The Year of the Runaways

8. THREATS AND PROMISES

She’d suggested meeting at Leicester Station. It was more or less halfway for them both and, she’d thought, feeling a little ridiculous even as she’d thought it, she could shout for help if he tried anything. She waited for him under the departure boards. Her hands were buried inside the wide pockets of her cardigan and pulled round to the front, thumbs touching through the material. She looked to the floor and said a faint waheguru. She told herself to calm down. Her shoulder bag slipped and yawned down her arm and a few things fell to the floor. Her phone, a pack of tissues. She crouched to pick them up — a green biro, bus tickets, fingers shaking. She went to the toilets again and sat on the closed lid behind a locked door. She breathed. When she re-emerged onto the concourse he was standing where she had been. He looked exactly the same.

He took her in, up and down, as if surprised that she too wasn’t someone entirely different. ‘Were you waiting to see if I was on my own?’

‘I was—’ She indicated the toilets, then looked beyond him. ‘Is someone with you?’

‘I’m alone,’ he confirmed. He cast his gaze a little above her head. ‘Some of us still keep our promises.’

They walked to the gurdwara near the city centre, a temple they both knew from one wedding or another. They paid their respects, then came down to the langar hall and sat around one corner of a long steel table. A sevadarni brought tea in white styrofoam cups.

‘You live alone?’ he asked.

She nodded.

‘You sure?’

‘Karamjeet, please.’

He paused. ‘Have you been in Sheffield the whole time?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

She looked up, a question on her face.

‘Why Sheffield?’

‘I can’t say. I’m sorry. But please believe that I’m trying to do a good thing. God would not judge me harshly.’

He nodded. ‘I understand. You wanted to get away from me.’

She said nothing, but her face must have shown that there was some truth in what he’d said; when she glanced across she saw that a part of him newly hated her.

On the train down she’d considered telling him everything. There was a chance he’d understand and not inform on her, on them all. She now realized she couldn’t say a word. It wasn’t her risk to take.

‘How’s Baba?’ she asked quietly.

‘How do you think?’

‘And Tejpal?’

‘Angry. Violent. He’s looking for you everywhere.’

‘Will you tell him?’

‘I should.’

She paused. ‘Will you?’

‘Damn you, Narinder! Damn you! Why’d you have to go and ruin everything?’ He kicked the chair beside him, and it wobbled, fell.

The woman in the canteen kitchen looked over. ‘Sab kuch theek hai?’

‘Ji,’ Narinder said.

‘I’m sorry,’ Karamjeet said, and the woman, displeased, returned to her work.

There was a crackle of static as the gurbani started upstairs in the darbar sahib, reaching them through the speakers in each corner of the canteen.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said again, to Narinder this time. ‘But it hurts all over. All of it. The humiliation. How could you?’

She saw that the corners of his eyes were wet. He looked away.

‘I won’t tell them. I said I wouldn’t and I won’t.’

A feeling of shame came over her. She couldn’t look him in the eye. ‘Thank you. And I promise it’s only until the end of the year.’

‘And then? We’ll get married then?’

‘If you’ll still have me as your wife.’

She heard him sigh, half exasperated, half grateful, and he brought his elbows up onto the steel table. ‘We promised God. We promised our parents. We have a duty to honour them both. Of course I’ll still take you as my wife.’

She nodded. ‘Thank you,’ she said again, and they both sat there wondering what else there was to say.

Arriving back in Sheffield that night, she left the station and headed away from her flat. She didn’t know where she was going, and had only a vague apprehension that she needed space, clarity, air. The route took her through suburbs in the south of the city — Nether Edge, Millhouses, Totley — full of brooding Victorian houses under a thin summer moon. Near a church, she stopped and looked across the green depth of the country, at the vast spirit of those giant hills. Is that where He was hiding? Help me, she said. Someone help me. He wasn’t there and she didn’t know why He’d gone. In the past, every leaf, every light in every window, every brick in every wall confirmed His presence beside her, inside her. Tonight, she felt so horrifically alone. She dialled home, but cut off before anyone answered. She resumed walking. Three identical lorries thundered past, shaking the leaves on the trees and whipping her chunni across her face.

*

Coming down the stairs one morning, she noticed blades of grass pressed into the pile of the hallway carpet. Crushed, as if they’d been brought in underfoot. She checked the underside of her own shoes, then descended the last few steps, slowly, her face turned towards the empty flat. Outside, she tried to peer through the window, but the curtain had been drawn right to the edge. Squatters, most likely. She went to the shop to get some meter tokens.

Later, lying in bed, she was woken by the sound of metal being scraped, prodded, a door opening. She sat up. She could feel the fear in her chest. Maybe Karamjeet had told her family. No. She closed her eyes. It was only a squatter, only a squatter, and to prove this, to banish all doubt, she stayed awake the following night. She positioned one of the dining chairs at the window and sat down, lights off. She just wanted to see who it was. The shape of him. Or her. Maybe it was Savraj, she thought, suddenly convinced that it was, then just as suddenly appreciating that it almost definitely wasn’t. She finished her yoghurt and walked over to the bin. It was nearing midnight. She’d give it another hour.

She was fighting sleep when she saw someone coming up the hill. It was a man, and his orange shirt blazed against the night. She inclined her face to try and see his. If only he’d stop looking at the ground. And maybe this wasn’t him anyway. He might only be cutting across the top of the hill to get to the estate beyond. But then he stopped outside her flat and Narinder recoiled from the window. When she looked again, he was staring up at her. A brown face. Did she know him? She lifted her hand to wave, but he hurried out of sight and she heard those metallic sounds again, of a lock being tripped. God, oh God: she ran to the door — it was already bolted — and scouted round for her phone. She could hear him charging up the stairs. She whirled round, desperate. She found the mobile on her bed and stood there staring at it, thumbs poised over the keypad, willing a name, any name, to enter her head. There were knocks on the door. Her stomach fell away. More knocks.

‘Police nu mutth bulaiyio,’ he said. Don’t call the police. ‘Please.’

She hardly saw him. She heard him, coming back at night — Crunchy Fried Chicken, his uniform had read — and sometimes she saw his polystyrene food boxes in the bin outside, but that was all. She hadn’t recognized the accent. Maybe it belonged to one of those southern regions of Panjab she’d never visited. She hadn’t even asked his name. He’d just said he knew Randeep and was going to stay downstairs for a while. He wouldn’t disturb her. She’d nodded, shut the door, bolted it, and listened to his footsteps retreating down the stairs. She’d nearly called Randeep, but the thought of talking to him exhausted her, and he’d be here soon enough anyway, to make his monthly payment. She’d ask him then, if this downstairs-man was still around, that is.

*

At work, Tochi was on his own. Harkiran had brusquely shown him where the potatoes, fish and chicken were kept, how high to fill the hopper and the chipper, when to add the Dry White and in what order to double-fry the fritters, but since then he’d left Tochi to it. He refused to talk to him, even when it came to translating requests from Kirsty. Tochi didn’t care. He was earning good money and had his own place. He answered to no one.

He was on his knees mopping up spilled chicken juice when he saw Avtar in the doorway. His jeans, Tochi noticed, were about an inch too short, white socks showing.

‘Stand up,’ Avtar said, and hurled himself forward, and Tochi stood there taking the blows to his chest, to his face, until Malkeet lifted Avtar off his feet and threw him outside.

He sent Tochi home early that night, saying it might be best if he changed his route. Tochi ignored him.

Outside the flat, he snapped a twig in half and tried to sharpen one end against the other. He’d forgotten his screwdriver and had no other way of tripping the lock. He crouched down, eye to the keyhole, and threaded the twig in, rolling it between finger and thumb. It was useless. The end broke off in the lock and now he’d have to somehow dig it out. The light came on upstairs and he heard footsteps. The door opened.

‘Everything OK?’ she asked, arms folded over her black cardigan.

He stepped past her and into the hall, to his front door. ‘Can I have your pin?’

He jammed it into the lock and rolled it a quarter-turn to the right.

‘Your face,’ she said. ‘It’s bleeding.’

The lock caught and he handed back the pin and disappeared into his flat.

Avtar and Randeep left the house on the hunt for work. They’d been doing this every long day for the last two weeks and so far all they had to show for it were a couple of faint leads — people who said they had friends who might know of building work in the Nottingham area. Avtar left them his number, though he wasn’t optimistic.

‘Nottingham wouldn’t be too far, would it?’ Randeep asked, as they came back in through the kitchen. They split between them the last of some flat orangeade left out on the side, then Randeep went upstairs, saying he was going to check his diary for any contacts they might have missed. Avtar carried on into the front room and slumped into one of the garden chairs. He tapped his phone against his teeth. There must be others. But it was hard to concentrate; all day his stomach had been flexing, and his thoughts started to soften, drift away. When he opened his eyes, Gurpreet was at the windowsill, lifting the net curtain, letting it drop back down. Looking for money. He was in black shorts and a white vest, revealing baggy knees, hairy shoulders, and a topknot many times rubber-banded at the root. Avtar sat forward, Gurpreet turned round and immediately the anxiety in his face converted into something tougher.

‘I thought you were asleep.’ Then: ‘We should kill that chamaar.’

Avtar stood up.

‘Listen,’ Gurpreet said, as Avtar was leaving. ‘Lend me some money. Only till tomorrow. I’m waiting. On a job. I’ll definitely get it. So. I’ll pay you back then. Acha?’ He spoke as if the words in his head were so jumpy he could gather up only a few at a time. His fingers were twitching, Avtar noticed, and a sallow yellow pushed through the skin under his eyes.

‘Sorry,’ Avtar said, and as he climbed the stairs he realized the vents in his jacket had been inside-outed. Fortunately, he kept no money in them.

He used a tablecloth to lift the pan and pour the boiled water into their iron bucket, adding a small amount of cold from the tap. He took the bucket and the letter up to his room. He’d been expecting the letter: Cheemaji had already rung to say he’d forwarded it on. He sat in a straight chair, rolled his jeans up past his knees and slowly, wincing, let his blistered feet sink into the steaming water. The bucket was a narrow one, forcing his knees tight together, and as the water rose up past his calves it spilled over.

One corner of the envelope bore the shield of the college, and the London address on the sticky label had been crossed out with two decisive red lines and replaced with this Sheffield one. Avtar turned the envelope over, then back again. He ran his fingernail along the seam and jiggled out the folded white sheet of paper. A column of Fs. Below it, a short paragraph confirmed he’d failed his first year. If he wanted to continue at the college, the letter went on, then his only option was to retake all the modules. If he wanted to exercise this option a form was enclosed. Please could he fill it in, along with an indication of how he intended to pay the fees: in a single lump sum before term began, or in regular monthly instalments.

