The Year of the Runaways (28 page)

Randeep shook his head.

‘Puts me in a bit of a posish though.’

Randeep waited.

‘I’ll need to find another one of you chumps. Smartish. Don’t suppose you’ve got a cousin breaknecking it across the Channel as we speak, by any chance?’

Randeep told him that he had a bhaji, Avtar, who’d come with him, but he’d left him in Ilford because there was only work here for one of them.

‘Visa?’

‘Ji.’

‘Marriage? Holiday?’

‘Student.’

Vinny shook his head. ‘Been burnt by enough scooters in my time. Lying, argumentative. Always quoting their fucking rights.’

‘Bhaji, I promise. He will work very hard. You have my word.’

Avtar moved out of Massiji’s house and walked towards the high street with no clue where to go next. He spent the afternoon going in and out of the Asian businesses, though no one had work or seemed to know where to find it, and as the day tapered to dusk he made his way to the gurdwara. He put his suitcase and rucksack at the foot of the nishaan sahib and said a short prayer with his forehead to the flagpole. Then he took a ramaal from the wire basket at the entrance, secured it over his head, and went into the food hall. They were serving a langar of roti, dhal and water. Afterwards, he put his dishes in the sink and carried his belongings up the stairs and into the darbar sahib. The rehraas was being read. He bowed his head to the guru granth and found a spot against the rear wall where he could sit in peace and close his eyes for a while. The gurdwara elders gave him a ledge inside the shoe room to sleep on, and in the morning, leaving for the college, he asked God to make this the day he found work.

He knocked on the open office door – Room
625F,
it said – and peered inside. ‘Sat sri akal, uncle.’

Dr Cheema was at his whiteboard, in the middle of drawing something. ‘Avtar! I thought you had forgotten all about us.’

They spoke for only a short while – the doctor had a lunchtime tutorial to lead – but Avtar was to wait, and when the doctor returned to his office he handed him a decent wodge of papers.

‘Handouts from your course. I just picked them up. I’ll keep sending them to you once you give me your address.’

‘Thank you, uncle.’ And then, after a pause: ‘I need a job. I’m running out of time.’

Dr Cheema sat down and picked up his pen and started to press the nib of it into his desk. ‘Do you have somewhere to stay?’

He lived in a large detached house towards Harrow-on-the-Hill. As they came up the long, winding gravel drive, the doctor said he was sure they’d find Avtar work, that there must be lots of jobs for hard-working men like him.

‘I don’t mind what it is, uncle. Building, cleaning, delivering. Anything.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Dr Cheema said, opening the front door. He fixed Avtar with a look. ‘You’re with your own people now.’

Everything in the front room was white or gold: the huge white leather sofas, the gold-trimmed coffee table with its glossy fan of magazines. A fashionably tarnished mirror hung above the fireplace, and on either side of this were . . . paintings? Slabs of colour layered one on top of another.

‘Rachna?’ the doctor called.

A tiny bird of a voice replied. ‘Amo?’

The doctor strode into the next room – the massive kitchen – where a small baby of an old woman in a white salwaar kameez sat scowling at her reflection in the long table. There was a bowl of something in front of her. Dr Cheema helped her out of the chair and to the sofas in the front room. It seemed she was blind. ‘Just there, Biji. Sit. That’s it. Have you eaten?’

She made a face, nodded.

‘Do you want something else?’

‘What that witch gave is poison enough.’

Dr Cheema sighed. ‘Biji, I wish you wouldn’t.’ He gestured for Avtar to come closer. ‘I’ve brought someone with me. One of our students at the college. He’s from Nijjar.’

The old woman leaned forward, jutting her chin up slightly. ‘Who?’

‘My name’s Avtar Nijjar, Biji. Grandson of Jwala Singh Nijjar.’

She said the name sounded familiar and patted the space beside her. ‘It’s been so long. Did they live near the marsh?’

Dr Cheema sat on the sofa opposite, teasing out the stories, watching, listening, encouraging. He seemed desperate to hear, even at second hand, of this past of which he had no experience. An hour passed in this way, until there was the sound of a lock clicking, of heels on tiles. A magnificently tall woman in a business suit appeared in the doorway. The two halves of her sleek black hair met sharply, precisely, at her chin. Red lipstick, Avtar noticed.

‘Oh, hello,’ she said, seeing Avtar.

Avtar moved his head, a cross between a bow and a nod. ‘Sat sri akal.’

‘Why did you leave Biji alone?’ Dr Cheema asked.

