Sunjeev Sahota - The Year of the Runaways

Doctor Cheema had been right: work really was drying up. In two weeks the closest they’d come to finding anything was a half-hearted promise from a Muslim cash-and-carry owner who said he’d keep them in mind for the Christmas rush. They’d already exhausted the streets of Ilford, Barnet and Poplar in their search, and following a tip from an aunty-type shopkeeper they’d even spent two days traipsing around Southall and Ealing, and then Hounslow, looking for some phantom gurdwara she said was being built.

‘She must’ve misunderstood,’ Avtar said, as they got off the bus at Ilford.

They waited on the concourse, on a bench, until they were certain Massiji would be home. Randeep seemed withdrawn. Avtar wondered if it was his cousins, and how they were always avoiding him. Or maybe it was his father. Last night, on the cheap mobile phone Massiji had bought them, Lakhpreet said that he’d had ‘an episode’. Should he ask Randeep about it? It might help. In the event, Randeep got there first.

‘Your father’s quite old, isn’t he? I remember him now. Total white hair. Very slow on the stairs.’

‘That’s him,’ Avtar said, a little irked at the description.

‘A nice man. He made the bus driver wait for me once because my suitcase was heavy.’

Avtar smiled into his jacket, imagining the scene. ‘Yeah. He’d do that.’

Randeep turned, stared. ‘You miss him,’ he diagnosed.

‘Oh, I miss everything. Why?’ he went on, passing it over, ‘Do you miss your father?’

Randeep looked away, blinking, and Avtar regretted the question.

The sun had almost set, and they watched as another busload set out from the concourse.

‘Any paratha left?’ Randeep asked.

Avtar showed him the foil balled up in his fist. ‘Have you called those numbers Vakeel Sahib gave you?’

‘There was only one,’ Randeep said. ‘It’s too far.’

‘Where?’

‘He said Scotland.’

‘How far’s that?’

Randeep shrugged. Avtar walked over to the fag-holed timetable on the lamppost. Birmingham. Bristol. Derby. Edinburgh. Glasgow. Gravesend. Leeds. Manchester. Newcastle. Wolverhampton. But no Scotland.

‘It’s not on there,’ he said, sitting back down.

‘Because it’s too far.’

‘But if that’s where the work is. .’

They waited another half an hour and returned to the house. The daughter, Aki, was in the kitchen, pouring hot water from a kettle into a white plastic pot. It looked like noodles.

‘We have noodles in India, too,’ Randeep said.

She frowned, nodded, sat down to eat. Randeep wondered if it would be rude to ask if they might have some. Probably, yes, but not as rude as not offering some in the first place. Perhaps it was the effect of being brought up without a father. She glanced across to him and abruptly got to her feet and went upstairs, taking her noodle pot with her and muttering something about Pakis always fucking staring.

Massiji arrived late, with a paper bag of courgettes which she stewed into a quick sabzi for the boys. They ate two, three, four rotis, and for dessert a thickened-up bowl of milky semiya.

‘All that walking around must make you hungry.’

‘It tastes so good. Like home.’

‘Better than home,’ Avtar said.

‘Bas karo. I’m happy simply to have children to cook this for.’

Jimmy came thundering down the stairs in his tan stud-rind boots and reached for his leather jacket.

‘Are you going out, too?’ his mother said, in a voice disappointed and exasperated.

‘Just to the pub. Won’t be long.’

‘Your sister’s already gone. Why don’t you two spend some time with your cousin and Avtar? They look for work all day and have to sit here getting bored by me all night.’

Randeep protested — they weren’t bored, Massiji, that wasn’t. .

‘They’re eating,’ Jimmy said, as if they weren’t sitting just across the room.

‘They’ve finished,’ Massiji said, and there was a strained look on Jimmy’s face as he failed to summon a comeback.

Randeep and Avtar stood awkwardly at the bar, holding pints of cola up by their necks while Jimmy shot pool with his friends. Aki had been there too, but led her friends out as soon as she saw the boys enter. ‘PMS,’ Jimmy had said and Randeep had looked at Avtar, who’d shrugged.

Avtar wondered if this place was like that 1771 club in Jalandhar, with its secret upstairs gambling room. It didn’t seem to be. He couldn’t see any stairs, for one thing. Just lots of tables and around the tables lots of friends and couples of all different colours laughing and drinking. Women laughing and drinking. Indian women freely laughing and drinking. He imagined some impossible future in which he and Lakhpreet were settled with good jobs in Ilford and coming here together after a long week at work. The thought was funny. He sipped his drink.

‘I’d never let my sisters come here,’ Randeep said, because this was horrible. This was dirty and vulgar and he could feel the smoke sinking into his clothes. He was glad Jimmy had told him not to wear the tie.

A young black man appeared beside Randeep at the bar, waving a note to get the barman’s attention. Kaleh, Massiji said, were everywhere in Ilford, and the first time the boys saw one walking towards them they’d fallen silent, until the man passed by and Randeep whispered how frightening they looked. But he’d never seen one up close, right here beside him, like now. Their skin was so smooth, he thought. Not a blemish, no variation in tone, as if a machine had played some part in it all. He wondered how it would feel to touch. And that hair too. Like it had been stitched onto his head with silver thread. The man turned towards Randeep, a hard look in his eye. Randeep smiled, tight-lipped, edging a little closer to Avtar. Secretly, he watched the black man pay for his drink and rejoin his black friends at another pool table.

‘They’re fast, hain na? All the good runners are kaleh. Do they have their own language? Like ours is Panjabi?’

Avtar said he didn’t know, though they seemed to be speaking English.

‘Look how smooth their skin is. Why is that?’

Jimmy left his game of pool to ask if they needed a top-up. ‘Sure you don’t want a knock?’

Randeep asked if he knew any kaleh and what they spoke and ate and why their skin was so smooth.

‘Black don’t crack. E-vo-loo-shun, innit. Thought Mum said you were clever?’

‘What are they like?’

‘Like?’

The black man bounded over, his eyes bulging monstrously. ‘You got some beef with me, man?’ He was pointing, his face inches away.

Randeep lurched back, shaking his head.

‘You dotting me for time. Dot me to ma face.’ He stepped closer. ‘To ma fuckin’ face.’

Avtar moved Randeep behind him, protecting the kid, and Jimmy placed a hand on the man’s shoulder. ‘He’s fresh man, fresh. Lights out.’

‘Nang that. This Simon sidepart simpleton. . What, we taxed your fucking Co-op?’

‘Allow it, nigger. He’s learning. The rents were freshening up one day gone. Yours and mine. Same ends now, though, right? Same fucking drum. Right?’

A pause, then a chin-jut. ‘Standard, standard.’

‘Hectic,’ Jimmy said, emphasizing the syllables. He turned his back to the man and slurped the foam from his beer. This seemed to be some sort of message because the black man nodded and he and Jimmy touched fists, which Randeep thought must be an agreement to fight later.

On the walk home, Randeep was still shaking, his lips trembling. ‘I’m just cold.’

‘I don’t know why you freshies stare so much, man. Might be all right back home but it’s proper rude here, you know? People get really offended.’