The Year of the Runaways (48 page)

He wanted to talk, he said. They’d all been so worried and they just wanted to make sure she was OK. She listened from the dark of her room. ‘Narinder! Come on!’ he said, as if she was being adolescent, unreasonable; as if all he was asking for was a lift to the cinema.

She waited for them to go, and when their voices withdrew down the hill, she reached for the settee, shaking. Tomorrow, she’d leave. She’d pack a suitcase now and tomorrow she’d go to a hotel. She tried to think if she could call the police, or whether that would get Randeep into trouble. She wasn’t sure. Her thoughts kept disappearing into dark water. She didn’t think she could do it. She didn’t think she could call the police on her family. Then, suddenly, the silence was exploded by a horrific scissoring sound. She rushed to the window. They were doing something at the door. Hacking at it. Kicking it. She ran into her room and picked up her phone. They were thundering up the stairs, banging on her door.

‘Nin – open up. Cos I swear I’ll break this bastard door down.’

‘Go away!’

He kicked the door.

‘No!’

She undid the locks and chain and he barged past her and into the room. ‘What the fuck!’

‘Tejpal, leave. Or I’ll call the police.’

‘I’ll leave all right. But you’re coming with me.’

He looked fatter than she remembered, his beard thicker, bushier. His black waistcoat was all large padded squares and down the inside of his left arm a tattoo: Jatt Khalastani. The other two remained at the doorway. Distant cousins of hers, she recognized. From Dagenham. They looked, if not nervous, then slightly unsure of their role.

‘Pack your bag,’ Tejpal said.

‘I’m not going anywhere. I’ll come when I’m ready.’

He rounded on her. She’d never seen such clarity of hatred in someone’s face. ‘Do you have any idea what you’ve done? Do you know what you’ve put Dad through?’

‘You don’t know anything. Now get out.’

‘I’m the one who hears Dad crying at night. Do you know he can’t face going to the gurdwara any more? Because people start pointing him out? Do you know how ashamed he feels? He doesn’t leave the house. Because of you. All because of you. You did this to him.’

Narinder’s face gave a slight vibration. It was painful to imagine her baba like that. ‘He’ll understand. When I explain it to him. I know he will. I’ll be back in a few months and it’ll be fine. I’m doing a good thing here. You don’t understand!’

‘OK, then. Tell me what you’re doing.’ He sat on the settee. ‘Come on. I’m waiting. Tell me why you’re doing this.’

She looked away. ‘I can’t.’

‘Right. Well, I’ll tell you what you’re doing. You’re doing what you’ve always done. What’s good for you. What makes you feel good. He’s done everything for you. You’ve always been his favourite and now you’re the one who’s killing him.’

‘I’m making a sacrifice so—’

‘You don’t know what sacrifice is!’

He rushed out of his seat and gripped her under the shoulder, pulling her along. She felt herself gasp. She couldn’t breathe.

‘Tejpal, don’t do this. Let me go. Please let me go.’

‘Pack your bags. You’re coming home.’

‘I can’t! You don’t understand.’

They struggled. The cousins didn’t seem to want to get involved, as if this was going beyond their remit. Probably they’d only come in case there’d been men to fight. Narinder bit down on her brother’s arm, hard, tasting blood, and all at once he screamed and pushed her with such force she fell into the dining chairs. She twisted round. He was crying.

‘I hate you so much,’ he said. ‘I’ll never forgive you. Never.’

In the rusted oven tray, Tochi arranged the squares of rubber into a small mound. He carried it into the main room and eventually got a little fire going, opening a kitchen window for the smoke. Then he sat on the semicircle of tyre that remained and warmed his hands. He’d stolen the tyre from a school playground and it was the only piece of furniture in the room. A black sheet with a border of orange lozenges lay in the corner furthest from the window. His holdall acted as pillow. He heard the man shouting on the pavement outside. He couldn’t understand what he was saying. A family dispute, it sounded like. He made out ‘sister’. Nothing to do with him. He tried to ignore it, but then they started crashing through the door and charging up the stairs, to the girl. He grabbed his bag, ready to run, waiting to hear sirens. Nothing happened, though. They were upstairs, still shouting, and a little later they came back down. He went to the window. A van was driven up and the bearded guy opened the side door and the other two forced the girl in, throwing her suitcases after her. Tochi turned away from the window and forced the image of Palvinder from his mind.

