The Year of the Runaways

11. WHAT PRICE FREEDOM

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

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

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

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

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

‘Sheffield. Panjab.’

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

‘We looked everywhere.’

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

‘Can you help me?’ Randeep asked.

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

Randeep shook his head, not really following.

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

‘Do you think they might help me?’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Kidhaan?’ one of them said.

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

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

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

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

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

‘Don’t you have family?’

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

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

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

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

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

*

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

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

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

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

‘It’s not so bad,’ Avtar said.

‘How long do we have left here?’

‘He said his contract’s for a month.’

‘And then we can go?’

‘Point the torch.’

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

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

‘The right.’

‘You sure?’

‘Of course I’m fucking sure.’

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

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

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

‘I can’t see you,’ he said.

‘I’m here,’ Avtar said.

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

‘Easy,’ Avtar said, looking away.

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

‘This is the worst,’ Romy said.

‘Over there. I think I can smell it.’

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

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

‘It’s moving.’

‘Rats.’

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

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

‘It’s moving,’ Romy said again.

‘Hopefully it’ll collapse.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘At the belly,’ Romy said.

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

The globe of fat started to detach from the side of the tunnel, reaching, resisting, stretching like chewing gum peeled off the underside of a shoe.

‘Back, Randeep! Get back!’

‘Who?’ Romy said, but it was too late. The fatberg crashed into the water, exploding against the sewer bed, and there was the terrible noise of frenzied black rats. Romy panicked and the beam plunged. The rats were everywhere, rushing between their legs, hissing through the water and the dark.

Avtar accepted the deck — it was his turn to deal. Stuck in the shed, there wasn’t much else to do in the evenings. Their boss, with the dyed black beard and white eyebrows, lived with his family in the house while Avtar and the boys slept here. His name was Jagdish Singh — the side-panel of his van read Jagdish Singh Dhindsa & Sons — and he insisted they call him sahib. ‘I pay you, I feed you, I put a roof over your heads. If after all that you can’t respect me, then get out now.’ That was on the drive up from Gobind’s to this red-brick semi in Wolverhampton, and he’d repeated it nearly every day since.

‘He thinks he’s some big tycoon,’ Avtar said, shuffling the pack.

‘Count me out,’ Romy said. ‘Bed.’

‘Take the mattress.’

‘It’s your turn.’

‘Just take it.’

He dealt the cards. There were three of them playing, under the soft glare of a battery-powered lamp.

‘Tough day?’ asked Sony, a Malveyah.

Avtar nodded, finished dealing. ‘You know, if there’s a hell for boys like us, I think we’ve found it.’

‘Tsk, come on, yaar. Play. This is meant to be our fun time. You’re miserable enough during the day.’

It was Biju — Baljinder, maybe, though he’d never said. He was a fat little joker from a village near Gurgaon. His middle was so perfectly round, it seemed blown up like a beachball.

‘I’ve been letting you all win so far,’ Biju went on. ‘Now watch how I make you all my bhabhi.’

‘How many did you do today?’ Avtar asked.

‘Seven,’ Sony said. ‘You?’

Avtar frowned, played his highest club. ‘Four.’

‘He knows you work hard.’

‘Yeah. Maybe.’

Biju went with a low heart, forcing Avtar to risk the ace.

‘This’ll cheer you up,’ Sony said. ‘I heard there’s a pataka shed a few streets down. What do you think? Next pay day?’

‘Can’t,’ Avtar said. ‘Need to—’

‘Pay my loans and send some home,’ they finished for him, yawning comically.

‘Have some fun,’ Sony said. ‘Make up for it next month.’

‘Do you have a job for next month?’ Avtar asked, genuinely.

‘Something’ll come up.’ He sounded cagey, like he probably did have one ready. Avtar didn’t blame him for not disclosing it. He’d have done the same.

‘Oh, you goat-fucking Malveyah!’ Biju said after Sony very gleefully turned over his pair of twos.

Avtar threw his cards into the centre. ‘Whose deal?’

In the van, Avtar asked what was going to happen to them next week.

‘Next week?’ Jagdish said.

‘You said the contract’s finished next week.’

‘It is.’

Avtar waited. All the boys were listening. ‘Do you—?’

‘I’ve not decided what I’m going to do with you yet.’

‘So you might find work for us? Another contract?’

They could see him smiling in the mirror. ‘There is work. But not for all of you. Some of you I’ll have to kick out. Let’s see who performs best, yes?’

On the last day, as they hosed off their suits and changed into their clothes, Jagdish approached. ‘How many?’

‘Four,’ Avtar said. There was no point lying — they had cameras to double-check.

‘Is that all? Four? Do I look like your chachi’s cunt that you can come to me with a straight face and tell me you only did four all day?’

‘Sorry, sahib.’

‘Saala, bhanchod. Is it him? Is he holding you back?’

Romy stood a little way off, grimacing into the van’s wing mirror as he pulled strips of slime out of his hair. Avtar said nothing, and Jagdish nodded and put a cross beside Romy’s name.

They’d not been home an hour when five of them were ordered to grab their stuff and get back in the van. He’d drop them where he’d found them, and from there they could return to whichever rathole they’d sprung from. Romy collapsed onto his knees, then his belly, and pressed his forehead to Jagdish’s grey loafers.

‘Please, sahib, let me stay.’

‘Get away,’ Jagdish said, though he seemed to be enjoying this little moment. ‘I’ve made my decision. It is final.’

‘No, sahib. It can’t be.’

‘Sahib?’ Avtar said, tentative. ‘Please let him stay.’

‘Do I look stupid? He’s never been a worker.’

‘I will, sahib,’ Romy said. ‘Please let me stay.’

‘Get in the bhanchod van. Enough drama.’

‘Please, sahib,’ Avtar tried again. ‘I’ll make sure he works.’

‘How about I keep you both and pay for one. You happy with that? Half each? Agreed?’

Romy looked at Avtar. ‘Bhaji’ll agree to that,’ he said. ‘That’s OK, isn’t it? We’ll carry on working together.’

‘Well?’ Jagdish said.

Avtar shook his head and moved away from the van.

‘Thought so,’ Jagdish said. ‘Not so high-horse now, eh?’

They returned to the shed: Avtar, Biju, Sony and two others.

‘Surprised he kept you, fattyman,’ Sony said.

‘I raise the standard of the group,’ Biju replied.

Jagdish appeared at the door. ‘Before I forget, I need your passports and papers. For the next job.’

‘You took copies already,’ Sony said.

‘Hurry up. Or do you want to get in the van?’

They handed over their documents and heard the key turn.

‘Why’s he locked it?’ Biju asked, switching on the lamp.

‘At least we get a mattress each now,’ Sony said. He drew the deck of cards from his trouser pocket. ‘Everyone in?’

Avtar sat down, forcing dust out of the mattress. He rubbed the space between his eyebrows and, as if the two things were connected, a picture of Randeep materialized: standing with his case in the car park, getting smaller.

‘All right?’ Biju asked.

‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

‘No reason. Some people might feel a little guilty.’

‘Luckily for me, guilt’s a luxury I can’t afford.’

‘Hmm. Maybe.’

Avtar frowned. He felt disturbed by his attitude, though he was sure he’d had no choice, either with Randeep or Romy. ‘Come on. Hey, Sony — deal us in.’

*

Her right foot rose off the seat of the chair as she reached up. She held the plastic collar, unscrewed the dead bulb, and replaced it with a new one she unfurled from the knot in her chunni. She tried the switch and the bulb glowed, palely bright against the window. There was nothing more to do. The room was clean, her bed made. And yet they were still here. She moved to the landing, where the sun ran thinly down the stairs. She’d not even been back a week and this must be the fifth family to visit, to congratulate Baba.

‘But why did she go?’ she heard the aunty ask.

‘She’s not said much,’ Baba Tarsem Singh said. ‘I think the wedding scared her. For so long it’s only been us three. She’s a good girl, really.’

‘Don’t make excuses for her.’

‘Tejpal’s right,’ the aunty said. ‘She rubbed your face in the shit, in front of everybody. She humiliated you. What kind of good daughter does that?’

‘I know my Narinder. She has a good heart. And I know she won’t do it again.’

‘I won’t let her do it again. I’ll kill her first. She’s getting married, and then she’s someone else’s problem.’

‘Tejpal, please. You should support your sister.’

‘I love her, Dad, but what she did was wrong. She put a knife through this family.’

‘She’s naive.’

‘Stop making excuses for her,’ he said again, louder this time. ‘You’ve always made excuses for her. Oh, she’s young. Oh, she’s innocent. She’s not any of those things. She knows exactly what she’s doing.’

‘I’m only saying it’s not been easy for her. Growing up without a mother.’

A silence. Then: ‘And I suppose it was a cakewalk for me? But I’ve only ever lived my life by the rules. By your rules.’

‘Tejpal—’

Narinder shrank back before her brother could see her. She heard him take up his keys from the glass table in the hall and the front door slam.

They ate late that night, waiting for Tejpal, and when he did return he said he wasn’t hungry and went straight up to his room. Narinder reheated the food and sat down to eat with her baba. The night pressed against the window. There was the choppy grind of a helicopter passing overhead. The lamp turned her father’s yellow turban copper and cast on the wall a huge shadow of his cane.

‘I’m sorry I embarrassed you, Baba.’

She’d been desperate to say this and as the words left her mouth a channel seemed to open up between them.

‘I know you are, beiti. As I keep telling everyone, I know my daughter and even if she can’t tell me her reasons they must be noble ones.’

‘I think they were.’

‘But you say it is all over now?’

She nodded. She still hadn’t heard from Randeep. If he didn’t get in touch by the end of the year she’d contact Vakeel Sahib herself and ask him to get the divorce done with. He’d said it would take a month or two only. For now she’d remain here, with her father. Next June she’d marry Karamjeet and spend the rest of her life with him and his family.

‘Your chunni,’ her father said.

‘Hm?’

‘It’s fallen, beiti.’

‘Oh, sorry,’ and she reached behind her neck and lifted it up and over her turban.

‘So, you lived alone? In Sheffield?’

‘Yes, Baba.’

‘You were never lonely?’

‘No more so than here,’ she heard herself say.

Her father paused mid bite, nodded. ‘No friends?’

‘No.’

‘Neighbours?’

She hesitated. ‘No. No one.’

She waited a few minutes so her father might not make a connection.

‘Baba, in India, did you ever meet chamaars?’

‘Every village has them. Why?’

‘They spoke about them in the gurdwara yesterday. Are they treated very badly?’

‘Chamaars? Better now than they used to be.’

‘How did they use to be treated?’

He finished his mouthful. ‘There was a boy working on our farm. We used to call them achhuts back then. Not chamaars. But he was only ever allowed to eat our leftovers. And not on plates, either. Your dadi would use a rag to scrape it all into his hands like this — ’ he cupped his palms together in front of his beard — ‘and I remember the dhal would be dripping between his knuckles and the vegetables would still have our teeth marks. And he’d walk off, stuffing it all inside his mouth.’ Baba Tarsem Singh sipped water, perhaps to get the taste of the memory out of his own mouth. ‘I’ve seen it still happen today.’

She’d stopped eating. She was looking down at her food. ‘That’s so cruel,’ she said, quietly.

A pause. ‘Why do you look so sad?’

She could hear the suspicion in his voice.

‘Was he one of them? Who you went to Sheffield for?’

She imagined saying yes and seeing the terror on his face. ‘I was on my own. Please believe me.’

‘You promise me?’

She nodded and he seemed to accept this, though the concern remained in his voice. ‘Of course. What was I thinking? But you were lucky. A girl your age living alone in a strange city. Anything could have happened.’

‘It was exciting as well.’

Another worried look, a slight compression of the brow. Silent minutes passed.

‘I forgot to tell Tejpal to change the bulbs in your room. Remind me in the morning.’

‘I did them all earlier.’

He looked up from his spoon. ‘You can change lights now?’

‘It’s not hard, Baba.’

‘No, I guess not. What else can you do?’

‘Fuses. And electricity meters. I can work them.’

Afterwards, she started piling the dishes into a small stack which she could carry in a single trip to the kitchen. Her father struggled to his feet, his hand tensing until it docked on the safety of his cane.

‘Baba,’ Narinder began. ‘I wanted to ask how you’d feel about me getting a job.’

He said nothing at first, only stared. ‘My pension does this family fine.’

‘I nearly had a job in Sheffield. I think I’d enjoy it.’

He was looking at her strangely, eyes darting over her face, as if trying to follow where this was all going to end. ‘We’ve spoken about this before. You agreed.’

She put the final plate on the pile and looked across. ‘Maybe I’ve changed.’

She wasn’t allowed to look for a job. Tejpal came charging into her room and told her that once she was married she could speak to her husband about it, but while she was under this roof things were going to stay as they were. ‘You’ve done enough damage. Spare us any more shame.’

As Tejpal left, her father shuffled to the doorway. ‘I’m sorry, beita. I did try. But you know what he’s like. He’ll never change.’

‘Will you? Change? Or do you still expect me to follow your rules?’

He looked to the floor, sheepish, then reached for the doorknob and closed the door. She crashed her fists down on the bed, letting out a frustrated growl. They might never change, but she knew she had. She knew this wasn’t how things used to look, that it was as if a filter now stood between her and the life she left, and what had at one time seemed clear was now a confusing grey.

She went to the gurdwara with her father that evening and sat behind the palki beside her fellow brothers and sisters. She thought it might help. She thought it might lend her mind some peace. Midway through the rehraas she opened her eyes. The others were still reciting, beautifully, tunefully; their faces lifted and ardent. She knew what they were feeling and knew she no longer felt it herself. Something had gone wrong. She found her baba at the back of the hall.

‘Can we go, please?’

‘You look like something’s scared you.’

‘No. Nothing. Please. I’d like to go home.’

