The Year of the Runaways

by Sunjeev Sahota

  They couldn’t speak for long, and afterwards he sat looking at the yellow screen of his phone. She was out at the cinema with her friends. Enjoying herself.

  ‘Can I call you tomorrow?’ she whispered.

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Jaan? I’ll definitely call you tomorrow, OK?’

  ‘I’m doing this for you, you know. You and my family and all our futures. Do you even think of me while you’re out enjoying yourself? Think of me living here – ’ he drew his finger along the side of the chair and brought up thick dirt – ‘living here in this squalor?’

  He wished he’d not been so angry. He mustn’t start hating her. He mustn’t let this life change him. He groaned and, with what energy he had left, dredged his feet out of the bucket of cooling water.

  *

  She was quick to open the door, which Randeep took as a positive sign. Ever since the inspectors’ visit she’d not once invited him in. Maybe this month would be different.

  He was still panting a little from the climb. ‘For you.’

  She took the envelope, thanked him. ‘I was starting to worry. He comes tomorrow to collect it.’

  ‘I’m only three days late.’

  ‘I know. I didn’t mean anything by it.’

  ‘And I did send you a message.’

  ‘I know. Thank you.’

  He smiled, hopeful, not sure what to say next. He’d planned on telling her about their job troubles, but there seemed no point. She didn’t even care enough to ask him up. He worried he was making a fool of himself.

  ‘Well, see you next month,’ he said.

  ‘Aren’t you going to see if your friend’s in?’

  So he was here. Randeep had already tried looking in through the window – it had been too dark. ‘He’s not my friend.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘He’s not a good person. He stole Avtar bhaji’s job. It’s his fault we’re struggling.’

  ‘How can you steal someone else’s job? Isn’t that up to the boss?’

  ‘He did.’

  He could tell she thought he was making it up, or making it sound worse than it was.

  ‘He’s a chamaar.’ It sounded like he’d said it to clinch the argument, though he wasn’t sure he’d meant it like that. He wasn’t sure why he’d said it at all. Did he think she’d like him the more for it? And now she was withdrawing, saying goodbye, that she’d see him again next month.

  He didn’t know why she was being so cruel, always shutting him out. Had he offended her in some way? She couldn’t still be annoyed about the inspectors. He slipped his shirt onto its hanger and hung it in the wardrobe. Then he moved to the swivel-mirror and inspected his armpit hair – it seemed thicker nowadays – and flexed his biceps. There was definitely some thickening there as well, he told himself, if he looked at it in the right way. The door opened and Gurpreet came in.

  ‘You’re meant to knock,’ Randeep said.

  ‘You on your own? Where’s your friend?’

  ‘Out.’

  Gurpreet glanced around the room, at Tochi’s mattress, sheetless and laid on its edge, as if awaiting removal. ‘I thought you two were going to buddy up in here?’

  ‘No,’ Randeep said, though he had asked Avtar. He’d said something about Randeep needing to be more independent, which had hurt.

  ‘Right. Anyway, I’ve just been tipped off about a job. You want to come?’

  ‘You’ve got a job?’ He sounded incredulous.

  ‘You coming or what? Or do you have to ask your friend?’

  After walking for some twenty minutes, Randeep found himself in a loveless part of town he wasn’t sure he recognized.

  ‘There isn’t a job, is there?’

  Since leaving the house, Gurpreet hadn’t answered any of Randeep’s questions. A woman, prostitute, is that who he was going to meet?

  ‘I want to go back,’ Randeep said, halting, just as a pub appeared, a mouldy green thing squatting on the corner.

  ‘There it is. How much you got on you?’

  It was a rundown place, all chipped mahogany, powder-pink booths and John Smith’s beermats. On the walls were hemispheres of frosted glass, and inside each glowed a dense yellow orb. They took their drinks – a whisky, neat; a lemonade – and made for the corner seat furthest from the bar.

  ‘We shouldn’t stay long,’ Randeep said.

  ‘Give it a rest,’ Gurpreet mumbled, and brought the glass to his lips, eyes widening.

  They drank in silence. Then Gurpreet pulled a knife out of his pocket and laid it across his lap.