He rang his father, waking him up, and told him his visa had been renewed for another year.

‘So you passed?’

Avtar hesitated. ‘Yes.’

His father roused Avtar’s mother, and she said she’d go to the temple tomorrow and distribute some mithai.

He had a few pounds left on his phonecard and knew he ought to call Lakhpreet and tell her the good news too. The dialling tone seemed to stretch time: a beep, a long pause, another beep. She answered: ‘Hello?’

They couldn’t speak for long, and afterwards he sat looking at the yellow screen of his phone. She was out at the cinema with her friends. Enjoying herself.

‘Can I call you tomorrow?’ she whispered.

‘Fine.’

‘Jaan? I’ll definitely call you tomorrow, OK?’

‘I’m doing this for you, you know. You and my family and all our futures. Do you even think of me while you’re out enjoying yourself? Think of me living here — ’ he drew his finger along the side of the chair and brought up thick dirt — ‘living here in this squalor?’

He wished he’d not been so angry. He mustn’t start hating her. He mustn’t let this life change him. He groaned and, with what energy he had left, dredged his feet out of the bucket of cooling water.

*

She was quick to open the door, which Randeep took as a positive sign. Ever since the inspectors’ visit she’d not once invited him in. Maybe this month would be different.

He was still panting a little from the climb. ‘For you.’

She took the envelope, thanked him. ‘I was starting to worry. He comes tomorrow to collect it.’

‘I’m only three days late.’

‘I know. I didn’t mean anything by it.’

‘And I did send you a message.’

‘I know. Thank you.’

He smiled, hopeful, not sure what to say next. He’d planned on telling her about their job troubles, but there seemed no point. She didn’t even care enough to ask him up. He worried he was making a fool of himself.

‘Well, see you next month,’ he said.

‘Aren’t you going to see if your friend’s in?’

So he was here. Randeep had already tried looking in through the window — it had been too dark. ‘He’s not my friend.’

‘Oh.’

‘He’s not a good person. He stole Avtar bhaji’s job. It’s his fault we’re struggling.’

‘How can you steal someone else’s job? Isn’t that up to the boss?’

‘He did.’

He could tell she thought he was making it up, or making it sound worse than it was.

‘He’s a chamaar.’ It sounded like he’d said it to clinch the argument, though he wasn’t sure he’d meant it like that. He wasn’t sure why he’d said it at all. Did he think she’d like him the more for it? And now she was withdrawing, saying goodbye, that she’d see him again next month.

He didn’t know why she was being so cruel, always shutting him out. Had he offended her in some way? She couldn’t still be annoyed about the inspectors. He slipped his shirt onto its hanger and hung it in the wardrobe. Then he moved to the swivel-mirror and inspected his armpit hair — it seemed thicker nowadays — and flexed his biceps. There was definitely some thickening there as well, he told himself, if he looked at it in the right way. The door opened and Gurpreet came in.

‘You’re meant to knock,’ Randeep said.

‘You on your own? Where’s your friend?’

‘Out.’

Gurpreet glanced around the room, at Tochi’s mattress, sheetless and laid on its edge, as if awaiting removal. ‘I thought you two were going to buddy up in here?’

‘No,’ Randeep said, though he had asked Avtar. He’d said something about Randeep needing to be more independent, which had hurt.

‘Right. Anyway, I’ve just been tipped off about a job. You want to come?’

‘You’ve got a job?’ He sounded incredulous.

‘You coming or what? Or do you have to ask your friend?’

After walking for some twenty minutes, Randeep found himself in a loveless part of town he wasn’t sure he recognized.

‘There isn’t a job, is there?’

Since leaving the house, Gurpreet hadn’t answered any of Randeep’s questions. A woman, prostitute, is that who he was going to meet?

‘I want to go back,’ Randeep said, halting, just as a pub appeared, a mouldy green thing squatting on the corner.

‘There it is. How much you got on you?’

It was a rundown place, all chipped mahogany, powder-pink booths and John Smith’s beermats. On the walls were hemispheres of frosted glass, and inside each glowed a dense yellow orb. They took their drinks — a whisky, neat; a lemonade — and made for the corner seat furthest from the bar.

‘We shouldn’t stay long,’ Randeep said.

‘Give it a rest,’ Gurpreet mumbled, and brought the glass to his lips, eyes widening.

They drank in silence. Then Gurpreet pulled a knife out of his pocket and laid it across his lap.

‘Why do you carry that everywhere?’ Randeep asked, looking around. The half a dozen or so customers seemed busy drinking, smoking.

‘Hm?’

‘Have you ever used it?’

He seemed to consider this. ‘Once or twice.’

‘When?’

Gurpreet laughed, almost into his shoulder. ‘When people don’t do as I say. When I’m with a woman.’ He looked across. ‘You’re shocked.’

Randeep moved his head, carefully, side to side.

‘We all need love, little prince. And we all love differently. Some women like it.’ He picked up the knife and turned the blade over. ‘Some women like it when I hold it against their throat, ever, ever so lightly. You know?’

Randeep nodded, like someone trying to follow a complicated argument.

Gurpreet took a long sip of his whisky, savouring it. ‘But, yeah, I’ve killed. Sometimes you have to.’

He didn’t think he believed him. ‘How many?’

‘In England?’

Suddenly, Randeep felt conscious of how he was sitting, of his half-sleeved goose-pimpled arms just hanging there at his sides. He gathered them up in a fold across his chest.

‘It gets easier,’ Gurpeet said. He seemed to be enjoying himself and extended his arm across the back of the seat. ‘Especially when things get desperate and people won’t tell you where they hide their money.’ He met Randeep’s gaze. ‘Where do you keep your money, little prince?’

‘I want to go.’

‘Do you know the way?’

Randeep said nothing.

Again, Gurpreet laughed. ‘Another?’

‘I’d like to go.’

‘Another.’

They had enough for one more whisky and Gurpreet seemed to take twice as long drinking it. Amber beads attached wetly to the ends of his moustache, and perhaps it was looking at these that was bringing about the queasy feeling in Randeep’s stomach. At last they got up to leave. The pavement ran uphill and the streetlights had come on, and as they walked in and out of these grim pools of yellow light it seemed to Randeep that they were going at an achingly slow pace. Each time he quickened up, Gurpreet would ask what the hurry was.

‘It’s getting late.’

At the Botanical Gardens, Gurpreet stopped at the locked gates.

‘Through here, then, yeah?’

Randeep wavered. The darkness there seemed of a stronger concentration, turning the trees black, the rest invisible.

‘Come on. Thought you were in a hurry?’ Gurpreet lifted one foot to the padlock, heaved over the metal gatepost and jumped down on the other side. ‘Easy.’

‘Maybe I should just meet you at home.’

‘Oh, for the sake of your sister’s cunt. Fine.’

Though he knew he shouldn’t fall for it, he could see Gurpreet in the morning, telling the others what a wimp he’d been. He could see Avtar frowning. He started pulling himself up, hand over hand.

‘Good,’ Gurpreet said when Randeep landed at his side, and they took the path between two hedges.

The rose bushes looked strange in the summer night, like many-eyed creatures watching them pass. There was only the crunch of gravel underfoot and the gentle zooms of city traffic.

Gurpreet pointed. ‘Let’s go down here a second.’ It was a short dirt path that seemed to lead nowhere.

‘But home’s this way.’

‘I need a piss.’

Randeep went down a little of the way, then turned round and waited. A branch hung low in front of his eyes, quivering with the work of some animal up above. He heard Gurpreet unzipping, then the strong thrum of piss striking soil. He looked up the path, trying to work out where the main exit was, how long it would take. It couldn’t be far, surely. Then he jumped. Gurpreet, hand clapped on Randeep’s shoulder. Whisky on his breath.

‘Why so jittery?’ he laughed.

Randeep tried to laugh, too. ‘You just surprised me.’

Miraculously, one by one the streetlights came into view, and the gate appeared, almost haloed in dingy orange. Randeep breathed out. ‘The gate.’

‘So where’s your money hidden, little prince?’

Randeep looked — Gurpreet was reaching for his knife — and pelted for the gates, yelling, ‘Help! Help!’ while Gurpreet jogged, laughing, on behind.

They were at the house in minutes, Randeep turning the key and letting them in. He flicked on the hallway light.

‘OK, my friend. Enough joking for one day. Till tomorrow,’ Gurpreet finished, and disappeared into the lounge, shutting the door. Randeep sank back against the wall. The house was quiet. There were probably only a handful of them here now, dotted about the three floors. He supposed it could be true and Gurpreet had killed in the past. Still, it was embarrassing to think how scared he’d been. Help! Help! He cringed and went up to his room and fell face down onto the mattress.

Narinder tried a different plug socket, even a different CD. Still the stereo wouldn’t play. It had been the same the previous evening, but, as was her habit in matters technical, she’d hoped the thing would’ve sorted itself out overnight. She looked at her watch. 7.30. The whole long day stretched ahead, silent and flat. The only person she’d spoken to in the last week had been Mr Greatrix. She took her cereal bowl to the sink, washed it, came back, saw a green-beaked pigeon waddling along the window. 7.32. She took her chunni from the back of the chair and her coat from the table.

She hadn’t set off with the intention of going to the gurdwara — or going anywhere else — but she seemed to just end up here, sitting in the langar hall while the morning service crackled through the speakers. A woman arrived with tea. She was young, perhaps the same age as Narinder, with a wide, pleasant face on a frame that was stout without being fat. Her red bindi was a little off-centre and her bridal bangles thick. She was from Panjab, clearly.

‘Sab theek hai, pehnji?’ she asked.

‘Ji?’

‘You look like there’s a lot on your mind. Is everything all right at home?’

‘Ji. Thank you.’

Narinder recognized the woman — she’d seen her once or twice working in the canteen — and now she noticed the low-slung swell of the woman’s stomach.

‘Please sit down,’ Narinder said. ‘You should rest.’

The woman eased onto the chair opposite, arranging her shawl over the bump. ‘I’ve not seen you for a while.’

‘No. I’ve not done much seva recently. I’m sorry.’ Since Karamjeet’s letter she’d avoided the place. It was less risky to stay indoors.

‘Well, I’m glad to see you again. Someone my own age. Are your people from Sheffield?’

‘I don’t know anyone in Sheffield,’ Narinder replied, in a quiet voice that made her sound grave.

With some clumsiness, the woman reached across and touched Narinder’s hand. ‘Me neither.’

Her name was Vidya and she was here with her husband. They were illegals from Haryana — not Panjab — and had married and got quickly pregnant in the belief that a child born in this country would guarantee a stamp for them all.

‘But it’s not true,’ Vidya said. ‘The rules changed years ago. I could kill him.’

