Sunjeev Sahota - The Year of the Runaways

‘Is that a problem? Doesn’t that only make it even more auspicious?’

‘I don’t like to go when it’s busy. We can say a prayer here if you like. I have the rehraas on CD.’

‘We wouldn’t have to stay long.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘I don’t think you’ve been for a few days now.’

She said nothing.

‘What about if—?’

‘I said no,’ she snapped. ‘Why can’t you understand?’

Silence fell, filled the room. Her shoulders slumped. She closed the cupboard and he watched her disappear into her bedroom.

*

A crow swooped down from the hotel roof and up into the blue wash of the sky. Clouds turned the colour of mercury, grumbled, and in the space of a breath the air greyed and the rain came. Tupperware boxes were shoved inside jackets and the men rushed under the plastic awning John had kicked them into building a few days ago, in preparation for a downpour like this. The rain drummed harder, pooling where the awning hadn’t been pulled taut. Water slithered in streams, like eels making good their escape. They had only got an hour’s work done and by lunchtime John had to relent and call Vinny to come and take them home. A few refused to go, fearing the loss of half a day’s pay, but Vinny said he’d see them right and that they’d best get in the van now summat pronto, cos this pissing rain was fucking him right off.

She wasn’t there when Randeep let himself in. He wondered where she could be. Most days she stayed in with the doors locked. He’d already taken his muddy boots off outside and these he placed on the newspaper he’d arranged beside the settee. He looked around. It was strange being alone in the flat, silent save for the rain. It was the first time it had happened. He took his towel and a fresh set of clothes and headed straight for the shower, resolutely avoiding even a glance at her bedroom door. Dressed, he found an onion and some potatoes in the fridge and started dicing them up. He’d surprise her with a sabzi. Alu muttar, maybe. He added butter to the pan, then the onions, and now the next stage, he remembered, was to wait for the onions to soften. So he waited. A minute passed. Two. He removed some imagined fluff from his shoulder, then quickly, so quickly that he almost tricked himself into thinking it accidental, raised his eyes to her bedroom. What harm would a peek do? And shouldn’t he get to know all of the flat, anyway, in case the inspectors asked him something tomorrow? He gave the pan a quick stir, then before he had a chance to change his mind bounded straight into her room. Silence. No one shouted at him to get out, which he seemed to half expect. It smelled different from the rest of the flat. Nicer, somehow. Was it berries? He flicked on the light. The rail for her clothes was still there. The wardrobe was new but plain: it was all very bare. No photographs either side of the bed, just matching lampshades like mauve cubes. And the shrine, of course: images of the gurus placed all along the sill, a spent joss stick in the middle. The window itself seemed to be made of a million trembling raindrops. He opened the wardrobe. Perhaps a dozen salwaar kameez. All simple, drab even. Not a single item of western dress other than her cardigans and, on the bottom shelf, three pairs of near-identical black shoes. He moved to the bedside drawers and crouched to pull open the large bottom chamber. A pair of plain white knickers stared back at him. Underneath them, several more, all white, and a packet of ladies’ pads. There were bras, too, and it was one of these — white again — that he lifted out and held in his hands, running his thumbs over the spot he imagined her nipples to be. He opened the shallower top drawer. Photos. Her mother and father, he guessed, a devout-looking couple, kirpans at their side and gazing seriously into the camera. A young turbaned man who had to be her brother, though the resemblance was more general than specific to any single feature. He returned them to their drawer, in the same order, and tidied away the bra, too. Then, feeling simultaneously satiated and ashamed, he resumed his work in the kitchen. It was only when he heard the downstairs door shut that he remembered the light in her room, and sprinted to switch it off before she made it up the stairs.

That night they hung up their wedding photos, and around the TV Narinder stood the holiday pictures Randeep had brought with him on one of his first visits. They littered the bathroom with more of his toiletries, incorporated his clothes into her wardrobe, and hid the suitcase under her bed. She’d bought a pack of gummed Post-it notes, too, which she wrote on and stuck to the fridge: Back at 6 p.m. today. Can you put the rubbish out, please? Mummyji called.

Throughout this, the rehraas sahib played in the background, so that His blessings might be with them tomorrow. They hardly touched their dinner, Narinder especially, and went to their separate beds on empty, nervous stomachs.

They agreed Randeep should go down and open the door. There were two of them: an older man with a neat grey parting and a wrinkled handsomeness about him, and a younger round-faced lady with cropped, shiny dark hair and smiling brown eyes. They reminded him of TV news couples. They confirmed who they were, displaying their ID wallets — David Mangold, Katie V Lombardi. Randeep showed them up the stairs, where Narinder was waiting by the dining table.

‘My wife,’ he announced.

She smoothed down the back of her kameez and lowered into her chair. The inspectors took off their coats.

‘We’re really not inspectors,’ the woman, Katie, said, sitting down too. ‘We hear this a lot, but please rest assured this isn’t an inspection by any means. We’re immigration officers, and we really are just here to see how you’re getting on and whether you need any support. With finding work or getting around or language skills. That kind of thing.’

‘We’re here to check in, basically,’ David said, cutting across.

‘So, how are things?’ Katie asked. She pulled some papers from her briefcase. ‘It’s a lovely home you have here.’

Narinder and Randeep looked at each other. She spoke: ‘It’s going well, thank you. It’s going well.’

Katie consulted her notes. ‘You don’t currently work, Ms Kaur, and you’re in construction, yes?’

Randeep nodded. ‘It’s a very good job. I’ve been working there for nearly eight months now.’

‘Eight?’ repeated David.

‘I think it’s more like five,’ Narinder said. ‘We’ve only been here since the new year.’

‘You were both living with your parents before then, of course,’ Katie said. She went to her notes again. ‘London. Croydon.’

‘We moved here for Randeep’s work.’

‘There was no work in London?’ David asked.

Randeep smiled, nodded, shook his head. Already, he could feel his temples starting to hurt.

‘Would you like some tea?’ Narinder asked.

‘That’d be lovely. Would you mind getting it, Mr Sanghera, and we’ll finish chatting to your wife here?’

He scraped his chair back and turned into the kitchen. Left cupboard for mugs, the drawer nearest to the sink for spoons.

They asked Narinder about her days, what she did, whether she missed her family. Yes, lots, she’d replied.

‘But I suppose you’ll be looking to build your own family soon,’ David said, as Randeep arrived with the tea.

‘One day, sir,’ he said. ‘We are still getting on our feet.’

‘You’re both very young but I can tell you’ll make wonderful parents,’ Katie said, taking her mug from Randeep.

‘Oh, well, the first thing we need to do is save up enough to buy a house. With a garden. Instead of renting.’

‘Who’s the landlord?’ David asked, quick-smart.