  ‘Why do you carry that everywhere?’ Randeep asked, looking around. The half a dozen or so customers seemed busy drinking, smoking.

  ‘Hm?’

  ‘Have you ever used it?’

  He seemed to consider this. ‘Once or twice.’

  ‘When?’

  Gurpreet laughed, almost into his shoulder. ‘When people don’t do as I say. When I’m with a woman.’ He looked across. ‘You’re shocked.’

  Randeep moved his head, carefully, side to side.

  ‘We all need love, little prince. And we all love differently. Some women like it.’ He picked up the knife and turned the blade over. ‘Some women like it when I hold it against their throat, ever, ever so lightly. You know?’

  Randeep nodded, like someone trying to follow a complicated argument.

  Gurpreet took a long sip of his whisky, savouring it. ‘But, yeah, I’ve killed. Sometimes you have to.’

  He didn’t think he believed him. ‘How many?’

  ‘In England?’

  Suddenly, Randeep felt conscious of how he was sitting, of his half-sleeved goose-pimpled arms just hanging there at his sides. He gathered them up in a fold across his chest.

  ‘It gets easier,’ Gurpeet said. He seemed to be enjoying himself and extended his arm across the back of the seat. ‘Especially when things get desperate and people won’t tell you where they hide their money.’ He met Randeep’s gaze. ‘Where do you keep your money, little prince?’

  ‘I want to go.’

  ‘Do you know the way?’

  Randeep said nothing.

  Again, Gurpreet laughed. ‘Another?’

  ‘I’d like to go.’

  ‘Another.’

  They had enough for one more whisky and Gurpreet seemed to take twice as long drinking it. Amber beads attached wetly to the ends of his moustache, and perhaps it was looking at these that was bringing about the queasy feeling in Randeep’s stomach. At last they got up to leave. The pavement ran uphill and the streetlights had come on, and as they walked in and out of these grim pools of yellow light it seemed to Randeep that they were going at an achingly slow pace. Each time he quickened up, Gurpreet would ask what the hurry was.

  ‘It’s getting late.’

  At the Botanical Gardens, Gurpreet stopped at the locked gates.

  ‘Through here, then, yeah?’

  Randeep wavered. The darkness there seemed of a stronger concentration, turning the trees black, the rest invisible.

  ‘Come on. Thought you were in a hurry?’ Gurpreet lifted one foot to the padlock, heaved over the metal gatepost and jumped down on the other side. ‘Easy.’

  ‘Maybe I should just meet you at home.’

  ‘Oh, for the sake of your sister’s cunt. Fine.’

  Though he knew he shouldn’t fall for it, he could see Gurpreet in the morning, telling the others what a wimp he’d been. He could see Avtar frowning. He started pulling himself up, hand over hand.

  ‘Good,’ Gurpreet said when Randeep landed at his side, and they took the path between two hedges.

  The rose bushes looked strange in the summer night, like many-eyed creatures watching them pass. There was only the crunch of gravel underfoot and the gentle zooms of city traffic.

  Gurpreet pointed. ‘Let’s go down here a second.’ It was a short dirt path that seemed to lead nowhere.

  ‘But home’s this way.’

  ‘I need a piss.�
�

  Randeep went down a little of the way, then turned round and waited. A branch hung low in front of his eyes, quivering with the work of some animal up above. He heard Gurpreet unzipping, then the strong thrum of piss striking soil. He looked up the path, trying to work out where the main exit was, how long it would take. It couldn’t be far, surely. Then he jumped. Gurpreet, hand clapped on Randeep’s shoulder. Whisky on his breath.

  ‘Why so jittery?’ he laughed.

  Randeep tried to laugh, too. ‘You just surprised me.’

  Miraculously, one by one the streetlights came into view, and the gate appeared, almost haloed in dingy orange. Randeep breathed out. ‘The gate.’

  ‘So where’s your money hidden, little prince?’

  Randeep looked – Gurpreet was reaching for his knife – and pelted for the gates, yelling, ‘Help! Help!’ while Gurpreet jogged, laughing, on behind.

  They were at the house in minutes, Randeep turning the key and letting them in. He flicked on the hallway light.

