The Year of the Runaways

by Sunjeev Sahota

‘It is the first day of the month, is it not?’

  ‘So Randeep’s not paid you directly?’

  He pushed out his lower lip, a display of tender blue veins glazed in saliva. ‘And, pray tell, he would be whom when he’s at home?’

  He sounded much older than he looked. Perhaps he thought he needed to speak like this to be taken seriously.

  ‘My husband,’ she said.

  ‘No. I can’t say your husband has been in touch.’ His voice changed. ‘Is this your roundabout way of telling me you don’t have this month’s rent?’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ There was fear in her voice. Surely he couldn’t just kick her out? ‘I’ll speak to my husband.’

  He flipped his notebook shut, a notebook Narinder hadn’t even noticed until now, and placed his hands behind his back. ‘Mrs Kaur, as this is the first time you’ve defaulted on a payment, please take this as your first and last warning. I’ll expect you to make up your arrears in full next month. Otherwise I’ll be forced to initiate proceedings. Is that clear?’

  ‘I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding.’

  ‘Be that as it may, you’ll receive written confirmation in the post of what we’ve just agreed.’

  He huffed irritatedly and turned round. There was some sort of lotion on the bony cartilage of his ears, the tips of which were burning red. He’d mentioned something about spending August on holiday. Florida, perhaps. He got into his car, checked his mirrors a little imperiously, as if he knew Narinder was still there, and nosed out.

  Back in her room, she tried calling Randeep for perhaps the fourth time that day. Again it went straight to voicemail. She went to the window, as if expecting to see him coming up the road, and then she hurried downstairs and knocked on her neighbour’s door. No answer. She tried again.

  ‘Hello? Ji? Are you in, please? It’s me from upstairs.’

  She waited on the bottom step for a while, then, defeated, returned to her flat. She drew the curtains and lowered herself onto the settee, one hand on the armrest as if she desperately needed its support. She didn’t feel like eating. She got nowhere with her puzzle. By seven she was in bed, though the day was still yellow and the light made a perfect unit of itself around the closed curtains of her window.

  Later, past midnight, she got up and knocked on his door again. She knew he was in. She’d heard him. She knocked once more, harder, and listened for footsteps. None. Then the door was open and he stood there with his hand high on the frame, forcing his shoulder up by his ear. Behind him, all she could see was the dark strip of a hallway and a wire hanging without its bulb. He was in his orange uniform. He didn’t say hello.

  ‘I need to speak to Randeep. He’s not answering his phone.’

  ‘Nothing to do with me.’

  ‘But do you know where I can find him?’

  ‘Sorry.’ He made to shut the door.

  ‘Just – I was expecting to hear from him. It’s very important.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Well, can you at least give me Avtar’s number? I really need to speak to them. It’s not like Randeep to not get in touch.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘But I thought you all lived together?’

  He said nothing.

  ‘Aren’t you even worried? You said you were a friend.’

  ‘I said I knew him.’ He shut the door.

  At the bank she withdrew all her savings. She had enough to cover the rent. Enough to keep him happy for another month, that was all. She tried Randeep again – ‘You’ve reached the voi—’ then pushed the phone deep into her bag and walked the half-mile to the job centre.

  She’d decided she had no choice. She’d already tried the gurdwara, hoping the women would help her find some paid work, but they’d turned on her, demanding to know why she needed a job all of a sudden. She only prayed that coming into a place like this, a job centre, giving details they’d store away in their computers, wouldn’t get her and Randeep into any trouble.

  ‘So you don’t have any previous work experience?’

  A little green first-aid flag taped to the hard drive read ‘Carolyn’ and a whole gallery of silver-framed family shots fashioned a fortress around her desk. She was an older lady – fifties, maybe – with large, auburn hair so insistently sprayed it appeared frosted over. The whole effect seemed designed to provide her ears with a pair of giant brackets. Square red-framed spectacles hung on a chain around her neck and she lifted these to the bridge of her nose.

  ‘I’m sure you must have done something?’

  ‘I haven’t. Sorry. Only my father and brother worked.’

