The Year of the Runaways (55 page)

14. TOGETHER AGAIN

Avtar hauled his face out of his palms and tried to remember what he should have been doing. The mirrors, he thought, standing up, taking the cloth from his belt. He used a separate cloth for the basins and a third for the urinals. Lastly, he wiped down the cubicle doors and checked every toilet roll dispenser was full. Then he had to sit on the floor again. He slipped a hand under his T-shirt and pressed it against his stomach. That helped. But as soon as he let go the pain blazed.

Outside, he knocked on the window of the truck.

‘What?’ his boss said, as the glass slid down. ‘I know I paid you right.’

‘I need a doctor. I’m not feeling very well.’

The man lurched back. ‘What you got?’

‘Nothing. Just a pain in my stomach.’

‘Hm. Well. You’ve got visas. Go to the doctor’s like anyone else.’

‘But I’m supposed to be studying. In London. Will they ask questions?’

‘I don’t know about that,’ he responded, shoving into gear, eager to leave. There were about six mobiles on his dash. ‘Not my problem.’

Avtar checked with some guys at the gurdwara and they seemed to agree that there was nothing to worry about. ‘Janaab, you’ve got a visa on their computers. If I were you, I’d get everything done. Medicine, teeth, eyes. Everything.’

The woman behind the desk was young, with large teeth and a heavy fringe dyed purple. Avtar shook a hand through his own hair, flattening it at the back, and waited to be acknowledged. She seemed busy on the computer.

‘Hi!’ she said, beaming, as the printer started up beside her. ‘Sorry Do you have an appointment?’

‘I would like to see the doctor, please.’

‘You’ve come to the right place. Are you a patient with us?’

Avtar had rehearsed his response: ‘I am visiting for a few days only. Normally I live in London, where I study. Could I see him, please?’

‘Her,’ she corrected, a little pointedly. ‘So you’re a visiting patient.’

She fished out a form from a two-tier rack bolted to the wall and placed it on the counter before him.

‘Just fill this in, signing it here, here and – ’ she flipped the form over – ‘here. And then we can look to make you an appointment.’

‘But I need to see the doctor today. Please.’

‘What seems to be the problem?’

He hesitated. ‘I am having pains. In my stomach.’

‘OK. Well, we are booked out but if you fill the form in I can get you registered on a temporary basis, and then I’ll slot you in between appointments. Does that sound fair?’ She held out a pen.

Without really thinking, he did the little Indian wobble of his head – perhaps kindness had disarmed him momentarily – and he took the form and the pen and found a vacant orange seat in the busy waiting room behind him.

He sat there with the pen poised, writing nothing. Address. Current doctor. Non-UK national status (if applicable). Medical card number. He didn’t know what to put for any of these. He returned to the kind woman behind the counter.

‘I am sorry. But could I see the doctor only? I need bas five minutes.’

She glanced at the form in his hand. ‘You do need to fill the form in first. Perhaps I can help?’ Gently, she took the paper from him. ‘They can be a bit confusing. We’ll go through it together. Name?’

‘Nijjar. Avtar Singh Nijjar,’ and he wondered if already he’d gone too far. Said too much. They knew his name. They’d discover he wasn’t anywhere near where he ought to be. That he was here working illegally. Fear began to rage.

‘Address?’

Avtar gazed at her.

She smiled. ‘Was it London you said?’

He shook his head, then ran down the escalators, tripping over at the bottom, and he didn’t stop running until he was back behind the station and walking to the cabin.

He rang Lakhpreet. He thought it would help, hearing her voice, but when she answered he didn’t recognize it. It sounded different. He kept the phone to his ear. She was talking. About what, he didn’t understand.

‘Jaan?’ she said.

‘Hm?’

‘I said we’ve not heard from Randeep for ages. Is he all right?’

‘He’s fine.’

‘Can I speak to him?’

‘He’s asleep.’

‘Oh. OK. Tell him to call, will you? Mamma’s frantic.’

He thought of his own mother. He imagined her being thrown onto the street. ‘I need to go.’

‘Wait! Can’t we talk for a bit? How are you? Missing me?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘You sure? You don’t sound yourself.’

‘Don’t I?’

He could see her frowning. ‘Anyway, what have you been up to? Anything fun?’