‘So what will you do?’ Narinder asked.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Where will you have the baby?’

Vidya threw her hand in the air and kept it there, as if waiting for a ball to drop into it. ‘He can sort it out,’ though whether she meant God or her husband Narinder wasn’t certain.

By their third meeting they were sharing more, though both women seemed to sense that much was being left unsaid, and had to be. Narinder liked her. She was funny, often at the expense of the stern old women who thought they owned the canteen. ‘Enough hair on her lip to weave a menjha,’ Vidya would say, as Narinder tried not to laugh. Soon and more than anything else she looked forward to the mornings Vidya would be there.

‘You should get a job,’ Vidya said.

Narinder took the thaals from her and started hosing them down at the sink.

‘I said you should get a job.’

‘I know. I’m thinking. I’ve never had a job.’

‘All day alone in that flat isn’t good for you.’

‘I don’t have any qualifications.’

‘Not all jobs need qualifications.’

Narinder squeezed the giant bottle of washing-up liquid until her fingers touched through the plastic. All she got was bubbles and farts.

‘Well?’

‘I’ll think about it.’

Vidya collected and returned with more dirty dishes. ‘You’re very strange.’

‘That I am,’ Narinder agreed.

‘You’re brave enough to come and live in a strange city on your own. But you’re too scared to do anything else.’

Narinder had never thought herself brave. She only did things when called upon, when He told her a great injustice was occurring right in front of her face.

‘Our gurujis led me here. I wasn’t being brave.’

*

The curve in the roof of the bus shelter forced Avtar to kneel with ankles crossed. Climbing had never been difficult for him. As a conductor he’d often monkeyed up onto the roof to confront fare-dodgers. From here he could see all the way to the yard of the chip shop and its white back door, beside which was the stack of empty chicken crates. He looked at his phone. It was twelve minutes past. Maybe the shop had got busy. But then the door opened and Harkiran emerged, briefly, and dropped into the top crate a bulging carrier bag. Avtar gave a small fist-pump. Now all he needed was the miss-call from his friend to confirm everyone was out of the way. And here it was, his phone buzzing happily in his hand. He threw himself to the ground and sprinted up the road and down the side of the shop, skidding to avoid being seen in the window. He snatched up the bag without really even looking at it and fleetingly thought of Dhano the film horse as he pivoted and set off again.

‘Isn’t that stealing?’ Randeep said, in the kitchen.

Avtar flattened the bag into a circle around the chicken and then, with both hands, and with something approaching reverence, lifted the meat out and onto the wooden chopping board. It was large and fleshy and plump-legged and kingly. Yes. It looked majestic.

‘So you stole it?’ Randeep said again.

‘Shall we just starve, then? That bhanchod gave my job away.’

‘Still,’ Randeep said, though he had to admit the chicken looked like the best chicken ever. He could hear the saliva in his mouth.

‘Do you know how to take the bits out?’ Avtar asked.

‘The bits?’

‘You know.’ He flicked his eyebrows to the right, as if indicating someone over there.

‘They have bits?’ Randeep said.

‘Of course they have bits. What did you think they had?’

‘But aren’t they taken out before. . before they get to us?’

Avtar looked at the chicken. ‘Do you think so?’

‘I’m not sure. Where would they be?’

They turned the chicken over so it rolled slightly to one side, and peered in, nostrils doing the opposite of flaring.

The chicken — chopped and curried — provided two meals a day for three days, for all of them. At the end of the third day, Gurpreet slurped up the last of the gravy, licking his spoon clean in a predictably vulgar manner.

‘Good work, Nijjara. You got the next one ordered?’

‘No,’ Randeep said and looked to Avtar for confirmation. But Avtar had a guilty touch about him. ‘Bhaji, think of the risk!’

Chuckling, Gurpreet rested his hands on his turban. ‘Not even a year and stealing like an old hand. You’re on your way.’

They didn’t steal a chicken, in the end. They stole a whole crate of them. The night before, Avtar lay awake calculating how many chickens he could sell and at what price. Each crate contained twenty, he remembered, and at least ten crates arrived every morning. Malkeet wouldn’t miss the one. He wouldn’t even notice. And Avtar figured he could get maybe five pounds for a whole chicken.

‘Two hundred pounds a day?’ Randeep cried, as they watched for the delivery truck.

‘Shh! And it’s one hundred. And I’ll have to give Hari something.’

‘Wow. That was nearly a whole week on the hotel. But what if we’re caught?’

‘Drop the chickens and run,’ Avtar said, and they looked at each other and laughed.

When the truck came past — Northern Foods Ltd — Avtar shimmied up onto the bus shelter and watched it reverse onto the forecourt, obscuring his view of the shop. The delivery guy got out — a friendly Scot called Gordon, Avtar recalled — and the flaps of the truck opened with a squeal.

‘What’s happened?’ Randeep asked him.

The crates were levered onto a pallet and wheeled to Hari. Then Gordon saluted — ‘OK, boss,’ he used to say — and less than a minute later the truck was on the road again.

‘It’s gone,’ Randeep said.

‘Yeah,’ Avtar said, still watching.

Tochi came out and carried one of the crates indoors. It would take him at least five minutes to unwrap twenty chickens and perhaps another five to arrange them in that massive fridge of theirs. He saw what must’ve been Hari’s hand gently closing the door, and then his phone glowed.

‘Go!’ Avtar said, jumping down, running.

They slowed at the corner, making certain the door was still closed, then rushed forward again. Avtar unclipped the catches, detaching the crate from its stack, and gestured urgently for Randeep to grab the other end. And though they started off with it lifted up to their chests, by the time they shuffled past the bus stop their arms were at full stretch and the crate like a swing between their thighs. The chickens were heavy.

All the chickens were sold by the following morning. Avtar sent a text round to every single fauji and scooter he knew, saying he had twenty chickens, each one enough to feed five men two meals a day for three days. Only 5pd. Jaldi! Their last sale was to a cheeky scrote of a Bangla who bought three chickens, intending to eat one and sell the other two at a profit.

‘Right. The next lot I’m pricing at eight pounds,’ Avtar said, coming back into the kitchen. ‘But in the meantime. .’ He grinned and handed Randeep his share. ‘Money! We’ve got money! Can you believe it?’

‘We’re rich!’ Randeep said, circling the money around Avtar’s head, as if he was a groom. ‘We’re rich!’ and they did a little bhangra around the kitchen table, arms aloft, laughing, making up the tune as they went along.

Randeep passed Narinder the envelope, feeling a little smug. ‘Early this month.’

She smiled, which surprised him. She never smiled at him. ‘Thanks, Randeep. I’ll see you soon.’

‘We’re making good money now,’ he blurted out, keen for her to stay.

‘Oh, that is good news. Are you still at the hotel?’

‘No, no, that ended — ’ he counted out loud — ‘nearly two months ago now. We’ve gone into business.’ He waited for her to be impressed.

‘Business?’ she said, though she wasn’t really listening any more, distracted by Tochi coming up the road.

Randeep could feel his face filling with a meld of embarrassment and jealousy. Didn’t she know how humiliating it was for him to be seen standing on her doorstep like this?

Without looking at them, without a word, Tochi sidled past and disappeared into his flat.

‘Sorry What were you saying?’

‘Doesn’t matter,’ he said, deflated. ‘I should go.’

‘Me too. I have plans.’

‘Oh?’ Was she doing something with him? ‘Are you going somewhere?’

‘I am, yes.’ She smiled again, wider. ‘I’m going swimming!’

It had, of course, been Vidya’s idea. At first Narinder pleaded that she’d never been swimming and didn’t even own a swimming costume. Then, once a suitable costume had been sourced, she said she couldn’t be in a pool with naked men. The thought of it seemed outrageous. A week later Vidya announced that she’d found a pool that offered once-a-week ladies-only sessions. ‘We’re going. No more excuses.’

Narinder emerged from the changing rooms in a neck-high elbow-to-knee number. ‘Why are you trying so hard not to laugh?’ she said to Vidya.

‘I’m not! You look great.’

‘I look like a seal.’

There were only three other women in the pool, all brown, and the whole place was thick with the smell of chlorine. At the shallow end, Vidya climbed in first, then waded out, her arms in a circle above the water.

‘Is it good for the baby?’ Narinder said.

‘Just get in, you chicken!’

She clutched the chrome rail and touched her foot to the water. Cold. But not too cold. She put her foot in again and this time left it there. She looked at it, at the water and light rippling over her toes. She lowered herself in, the water coming up over her shins, her knees, all the way up to her thighs. It didn’t stop. It felt like she was being taken over. Shivering, she turned round to face Vidya.

‘Come over here,’ Vidya said. ‘You’ll be fine once you start moving.’

So she started pushing through the water, arms in an X over her chest. The shivering ceased.

‘Isn’t that better?’ Vidya said.

‘It’s still cold.’

‘You need to get your face wet.’

‘What?’

Vidya cupped her palms under the water and splashed Narinder’s face.

‘Pehnji!’

‘Now do this,’ and she pinched her nostrils together and dunked under the water. When she rose back up, her face was glistening, hair drenched. ‘Your turn.’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘Just do it!’

She placed a palm over her face, covering her mouth and nose, and bent to meet the water, not going down vertically like Vidya, but forwards, as if she was bowing for prayer.

Afterwards, Narinder rubbed her hair dry and retied her turban and they stepped back out into the shallow heat of the day.

‘Let’s come again next week,’ she said.

‘You enjoyed it, then?’

They returned to the gurdwara and from there Vidya said she had to head home. Her husband would need his roti before he went to work. ‘But why don’t you come over later?’

‘To yours?’

‘I’ll cook. And you’ll be doing me a favour. It can get a bit scary when he’s away at night.’

She said her prayers, fully if not carefully, then raced home. The day was only getting better. Is this what it felt like, she wondered, to be part of the world, to have the world take you in its arms? She knelt in front of her image of Nanakji and thanked Him for all He was doing for her. Then she chose a mustard salwaar kameez with a white trim, tied on a matching mustard turban, and caught the bus to Vidya’s.

They lived in an unpainted room in a shared semi to the north of the city. The bed took up most of the space. Under the window was a writing desk, too narrow for the three large oval doilies it was dressed in, and the curtains were a lurid red. Narinder helped bring the food up from the kitchen.

‘You’ve made so much. And it smells so good.’

‘I thought you could take some with you. It’s all freezable.’

They ate side by side on the bed, a little inelegantly as the mattress was high and the desk didn’t quite come to their knees. Bhangra tunes blasted from the room next door and several tenants seemed to be arguing. Children screamed.

‘It’s all apneh,’ Vidya said. ‘Faujis.’

