The Year of the Runaways

by Sunjeev Sahota

  Mr Yadav called for a chair – ‘Forgive me, but if I let everyone sit down they’d never leave’ – and he leaned back, fingers making a steeple beneath his chin.

  ‘I hoped you might be able to assist me?’ Narinder said, taking her seat.

  ‘People have such strange ideas, madam. They think we break the law, not uphold it.’ He must have seen the alarm in Narinder’s face because he flung out his arms. ‘But how could I not help a daughter of God, hain?’

  He made several phone calls, one call seeming to link to the next, and by the time it sounded like he was getting somewhere the window behind him had darkened.

  ‘I heard there were a few desperate for visa-wives at the club last month,’ he said, dialling again. ‘It seems our Mr Harchand might be one of them.’ Someone must have answered. ‘Dinesh Yadav Advocate. Call for Vakeel Sahib, please – I see. Is he coming back tonight? – That will be all. Thank you.’ He reached for a letterheaded pad and spoke to Narinder as he scribbled. ‘Take this with you. Go to the Circular Road Basant Avenue crossing. I’ll ask Bilal to flag an auto. There you’ll see H. S. Dokhlia Law Association. Give him this.’ He tore the page off and held it out. ‘He’ll help you.’

  Narinder looked at the paper, at the darkness outside.

  ‘What was I thinking?’ Mr Yadav said, and crumpled the paper into a ball, letting it fall where it landed. He stood and removed his lawyer’s cloak from the back of his chair. ‘Come, madam. Let’s find you your husband.’

  They took an auto across the city, over misshapen concrete roundabouts and past a grand-looking cinema that Narinder somehow recognized. At the lawyer’s office, the receptionist rose to explain that Mr Dokhlia wasn’t back yet but would they please take a seat in the waiting room and she’d bring them some tea-coffee.

  Narinder sat down. She slipped her hand into her bag and touched the picture of her mother she’d packed that morning. Beside her, Mr Yadav was flicking through a waiting-room magazine. It had an X-ray of someone’s teeth on the cover. She should thank him for all this, she thought, and was just opening her mouth when the door buzzed and an obese man in a lawyer’s white collar entered.

  ‘Harchand!’ Mr Yadav exclaimed, striding over, arms wide. ‘How long you make us wait, to experience the pleasure of your date.’

  ‘Arré, Poet Sahib, what can I say? It’s sangraand, no? And when Mother insists, Mother insists.’

  They embraced casually and Mr Yadav took this other lawyer by the elbow and steered him into a corner. She caught bits – spouse-visa, England – and every now and then this Mr Harchand looked over. They seemed to finish by agreeing Mr Yadav’s cut – percentages were mentioned – and then the new lawyer started making his way across the grey carpet, smiling at her. Narinder stood up – do the right thing, she kept telling herself – and readied herself to greet him.

  7. JOB PROTECTION

  Late spring, and the shell of the hotel was finished, a modern cuboid touching the sky. The ceilings were next, and they worked into their lunch break to get the first one in and levelled off, girders fixed at the mortise points. Afterwards, they swung down from the scaffold, took off their yellow hats and reached for their flasks. It was always water now; getting too warm for tea.

  ‘I think we should drill the holes in first,’ Randeep said. ‘It’s hard holding them up like that. My shoulders kill.’

  ‘Can do,’ Avtar said. ‘But if the grooves go wrong it’ll be coming out of our bhanchod wages.’

  ‘What do you think?’ Randeep asked Tochi.

  ‘What you asking him for?’ Avtar said.

  Tochi tore his roti in two. ‘Nothing’s coming out of my wages.’

  They ate in tired silence, hard hats upturned in their laps to dry the sweat out.

  ‘Where is that limpy bhanchod, anyway?’ Gurpreet asked.

  ‘In his cabin,’ Randeep said. ‘All day on the phone.’

  Gurpreet sent someone to find out what was the matter and the envoy returned saying that there’d been a delay on the drainage system and the engineers would come tomorrow. In the meantime, they should get on with the work they were being paid to do.

  The drainage system didn’t arrive the next day. Neither did the crane drivers, nor the electricians, who were meant to have started wiring up the site nearly a month ago. One other team of migrant labour hadn’t turned up either. Mid morning, they all gathered around John’s Portakabin, demanding to know what was going on.

