The Year of the Runaways

by Sunjeev Sahota

  ‘I can see that.’

  ‘I’ll make it up next month.’

  The teas arrived. The waiter left.

  ‘Is that why you wanted to meet here?’ The nephews looked at each other, smiled. ‘Did you think we’d play nasty?’

  ‘I’ve said I’ll make it up next month.’

  ‘Let’s go for a walk.’

  Avtar didn’t move.

  Bal swiped up the money and put it in his pocket. ‘Get up. We don’t have long.’

  They took him into the toilets where Bal covered Avtar’s face with a hood and held his mouth under a running tap. The other nephew kept watch.

  ‘Stop taking the fucking piss,’ Bal said, whacking up the water pressure. ‘If you take the money – if you accept the money – then pay it the fuck back, yeah? Isn’t rocket science, is it?’

  Avtar beat his fists against the basin, clawing at it. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t see. He thought he was going to drown. Black and silver strings vibrated behind his eyelids.

  ‘If it happens again we’re clearing your family out. Do. You. Understand?’

  He let go of Avtar’s neck and removed the hood and Avtar collapsed to the floor, on his hands and knees, gasping.

  It was late when he got back to the doctor’s house, though the sun was still taking its time to set. He went in through the garden and found Rachnaji, the doctor’s wife, the proper doctor, balanced on the squashy lip of the sofa, slicing a carrot on the coffee table. Her hair was tied into a Spanish net and shelved to one side.

  ‘Is uncle around, aunty?’

  ‘He’s at the gurdwara,’ she said, and chopped the head off the carrot. ‘He’s always at the bloody gurdwara.’ She turned her face to Avtar. ‘I found him weeping a few weeks ago. He said he didn’t know what he was for. That he felt empty.’

  Avtar thought it best to stay in his room after that, emerging only when he heard Cheemaji’s car outside, the gravel spraying under the wheels. He needed to ask about that Sri Lankan factory job from before. There was nothing keeping him in Sheffield, not now that cheat had stolen his job. He took a breath. He needed to keep his mind straight. He needed to find a job.

  The doctor was mixing a whisky-soda from the cabinet. The lights were low and there was no one else about. Avtar coughed.

  ‘Ah, you’re still up. Revising?’

  ‘Ji,’ Avtar lied.

  ‘Good, good.’

  He tilted his glass towards Avtar, who said no, thank you.

  ‘Probably best,’ Cheemaji said, and necked his drink in one. He exhaled. ‘That hit the spot.’

  The front door opened and Neil, their son, came through in an oversized NFL sweatshirt. He went upstairs and slammed the door shut.

  ‘Everyone’s a little upset with me,’ Cheemaji said. ‘You’ve no doubt noticed.’ He refilled his drink. ‘They don’t understand. We don’t belong here. It’s not our home.’ He raised his glass to Avtar. ‘You’ve helped me realize that. People like you.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘We’re like flies trapped in a web. Well, I don’t intend on waiting for the spider.’ He took a sip this time. ‘I said that to Rachna. Do you know what she said? She said I seemed to have forgotten that for the fly, once webbed, it’s already over.’

  Avtar returned to his room without asking about the job. He sat on the bed and gave in to his anger. What decadence this belonging rubbish was, what time the rich must have if they could sit around and weave great worries out of such threadbare things.

  He couldn’t sleep that night, and when he called Lakhpreet, she didn’t answer.

  *

  Randeep locked the door and turned back into his room. He hoped Avtar bhaji would agree to moving in. He’d got used to having a room-mate and didn’t like being alone, not now the house was beginning to empty. For the first time, the rooms felt too big. He pulled his bag free from behind a panel in the wardrobe and counted his money. He had enough to cover another month’s payment to Narinderji, maybe even two, and if he only sent home half of what he normally did he should be fine for food as well. By then surely they’d have found work. He wondered what he’d tell his mother. Going by the pearls in her last photo, she’d got used to the cash. There was a big click and the lights went out. Randeep clutched his money harder, until his eyes adjusted and the darkness settled into something less confrontational. He folded the notes into the bag and returned it behind the wardrobe panel. Then he unlocked the door and stepped onto the landing. The whole house was black. One or two others came out from their rooms as well.

