Sunjeev Sahota - The Year of the Runaways

‘I’m Virender. Vinny. And you’re lucky, you know that? I’ve just got a new contract. A top-of-the-motherfucking-range hotel. Should knock the smile off Sukh’s face.’

‘When can he start?’ Ardashir asked.

‘I’ll speak to Sukh. But say I’ll pick him up next Saturday. I’m down south anyway. Have your suitcase ready to go. Acha?’

On his last morning Tochi tidied away the sofa cushions and sat on the straight chair, red rucksack at his feet. Ardashir placed a pair of leather workboots on the floor. They looked old and used but stronger than his own.

‘You’ll need them.’

‘I’ll buy some.’

‘I’d like you to take them, but suit yourself.’

He sat on the bed and swigged from his bottle. They said nothing until a few hours later when a white van parked outside and the horn sounded.

‘I told him not to do that,’ Ardashir said, standing up. Then, to Tochi: ‘You should go.’ With that, he disappeared into the bathroom behind the kitchen, leaving his bottle on the worktop.

Tochi hooked the rucksack over his shoulder and took up the boots and walked out of the room and door and up the stone steps. The day was cold and bright. He opened the van door and nodded at Vinny and climbed in.

The Sheffield snow had nearly gone. Grass showed darkly through and only a few white sleeves remained on the roofs of the houses opposite. Moving away from the window, Tochi prised off the workboots Ardashir had given him and put on his cheap trainers instead. He took the half-roti he’d saved from his lunch and, on his way downstairs, crushed it all into his mouth. The kid, Randeep, he could hear in the kitchen, complaining to someone about the cement their gaffer had ordered: ‘It’ll take forever if we can’t use the jib. Maybe if—’ Tochi closed the front door and bent his head low against the cold.

He turned left on Ecclesall Road, not right as Randeep had shown him, and strode past all the places he’d already tried twice in the last month. He walked efficiently, never meeting anyone’s eye. Once he was through the city centre, the terrain rose steeply and from the top of the hill he could see the blue dome and sprawl of that shopping centre they all spoke about. He couldn’t remember the name. It didn’t matter. There’d be no work for him in a place like that.

There was a Nooze ’n’ Booze a little further along, windows grilled over, manned by a bearded sardar type. Tarlochan waited for a couple to leave with their bottles of wine. The uncle looked older this close up. In his sixties, at least.

‘Sat sri akal.’

The man smiled. ‘Sat sri akal, puth.’ Son.

Tochi explained that he was new to the area and looking for evening work. He’d be happy stacking shelves or working behind the counter or cleaning. Anything really. Whatever it was, he’d put his heart into it.

‘Fauji, hain?’

Tochi nodded.

‘Pind?’

‘Manighat.’

The man tried to place it.

‘It’s in Bihar.’

A sigh, a nod. ‘Acha. Well, good luck.’ And the man gestured for the turbaned girl behind Tochi to come forward. ‘Third time this evening, beiti. Is it still not working?’

Outside the shop, Tochi made a fist and banged the grille-shutters, shaking everything. The shopkeeper came out. ‘Any trouble and I’ll call the police.’ His voice wobbled. Tochi moved on a few feet, then stopped, his forehead to a lamppost.

‘Are you all right?’

It was the girl. From the shop. In her hand some pink meter tokens. He glanced up to her turban, then spat on the floor.

‘He wasn’t fair to you. He didn’t treat you well. I told him so.’

‘Right.’

‘We’re all equal before God.’

He wished she’d go away.

‘I’m new to the area as well.’

He nodded.

‘It’s not easy. It’s very lonely. I get very lonely. Especially at night.’

She seemed an odd mixture of strength and innocence, with little idea of how she might be misconstrued.

‘Do you know where the gurdwara is? If you’re lonely you can go there. I do. Or if you need food.’

‘What if I need a woman’s bed?’ he found himself saying, needing to hurt her the way he was hurting.

She remained perfectly still, yet he could see her mind turning away from him. ‘God can’t provide everything,’ she said, and wished him well in his search for work.

The kid’s friend, Avtar, was leaving the house as Tochi arrived back. On his way to his evening job, going by the orange uniform. He nodded at Tochi and held the front door open for him, and Tochi nodded back and passed inside. From the dimly lit hall, he could see into the front room where a few of them were watching a Tamil porno, Gurpreet urging the man on. Upstairs, the kid was sitting on his mattress, writing into something. The glow from the streetlights seeped through the curtain edges and made a vase on the wall, above the boy’s head. Tochi lay back on his own mattress, undoing the Velcro straps of his trainers but keeping the shoes on because the floor was so cold. He closed his eyes. A pleasant darkness enshrouded him. All he could hear was the scratch of the boy’s pen.

‘I’m writing a letter home,’ the kid said. ‘Better than phoning.’

Tochi felt he nodded, eyes still closed.

‘I’ve mentioned about my new room-mate.’ A pause. ‘That’s you.’

‘Give my salaams.’

‘And I’m including some photos of me and Avtar bhaji. We took them at a booth in the station last week. You get four in a row. And it’s not too expensive. I can show you if you like.’

Silence.

‘I mean, if you want to send some to your family.’

Tochi laced his hands together behind his head. ‘I’ll think about it.’

*

The foundation concrete had cured and they’d spent the morning making a start on the brick posts. It was donkey work, really. Around them, yellow cranes manoeuvred into place, driven by professional-looking white faces. Tochi secured the final brick into his section and jumped onto the wall, confirming everything was flush and bedded down. From here, he could see across the whole site. There were almost three times as many people now as when he’d first arrived. Project managers, floor planners, site officers, water operatives. A roving swarm of hard yellow hats, fenced in by the short brick posts that at last seemed to be giving the site some sort of shape. He saw the kid’s slim figure far across the way. He had his hands on his knees, peering into a turning barrel of cement as if he’d lost something inside it.

That evening, he changed route, passing the Botanical Gardens and the small moonless wood. There were fewer shops this way — instead, the further he went, the bigger the houses became, the wider the avenues. The air felt greener, as if this was where all that countryside started insinuating itself. The something district, they called it. Even their green spaces sounded urban. He walked for perhaps an hour and found himself in a village, in front of a little, pretty convenience store. Inside, a brown kid in several layers and a baseball cap idled at the counter. Tochi made his usual pitch.

‘You want a job?’ the kid surmised. His Panjabi was poor, Hindi-inflected — ‘Aap job chaiyeh?’ — and he’d probably understood little of what else Tochi had said.

He slid open a wooden panel behind him and called up the stairs for his mother. Tochi heard her coming down, mumbling that everything was price-marked, Manvir, why don’t you look before interrupting her all the time? A small woman, who might have been handsome if it wasn’t for her long jaw, she stopped as soon as she saw Tochi. ‘Oh, sorry.’

The boy said something and then the woman sent her son upstairs and turned to Tochi. ‘You’re looking for work?’