  ‘There’s a few problems with the council that need ironing out,’ John said. He had a defeated air about him.

  ‘Where is everyone?’ Avtar asked.

  ‘They’re not happy with the financial accounts for this project. They say some things aren’t adding up.’

  They stared at him, not at all sure what this meant for them.

  ‘I’ll give your lad Vinny a call. No point in standing around here. Too nice a day for that,’ he added, closing the cabin door on them.

  ‘Vinny bhaji will sort it all out,’ Randeep said, as they waited.

  ‘He better,’ Avtar said, throwing him a tennis ball. He looked over to Tochi, sitting alone by the windbreak. ‘Because I don’t trust your room-mate one bit.’

  It was late and the light patchy when the van parked up. They grabbed their backpacks and ran towards it, shouting.

  ‘It’s just a few glitches,’ Vinny said, raising his hands in a calming gesture. ‘Big project like this, it’s inevitable.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ Avtar asked.

  ‘It means this greedy cunt’s been taking a bigger cut than he should’ve,’ Gurpreet said.

  ‘It means,’ Vinny said, drawing out the word, ‘you get a few days off while I sort it all out. Enjoy the sunshine. ’S not often we get weather like this. Make the most of it.’

  ‘But what about our money?’ Avtar asked.

  ‘You live rent-fucking-free,’ Vinny said, suddenly sharp. ‘What more do you scrats want?’

  Gurpreet and a few of the others took a bat and a ball and a crate of beer from the fridge and swaggered off to the park. Avtar, meanwhile, made for his room and split what money he had into the usual four piles. Then he made his four piles into two. He wouldn’t eat. He’d tell his parents he couldn’t help with the household bills this month. Still he was short for the loan. He had to make a decision. If he didn’t pay the mortgage the bank would seize the shop: that wasn’t an option. So his only choice was to ask Pocket Bhai’s men if he could make up the deficit next month. It was a risk. They’d slap him again, but perhaps this one time – he turned his eyes to God – they’d stay away from his family.

  Later, Randeep knocked and poked his head into the room. Avtar was sitting cross-legged on his mattress, a computing textbook in front of him and his hands hovering over the open pages as if for warmth. He was gazing towards the window, at the brick wall beyond, and seemed not to have heard Randeep enter.

  ‘Studying?’

  ‘Hm?’ Avtar nodded, winced. ‘Not really.’

  ‘When are your exams?’

  He closed the textbook, hard. ‘Two weeks. I’m not going, though. I’ve decided.’

  ‘What do you mean, you’re not going? Of course you are.’

  ‘I can’t risk leaving my job. Not now.’

  Randeep dropped to the mattress, beside Avtar. There was an excited gleam in Randeep’s eyes. ‘So you’re going to go fauji?’

  If he went, even if he didn’t pass – as long as he showed up – then Dr Cheema said his visa would almost certainly be extended for another year, and he could carry on without any fear of being deported. As long as no one found out about him working. If he didn’t even show up then his visa would be revoked, and the police would come to find him. He’d be worse off than those who snuck in illegally, because at least no one knew who those young men were. Therefore, not showing up would be, at least according to the doctor, a really stupid decision.

  ‘Fryers off?’ Malkeet asked. He was a big, chesty dump truck of
a man, topknot showing through his American baseball cap, sweat patches in the pits of his T-shirt.

  ‘Ji, boss.’

  They locked the back door and walked round to the forecourt, where Avtar helped pull down the shutters.

  ‘You not got a home to get to?’ Malkeet said.

  Avtar passed him the padlock. ‘Actually, bhaji, I was wondering—’

  ‘Here it comes.’

  ‘—if there were any extra shifts I could do?’

  ‘Nope. Ask me in September. When the gori’s gone.’

  Avtar nodded. ‘Would it be OK to get an advance on next month’s pay, then?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘It’s only that the building work seems over and I owe—’

  Malkeet flung out his arm, palm raised, as if to stop an onrushing vehicle. ‘Don’t. Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know what you are or who you owe. I don’t need to know your problems. Now, was there anything else?’

  Avtar asked if he’d still have his job when he came back from London.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Please promise me I’ll still have my job.’