AUTUMN

11. WHAT PRICE FREEDOM

A man in a fashionably Pakistani kurta pyjama rose from behind his tabla set and walked the long diagonal towards Randeep. His kirpan was slung low across his body, and his royal-blue turban identified him as one of the junior granthis, perhaps only a few years older than him.

‘You’ve been coming here several nights now, haven’t you?’ he said, kneeling beside Randeep.

He had a friendly voice, or seemed to be making an effort to appear friendly.

‘I only need somewhere to stay a while,’ Randeep said. ‘Until my friend comes back. I won’t be here long.’

‘You’re welcome at all times. This is God’s house and you’re his child. Where are you from?’

‘Sheffield. Panjab.’

The young granthi nodded and kissed the air in Indian sympathy. ‘There are no jobs, are there?’

‘We looked everywhere.’

‘I know you did. And you’re not alone. There’s so many of you boys about. Even here in Derby.’

‘Can you help me?’ Randeep asked.

There was a silence, the only sound that of the book being read in a sibilant hush. The granthi smiled in his serene way, and when he spoke it was as if he picked his words one by one, laying them next to each other with great deliberation. ‘It’s important to feel supported. To be with like-minded souls. It helps one cope. That’s why I’m going to mention that most of the young men like you come together under the old railway bridge near the city. The one on the river, by the new flats. Do you know it?’

Randeep shook his head, not really following.

‘We take food to them. And blankets. We try to help.’

‘Do you think they might help me?’

‘I’m sure they will. Maybe you should go there now.’

‘You want me to leave?’ Randeep exclaimed. Some of the congregation looked over. ‘But you can’t! This is God’s house.’

‘We have to think of everyone who uses the gurdwara. Try to understand.’

‘But my father worked in government. You can’t kick me out.’

The young granthi asked him not to see it like that, in those terms. ‘You’re always welcome, but maybe it would be better if you were with people in the same difficulties as you.’

He stood in the car park, suitcase in hand, and heard the gurdwara doors shut behind him. Three times he’d been shunned: Narinderji, Avtar and now God. He walked to the station and dropped down behind the car park, following the river into the city. The mornings were crisper now, with a breeze that made the leaves twitch and forced him into his jacket.

He found no bridge in that direction, only waterside bars and restaurants, and so he turned around and retraced his steps and carried on past the station and the flats, out towards the gasworks and factories. There weren’t any joggers around here, just the odd fisherman thickly hidden. He walked on, convinced he’d gone too far, or that it had been a ruse to get him out of the gurdwara. Then he saw it: a wide, bottle-green bridge, beautiful in its way. Underneath it, three figures, all in shadow. Their chatter echoed coarsely.

They were slumped against the wall in their sleeping bags and blankets.

‘Kidhaan?’ one of them said.

Randeep nodded, and the man brought his hand out of his sleeping bag and gestured for Randeep to join him along the wall.

By the evening, there were eight of them under the bridge. A small twiggy fire had been started and someone came back from the gurdwara with a sloppy bucket of roti-dhal.

‘They take it in turns, the gurdwaras.’ It was the same fellow who’d first spoken to Randeep, a Panjabi with a rapid-fire way of talking while not looking up from his food. His name was Prabjoht. An Ambarsariya, judging by his accent. ‘It’s their way of keeping us out here. Keeping us happy.’

‘You went to the gurdwara, too?’ Randeep asked.

‘We all did. But the people, they complain. They say we’re unclean. That we smell. Which we do. So let us come and use the shower once a day, right?’

‘Don’t you have family?’

‘Don’t you?’ Prabjoht said tetchily. Then: ‘Maybe my papa’s bhua’s derani’s something. No one close. It wouldn’t make any difference.’ He indicated someone asleep a few beds away. ‘His own chacha kicked him out. Said the kids weren’t happy with him living there.’ He shrugged. ‘It was different in the old times. They say people used to take you in, help you on your feet, feed you. Times change.’

Randeep moved his suitcase against the wet wall. He took out his blanket and wondered how to arrange it, whether to use half of it as a sleeping mat or not.

‘That’s fine for now,’ Prabjoht said. ‘But you’ll need something more soon. The cold’s coming.’

‘How can the cold be coming? When was the heat? Did summer even happen?’

He lay down and wondered what Avtar would be doing, what sort of job he might have found. He’ll call soon, Randeep thought, and turned onto his side and watched the river.