She continued going to the gurdwara, every evening, with her baba. If she spent enough time in His presence she was certain these strange bottomless feelings would go away. The alternative was to parse her anxieties and discover what was wrong. She’d tried that, one morning at the window of her room. She looked out and saw Tochi being forced to eat some blank-faced master’s leftovers and tried to connect that image with some idea she’d always held of His goodness. She couldn’t do it. And then her whole being seemed to react in opposition to what she was in danger of glimpsing. Frightened, shaking, she stepped back from whatever thought lay on the other side of the sky.

In a roundabout sort of way, she asked Karamjeet about it on the afternoon of his visit. He’d been talking about whether they still had time to visit Hemkund Sahib after the wedding, and asked if she’d seen the news on DD, about the pilgrims who’d died trying to climb there out of season.

‘Three of them. All young jawans. They thought they’d be fine.’

‘Obviously they thought they’d be fine,’ Narinder said.

‘Pardon?’

‘Why did they have to die?’

‘Because it was out of se—’

‘Why did God let them die? They were His people, coming to see Him.’

‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand. I don’t think God killed them. He let them choose. They knew the risks.’

Her gaze dropped to the plain black leather of her shoes. If it pleases Him, she thought.

‘Narinder, is everything OK?’

She nodded, looked up. ‘I suppose it has to be.’

She didn’t know why she was being so difficult — perhaps she just wanted reassurance — but it was unfair to take it out on him. He’d been so nice, defending her to his parents, not once bringing up the subject of her time away.

‘I’m so glad to be marrying you, Narinder. I hope you’re looking forward to the wedding as much as I am.’

They were sitting at opposite ends of the long settee, bodies angled towards the centre of the room so they were never quite looking at each other. She could think of no reply and reached for the prissy white teapot and refilled their cups.

When Karamjeet got up to leave, Tejpal escorted him to the door. Narinder stayed in the room, collecting the tea things onto a silver-plated tray. She could hear them in the hall.

‘Thanks, Karamjeet. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how Dad would’ve coped if you’d broken it off.’

‘Stop apologizing. It feels like that’s all you’ve done for the last nine months. We all make mistakes.’

‘But she made a big one. Not many families would forgive and. . Anyway, you’ve made it possible for Dad to show his face to the world again.’

She carried the tray to the kitchen, teacups rattling, and shut the door and stood with her back flat against it.

*

They’d been at the warehouse job for two weeks when, on the evening drive home, Avtar accused Jagdish of robbing them blind.

‘Less than one pound an hour you’re paying us.’ He took a crumpled blue paper from his rear pocket — a cash-and-carry invoice — and pointed to the calculations on the back of it. ‘I worked it out. Less than one pound an hour.’

‘I’m getting less and therefore you’re getting less. Simple economics.’

‘But I can’t live on this. I can’t pay back anything earning this.’ Bal would be calling soon. Perhaps as soon as next week. He didn’t know what he’d say to him. ‘I’m leaving. I’ll find better work.’

‘Arré, yaar. .’ Sony said, as if Avtar was going too far.

‘Where do you think you’ll go without your papers?’ Jagdish said. ‘You should be thankful I provide a roof over your heads.’

‘You lock us in your shed.’

‘It’s an outhouse.’

The van stopped. They must have arrived. It was hard to tell from the back. As they filed into the shed, Avtar turned round. ‘I mean it. I want to go. Give me my passport.’ But Jagdish just laughed, as if Avtar had made a very pleasing joke, and locked the door.

Whenever a phone rang, he flinched. He prayed nothing was happening to his family. He needed to earn more. He needed to get out. Then, round the side of the cash-and-carry, in a grassy trough that had become a sump for several waste pipes, he found a pole, a short lilac metal one with flattened ends. It looked as if it might have once belonged on a girl’s bicycle. He put it in his bag, and, that night, hid it in the gap between his mattress and the wall.

A week passed while he waited for his chance. The evenings darkened and a stiff wind blew in through the bottom of the shed door. Avtar pulled out one of his jumpers, which lay on him sloppily, as if on a coathanger, which, he supposed, he was.

‘It’s starting to get cold at night,’ he said to Jagdish. They were on their way home. ‘We need a heater.’

‘Put some more clothes on.’ Then, perhaps feeling guilty: ‘Maybe I can get an extension lead.’

He told them there wasn’t any work tomorrow. They could have the day off. His treat.

‘Why?’ asked Avtar.

‘I’m busy. So you’ll have to stay in. You’ll get your food.’

‘Will we still get paid?’

He saw Jagdish staring at him via the rear-view mirror. ‘I’ll think about it.’

In the shed, Avtar pressed himself against the door, his stomach to the iron and arms raised, as if someone had a gun to his back. He wanted to know what was happening tomorrow, but all he could hear was a car running, indistinct laughter, maybe a football being kicked against a wall. He rejoined their card circle, squeezing in between Biju and Sony.

‘At least he might pay us,’ Biju said.

‘He won’t,’ Avtar said. ‘He’s just saying that so we’re still here when he comes back.’

‘Where would we go?’ Sony asked, chuckling drily, and he accidentally flipped a card over while dealing and had to gather them all up and shuffle again.

The door opening woke them all up. Sudden, unfriendly light. Avtar wanted only to remain in his dream, but he could smell popcorn, fresh, and yawned and removed his arm from his eyes. It was a woman. He sat up — they all did. He’d seen her sometimes at the kitchen window, a scrunchie in her hair. Today, her hair was down and wet and pulled forward over one shoulder. She looked like she was from India, an impression given by her make-up, perhaps: a thickly applied bright pink to go with her salwaar kameez. She was holding a red beach bucket and placed this on the wood floor. A steel plate covered the top, to which she added a foil-wrapped bundle.

‘Dhal-roti,’ she said, simply, kindly. ‘I’ll collect it later.’

‘Eating out of a bucket?’ Avtar said, disgusted.

‘It’s what Papaji said.’

‘Tell your father-in-law we’re not his pets.’

‘Won’t the dhal be cold by lunchtime?’ Biju asked. ‘I don’t think I can eat cold dhal.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I wish I could reheat it.’

‘Why can’t you reheat it?’ Avtar asked.

She looked worried, as if she’d said too much already, and backed out of the shed and turned the key. They heard her soft tread on the grass.

‘Did she look dressed up to you?’ Avtar asked. ‘Like they were going to a wedding? What day is it?’

‘Friday,’ Biju said.

‘Sunday,’ Sony corrected him.

‘They’ll be gone all day,’ Avtar said.

‘Did she smell of popcorn to anyone?’ Biju said, trying to find an opening into the roti bundle.

Avtar listened at the door, until he heard voices hurrying each other on and car doors shutting. Then, nothing.

‘They’ve gone.’

‘What are you going to do?’ Sony asked, sceptical.

He took the pole from the side of his mattress and drove it into the gap above the doorjamb.

‘You’ll ruin it for the rest of us,’ Sony said.

‘Just let him go,’ Biju said. ‘More work for us.’