  ‘Is someone coming for it?’

  ‘They might.’

  ‘Well, that’ll be for me to decide then, won’t it?’

  ‘I’ve worked hard for you. Can’t you promise me my job?’

  Malkeet took his car keys from their apron pouch and de-alarmed the old estate; he left the Mini to his wife. ‘Do you think I’d have got anywhere in this country if I made promises like that?’

  *

  Tochi ate his evening meal early, then washed and shaved. He returned to his room, locked the door, and, in his underwear, sat facing the cracked swivel-mirror propped against the window. He draped a towel over his shoulders and twanged the tortoiseshell comb – several of its teeth missing – and combed his wet hair forward so it clung together in thick slats over his eyes. Because he was now trusted to work on the till, Aunty had told him always to come looking – he grasped for the English word she’d used – ‘presentable’. He patted his hand around the sill, docking on the scissors, and began to snip.

  There were noises downstairs: doors shutting, laughter. A plate smashing, maybe. Tochi cut about two inches off his fringe, the hair falling into a child’s red potty gripped between his feet. He rinsed the scissors and the potty and returned them to the bathroom, where a quick head-bath dealt with the fussy little filings of hair stuck to his neck. Back in the room, he unfolded the letter. The handwriting was untidy, loopy, with great curling tails and circles drawn above certain letters. Or perhaps the circles were letters in themselves. There were crossings-out, too, probably where she’d decided against a word or simply misspelled it. In any case, it all made no sense to him. Maybe he should have accepted Aunty’s offer of translation. But he hadn’t wanted to give her false hope. He looked at the photo again: a pretty, shy, nervously smiling face. A fullish body, nicely curved, wrapped in an orange-and-brown salwaar kameez. The doorknob rattled, followed by a knock. He stashed the letter and photo under his mattress, then dressed. As he opened the door, Randeep was standing up from the keyhole.

  ‘Gurpreet’s back. Drunk again,’ he said, passing inside, speaking quickly – caught out. ‘I threw my dinner down as quick as I could. They’ll be drinking all night now.’

  Tochi reached for his boots and forced them on, leaving the laces untied for now.

  ‘You going to work?’

  ‘Looks like it.’

  ‘Some of the guys are saying that Vinny bhaji’s finished. That it’s dangerous to stay here.’

  ‘It is. You should find somewhere else.’

  Randeep placed his cutlery on the windowsill. He noticed a few hairs stuck to the mirror. ‘What about you?’

  ‘London.’

  ‘Really?’ He turned round. ‘Have you found work there?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘But when you do, you’ll go?’

  Outside, a bus rasped up the hill.

  Tochi stuffed his hand under the mattress and brought out a sheet of light-blue paper. ‘Read this for me.’

  ‘What is it? Is it from home?’

  ‘Just read it.’

  It was a short letter, which Randeep read to himself first and then translated sentence by sentence: Hello and sasrikal, Bhuaji asked me to say a little about myself. Well, I’m Ruby. I’m 37 and I have a little boy who’s 12. His name’s Santokh (which probably tells you how strict my in-laws were! Bhuaji said she’s spoken to you regarding my divorce so I won’t go into that here but I’m happy to talk about it if you want to meet.) I’m a homely girl and like being with my family. I work part-time in a supermarket. I’d prefer to stay in the area after marriage as I don’t want to disrupt Santokh’s schooling again, but if that’s a problem I’m happy to talk about it. I don’t mind that you’re illegal but if things do move onto the next stage then I’d like to do things properly (i.e. get proper visas from India and live here by the law). I’ve included a photograph of myself. Thank you and best regards, Ruby.

  Above the salutation Randeep discerned, vigorously crossed out, ‘Bhuaji says you’re very good-looking!’ She must have decided that was a bit too much informality.

  ‘So where’s the photo?’ Randeep asked.

  ‘They don’t listen,’ Tochi said heatedly. ‘I’ll have to find another job.’

  Randeep understood. ‘You lied.’

  ‘I had to.’

  He passed the letter back to Tochi. He felt quite moved that Tochi had asked him to read it, that he’d trusted him. ‘You know, there’s a flat sitting empty underneath Narinderji’s. We could go there: you, me, Avtar bhaji.’