He opened his mouth but no words came out. He had nothing, absolutely nothing, to say to her.

He couldn’t sleep, and, the next day, he couldn’t walk either. He sat up on the floor of the cabin, lifted his T-shirt and tightened the strap he now kept belted around his stomach. He had to get to work. Twice last week he’d arrived late and not once did he finish the job on time. ‘Last chance, capiche? I got places to be, man. I’m losing money with every second,’ his boss had said, clicking fingers. Avtar leaned in to the side of the cabin and with enormous effort heaved up onto his feet.

He’d be fine, he told himself, as he arrived at the club. Once he got his head on the job he’d forget about the pain. There was nothing to worry about. And after his boss drove off Avtar opened the broom cupboard and laid out very neatly the bottles and sprays and disinfectants he’d need. He went round and picked up all the litter, then raised the chairs onto their tables and vacuumed the entire hall, going right into the corners. He mopped away the standing piss in the toilets, polished up the urinals something pretty, and made a start on scraping the shit off the toilet bowls. He’d be finished soon. Then he could rest. The stains just needed a little more work. They weren’t quite coming loose. He scratched harder, digging the scraper in. It made no difference. The pain was coming back. Nothing was going right. Why wasn’t anything going right? He closed both hands around the wooden handle and started stabbing the ceramic bowl, chipping enamel. And then he was charging around the club, slashing the seats and smashing the mirrors.

At work, she was misfiling things – the wrong books on the wrong shelves – and several times she forgot that new library cards needed to be countersigned before they were laminated. She had to discard them and start again.

‘You seem a bit preoccupied,’ Jessica said.

‘No, no. Just tired.’

On the wooden counter her phone rang, its incessant vibrations absurdly loud. The immigration inspector: she recognized the number. He’d been calling every day. She stared at the screen, at the shrieking telephone icon, and killed the call. Later, she rang her father, if only to hear his voice – as a comfort against the howling wilderness inside her.

‘Is everything all right, beiti? I can hardly hear you.’

‘I was – I hope people are treating you well? I hope they’re not being hard on you because of me.’

‘Let them say what they want. I know my daughter, I tell them. She’ll be back soon. She’d never do anything to shame me.’

As she heard those words, words she’d heard all her life, she wished she’d not rung him after all. She said goodbye, quietly, and closed her eyes and tried to imagine herself weightless, without such expensive burdens. It was impossible.

Over dinner that evening, Tochi said, ‘I fixed the oven.’

‘Yes. I noticed. Thank you.’

‘It should last us through the winter.’

She nodded. ‘The winter. Of course.’

He looked across. Her hair was twisted up into the nape of her neck and he thought how, without her turban, she looked like a different woman altogether. Her eyes and mouth seemed smaller, as if the turban had amplified everything. ‘It must feel strange, not wearing it.’

‘Hmm? Oh, yes. Sorry. I’m not very good company tonight. I was just thinking. You know, if you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?’

He took another roti.

‘Well?’

‘I’m eating.’ He lifted the side of his plate, the better to scoop up the sabzi. He could feel her waiting for an answer.

‘You could go anywhere,’ she said. ‘I think that must feel wonderful. To have the freedom to go where you want. To do what you want.’

‘If you’re lucky. If you have the money.’

‘But it’s not about money,’ she said, betraying a slight vehemence.

‘Everything’s about money.’

She frowned, as if he’d thwarted her attempt to get at something deeper.

‘Courage, then,’ he said. ‘If you have the courage you can go anywhere. Do anything. Be with anyone.’ He fixed her with a look. ‘Just have the courage.’

She flushed and picked up her roti, signalling the end of the topic.

As they cleared the table, her phone rang, and again she cut it off.

‘The inspector?’ Tochi asked.

‘He won’t stop. I don’t know what to do.’

‘Keep ignoring it. They can’t do anything if they can’t find you. And then it’s for him to sort out,’ meaning Randeep.

‘It’s been a year already. This should be over by now. He should have his stamp and I shouldn’t be here.’

He moved to the sink and started to fill it with water. He didn’t look across as he asked, ‘What will you do when it’s over?’

She took her time answering. ‘I’ll go back home.’

He nodded. ‘To your family?’

‘I have to.’

