Sunjeev Sahota - The Year of the Runaways

Avtar looked away, hiding his face because, overnight, he’d decided that this parting was actually a blessing in disguise. The boy relied too much on him. Exchanging money, approaching strangers, buying things — in all these it had somehow come to pass that Avtar would take the lead, even with his poorer English. Yes, it was definitely a blessing. It would force the boy to grow up. And Avtar could forget about him and concentrate on looking after himself. He only had six weeks before Pocket Bhai was expecting the first of the repayments. God willing, work would come.

‘If I find work for you there will you come?’ Randeep asked.

Avtar laughed. ‘I’ll come swimming in boiling waters if that’s where the work is.’

Massiji passed Randeep a food parcel for the journey and some money, which he tried to resist. ‘Just take it,’ she said. ‘And if there are any problems you come straight back, acha?’

He pushed against the turnstile and onto the platform, waving from the door then stepping up into the carriage, walking through, lugging his shiny leather suitcase behind him, and, as Jimmy bhaji had advised, not staring at any of the other passengers.

The train juddered out of the station and into the mechanical sprawl of London: cranes, pulleys, industrial lifts; then suburbs, the charmless wet platforms of one outpost after another. Only when they reached a station called Leicester did Randeep experience a change in his spirits. He was used to nice things, nice surroundings, and here were flat green fields, cows, palm-sized villages in the far distance. The view grew more beautiful still when, some two hours from London, the landscape changed again: hills, tumbling clouds, a church with a strangely twisted spire. He smiled. It was all so — he thought hard — so civilized. An image came to mind, of his father before the illness, still writing reports at his desk while the rest of the family slept. It was a time when he thought his father could withstand anything; an innocent time whose return he pined for. He put Massiji’s food parcel aside and by the time the train pulled into Sheffield, thirty-five minutes late, he still hadn’t touched it.

The station impressed him. It wasn’t as draughty as the London ones, and seemed cleaner, airier. This Sheffield must be a good city. He wondered why he’d never heard of it. As he studied the electronic departure boards, he saw someone by the payphone, holding a piece of cardboard bearing Randeep’s name. He was a short man with a goatee, receding spiked-up hair, and a busy, impatient look about him. Randeep took up his suitcase.

‘Virender bhaji?’

The man stopped his whistling. ‘Randeep?’ He screwed up the cardboard and threw it over his shoulder. They shook hands. ‘Good trip?’

‘I’m really happy to be here. What a beautiful city you have.’

Virender looked surprised. ‘Hold that thought.’

The van ride took them out of the city and onto elevated roads that wound through narrow, boarded-up, wretched-looking streets.

‘Mostly clearance at the moment,’ Virender was saying. ‘Decluttering sites, blah de blah. But I’ve got my eye on a new contract soon. A hotel, fingers crossed.’

‘I have a friend who came with me if you need more help.’

Virender bhaji ignored him. Perhaps he heard this a lot. ‘You’ll be all right digging up rocks and shit, yeah?’ He reached over and shook Randeep’s shoulder. ‘Put some muscle on those bones! You’re like a stick! Ronny the stick!’

They parked outside a large Victorian house with an overgrown, bushy front garden. The curtains were drawn haphazardly and giant cobwebs hammocked above the door. Virender knocked, twice, loudly.

‘One of these days I’ll remember my keys.’ He kicked the door. ‘Come on, you lazy chimps.’

The handle shook, and the door was at last opened by a sleepy, unshaven man with long, loose hair. His red mesh vest stretched tightly over his gut, which was as large as the belly of a heavily pregnant woman.

‘Still asleep, Gurps?’ Virender said, pushing past. ‘Won’t earn your millions like that, now, will you?’

Randeep nodded at the man and followed Virender into the front room. There were mattresses, grey sheets crumpled on them, and the wallpaper was torn in several places, revealing the pink underneath. It wasn’t too bad, Randeep tried to tell himself, and wondered which bed was his.

‘This is Gurpreet,’ Virender said. The long-haired man raised an elbow to the doorframe. He looked older, unfriendly. Randeep said sat sri akal.

‘Where’s the others?’ Virender asked.

‘Asleep. Out,’ Gurpreet said.

‘Anyway — ’ turning to Randeep — ‘your room’s upstairs. At the very top. You’re lucky. You’ve got your own space. I’ve put a mattress and shit in there already.’

He said he’d call later about work tomorrow but in the meantime he needed Randeep to come back outside and sign some forms.

‘You got your visa, yeah?’

‘Ji.’

Gurpreet let out a forlorn little laugh. ‘Everyone’s got a visa.’

‘Should’ve paid a bit more, then, shouldn’t you?’

Randeep spent the rest of the afternoon in his room, up two flights and at the end of the landing. He wiped his suitcase down with dampened toilet paper and stored it on top of the single-door wardrobe. He moved the mattress to the wall, so the sun wouldn’t wake him up in the morning, and aired the powder-blue blanket that had come with it. Then he stood at the window, texting Narinderji his new address and details, looking out at this new world. He hadn’t realized they were so high up. That there were so many hills.

He crept downstairs in the early evening, at the sound of voices and laughter. There were loads of them packed into the kitchen, more than he had expected. Eight, nine, ten. . Where did they all sleep? Most ignored him. One or two asked where he was from, how he got here. Randeep explained that he’d been staying in London with his massi but had to come up here for work.

‘My chacha’s son was the same,’ someone said. ‘Went from Uzbekistan all the way to Hull until he found a job. He’s back home now. Idiot got caught in a raid.’

Gurpreet’s voice came over the top. ‘He’s got a visa, the boy has. Not a deadhead fauji like us lot.’

The background chatter sank as swiftly as water down a plughole. ‘You a scooter?’ someone asked.

‘I’m on a marriage visa.’

There were whoops and cheers. His shoulders were rubbed. You’ve hit the jackpot, they said. Lottery nikhel gey. ‘Arré, janaab, you don’t even need to work. One year and all your dreams come true.’

Gurpreet thrust a plate into Randeep’s hand. ‘Welcome to England. Maybe you’ll bring us all some luck.’

It took two of them to convey the steel vat of food into the front room and steady it on a three-legged stool. Gurpreet invited Randeep forward. You first, he said. Randeep thanked him, and smiled hard to conceal how revolting he found it all. The tomatoey streaks on his plate that hadn’t been washed clean. The flies in the room. Even the tips of his cutlery were slick with some sort of green jam. He took up the large spoon and moved it through the grey mixture. He couldn’t tell what it was. It looked like nothing he was used to. This was just a grey-yellow slurry, the odd carrot and pea. He shook a small amount onto his plate and held the spoon out to Gurpreet. But Gurpreet said he had to have more.

‘Don’t be shy. You’re the guest today,’ and Gurpreet hurled down two huge ladlefuls of the stuff onto Randeep’s plate and sent him away with a couple of chapattis.

He didn’t want to appear ungrateful. He sat on the plastic trim of the mattress, plate balanced on his knees, and told himself he had to finish it. But he couldn’t. The chapattis were like wet cardboard and the sabzi had a gritty, slimy, sludgy texture, and all this seemed somehow to connect with the notion that there were things crawling out from the carpet and up his ankles. He started to sweat. He looked across to Gurpreet who was smiling at him, encouraging. Randeep smiled back. He tried one more mouthful, forcing his lips to close around his fingers and take it all in. He managed a few seconds of chewing before he felt his insides contract, refuse. He clamped his hand over his mouth, but the vomit seeped between his fingers and down onto his lap.