Sunjeev Sahota - The Year of the Runaways

‘Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you had company.’

Randeep stood and offered his hand. He tried to sound assured. ‘I’m Randeep Sanghera. A friend of Michael’s. From India.’

The man — ‘Philip,’ he said, accepting the hand — looked to his father. ‘I didn’t know you had friends in India.’

‘Many a thing that many a man knows not many about.’

Philip unzipped his raincoat, slowly, with an air of deliberation. His light-blond hair was so wispy that his pink scalp showed through, and when he spoke his whole face seemed taken over by the twin avalanches of his fleshy cheeks. ‘Been in the country long? Holiday, is it?’

‘No, sir, I’m here to work. I work in construction. Building.’

‘Oh, nice. I’m in the medical profession myself. Thirty-two years this August just gone. We see a lot of you lot. Builders.’ He turned to his father. ‘How did you two become friends?’

‘On the telephone, weren’t it?’

Randeep confirmed that it was. ‘I used to work as a claims officer in India and one day I called your father and we became very friendly. He’s a very kind man. You’re lucky,’ he added.

‘The telephone?’ Philip said, confused, or maybe suspicious.

‘I helped your father with his claim,’ Randeep went on. ‘I did my best.’

The man was staring at Randeep’s suitcase, stowed neatly beside the cabinet. ‘How long are you visiting Dad for?’

‘Oh, Philip, that’s no way to treat a guest in our country. He only landed today, the poor bugger.’

Randeep moved to collect the dishes. ‘I’ll clean all this up.’ His hands were shaking.

‘Is that my washing?’ Michael asked brightly, nodding towards the trolley.

Randeep washed the dishes, including the pans and mugs collected in the sink from earlier in the day, then carried in Michael’s clothes from the trolley and folded them into neat piles on the small Formica table. All the while, he could hear Michael’s son asking what the hell was going on, Dad? How could you be so gullible?. . For the love of God, tell me you haven’t given him your bank details?. . Of course he can’t stay here!

Shyly, Randeep re-entered the room. ‘Sir, please don’t send me away. I understand your concern. Really, I do. But I want you to know that I mean your father no harm. I’ll pay rent. I’m from a good family. My father works in government.’

‘I’m sorry, Mr Singh. Truly, I am. But this just isn’t on. I know in your culture guests can come and live willy-nilly, but that’s just not how we do things. Perhaps that’s all to the bad, but it is how it is. If you don’t have a bed for tonight then by all means you’re welcome to stay, but I’d be grateful if you’d respect my wishes and find somewhere else tomorrow.’

‘Oh, Philip. .’

‘I’m sorry, Dad. He seems like a very nice boy but I couldn’t forgive myself if something happened to you.’

Randeep said he understood. He took his jacket from the cupboard, picked up his suitcase and thanked Michael for the meal. He tried to give him a few pounds for the pie and beans, but neither Michael nor Philip would hear of it. Instead, Philip drove Randeep to the station and helped him catch the last train back to Sheffield.

*

‘Why are you so bhanchod slow?’ the guy at the skip said, as Randeep upturned another barrowload at the foot of the ladder. ‘It’ll take a whole other week like this.’ His name was Rishi, a fair-skinned and good-looking boy from Srinagar. Perhaps five or six years older than Randeep, he had a reputation for causing trouble.

‘They’re heavy,’ Randeep said. ‘I’m all on my own.’

Rishi snorted, saying that wasn’t his problem, and on the van ride home he told Gurpreet that Randeep had been complaining, that he said he was having to work harder than everyone else.

‘I never said that,’ Randeep said, shaking his head fast. ‘I didn’t.’

Gurpreet smiled. Randeep’s fear seemed to be satisfaction enough.

He stayed in his room that evening, reassuring himself that one day he would be reunited with his family, his father; that the loneliness he was feeling would not be for ever. When he was sure everyone had gone to bed, he took his laundry to the bathroom, filled the tub with a few inches of tepid water, and started scrubbing the clothes with soap. He was on his knees, leaning over, and aching from the day’s work. He was determined. Then a noise started up, a sound like an angry bull trapped beneath the bath. Randeep froze. It was getting louder, closer: the others would wake. Gurpreet would wake. Panicking, he pulled out the plug. The noise stopped, only for a green sewage to gurgle up from below. He watched it circulate and make a mess of everything. He called Avtar, who answered, sleepy-voiced, but confirmed that, no, he hadn’t found any work, let alone work they could do together. And then it was five o’clock and his alarm was going and he was sure he’d rather have been dead.

One in one out, Randeep kept thinking, as he wheeled to and fro. That’s what Vinny had said. One in one out. At lunchtime, with everyone else gathered by the van, sharing round the achaar, he approached the plank ladder propped against the skip. He loosened the knots around the middle two rungs. Not so loose that they fell on touch, but loose enough that they might collapse under pressure. Then he went round the back of the skip and continued on to the van to collect his own lunchbox. He wasn’t sure what he was doing. He convinced himself he was helping a friend.

‘You’re getting faster,’ Rishi said in his nasal voice.

It was the first barrowload after lunch. Randeep tipped out the rocks at the foot of the ladder and started back down the slope. Maybe it wouldn’t work. Please, God, don’t let it work. He’d not made it halfway down — a significant crack, the sound of thick wood snapping, a scream. He turned around. The ladder and the rock had fallen away and Rishi had crumpled to the ground, thrashing his fists as his foot lay twisted oddly on itself. The others relinquished their spades and released their drills and ran to gather round, while Randeep stood there, shocked, almost wondering if he really had done it.

Later, when Vinny bhaji dropped them off at the house, Randeep hung back and asked what would happen to Rishi bhaji. He wanted to get in first — it wouldn’t be long before everyone started advocating some brother or cousin or friend.

‘Maybe he’ll learn his lesson now, yeah? Maybe he’ll spend less time pratting about and more paying attention to his job. Let that be a lesson to you all. Meantime, I’ll get my cousin Manny to take a look at his foot. Didn’t look pretty, though, did it?’

Randeep shook his head.

‘Puts me in a bit of a posish though.’

Randeep waited.

‘I’ll need to find another one of you chumps. Smartish. Don’t suppose you’ve got a cousin breaknecking it across the Channel as we speak, by any chance?’

Randeep told him that he had a bhaji, Avtar, who’d come with him, but he’d left him in Ilford because there was only work here for one of them.

‘Visa?’

‘Ji.’

‘Marriage? Holiday?’

‘Student.’

Vinny shook his head. ‘Been burnt by enough scooters in my time. Lying, argumentative. Always quoting their fucking rights.’

‘Bhaji, I promise. He will work very hard. You have my word.’

Avtar moved out of Massiji’s house and walked towards the high street with no clue where to go next. He spent the afternoon going in and out of the Asian businesses, though no one had work or seemed to know where to find it, and as the day tapered to dusk he made his way to the gurdwara. He put his suitcase and rucksack at the foot of the nishaan sahib and said a short prayer with his forehead to the flagpole. Then he took a ramaal from the wire basket at the entrance, secured it over his head, and went into the food hall. They were serving a langar of roti, dhal and water. Afterwards, he put his dishes in the sink and carried his belongings up the stairs and into the darbar sahib. The rehraas was being read. He bowed his head to the guru granth and found a spot against the rear wall where he could sit in peace and close his eyes for a while. The gurdwara elders gave him a ledge inside the shoe room to sleep on, and in the morning, leaving for the college, he asked God to make this the day he found work.