She stepped across the room, sliding her earrings off with two swipes of her hand and placing them on the mantelpiece. ‘I had an emergency. I had to go. I paged you.’ She sounded tired.

‘You don’t leave Biji alone like that. Anything could’ve happened. She could’ve hurt herself.’

‘We live in hope.’

‘What was the point in us deciding that you go part-time if this still happens?’

‘Darling, I think you decided, not me. And I’m doing my best but I had no choice. I’m sorry. I made sure she had food and I came back as soon as I could.’

‘Well, don’t let it happen again,’ he said, conceding a little.

She looked to the ceiling, shaking her head. ‘My patient died, by the way. Thanks for asking.’ And with that she left the room.

The Cheemas’ son was off in America on something called a gap year, so Avtar was given his room.

‘Uncle, this is too much. I’d be happy on the floor downstairs.’

‘Let’s just concentrate on finding you work. Sleep well. We start tomorrow.’

‘Uncle?’

The doctor turned round.

‘Thank you for all this. I don’t know why you’re doing it, but thank you.’

The doctor’s mouth pursed up, then he said, ‘I remember my father telling me that back in the day people would open their houses to young men like you. To help you get started on this new life. That’s all I’m doing.’ He paused. ‘Something happened a few years ago that made it clear to me that I’m only ever going to be a guest in this country. That it didn’t matter how many garden parties I threw for my neighbours, this would never be my real home. It’s important that a man has a sense of a real home. A sense of his own ending.’

For over a week Dr Cheema drove Avtar around London – Harrow, Ealing, Southall, Hounslow, Grays, Brixton, Hackney, Uxbridge, Croydon, Enfield. They enquired in newsagents’, fish-and-chip shops, market stalls, in gurdwaras and factories. They criss-crossed the capital following leads, acting on tips, pursuing half-chances. They left each day at a little after dawn, packed lunches in the boot, eager to miss the traffic, and when they arrived back at the house it was long past ten o’clock. But none of their efforts resulted in a job for Avtar and after the tenth day of this he collapsed onto the sofa and said he wasn’t going to impose on Dr Cheema’s family any longer. He’d leave the next day.

‘Of course you can’t leave. Where will you go?’

‘But, uncle—’

‘Let’s give it a few more days, hain? We’re so close. I can feel it.’

That night, Avtar came downstairs and into the kitchen, textbook in hand. He couldn’t sleep. He had little money left and no job in sight. And now Pocket Bhai’s nephew had got in touch. They wanted the first repayment.

‘I still have a few weeks,’ Avtar had said.

‘Fair enough. A few weeks. I’ll be in touch.’

That was already two days ago and still he didn’t know what he was going to do. He heard footsteps on gravel and the kitchen door opened and Rachnaji stepped in with her briefcase. ‘Oh, hi. Up late.’

‘Studying,’ he said, indicating his book.

‘Good. Studying is good.’

She dumped the briefcase on one of the high stools and poured a glass of water from a hatch in the fridge. She drank deeply, then brought the glass down hard.

Avtar flinched. He took it as a sign of her frustration that he was still in their house. ‘Thank you, aunty, for everything you and uncle are doing.’

‘Huh? Oh, it’s nothing. It’s your uncle. Nothing to do with me.’

‘But I think I will be leaving tomorrow. It’s time.’

‘And you think my husband will let you?’

He wasn’t sure he understood. Was he held captive here?

Rachnaji slid out of her heels and sat a few chairs down from him at the table. Up close like this, he could see the powder-sheen of her face. The chalky grey at her temples. ‘The last one he brought home was here for nearly three months. A girl. How the aunties tittered.’

‘Ji?’

‘I don’t even pretend to know what it is. I used to think it was just nostalgia. Some attempt at connecting with his roots. Some regret at living the life he does. I don’t know. All I know is that it’s become much worse since he became president of that IndiSoc or whatever it is. He’s become much concerned with “ideas of belonging”,’ she said, holding up fingers.

Avtar nodded. But, no, he didn’t understand.

‘It really is a pathetic thing. To mourn a past you never had. Don’t you think?’

*

Lakhpreet called early one morning, so early it was dark outside. He was still half asleep and her voice sounded creamy in his ear, gently stirring his dreams away.
I wish you were here beside me,
he said, murmured,
so I could hold you, touch you . . .

‘Randeep’s in trouble,’ she said.

Frowning, Avtar sat up, wiping a crust of sleep from his eyes. She’d always had a leaning towards the dramatic interruption. ‘What trouble?’