  ‘How very enlightened.’

  Carolyn flipped to the back of the four-page form Narinder had had to complete before being called to the desk.

  ‘I notice you’ve left the key skills section blank as well.’

  ‘I don’t have any.’

  Removing her glasses, Carolyn slid the form to one side. ‘Now. We’re not going to get very far with that attitude, are we? You’re twenty-one. Why don’t you tell me what you’ve been doing since your schooling stopped at – ’ she glanced across to the form – ‘at sixteen.’

  ‘Helping at the gurdwara, mostly. I did that nearly every day.’

  ‘Volunteering?’

  She’d never thought of it like that, as if it was an optional thing. It was just – had been just – part of what it meant to be alive. ‘I was doing my duty.’

  ‘And what kind of duties are we talking about?’

  ‘One of my main duties was giving out food. Making sure no one goes hungry.’

  ‘And did you do that alone or in a group?’

  ‘In a group.’

  ‘Excellent. Teamwork. A key transferable skill.’

  She was writing all this down in a shorthand Narinder couldn’t decode.

  ‘What else?’

  By the day’s end Carolyn had two interviews arranged. The first was for a cleaning job in a city centre bar, which Narinder said she couldn’t do.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said on the phone.

  ‘You won’t be serving alcohol. I understand your position on that. This’d be in the mornings when no one else is there.’

  ‘But it’s under the same roof. I’m not allowed.’

  She did agree to attend the second interview, for a role in the womenswear section of a large department store. She’d never been interviewed and was so nervous she didn’t eat. But she thought it had gone well. Two interviewers – a man and a woman – and they’d poured her a glass of water and said they were going to keep things informal by just going through her CV and asking a few competency-based questions. Nothing too taxing, they’d said. She’d left riding a wave of relief and pleasure and as she walked out of the store and into the new world she allowed herself some optimism.

  ‘Lack of retail experience,’ Carolyn said, when she called to explain why Narinder hadn’t got the role.

  ‘OK. Thank you.’

  ‘Don’t sound so despondent. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Christ, it takes my Mal five weeks just to put a shelf up. And I’ve got two more lined up already. One tomorrow and one for a week on Monday.’

  She didn’t get those either. Both jobs were in supermarkets and both, again, cited a lack of experience. Narinder thanked Carolyn for letting her know, then switched off her phone and held it in her lap. No one wanted her. She couldn’t see a way out. She walked to the doorway of her bedroom and gazed at the photos of her gurus, at the shrine, expecting some sort of solace. She could feel none. For the first time, it just looked like pictures of old men. She forced the thought away and took up her gutka and sat down and started to read, out loud, filling her mind with as many words as she could.

  When Carolyn next called, she said she had something that was right up Narinder’s street.

  ‘It’s at one of the smaller libraries. Part-time assistant. As soon as it came on the board I thought of you.’

  ‘Thank you. That sounds good.’
r />   ‘Oh dear. I hope you sound less like a miserable Marjorie in the interview.’

  Narinder smiled. ‘I’m sorry. It sounds great.’

  ‘That’s better. Now,’ Carolyn said, her voice offering total discretion, ‘what were you planning on wearing?’

  She didn’t take Carolyn’s advice, that maybe she should replace her headwear with something less ‘statementy’ – A headscarf does the same job, surely? – and might she also consider trousers on this occasion? She wore a plain sky-blue salwaar kameez with a chunni of a deeper blue, and she topped it all off with a black turban.

  The library was a bus ride away, in Dore, on the other side of the city, and abutted a doctor’s surgery. She was buzzed through and saw that, in the children’s aisle, some sort of mother-and-baby group was in progress.

  ‘Narinder, is it?’ a woman said, splitting from the group.

  Her long, flowery skirt was elasticated at the waist, and her blouse as white as her hair. A gold brooch, like a fat sun with short rays, was pinned at the neck.

  ‘Ji. Yes. I’m Narinder. I’m sorry if I’m late.’

  ‘I’m Jessica,’ the woman said, bringing her hands together in a clap. ‘And I could not be more delighted to meet you.’

