Sunjeev Sahota - The Year of the Runaways

The dhal tasted good, though the rotis, which she’d always struggled with, were a little crisp. She hoped he wouldn’t be offended and put it all on a tray and carried it down the stairs. She knew he was in because she’d heard him moving about, pots banging, but when after three knocks he still hadn’t answered she left the food by the door and returned upstairs. She showered and prayed and began work on a five-hundred-piece jigsaw she’d bought the previous week on her way home from the leisure centre. Once complete it promised a tantalizing sea view, the sky impossibly wide, the ocean sun-dappled. A few birds. No people. After two hours she’d perhaps managed only a couple of pieces when the meter started to tick. She fished out a token from her tin beneath the sink and opened the door. The tray of food lay at her feet, untouched.

*

At last Avtar found some work. Harkiran had to head down to Barking for a three-day family wedding and called in case he wanted to cover the security-guard night shift.

‘Of course I do!’ Avtar said, rising from his mattress.

The job was at a copper-pipe factory on Leadbridge Industrial Estate in Attercliffe, and all Avtar had to do was keep watch from his plasticized cabin outside the estate entrance and once an hour patrol the grounds. It was the easiest money he had ever earned. The cabin was small, stuffy with the day’s warmth, and warmed even further by an electric radiator mounted low on the wall. He’d tried to switch the radiator off but it seemed stuck on its high setting. The only furniture was five narrow, armless blue swivel chairs arranged in a row against the window.

‘I’ll do a walk round,’ Avtar said.

Randeep reached for his jacket.

‘Stay You don’t have to follow me everywhere.’

He hadn’t meant to snap, and if Avtar had bothered to look no doubt he’d have seen Randeep gawping glumly after him. But Avtar hadn’t looked. He’d opened the door and walked straight out. He’d told him that this was a one-man job, that he couldn’t afford to split the money. Randeep had said he didn’t care about the money. He just wanted to come.

‘I don’t want to be on my own with Gurpreet.’

‘Don’t be such a wimp,’ Avtar had replied. ‘You won’t get anywhere like that.’

He rounded the last grey block of the factory and ambled towards the perimeter fence. Something about being alone in the night air tended to create a space for compassion, for feeling ashamed. He didn’t know what was happening to his mood lately. He should apologize to Randeep. It wasn’t his fault he was so different from his sister, that he had so little of her fight. Perhaps it was time to tell him about their relationship. It would be good to get him on side before the big confrontation with Mrs Sanghera. But no. He was still too much of a kid in the way he thought of himself. Maybe in a little while, when he seemed a bit more stable. At the perimeter fence, he called Lakhpreet and felt relief when it went straight to voicemail. He wasn’t sure he had anything to say to her: anything she’d understand. He remained at the fence for a while, staring through to the city lights beyond. Where was the work? He was promised work. He had a sudden memory of a disused factory, a staircase, a bell tower. It all seemed so long ago. Everything was moving away from him. Further and further away. At least he could keep Pocket Bhai’s men away from his family for another month. He ran his hand down the wire mesh, his thoughts somehow following, and returned to the cabin.

Their shift finished at six, when Mr Shah, the fur-hatted factory owner, turned up in his second-hand Bentley, and by seven they were back in the house, starving. Avtar checked the boxes of cereal, then the freezer. Gurpreet came through the beads on bare feet.

‘Have you had all the bread?’ Avtar said, shutting the fridge.

‘There wasn’t any atta.’

‘Great.’ He opened one of the top cupboards, looking for a clean cereal bowl. ‘Want some?’ he said to Randeep.

‘I’m leaving next week,’ Gurpreet said.

Avtar looked across. ‘Oh?’

‘To Southampton.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘Past London.’

‘There’s work there?’

‘Maybe.’

‘But you’re not sure?’

‘Who can be?’

Avtar lost interest and shook the cereal into two bowls. ‘Enough to feed a couple of small birds,’ he said, banging the side of the box, getting it to cough out all the crumbs.

‘Lend me some money,’ Gurpreet said.

‘Don’t have any.’

‘You’re working.’

‘Still don’t have any.’

‘I’m not asking for much,’ he said, in a tone laced with desperation.

Avtar said nothing and Gurpreet, furious, punched the doorframe on his way out.

‘Idiot,’ Avtar said, reopening the fridge. He made an exasperated noise and slammed it shut. ‘I bought a whole carton yesterday.’

He looked to Randeep, who was staring at the beads, still swinging. ‘Did you see how much he was shaking?’

‘Gurpreet?’ Avtar picked up his bowl of dry cereal. ‘What’s new?’

Mr Shah paid Avtar for the three nights’ work and agreed to take his number in case of any more shifts in the future.

‘I’ll do any work, janaab,’ Avtar said, dialling up his Urdu. ‘Aap jho fermiyeh.’ Whatever you ask. And then, because he’d heard this Mr Shah liked his poetry, and apropos of nothing at all: ‘Zindagi tho pal bar ka tamasha hai.’ Life is but a spectacle of moments, which had Mr Shah parting his lips a little worriedly.

They left — ‘Khuda hafiz’ — breaking off at the Londis for some bread before making a right onto their road.

‘Zindagi tho. .?’ Randeep said. He hadn’t stopped laughing. ‘Wah, bhai, Mirza Sahib!’

‘Yeah, yeah.’ Avtar popped his collar. ‘You won’t be saying that when he makes me boss of his empire. Lottery, here I come!’

A mellowness had filled the air these last few mornings. The soft clouds had hatched and a pleasant warmth broke across their faces and arms. They were halfway up their road when Avtar stuck his arm out, stalling Randeep.

‘What?’ Randeep asked, his first thought that they’d left something at the factory.

A crowd had formed up ahead.

‘Wait here,’ Avtar said, and passed Randeep the bread and his rucksack. They took their belongings everywhere these days, now that stealing had become so common in the house.

He thought it was only kids fighting, because most of the crowd looked to be teenagers on their bikes, but then he saw the van and the policewoman standing guard at the gate. The rear doors of the van swung open, though the angle was too oblique to see inside. Head down, he moved right, into the road, and looked again. Two of their housemates were in there, hands cuffed in their laps. One was staring at the roof of the van. There was shaving foam down the side of his face.

‘Walk. Now,’ Avtar said, returning to Randeep, taking his rucksack back.

They turned the corner, feet eating up the pavement. ‘Police?’ Randeep asked.

Avtar nodded. ‘Raid. Keep walking.’

They were so wired, they were almost running around the city. They kept turning their faces to the sky, thanking God, saying that He really must be smiling down on them. How lucky they’d been! By the evening, however, the adrenalin had gone, and neither felt like laughing much.

‘We’ve got nowhere to go,’ Avtar said, dropping onto a bench outside the station.

‘The gurdwara?’ Randeep suggested.

‘Too risky, yaar.’

‘We could just eat and leave.’

Avtar brought his rucksack up to the bench and pulled out the loaf of bread. ‘You go if you want. Your visa’s fine. They take one look at mine and it’s over.’