Avtar yanked the pole out and drove it back in, until finally it stuck, slipping far enough through to act as a lever. He left it hanging there, half out of the door, while he recovered. Then he secured his feet and pushed hard against it. He could feel himself grimacing — ‘You look like you’re having the world’s biggest shit,’ Biju said — and at times it seemed as if the pole might snap, but then, and without the explosion of noise Avtar had prepared himself for, the lock retracted and the door clattered open. He stumbled to the ground, it had happened so unexpectedly.

‘It’s open,’ he said, turning round, as if anticipating applause.

He went back for his rucksack, then down the garden, the pole reassuring in his hand.

The drive was empty and when he pressed his forehead to the window he could see no one inside. The kitchen door held a glass panel which he smashed with the pole, snaking in his arm to reach the lock. As soon as he stepped inside, a siren sounded, a careening wail of blue noise. Desperately Avtar rifled through some post on the counter, hoping to find his papers there. Nothing.

Sony and Biju and the others came hurtling past with their bags.

‘You fucking bhanchod cunt!’ Sony said.

He wanted to look upstairs, in Jagdish’s bedroom. He was sure his passport would be there. But the siren. It was blaring murderously. He picked up the pole — ‘Fingerprints,’ his mind said — and ran. He ran round the corner of the house and up the drive. There were fields far off to the left and Sony seemed to be making for them, Biju many metres behind. Avtar went right, sprinting towards the main road.

*

Halfway up the stairs, Narinder heard her phone. It never rang these days. Maybe it was Randeep. She scrambled across the landing and into her room, finding the thing on her dressing table. She didn’t know the number. She answered anyway. Hello? Randeep?

‘Hello. Is that Narinder Kaur?’

He sounded familiar. ‘Yes. Hello. I’m Narinder Kaur.’

‘Oh good. It’s David Mangold here. From the immigration office. Remember me?’

He said they were due their second and final insp— meeting. Meeting, he repeated. But the office hadn’t received a reply to either of their letters over the last month.

‘I trust everything continues to go well for you and your husband?’

‘There’s another meeting?’ she asked, closing her bedroom door.

‘Routine, of course. So we can cross you off our list, so to speak. Are you still in the same place? I can easily pop over again. Some time next week, say?’

She held on to her dressing table. She sat down. ‘Could I ask my husband to call you?’

‘I took the liberty of contacting your landlord and he said you left quite unexpectedly. Apparently, the front door sustained some damage. It all sounded very dramatic.’

Narinder hunted madly through her mind for something to say.

‘I’m sure it was nothing to do with you.’

‘No,’ she said, glad of the out.

‘As I thought. So, next week, then?’

Her hand went to her throat. Her mouth felt dry. ‘I’ll get my husband to call you.’

‘Is he not there?’

‘He’s working.’

‘Do you have a work number?’

She winced. ‘No, sorry.’

‘And you are?’

‘Pardon?’ He knew who she was.

‘And you are where, if you’re no longer at the flat?’

‘I’m at home,’ she said carefully.

‘Right.’ She heard his voice change. ‘You do know that, under the terms of the visa, you’re required to notify us of any amendment to your personal details?’

‘Yes. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.’

‘I’m sure it won’t. I’ll just take down your new address and we can update our systems. Fire away.’

She didn’t know what to say. She felt herself being ground down.

‘Ms Kaur?’ he said, with deep insincerity.

‘Yes. My husband will call you and he’ll explain.’

A pause, as if he was thinking things through. She waited for him to say he was sending the police round this very minute.

‘Right you are. But do make it soon. According to our database the second inspection needs to take place by the end of this month. Otherwise the wheels start turning and warnings get automatically dispatched and things can get a bit messy.’

She nodded. She just wanted to get off the phone. ‘Yes. Yes. That’s fine. Thank you. Thank you.’

All afternoon she tried to get hold of Randeep. She even dialled Vakeel Sahib’s office in India, but they hadn’t heard from him either.

The evening meal was small, quiet. Occasionally, Baba Tarsem Singh and Tejpal exchanged a few words. She wasn’t listening. She said she was going to her room and would be down to wash up later.

‘But you’ve hardly eaten,’ her father said.

‘I’ll have it,’ and Tejpal stretched for Narinder’s plate.

She started up the stairs, fretfully, a sick feeling in her stomach.

‘Wedding nerves,’ she heard Tejpal say.

She took the suitcase from where it stood against her dressing table and opened the drawers built into the side of her bed. She put her clothes in the suitcase, zipped it up, and put the suitcase in the drawer and shut it. Still kneeling on the carpet, she placed her cheek on the cold duvet and hoped her father might one day forgive her.

She wrote a letter and propped it against her pillow and moved to the door. She listened: they sounded asleep. She closed her hand around the doorknob, finger by finger, and twisted her wrist to the left. It swung open without noise, and she picked up her suitcase and stepped onto the landing. The darkness was total, until her eyes adapted and shapes appeared: the shallow, square well at the top of the stairs; the ceramic bluebirds in the window, silently aghast. Tejpal’s door was closed, but her father’s was open. She could hear him breathing, deep and long, and in her mind’s eye she could see him too, lying, as ever, on the right-hand side of the bed, his birdlike hands locked gently over his stomach. He looked so vulnerable. She picked up her suitcase and returned to her room. She couldn’t do it to him again, not like this. She felt too old to be running away.

Two days later, Tejpal went out and said he wouldn’t be back until the evening. Her father was in the front room, napping. A plate of carrots, chopped in half and then into sticks, lay on the table before him.

‘Baba?’ she said.

‘Hm?’ he said, not opening his eyes.

She waited and he lifted his face to her.

‘Ki?’

‘Baba, I need to talk to you.’

She sat on the other settee, at a right angle to him, and said she’d received a phone call, a few days ago now, which meant she had to go back to Sheffield. People would get into trouble if she didn’t. Would he please give his permission for her to go?

He looked down at the gutka in his lap, and several long moments passed before he picked the book up and set it on the table, beside the carrots. ‘What kind of trouble?’

‘With the police.’ Her eyes were on the carpet a few feet in front of her. She felt too embarrassed to look at him.

‘Why can’t you tell me what it is? Maybe we can help.’

‘You can’t, Baba. I’ve just — ’ she covered her face in her hands — ‘I’ve just got myself into such a mess. I’m so sorry. But I can’t let people’s lives be ruined because of me. I can’t.’

His face quivered with frustration, as if he’d thought they’d moved on from this. ‘Narinder, you ask too much. Too, too much.’

‘I know I’ve not given you any reason to trust me, but I promise if you let me go I’ll be back soon.’

‘When?’

‘By the end of the year.’

‘And what do we tell Karamjeet’s parents?’

‘I’ll be back in plenty of time for the wedding. I won’t let you down.’

‘And Tejpal? Should your brother not have a say in this?’

‘Do you think he’d agree?’

‘Be sensible.’

‘Do you think he’d come after me?’