  ‘What happened?’ Randeep asked.

  ‘The meter, probably,’ someone said sleepily, smokily.

  Randeep tiptoed down the two flights of stairs, a hand on the painted white globe at the end of the banister. He could hear voices up the hall, in the kitchen. Gurpreet, threatening someone to put money in the meter or else.

  ‘It’s your bhanchod turn,’ the other guy said. ‘Look at the sheet.’

  There was the sound of someone being pushed hard against the fridge and slapped. Gurpreet’s voice: ‘Bhanchod, who taught you to talk back?’

  Very quietly, on the balls of his feet, Randeep turned around and went back up to his room. He locked the door and reached for his blanket. At least Avtar bhaji was back tomorrow.

  SUMMER

  8. THREATS AND PROMISES

  She’d suggested meeting at Leicester Station. It was more or less halfway for them both and, she’d thought, feeling a little ridiculous even as she’d thought it, she could shout for help if he tried anything. She waited for him under the departure boards. Her hands were buried inside the wide pockets of her cardigan and pulled round to the front, thumbs touching through the material. She looked to the floor and said a faint waheguru. She told herself to calm down. Her shoulder bag slipped and yawned down her arm and a few things fell to the floor. Her phone, a pack of tissues. She crouched to pick them up – a green biro, bus tickets, fingers shaking. She went to the toilets again and sat on the closed lid behind a locked door. She breathed. When she re-emerged onto the concourse he was standing where she had been. He looked exactly the same.

  He took her in, up and down, as if surprised that she too wasn’t someone entirely different. ‘Were you waiting to see if I was on my own?’

  ‘I was—’ She indicated the toilets, then looked beyond him. ‘Is someone with you?’

  ‘I’m alone,’ he confirmed. He cast his gaze a little above her head. ‘Some of us still keep our promises.’

  They walked to the gurdwara near the city centre, a temple they both knew from one wedding or another. They paid their respects, then came down to the langar hall and sat around one corner of a long steel table. A sevadarni brought tea in white styrofoam cups.

  ‘You live alone?’ he asked.

  She nodded.

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Karamjeet, please.’

  He paused. ‘Have you been in Sheffield the whole time?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  She looked up, a question on her face.

  ‘Why Sheffield?’

  ‘I can’t say. I’m sorry. But please believe that I’m trying to do a good thing. God would not judge me harshly.’

  He nodded. ‘I understand. You wanted to get away from me.’

  She said nothing, but her face must have shown that there was some truth in what he’d said; when she glanced across she saw that a part of him newly hated her.

  On the train down she’d considered telling him everything. There was a chance he’d understand and not inform on her, on them all. She now realized she couldn’t say a word. It wasn’t her risk to take.

  ‘How’s Baba?’ she asked quietly.

  ‘How do you think?’

  ‘And Tejpal?’

  ‘Angry. Violent. He’s looking for you everywhere.’

  ‘Will you tell him?’

  ‘I should.’

  She paused. ‘Will you?’

 
; ‘Damn you, Narinder! Damn you! Why’d you have to go and ruin everything?’ He kicked the chair beside him, and it wobbled, fell.

  The woman in the canteen kitchen looked over. ‘Sab kuch theek hai?’

  ‘Ji,’ Narinder said.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Karamjeet said, and the woman, displeased, returned to her work.

  There was a crackle of static as the gurbani started upstairs in the darbar sahib, reaching them through the speakers in each corner of the canteen.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said again, to Narinder this time. ‘But it hurts all over. All of it. The humiliation. How could you?’

  She saw that the corners of his eyes were wet. He looked away.

  ‘I won’t tell them. I said I wouldn’t and I won’t.’

  A feeling of shame came over her. She couldn’t look him in the eye. ‘Thank you. And I promise it’s only until the end of the year.’

  ‘And then? We’ll get married then?’

  ‘If you’ll still have me as your wife.’

  She heard him sigh, half exasperated, half grateful, and he brought his elbows up onto the steel table. ‘We promised God. We promised our parents. We have a duty to honour them both. Of course I’ll still take you as my wife.’