‘Does the council own the house?’

Vidya clucked her tongue. ‘A Panjabi. A proper gurdwara sardar type.’

‘Really?’

‘To look at him you’d think he shat pearls. You won’t believe how much rent he charges.’

‘That’s horrible. I’m so sorry.’

‘Why’s it your fault? Our own people are the worst at bleeding us dry.’

The door opened and a man came in, stopping when he saw Narinder. Short, thin, dark. He had stained teeth and ringworm on his hands. He looked as tired a man as Narinder had ever seen.

‘What happened?’ Vidya said.

‘We were sent home.’

‘Why? What happened?’

He nodded at Narinder. ‘Sat sri akal, pehnji.’

She’d already pulled her chunni over her turban and now she brought her hands together under her chin. ‘Sat sri akal, veerji,’ she said, seeing as they were Haryana folk.

He looked at the spread of food on the desk. ‘Heat me some up, will you. I’ll wash my hands.’ He left for the bathroom.

Vidya sighed and, one hand to her belly, slid off the bed. ‘Because of course using a microwave is beneath him. I won’t be long.’

Narinder sat in the dim room feeling that she should leave soon. She heard the toilet flush and through the seam of light where door met wall saw the husband cross the landing and go down the stairs. After maybe a minute, with no sign of either of them, Narinder opened the door and leaned over the top rail. The husband was speaking.

‘Are we that rich that we can waste food on strangers?’

‘Oh, janum, don’t be like that. She’s a friend.’

‘Let her family feed her.’

‘She’s not got anyone here. I feel sorry for her. She lives alone.’

Maybe the husband made some sort of face.

‘Arré, you do know she’s sikhni. You can see that much?’

‘I know exactly what kind of unmarried girls live alone in this country.’

Narinder retrieved her bag from the room and slipped downstairs. They met her in the hallway, the husband’s hand on Vidya’s shoulder, as if warning her.

‘It’s late,’ Narinder said. ‘I should go.’

‘You don’t have—’ Vidya began.

‘I’m sorry if you heard me,’ the husband said. ‘But please don’t come to our house or speak to my wife again. We can’t afford to become involved in other people’s problems.’

Avtar was in the kitchen negotiating a sale when he heard Randeep returning from his visa-wife’s. He shut the door and stomped upstairs. Perhaps it hadn’t gone so well, Avtar thought. He turned back to the sale, to this young fauji who’d bussed it over from Hillsborough.

‘Seven pounds,’ Avtar said. ‘And that’s better than I’ve done for anyone else.’

‘Come on, bhaji. You know what work’s like these days.’ He shook his pocket out onto the counter. ‘Five. That’s all I’ve got.’

‘And how much do you keep in your socks?’

The young man smiled. They agreed on six pounds per chicken and the fauji left with two, one tucked under each arm. As Avtar folded the notes into his wallet, he heard Randeep hurrying back down.

‘What the hell?’ he said, swatting the beads aside.

‘I’ve just sold another two.’

‘Why are there chickens hanging all over my room?’

‘Oh,’ Avtar said, looking up. ‘Oh, yeah.’

‘They’re in my wardrobe!’

‘I ran out of room in the fridge. And your room gets less sun than mine. What else should I have done?’

‘It stinks! I can’t believe. . How am I meant to sleep in that?’

‘It’s not that bad.’

‘Do you want to swap?’ Randeep asked, petulantly.

‘Look, I’ve got more buyers coming over tonight and in the morning. The chickens, they’ll be gone by tomorrow.’

Hari advised them to wait a week before attempting their next crate snatch, until that chamaar was back on the late shifts and out of the way. In the interim Bal drove up and Avtar thudded into his hand a nice thick tube of notes. So keep away from my family, he’d said. The next day he wired his parents enough money to cover the remortgage, and the day after that they headed on down to the chip shop.

‘I told you to wear a belt,’ Avtar said. It was the second time Randeep had stopped to pull his jeans up. ‘You’ll slow us down again.’

‘I don’t have one, yaar. My clothes actually used to fit me.’

They waited at the bus stop, and soon the truck came past, bang on time, and deposited the chickens. As it left, Avtar told Randeep to get ready. There was no miss-call from Harkiran, though. Two minutes passed. Five.

‘Shall we call him?’ Randeep said.

‘I don’t know.’

Then — relief! — the call came and they hurtled towards the shop and round the back, where the beautiful chickens were waiting. Avtar went to flick the catches up but they didn’t snap loose. He tried again. They were stuck. Like they’d been glued. Run, he was about to shout, when a hand closed around his collar: ‘So that’s why my invoices weren’t adding up!’

Malkeet didn’t demand his money back — if anything, it had seemed to Avtar that he half admired their guts — but he did say that if they pulled any stunts like that again he’d be on to the police quicker than they could say detention centre.

‘As if he could ever call the police,’ Avtar seethed, kicking the bus stop so hard the green panel dented. ‘With everything he does!’

9. UNDER ONE ROOF

She continued with the swimming, visiting the leisure centre on her own now. At first she’d gone in the hope of bumping into Vidya, whom she’d not seen at the gurdwara since the night her husband told Narinder to stay away. But Vidya was never at the pool and now Narinder went simply because she enjoyed it, which felt like a scandalous and perhaps even a shameful thing to admit. Sometimes, during the silent unoccupied evenings, she wondered if some change had taken place inside her, or, disturbingly, was taking place inside her, imperceptibly, in the way that the night gives way to dawn. Even if her father and brother had permitted it, she couldn’t ever have imagined herself in a pool with other half-naked people. She supposed it was living on her own that had done it. And now here she was, this afternoon, trying to make roti-dhal for the strange man downstairs. She peeled the roti off the tava and gave the dhal a stir. If her family could see her now! She’d even considered getting a job, and last week had made it all the way to the job centre before talking herself out of it, because who would want to employ someone for — what was it? — five months? When she’d have to return home and marry Karamjeet. And stay married to Karamjeet. Forever. There was a chance that this roti-making for the man downstairs was as much to do with resisting her fate as it was a desire to help, but this thought was too wild to get any sort of purchase on.

The dhal tasted good, though the rotis, which she’d always struggled with, were a little crisp. She hoped he wouldn’t be offended and put it all on a tray and carried it down the stairs. She knew he was in because she’d heard him moving about, pots banging, but when after three knocks he still hadn’t answered she left the food by the door and returned upstairs. She showered and prayed and began work on a five-hundred-piece jigsaw she’d bought the previous week on her way home from the leisure centre. Once complete it promised a tantalizing sea view, the sky impossibly wide, the ocean sun-dappled. A few birds. No people. After two hours she’d perhaps managed only a couple of pieces when the meter started to tick. She fished out a token from her tin beneath the sink and opened the door. The tray of food lay at her feet, untouched.

*

At last Avtar found some work. Harkiran had to head down to Barking for a three-day family wedding and called in case he wanted to cover the security-guard night shift.

‘Of course I do!’ Avtar said, rising from his mattress.

The job was at a copper-pipe factory on Leadbridge Industrial Estate in Attercliffe, and all Avtar had to do was keep watch from his plasticized cabin outside the estate entrance and once an hour patrol the grounds. It was the easiest money he had ever earned. The cabin was small, stuffy with the day’s warmth, and warmed even further by an electric radiator mounted low on the wall. He’d tried to switch the radiator off but it seemed stuck on its high setting. The only furniture was five narrow, armless blue swivel chairs arranged in a row against the window.

‘I’ll do a walk round,’ Avtar said.

Randeep reached for his jacket.

‘Stay You don’t have to follow me everywhere.’

He hadn’t meant to snap, and if Avtar had bothered to look no doubt he’d have seen Randeep gawping glumly after him. But Avtar hadn’t looked. He’d opened the door and walked straight out. He’d told him that this was a one-man job, that he couldn’t afford to split the money. Randeep had said he didn’t care about the money. He just wanted to come.

‘I don’t want to be on my own with Gurpreet.’

‘Don’t be such a wimp,’ Avtar had replied. ‘You won’t get anywhere like that.’

He rounded the last grey block of the factory and ambled towards the perimeter fence. Something about being alone in the night air tended to create a space for compassion, for feeling ashamed. He didn’t know what was happening to his mood lately. He should apologize to Randeep. It wasn’t his fault he was so different from his sister, that he had so little of her fight. Perhaps it was time to tell him about their relationship. It would be good to get him on side before the big confrontation with Mrs Sanghera. But no. He was still too much of a kid in the way he thought of himself. Maybe in a little while, when he seemed a bit more stable. At the perimeter fence, he called Lakhpreet and felt relief when it went straight to voicemail. He wasn’t sure he had anything to say to her: anything she’d understand. He remained at the fence for a while, staring through to the city lights beyond. Where was the work? He was promised work. He had a sudden memory of a disused factory, a staircase, a bell tower. It all seemed so long ago. Everything was moving away from him. Further and further away. At least he could keep Pocket Bhai’s men away from his family for another month. He ran his hand down the wire mesh, his thoughts somehow following, and returned to the cabin.

Their shift finished at six, when Mr Shah, the fur-hatted factory owner, turned up in his second-hand Bentley, and by seven they were back in the house, starving. Avtar checked the boxes of cereal, then the freezer. Gurpreet came through the beads on bare feet.

‘Have you had all the bread?’ Avtar said, shutting the fridge.

‘There wasn’t any atta.’

‘Great.’ He opened one of the top cupboards, looking for a clean cereal bowl. ‘Want some?’ he said to Randeep.

‘I’m leaving next week,’ Gurpreet said.

Avtar looked across. ‘Oh?’

‘To Southampton.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘Past London.’

‘There’s work there?’

‘Maybe.’

‘But you’re not sure?’

‘Who can be?’

Avtar lost interest and shook the cereal into two bowls. ‘Enough to feed a couple of small birds,’ he said, banging the side of the box, getting it to cough out all the crumbs.

‘Lend me some money,’ Gurpreet said.

‘Don’t have any.’

‘You’re working.’

‘Still don’t have any.’

‘I’m not asking for much,’ he said, in a tone laced with desperation.

Avtar said nothing and Gurpreet, furious, punched the doorframe on his way out.

‘Idiot,’ Avtar said, reopening the fridge. He made an exasperated noise and slammed it shut. ‘I bought a whole carton yesterday.’

He looked to Randeep, who was staring at the beads, still swinging. ‘Did you see how much he was shaking?’

‘Gurpreet?’ Avtar picked up his bowl of dry cereal. ‘What’s new?’

Mr Shah paid Avtar for the three nights’ work and agreed to take his number in case of any more shifts in the future.