‘He’s your brother. You’re more alike than you think.’ Though he reached for his cane, he didn’t stand up. ‘And you’ve never let me down, but you’re asking me to put this family’s honour at your feet. I can’t risk that, daughter.’

‘Baba, I’ve got to go.’

‘Narinder.’

‘I’m going, Baba,’ she said. ‘I won’t let you stop me.’ She felt the words rushing up her throat. ‘Why can’t you give me this? All I wanted was one year. A few months now. Why can’t you give me that? I’ve given my whole life to you. For you. I’ve thrown my life aside so you can walk with your head held high and you can’t even give me this? How is that right? How is that fair?’

It was the first time she’d ever raised her voice to her father. He gazed at her, neither of them blinking. Then he stood and left the room for many minutes. She could hear him in the kitchen. When he came back, he was holding some money in his free hand.

‘Take it.’ And she did, thanking him.

Then he did an extraordinary thing. He put his cane aside and with both hands removed his turban from his head and bent and placed it at her feet.

‘Baba!’ she said, dropping to the floor so they were both kneeling, his trembling hands in hers.

She’d never seen him without his turban. She’d never seen his grey-black hair in its tight ball on top of his head, seen the small, private, brown comb he used to keep it in check. It felt completely wrong to be seeing it now.

A tear rolled down his cheek. ‘A Sikh’s honour lies in his children and in the pugri on his head. Don’t step on my honour, beita.’

*

The settee in the back was only big enough for a small child to sleep on. As Tochi uncurled, sitting up, he felt his spine click in several places. He fetched his holdall from underneath and, as always, checked his money was still there. He used the toilet opposite, brushed his teeth in the avocado basin, then switched on the lights and the fryers. This wasn’t a sustainable long-term arrangement. Malkeet, the bastard, was taking half his wages in rent.

He’d been here ever since the gora knocked on his door. Some tall, tie-wearing guy with a clipboard, bubbles of foam at the corners of his lips, gesturing at the smashed door and demanding — as far as Tochi could make out — an explanation. Tochi had gone back for his bag, then shoved past the man and never returned.

He heaved a large white sack of potatoes to the chipper and slashed it open with a knife. It occurred to him that the gash looked like some kind of demented smile. Malkeet arrived, then Harkiran, and Tochi spent the morning in the kitchen, working steadily. He knew his way around by now.

That night, the shop closed, he tightened his bootlaces, grabbed his holdall and set off up the road. Everything was shut. The yellow Buddha in its restaurant window looked sinister and on the other side of the road a man shouted at a cashpoint. He noticed a red light blinking in the distance, under a streaky moon. He thought it was a plane, then realized it was the same iron TV mast he’d see during the day. How much more beautiful it was at night. He walked all the way to the end of Ecclesall Road, until shops disappeared and roads became lanes and the hills seemed close enough to touch. He carried on through the small wood and climbed the steps onto a bridge over the river. For a long while he stared at the black water. He’d crouched beside a river like this and offered their ashes, four years ago tonight.

He’d spent a week in hospital, which Babuji paid for, then he’d discharged himself. His parents’ bodies were with the old man — they’d been left in the auto. Tochi returned alone to the bend in the track, the bend where he’d told Dalbir and Palvinder to get out and run. It looked different in daylight. The sun on the fields. A gentle mist. He made for the trees and didn’t have to search for very long.

The next day, towards the end of the lunchtime rush, Malkeet came through to the kitchen and said some Nanaki was asking about him out front. ‘You going all fundo on us?’

Tochi peeled off his gloves, drew away his hairnet.

‘Ask if she wants a job. Could do with replacing Kirsty.’

He lifted the counter flap and walked straight past Harkiran at the till and her waiting under the TV, and carried on to the forecourt. She followed him outside. She looked anxious, like she was lost. Her suitcase was with her.

‘I need to speak to Randeep. We’re in trouble. You need to tell me where he is.’

‘Who’s in your flat?’

‘What?’

‘Is it empty?’

‘What? No. I don’t know. It’s not mine. I’m looking for Randeep.’

‘You rented,’ he said, to himself.

‘I can’t go back there. My brother. .’

He made a face: her family issues were of no concern. ‘I’ve got work to do,’ he said and made to leave.

‘Can’t you at least give me his old address? It’s the only place I can think of. Please? I’m desperate.’

He gave directions: through the gardens, up the main road, take one of the roads left, after the pub. It’s up there. A green-and-blue door.

She looked pained — it was too much to absorb. ‘You’ll have to take me.’

He turned to go back inside.

‘I’ll pay you.’

She returned at night, after his double shift had ended, and he took the money and told her to follow him. The gates to the gardens were locked, so they walked the long way round. It was a cool night. Leaves were falling into measly piles. She noticed his things in the holdall across his back.

‘Do you still live downstairs?’

‘It doesn’t matter where I live.’

The house was in deep shadow. He went up the path, crouching to listen at the letter box, then through the flimsy side gate and round to the back door. He tripped the lock with his screwdriver and stepped into the kitchen. The lights didn’t work but he could make out the blue flour barrel, and the rota, and the calendar beneath that. The beads tinkled as if nautch girls lay in wait. He shut the back door.

‘Is Randeep here?’

He heard fear in her voice. Perhaps she thought he’d tricked her into something. Into coming to this empty place.

‘No one’s here. They’ve all gone.’

He inspected all three floors. The TV was still there, and so were the Union Jack chairs and upturned blue milk crates, and the settee, and the pack of eight joss sticks, unused on the windowsill. In his old room, his mattress lay on its side, against the wall. Randeep’s too. He turned round.

‘Your friend’s run away. I can’t help you any more.’

She didn’t seem to follow. ‘So what do I do? How do I find him?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘But don’t you understand? I need to find him. We could be in trouble.’

‘Get out.’

‘What?’ She sounded surprised. ‘But I’ve nowhere to go.’

‘Ask your God for help.’

She looked away, stung. ‘Do you think he’ll come back here?’

‘I want to live alone.’

She nodded. ‘It would only be until I can get in touch with him. I really do have nowhere else to go.’

He seemed to think about this. ‘You only paid me to bring you here. Not to stay.’

She looked up, her gaze long, as if only now understanding the blunt terms of this world she had penetrated. She brought her bag round to her stomach. ‘How much?’

He awoke before sunup, the water lapping the riverbank and his lips numb with cold. Already some of the men were sliding on their rucksacks and heading off for the day. He brushed his teeth, spitting red foam into the river, and as he dipped his toothbrush the sevadarni from the gurdwara arrived, a young woman in a kesri. She handed out roti and went down the line collecting any clothes that needed washing.

‘Nothing today, bhaji?’

Randeep shook his head.

She left a small battery-pack generator, three sockets either side, so they could charge their phones, and said she’d collect it tonight when she came back with their laundry.

He was the last man under the bridge. It was always this way. A family of ducks squawked past, the babies fighting viciously. He folded the blanket lengthways, rolled it up so it fitted into his suitcase, and set off towards the city, its chalky greys and limes.

