The Year of the Runaways (23 page)

‘We can all work,’ Lakhpreet said, resting a hand on Randeep’s shoulder. ‘You’re not being fair to him.’

‘And we will work. When we are all in England. With well-paid jobs worthy of a family like ours. What hope for that in this snake basket of a land?’

Vakeelji said, ‘She’s not asking for much money at all. And she’s a good, God-fearing girl. Some of them have all sorts of tricks, demanding more at the last minute and whatnot. But I think you can trust her.’

‘A very quiet, simple girl,’ Mrs Sanghera said, approvingly. ‘Jat Sikh, too. What more could we want? She’s landed in our lap from above.’

‘And you’d be her first transfer. When it gets to the second or third they start asking questions, but this should be straightforward.’

‘You see how much effort Vakeelji has gone to for you?’ his mother said.

Randeep nodded.

‘Is that a yes?’

‘What’s her name?’

‘Narinder. Narinder Kaur,’ the lawyer said.

‘A nice name,’ Randeep said absently, and his mother hid her smile in a sip of her tea.

Vakeelji was right. It was all done in four days. They drove the next morning to a small, isolated gurdwara about thirty miles outside the city and were married in a short ceremony witnessed only by Randeep’s family, the lawyer, his assistant, the priest, and a few locals who happened to have wandered in. Vakeelji’s assistant brought along a sherwani for Randeep to wear, a long gold-and-maroon kaftan, a little scuffed-looking. Randeep guessed it had been the assistant’s own wedding outfit and that this wasn’t the first time it had been reused. The red turban Randeep wore had been his own grandfather’s. When Narinder arrived, the lawyer took a wedding dupatta from the boot of his Ambassador. She accepted it with both hands, like a gift, and touched it to her eyes and forehead. Then she repaired to the outside toilets, emerging a few minutes later with the dupatta arranged and pinned over her head and chest and shoulders. She smiled at Randeep, who smiled back, and Mrs Sanghera led everyone into the temple, where the priest seemed to have a slight cold as he read from the book. Afterwards, the locals surrounded Mrs Sanghera, nagging her for their wedding gifts. She recoiled – the proximity of these chi-chi village folk was clearly too much. But it seemed Vakeelji had thought of this as well and his assistant proceeded to hand out boxes of sweetmeats. Randeep and Narinder stood apart from all this, looking on.

‘Are you OK?’ he asked.

‘It was so easy,’ she said. She sounded almost annoyed. ‘I don’t know why I didn’t do it before.’

He didn’t know what to say to this. ‘Thank you.’

Vakeelji was calling them. It was time to be going. Narinder ducked into the car and the rest of them watched as the assistant double-clanged the boot shut and drove her off. It was a strange sight: a red bride sitting alone in the back of a black Ambassador.

‘A good girl,’ Mrs Sanghera said.

‘Will we see her tomorrow?’ Randeep asked.

‘No need,’ the lawyer said. ‘We got all the photographs and computers will do the rest. I doubt you will ever have to see her again.’

The wedding cards arrived from the printer the following afternoon and in the evening the lawyer turned up with a photo album and video of the wedding, along with some ‘love letters’ dating back several months. He’d had copies made for the girl which he’d take over in the morning, but first he wanted to sit Randeep and his mother down and explain what would happen next.
So. The girl will go back to England in two days and file for a marriage visa for you. She’ll need to provide savings slips and evidence that the marriage is real. Hence the wedding, the photographs, the letters. Once she has done that we’ll apply for the marriage visa from here. Delhi will call you for an interview and, if successful, the visa will be granted and you will leave for England. Then after one year you will apply for your stamp, your indefinite right to remain. When you get that, you apply for divorce. A year after that you can get full citizenship status and call bhabhi and your sisters over.

‘Years,’ Mrs Sanghera said, falling back against the settee.

‘Not really, bhabhi. He’ll be in England by September.’

‘Only three months?’ Randeep said.

‘You’re paying all this money. It should be quick.’

‘About that, uncle. What about paying Narinderji?’

‘Ji?’ Lakhpreet exclaimed, from the red armchair. ‘Careful, brother.’

Vakeelji said it was all no problem. ‘We’ve given her partial payment now, as I agreed with your mother, so she has savings to show them. The rest she won’t get until it all goes through. So once you are over there I will give you her address and each month you send her what we’ve agreed. But only if you can afford it. She was quite adamant about that.’

