The Year of the Runaways

by Sunjeev Sahota

  All the chickens were sold by the following morning. Avtar sent a text round to every single fauji and scooter he knew, saying he had twenty chickens, each one enough to feed five men two meals a day for three days. Only 5pd. Jaldi! Their last sale was to a cheeky scrote of a Bangla who bought three chickens, intending to eat one and sell the other two at a profit.

  ‘Right. The next lot I’m pricing at eight pounds,’ Avtar said, coming back into the kitchen. ‘But in the meantime . . .’ He grinned and handed Randeep his share. ‘Money! We’ve got money! Can you believe it?’

  ‘We’re rich!’ Randeep said, circling the money around Avtar’s head, as if he was a groom. ‘We’re rich!’ and they did a little bhangra around the kitchen table, arms aloft, laughing, making up the tune as they went along.

  Randeep passed Narinder the envelope, feeling a little smug. ‘Early this month.’

  She smiled, which surprised him. She never smiled at him. ‘Thanks, Randeep. I’ll see you soon.’

  ‘We’re making good money now,’ he blurted out, keen for her to stay.

  ‘Oh, that is good news. Are you still at the hotel?’

  ‘No, no, that ended – ’ he counted out loud – ‘nearly two months ago now. We’ve gone into business.’ He waited for her to be impressed.

  ‘Business?’ she said, though she wasn’t really listening any more, distracted by Tochi coming up the road.

  Randeep could feel his face filling with a meld of embarrassment and jealousy. Didn’t she know how humiliating it was for him to be seen standing on her doorstep like this?

  Without looking at them, without a word, Tochi sidled past and disappeared into his flat.

  ‘Sorry What were you saying?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ he said, deflated. ‘I should go.’

  ‘Me too. I have plans.’

  ‘Oh?’ Was she doing something with him? ‘Are you going somewhere?’

  ‘I am, yes.’ She smiled again, wider. ‘I’m going swimming!’

  It had, of course, been Vidya’s idea. At first Narinder pleaded that she’d never been swimming and didn’t even own a swimming costume. Then, once a suitable costume had been sourced, she said she couldn’t be in a pool with naked men. The thought of it seemed outrageous. A week later Vidya announced that she’d found a pool that offered once-a-week ladies-only sessions. ‘We’re going. No more excuses.’

  Narinder emerged from the changing rooms in a neck-high elbow-to-knee number. ‘Why are you trying so hard not to laugh?’ she said to Vidya.

  ‘I’m not! You look great.’

  ‘I look like a seal.’

  There were only three other women in the pool, all brown, and the whole place was thick with the smell of chlorine. At the shallow end, Vidya climbed in first, then waded out, her arms in a circle above the water.

  ‘Is it good for the baby?’ Narinder said.

  ‘Just get in, you chicken!’

  She clutched the chrome rail and touched her foot to the water. Cold. But not too cold. She put her foot in again and this time left it there. She looked at it, at the water and light rippling over her toes. She lowered herself in, the water coming up over her shins, her knees, all the way up to her thighs. It didn’t stop. It felt like she was being taken over. Shivering, she turned round to face Vidya.

  ‘Come over here,’ Vidya said. ‘You’ll be fine once you start moving.’

  So she started pushing through the water, arms in an X over her chest. The shivering ceased.

  ‘Isn’t that better?’ Vidya said.

  ‘It’s still cold.’

  ‘You need to get your face wet.’

  ‘What?’

  Vidya cupped her palms under the water and splashed Narinder’s face.

  ‘Pehnji!’

  ‘Now do this,’ and she pinched her nostrils together and dunked under the water. When she rose back up, her face was glistening, hair drenched. ‘Your turn.’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘Just do it!’

  She placed a palm over her face, covering her mouth and nose, and bent to meet the water, not going down vertically like Vidya, but forwards, as if she was bowing for prayer.

  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!’

  9. UNDER ONE ROOF

  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.

  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 a
way 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.