Sunjeev Sahota - The Year of the Runaways

‘We all need help, sister,’ the woman said, laughed. With some effort she turned herself around and padded up a wispy little path barely visible in all the overgrowth. ‘She’s in her room, I think.’

Her room, it turned out, was the shed at the bottom of the garden, a small wooden structure with a white net aslant across the only window. Narinder knocked with the back of her hand. No response. She tried again, and this time she heard movement — a mattress groaning — and footsteps. The door opened but remained on its flimsy chain. A high-boned face with sharp, darting eyes showed itself. Her mother’s face.

It was a dispiriting little room: damp, cold, unloved and unloving. Not quite enough height to stand up straight. The mattress lay on the floor, beside a dog-chewed armchair probably taken from the alley outside. No electricity. Narinder wondered how she cooked or went to the toilet. Perhaps the orange-haired woman let her use the house for things like that.

‘Your mother asked me to tell you to call home. She’s very worried.’

Savraj sat on the grey mattress and pulled her oversized woolly jumper over her knees and black leggings, so just her feet poked out. She must have cut her hair that short in England.

‘You mean she’s worried about not getting any money,’ Savraj said.

It had occurred to Narinder that at no point had Savraj’s mother expressed fear for her daughter’s safety, or concern over her welfare. The message had simply been that they’d run out of money and Savraj was to stop messing about and call home without delay.

‘If you could call her, I think that would help.’

Savraj looked up, cocked her head to the side. ‘You got money? I’ve not eaten for two days.’

She refused to go to the gurdwara, so Narinder took her to a coffee shop she’d seen near the station. They perched on high stools by the window, overlooking some workmen drilling. Narinder sipped at her small sugarless tea. Savraj dipped cake into her hot chocolate.

When she’d worked out how to phrase the question, Narinder put down her cup and said, ‘Pehnji, can I ask how many sisters are in the same situation as you?’

Savraj didn’t answer straight away. She finished off her cake, licked her fingers. ‘Honestly Pehnji? You sound fresher than me.’ She shrugged. ‘A few. There’s three patakeh sheds in my alley.’

Narinder didn’t understand. ‘You keep fireworks?’

‘It’s what the men call them.’ A tiny smile, as if pleased at the shock she was about to deliver. ‘We make their fireworks go off.’

Narinder gazed at Savraj and nodded slowly. She didn’t blink.

Savraj looked annoyed. ‘We have sex.’

Narinder nodded.

‘They pay. For sex.’

‘I understand. I’m sorry.’

And now it was Savraj’s turn to gaze at Narinder, to scrutinize her. Then she threw her head back and a great laugh burst forth. ‘Oh my God! You want to make me into one of your turbanwallis!’

Her shoulders were shaking, each breaking wave of laughter rapidly overtaken by another. People were starting to stare, but Savraj’s laughter kept coming, so Narinder slipped down from the stool and tried not to look like she was rushing for the door.

For all of the next week, the last of the summer, her days fell back into place: morning chores, kirtan at the gurdwara, evenings of silence and prayer. She couldn’t stop thinking of Savraj, though. How strong she’d seemed. How exciting Narinder had found it, going into the world and seeking her out.

‘Don’t think too hard,’ her brother, Tejpal, warned.

He was chaperoning her home from the gurdwara. Since she’d turned eighteen her father had decided she was never to take the evening walk alone. For your safety, he had said.

‘Or maybe he doesn’t trust you,’ Tejpal had later suggested. ‘Maybe he’s seen something in you that worries him.’

He was about a foot taller than she was, with a vast gym-trained chest that made his shoulders pop up.

‘What do you mean, don’t think too hard?’

‘You’re thinking. Don’t. Girls shouldn’t think.’

‘Oh, shut up.’

‘You’ll get into tra-ble.’

She ignored him — there was no way he could have known about Savraj — and the following Monday she effected a return to the sheds of Poplar. Her gurujis wouldn’t have just left it at that, she told herself. No one answered the door, so she waited beside the battered green gate, shielding her eyes from the low sun. A kid raced up on his bike, wheelied round at the wall, then just as quickly disappeared left out of the lane. Later, a postman emptied his sack of mail onto the rubbish tip. ‘Fuck that!’ he said, grinning at Narinder.

Savraj arrived, and, ignoring Narinder, unlocked the gate. Narinder followed her in, maintaining a distance.

‘Pehnji—’

‘Don’t. I’m not your pehnji or your bhabhi or your didi. I don’t want you babeh-brains near me.’

Narinder stopped at the shed door. She reached inside her pocket and held out the brown parcel. It was tied with orange thread. ‘For you.’

‘What is it? A gutka?’ Savraj said, snatching at it. It was a velvet box inside which rolled a tube of red lipstick.

‘Yours is running out. I noticed, last time I came.’

Narinder visited Savraj once, sometimes twice a week, leaving the gurdwara after her morning kirtan and always getting back before her baba arrived. Usually she’d take along a margarine tub filled with whatever sabzi they had at home. They’d give the tub to the landlady to put in her fridge and head to the coffee shop near the station. The workmen were still drilling outside.

‘You should know I’ve started talking to my family again.’

‘Oh, peh—! Savraj!’ Narinder embraced her. ‘I can’t tell you how happy that makes me.’

‘Calm down. Your turban’ll fall off. I guess I’d just got sick of her always pestering me for money, like I’m earning millions. Like everyone in England must be earning millions. But I think she understands now. I’ll only send what I can.’

‘Oh, that’s brilliant! It’s so good that you help. I knew you would.’

‘Did you? I don’t see what’s so good about helping others, though. If they only become reliant on you. Then you’re just part of the problem.’

‘But we have to help,’ Narinder insisted. ‘I couldn’t live with myself if I just walked away. I don’t know how people can do that.’

Savraj laughed a little. ‘I’ve never met someone who talks like you.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with giving your life to His teachings. Our gurujis—’

‘Oh, shut up. I’ve met worse fundos than you. I don’t mean the things you say. I mean the way you say them. It’s like you actually believe in your words.’

Narinder didn’t know what was wrong with the way she spoke her words. Did she sound too serious? Was that it? ‘I’m better when I’m singing.’

‘You sing? A singing preacher?’

‘It’s true,’ Narinder said, laughing. ‘Come and hear me. I’m singing tomorrow morning.’

‘To the gurdwara?’ Savraj clucked her tongue. ‘Not my scene. If a beardy’s going to touch me up, he can pay for the privilege.’

‘I’ll be with you.’ She reached out and placed her hand on Savraj’s arm. ‘You don’t have to do what they make you do. We’ll look after you. We look after each other.’

Finger by finger, Savraj released her arm from Narinder’s hand. ‘What who make me do?’

Narinder could tell from her voice, like a knife being unsheathed, that Savraj knew what she was driving at. Narinder said it anyway: ‘The men.’

‘Hmm. The men. What if I told you that some of those men are from the gurdwara?’ Savraj leaned in. ‘What if I told you that they don’t make me do it? That I enjoy doing it?’