Randeep nodded. ‘She’s very kind.’

‘Hmm,’ the lawyer said. ‘The money doesn’t seem that important to her.’

He felt his mother’s hand stroking his hair. ‘Three months and you’ll be leaving me. All alone in another country.’ He wasn’t sure if she meant his loneliness or her own.

The lawyer took one of the apples before him, speaking and eating at the same time. ‘Actually, bhabhi, I have another visa case running at the moment. Nijjar Sahib. The Ambarsar shawl-wallah? He lived in the same block as you.’

‘Shanti’s husband? He is looking for work abroad? At his age?’

‘His son. I forget his name.’ He looked sidelong at Lakhpreet.

‘She has two.’

‘The oldest.’

Mrs Sanghera turned her face to the ceiling, willing the name into being, but then shrugged and gestured vaguely towards her head. ‘The memory, it is going, Harchand.’

‘I thought the two boys could go together. Four eyes are more likely to find work than two. Do you agree?’

She said she supposed she did. ‘And it means Randeep will have someone with him.’

‘Good. That’s settled, then. I’ll arrange things so.’

Lakhpreet stood and excused herself from the room.

*

It was a small, miserable place: steaming dirty towels stacked on the tottery coffee table, a torn blue sheet coming detached from its rail, a lamp in the form of a goldfish and beside that, strangely, disturbingly, the top half of a grandfather clock. The wooden bed was high and his bare feet dangled several inches above the grime of the chequered floor. He could hear the old woman singing to herself, and the clink and splash of metal objects being run under a tap.

‘Won’t be long, child!’ she called.

Avtar tried to smile, failed. He mouthed a silent ‘Waheguru.’

The woman pottered in, humming, carrying a gold-bottomed tray with large French handles. Various sharp-looking things were arranged on it. Very carefully, she placed it on the coffee table, beside the steaming towels.

‘There. All cleany-cleany nicey-nicey.’ She smiled a wide, loose smile, shoulders bunching up, as if he was a little boy and they were about to embark on a nice little adventure. A picnic, perhaps. The smile made her tiny black eyes disappear but brought the rest of her face out in a sudden storm of wrinkles. Her over-washed flower-print dress was cut roughly at the knee and shoulders and her hair was skinned back into a braided rat’s tail. Her name was Nurse Gomes.

She explained that she was going to give him an injection now which would make him all sleepy because once he was asleep she could make a really long cut at the bottom of his ribs. She’d then tie up a few pernickety little tubes before removing the little moon-sock. And then she’d stitch it all back up, do a final clean, and that would be that. Not even one hour it would take. Easy, na? Not one jot thing to worry about.

‘You get the best care with Nurse Gomes!’

At some point during the procedure his eyelids fluttered, making a veil of his lashes. There was pain. A long razoring pain which he couldn’t locate. It seemed to be coming up from his legs. He could hear the old woman. Singing. The snickering of scissors. He tried to lift his head. Too heavy. He moved his lips but no sound came out. Then his eyes closed and he felt himself being taken under again.

When he did wake, blinking in the steady sunlight, the pain was very definitely coming from his stomach. His throat caught. He reeled up and moved his hand to where it hurt. The area was crisscrossed with furry white bandages. He looked around but the place was empty.

‘Madam!’

She came hurrying in, bunny slippers shuffling on the floor. ‘Lie back! Lie back!’ She applied her hands to his shoulders and pushed him down. ‘You must let it mourn. Your body is calling for its missing part. You must let it mourn.’

So he lay there, one hand tamping down the bandages. He lay there all afternoon staring at the damp ceiling. Breathing hard. Gulping down the pain and starting to sweat. The tears slid from the corners of his eyes and pooled into his ears.

In the evening Nurse Gomes placed her shrivelled little hand on his brow and asked if the dear wanted to stay another night.

‘What cost?’ he managed with enormous difficulty.

‘Normal, dear. Always normal.’

‘Thank you, madam, but I’ll be asking your leave if you don’t mind.’

He hauled himself up, head hanging low. Sickness threatened. Sweat dripped from his nose and soaked into the wood. She went away, still singing, and came back with a fussy yellow envelope. He thanked her and secured the envelope into his shirt pocket. She explained that she’d deducted Mr Bhatia’s cut. The hospital desk-man. Avtar thanked her again, pushed off the bed, and, holding his numb left leg, hobbled out.