‘I’ll do any work, janaab,’ Avtar said, dialling up his Urdu. ‘Aap jho fermiyeh.’ Whatever you ask. And then, because he’d heard this Mr Shah liked his poetry, and apropos of nothing at all: ‘Zindagi tho pal bar ka tamasha hai.’ Life is but a spectacle of moments, which had Mr Shah parting his lips a little worriedly.

They left — ‘Khuda hafiz’ — breaking off at the Londis for some bread before making a right onto their road.

‘Zindagi tho. .?’ Randeep said. He hadn’t stopped laughing. ‘Wah, bhai, Mirza Sahib!’

‘Yeah, yeah.’ Avtar popped his collar. ‘You won’t be saying that when he makes me boss of his empire. Lottery, here I come!’

A mellowness had filled the air these last few mornings. The soft clouds had hatched and a pleasant warmth broke across their faces and arms. They were halfway up their road when Avtar stuck his arm out, stalling Randeep.

‘What?’ Randeep asked, his first thought that they’d left something at the factory.

A crowd had formed up ahead.

‘Wait here,’ Avtar said, and passed Randeep the bread and his rucksack. They took their belongings everywhere these days, now that stealing had become so common in the house.

He thought it was only kids fighting, because most of the crowd looked to be teenagers on their bikes, but then he saw the van and the policewoman standing guard at the gate. The rear doors of the van swung open, though the angle was too oblique to see inside. Head down, he moved right, into the road, and looked again. Two of their housemates were in there, hands cuffed in their laps. One was staring at the roof of the van. There was shaving foam down the side of his face.

‘Walk. Now,’ Avtar said, returning to Randeep, taking his rucksack back.

They turned the corner, feet eating up the pavement. ‘Police?’ Randeep asked.

Avtar nodded. ‘Raid. Keep walking.’

They were so wired, they were almost running around the city. They kept turning their faces to the sky, thanking God, saying that He really must be smiling down on them. How lucky they’d been! By the evening, however, the adrenalin had gone, and neither felt like laughing much.

‘We’ve got nowhere to go,’ Avtar said, dropping onto a bench outside the station.

‘The gurdwara?’ Randeep suggested.

‘Too risky, yaar.’

‘We could just eat and leave.’

Avtar brought his rucksack up to the bench and pulled out the loaf of bread. ‘You go if you want. Your visa’s fine. They take one look at mine and it’s over.’

They shared what food they had, including a bag of peanuts Avtar had bought, and found a warm spot between two large green recycling bins.

‘This isn’t too bad,’ Avtar said, arranging his rucksack.

‘I need to pee.’

‘I told you to go at the station.’

‘I didn’t need one then, did I?’

Randeep got up and walked to a bush further down the road. When he came back Avtar was already asleep.

In the morning Avtar retrieved his ringing mobile from the bottom of his rucksack.

‘It’s Gurpreet,’ he said.

‘He wasn’t in the van, was he?’

‘He must’ve got away.’

They met him at the station, which was where Gurpreet said he’d spent the night. His white vest was ripped across the stomach. He’d jumped the fence, he said. He saw the van coming up the road and had hurdled — ‘Hurdled!’ Randeep repeated — at least three gardens before hiding in one of the gennels.

‘I saw you two walking past,’ he finished.

‘You saw us?’ Avtar said. ‘You saw us and let us carry on walking up? Did you want us to get caught?’

Gurpreet smiled, spat at the ground. ‘Bygones. You got any money? I’m fucking starving.’

They bought a burger each from the station kiosk and gulped water from the taps in the toilets. Even if they could have shaken Gurpreet off, there was more chance of finding work if they stuck together.

‘Maybe we should go see your Narinderji,’ Gurpreet said.

‘I thought you were going to Southampton?’ Randeep said.

‘You paying for my ticket? I can’t hide for six hours.’

‘She won’t let us stay.’ The idea of turning up at her flat appalled him. And it would appal her. He wouldn’t put her in that predicament. ‘No. We can’t. It wouldn’t be fair to her. She won’t like it. She won’t even let us through the front door.’

‘She might.’ It was Avtar, turning round from the departure boards. ‘She might. If she’s so into helping others.’

Avtar and Gurpreet promised to wait down the road and out of sight while he went upstairs to speak to her.

She answered the door in one of her usual cardigans. ‘Randeep? So soon?’

He asked if he might come inside, that it was important.

She turned side-on. ‘Is everything OK? Are we in trouble?’

‘There was a raid,’ he said, sitting down. ‘Luckily I managed to get us all out in time.’

‘Oh my God!’ A hand went to her mouth. ‘So, the police? They’re on their way?’

‘No, no. Please don’t worry. That’s what I mean — we got away. We’re fine. But, obviously, we can’t go back there and — well — Avtar bhaji wondered if we could stay here for a bit.’

‘Here?’

‘I said it’s not fair and that you won’t like it, but they made me come and ask.’

‘Is it the two of you?’

‘Three,’ he said, and felt a rush of hope that she might like him enough to agree.

‘There’s no room. And I’m not going to have three men living here. It’s not right. It’s not what we said.’

‘I understand.’ He got up to leave. He was her husband, in name if nothing else, and it was humiliating to have had to lower himself in front of her like this.

She walked him to the top of the stairs. ‘You do have somewhere else to go?’

‘We’ll be fine. Like I said, please don’t worry.’

He rejoined the others, shaking his head as he approached.

‘What?’ Avtar said, shocked. ‘She said no?’

‘Of course she said no. Any decent girl would.’

‘Put your foot down,’ Gurpreet said.

‘Did you tell her we’ve got nowhere else to go? That we’re homeless?’

Randeep let his silence give its own impression.

‘Who does she think she is?’ Avtar said. ‘Walking round with her turban in the sky.’ He marched up the hill and rang the buzzer even as Randeep tried to pull him away.

The door opened only a few degrees. ‘Ji?’

‘Call yourself a daughter of God? How can you look in the mirror when you’ve just left us to die on the streets?’

Randeep remained with Narinder at the doorway, his suitcase on the floor in front of him. Avtar was plugging in his phone charger. Gurpreet had his head in the fridge.

‘Thank you,’ Randeep said. ‘I know this isn’t easy for you.’

‘I should move my things,’ she said, indicating the shrine.

‘I’ll make sure we’re not here long. I promise.’

‘How long?’

‘A week. I’m certain bhaji will have found somewhere else for us by then.’

‘OK. A week. But no longer, please. Someone might see,’ she added.

He nodded. He understood. She was worried her family would hear she was living in a house full of men. ‘I promise I’ll do my best.’

‘We’ll be out looking for work during the day,’ Avtar said, joining them. ‘You won’t see us.’

‘This where I’m sleeping, then?’

They turned round. Her bedroom door had been opened and Gurpreet stood inside.

‘Looks comfy.’

She charged forward and told him to get out, shutting the door hard behind him. ‘Stay away from my room. Is that understood?’

They moved the settee away from the window and laid two blankets, folded lengthways, in the space created. Avtar and Randeep took these. Gurpreet lay snoring on the couch.

‘What you doing?’ Randeep asked Avtar. He was messaging on his phone, had been for some half an hour.

‘Nothing,’ he said, drawing the mobile closer to his chest, though not before Randeep thought he’d glimpsed. . something. His sister’s name? He must have misread. He must be missing his family, seeing their names everywhere. And, of course, there were a million Lakhpreets out there. So many. It all became too much even to think about. He blew the hair from his forehead — it needed a cut — and stared at the tiny fissures in the ceiling. There were noises outside, footsteps brushing the pavement. He moved onto his knees at the window and saw Tochi in his uniform, counting his money as he walked.

‘Him?’ Avtar asked.

Randeep nodded.

‘What’s he doing?’

Randeep lay back down, closed his eyes. ‘Nothing.’

They tried every convenience store and off-licence and takeaway joint; they asked the man picking litter off the streets and the woman wiping tables in Burger King; they asked construction workers cordoning off a part of the road.

‘You’re idiots!’ Gurpreet said. He was several metres behind, stopping for a pull on his half-bottle of whisky. ‘There is no work!’

‘Where’d he get the money for that?’ Avtar said. ‘Were you short this morning?’

‘A bit.’

‘I’ve told you. Keep it safe.’

At the end of the week, Randeep knocked on Narinder’s bedroom door and she came out to meet them.

‘We’re sorry,’ he said, ‘but could we stay here a little longer?’

‘Randeep!’ she said, despairing.

‘I’m sorry. I hate having to ask you. But we’ll definitely find work next week. Won’t we?’

Avtar said nothing. He seemed completely embarrassed to be standing there.

‘And then I can pay you as well,’ Randeep said. ‘I’d have enough for this month, but I need to send Mamma—’

‘It’s not about that.’

Randeep nodded. ‘Of course.’

‘OK. But just one more week. Please?’

‘Thank you.’

Narinder began to retreat into her room.

‘One more thing?’ Randeep said.

She waited for him to go on, but he went to the window first, to check Gurpreet was still outside with his cigarette. Then he plucked a healthy roll of notes from the inside of his sock and held it out to her.

‘It’s not safe having money here. With Gurpreet bhaji. We wondered if you’d mind keeping it locked in one of your cupboards for us?’

She took the money from him, and then Avtar crouched down too. His was a much thinner roll than Randeep’s. It seemed to Narinder a pitiful amount for someone to be left with, after nearly a year in this country, and as the money passed between them she looked up and saw his embarrassment only deepen.

*

Narinder reread the letter she’d composed the previous evening. It contained nothing she hadn’t already told them — that she was fine and would be back soon. On the other side of the door, Randeep and Avtar were talking. Something about a track and Hari’s roommate and it being only a one-man job. And then the door closed. She rose a little off the end of her bed and saw Avtar jogging down the hill, rucksack bumping against his shoulder. Only three days left, she reminded herself. Then they’ll be gone. She set the letter underneath her pillow and went out into the main room. Randeep looked up, miserably, his mouth dismaying her with its self-pity.

‘Bhaji’s got a job.’

‘Oh. But that’s great, isn’t it?’

He looked back at his phone. ‘I guess. I’ve got to stay here and go through our contacts again.’

Gurpreet was still asleep, an empty bottle held lovingly to his chest.

‘I keep asking him not to drink here,’ she said.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and she wished she’d not mentioned it.

She took a cloth and some polish from under the sink and returned to her room. He could hear the spray can. Housework. It was the least he could do, so when she came to make a start on the kitchen he took the can from her.

‘You don’t have to,’ she said.

‘I’d like to.’

‘Well, OK, but why don’t you go pick up some meter tokens? We’re running out. The shop’s—’

‘I know the shop.’ He looked at her. ‘You forget I got you your first tokens. The pink ones, remember? Not the white ones.’

