Sunjeev Sahota - The Year of the Runaways

He’d spent a week in hospital, which Babuji paid for, then he’d discharged himself. His parents’ bodies were with the old man — they’d been left in the auto. Tochi returned alone to the bend in the track, the bend where he’d told Dalbir and Palvinder to get out and run. It looked different in daylight. The sun on the fields. A gentle mist. He made for the trees and didn’t have to search for very long.

The next day, towards the end of the lunchtime rush, Malkeet came through to the kitchen and said some Nanaki was asking about him out front. ‘You going all fundo on us?’

Tochi peeled off his gloves, drew away his hairnet.

‘Ask if she wants a job. Could do with replacing Kirsty.’

He lifted the counter flap and walked straight past Harkiran at the till and her waiting under the TV, and carried on to the forecourt. She followed him outside. She looked anxious, like she was lost. Her suitcase was with her.

‘I need to speak to Randeep. We’re in trouble. You need to tell me where he is.’

‘Who’s in your flat?’

‘What?’

‘Is it empty?’

‘What? No. I don’t know. It’s not mine. I’m looking for Randeep.’

‘You rented,’ he said, to himself.

‘I can’t go back there. My brother. .’

He made a face: her family issues were of no concern. ‘I’ve got work to do,’ he said and made to leave.

‘Can’t you at least give me his old address? It’s the only place I can think of. Please? I’m desperate.’

He gave directions: through the gardens, up the main road, take one of the roads left, after the pub. It’s up there. A green-and-blue door.

She looked pained — it was too much to absorb. ‘You’ll have to take me.’

He turned to go back inside.

‘I’ll pay you.’

She returned at night, after his double shift had ended, and he took the money and told her to follow him. The gates to the gardens were locked, so they walked the long way round. It was a cool night. Leaves were falling into measly piles. She noticed his things in the holdall across his back.

‘Do you still live downstairs?’

‘It doesn’t matter where I live.’

The house was in deep shadow. He went up the path, crouching to listen at the letter box, then through the flimsy side gate and round to the back door. He tripped the lock with his screwdriver and stepped into the kitchen. The lights didn’t work but he could make out the blue flour barrel, and the rota, and the calendar beneath that. The beads tinkled as if nautch girls lay in wait. He shut the back door.

‘Is Randeep here?’

He heard fear in her voice. Perhaps she thought he’d tricked her into something. Into coming to this empty place.

‘No one’s here. They’ve all gone.’

He inspected all three floors. The TV was still there, and so were the Union Jack chairs and upturned blue milk crates, and the settee, and the pack of eight joss sticks, unused on the windowsill. In his old room, his mattress lay on its side, against the wall. Randeep’s too. He turned round.

‘Your friend’s run away. I can’t help you any more.’

She didn’t seem to follow. ‘So what do I do? How do I find him?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘But don’t you understand? I need to find him. We could be in trouble.’

‘Get out.’

‘What?’ She sounded surprised. ‘But I’ve nowhere to go.’

‘Ask your God for help.’

She looked away, stung. ‘Do you think he’ll come back here?’

‘I want to live alone.’

She nodded. ‘It would only be until I can get in touch with him. I really do have nowhere else to go.’

He seemed to think about this. ‘You only paid me to bring you here. Not to stay.’

She looked up, her gaze long, as if only now understanding the blunt terms of this world she had penetrated. She brought her bag round to her stomach. ‘How much?’

He awoke before sunup, the water lapping the riverbank and his lips numb with cold. Already some of the men were sliding on their rucksacks and heading off for the day. He brushed his teeth, spitting red foam into the river, and as he dipped his toothbrush the sevadarni from the gurdwara arrived, a young woman in a kesri. She handed out roti and went down the line collecting any clothes that needed washing.

‘Nothing today, bhaji?’

Randeep shook his head.

She left a small battery-pack generator, three sockets either side, so they could charge their phones, and said she’d collect it tonight when she came back with their laundry.

He was the last man under the bridge. It was always this way. A family of ducks squawked past, the babies fighting viciously. He folded the blanket lengthways, rolled it up so it fitted into his suitcase, and set off towards the city, its chalky greys and limes.

He walked through the Eagle Shopping Centre and past the Playhouse, on to the park. The pedalos were all chained to the railings. Every now and then some couple or other would arrive and the pimply student at the park kiosk would unchain one of the pedalos and roll it to the lake. Randeep watched them for a while, then carried on to the park cafe, put his suitcase down and read the menu on the blackboard outside. He had enough for jammy toast, which he ate with tea. Then he picked up his suitcase and walked out of the park, counting his steps from the cafe to the gate, wondering if the number would be different from yesterday’s.

He reached a heavy junction jammed with black taxis and white double-decker buses, crossed when the green man told him he could, and carried on past the library and art museum, towards the hospital. At some point he turned left down an alleyway, which led to a tall, thin gate made of planks painted black. He walked in. Straight ahead was the back end of the shop — Bhalla Textiles — and to his right was the shed. He knocked on the door. The same woman answered: much older than him, hair loose and cut coarsely at the shoulder, rouge smeared beyond her lips.

‘Ah, you! I knew you’d be back! Come in, come in. You’re not going to run away before we even start this time, are you?’ He didn’t move. She kissed the air, took him in her arms. ‘Come to me, my baby. Come here and let Anita love you, my darling, darling boy.’

Afterwards, he leaned against the gate thinking he might vomit. He didn’t. He looked up. The air had taken on a grainier feel, the day beginning to close in. He should go back to the river. Instead, he carried on towards the hospital, which went on for several streets, and on each street there was some sort of ward he had to circle round. Soon, he didn’t know where he was. He didn’t know these roads. They weren’t full of shoppers. They were grubbier, most of the windows painted over. Signs. Chaddesden. Mickleover. Burton-upon-Trent. His heart was thick in his chest. He didn’t know where he was going. He didn’t know this place. He didn’t know this country. He spotted a payphone and dialled his mamma. He couldn’t get through. He tried four, five times. He bang-banged the receiver down and looked up. Their faces were in the glass. Jaytha. Rishi. Gurpreet. What he’d done to them. He’d done. He looked down at himself as if for the first time seeing the violence inside him. He was terrified. He didn’t mean to do it. He thought of his father. He folded to the ground, as if the glass box itself was caving in on him.

‘So you didn’t jump? You fell?’

It was Prabjoht, passing Randeep tea from the flask. They were back under the bridge.

Randeep nodded, shivering wet under the blanket. ‘I think so. I didn’t see it.’

‘It’s a fucking river!’

He could feel all their eyes on him. He was sure he’d fallen and not jumped, though he couldn’t be certain. All he remembered was staggering along the towpath, suitcase heavy in his hand, seeing their faces. And then someone was pulling him out.