Sunjeev Sahota - The Year of the Runaways

She saw that the corners of his eyes were wet. He looked away.

‘I won’t tell them. I said I wouldn’t and I won’t.’

A feeling of shame came over her. She couldn’t look him in the eye. ‘Thank you. And I promise it’s only until the end of the year.’

‘And then? We’ll get married then?’

‘If you’ll still have me as your wife.’

She heard him sigh, half exasperated, half grateful, and he brought his elbows up onto the steel table. ‘We promised God. We promised our parents. We have a duty to honour them both. Of course I’ll still take you as my wife.’

She nodded. ‘Thank you,’ she said again, and they both sat there wondering what else there was to say.

Arriving back in Sheffield that night, she left the station and headed away from her flat. She didn’t know where she was going, and had only a vague apprehension that she needed space, clarity, air. The route took her through suburbs in the south of the city — Nether Edge, Millhouses, Totley — full of brooding Victorian houses under a thin summer moon. Near a church, she stopped and looked across the green depth of the country, at the vast spirit of those giant hills. Is that where He was hiding? Help me, she said. Someone help me. He wasn’t there and she didn’t know why He’d gone. In the past, every leaf, every light in every window, every brick in every wall confirmed His presence beside her, inside her. Tonight, she felt so horrifically alone. She dialled home, but cut off before anyone answered. She resumed walking. Three identical lorries thundered past, shaking the leaves on the trees and whipping her chunni across her face.

*

Coming down the stairs one morning, she noticed blades of grass pressed into the pile of the hallway carpet. Crushed, as if they’d been brought in underfoot. She checked the underside of her own shoes, then descended the last few steps, slowly, her face turned towards the empty flat. Outside, she tried to peer through the window, but the curtain had been drawn right to the edge. Squatters, most likely. She went to the shop to get some meter tokens.

Later, lying in bed, she was woken by the sound of metal being scraped, prodded, a door opening. She sat up. She could feel the fear in her chest. Maybe Karamjeet had told her family. No. She closed her eyes. It was only a squatter, only a squatter, and to prove this, to banish all doubt, she stayed awake the following night. She positioned one of the dining chairs at the window and sat down, lights off. She just wanted to see who it was. The shape of him. Or her. Maybe it was Savraj, she thought, suddenly convinced that it was, then just as suddenly appreciating that it almost definitely wasn’t. She finished her yoghurt and walked over to the bin. It was nearing midnight. She’d give it another hour.

She was fighting sleep when she saw someone coming up the hill. It was a man, and his orange shirt blazed against the night. She inclined her face to try and see his. If only he’d stop looking at the ground. And maybe this wasn’t him anyway. He might only be cutting across the top of the hill to get to the estate beyond. But then he stopped outside her flat and Narinder recoiled from the window. When she looked again, he was staring up at her. A brown face. Did she know him? She lifted her hand to wave, but he hurried out of sight and she heard those metallic sounds again, of a lock being tripped. God, oh God: she ran to the door — it was already bolted — and scouted round for her phone. She could hear him charging up the stairs. She whirled round, desperate. She found the mobile on her bed and stood there staring at it, thumbs poised over the keypad, willing a name, any name, to enter her head. There were knocks on the door. Her stomach fell away. More knocks.

‘Police nu mutth bulaiyio,’ he said. Don’t call the police. ‘Please.’

She hardly saw him. She heard him, coming back at night — Crunchy Fried Chicken, his uniform had read — and sometimes she saw his polystyrene food boxes in the bin outside, but that was all. She hadn’t recognized the accent. Maybe it belonged to one of those southern regions of Panjab she’d never visited. She hadn’t even asked his name. He’d just said he knew Randeep and was going to stay downstairs for a while. He wouldn’t disturb her. She’d nodded, shut the door, bolted it, and listened to his footsteps retreating down the stairs. She’d nearly called Randeep, but the thought of talking to him exhausted her, and he’d be here soon enough anyway, to make his monthly payment. She’d ask him then, if this downstairs-man was still around, that is.

*

At work, Tochi was on his own. Harkiran had brusquely shown him where the potatoes, fish and chicken were kept, how high to fill the hopper and the chipper, when to add the Dry White and in what order to double-fry the fritters, but since then he’d left Tochi to it. He refused to talk to him, even when it came to translating requests from Kirsty. Tochi didn’t care. He was earning good money and had his own place. He answered to no one.

He was on his knees mopping up spilled chicken juice when he saw Avtar in the doorway. His jeans, Tochi noticed, were about an inch too short, white socks showing.

‘Stand up,’ Avtar said, and hurled himself forward, and Tochi stood there taking the blows to his chest, to his face, until Malkeet lifted Avtar off his feet and threw him outside.

He sent Tochi home early that night, saying it might be best if he changed his route. Tochi ignored him.

Outside the flat, he snapped a twig in half and tried to sharpen one end against the other. He’d forgotten his screwdriver and had no other way of tripping the lock. He crouched down, eye to the keyhole, and threaded the twig in, rolling it between finger and thumb. It was useless. The end broke off in the lock and now he’d have to somehow dig it out. The light came on upstairs and he heard footsteps. The door opened.

‘Everything OK?’ she asked, arms folded over her black cardigan.

He stepped past her and into the hall, to his front door. ‘Can I have your pin?’

He jammed it into the lock and rolled it a quarter-turn to the right.

‘Your face,’ she said. ‘It’s bleeding.’

The lock caught and he handed back the pin and disappeared into his flat.

Avtar and Randeep left the house on the hunt for work. They’d been doing this every long day for the last two weeks and so far all they had to show for it were a couple of faint leads — people who said they had friends who might know of building work in the Nottingham area. Avtar left them his number, though he wasn’t optimistic.

‘Nottingham wouldn’t be too far, would it?’ Randeep asked, as they came back in through the kitchen. They split between them the last of some flat orangeade left out on the side, then Randeep went upstairs, saying he was going to check his diary for any contacts they might have missed. Avtar carried on into the front room and slumped into one of the garden chairs. He tapped his phone against his teeth. There must be others. But it was hard to concentrate; all day his stomach had been flexing, and his thoughts started to soften, drift away. When he opened his eyes, Gurpreet was at the windowsill, lifting the net curtain, letting it drop back down. Looking for money. He was in black shorts and a white vest, revealing baggy knees, hairy shoulders, and a topknot many times rubber-banded at the root. Avtar sat forward, Gurpreet turned round and immediately the anxiety in his face converted into something tougher.

‘I thought you were asleep.’ Then: ‘We should kill that chamaar.’

Avtar stood up.

‘Listen,’ Gurpreet said, as Avtar was leaving. ‘Lend me some money. Only till tomorrow. I’m waiting. On a job. I’ll definitely get it. So. I’ll pay you back then. Acha?’ He spoke as if the words in his head were so jumpy he could gather up only a few at a time. His fingers were twitching, Avtar noticed, and a sallow yellow pushed through the skin under his eyes.