‘I do. You were very kind to me. You even cleaned the whole place. Thank you.’ She glanced to the floor as she said this, as if she’d not always been as kind to him.

He checked that Gurpreet was still asleep, then smiled unconvincingly at Narinder. ‘I won’t be long.’ She heard him running down the stairs.

She picked up the can and sprayed a line across the kitchen table. She’d just finished polishing the table legs — was she the only person in the world who did that, she wondered — when she saw Gurpreet staring at her.

‘You’re awake,’ she said, standing up, suddenly self-conscious.

He sat up, the settee succumbing with a groan, the empty bottle still in his hand. ‘Sorry, sister. But carry on. It’s so nice watching you put the shine on those legs.’

She moved away to the worktop, applying polish to the counter at roughly equal intervals. She heard him put the bottle on the coffee table.

‘You should get a telly,’ he said. ‘You won’t be so bored, then.’

‘I have enough to occupy my time.’

‘Hmm. Well, there are other ways I can stop you from getting bored.’

She turned round, twisting her body. ‘You have no right to speak to me like that.’

‘Why don’t you tell me about my rights, sexy sister? Come here and tell me everything.’

‘Stop. You either stop, or leave.’ She realized her hands were trembling.

‘All calm and godly on the outside. But there’s a proper little fire going on — ’ his eyes moved to a point past her waist — ‘down there.’

‘I said, stop it!’

He was grinning as he stood up and she thought she was going to yell when Randeep walked in. He had milk and a loaf of bread in one hand, keys in the other, and put all three things on the dining table.

‘The tokens are in. And I thought we’d have toast,’ he added, looking from Narinder to Gurpreet, back to Narinder. ‘Everything all right, Narinderji?’

Very calmly, she put down the cloth, then the spray can, and went into her room.

‘What did you do?’ Randeep asked, and Gurpreet pitched up his shoulders and threw his arms in the air, as if to say, Women!

She re-emerged in her coat. ‘I’ve got a letter to post and then I’m going to the gurdwara. I’ll be back by the evening. I don’t think he should be here when I return.’

‘And who’s going to throw me out? Your chamcha here? Just remember, one phone call from me and your little game is over.’

‘Shut up!’ Randeep said.

She took her lilac chunni from the hook. Randeep waited until he heard the front door close.

‘Did you touch her?’

‘Maybe. Maybe she’s angry because she let me.’

‘She wouldn’t go near you.’

‘Give me the change,’ Gurpreet said, palm out.

‘There wasn’t any.’

‘Get me some money, then.’

Randeep ignored him and put the milk and bread in the fridge. Behind him, Gurpreet entered Narinder’s room.

‘What are you doing?’ Randeep said, coming to the doorway.

‘What’s it look like?’ and, half clothed, he got into her bed. ‘That bhanchod settee. Narrow as a cat’s tongue.’

‘She told you to get out.’

But Gurpreet only turned over, his head vanishing under one of the soft pillows.

Randeep ate his toast, dry. He should have thought to buy some butter, maybe jam too. Then he sat down and sent perhaps four or five half-hearted messages before he felt his eyes going and promised himself it’d only be a very short nap. He was woken by a clattering sound from the other side of Narinder’s door.

‘You up?’ Randeep said, walking in.

Gurpreet was kneeling at the foot of her wardrobe, the drawers all tipped open, her clothes crashed to the floor on their coat hangers. The bedside cabinets lay upended, ransacked.

‘Are you crazy!’ Randeep yelled.

‘She’s got to keep her money somewhere.’ He was shaking again, wiping his runny nose along his arm. He shoved past Randeep and into the kitchen.

‘Just get out!’ Randeep shouted, as he started righting her cabinets, picking the lamps off the floor. Her shrine would have to be rebuilt. ‘You’re going to ruin it for all of us!’

He could hear him in the kitchen, opening and slamming cupboards, cussing, crockery rattling. And then, silence. Randeep listened. Perhaps he had found the money? But no, because here was Gurpreet’s voice, loud with an intimation of controlled hilarity, as if he was reciting: ‘A beautiful flat for a beautiful person. And a new start for us both. .’

Randeep ran into the room.

‘7 am at your service day and night. And night, eh?’

‘Give it here.’

Gurpreet held the note high and away.

‘It’s mine,’ Randeep said, stretching, but Gurpreet moved the thing behind his back.

‘I’m sure dearest Narinderji would love to see this.’

‘She probably already has, OK? So just hand it over.’

‘What’s it worth?’

‘I’m not giving you money.’

‘Oh, I think you will. Because think how embarrassed you’ll be when she sees it. When Avtar sees it. They’ll think you’re an even bigger loser than they already do.’ He turned, walking away, sashaying his hips, and brought the note up to his face. ‘If I may be of any assistance. .’

Randeep ran at his back and sent Gurpreet tripping to the ground. There was the dull crack of his head hitting the coffee table. Randeep stepped back, swallowing. Gurpreet lumbered to his feet, a trail of blood near his left eye.

‘You’re dead.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Randeep said, and raised his hands.

One punch to the side of his face threw Randeep to the floor, onto his hands and knees. The shock made it hard to breathe. He could feel a red throbbing somewhere. Everything seemed tilted on its axis.

‘I’m sick of rich cunts like you having it so cosy all the time.’ He heard Gurpreet’s voice, distant. His hand seemed to be on the back of Randeep’s neck. He had a faint revelation that that was why he couldn’t breathe.

‘Where you keeping it?’ Gurpreet said, squeezing.

‘I can’t. .’

There was something else, a sound, something being hacked at, looped around his neck. A rope. A lead. A belt. It was pulled tight. Randeep reared up, fingers clawing at his neck.

‘Where?’ Gurpreet said, yanking, coiling the lead into his fist.

He couldn’t speak. Could only look. He felt his eyes straining to leave his face. On the carpet. Gurpreet’s flick knife. Open. He launched his hand towards it.

Avtar hoped Hari’s room-mate had been genuine when he said he’d call him again. The work at the track hadn’t been bad and he’d seemed honest enough, though that was getting harder to judge. He climbed the stairs to the flat, tired, made even more so by the thought of a workless afternoon ahead. The door opened and Randeep stood there. He looked frightened, panicked even.

‘He won’t let me call an ambulance.’

‘What’s happened?’ Avtar said, shutting the door.

‘We need to call an ambulance.’

Gurpreet lay slumped behind the settee, his head thrown back to the windowsill. His Adam’s apple was pulsing hard, and his mouth hung sloppily open, as if at any moment it might slip right off his face. His hand, gripping his side, was covered in blood.

‘God.’

‘I put a bandage round,’ Randeep said.

‘You did this?’

Gurpreet spoke, breathing out each syllable. ‘No. Am. Bu. Lan.’

Avtar crouched beside him. Gurpreet slid his eyeballs across.

‘They might not send you back,’ Avtar said.

‘No. Am. Bu. .’ He couldn’t go on.

‘Is there anyone we can call? Do you know anyone who can sort this out?’

Gurpreet turned his face to the ceiling and closed his eyes.

‘Let’s get an ambulance, bhaji. Please. He’s not thinking straight. What if he dies?’

With a hand on the windowsill, Avtar pushed up onto his feet, slowly, thinking. ‘Where’s your Narinderji?’

‘Out. She could be back any minute.’

‘Call her. Make up a reason. Find out how long she’s going to be.’

‘Why?’

‘Just do it.’

A door shut downstairs and he saw Tochi heading towards the bus stop. ‘He’s on lates, isn’t he?’

‘Who?’

Avtar took a knife from the cutlery drawer.

‘Shall I still call her?’

‘No,’ he said, and hurried down to the lower flat.

Tripping the lock was easy, and, inside, it seemed as if Tochi only ever used the front room and maybe the kitchen. The bathroom had been gutted, wood everywhere. In the shower tray sat the white-bottomed trunk of a toilet. He cleared a space by the door and vaulted back up the stairs.

‘We’ll have to put him down there until it gets dark.’

‘But what if he dies?’

‘He won’t die,’ he said, uncertainly.

Carefully, they folded him into one of their blankets so that he wouldn’t trail blood, and with even greater care carried him down. They laid him curled to the bathroom door. Avtar took a closer look at the bandage and bound it tighter — ‘We’ll get you help’ — while Randeep went back up to fetch a glass of water.

They washed the knife and Randeep zipped up his tracksuit top to cover the bruise on his neck. There were a few bloody handprints on the wall and a large stain absorbed into the carpet where Gurpreet had been lying. The handprints mostly washed away, but the stain didn’t, so Avtar cut the carpet out and said they’d have to move the settee back and hide the hole. Then they sorted the mess in Narinder’s room. Throughout all this Avtar kept making Randeep go over what had happened.

‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me,’ Randeep said, when he’d finished. He sounded close to tears.

‘He was killing you. You didn’t have a choice.’

‘But he might die!’

‘Do you want to go to prison?’ Avtar said, raising his voice. ‘Because I’m not being sent back because of this bhanchod, do you understand? OK? So let’s try and stay calm. It’s too light now but we’ll get him out before that chamaar comes back.’

They checked on him two or three times every hour — the level of his water, the quality of his breathing — and when Narinder returned at dusk they stared at her, waiting for her to speak, notice.

‘Has he really gone?’ she said from the kitchen table.

‘You told him to leave,’ Avtar said, almost accusatory.

‘I know. I know. But where will he go?’

Avtar paused. ‘He’ll find somewhere.’

‘I was angry,’ she said, fingers closing around a rung of the chair. ‘I hope he’s not on the streets.’

‘Like I said, he’ll find somewhere.’

They had a dinner of roti-dhal, eaten mostly in silence. Randeep’s spoon kept clinking the side of his bowl.

‘Your hand’s shaking,’ Narinder observed.

‘I wanted to ask you where the doctor’s is,’ Avtar said swiftly. ‘My stomach’s playing up.’

‘There’s a surgery at the top. Past the shop and left down one of the roads. There’s a big blue sign outside. You’ll have to register as a patient first, though.’

Avtar said he’d wash up, hoping that might hurry her to bed, but she put a load in the washing machine and then sat doing her jigsaw puzzle at the kitchen table. Randeep and Avtar kept glancing at each other and at the clock, and it was nearly ten when she pushed back her chair and said goodnight.

They could hear her reciting the rehraas, then a switch being flicked, extinguishing the beam of light at the foot of her door. They waited an hour, not saying much, then trod down the stairs. Gurpreet hadn’t moved. He seemed weaker now, and the blood on his hands and vest had congealed and blackened. They wrapped him in the blanket again and Avtar wiped the tiles clean and scrubbed the pinkish handprints from the door.

‘When’s he back?’ Randeep asked.

‘Twelve. One. Depends.’