He walked through the Eagle Shopping Centre and past the Playhouse, on to the park. The pedalos were all chained to the railings. Every now and then some couple or other would arrive and the pimply student at the park kiosk would unchain one of the pedalos and roll it to the lake. Randeep watched them for a while, then carried on to the park cafe, put his suitcase down and read the menu on the blackboard outside. He had enough for jammy toast, which he ate with tea. Then he picked up his suitcase and walked out of the park, counting his steps from the cafe to the gate, wondering if the number would be different from yesterday’s.

He reached a heavy junction jammed with black taxis and white double-decker buses, crossed when the green man told him he could, and carried on past the library and art museum, towards the hospital. At some point he turned left down an alleyway, which led to a tall, thin gate made of planks painted black. He walked in. Straight ahead was the back end of the shop — Bhalla Textiles — and to his right was the shed. He knocked on the door. The same woman answered: much older than him, hair loose and cut coarsely at the shoulder, rouge smeared beyond her lips.

‘Ah, you! I knew you’d be back! Come in, come in. You’re not going to run away before we even start this time, are you?’ He didn’t move. She kissed the air, took him in her arms. ‘Come to me, my baby. Come here and let Anita love you, my darling, darling boy.’

Afterwards, he leaned against the gate thinking he might vomit. He didn’t. He looked up. The air had taken on a grainier feel, the day beginning to close in. He should go back to the river. Instead, he carried on towards the hospital, which went on for several streets, and on each street there was some sort of ward he had to circle round. Soon, he didn’t know where he was. He didn’t know these roads. They weren’t full of shoppers. They were grubbier, most of the windows painted over. Signs. Chaddesden. Mickleover. Burton-upon-Trent. His heart was thick in his chest. He didn’t know where he was going. He didn’t know this place. He didn’t know this country. He spotted a payphone and dialled his mamma. He couldn’t get through. He tried four, five times. He bang-banged the receiver down and looked up. Their faces were in the glass. Jaytha. Rishi. Gurpreet. What he’d done to them. He’d done. He looked down at himself as if for the first time seeing the violence inside him. He was terrified. He didn’t mean to do it. He thought of his father. He folded to the ground, as if the glass box itself was caving in on him.

‘So you didn’t jump? You fell?’

It was Prabjoht, passing Randeep tea from the flask. They were back under the bridge.

Randeep nodded, shivering wet under the blanket. ‘I think so. I didn’t see it.’

‘It’s a fucking river!’

He could feel all their eyes on him. He was sure he’d fallen and not jumped, though he couldn’t be certain. All he remembered was staggering along the towpath, suitcase heavy in his hand, seeing their faces. And then someone was pulling him out.

Above, fireworks flared, dressing the night in sequins. Someone shouted that it was time to eat, and, as sometimes happened, there was a good amount of food that evening. There was mithai from Prabjoht, whose job involved assembling boxes of the stuff, and fish pakoras from a boy whose massi gave him food parcels every week. A new arrival passed around fried chicken drumsticks. He was a heavy Panjabi with fingerless gloves. He looked like Gurpreet. Gurpreet. Randeep shut his eyes.

Hours later he woke up, still shivering. At least the gurdwara would be delivering more blankets tomorrow — one extra for everyone. They needed them now the freeze had begun. He sat up, rubbing his arms. The night wind had picked up too, and as he looked down the line of sleeping bodies, he saw that they had disappeared under a fugitive covering of dead brown leaves.

12. CABIN FEVER

On Mondays she left the money on the kitchen table, the notes weighed down under the belly of a spoon. The money would be gone the next morning. She never saw him. He left before she came down, and she’d be in bed, the hour long past midnight, when she heard him return. There’d be the sound of a lighter being clicked, a pan being encouraged to boil.

Her room was at the rear of the house, on the first floor. His on the second. He’d told her to stick to her room, the kitchen and bathroom, and always to use the back door. They avoided the lounge and kept it unlit. She noticed one day that he’d removed all the light bulbs from any room with a window that looked out onto the street.

She was used to being alone in a house. The silence didn’t bother her. The emptiness did. The clean sweep of the walls, the dark consistency of the rooms. It was as if wherever she went she was confronted by herself, ridiculed. She spent much of the day by her bed, whispering to God — to keep her strong, not to abandon her.

One night she heard voices downstairs. She’d been kneeling on the ground and she stood and moved to the landing. She leaned over the banister, then quietly descended and watched from the entrance to the kitchen, holding the beads aside. He had his back to her and the garden door was open and she could see three men trying to look in. Indians, all.

‘We heard this had been empty for weeks. Months,’ one of them said.

‘Like I said, I live here,’ Tochi said.

‘You live here with her?’ the man said.

One of the others guffawed. Tochi said nothing.

‘Is he telling the truth?’ the man asked her. ‘Do you live here together?’

Narinder nodded.

‘You both in this big house?’

‘You’ll have to find somewhere else,’ Tochi said.

The men seemed to accept this.

‘Can you spare any food, friend?’

‘No.’

‘I’ve some dhal,’ Narinder said, coming into the kitchen a little. ‘You can have that.’

They came in — ‘Obliged, sister’ — and sat shivering around the table while she heated the dhal in the microwave. Once finished, they thanked her and said they’d be on their way. Tochi followed them through the side gate and watched them disappear down the road. When he came back she was still there.

‘Will they be all right?’ she asked.

He returned to his food on the cooker. ‘Don’t do that again.’

‘They were hungry. Would you let them starve?’

He said nothing and she went back through the beads and up the stairs.

She found the library again easily enough, and the lady’s name clicked into place the moment Narinder opened the door and saw her standing behind the reception desk. Jessica. It was, she later thought, a name well suited to white-haired ladies with bright blue eyes. Smiling, anxious, Narinder approached. She wanted to apologize, that was true. She had also wanted to get out of that house.

‘Narinder,’ Jessica said. ‘Well, better late than never, I say.’

‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for letting you down.’

Jessica showed her to the staff kitchen, where the interview had taken place. ‘I’m a firm believer in the power of a good, strong brew.’ She plucked a box of camomile from the high cupboard. ‘I’m assuming you’ve come back because you still want the job?’

‘Oh, I’d love to. .’

‘You don’t sound very sure?’

‘You see, I’m only here for two or three months. Then I’ve got to go back home.’

‘That’s fine with me. It’s always busier in the winter. Unless you have better things to do?’

‘No, no. Definitely not. I don’t have anything to do. It’s just—’ She struggled to know how to say it. ‘I don’t want anyone to find me.’

Jessica filled the mugs with boiling water. ‘In that case, let’s just keep it all very informal, shall we?’

She loved the job. It was basic admin and filing and only for two or three days a week, but it rescued her from the accusatory silence of the house. She found she liked being around other people, kind people. It was its own peculiar balm. Only when she left the library and started for home did she fully remember that the immigration man was on to them and that Randeep still hadn’t been in touch. She’d tried calling him every day. At first his phone had gone straight to voicemail, as if it was switched off, but now it didn’t even do that, and all she got was a long dead note, flatlining. She couldn’t believe he’d run away, not this close to getting his stamp.

