parked outside and the horn sounded.
‘I told him not to do that,’ Ardashir said, standing up. Then, to Tochi: ‘You should go.’ With that, he disappeared into the bathroom behind the kitchen, leaving his bottle on the worktop.
Tochi hooked the rucksack over his shoulder and took up the boots and walked out of the room and door and up the stone steps. The day was cold and bright. He opened the van door and nodded at Vinny and climbed in.
3. SETTLING IN
The Sheffield snow had nearly gone. Grass showed darkly through and only a few white sleeves remained on the roofs of the houses opposite. Moving away from the window, Tochi prised off the workboots Ardashir had given him and put on his cheap trainers instead. He took the half-roti he’d saved from his lunch and, on his way downstairs, crushed it all into his mouth. The kid, Randeep, he could hear in the kitchen, complaining to someone about the cement their gaffer had ordered: ‘It’ll take forever if we can’t use the jib. Maybe if—’ Tochi closed the front door and bent his head low against the cold.
He turned left on Ecclesall Road, not right as Randeep had shown him, and strode past all the places he’d already tried twice in the last month. He walked efficiently, never meeting anyone’s eye. Once he was through the city centre, the terrain rose steeply and from the top of the hill he could see the blue dome and sprawl of that shopping centre they all spoke about. He couldn’t remember the name. It didn’t matter. There’d be no work for him in a place like that.
There was a Nooze ’n’ Booze a little further along, windows grilled over, manned by a bearded sardar type. Tarlochan waited for a couple to leave with their bottles of wine. The uncle looked older this close up. In his sixties, at least.
‘Sat sri akal.’
The man smiled. ‘Sat sri akal, puth.’ Son.
Tochi explained that he was new to the area and looking for evening work. He’d be happy stacking shelves or working behind the counter or cleaning. Anything really. Whatever it was, he’d put his heart into it.
‘Fauji, hain?’
Tochi nodded.
‘Pind?’
‘Manighat.’
The man tried to place it.
‘It’s in Bihar.’
A sigh, a nod. ‘Acha. Well, good luck.’ And the man gestured for the turbaned girl behind Tochi to come forward. ‘Third time this evening, beiti. Is it still not working?’
Outside the shop, Tochi made a fist and banged the grille-shutters, shaking everything. The shopkeeper came out. ‘Any trouble and I’ll call the police.’ His voice wobbled. Tochi moved on a few feet, then stopped, his forehead to a lamppost.
‘Are you all right?’
It was the girl. From the shop. In her hand some pink meter tokens. He glanced up to her turban, then spat on the floor.
‘He wasn’t fair to you. He didn’t treat you well. I told him so.’
‘Right.’
‘We’re all equal before God.’
He wished she’d go away.
‘I’m new to the area as well.’
He nodded.
‘It’s not easy. It’s very lonely. I get very lonely. Especially at night.’
She seemed an odd mixture of strength and innocence, with little idea of how she might be misconstrued.
‘Do you know where the gurdwara is? If you’re lonely you can go there. I do. Or if you need food.’
‘What if I need a woman’s bed?’ he found himself saying, needing to hurt her the way he was hurting.
She remained perfectly still, yet he could see her mind turning away from him. ‘God can’t provide everything,’ she said, and wished him well in his search for work.
The kid’s friend, Avtar, was leaving the house as Tochi arrived back. On his way to his evening job, going by the orange uniform. He nodded at Tochi and held the front door open for him, and Tochi nodded back and passed inside. From the dimly lit hall, he could see into the front room where a few of them were watching a Tamil porno, Gurpreet urging the man on. Upstairs, the kid was sitting on his mattress, writing into something. The glow from the streetlights seeped through the curtain edges and made a vase on the wall, above the boy’s head. Tochi lay back on his own mattress, undoing the Velcro straps of his trainers but keeping the shoes on because the floor was so cold. He closed his eyes. A pleasant darkness enshrouded him. All he could hear was the scratch of the boy’s pen.
‘I’m writing a letter home,’ the kid said. ‘Better than phoning.’
Tochi felt he nodded, eyes still closed.
‘I’ve mentioned about my new room-mate.’ A pause. ‘That’s you.’
‘Give my salaams.’
‘And I’m including some photos of me and Avtar bhaji. We took them at a booth in the station last week. You get four in a row. And it’s not too expensive. I can show you if you like.’
Silence.
‘I mean, if you want to send some to your family.’
Tochi laced his hands together behind his head. ‘I’ll think about it.’