‘We should take him to the hospital, bhaji.’

‘Too far.’

‘But—’

‘I said it’s too far.’

They shouldered him up to his feet and in this way supported him down the hall and out into the night. They followed Narinder’s directions, except that they circled around the shops to avoid being seen, and laid Gurpreet in the doorway to the surgery. They arranged the blanket so that it cocooned him. He was whimpering, shaking his head. There was blood all in his beard. Randeep took a step back and clasped his hands together up by his mouth, praying.

They wanted to leave that night but didn’t know how to explain it to Narinder. So they returned to the floor, exhausted yet wary of sleep. Neither had wanted to take the settee. A car horn made Randeep flinch.

‘Yaar,’ Avtar said.

‘I know.’

‘He’ll be fine. His breathing was getting better. They’ll take him to the hospital and put him on a plane home. He’ll soon be with his family.’

‘I know,’ Randeep said again, and turned over.

The buzzer rang the next morning. It wasn’t even eight o’clock.

‘Who’s that?’ Randeep said.

Avtar moved onto his knees and scuttled to the window. He could see the car but not who was at the door. Narinder came out of her bedroom.

‘You expecting someone?’ Avtar asked.

‘The only person who comes is the landlord. But it’s too soon for him.’

The buzzer rang again.

‘It’s the police,’ Randeep said.

‘It’s not the police,’ Avtar said, giving him a heavy look.

‘I should go,’ Narinder said and, grabbing her chunni on the way, headed downstairs.

Avtar and Randeep listened from the open door of the flat. It was a male voice, a white voice. Randeep’s face tightened.

‘What?’

‘Immigration,’ Randeep said.

Avtar snatched his rucksack from the settee and raced to the window, trying to force it up. But there was no time and he let go and turned round as Narinder walked in with the man.

‘It’s David,’ she said, quietly, moving round the kitchen table, as if to place a safety barrier between them.

‘Ah, Mr Sanghera, good to meet you again.’

He extended his hand, which Randeep took.

‘As I was saying to your wife, I realized I don’t have your phone numbers on file. And that’s no good at all.’

‘You should have written to us only,’ Randeep said.

David smiled. ‘I was in the area.’

His charcoal trench coat hung open, revealing a smart suit of a paler shade. The hair, grey, was swept back. He moved to Avtar.

‘I don’t think we’ve met. David Mangold.’ Again he held out his hand.

‘Hello, sir.’

‘Your name?’

‘Hmm?’

‘Name?’

‘Gurpreet.’

‘Off out?’ He nodded at the rucksack, or maybe the window.

‘No,’ Avtar said, reflexively, defensively, then wished he’d said yes and stolen the opportunity to get out of there.

‘Are you staying with Mr and Mrs Sanghera? Sorry — ’ a smile over his shoulder at the couple — ‘Mr Sanghera and Ms Kaur.’

‘No. Visiting only.’

‘Oh. I thought that would’ve explained all this,’ he said, looking at the pillows and blankets.

‘Visiting for a few days.’

‘Two blankets?’

‘It gets cold.’

‘Ah. Of course.’

He smiled that fake, flat smile again, and his gaze moved slowly around the room.

‘I see you’ve removed all your photos.’ He turned to Randeep. ‘I hope all is well in the matrimonial abode?’

‘We’re fine. Thank you. We’re redecorating.’

‘And this suitcase? My, what expensive-looking leather. I’m assuming that’s not yours, Mr Sanghera? Why would you keep a suitcase full of your things in your own living room?’

‘No.’

‘So it’s. .?’

‘My friend’s,’ Randeep said, nodding at Avtar. ‘Sir, did you come to interrogate us or for our contact numbers?’

‘Very true. I’ve taken up quite enough of your time,’ and he scribbled down Randeep’s and Narinder’s mobile numbers and wished them all a pleasant rest-of-the-morning.

They heard the downstairs door shut and Narinder sank onto a kitchen chair. ‘They know.’

‘It’ll be all right,’ Randeep said.

‘He can’t prove anything,’ Avtar said. ‘Don’t panic.’ He unzipped his rucksack and crushed into it a T-shirt he’d left drying on the radiator.

‘What are you doing?’ Randeep asked.

‘He might come back.’

‘We’re going?’

‘I am.’

‘I’m coming with you.’

Avtar swung the rucksack on. ‘And if he comes back?’

‘I’ll say he’s working. I’ll call you,’ Narinder said, turning to Randeep. ‘And I’ll probably handle it better on my own. But you can’t stay here.’

They returned to the surgery before heading to the bus stop — Randeep had insisted. He wanted to make sure Gurpreet was all right. He wasn’t there. They must have taken him to the hospital.

‘You sure?’ Randeep said.

‘If anything had happened to him there would have been police everywhere.’

Randeep nodded and let his head fall back against the bus stop. He turned his face away from Avtar and the tears that fell were ones of relief.

*

Gobind’s was an Indian supermarket that seemed to sell things in bulk: six-packs of lychee juice, giant mesh sacks of purple onions, sticky gold tins of rapeseed oil — Food For Functions, the sign outside the shop read. Hari’s room-mate had told them about it. They had been sleeping in the station, their second night away from Narinder’s, when Avtar got the call saying that there was definitely work going in Derby, in a place called Normanton. A gurdwara uncle on his way back from the cash-and-carry had given them a lift as far as Chesterfield and from there they’d hidden on a train.

Walking into the supermarket, Avtar was ambushed by the spices: cloves, coriander, ginger. There was another smell that reminded him more of home but which he couldn’t place until he turned and saw the brown powder spilled across the floor; piled up beside it, the split boxes of malati. He marched on, climbing out of whatever mood he was in danger of sinking into. The woman behind the counter looked old enough to be their grandmother, though the gold eye make-up seemed to warn against addressing her as a biji. She had very long, very straight hair in a fat clip at the nape of her neck and her green cardigan was buttoned singly at the throat, over her darker-green kameez.

‘Sat sri akal,’ Avtar said.

She exhaled in apparent dismay — ‘Mera ghar e tuhanu labda a?’ — and moved onto her tiptoes, looking over Avtar’s shoulder. ‘Arré, ji? Another one!’

The job wasn’t with them.

‘Too much checking in this area now,’ she said, shaking her head as if at an increase in crime. ‘We only dare keep one. Not that he’s much good,’ she added and rolled her eyes at the young man come to sweep up the liquorice powder.

‘So where is the work?’ Avtar asked.

‘No need to sound so desperate,’ the woman said. ‘The van’s coming tomorrow. In the car park.’

‘Whose van?’

‘He has a few businesses in the area. A local man. Don’t worry, he’s apna. Just make sure you’re there tomorrow. Early.’

The car park was too cold to sleep in so they returned to the shop and were given directions to the nearest gurdwara, where they ate and shat and climbed the stairs to spend the night in the darbar sahib.

‘We’ll find a room somewhere tomorrow. And work,’ Avtar said, coming back with some prasad. He gave half to Randeep, who ate it in one and then seemed disappointed not to have made it last.

‘I never thought it would be like this,’ Randeep said.

‘Have faith.’

Avtar’s phone buzzed — a message from Bal, demanding the next payment, and a warning: wanna c ur ma beggin on da street?

‘Work?’ Randeep asked.

Avtar plugged his phone in to charge. ‘No,’ and he left it at that. If he told him it might get to Lakhpreet, and maybe even to his parents. He’d got his family into this mess and he had to get them out. He had to earn, and more than he was earning now.

Randeep turned to face the wall. Avtar lay down and asked God to keep His hand on their heads, before turning round and trying to sleep himself.

They were at the small, ragged car park behind Gobind’s by six. Already five others were there, lined against the wall with their different rucksacks.

‘Join the queue,’ they said, though everyone knew that once the van turned up any queue would explode.

‘Whoever gets in helps the other,’ Randeep said.

More kept on arriving and by mid morning there must have been at least thirty waiting in the car park. They were from all over Panjab: Phagwara, Patiala, Hoshiarpur. The first thing anyone asked was what pind you were from. Which is your village? Who are your people? Some had been here more than ten years. One or two less than a week.

Someone ran in from the road and shouted that there was work in a biscuit factory on the other side of the city. The ones new to England slung on their bags and chased after the man, who said he’d show them which bus to catch.

‘That was my cousin,’ the man beside Avtar said, grinning. ‘Bhanchods, why didn’t more of you fall for that?’

The van — an old red Bedford — arrived late in the afternoon and a brusque round-bellied man in a quick-wrap saffron turban stepped out. His beard was neat and evenly black, the work of some dye, though his eyebrows were as white as butter. The boys assembled around the back of the van, Avtar elbowing his way to the front. The van man spoke.

‘I’ll only take men with National Insurance. If you don’t even have a fake one, don’t bother getting in the van.’

‘What’s the work?’ Avtar asked.

‘Cleaning.’

‘Cleaning what?’

‘Underground cleaning.’

A few made faces and detached themselves from the group. Perhaps they could afford to wait for something better.

‘I only need ten,’ the man said. ‘I’ll count you in.’

Avtar felt them pressing behind him, fighting into position.

‘What’s the money?’ Avtar asked.

‘Whatever I say it’ll be.’

‘But where will we live?’

The man looked at him. ‘Shall I wipe your arse too?’

The van man put his hand on the door lever. Already they were shoving one another. Avtar turned round and nodded at Randeep, who looked nervous. The man smiled, as if enjoying his power. Then he opened the door and there was a huge animal noise and Avtar elbowed the guy next to him as hard as he could and clambered into the back. He spun round, looking for Randeep. His suitcase was making it difficult and others were easily slapping him back.

‘Bhaji!’ Randeep said, holding out his hand.

Avtar was looking at Randeep, looking at Randeep’s hand, looking at Randeep holding out his hand.

‘Bhaji! Bhaji, please!’

Avtar looked away. The door slammed shut.

‘That’s it,’ he heard the man say.

10. INSIDE LOOKING OUT

A palmful of dank yellowing leaves held fast to the window and the low sun meant she had to squint to see Mr Greatrix on the path below. She wondered why he hadn’t come up the stairs. She slipped into her cardigan and checked her phone in case Randeep had called in the last five minutes and she’d somehow missed it. It had been exactly two weeks since they’d left the flat and she couldn’t believe he’d not returned by now to pay the rent.

‘Sorry, I left my set at home,’ Mr Greatrix said.

Narinder kept hold of the doorknob. ‘Are you here for the rent?’

‘It is the first day of the month, is it not?’

‘So Randeep’s not paid you directly?’

He pushed out his lower lip, a display of tender blue veins glazed in saliva. ‘And, pray tell, he would be whom when he’s at home?’