  Tochi was standing at the window, looking out.

  ‘You’ve never mentioned your family,’ Randeep said, pushing a little further.

  ‘I’m not going to start.’

  ‘I’m here because my daddy isn’t well. He tried to kill himself.’

  Tochi nodded, slowly. ‘Be happy yours is still alive.’

  At the shop, they seemed to have heard everything.

  ‘I don’t think he’ll get away this time,’ Uncle said, about Vinny. ‘They know too much.’

  ‘Poor boy. He’s only trying to help. What his family must be going through.’ Aunty double-kissed the air, sympathizing. ‘What about you? How are you surviving now?’

  ‘Fine,’ Tochi said.

  ‘Do you want any extra shifts?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say no.’

  Uncle asked him to do an hour on the till because Aunty would be cooking upstairs and he needed to complete next week’s cash-and-carry order. She came down at ten o’clock, the ends of her fingers yellow with turmeric, and started to cash up. Tochi seized his jacket.

  ‘Staying for dinner?’ she asked.

  Tochi said he wasn’t.

  ‘I spoke to Ruby today. And I know you keep saying no, but she’s so keen to meet you. She’s a great girl.’

  ‘I’m sorry, aunty.’

  ‘But I don’t understand. It could be everything you’ve dreamed of. None of this hiding or lying or worrying about the police. A passport. A British passport. Isn’t that what all you boys want?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said again, and nodded at her husband on his way out.

  He could smell the saag as he arrived back at the house. He made for the stairs – he wasn’t hungry – but froze when Gurpreet called his name.

  ‘I hear congratulations are in order! You’re getting married!’ Others joined in, laughing. ‘You’re reaching beyond your dreams, Bihari!’

  Tochi bolted up the stairs and into the room. Randeep followed, running. ‘I’m sorry! They overheard. I was only telling Avtar bhaji. I thought he might be able to help. With work.’

  Tochi pushed him to the wall and held him there. Fear sprang to Randeep’s face.

  ‘You’re the same. You think I’m just someone for you to laugh about.’

  He shoved him again, then let go, and Randeep
stood there gasping, a hand to his throat.

  They’d tied coloured ribbons to the cabinets and scattered confetti over the kitchen counter. He could hear them still laughing behind the door to the TV room. Tochi filled a glass with water. He downed it, one hand on the tap, filled it again, drank half and chucked the rest.

  Avtar came through the beads and leaned against the fridge, running a hand down his tired face. He hadn’t changed out of his uniform.

  ‘Randeep told me what happened. He’s sorry.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Maybe you should apologize, too.’

  ‘He should learn to keep his mouth shut.’

  ‘It was an accident. He was trying to help you.’

  ‘I don’t need anybody’s help.’

  ‘He’s a kid. He’s the youngest here.’

  ‘About time he learned.’

  Avtar pushed off the fridge, sighing resignedly. ‘Whatever. Just don’t let it happen again.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘I mean it. I’m giving you a chance now. Next time, pick on someone who’ll fight back.’

  Tochi turned his face, sharply, as if someone had pressed a button in his neck. ‘Like you?’

  ‘If it happens again, or if you steal my job, I’ll wrap your head around that fucking wall.’

  Tochi put his glass in the sink.

  ‘I’m not scared of you,’ Avtar said. ‘You act like some man of mystery, some tough guy. It doesn’t scare me.’

  ‘Maybe it should.’

  ‘There’s only one person I’m scared of.’ He pointed up.

  ‘Good for you.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning your God’s a bastard.’

  ‘I think you should take that back.’

  Tochi came into the centre of the room. ‘Is this all you can do? Talk?’

  They circled round, fists raised loosely. Tochi aimed one to the stomach, which Avtar dodged. ‘Nearly,’ Avtar said, and crunched a blow across Tochi’s cheek, cutting it. Tochi reeled back, then flicked in and caught Avtar twice: chest, side. Avtar doubled up, heaving. Sick came lurching up his throat. He forced it back down and with an almighty roar launched himself at Tochi, throwing him back onto the counter and sending all their Tupperware boxes whirling about. They grappled, cussing and punching, and were still kicking out when the guys from the TV room rushed in and split them apart.