  They sat in the staff kitchen, drinking tea and discussing things Narinder would later struggle to recall. They’d spoken about India, and Jessica’s time there in the Sixties, and there’d been something about some modifications she was having made to her bungalow. Narinder sat there listening, nodding, waiting for the interview to begin. But then an hour had passed and Jessica said she had to get things ready for the afternoon sessions. So when could Narinder start?

  ‘Oh!’ Narinder said, her hand leaping to her mouth. ‘You mean – I’ve got the job?’

  ‘I think you’d be perfect.’

  ‘Oh, thank you. Thank you so much!’

  ‘There’s no need to thank me, dear. I need to get the paperwork through, so shall we say two weeks from Monday?’

  ‘Yes. Yes. That’s – I don’t know what to say. Thank you.’

  Jessica squeezed Narinder’s hand and left the room, telling her to take as long as she needed. Tears had come to Narinder’s eyes. It felt as if for the first time in years some joy had entered her life.

  She was desperate for the two weeks to be over. She cleaned the flat, she went for long walks, she read the gutka; anything that might urge the hours on and stop this grim staring at the walls. She was proud of herself, and it didn’t matter that pride was one of the feelings she shouldn’t submit to. She couldn’t help it. She had a job. A real job. And she’d done it all by herself. She wanted to tell someone, anyone, but the only person who presented himself was Mr Greatrix, looking at her over his clipboard.

  ‘I trust you got the written notification of your first warning?’

  ‘Yes. Thank you.’ She handed over what she’d withdrawn from the bank. ‘I think that brings us up to date.’

  He looked surprised, suspicious, even. He counted it. ‘Yes. Well. That seems all in order. Of course the warning still stands. If you miss any future payments—’

  ‘I won’t.’ She could feel herself about to say it: ‘I’ve got a job.’

  She washed the clothes and turbans she wanted to wear during her first week and set them to dry across the radiator and on the rungs of the dining chairs. Then she stood by the window. It was a clear afternoon, a suddenly eloquent sky. Two girls in blazers were coming up the hill – school must have started again – and beyond them, rounding the corner, her downstairs neighbour. Bizarrely, he was rolling a large rubber tyre up the hill. She watched him for a while, then moved away from the window in case he might see her.

  She made plain roti, which turned out far too doughy, and ate this with a sabzi of chickpeas. Then she went to the shop and bought milk and electric tokens. Her clothes had dried by now, so she ironed and put them away. Her first-day suit she hung on the back of her bedroom door, giving it a final brush and shake, ready for a week’s time. It was eight o’clock. With nothing more to do, she brushed her teeth and went to bed.

  Maybe minutes passed, maybe hours. She wasn’t sure. The clock flashed 12:00. She checked her phone: 02:21. She was sure she’d heard something. A banging, maybe. A rumbling. It might just be him downstairs. She slipped out from under her duvet and peered through the long slit where the curtains met. The angle was too straight. She could hear voices, indistinct, but could see nothing. Neighbours? She went through to the front room and to the window there. She folded the curtain aside and looked down, then immediately leaned back, stupidly letting go so the fabric flapped a little. It was Tejpal. Others, too. She put a hand to her chest, as if they might hear its thudding, and inched forward again, peeling the curtain back by increments. They were looking up at her. She flattened herself against the wall. And now she could hear him, shouting.

  He wanted to talk, he said. They’d all been so worried and they just wanted to make sure she was OK. She listened from the dark of her room. ‘Narinder! Come on!’ he said, as if she was being adolescent, unreasonable; as if all he was asking for was a lift to the cinema.

  She waited for them to go, and when their voices withdrew down the hill, she reached for the settee, shaking. Tomorrow, she’d leave. She’d pack a suitcase now and tomorrow she’d go to a hotel. She tried to think if she could call the police, or whether that would get Randeep into trouble. She wasn’t sure. Her thoughts kept disappearing into dark water. She didn’t think she could do it. She didn’t think she could call the police on her family. Then, suddenly, the silence was exploded by a horrific scissoring sound. She rushed to the window. They were doing something at the door. Hacking at it. Kicking it. She ran into her room and picked up her phone. They were thundering up the stairs, banging on her door.

