The Year of the Runaways (20 page)

‘They’ve gone, Daddy.’

A nod, eyes still closed. Randeep, determined, moved to the cupboards. He found three eggs and some jam.

‘Scrambled?’

Nothing.

‘What about jammy toast?’ He turned the sticky jar around. ‘Gooseberry.’

He looked at his father. His hands were threaded across the small swell of his belly, as if he was only taking a short dreamy nap. And perhaps he was: the gentle rise and fall of his breathing suggested so. He looked peaceful. Randeep decided to cook his father brinjal later, and was thinking about the aubergines he’d seen in the fridge, when his father’s eyes shot open and he bolted out of his seat, screaming, with arms outflung. He had hold of Randeep’s throat and Randeep felt his head banging the cupboard.

‘You’re trying to poison me. You’re like the rest of them.’

But his father was the weaker of the two now and Randeep prised the fingers from his neck. He held his father’s hands down by his side until he stopped fighting, then led him back to his chair and sat him down. He fetched his pills and a glass of water and watched while he took his medication. For lunch Randeep cooked rice and vegetables and when his father refused even to look at the plate Randeep fed him forkfuls, as if his father were the child.

He seemed much improved the next day. When Randeep walked in he was reading at the table, his body washed in sunlight. ‘Morning, son.’

Randeep moved to the sink and pointlessly shifted around a few of the dirty dishes.

‘Looks like Farhan might just break the record after all.’

‘Maybe,’ Randeep said.

He heard his father crisply folding away the paper. ‘Shall we have tea and toast? With some of that gooseberry jam?’

Over breakfast, his father asked him about school – ‘College, Daddy!’ – and his new job and that girl he’d mentioned last time. What was her name again?

‘Jaytha.’

‘Well, let’s not tell your mother just yet, eh? There’s only so much dying with shame a woman can do in one year.’

They played backgammon long into the afternoon, hunched over the thick old board, fists curled to their throats. The sun had moved, now buttering the wall, and a late-afternoon tiredness hung in the air. Randeep started setting up the pieces again.

‘Five-four. I’m catching up.’

Mr Sanghera stretched, glancing at the oven timer. ‘I thought you were making brinjal?’

‘One more game.’

‘Afterwards.’

‘But—’

‘Tsk! Do as you’re told.’

Randeep stood, only pretending annoyance. He was glad to have been mildly rebuked, the way fathers should rebuke their sons. It had been such a good day. The best. He couldn’t wait to tell Lakhpreet how well their father had been. He’d turned a corner, he was sure of it. He took the brinjals from the refrigerator, washed them, and found garlic and cumin and onions and ghee and salt. Soon the aubergines were stewing.

‘Smells delicious,’ Mr Sanghera said.

Randeep lifted the lid, the steam pushing up his nose. He coughed. ‘Another twenty minutes.’

‘And what’s for dessert?’

Randeep paused. He hadn’t thought of that. He looked in the cupboard. There were some damp biscuits. A half-pot of cream. He knew there were apples in the cool box. ‘I’ll mix a fruit salad.’

Mr Sanghera made an incredulous face. ‘That food deserves more than a fruit salad. Let’s have custard. With bananas.’

A childhood favourite. ‘But we don’t have any powder. Or bananas.’

‘Then I’ll go to Stephen’s and fetch some.’ He bent down to look for his flip-flops.

‘No,’ Randeep said.

His father looked up.

‘I mean, it’s too far.’

‘It’s fifteen minutes.’

‘And cold.’

‘Randeep.’

Randeep turned away, still holding the cupboard open. ‘I’ll go. I’ll be quicker.’

He went down Santa Cruz Drive, his walk blooming into a run every few metres. The leaves were shading to pink. He took the flower-planters’ alley – a weedy strip of gravel – and cut across the commerce building gardens to get to the PCO, behind which was Father Stephen’s All Items Store. They didn’t have bananas so he settled on a chocolate roll to accompany the two jars of custard. He remembered they were running out of toothpaste and asked for some Pepsodent too. The thin, unsmiling boy put the items in a green bag, and it seemed to take him forever to tie a knot and push the bag across the counter to Randeep, who snatched it up and hurried out: round the PCO, across the gardens and up the alley. As he reached Santa Cruz Drive he tired, slowed, spun the clammy bag round and strangled the top of it into his fist. He looked up the long road to where their apartment block was. He patted his pocket but knew he’d left his phone behind. He could hear his footsteps beating the ground, the bag banging his thigh. He flung open the main door, not even waiting for the chowkidar, and took the stairs two, three at a time.