As she turned onto Ecclesall Road, she saw Tochi up ahead: she recognized his jacket, the ribbed collar arranged around his neck. There was something about the way he walked that had become familiar to her, something to do with the way he kept his elbows pressed to his sides. She expected him to take a left after the pub, then pass the school and climb to their road. He walked straight on. Perhaps he knew a shortcut, but when she got to the house he wasn’t there. Thirty minutes later he came in, and, without acknowledging her, went to his room.

She’d not been to the gurdwara for nearly a month now, not once since she’d been in the house. She knew she was avoiding it, was scared of it, scared of everyone taking one look at her and seeing how she was failing Him. It was easier to stay in her room, where she could convince herself that these feelings weren’t real, or were temporary and more to do with her situation than any change inside her. On Gurpurab, however, the pull was too great and she felt she had to go and pay her respects. She caught the bus after work, and, head bowed, went up to the darbar sahib and remained there until the end of the rehraas. Afterwards, she entered the langar hall, to share in the food. She saw her old friend Vidya coming towards her. She’d had her baby.

‘You should go,’ Vidya said, ushering Narinder out of the queue.

For a sickening moment, Narinder thought they really had seen inside her and were throwing her out.

‘Some men were here looking for you. Showing your photo to everyone.’

‘Oh.’

‘Yes. Oh. So it’s better if you stay away.’

‘That’s my brother. He—’

‘I don’t need to know. It’s not safe here.’

She prayed that night. She took out from her suitcase the photo of Guru Nanak, stood it on the windowsill, and sat cross-legged before it. Waheguru is my ship and He will bear me safely across. It was one of her favourite lines. The words would surround the edge of her world in glimmering halo and she’d feel reassured. Not tonight. She repeated the words again and again but there came no halo, and there came no ship. There was only a frightening and oceanic darkness.

For two days she didn’t eat. She couldn’t. She felt hollowed out, as if some instrument had scooped away all appetite. On the third evening she forced herself to boil a quarter-cup of rice, which she sat at the table and ate with a glass of milk. She washed her plate and dried it with tissue-paper and set it aside. Then she returned the carton of milk to the fridge. As she closed the fridge door, she noticed on the upper shelf a second carton, opened. They wouldn’t get through both. Half would be wasted. She felt suddenly angry and left a note, in Panjabi, asking him to please check in the fridge before buying milk as there was no point in wasting it, and that he was welcome to use any milk she bought. She didn’t know why she did this, wrote this note. Because if He really had gone, then she couldn’t understand what the force was that drove her to try and do good. So maybe He hadn’t gone after all, maybe He was still there, watching undetected, another pair of eyes trying to catch her out.

She wrote a second note when two days later the same thing happened. She left it on the kitchen table, along with her weekly payment, and when she returned from work that evening both were gone. She opened the fridge. Another pointless new carton. She buried her face in her hands.

Jessica handed Narinder an envelope — her wages in cash. ‘I do hope you’re enjoying it with us?’

‘I am. I really am,’ and she meant it. She never felt more part of the world than when she was working.

She walked home with her coat buttoned up and a hand at her throat, scrunching her collar closed. Again, she saw Tochi up ahead, going past their turn-off. She still didn’t know why he did that. Once she was in the kitchen, she went through the beads and up to her room, taking off her coat as she went. She splashed some water on her face from the basin in the bathroom and returned downstairs. She chopped an onion and set it to stew on the stove, adding a cube of the garlic-ginger mixture she’d learned to make in bulk and keep chilled in ice trays. Then she wiped the counters down with a new disinfectant she’d bought, hoping this one might at last rid the surfaces of their black streaky skin.

She heard the scrape of the side gate, footsteps. She froze, watchful, but it was only him, coming past the window and now through the door. A blue carrier bag hung from his fingers and this he lifted onto the counter and she watched him place the bread and eggs to one side and then take out the carton of milk and step towards the fridge. Anger propelled her forward and she snatched the carton from his hand and threw it to the floor.

‘Why are you being like this? Why? Have I become so worthless?’ Her eyes were white-wide, beseeching. She pressed a finger to her chest. ‘What have I ever done to you? To anyone? I want to know. Why is this happening to me?’

He picked up the carton from the floor and put it on the shelf, next to hers. She’d moved to the cooker.

‘There was a raid,’ he said. ‘Here.’

She turned round. ‘That was months ago.’

‘Three months ago.’

She didn’t think she understood. ‘And Randeep— What? He’s been deported? But I’d have been told.’

‘All I know is there was a raid. Sometimes they keep an eye on the house.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘He might have come back here too soon.’

‘But he’s got a visa.’

He took a few slices of bread and began to butter them.

‘Are you going to leave now?’ She realized she didn’t want him to.

‘If you stay quiet — if you quit the tantrums — they won’t come again.’ He took a dented, grim-looking tin from the cupboard — pilchards — and slopped it all into a pan.

‘I’m making a fresh sabzi,’ she said. ‘I can make enough for two.’

‘No.’ Then: ‘Thank you.’

*

A new girl had started at Crunchy Fried Chicken, replacing Kirsty, but for some reason to do with babysitters she could only work the late shifts. Tochi had been moved to earlies, finishing each day at 4 p.m. He’d argued with Malkeet over it, saying they didn’t need anyone else and he’d been coping fine with the double shift.

‘But I need someone who can banter at night,’ Malkeet said. ‘Someone who doesn’t look like he wants to kill half my customers.’

A week on, he was still angry about it, about the cut in his income. He hauled the five-litre canister of oil into his arms and, to shake the dregs from the bottom, banged it against the steel fryers, hard.

‘Very mature,’ Harkiran said.

Then Tochi topped up the oil and chucked in the chips. But he’d forgotten to lower the temperature and the splashback was considerable. He managed to look away in time and felt only his forearm scald.

‘You idiot!’ Malkeet said, turning the gauge. He fetched a tube of soothing cream from the toilet room. ‘See what happens when you do things in a temper? Turn round. Lift your T-shirt.’

‘It’s fine,’ Tochi said.

‘Your back got splashed to fuck. How can it be fine?’

‘I said it’s fine.’

His arm, however, was hot and sore and red, as if a whole world of heat was trapped inside it. For a moment, he thought he felt his back tense, his body remembering. He took the cream home and applied it again, then found a bandage and sat at the table and wound it crudely up from his hand. He tried tidying the ends in, but as soon as he stood up the whole thing unravelled. He was looking for a safety pin under the sink when she walked through the door.

‘What happened?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Can I help?’

He carried on searching, knocking aside her stupid cleaning bottles.

‘Do you want a pin?’

He stopped. ‘Don’t put yourself out.’

She fetched several from her room and told him to sit while she took the bandage and started at his elbow and worked tidily, carefully, down to his wrist. He checked, but she didn’t seem to mind touching his skin. Maybe she didn’t know. Or didn’t care. In any case, each time he felt the soft scrape of her fingertips, he had to concentrate hard on the door straight ahead.