  ‘Nin – open up. Cos I swear I’ll break this bastard door down.’

  ‘Go away!’

  He kicked the door.

  ‘No!’

  She undid the locks and chain and he barged past her and into the room. ‘What the fuck!’

  ‘Tejpal, leave. Or I’ll call the police.’

  ‘I’ll leave all right. But you’re coming with me.’

  He looked fatter than she remembered, his beard thicker, bushier. His black waistcoat was all large padded squares and down the inside of his left arm a tattoo: Jatt Khalastani. The other two remained at the doorway. Distant cousins of hers, she recognized. From Dagenham. They looked, if not nervous, then slightly unsure of their role.

  ‘Pack your bag,’ Tejpal said.

  ‘I’m not going anywhere. I’ll come when I’m ready.’

  He rounded on her. She’d never seen such clarity of hatred in someone’s face. ‘Do you have any idea what you’ve done? Do you know what you’ve put Dad through?’

  ‘You don’t know anything. Now get out.’

  ‘I’m the one who hears Dad crying at night. Do you know he can’t face going to the gurdwara any more? Because people start pointing him out? Do you know how ashamed he feels? He doesn’t leave the house. Because of you. All because of you. You did this to him.’

  Narinder’s face gave a slight vibration. It was painful to imagine her baba like that. ‘He’ll understand. When I explain it to him. I know he will. I’ll be back in a few months and it’ll be fine. I’m doing a good thing here. You don’t understand!’

  ‘OK, then. Tell me what you’re doing.’ He sat on the settee. ‘Come on. I’m waiting. Tell me why you’re doing this.’

  She looked away. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Right. Well, I’ll tell you what you’re doing. You’re doing what you’ve always done. What’s good for you. What makes you feel good. He’s done everything for you. You’ve always been his favourite and now you’re the one who’s killing him.’

  ‘I’m making a sacrifice so—’

  ‘You don’t know what sacrifice is!’

  He rushed out of his seat and gripped her under the shoulder, pulling her along
. She felt herself gasp. She couldn’t breathe.

  ‘Tejpal, don’t do this. Let me go. Please let me go.’

  ‘Pack your bags. You’re coming home.’

  ‘I can’t! You don’t understand.’

  They struggled. The cousins didn’t seem to want to get involved, as if this was going beyond their remit. Probably they’d only come in case there’d been men to fight. Narinder bit down on her brother’s arm, hard, tasting blood, and all at once he screamed and pushed her with such force she fell into the dining chairs. She twisted round. He was crying.

  ‘I hate you so much,’ he said. ‘I’ll never forgive you. Never.’

  In the rusted oven tray, Tochi arranged the squares of rubber into a small mound. He carried it into the main room and eventually got a little fire going, opening a kitchen window for the smoke. Then he sat on the semicircle of tyre that remained and warmed his hands. He’d stolen the tyre from a school playground and it was the only piece of furniture in the room. A black sheet with a border of orange lozenges lay in the corner furthest from the window. His holdall acted as pillow. He heard the man shouting on the pavement outside. He couldn’t understand what he was saying. A family dispute, it sounded like. He made out ‘sister’. Nothing to do with him. He tried to ignore it, but then they started crashing through the door and charging up the stairs, to the girl. He grabbed his bag, ready to run, waiting to hear sirens. Nothing happened, though. They were upstairs, still shouting, and a little later they came back down. He went to the window. A van was driven up and the bearded guy opened the side door and the other two forced the girl in, throwing her suitcases after her. Tochi turned away from the window and forced the image of Palvinder from his mind.

  AUTUMN

  11. WHAT PRICE FREEDOM

  A man in a fashionably Pakistani kurta pyjama rose from behind his tabla set and walked the long diagonal towards Randeep. His kirpan was slung low across his body, and his royal-blue turban identified him as one of the junior granthis, perhaps only a few years older than him.

  ‘You’ve been coming here several nights now, haven’t you?’ he said, kneeling beside Randeep.