*
The foundation concrete had cured and they’d spent the morning making a start on the brick posts. It was donkey work, really. Around them, yellow cranes manoeuvred into place, driven by professional-looking white faces. Tochi secured the final brick into his section and jumped onto the wall, confirming everything was flush and bedded down. From here, he could see across the whole site. There were almost three times as many people now as when he’d first arrived. Project managers, floor planners, site officers, water operatives. A roving swarm of hard yellow hats, fenced in by the short brick posts that at last seemed to be giving the site some sort of shape. He saw the kid’s slim figure far across the way. He had his hands on his knees, peering into a turning barrel of cement as if he’d lost something inside it.
That evening, he changed route, passing the Botanical Gardens and the small moonless wood. There were fewer s
hops this way – instead, the further he went, the bigger the houses became, the wider the avenues. The air felt greener, as if this was where all that countryside started insinuating itself. The something district, they called it. Even their green spaces sounded urban. He walked for perhaps an hour and found himself in a village, in front of a little, pretty convenience store. Inside, a brown kid in several layers and a baseball cap idled at the counter. Tochi made his usual pitch.
‘You want a job?’ the kid surmised. His Panjabi was poor, Hindi-inflected – ‘Aap job chaiyeh?’ – and he’d probably understood little of what else Tochi had said.
He slid open a wooden panel behind him and called up the stairs for his mother. Tochi heard her coming down, mumbling that everything was price-marked, Manvir, why don’t you look before interrupting her all the time? A small woman, who might have been handsome if it wasn’t for her long jaw, she stopped as soon as she saw Tochi. ‘Oh, sorry.’
The boy said something and then the woman sent her son upstairs and turned to Tochi. ‘You’re looking for work?’
Born back home, clearly. Probably came over to be married. ‘Ji. In the evenings. Cleaning, shelf-stacking, I can do anything.’
She thought a moment. ‘I’m guessing you’re illegal.’
Tochi nodded.
‘Pind kerah?’
‘Mojoram.’ It was the name of the Panjabi village he’d worked in. She asked him his name and again without hesitating he said, lied: ‘Tarlochan Sandhu.’
‘Jat, then?’
This time he paused. ‘Ji.’
She said her husband was in India for a few weeks but they had been looking for someone. Especially now they were both getting on a bit. It was just so hard to find someone honest, you know? You couldn’t trust a gori and her sons weren’t interested. Tell them to stand in the shop for even an hour and you’d think they’d been asked to reverse the cosmos.
Tarlochan asked if that meant he had a job.
The landlord knocked on the first working day of every month. A compact forty-something, he had neat, short popcorn-coloured hair and his long nose made his eyes seem deeper-set than they probably were. He was called Mr Greatrix and he always wore the same tie.
Narinder handed him the rent, which he took with a resigned sigh and counted out very slowly.
‘This is all very cumbersome,’ he said.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘I have to come here to collect it and then I have to go to the bank. It’s all very . . . cumbersome.’
Narinder didn’t know what to say. She wished he’d turn round and go down the stairs and leave.
‘Do you not have a bank account?’
‘Sorry.’
‘What about your husband?’
‘I’ll ask him.’
‘Don’t you know?’
She said nothing.
‘I’m going to have to up your rent.’
‘Pardon?’
‘For the costs I incur in coming here.’
Narinder looked to the wall over the man’s shoulder, at the cracks in the plaster, like branches. ‘No. I’m sorry.’
‘You what?’
‘I don’t think you’re doing the right thing.’
He nearly laughed. ‘I rather think that’s for me to decide.’
‘Imagine it’s not me standing here. Imagine it’s your sister or your mother. Would you want them to be treated like this?’
‘But you’re not, are you? Either my sister or my mother.’ Adding, muttering, ‘Thank the good Lord.’
‘But if I was. How would you feel if someone was trying to use them in this way?’
He pressed the silver top of his pen, so the nib disappeared. ‘I think we’re going off point.’
‘I think you have to be fair, Mr Greatrix. To treat people as kindly as you’d want those closest to you to be treated. I might be your tenant but I’m also your friend and neighbour.’
Someone once said to her that when she spoke she made people feel naked against the world.
‘Maybe we can discuss this another time,’ he said, blushing as he made his exit.
