Sunjeev Sahota - The Year of the Runaways

‘Keep ignoring it. They can’t do anything if they can’t find you. And then it’s for him to sort out,’ meaning Randeep.

‘It’s been a year already. This should be over by now. He should have his stamp and I shouldn’t be here.’

He moved to the sink and started to fill it with water. He didn’t look across as he asked, ‘What will you do when it’s over?’

She took her time answering. ‘I’ll go back home.’

He nodded. ‘To your family?’

‘I have to.’

She sat at her window, looking across the identical roofs of the houses opposite. Each slate was edged neatly under the one above it, and they all looked damp, lined with dew. She didn’t let her eye wander too far above them. It was easier that way. If she looked up at the sky the loneliness was too large for her to carry. She heard Tochi standing in the doorway behind her. She turned away from the window. She seemed to know what he was going to say.

‘Stay Don’t go.’

The streetlights threw one half of her face into shadow. The other half glimmered. Her chunni lay gently balled up between her hands, in her lap, as if she were caring for a small purple bird. He’d not lain with her or held her or touched her the way a man can touch a woman. He didn’t know what explained this loose, unstructured love that pumped around his body. He only knew that he wanted to be with her. He wanted to protect her and never let anybody hurt her.

She looked down to her lap, to her hands. ‘I was thinking about what you said. About courage. And I think it’s more complicated than that. I think making a sacrifice so other people aren’t hurt can be even more courageous.’

‘You sound like you’re trying to convince yourself.’ Then: ‘It’s not complicated, Narinder,’ and there was something about hearing her name in his mouth that made her gasp inwardly.

‘We have duties. I have duties.’

‘Forget them.’

She laughed unhappily. ‘That’s easy for you to say.’ He had no family, no one he felt he owed anything to. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘I used to think I had duties. That I had to know my place. It doesn’t work. People will be hurt. Don’t hurt yourself instead.’

‘It’s easy to get over hurting yourself. Easier.’

‘You’re wrong. You won’t. Stay.’

For a man like him, to talk like this was to beg. He was begging her to be with him and she knew that he loved her. All she had to do was take this chance that had been so delicately brought before her, on cupped palms. All she had to do was reach out and accept it. But below the cupped palms lay her baba’s turban, on the floor and at her feet. She saw what her being with Tochi would do to him, the lifetime of disgrace. She closed her eyes. So this was what it felt like to be torn in two. It was amazing to think that she’d always had it wrong, imagining that they were the weak ones, the ones who took their chance. No. The weakest are those who stay put and call it sacrifice, call it not having a choice. Because, really, there was always a choice and she — one of the cowards, she realized — was making hers now. She turned back to the window, to the identical roofs. She closed her hands over the chunni and twisted it tight. ‘Please. Go away.’

*

Randeep lifted the suitcase above the turnstile, slotted in his ticket, and pushed through the bars and out of the station. Avtar was sitting on the low wall by the water feature. He needed to shave. His hair was a mess. He stood up and beckoned him over. Randeep didn’t move.

The bus dropped them at the bottom of the hill and Avtar walked on ahead. After ransacking the club, he’d not gone back to the Portakabin, fearing his boss. Instead, he spent a week sleeping in the car park of a Blockbuster’s in south Leeds. He couldn’t find work. And then Bal started texting, threatening. When the weather turned even colder the only option left was to contact everyone he knew until he found Randeep, head back to Sheffield and maybe ask Narinder to take them in again, just until he was better.

His gait, he knew, was uneasy. He couldn’t apply any serious pressure on his left hip. But it would all be fine if he could rest up for a few days, eat well, bathe, and then get back to finding work. And once he was earning again, he’d clear his debts and after maybe three or four years return home and get a new flat, perhaps even buy one, and Navjoht would be earning too and the shop would be paid off. He held onto these thoughts as if they were all he had left.

‘It’s a new door,’ Randeep said, stopping outside a brown one with a gold slip of a letter box.

He looked up to the window — unlit — then back at the door. He wondered if Tochi was still around. He wondered what she was going to say.

No one answered.

‘She’ll be at the gurdwara,’ Randeep said, and they sat themselves down on the pavement, against the door.

‘Are you sure she lives here?’ Avtar asked. ‘She might’ve moved. It’s been a few months.’

‘Three months,’ Randeep said. ‘Three and a half.’

He seemed different, Randeep, quieter, sombre. ‘I’m sorry, yaar. I’m sorry for leaving you.’

Randeep nodded. ‘I understand.’

‘I owe money. I didn’t know what to do.’

‘You had no choice.’

‘But once I’ve got rid of this stomach bug, we’ll find work and it’ll be fine.’

‘I’m sure you’re right.’

Avtar looked across. ‘Were you on your own the whole time?’

He nodded, though he didn’t seem to want to talk about it. ‘I’m better now. I think I’m going to be OK.’

The darkness thickened and they didn’t see the woman until they were gathering up their legs to let her pass. She halted at the house next door. The neighbour, then. An older white woman with small earrings like gold semicolons. Her bleached hair was duck-white at the roots, and her nose pitted with red spots.

‘Can I help?’ she said. She didn’t sound friendly.

‘We’re waiting,’ Avtar said.

‘I can see that.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Why don’t you leave the poor lass be?’

‘Do you know where she is?’

‘Go on, get away. Hounding her like this. There were more like you last week. I’m calling the police.’

‘You don’t understand,’ Avtar said. ‘She’s his wife.’

‘Oh, I understand very well, don’t you worry. I understand all about your arrangements.’

‘He’s her husband.’

At the threat of police, Randeep stood up and started pulling Avtar away and back down the hill.

They went to the gurdwara, where they charged their phones and slept on one of the mats inside the langar hall. In the morning they could only afford one phonecard between them. They topped up Avtar’s — he had more work contacts — and then Randeep took the phone and said he was going to call her.

‘What will you say?’

‘That I want to meet.’

She was waiting for them at the back door, inside the kitchen. She wore no turban. Her hair was bunned up tight. It was the first time Randeep had seen her like that and this was a fact she seemed embarrassed by, as her smile showed.

She poured the tea into mugs and handed it to them sitting at the table. The kitchen looked different from when they’d lived there. The beads over the doorway were tied neatly to one side with a red curtain strap, and containers for tea, sugar and coffee stood on the counter, along with spice racks and chopping boards. The table was laid with square blue place mats, which Randeep rested his elbows on.

‘You said you had to leave the flat?’ he asked.

‘My brother found me. But where were you, Randeep? That inspector calls every day. I rang you so much!’

‘Nowhere,’ he said, too ashamed to admit he’d been living like a tramp.