  ‘OK, my friend. Enough joking for one day. Till tomorrow,’ Gurpreet finished, and disappeared into the lounge, shutting the door. Randeep sank back against the wall. The house was quiet. There were probably only a handful of them here now, dotted about the three floors. He supposed it could be true and Gurpreet had killed in the past. Still, it was embarrassing to think how scared he’d been. Help! Help! He cringed and went up to his room and fell face down onto the mattress.

  Narinder tried a different plug socket, even a different CD. Still the stereo wouldn’t play. It had been the same the previous evening, but, as was her habit in matters technical, she’d hoped the thing would’ve sorted itself out overnight. She looked at her watch. 7.30. The whole long day stretched ahead, silent and flat. The only person she’d spoken to in the last week had been Mr Greatrix. She took her cereal bowl to the sink, washed it, came back, saw a green-beaked pigeon waddling along the window. 7.32. She took her chunni from the back of the chair and her coat from the table.

  She hadn’t set off with the intention of going to the gurdwara – or going anywhere else – but she seemed to just end up here, sitting in the langar hall while the morning service crackled through the speakers. A woman arrived with tea. She was young, perhaps the same age as Narinder, with a wide, pleasant face on a frame that was stout without being fat. Her red bindi was a little off-centre and her bridal bangles thick. She was from Panjab, clearly.

  ‘Sab theek hai, pehnji?’ she asked.

  ‘Ji?’

  ‘You look like there’s a lot on your mind. Is everything all right at home?’

  ‘Ji. Thank you.’

  Narinder recognized the woman – she’d seen her once or twice working in the canteen – and now she noticed the low-slung swell of the woman’s stomach.

  ‘Please sit down,’ Narinder said. ‘You should rest.’

  The woman eased onto the chair opposite, arranging her shawl over the bump. ‘I’ve not seen you for a while.’

  ‘No. I’ve not done much seva recently. I’m sorry.’ Since Karamjeet’s letter she’d avoided the place. It was less risky to stay indoors.

  ‘Well, I’m glad to see you again. Someone my own age. Are your people from Sheffield?’

  ‘I don’t know anyone in Sheffield,’ Narinder replied, in a quiet voice that made her sound grave.

  With some clumsiness, the woman reached across and touched Narinder’s hand. ‘Me neither.’

  Her name was Vidya and she was here with her husband. They were illegals from Haryana – not Panjab – and had married and got quickly pregnant in the belief that a child born in this country would guarantee a stamp for them all.

  ‘But it’s not true,’ Vidya said. ‘The rules changed years ago. I could kill him.’

  ‘So what will you do?’ Narinder asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Where will you have the baby?’

  Vidya threw her hand in the air and kept it there, as if waiting for a ball to drop into it. ‘He can sort it out,’ though whether she meant God or her husband Narinder wasn’t certain.

  By their third meeting they were sharing more, though both women seemed to sense that much was being left unsaid, and had to be. Narinder liked her. She was funny, often at the expense of the stern old women who thought they owned the canteen. ‘Enough hair on her lip to weave a menjha,’ Vidya would say, as Narinder tried not to laugh. Soon and more than anything else she looked forward to the mornings Vidya would be there.

  ‘You should get a job,’ Vidya said.

  Narinder took the thaals from her and started hosing them down at the sink.

  ‘I said you should get a job.’

  ‘I know. I’m thinking. I’ve never had a job.’

  ‘All day alone in that flat isn’t good for you.’

  ‘I don’t have any qualifications.’

  ‘Not all jobs need qualifications.’

  Narinder squeezed the giant bottle of washing-up liquid until her fingers touched through the plastic. All she got was bubbles and farts.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I’ll think about it.’

  Vidya collected and returned with more dirty dishes. ‘You’re very strange.’

  ‘That I am,’ Narinder agreed.

  ‘You’re brave enough to come and live in a strange city on your own. But you’re too scared to do anything else.’

  Narinder had never thought herself brave. She only did things when called upon, when He told her a great injustice was occurring right in front of her face.

  ‘Our gurujis led me here. I wasn’t being brave.’

