Sunjeev Sahota - The Year of the Runaways

Afterwards, Narinder rubbed her hair dry and retied her turban and they stepped back out into the shallow heat of the day.

‘Let’s come again next week,’ she said.

‘You enjoyed it, then?’

They returned to the gurdwara and from there Vidya said she had to head home. Her husband would need his roti before he went to work. ‘But why don’t you come over later?’

‘To yours?’

‘I’ll cook. And you’ll be doing me a favour. It can get a bit scary when he’s away at night.’

She said her prayers, fully if not carefully, then raced home. The day was only getting better. Is this what it felt like, she wondered, to be part of the world, to have the world take you in its arms? She knelt in front of her image of Nanakji and thanked Him for all He was doing for her. Then she chose a mustard salwaar kameez with a white trim, tied on a matching mustard turban, and caught the bus to Vidya’s.

They lived in an unpainted room in a shared semi to the north of the city. The bed took up most of the space. Under the window was a writing desk, too narrow for the three large oval doilies it was dressed in, and the curtains were a lurid red. Narinder helped bring the food up from the kitchen.

‘You’ve made so much. And it smells so good.’

‘I thought you could take some with you. It’s all freezable.’

They ate side by side on the bed, a little inelegantly as the mattress was high and the desk didn’t quite come to their knees. Bhangra tunes blasted from the room next door and several tenants seemed to be arguing. Children screamed.

‘It’s all apneh,’ Vidya said. ‘Faujis.’

‘Does the council own the house?’

Vidya clucked her tongue. ‘A Panjabi. A proper gurdwara sardar type.’

‘Really?’

‘To look at him you’d think he shat pearls. You won’t believe how much rent he charges.’

‘That’s horrible. I’m so sorry.’

‘Why’s it your fault? Our own people are the worst at bleeding us dry.’

The door opened and a man came in, stopping when he saw Narinder. Short, thin, dark. He had stained teeth and ringworm on his hands. He looked as tired a man as Narinder had ever seen.

‘What happened?’ Vidya said.

‘We were sent home.’

‘Why? What happened?’

He nodded at Narinder. ‘Sat sri akal, pehnji.’

She’d already pulled her chunni over her turban and now she brought her hands together under her chin. ‘Sat sri akal, veerji,’ she said, seeing as they were Haryana folk.

He looked at the spread of food on the desk. ‘Heat me some up, will you. I’ll wash my hands.’ He left for the bathroom.

Vidya sighed and, one hand to her belly, slid off the bed. ‘Because of course using a microwave is beneath him. I won’t be long.’

Narinder sat in the dim room feeling that she should leave soon. She heard the toilet flush and through the seam of light where door met wall saw the husband cross the landing and go down the stairs. After maybe a minute, with no sign of either of them, Narinder opened the door and leaned over the top rail. The husband was speaking.

‘Are we that rich that we can waste food on strangers?’

‘Oh, janum, don’t be like that. She’s a friend.’

‘Let her family feed her.’

‘She’s not got anyone here. I feel sorry for her. She lives alone.’

Maybe the husband made some sort of face.

‘Arré, you do know she’s sikhni. You can see that much?’

‘I know exactly what kind of unmarried girls live alone in this country.’

Narinder retrieved her bag from the room and slipped downstairs. They met her in the hallway, the husband’s hand on Vidya’s shoulder, as if warning her.

‘It’s late,’ Narinder said. ‘I should go.’

‘You don’t have—’ Vidya began.

‘I’m sorry if you heard me,’ the husband said. ‘But please don’t come to our house or speak to my wife again. We can’t afford to become involved in other people’s problems.’

Avtar was in the kitchen negotiating a sale when he heard Randeep returning from his visa-wife’s. He shut the door and stomped upstairs. Perhaps it hadn’t gone so well, Avtar thought. He turned back to the sale, to this young fauji who’d bussed it over from Hillsborough.

‘Seven pounds,’ Avtar said. ‘And that’s better than I’ve done for anyone else.’

‘Come on, bhaji. You know what work’s like these days.’ He shook his pocket out onto the counter. ‘Five. That’s all I’ve got.’

‘And how much do you keep in your socks?’

The young man smiled. They agreed on six pounds per chicken and the fauji left with two, one tucked under each arm. As Avtar folded the notes into his wallet, he heard Randeep hurrying back down.

‘What the hell?’ he said, swatting the beads aside.

‘I’ve just sold another two.’

‘Why are there chickens hanging all over my room?’

‘Oh,’ Avtar said, looking up. ‘Oh, yeah.’

‘They’re in my wardrobe!’

‘I ran out of room in the fridge. And your room gets less sun than mine. What else should I have done?’

‘It stinks! I can’t believe. . How am I meant to sleep in that?’

‘It’s not that bad.’

‘Do you want to swap?’ Randeep asked, petulantly.

‘Look, I’ve got more buyers coming over tonight and in the morning. The chickens, they’ll be gone by tomorrow.’

Hari advised them to wait a week before attempting their next crate snatch, until that chamaar was back on the late shifts and out of the way. In the interim Bal drove up and Avtar thudded into his hand a nice thick tube of notes. So keep away from my family, he’d said. The next day he wired his parents enough money to cover the remortgage, and the day after that they headed on down to the chip shop.

‘I told you to wear a belt,’ Avtar said. It was the second time Randeep had stopped to pull his jeans up. ‘You’ll slow us down again.’

‘I don’t have one, yaar. My clothes actually used to fit me.’

They waited at the bus stop, and soon the truck came past, bang on time, and deposited the chickens. As it left, Avtar told Randeep to get ready. There was no miss-call from Harkiran, though. Two minutes passed. Five.

‘Shall we call him?’ Randeep said.

‘I don’t know.’

Then — relief! — the call came and they hurtled towards the shop and round the back, where the beautiful chickens were waiting. Avtar went to flick the catches up but they didn’t snap loose. He tried again. They were stuck. Like they’d been glued. Run, he was about to shout, when a hand closed around his collar: ‘So that’s why my invoices weren’t adding up!’

Malkeet didn’t demand his money back — if anything, it had seemed to Avtar that he half admired their guts — but he did say that if they pulled any stunts like that again he’d be on to the police quicker than they could say detention centre.

‘As if he could ever call the police,’ Avtar seethed, kicking the bus stop so hard the green panel dented. ‘With everything he does!’

She continued with the swimming, visiting the leisure centre on her own now. At first she’d gone in the hope of bumping into Vidya, whom she’d not seen at the gurdwara since the night her husband told Narinder to stay away. But Vidya was never at the pool and now Narinder went simply because she enjoyed it, which felt like a scandalous and perhaps even a shameful thing to admit. Sometimes, during the silent unoccupied evenings, she wondered if some change had taken place inside her, or, disturbingly, was taking place inside her, imperceptibly, in the way that the night gives way to dawn. Even if her father and brother had permitted it, she couldn’t ever have imagined herself in a pool with other half-naked people. She supposed it was living on her own that had done it. And now here she was, this afternoon, trying to make roti-dhal for the strange man downstairs. She peeled the roti off the tava and gave the dhal a stir. If her family could see her now! She’d even considered getting a job, and last week had made it all the way to the job centre before talking herself out of it, because who would want to employ someone for — what was it? — five months? When she’d have to return home and marry Karamjeet. And stay married to Karamjeet. Forever. There was a chance that this roti-making for the man downstairs was as much to do with resisting her fate as it was a desire to help, but this thought was too wild to get any sort of purchase on.