At the gurdwara, the beds were all gone. He’d have to find a hotel, the granthi said, but first he rested a while, marshalling his strength. When he tried to move on, he couldn’t get up. The priest returned with two younger men who helped Avtar to his feet and pointed out a nearby guest house where he could try and rent a bed. But only mattresses were available there, no beds, so he chose the cheapest one – sheetless, springless, and yellow-stained. He spent two days and nights on the foul, damp thing until the pain began to dissolve. Till his body stopped mourning. Then he washed his face in the sarovar at the gurdwara, tidied his shirt into his trousers and did some calculations. The loan against the shop, plus what savings they had, combined with the operation money, and still he was short. He added it all up again, and then a third time. He looked over to the temple. Why was He making it so hard for them? He walked out of the gurdwara’s gates and took the route across the flyover. Pocket Bhai had been right.

It was the hospital deskman with the bad teeth who’d first told him about Pocket Bhai. He’d said if Avtar needed serious money and quickly, he really only had two choices. Either give up some part of himself – a kidney, say – or go to Pocket Bhai. In some ways it didn’t matter, the deskman went on, chuckling, because if things went wrong with Pocket Bhai both options resulted in the loss of an organ. Avtar ignored the man and had gone to the bank instead, to ask if they’d increase the loan against the business, and then, when they’d refused, he’d gone back the next day, to see if they’d change their mind. There was another week of unsuccessful job searching before he caved in.

Some said Pocket Bhai acquired the name in England during the Seventies – apparently, in that country, if you’d made lots of money you were said to have deep pockets. Others said it was because he always kept one hand stuffed inside the pocket of his kurta, even when eating. And fucking, some joked. He had the sinewy, tough body of a strict self-disciplinarian, and his face was as neat as a ball, with its nothing chin and absent earlobes, its extreme baldness. A small pot of raw orange lentils lay on the table before him. It wasn’t clear what the shop sold. There were a few bits of furniture here and there. Avtar supposed it was all a front for the moneylending. He had already explained his situation on the phone to one of Pocket Bhai’s people – about the student visa, about working in England – but had to go over it all again. He’d pay the money back as soon as possible.

‘Name?’

Avtar told him.

‘Address?’

He thought about lying, but had a feeling he’d only be found out.

‘Come back tomorrow.’

He did, and the orange lentils were still there. Pocket Bhai threw down a stapled wad of notes next to them and Avtar felt himself take a pace backwards. It was bewildering to see that much money made available to him. Beside it Pocket Bhai placed a lemon-pale piece of paper detailing the repayment schedule.

‘My nephews live in the UK. They’ll collect the money every month in person. These are their numbers. As soon as you land you tell them where you’re living. You understand? We give one month to find work and the next month you start paying. You understand?’

He was looking at the amounts he was expected to pay back. It would end up costing more than five times what he’d borrowed. ‘Uncle, I can’t afford that. Maybe lower the rate a bit?’

‘And yet you can afford your brother’s school fees?’

The man had done his checks. He wondered what else he’d learned. Avtar couldn’t do it. It’d be impossible to repay that much on top of the loan against the shop, and who knew what these people would do to his family if he defaulted on his payments. He apologized and said he’d manage without. Pocket Bhai laughed. ‘You’ll come back. They always do.’

And now, not even a month since that visit, Avtar was indeed back, salaaming Pocket Bhai and taking a seat on the bench against the wall. He sat with his weight across his right hip, which dulled the pain slightly.

‘Kidney?’

Avtar nodded. Pocket Bhai sighed.

‘You silly boys. You silly desperate boys.’

When he walked through the door his mother and father were standing at the photo of Guru Nanak hanging on the wall. They’d been worried, they said. He’d been away so long. But was there work, like Nirmalji had promised him?

He nodded. ‘Lots of work. That’s why I stayed longer.’ He took out the yellow envelope and the money from Pocket Bhai and handed it all to his father. ‘I earned enough.’ He sat on the settee. His parents looked at him. He looked at the floor. ‘I’ll see the lawyer about buying me that visa.’

The summer months passed, hot and fume-filled, the air ferrying around spicy waves of shit and diesel. Even the monsoon, when it finally came, gave little respite, and by September Randeep was still wearing his thinnest cotton shirts. He turned up the wall fan and went back to the clothes he’d laid out on his bed. There was a knock on the door behind him.