  *

  The curve in the roof of the bus shelter forced Avtar to kneel with ankles crossed. Climbing had never been difficult for him. As a conductor he’d often monkeyed up onto the roof to confront fare-dodgers. From here he could see all the way to the yard of the chip shop and its white back door, beside which was the stack of empty chicken crates. He looked at his phone. It was twelve minutes past. Maybe the shop had got busy. But then the door opened and Harkiran emerged, briefly, and dropped into the top crate a bulging carrier bag. Avtar gave a small fist-pump. Now all he needed was the miss-call from his friend to confirm everyone was out of the way. And here it was, his phone buzzing happily in his hand. He threw himself to the ground and sprinted up the road and down the side of the shop, skidding to avoid being seen in the window. He snatched up the bag without really even looking at it and fleetingly thought of Dhano the film horse as he pivoted and set off again.

  ‘Isn’t that stealing?’ Randeep said, in the kitchen.

  Avtar flattened the bag into a circle around the chicken and then, with both hands, and with something approaching reverence, lifted the meat out and onto the wooden chopping board. It was large and fleshy and plump-legged and kingly. Yes. It looked majestic.

  ‘So you stole it?’ Randeep said again.

  ‘Shall we just starve, then? That bhanchod gave my job away.’

  ‘Still,’ Randeep said, though he had to admit the chicken looked like the best chicken ever. He could hear the saliva in his mouth.

  ‘Do you know how to take the bits out?’ Avtar asked.

  ‘The bits?’

  ‘You know.’ He flicked his eyebrows to the right, as if indicating someone over there.

  ‘They have bits?’ Randeep said.

  ‘Of course they have bits. What did you think they had?’

  ‘But aren’t they taken out before . . . before they get to us?’

  Avtar looked at the chicken. ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Where would they be?’

  They turned the chicken over so it rolled slightly to one side, and peered in, nostrils doing the opposite of flaring.

  The chicken – chopped and curried – provided two meals a day for three days, for all of them. At the end of the third day, Gurpreet slurped up the last of the gravy, licking his spoon clean in a predictably vulgar manner.

  ‘Good work, Nijjara. Yo
u got the next one ordered?’

  ‘No,’ Randeep said and looked to Avtar for confirmation. But Avtar had a guilty touch about him. ‘Bhaji, think of the risk!’

  Chuckling, Gurpreet rested his hands on his turban. ‘Not even a year and stealing like an old hand. You’re on your way.’

  They didn’t steal a chicken, in the end. They stole a whole crate of them. The night before, Avtar lay awake calculating how many chickens he could sell and at what price. Each crate contained twenty, he remembered, and at least ten crates arrived every morning. Malkeet wouldn’t miss the one. He wouldn’t even notice. And Avtar figured he could get maybe five pounds for a whole chicken.

  ‘Two hundred pounds a day?’ Randeep cried, as they watched for the delivery truck.

  ‘Shh! And it’s one hundred. And I’ll have to give Hari something.’

  ‘Wow. That was nearly a whole week on the hotel. But what if we’re caught?’

  ‘Drop the chickens and run,’ Avtar said, and they looked at each other and laughed.

  When the truck came past – Northern Foods Ltd – Avtar shimmied up onto the bus shelter and watched it reverse onto the forecourt, obscuring his view of the shop. The delivery guy got out – a friendly Scot called Gordon, Avtar recalled – and the flaps of the truck opened with a squeal.

  ‘What’s happened?’ Randeep asked him.

  The crates were levered onto a pallet and wheeled to Hari. Then Gordon saluted – ‘OK, boss,’ he used to say – and less than a minute later the truck was on the road again.

  ‘It’s gone,’ Randeep said.

  ‘Yeah,’ Avtar said, still watching.

  Tochi came out and carried one of the crates indoors. It would take him at least five minutes to unwrap twenty chickens and perhaps another five to arrange them in that massive fridge of theirs. He saw what must’ve been Hari’s hand gently closing the door, and then his phone glowed.

  ‘Go!’ Avtar said, jumping down, running.

  They slowed at the corner, making certain the door was still closed, then rushed forward again. Avtar unclipped the catches, detaching the crate from its stack, and gestured urgently for Randeep to grab the other end. And though they started off with it lifted up to their chests, by the time they shuffled past the bus stop their arms were at full stretch and the crate like a swing between their thighs. The chickens were heavy.