She was woken by a rattling sound, as though someone was trying to trip the lock. Momentarily, she thought Mr Greatrix was back. She sat up. Her heart was thumping. The clock-radio blinked 12:00. The light had cut out, or had been cut out. She told herself not to get like this, not to let fear take her over. She held the kandha at the hollow of her throat and listened for Him, and something like the stroke of a wing disturbed the air beside her face. She moved to the bedroom door – heel to toe, heel to toe – and opened it. She must have forgotten to draw the curtains because the main room was bathed in a geometry of light, shapely blocks of blue that made a cityscape on the floor and walls. There it was again, the rattling. She found the torch-pen she’d bought the previous week and with a rolling pin in her other hand opened the apartment door. In the dark the stairs looked even narrower, longer. It was only the wind in the letter box. Sighing, a little irritated with herself, she took a pink token from the tin under the sink and kept one hand to the wall as she went down to the meter. When she came back, she couldn’t sleep, so drew out from under the mattress her letter, the one she’d a few nights ago started drafting to her father. She wanted to write a letter to her family every month. This was her second. She’d gone back home to Croydon after the visa marriage, not telling anyone. The lawyers had said it was important she had a fixed address, at least until her interview, until the visa was granted. The interview, mercifully, was short. As instructed, she said she’d met Randeep four years ago, on one of her yearly visits to India, and that they’d fallen in love and decided to get married. She had photos and witness testaments to support it. The interviewer – a kind-looking man, close to retirement – smiled and said it all looked in order and that he was happy to support her application. Soon, she received a call from the Indian lawyer confirming that Delhi had granted the visa, and that Randeep and his family were extremely grateful, that they said it was as if she’d been delivered to them from God. Narinder could expect her first payment by the end of the month.
One month after that, mere weeks before her real wedding to a man called Karamjeet, Narinder left home. She wrote the most difficult letter of her life and secured it with a hairclip to the front of her gutka, and placed this on her dressing table. She’d not said anything about Randeep – they’d only notify the police and put an end to it all – she’d only said that she had her reasons for not being able to go through with the wedding right now but that she’d be back in one year and hoped with enough time they’d be able to forgive her. At four in the morning, an hour before her father woke for his morning prayers, Narinder carried her suitcase down the stairs and stepped outside, where a taxi was waiting to take her to the station.
Now, she attached a stamp and sealed up the envelope. Like last month’s letter, this one simply communicated that she was fine, that she’d be back by the end of the year and that they weren’t to worry. She folded out her map across the bed – she’d take a train somewhere tomorrow and post it from there.
She never attended the gurdwara on Sundays, always fearful of finding herself in the middle of a wedding, face to face with an overpowering aunty who knew her family. But most other evenings she took the bus from the bottom of her hill and would arrive in plenty of time to hear the evening’s rehraas sahib. Unlike the gurdwaras she loved in Croydon and Ilford and Southall, the Sheffield one wasn’t domed and the windows had no balconies cut with gentle fretwork. It was a plain brick building with five uneven stone steps leading to a black door and gold knocker. It could have been someone’s house and, once, probably was. To the left of the door a large blue plaque was inscribed with the kandha and next to that a nishaan sahib waved its little orange flag. After prayers, she’d repair to the canteen kitchen, and more often than not to the giant concrete sinks where she’d spend the rest of the evening hosing down the dirty dishes passed her way.
One evening, she w
as doing just that when Randeep saw her and halted. Avtar was with him and they’d finished eating and been on their way to hand in their thalis. They didn’t come to the gurdwara often but sometimes, like tonight, because there wasn’t a milk run to do and because Vinny had dropped them off early, they’d put their kurta-tunics on over their jeans and bussed it up.
‘What is it?’ Avtar asked.
‘Nothing. Here. Take mine. I need the toilet.’
‘Take your own.’
‘Please,’ he pleaded. ‘She’ll see me.’
Avtar looked. It was mostly old women. There was only one who was young, scrubbing hard at the insides of some steel glasses. ‘Is that our Narinderji? She does seva here?’
Randeep made a desperate face.
‘Come on. What are you scared of?’
Avtar handed his dishes to one of the old women, forcing Randeep to give his up to Narinder. He held out his thali and she didn’t look up and see him until he said, ‘Sat sri akal.’
‘Sat—’ She stared for a long while, blankly, until at last she seemed to remember that her hands were meant to be doing something and she took his plate from him. ‘Sat sri akal.’
‘We come here sometimes,’ Randeep said.
‘I see.’
‘Are you doing seva?’ At the rim of his vision, he could see Avtar slapping his forehead.
‘I try to help,’ she said, rinsing the plate under the taps.
‘Oh, yes. Me too.’
‘I’ve never seen you here before.’
‘I usually come in the week.’
‘I’m here most days.’
‘Right.’
Frowning, she went back to her cleaning.
‘Well, maybe I should make more of an effort. If you’re here most evenings.’ He smiled.
She seemed perplexed. ‘I don’t see what difference me being here makes.’
‘No, no. I guess I just thought it might be a good idea. If people see us together.’
He rejoined Avtar, who put his arm chummily around Randeep’s shoulder and led him outside. ‘There, there.’
‘If you hadn’t rushed me, I’d have been fine.’
‘Of course. I’m sorry. Next time I won’t.’
The Year of the Runaways Page 10
