Sunjeev Sahota - The Year of the Runaways

Her hand went to her throat. Her mouth felt dry. ‘I’ll get my husband to call you.’

‘Is he not there?’

‘He’s working.’

‘Do you have a work number?’

She winced. ‘No, sorry.’

‘And you are?’

‘Pardon?’ He knew who she was.

‘And you are where, if you’re no longer at the flat?’

‘I’m at home,’ she said carefully.

‘Right.’ She heard his voice change. ‘You do know that, under the terms of the visa, you’re required to notify us of any amendment to your personal details?’

‘Yes. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.’

‘I’m sure it won’t. I’ll just take down your new address and we can update our systems. Fire away.’

She didn’t know what to say. She felt herself being ground down.

‘Ms Kaur?’ he said, with deep insincerity.

‘Yes. My husband will call you and he’ll explain.’

A pause, as if he was thinking things through. She waited for him to say he was sending the police round this very minute.

‘Right you are. But do make it soon. According to our database the second inspection needs to take place by the end of this month. Otherwise the wheels start turning and warnings get automatically dispatched and things can get a bit messy.’

She nodded. She just wanted to get off the phone. ‘Yes. Yes. That’s fine. Thank you. Thank you.’

All afternoon she tried to get hold of Randeep. She even dialled Vakeel Sahib’s office in India, but they hadn’t heard from him either.

The evening meal was small, quiet. Occasionally, Baba Tarsem Singh and Tejpal exchanged a few words. She wasn’t listening. She said she was going to her room and would be down to wash up later.

‘But you’ve hardly eaten,’ her father said.

‘I’ll have it,’ and Tejpal stretched for Narinder’s plate.

She started up the stairs, fretfully, a sick feeling in her stomach.

‘Wedding nerves,’ she heard Tejpal say.

She took the suitcase from where it stood against her dressing table and opened the drawers built into the side of her bed. She put her clothes in the suitcase, zipped it up, and put the suitcase in the drawer and shut it. Still kneeling on the carpet, she placed her cheek on the cold duvet and hoped her father might one day forgive her.

She wrote a letter and propped it against her pillow and moved to the door. She listened: they sounded asleep. She closed her hand around the doorknob, finger by finger, and twisted her wrist to the left. It swung open without noise, and she picked up her suitcase and stepped onto the landing. The darkness was total, until her eyes adapted and shapes appeared: the shallow, square well at the top of the stairs; the ceramic bluebirds in the window, silently aghast. Tejpal’s door was closed, but her father’s was open. She could hear him breathing, deep and long, and in her mind’s eye she could see him too, lying, as ever, on the right-hand side of the bed, his birdlike hands locked gently over his stomach. He looked so vulnerable. She picked up her suitcase and returned to her room. She couldn’t do it to him again, not like this. She felt too old to be running away.

Two days later, Tejpal went out and said he wouldn’t be back until the evening. Her father was in the front room, napping. A plate of carrots, chopped in half and then into sticks, lay on the table before him.

‘Baba?’ she said.

‘Hm?’ he said, not opening his eyes.

She waited and he lifted his face to her.

‘Ki?’

‘Baba, I need to talk to you.’

She sat on the other settee, at a right angle to him, and said she’d received a phone call, a few days ago now, which meant she had to go back to Sheffield. People would get into trouble if she didn’t. Would he please give his permission for her to go?

He looked down at the gutka in his lap, and several long moments passed before he picked the book up and set it on the table, beside the carrots. ‘What kind of trouble?’

‘With the police.’ Her eyes were on the carpet a few feet in front of her. She felt too embarrassed to look at him.

‘Why can’t you tell me what it is? Maybe we can help.’

‘You can’t, Baba. I’ve just — ’ she covered her face in her hands — ‘I’ve just got myself into such a mess. I’m so sorry. But I can’t let people’s lives be ruined because of me. I can’t.’

His face quivered with frustration, as if he’d thought they’d moved on from this. ‘Narinder, you ask too much. Too, too much.’

‘I know I’ve not given you any reason to trust me, but I promise if you let me go I’ll be back soon.’

‘When?’

‘By the end of the year.’

‘And what do we tell Karamjeet’s parents?’

‘I’ll be back in plenty of time for the wedding. I won’t let you down.’

‘And Tejpal? Should your brother not have a say in this?’

‘Do you think he’d agree?’

‘Be sensible.’

‘Do you think he’d come after me?’

‘He’s your brother. You’re more alike than you think.’ Though he reached for his cane, he didn’t stand up. ‘And you’ve never let me down, but you’re asking me to put this family’s honour at your feet. I can’t risk that, daughter.’

‘Baba, I’ve got to go.’

‘Narinder.’

‘I’m going, Baba,’ she said. ‘I won’t let you stop me.’ She felt the words rushing up her throat. ‘Why can’t you give me this? All I wanted was one year. A few months now. Why can’t you give me that? I’ve given my whole life to you. For you. I’ve thrown my life aside so you can walk with your head held high and you can’t even give me this? How is that right? How is that fair?’

It was the first time she’d ever raised her voice to her father. He gazed at her, neither of them blinking. Then he stood and left the room for many minutes. She could hear him in the kitchen. When he came back, he was holding some money in his free hand.

‘Take it.’ And she did, thanking him.

Then he did an extraordinary thing. He put his cane aside and with both hands removed his turban from his head and bent and placed it at her feet.

‘Baba!’ she said, dropping to the floor so they were both kneeling, his trembling hands in hers.

She’d never seen him without his turban. She’d never seen his grey-black hair in its tight ball on top of his head, seen the small, private, brown comb he used to keep it in check. It felt completely wrong to be seeing it now.

A tear rolled down his cheek. ‘A Sikh’s honour lies in his children and in the pugri on his head. Don’t step on my honour, beita.’

*

The settee in the back was only big enough for a small child to sleep on. As Tochi uncurled, sitting up, he felt his spine click in several places. He fetched his holdall from underneath and, as always, checked his money was still there. He used the toilet opposite, brushed his teeth in the avocado basin, then switched on the lights and the fryers. This wasn’t a sustainable long-term arrangement. Malkeet, the bastard, was taking half his wages in rent.

He’d been here ever since the gora knocked on his door. Some tall, tie-wearing guy with a clipboard, bubbles of foam at the corners of his lips, gesturing at the smashed door and demanding — as far as Tochi could make out — an explanation. Tochi had gone back for his bag, then shoved past the man and never returned.

He heaved a large white sack of potatoes to the chipper and slashed it open with a knife. It occurred to him that the gash looked like some kind of demented smile. Malkeet arrived, then Harkiran, and Tochi spent the morning in the kitchen, working steadily. He knew his way around by now.

That night, the shop closed, he tightened his bootlaces, grabbed his holdall and set off up the road. Everything was shut. The yellow Buddha in its restaurant window looked sinister and on the other side of the road a man shouted at a cashpoint. He noticed a red light blinking in the distance, under a streaky moon. He thought it was a plane, then realized it was the same iron TV mast he’d see during the day. How much more beautiful it was at night. He walked all the way to the end of Ecclesall Road, until shops disappeared and roads became lanes and the hills seemed close enough to touch. He carried on through the small wood and climbed the steps onto a bridge over the river. For a long while he stared at the black water. He’d crouched beside a river like this and offered their ashes, four years ago tonight.