  She nodded. ‘Thank you,’ she said again, and they both sat there wondering what else there was to say.

  Arriving back in Sheffield that night, she left the station and headed away from her flat. She didn’t know where she was going, and had only a vague apprehension that she needed space, clarity, air. The route took her through suburbs in the south of the city – Nether Edge, Millhouses, Totley – full of brooding Victorian houses under a thin summer moon. Near a church, she stopped and looked across the green depth of the country, at the vast spirit of those giant hills. Is that where He was hiding? Help me, she said. Someone help me. He wasn’t there and she didn’t know why He’d gone. In the past, every leaf, every light in every window, every brick in every wall confirmed His presence beside her, inside her. Tonight, she felt so horrifically alone. She dialled home, but cut off before anyone answered. She resumed walking. Three identical lorries thundered past, shaking the leaves on the trees and whipping her chunni across her face.

  *

  Coming down the stairs one morning, she noticed blades of grass pressed into the pile of the hallway carpet. Crushed, as if they’d been brought in underfoot. She checked the underside of her own shoes, then descended the last few steps, slowly, her face turned towards the empty flat. Outside, she tried to peer through the window, but the curtain had been drawn right to the edge. Squatters, most likely. She went to the shop to get some meter tokens.

  Later, lying in bed, she was woken by the sound of metal being scraped, prodded, a door opening. She sat up. She could feel the fear in her chest. Maybe Karamjeet had told her family. No. She closed her eyes. It was only a squatter, only a squatter, and to prove this, to banish all doubt, she stayed awake the following night. She positioned one of the dining chairs at the window and sat down, lights off. She just wanted to see who it was. The shape of him. Or her. Maybe it was Savraj, she thought, suddenly convinced that it was, then just as suddenly appreciating that it almost definitely wasn’t. She finished her yoghurt and walked over to the bin. It was nearing midnight. She’d give it another hour.

  She was fighting sleep when she saw someone coming up the hill. It was a man, and his orange shirt blazed against the night. She inclined her face to try and see his. If only he’d stop looking at the ground. And maybe this wasn’t him anyway. He might only be cutting across the top of the hill to get to the estate beyond. But then he stopped outside her flat and Narinder recoiled from the window. When she looked again, he was staring up at her. A brown face. Did she know him? She lifted her hand to wave, but he hurried out of sight and she heard those metallic sounds again, of a lock being tripped. God, oh God: she ran to the door – it was already bolted – and scouted round for her phone. She could hear him charging up the stairs. She whirled round, desperate. She found the mobile on her bed and stood there staring at it, thumbs poised over the keypad, willing a name, any name, to enter her head. There were knocks on the door. Her stomach fell away. More knocks.

  ‘Police nu mutth bulaiyio,’ he said. Don’t call the police. ‘Please.’

  She hardly saw him. She heard him, coming back at night – Crunchy Fried Chicken, his uniform had read – and sometimes she saw his polystyrene food boxes in the bin outside, but that was all. She hadn’t recognized the accent. Maybe it belonged to one of those southern regions of Panjab she’d never visited. She hadn’t even asked his name. He’d just said he knew Randeep and was going to stay downstairs for a while. He wouldn’t disturb her. She’d nodded, shut the door, bolted it, and listened to his footsteps retreating down the stairs. She’d nearly called Randeep, but the thought of talking to him exhausted her, and he’d be here soon enough anyway, to make his monthly payment. She’d ask him then, if this downstairs-man was still around, that is.

  *

  At work, Tochi was on his own. Harkiran had brusquely shown him where the potatoes, fish and chicken were kept, how high to fill the hopper and the chipper, when to add the Dry White and in what order to double-fry the fritters, but since then he’d left Tochi to it. He refused to talk to him, even when it came to translating requests from Kirsty. Tochi didn’t care. He was earning good money and had his own place. He answered to no one.

  He was on his knees mopping up spilled chicken juice when he saw Avtar in the doorway. His jeans, Tochi noticed, were about an inch too short, white socks showing.

