Sunjeev Sahota - The Year of the Runaways

‘What’s the work?’ Avtar asked.

‘Cleaning.’

‘Cleaning what?’

‘Underground cleaning.’

A few made faces and detached themselves from the group. Perhaps they could afford to wait for something better.

‘I only need ten,’ the man said. ‘I’ll count you in.’

Avtar felt them pressing behind him, fighting into position.

‘What’s the money?’ Avtar asked.

‘Whatever I say it’ll be.’

‘But where will we live?’

The man looked at him. ‘Shall I wipe your arse too?’

The van man put his hand on the door lever. Already they were shoving one another. Avtar turned round and nodded at Randeep, who looked nervous. The man smiled, as if enjoying his power. Then he opened the door and there was a huge animal noise and Avtar elbowed the guy next to him as hard as he could and clambered into the back. He spun round, looking for Randeep. His suitcase was making it difficult and others were easily slapping him back.

‘Bhaji!’ Randeep said, holding out his hand.

Avtar was looking at Randeep, looking at Randeep’s hand, looking at Randeep holding out his hand.

‘Bhaji! Bhaji, please!’

Avtar looked away. The door slammed shut.

‘That’s it,’ he heard the man say.

A palmful of dank yellowing leaves held fast to the window and the low sun meant she had to squint to see Mr Greatrix on the path below. She wondered why he hadn’t come up the stairs. She slipped into her cardigan and checked her phone in case Randeep had called in the last five minutes and she’d somehow missed it. It had been exactly two weeks since they’d left the flat and she couldn’t believe he’d not returned by now to pay the rent.

‘Sorry, I left my set at home,’ Mr Greatrix said.

Narinder kept hold of the doorknob. ‘Are you here for the rent?’

‘It is the first day of the month, is it not?’

‘So Randeep’s not paid you directly?’

He pushed out his lower lip, a display of tender blue veins glazed in saliva. ‘And, pray tell, he would be whom when he’s at home?’

He sounded much older than he looked. Perhaps he thought he needed to speak like this to be taken seriously.

‘My husband,’ she said.

‘No. I can’t say your husband has been in touch.’ His voice changed. ‘Is this your roundabout way of telling me you don’t have this month’s rent?’

‘I’m sorry.’ There was fear in her voice. Surely he couldn’t just kick her out? ‘I’ll speak to my husband.’

He flipped his notebook shut, a notebook Narinder hadn’t even noticed until now, and placed his hands behind his back. ‘Mrs Kaur, as this is the first time you’ve defaulted on a payment, please take this as your first and last warning. I’ll expect you to make up your arrears in full next month. Otherwise I’ll be forced to initiate proceedings. Is that clear?’

‘I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding.’

‘Be that as it may, you’ll receive written confirmation in the post of what we’ve just agreed.’

He huffed irritatedly and turned round. There was some sort of lotion on the bony cartilage of his ears, the tips of which were burning red. He’d mentioned something about spending August on holiday. Florida, perhaps. He got into his car, checked his mirrors a little imperiously, as if he knew Narinder was still there, and nosed out.

Back in her room, she tried calling Randeep for perhaps the fourth time that day. Again it went straight to voicemail. She went to the window, as if expecting to see him coming up the road, and then she hurried downstairs and knocked on her neighbour’s door. No answer. She tried again.

‘Hello? Ji? Are you in, please? It’s me from upstairs.’

She waited on the bottom step for a while, then, defeated, returned to her flat. She drew the curtains and lowered herself onto the settee, one hand on the armrest as if she desperately needed its support. She didn’t feel like eating. She got nowhere with her puzzle. By seven she was in bed, though the day was still yellow and the light made a perfect unit of itself around the closed curtains of her window.

Later, past midnight, she got up and knocked on his door again. She knew he was in. She’d heard him. She knocked once more, harder, and listened for footsteps. None. Then the door was open and he stood there with his hand high on the frame, forcing his shoulder up by his ear. Behind him, all she could see was the dark strip of a hallway and a wire hanging without its bulb. He was in his orange uniform. He didn’t say hello.

‘I need to speak to Randeep. He’s not answering his phone.’

‘Nothing to do with me.’

‘But do you know where I can find him?’

‘Sorry.’ He made to shut the door.

‘Just — I was expecting to hear from him. It’s very important.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Well, can you at least give me Avtar’s number? I really need to speak to them. It’s not like Randeep to not get in touch.’

He shook his head.

‘But I thought you all lived together?’

He said nothing.

‘Aren’t you even worried? You said you were a friend.’

‘I said I knew him.’ He shut the door.

At the bank she withdrew all her savings. She had enough to cover the rent. Enough to keep him happy for another month, that was all. She tried Randeep again — ‘You’ve reached the voi—’ then pushed the phone deep into her bag and walked the half-mile to the job centre.

She’d decided she had no choice. She’d already tried the gurdwara, hoping the women would help her find some paid work, but they’d turned on her, demanding to know why she needed a job all of a sudden. She only prayed that coming into a place like this, a job centre, giving details they’d store away in their computers, wouldn’t get her and Randeep into any trouble.

‘So you don’t have any previous work experience?’

A little green first-aid flag taped to the hard drive read ‘Carolyn’ and a whole gallery of silver-framed family shots fashioned a fortress around her desk. She was an older lady — fifties, maybe — with large, auburn hair so insistently sprayed it appeared frosted over. The whole effect seemed designed to provide her ears with a pair of giant brackets. Square red-framed spectacles hung on a chain around her neck and she lifted these to the bridge of her nose.

‘I’m sure you must have done something?’

‘I haven’t. Sorry. Only my father and brother worked.’

‘How very enlightened.’

Carolyn flipped to the back of the four-page form Narinder had had to complete before being called to the desk.

‘I notice you’ve left the key skills section blank as well.’

‘I don’t have any.’

Removing her glasses, Carolyn slid the form to one side. ‘Now. We’re not going to get very far with that attitude, are we? You’re twenty-one. Why don’t you tell me what you’ve been doing since your schooling stopped at — ’ she glanced across to the form — ‘at sixteen.’

‘Helping at the gurdwara, mostly. I did that nearly every day.’

‘Volunteering?’

She’d never thought of it like that, as if it was an optional thing. It was just — had been just — part of what it meant to be alive. ‘I was doing my duty.’

‘And what kind of duties are we talking about?’

‘One of my main duties was giving out food. Making sure no one goes hungry.’

‘And did you do that alone or in a group?’

‘In a group.’

‘Excellent. Teamwork. A key transferable skill.’

She was writing all this down in a shorthand Narinder couldn’t decode.

‘What else?’

By the day’s end Carolyn had two interviews arranged. The first was for a cleaning job in a city centre bar, which Narinder said she couldn’t do.