She sat at her window, looking across the identical roofs of the houses opposite. Each slate was edged neatly under the one above it, and they all looked damp, lined with dew. She didn’t let her eye wander too far above them. It was easier that way. If she looked up at the sky the loneliness was too large for her to carry. She heard Tochi standing in the doorway behind her. She turned away from the window. She seemed to know what he was going to say.

‘Stay Don’t go.’

The streetlights threw one half of her face into shadow. The other half glimmered. Her chunni lay gently balled up between her hands, in her lap, as if she were caring for a small purple bird. He’d not lain with her or held her or touched her the way a man can touch a woman. He didn’t know what explained this loose, unstructured love that pumped around his body. He only knew that he wanted to be with her. He wanted to protect her and never let anybody hurt her.

She looked down to her lap, to her hands. ‘I was thinking about what you said. About courage. And I think it’s more complicated than that. I think making a sacrifice so other people aren’t hurt can be even more courageous.’

‘You sound like you’re trying to convince yourself.’ Then: ‘It’s not complicated, Narinder,’ and there was something about hearing her name in his mouth that made her gasp inwardly.

‘We have duties. I have duties.’

‘Forget them.’

She laughed unhappily. ‘That’s easy for you to say.’ He had no family, no one he felt he owed anything to. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘I used to think I had duties. That I had to know my place. It doesn’t work. People will be hurt. Don’t hurt yourself instead.’

‘It’s easy to get over hurting yourself. Easier.’

‘You’re wrong. You won’t. Stay.’

For a man like him, to talk like this was to beg. He was begging her to be with him and she knew that he loved her. All she had to do was take this chance that had been so delicately brought before her, on cupped palms. All she had to do was reach out and accept it. But below the cupped palms lay her baba’s turban, on the floor and at her feet. She saw what her being with Tochi would do to him, the lifetime of disgrace. She closed her eyes. So this was what it felt like to be torn in two. It was amazing to think that she’d always had it wrong, imagining that they were the weak ones, the ones who took their chance. No. The weakest are those who stay put and call it sacrifice, call it not having a choice. Because, really, there was always a choice and she – one of the cowards, she realized – was making hers now. She turned back to the window, to the identical roofs. She closed her hands over the chunni and twisted it tight. ‘Please. Go away.’

*

Randeep lifted the suitcase above the turnstile, slotted in his ticket, and pushed through the bars and out of the station. Avtar was sitting on the low wall by the water feature. He needed to shave. His hair was a mess. He stood up and beckoned him over. Randeep didn’t move.

The bus dropped them at the bottom of the hill and Avtar walked on ahead. After ransacking the club, he’d not gone back to the Portakabin, fearing his boss. Instead, he spent a week sleeping in the car park of a Blockbuster’s in south Leeds. He couldn’t find work. And then Bal started texting, threatening. When the weather turned even colder the only option left was to contact everyone he knew until he found Randeep, head back to Sheffield and maybe ask Narinder to take them in again, just until he was better.

His gait, he knew, was uneasy. He couldn’t apply any serious pressure on his left hip. But it would all be fine if he could rest up for a few days, eat well, bathe, and then get back to finding work. And once he was earning again, he’d clear his debts and after maybe three or four years return home and get a new flat, perhaps even buy one, and Navjoht would be earning too and the shop would be paid off. He held onto these thoughts as if they were all he had left.

‘It’s a new door,’ Randeep said, stopping outside a brown one with a gold slip of a letter box.

He looked up to the window – unlit – then back at the door. He wondered if Tochi was still around. He wondered what she was going to say.

No one answered.

‘She’ll be at the gurdwara,’ Randeep said, and they sat themselves down on the pavement, against the door.

‘Are you sure she lives here?’ Avtar asked. ‘She might’ve moved. It’s been a few months.’

‘Three months,’ Randeep said. ‘Three and a half.’

He seemed different, Randeep, quieter, sombre. ‘I’m sorry, yaar. I’m sorry for leaving you.’

Randeep nodded. ‘I understand.’

‘I owe money. I didn’t know what to do.’

‘You had no choice.’

‘But once I’ve got rid of this stomach bug, we’ll find work and it’ll be fine.’

‘I’m sure you’re right.’

Avtar looked across. ‘Were you on your own the whole time?’