*

They called it a plant, this flat-roofed building with its single, strikingly tall chimney. Inside, the pipes were running and the industrial hoses hung against the steam-stained walls like colossal gold jalebis. They wriggled into their white boiler suits and six of them loaded the van with hoses and drove off with Jagdish to other sites around the West Midlands. The four that remained split into their usual pairs, Avtar partnering Romy. Skinny, with bad skin and a raptor’s beak, Romy had a student visa too, for an art college in Birmingham. He’d been in the country less than a month.

‘We’ll take S1,’ Avtar said, and the second pair took their hose and rubber boots and moved to the north of the plant.

Avtar threw Romy their torch – the defunct lamps on their helmets had never been replaced – and they wound tape around the tops of their boots so too much of the thicker shit wouldn’t find its way in. The manhole cover was already off. Avtar plugged the hose into the nearest jet, using both hands to secure the plastic nut, and climbed down into the sewer. The nozzle of the hose peeked out from his armpit like a little green pet, and, as he landed, one foot at a time, the dark water came to his knees. Things bobbed on the surface – ribbons of tissue, air-filled condoms that looked like silver fish floating dumbly towards the light. A furry layer of moss waved back and forth across the curve of the brickwork. Everything seemed bathed in a gelatinous gleam. Romy landed beside him and took the torch out of his mouth.

‘I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the smell.’

‘It’s not so bad,’ Avtar said.

‘How long do we have left here?’

‘He said his contract’s for a month.’

‘And then we can go?’

‘Point the torch.’

They moved cautiously, hunched over as if anticipating an oncoming attack. The torch rippled discs over the water. Behind Avtar, the hose was unspooling, slapping itself into the stream. They came to a fork of two narrow tunnels.

‘Did we do the left one yesterday?’ Romy asked.

‘The right.’

‘You sure?’

‘Of course I’m fucking sure.’

Avtar went first, stepping down to a slick ledge and into the dark cave.

‘It’s fine,’ he called, echoed. ‘Enough room to stand.’

Romy came forward, baby-stepping, trying to feel with his toes how far down the ledge was.

‘I can’t see you,’ he said.

‘I’m here,’ Avtar said.

Romy panned the torch left, full in Avtar’s face.

‘Easy,’ Avtar said, looking away.

Romy waded over, the water now at his thighs. The tunnel was probably only two arm-widths across.

‘This is the worst,’ Romy said.

‘Over there. I think I can smell it.’

The light hit what looked like a writhing ten-foot maggot stuck to the side of the tunnel.

‘Bhanchod,’ Avtar said, with something like awe in his voice. ‘The biggest yet.’

‘It’s moving.’

‘Rats.’

Romy looked down, breathed hard. Avtar hoped the boy wouldn’t be sick again, though he could feel his own stomach recoiling. The smell. Damp, lush, prickly. Marshy with faecal matter and eggs.

‘Keep that torch straight,’ Avtar said. He moved forward, pointing the jet at the globe of fat. It was so big it blocked off half the tunnel. ‘Shall I go for the middle?’

‘It’s moving,’ Romy said again.

‘Hopefully it’ll collapse.’

Romy stayed back, shining the torch while Avtar arranged his hands along the hose, keeping it steady, aiming up. He squeezed the chrome trigger and water came out at an astonishing speed, crashing into the fatberg. The sound was glorious, and with the amber torchlight and the fact of being underground, it felt to Avtar like they were in some computer game, battling their way past beasts.

He released the trigger and the jet of water flopped to nothing.

‘How much?’ Avtar said, and Romy shone the beam on the water. There were only a few plates of fat glistening here and there, detached from the main ball.

‘I’ll have to break it up,’ Avtar said. He handed the hose to Romy and took the axe from his belt and splashed forward. ‘Light!’

‘Sorry,’ Romy said, struggling with the weight of the hose.

With a hand over his mouth, Avtar raised his arm high and started to hack. Bits plopped into the water. There were black-high scurrying sounds. Spitting, he returned to Romy.

‘Bhanchod fucking shit-smelling dirty gora cunts.’ He spat again, shivered. ‘Here,’ and he took back the hose. ‘Where did I cut?’

‘At the belly,’ Romy said.

Avtar pulled the trigger and shook the hose about, making the thick rope of water dance. ‘I think we’ve got it,’ he shouted.