‘I don’t know, but he called yesterday and he sounded so down. I’ve never heard him like that. I’m really worried, janum. Have you spoken to him?’

‘Once or twice. Briefly. He’s just homesick.’

‘Maybe. Do you know the men he’s living with? What are they like?’

Avtar said he hadn’t a clue.

‘You just let him go? On his own? Without knowing anything about . . . anything?’

‘I’ve got my own worries,’ he said, a little peeved. ‘And he’s not a kid.’

‘He is though, in some ways . . .’ She trailed off.

‘Jaan, is there something else?’

‘No, no. I just . . . I guess Daddy being how he is, is making me more worried.’

‘Randeep’s not like your father.’

‘I know, I know. But can’t you just keep an eye on him? Stay in touch? Just keep making sure he’s all right?’

Days passed, a week, and he still hadn’t called Randeep. He was putting it off. He didn’t want to discover that the boy really was in trouble. In which case, Avtar would have to do something. Wouldn’t he? He was thinking of this, folding clothes into his suitcase, when Cheemaji knocked. It had taken Avtar a while to get used to this – people knocking – and he still wasn’t sure whether to get up and open the door or tell them to come in from where he was sitting. On this occasion, Cheemaji walked right in. He was excited. He still had the cordless in his hand.

‘That was the factory-wallah. From that clothes factory we went to last week. He has a job.’

They drove down to Southall, past kebab joints and sari shops and curry houses and travel agents promising the cheapest fares to Amritsar through Air Turkmenistan. The factory was towards the old gasworks, and a dark-skinned, full-lipped man in a green safari shirt came into the loading bay to greet them. He wore a gold watch, too.

‘Avtar, you remember Mr Golwarasena?’

For half an hour it was very slowly and very tediously explained to Avtar that the job was 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., six days a week, with two thirty-minute breaks to be taken in turn by all the workers on the line. He would be paid at the standard level for the twenty-two hours per month his visa permitted him to work, with the rest of his hours paid at the reduced level. The fauji level, they called it. The contract, of course, would itemize the standard hours only.

‘The job has many angles,’ Mr Golwarasena went on in his strangely accented English. ‘From patternation to executive stitching to industrial storage.’ And he proceeded to detail exactly what the duties in each of those angles entailed.

‘And the pay?’ Dr Cheema asked, sounding exhausted already.

Mr Golwarasena’s eyes became heavy-lidded, as if talk of money was beneath him. He gave the figures. Avtar tried not to let his delight show. It sounded like an obscene amount to earn.

On the drive back, Avtar asked why they hadn’t just accepted the job. Instead they’d invited Mr Golwarasena over for dinner that night.

‘Because he’s the type who’s impressed by a big house and shiny things. So we ask him to dinner, give him a few whiskies, he becomes a friend, and then he offers you more money. Good plan or what?’

The plan was never executed. As Avtar was pulling his best shirt out of the suitcase and wondering if it would be rude to ask for use of the iron, his phone rang.

‘Randeep! You’ve called on a great day!’

‘Bhaji? Is that you? I have good news.’

And Randeep launched into something about how they could now work together because someone had broken their foot and all he had to do was come up tomorrow and even accommodation was included and it’d be great and he couldn’t wait for Avtar bhaji to join him because he was lonely and had no friends but it was all going to be all right now because he was going to come up too.

‘There’s a job? Working with you?’

‘Yes, yes. So what time will you come? I’ll meet you at the station.’

Avtar made Randeep go through it all again, slowly, calmly, explaining what the job was, the pay, how long-term.

‘Very long-term. Vinny bhaji is always thinking of new projects.’ The silence on the phone grew. ‘Is something the matter? You will come, won’t you?’

Avtar said he needed to think and that he’d call Randeep later – and what a horrible feeling it was, hearing the disappointment in the boy’s voice as he came off the phone. Really, the choice should have been easy. The job here, in Southall, was better all round – better pay, better accommodation, better hours. He’d have to get a second job in this Sheffield place to come close to earning as much. And yet there was no choice. Lakhpreet was right. Something had sounded wrong, and because Randeep was her brother, and younger than him, weaker than him, and because they’d come across together and stayed with Randeep’s aunt that first month – all this seemed to have conferred on Avtar an irritating and exaggerated sense of responsibility towards the boy. He smiled ruefully. Funny how God offers you everything you’ve asked for, only to force you to turn it away. He sat a few minutes in the silence of the room, then went downstairs to tell Cheemaji that the dinner wouldn’t be necessary.