‘Daddy!’ He rattled the handle. ‘Daddy! Please open the door!’ He could hear the Schubert playing. ‘Open the door!’

He banged and banged until a hand on his shoulder pushed him aside. It was one of their neighbours, a man whose name Randeep couldn’t remember. He had a crowbar which he wedged into the door beside the lock. There was the sound of wood splintering and then the neighbour came at the door twice with his shoulder until it swung brokenly open. Randeep ran in. He could see his father’s naked dark-brown feet dangling in the main room, a chair in place. His head was tilted to one side, as if in mid apprehension of something. There was a piece of flex around his neck. Randeep wrapped his arms around his father’s feet as if to push him up, and the neighbour stood on the chair and untied the flex. The body slumped to the floor. Its eyes were wide and staring. Its lips opening and parting. It blinked, blinked again. Randeep knelt beside him. More neighbours gathered, puffing out their cheeks, saying how lucky he was. The music was still playing.

‘It would have been better if he had died,’ Mrs Sanghera said.

Four days had passed and she was coming back into the room from seeing off yet another concerned visitor.

‘Mamma!’ Lakhpreet said.

He heard his mother sigh, sit down. ‘Oh, I know. It’s . . . I don’t know what to do any more.’

Randeep closed his father’s door and joined him on the bed. Mr Sanghera lay propped against the cushioned headboard, chin on his chest. The plate of jammy toast sat untouched by his side.

‘OK, Daddy, I’m going back to college now. I’ll see you soon, acha?’

Perhaps there was a nod in response. He couldn’t be sure.

The coach broke down and it was past midnight when he jiggled open the lock to his room. He waited a minute for the furniture to outline itself, then saw that Abhijeet wasn’t around anyway, so he clicked the lamp and a triangle of silver light split the room. He was sitting on the floor when his phone vibrated and
Jaytha Hall
flashed up at him.

She arrived in a thick green duffel coat with fur-trimmed hood, removing it as she sat beside him on the bed. Her arms were brown and thin and beautiful. She smelled of almonds, and a few forgotten breadcrumbs stuck to the corner of her mouth. She must have rushed over here.

‘You didn’t have to come,’ he said.

‘Don’t be silly.’ She linked arms with him. ‘We’re friends. You sound like you’ve been crying.’

He told her about how his father had tried to strangle him and how he’d had to feed him forkfuls of rice like a baby. He told her that he’d been better the next day, they’d even played backgammon, but it must have all been a pretence, and that when he’d seen his feet hanging in the air like that he’d never felt so scared before in his whole life. He wasn’t sure why but he didn’t mention the helpful neighbour. He found himself saying that he’d untied the flex and lifted his father down.

‘I really thought I’d lost him.’ He felt her arms circle his waist. ‘I was so scared.’

‘I’m so sorry.’

She held him tighter and that felt good. To be wanted like that. He wanted her too. He put his arm around her back and kissed the top of her head. She didn’t seem to mind.

‘Thanks for coming.’

She held him tighter still. ‘We’re friends.’

He adjusted a little, kissed her forehead, and made the slow drive towards her lips. She responded, reaching up to meet his mouth. He’d never felt this kind of drowning sensation before. It was his first kiss. His first anything, and suddenly the world seemed like a less difficult place. Maybe things would turn out all right. His father would get better and he’d go to NIT and Jaytha would be welcomed into his family.

‘You’re the only one who understands,’ he said, easing her down, her head on his pillow. A nervous look crossed her face, which she tried to smile away. They resumed kissing. Her hands roved around his back as if not sure what they should be doing. His were on her waist, then her bottom. She pushed against his shoulders, but when he insisted on kissing her neck she seemed willing to let him. He wanted to show her how much he loved her. How much it meant to him that she understood. He pushed up her top and couldn’t believe that under it were her breasts. Just there under this thin top. The pink-brown tips revealed. He heard her say something and try to move away but he knew she liked him and he held her arms and kissed her breasts. She was saying it louder now and the louder she said it the stronger his grip, the more fiercely he applied his mouth to her body. He felt her knees in his stomach, pushing him away. That didn’t make sense. He rubbed his cock against her and she screamed but he was groaning himself and he bit her breasts and dug his fingers into the maddeningly soft flesh of her arms and pushed his weight down, down on her. He was telling her how much he really loved her when he felt a pair of arms around his waist yank him violently away. Randeep gasped, as if only now coming up for air. Abhijeet was telling him to get out. On the bed, Jaytha reached for her torn top, face turned away.