  ‘Stand up,’ Avtar said, and hurled himself forward, and Tochi stood there taking the blows to his chest, to his face, until Malkeet lifted Avtar off his feet and threw him outside.

  He sent Tochi home early that night, saying it might be best if he changed his route. Tochi ignored him.

  Outside the flat, he snapped a twig in half and tried to sharpen one end against the other. He’d forgotten his screwdriver and had no other way of tripping the lock. He crouched down, eye to the keyhole, and threaded the twig in, rolling it between finger and thumb. It was useless. The end broke off in the lock and now he’d have to somehow dig it out. The light came on upstairs and he heard footsteps. The door opened.

  ‘Everything OK?’ she asked, arms folded over her black cardigan.

  He stepped past her and into the hall, to his front door. ‘Can I have your pin?’

  He jammed it into the lock and rolled it a quarter-turn to the right.

  ‘Your face,’ she said. ‘It’s bleeding.’

  The lock caught and he handed back the pin and disappeared into his flat.

  Avtar and Randeep left the house on the hunt for work. They’d been doing this every long day for the last two weeks and so far all they had to show for it were a couple of faint leads – people who said they had friends who might know of building work in the Nottingham area. Avtar left them his number, though he wasn’t optimistic.

  ‘Nottingham wouldn’t be too far, would it?’ Randeep asked, as they came back in through the kitchen. They split between them the last of some flat orangeade left out on the side, then Randeep went upstairs, saying he was going to check his diary for any contacts they might have missed. Avtar carried on into the front room and slumped into one of the garden chairs. He tapped his phone against his teeth. There must be others. But it was hard to concentrate; all day his stomach had been flexing, and his thoughts started to soften, drift away. When he opened his eyes, Gurpreet was at the windowsill, lifting the net curtain, letting it drop back down. Looking for money. He was in black shorts and a white vest, revealing baggy knees, hairy shoulders, and a topknot many times rubber-banded at the root. Avtar sat forward, Gurpreet turned round and immediately the anxiety in his face converted into something tougher.

  ‘I thought you were asleep.’ Then: ‘We should kill that chamaar.’

  Avtar stood up.

  ‘Listen,’ Gurpreet said, as Avtar was leaving.
‘Lend me some money. Only till tomorrow. I’m waiting. On a job. I’ll definitely get it. So. I’ll pay you back then. Acha?’ He spoke as if the words in his head were so jumpy he could gather up only a few at a time. His fingers were twitching, Avtar noticed, and a sallow yellow pushed through the skin under his eyes.

  ‘Sorry,’ Avtar said, and as he climbed the stairs he realized the vents in his jacket had been inside-outed. Fortunately, he kept no money in them.

  He used a tablecloth to lift the pan and pour the boiled water into their iron bucket, adding a small amount of cold from the tap. He took the bucket and the letter up to his room. He’d been expecting the letter: Cheemaji had already rung to say he’d forwarded it on. He sat in a straight chair, rolled his jeans up past his knees and slowly, wincing, let his blistered feet sink into the steaming water. The bucket was a narrow one, forcing his knees tight together, and as the water rose up past his calves it spilled over.

  One corner of the envelope bore the shield of the college, and the London address on the sticky label had been crossed out with two decisive red lines and replaced with this Sheffield one. Avtar turned the envelope over, then back again. He ran his fingernail along the seam and jiggled out the folded white sheet of paper. A column of Fs. Below it, a short paragraph confirmed he’d failed his first year. If he wanted to continue at the college, the letter went on, then his only option was to retake all the modules. If he wanted to exercise this option a form was enclosed. Please could he fill it in, along with an indication of how he intended to pay the fees: in a single lump sum before term began, or in regular monthly instalments.

  He rang his father, waking him up, and told him his visa had been renewed for another year.

  ‘So you passed?’

  Avtar hesitated. ‘Yes.’

  His father roused Avtar’s mother, and she said she’d go to the temple tomorrow and distribute some mithai.

  He had a few pounds left on his phonecard and knew he ought to call Lakhpreet and tell her the good news too. The dialling tone seemed to stretch time: a beep, a long pause, another beep. She answered: ‘Hello?’