Sunjeev Sahota - The Year of the Runaways

‘So cold, yaar,’ Randeep said, and tucked his gloved hands into his armpits.

They turned onto Snuff Mill Lane and waited beside a twiggy hedge near the Spar. The National Lottery sign reverberated in the wind. Any van pulling up would look like it was only delivering the day’s newspapers.

‘There used to be a flour mill here,’ Randeep said. ‘Hundreds of years ago. I read about it.’

‘Yeah,’ Avtar said, too tired to really talk.

They took out their Tupperware boxes and peeled off the lids. Avtar held up one of his chapattis: a brittle misshapen thing full of burn holes. ‘No joke, I genuinely think my cock could do better.’

Randeep smeared the chilli gobi around his roti, then rolled it all up like a sausage.

The white Transit arrived and they climbed into the back and squeezed onto the wheel arches. The others were already in there, eating, or asleep on the blankets that covered the corrugated floor. Randeep squashed his bag under his knees, behind his legs. Opposite, Gurpreet was drawing on his roll-up and looking right at him.

‘Did you wear that jacket all the way down the street?’ Gurpreet asked, rocking side to side. ‘Do you bhanchod want to get seen?’

‘I was in a hurry.’

‘In a hurry to get us all caught, eh, little prince?’

He’d have to take some of his clothes over to her soon. He concentrated on that.

‘So what was she like, then?’ Gurpreet asked. ‘Our Mrs Randeep Singh?’

Randeep pretended not to hear.

‘Oy! I asked you something.’

‘Nothing. Like any girl.’

‘Oh, come on. Tall, slim, short? What about. .?’ He mimed breasts.

Frowning, Randeep said he didn’t notice, didn’t care to notice.

‘And she didn’t let you stay?’

‘I didn’t want to.’

Gurpreet laughed. ‘Maybe one day you will.’

‘Leave him alone,’ Avtar said, strongly, eyes still closed.

‘Where are we going today?’ Randeep asked quickly.

Vinny — boss, driver — spoke up: ‘A new job, boys. We’re off to Leeds.’

They all groaned, complaining about how late they’d be back.

‘Hey, ease up, yeah? Or maybe I need to get me some freshies who actually want the work?’

Someone in the back closed his fist and made the wanker sign, a new thing that had been going round the house recently.

The proposed hotel site was directly behind the train station. A board so white it sparkled read, Coming soon! The Green: a Luxury Environmentally Friendly Living Space and Hotel in the City of Leeds. But right now it was just a massive crater, topsoil scraped off and piled in a pyramid to one side. At least all the bushes and trees had been cleared.

They assembled in the corner of the station car park, looking down onto the site. Another vanload joined them. Mussulmans, Randeep guessed. Bangladeshis even, by the look of them. A man approached, his hard hat askew on his big pink head. He went straight to Vinny and the two spoke and then shook hands.

‘All right, boys,’ Vinny said. ‘This is John. Your gaffer. Do what he says and you’ll be fine. I’ll pick you up at seven.’

The van reversed and Vinny left. Randeep moved closer to Avtar: if this John was going to pair them off then he wanted to be with him. But John began by handing out large pieces of yellow paper, faintly grid-lined. Avtar took one, studied it. Randeep peered down over his shoulder.

‘These are the project plans,’ John said, walking back and forth. ‘As you can see there’s lots to do, lots to do, so let’s just take it one step at a time, yes? You understand?’

‘We could do this with our eyes closed,’ Avtar muttered. ‘Saala bhanchod.’

‘Oy! No, bhaji!’ John said, bursting into Panjabi, pointing at Avtar with the rolled-up paper. ‘I no longer fuck my sister, acha?’

Avtar stared, open-mouthed, and then everyone was laughing.

They put on their hats, smoothing their hair out of the way, chose tool-belts and made for the footings stacked in neat angles on the wooden pallets. John called them back. He wanted stakes in first.

‘But it will take twice as long,’ Avtar said.

John didn’t care. ‘We’re doing this properly. It’s not one of your shanty towns.’

So Avtar and Randeep piled a wheelbarrow with the stakes and bumped on down to their squared-off section of the site. ‘You put in the stakes and I’ll follow with the footings,’ Avtar said.

Randeep dropped onto one knee and held a stake to the ground. With a second glance towards the plan, he brought down his hammer. ‘Like last time?’ He wasn’t going to fall for that again.

‘It’ll take all week just to do this,’ Avtar said. ‘It’s as big as one of their bhanchod football grounds.’

At lunchtime, they found their backpacks and joined the others sitting astride a large tunnel of aluminium tubing, newly exposed from the dig. Beside them, a tarpaulin acted as a windbreak. They slid off their helmets. Their hair was sopping.

Afterwards one or two pulled on their coats and turned up their collars and sank into a sleep. The rest decided on a cricket match to stay warm. They found a plank of wood for a bat and several had tennis balls handy. They divided into Sikhs and Muslims, three overs each. Gurpreet elected himself captain and won the toss. He put the Muslims in to bat.

‘No slips, but an edge is automatic out,’ he said, topknot swinging as he ran back to bowl.

He was knocked for fourteen off the first over, the last ball screaming for a six. Gurpreet watched it arc above his head and land somewhere in the car park.

‘Arré, yaar, there’s something wrong with that ball.’

‘Right,’ Avtar said. ‘The fact that it is being bowled by you.’

Randeep laughed but when Gurpreet glowered he fell silent.

They needed thirty-one to win and came nowhere near, with Avtar going for glory and getting caught, and puffing Gurpreet easily run out.

‘These Mussulmans,’ he said, throwing aside the bat. ‘Cheating is in their nature.’

John approached and for the first time Randeep noticed his gentle limp.

‘Bohut good work, men, bohut good work. But come on, jaldi jaldi, it looks like you’ll have it all khetum in no time.’

Avtar and Randeep stowed their lunchboxes and trudged down the site. Another six hours to go.

Vinny was late that evening.

‘Some of us have other jobs to get to, yaar,’ Avtar said.

‘Sorry, sorry,’ Vinny said. ‘I had to go to Southall.’ He was forced to turn left. ‘Crazy one-way system in this city.’

‘Is there work in Southall?’ Avtar asked, up and alert.

‘Hm? No, no. The opposite. I’ve found another one of you slackers. You’ll have to make some more room back there.’

No one spoke. It was nothing new. They came and went all the time.

Soon they hit the motorway. Someone asked if Vinny Sahib had heard anything about any raids? Because one of those Mussulmans, you see, he was telling that the raids have started again.

Vinny whistled a single clean note while shaking his head. ‘I’ve not heard a thing. Why would I? Far as I’m concerned you’re all legit, ain’t you? You all showed me your papers. Nowt to do with owt, me.’

The van continued in the slow lane, the tyres rumbling away under Randeep, a vibration that felt vacantly erotic. Then something made him sit up. At first he thought it was rain but it was too slow and gentle to be that. Then he understood, and touched his fingertips to the back window. ‘Mashallah,’ someone said, as Randeep felt them all brimming up behind him, pressing and jostling to stare at the sky, at the globe of tumbling snow around each street light.

At the house, Avtar persuaded Vinny to drop him off at the chip shop, leaving Randeep to eat alone in his room. Soon he was in bed, too exhausted to call Narinderji, too exhausted even to sleep, and he was still awake when he thought he heard a door sliding shut, like a van’s side door, and the downstairs bell being rung. He swiped clear a patch in the window — Vinnyji again? — and went down the first flight of stairs. Gurpreet and the others had edged into the hallway, shushing one another.