He sounded much older than he looked. Perhaps he thought he needed to speak like this to be taken seriously.

‘My husband,’ she said.

‘No. I can’t say your husband has been in touch.’ His voice changed. ‘Is this your roundabout way of telling me you don’t have this month’s rent?’

‘I’m sorry.’ There was fear in her voice. Surely he couldn’t just kick her out? ‘I’ll speak to my husband.’

He flipped his notebook shut, a notebook Narinder hadn’t even noticed until now, and placed his hands behind his back. ‘Mrs Kaur, as this is the first time you’ve defaulted on a payment, please take this as your first and last warning. I’ll expect you to make up your arrears in full next month. Otherwise I’ll be forced to initiate proceedings. Is that clear?’

‘I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding.’

‘Be that as it may, you’ll receive written confirmation in the post of what we’ve just agreed.’

He huffed irritatedly and turned round. There was some sort of lotion on the bony cartilage of his ears, the tips of which were burning red. He’d mentioned something about spending August on holiday. Florida, perhaps. He got into his car, checked his mirrors a little imperiously, as if he knew Narinder was still there, and nosed out.

Back in her room, she tried calling Randeep for perhaps the fourth time that day. Again it went straight to voicemail. She went to the window, as if expecting to see him coming up the road, and then she hurried downstairs and knocked on her neighbour’s door. No answer. She tried again.

‘Hello? Ji? Are you in, please? It’s me from upstairs.’

She waited on the bottom step for a while, then, defeated, returned to her flat. She drew the curtains and lowered herself onto the settee, one hand on the armrest as if she desperately needed its support. She didn’t feel like eating. She got nowhere with her puzzle. By seven she was in bed, though the day was still yellow and the light made a perfect unit of itself around the closed curtains of her window.

Later, past midnight, she got up and knocked on his door again. She knew he was in. She’d heard him. She knocked once more, harder, and listened for footsteps. None. Then the door was open and he stood there with his hand high on the frame, forcing his shoulder up by his ear. Behind him, all she could see was the dark strip of a hallway and a wire hanging without its bulb. He was in his orange uniform. He didn’t say hello.

‘I need to speak to Randeep. He’s not answering his phone.’

‘Nothing to do with me.’

‘But do you know where I can find him?’

‘Sorry.’ He made to shut the door.

‘Just — I was expecting to hear from him. It’s very important.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Well, can you at least give me Avtar’s number? I really need to speak to them. It’s not like Randeep to not get in touch.’

He shook his head.

‘But I thought you all lived together?’

He said nothing.

‘Aren’t you even worried? You said you were a friend.’

‘I said I knew him.’ He shut the door.

At the bank she withdrew all her savings. She had enough to cover the rent. Enough to keep him happy for another month, that was all. She tried Randeep again — ‘You’ve reached the voi—’ then pushed the phone deep into her bag and walked the half-mile to the job centre.

She’d decided she had no choice. She’d already tried the gurdwara, hoping the women would help her find some paid work, but they’d turned on her, demanding to know why she needed a job all of a sudden. She only prayed that coming into a place like this, a job centre, giving details they’d store away in their computers, wouldn’t get her and Randeep into any trouble.

‘So you don’t have any previous work experience?’

A little green first-aid flag taped to the hard drive read ‘Carolyn’ and a whole gallery of silver-framed family shots fashioned a fortress around her desk. She was an older lady — fifties, maybe — with large, auburn hair so insistently sprayed it appeared frosted over. The whole effect seemed designed to provide her ears with a pair of giant brackets. Square red-framed spectacles hung on a chain around her neck and she lifted these to the bridge of her nose.

‘I’m sure you must have done something?’

‘I haven’t. Sorry. Only my father and brother worked.’

‘How very enlightened.’

Carolyn flipped to the back of the four-page form Narinder had had to complete before being called to the desk.

‘I notice you’ve left the key skills section blank as well.’

‘I don’t have any.’

Removing her glasses, Carolyn slid the form to one side. ‘Now. We’re not going to get very far with that attitude, are we? You’re twenty-one. Why don’t you tell me what you’ve been doing since your schooling stopped at — ’ she glanced across to the form — ‘at sixteen.’

‘Helping at the gurdwara, mostly. I did that nearly every day.’

‘Volunteering?’

She’d never thought of it like that, as if it was an optional thing. It was just — had been just — part of what it meant to be alive. ‘I was doing my duty.’

‘And what kind of duties are we talking about?’

‘One of my main duties was giving out food. Making sure no one goes hungry.’

‘And did you do that alone or in a group?’

‘In a group.’

‘Excellent. Teamwork. A key transferable skill.’

She was writing all this down in a shorthand Narinder couldn’t decode.

‘What else?’

By the day’s end Carolyn had two interviews arranged. The first was for a cleaning job in a city centre bar, which Narinder said she couldn’t do.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said on the phone.

‘You won’t be serving alcohol. I understand your position on that. This’d be in the mornings when no one else is there.’

‘But it’s under the same roof. I’m not allowed.’

She did agree to attend the second interview, for a role in the womenswear section of a large department store. She’d never been interviewed and was so nervous she didn’t eat. But she thought it had gone well. Two interviewers — a man and a woman — and they’d poured her a glass of water and said they were going to keep things informal by just going through her CV and asking a few competency-based questions. Nothing too taxing, they’d said. She’d left riding a wave of relief and pleasure and as she walked out of the store and into the new world she allowed herself some optimism.

‘Lack of retail experience,’ Carolyn said, when she called to explain why Narinder hadn’t got the role.

‘OK. Thank you.’

‘Don’t sound so despondent. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Christ, it takes my Mal five weeks just to put a shelf up. And I’ve got two more lined up already. One tomorrow and one for a week on Monday.’

She didn’t get those either. Both jobs were in supermarkets and both, again, cited a lack of experience. Narinder thanked Carolyn for letting her know, then switched off her phone and held it in her lap. No one wanted her. She couldn’t see a way out. She walked to the doorway of her bedroom and gazed at the photos of her gurus, at the shrine, expecting some sort of solace. She could feel none. For the first time, it just looked like pictures of old men. She forced the thought away and took up her gutka and sat down and started to read, out loud, filling her mind with as many words as she could.

When Carolyn next called, she said she had something that was right up Narinder’s street.

‘It’s at one of the smaller libraries. Part-time assistant. As soon as it came on the board I thought of you.’

‘Thank you. That sounds good.’

‘Oh dear. I hope you sound less like a miserable Marjorie in the interview.’

Narinder smiled. ‘I’m sorry. It sounds great.’

‘That’s better. Now,’ Carolyn said, her voice offering total discretion, ‘what were you planning on wearing?’

She didn’t take Carolyn’s advice, that maybe she should replace her headwear with something less ‘statementy’ — A headscarf does the same job, surely? — and might she also consider trousers on this occasion? She wore a plain sky-blue salwaar kameez with a chunni of a deeper blue, and she topped it all off with a black turban.

The library was a bus ride away, in Dore, on the other side of the city, and abutted a doctor’s surgery. She was buzzed through and saw that, in the children’s aisle, some sort of mother-and-baby group was in progress.

‘Narinder, is it?’ a woman said, splitting from the group.

Her long, flowery skirt was elasticated at the waist, and her blouse as white as her hair. A gold brooch, like a fat sun with short rays, was pinned at the neck.

‘Ji. Yes. I’m Narinder. I’m sorry if I’m late.’

‘I’m Jessica,’ the woman said, bringing her hands together in a clap. ‘And I could not be more delighted to meet you.’

They sat in the staff kitchen, drinking tea and discussing things Narinder would later struggle to recall. They’d spoken about India, and Jessica’s time there in the Sixties, and there’d been something about some modifications she was having made to her bungalow. Narinder sat there listening, nodding, waiting for the interview to begin. But then an hour had passed and Jessica said she had to get things ready for the afternoon sessions. So when could Narinder start?

‘Oh!’ Narinder said, her hand leaping to her mouth. ‘You mean — I’ve got the job?’

‘I think you’d be perfect.’

‘Oh, thank you. Thank you so much!’

‘There’s no need to thank me, dear. I need to get the paperwork through, so shall we say two weeks from Monday?’

‘Yes. Yes. That’s — I don’t know what to say. Thank you.’

Jessica squeezed Narinder’s hand and left the room, telling her to take as long as she needed. Tears had come to Narinder’s eyes. It felt as if for the first time in years some joy had entered her life.

She was desperate for the two weeks to be over. She cleaned the flat, she went for long walks, she read the gutka; anything that might urge the hours on and stop this grim staring at the walls. She was proud of herself, and it didn’t matter that pride was one of the feelings she shouldn’t submit to. She couldn’t help it. She had a job. A real job. And she’d done it all by herself. She wanted to tell someone, anyone, but the only person who presented himself was Mr Greatrix, looking at her over his clipboard.

‘I trust you got the written notification of your first warning?’

‘Yes. Thank you.’ She handed over what she’d withdrawn from the bank. ‘I think that brings us up to date.’

He looked surprised, suspicious, even. He counted it. ‘Yes. Well. That seems all in order. Of course the warning still stands. If you miss any future payments—’

‘I won’t.’ She could feel herself about to say it: ‘I’ve got a job.’

She washed the clothes and turbans she wanted to wear during her first week and set them to dry across the radiator and on the rungs of the dining chairs. Then she stood by the window. It was a clear afternoon, a suddenly eloquent sky. Two girls in blazers were coming up the hill — school must have started again — and beyond them, rounding the corner, her downstairs neighbour. Bizarrely, he was rolling a large rubber tyre up the hill. She watched him for a while, then moved away from the window in case he might see her.

She made plain roti, which turned out far too doughy, and ate this with a sabzi of chickpeas. Then she went to the shop and bought milk and electric tokens. Her clothes had dried by now, so she ironed and put them away. Her first-day suit she hung on the back of her bedroom door, giving it a final brush and shake, ready for a week’s time. It was eight o’clock. With nothing more to do, she brushed her teeth and went to bed.

Maybe minutes passed, maybe hours. She wasn’t sure. The clock flashed 12:00. She checked her phone: 02:21. She was sure she’d heard something. A banging, maybe. A rumbling. It might just be him downstairs. She slipped out from under her duvet and peered through the long slit where the curtains met. The angle was too straight. She could hear voices, indistinct, but could see nothing. Neighbours? She went through to the front room and to the window there. She folded the curtain aside and looked down, then immediately leaned back, stupidly letting go so the fabric flapped a little. It was Tejpal. Others, too. She put a hand to her chest, as if they might hear its thudding, and inched forward again, peeling the curtain back by increments. They were looking up at her. She flattened herself against the wall. And now she could hear him, shouting.

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.