In an alleyway behind the art block, he ground his teeth and smacked his forehead against the wall, again and again, as if trying to knock all feeling out. Her frightened bedsunk face wouldn’t stop floating into his mind.

He walked for hours. The streets were quiet, the only light coming from a top-floor dance studio where a girl was pirouetting, practising for the end-of-year ball. He passed the tennis courts and sports gym and saw another light on in the student study rooms. He thought Jaytha might be there. This close to the exams, maybe she’d forgotten what he’d done and was in there revising. He opened the door. ‘Ja—’ It was some other girl, head bent delicately over her books. She turned round.

‘Sorry,’ Randeep said, and withdrew to the street.

Across the road an auto applied its wheezy brakes and two males got out. They had a crate of alcohol with them, though they already seemed pretty drunk.

‘Randeep,’ one of them said. Harshly?

They were friends of Abhi’s. ‘Oh, hi.’ He waited for them to do something, his stomach cowering. They must not have heard yet.

‘There’s a party. Wanna come?’

‘Not tonight, yaar.’

‘Sure? Plenty of . . .’ The boy made a
V
with his fingers and ran his tongue inside it.

‘Arré, sahib – paise?’ the auto driver said, and the boys paid and told Randeep to come along later if he felt like it.

He stayed out all night, until he was sure Abhijeet would have left for lectures. As he re-entered the dormitory no one turned to stare. The few students were hunkered over desks, preparing for finals. He went up to his room and sat on the bed and scrolled down to Jaytha’s number. No one answered. He untied his shoelaces and fell against the pillow. Her smell lingered. Briefly, he noticed a new cricket poster on the door, and then he closed his eyes and hoped he’d sleep through it all.

The sun forced him up, hitting his face. He reached for his phone but she hadn’t called. Perhaps she’d left a note in his locker box. He used the kitchen stairwell, with its squeaky suggestions of guilt. There was no note from her. Only a card from the Senior Pastoral Care Warden ordering him to her office at four o’clock. Randeep read the card again. His hand started to shake. He thought he was going to cry.

Her office was on the sixth floor of the humanities block. He shared a lift with two teachers discussing their sons’ prospects in Canada, and followed the signs to the warden’s door. A battered plaque read Mrs Bimla Manapadhay, IPS. Randeep, head down, knocked.

Jaytha was already there, in a cushioned armchair at Mrs Manapadhay’s side. Her hair was tied back. She was dressed normally: blue blouse, black skirt and shoes. Randeep smiled with relief. She was all right. She was alive. Mrs Manapadhay asked him to take a seat. She looked too young for a widow-white sari. Her hair, deliberately messy, had two chopsticks criss-crossed into it, and her single gold bangle kept clinking against the glass top of her desk. Randeep sat down. His eyes were fixed on the patch of carpet between his shoes. He felt Mrs Manapadhay leaning across. She had a surprisingly soft voice.

‘Mr Sanghera, a complaint’s been lodged against you.’

He nodded.

‘It’s in relation to your behaviour towards Jaytha. That you tried to force yourself upon her in a sexual way.’

He nodded again. But he felt confused. He’d not thought of it in those stark terms. He’d thought he was only guilty of loving her too much too soon. Stupid boy. He didn’t dare look up.

‘You admit that you did behave inappropriately towards Jaytha and tried to force yourself upon her in a sexual way?’

‘I do,’ he croaked.

She sighed. ‘I should tell you that it was not Jaytha who made the complaint. It’s my unfortunate experience that girls rarely say anything at all.’

He nodded.

‘You’re very lucky that she insists on not involving the police. She doesn’t want to put her family through that.’

Again, he nodded. But he didn’t know what this all meant. He wished his hands would stop their trembling.

‘But we have our own internal procedures which Jaytha cannot influence and which we must adhere to. Even more so when there’s a caste factor involved.’ And she said that she was sorry but they had no choice other than to remove him from college and discredit all his examination results to date. This was with immediate effect. ‘Do you understand, Mr Sanghera?’