She used three pins to keep it all in place and said he should change it every day. ‘But I can do that.’

He nodded.

‘So you left work early?’

‘Yes.’

‘I see you sometimes. Walking home. Except you come a different way.’

He said nothing.

‘Is it quicker? Your way?’

‘Quicker?’

‘I mean, why don’t you just turn off the main road nearer the house?’

‘I used to.’

‘You don’t any more?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

He sighed, impatient. ‘Because of the police.’

She thought on this, in case she’d missed something. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen any police round there.’

‘Perhaps because you don’t need to worry about them.’

‘Can I ask where you see them?’

‘Are you calling me a liar?’

She didn’t respond, and he seemed to regret the accusation.

‘Near the school,’ he said.

‘The school?’

‘That’s what I said.’

She felt a smile coming to her lips. ‘Do you mean outside the school?’

He looked across.

‘At about four o’clock?’

‘If you’ve got something to say, tell me.’

She explained what a lollipop lady was, that it had nothing to do with the police and was no reason for him to walk so far out of his way.

‘Honestly. You don’t have to do that.’

He nodded. He seemed embarrassed.‘Thank you for telling me.’

The following afternoon, at work, he pulled her crumpled notes from his pocket and asked Harkiran to read them for him, and when Narinder got back from work that evening she opened the fridge and saw that he hadn’t bought his own separate carton of milk, and had instead drunk from hers.

Avtar felt a little fresher that evening as he sat down to eat. He’d washed in the toilets of the club, feeling a bit silly as he watched himself digging into his armpits with pink soap from the dispensers. He removed the steel plate covering the food bucket. There was still maybe half an inch of watery dhal left, enough for tonight. He’d top up at the gurdwara tomorrow. He spun the bread wrapper open and extracted two slices. Afterwards, he put the empty bucket in the corner and moved to the back of the Portakabin and lay on the bunk he’d made. Through the window, Leeds wore its evening lights: yellow office windows, a nightclub called Flares flashing crazily. He’d hitched a ride here straight from Jagdish’s, three weeks ago now. He’d hoped the building work might have started up again. It hadn’t. The foundations were still exposed. The cranes and scaffolding, the mesh sheeting and aluminium tunnel, none of it had changed. He should count himself lucky, though, because the very next day he’d found work cleaning a club called Parachute, for a young mussulman on the make. God was still looking over him. And he’d get his visa renewed soon, with his second year about to begin. Yes, it wasn’t all bad, he told himself, as he drew his knees up and brought his face down to meet them.

It was still dark when he woke up, scrambling, scared he was about to piss himself. He hurried behind the cabin, clomping over the bushy grass, unzipped and held down the front of his jeans with his thumb. Nothing came, though the need was still there, pressing. He forced it out and the pain was a furious current firing up and down his cock. He had to keep stopping, pissing in short bursts, and when he finished and zipped up he was sweating. That was the third time this week, and the worst. It was the change in his diet, he kept telling himself, simply his body’s way of asking for food stronger than watery dhal. He was too awake now; there was no point going back to his bed. He seated himself on the middle step, head tipped against the broken cabin door. It was a clear sky; the moon distant, the air thin. He needed to get a blanket soon. That probably wasn’t helping either. The cold. He pulled his knees up to his chest, one leg at a time, and rested his cheek down. He was so tired. Far away, a plane silently climbed.

Arriving in London, he went straight to the college. They took his photo, added some notes to his computer file, and asked him to complete an application confirming his student visa status, which included an agreement not to undertake any paid work in the UK. He signed it hurriedly and slid it back across the counter. She’d changed her hair colour but it was the same woman as last year, when he’d walked into the college on bare feet. She seemed not to have remembered him.

‘Now I just need your passport.’

There was an infinitesimal shift in Avtar’s face. ‘My passport?’

‘I need to take a copy. You can have it straight back.’

‘But you took copies last year.’

‘Procedures, I’m afraid.’ She smiled and looked to the line of students behind him.

‘I left it at home.’

‘Well, we will need original copies before we can enrol you. Until then you won’t be able to sit the course. Sorry.’

Avtar nodded, as if in total agreement with their procedures. ‘I’ll bring them next time.’

‘Marvellous,’ and she passed him back his folder.

He returned to Cheemaji in the car park.

‘Everything OK?’ the doctor asked. ‘Nothing about late registration?’

Avtar nodded, handing him the visa agreement.

‘I’ll take this to the embassy myself and renew your visa. Congratulations!’

He nodded again and tried to smile.

They reversed out and joined a queue at the exit barrier, which seemed to have broken. The security guard was turning a wheel to raise the bar.

‘Are you not teaching today?’ Avtar asked.

‘Hmm? Oh, no. I’m on leave for a few months. A sabbatical.’

He’d grown his beard and his discreet steel kara had been replaced with a hefty gold band, as wide as his wrist. Avtar didn’t ask after any of these changes. He had enough problems of his own. He turned his face to the window and tried to look forward to a night in a clean bed.

He’d told Cheemaji his return train was at one o’clock, an hour earlier than it was due.

‘Thank you, uncle,’ Avtar said, levering himself out of the car.

Dr Cheema undid his seat belt and leaned across. ‘Are you sure you won’t stay? We’ve hardly talked.’

‘I have work tomorrow.’

‘Well, make sure you come back soon, acha? Plenty of room now,’ he added, laughing a little embarrassedly. Avtar hadn’t said anything the previous evening, when they’d parked up outside the big house and Cheemaji told him he could sleep in his son’s — Neil’s — room. It was only this morning, over breakfast, that the grandmother confirmed she’d gone, taking the boy with her.

‘The whore.’

‘Biji, please,’ Cheemaji said.

‘It’s what the world thinks.’

‘She might come back,’ he said, faintly.

Avtar had heard of people getting divorced, though this was his first experience of seeing someone going through it. If he was honest, he couldn’t help but think that Cheemaji had brought it all on himself.

He entered Kings Cross and found a table at the same coffee shop as last time. He was nervous. He pulled his chair back and made for the toilets. Again, it hurt to piss and he had to chew his bottom lip to keep from crying out. He washed his hands and splashed his face and told himself to be strong. He would not show them his fear. There was a man in a suit at the hand dryer and when he walked out, shaking the water off his fingers, he left his mobile on top of the machine. Avtar nearly called after him. Then he pocketed the phone and returned to the table.

Bal arrived alone and Avtar shook his hand and invited him to please take a seat, as if he was chairing this meeting.

‘No bhaji?’ Avtar asked.

‘He’s busy.’

‘Shall I order some tea?’

Bal looked surprised. ‘You’re getting confident.’ Then: ‘We thought you’d run out on us. Too scared to answer your phone?’

‘I’ve been busy.’ He took his hand out of his pocket and put a few sorry-looking notes on the table. ‘For your uncle.’

Briefly, Bal inspected the notes. ‘That’s not even gunna touch the sides, bruv.’

‘The rest will come. I’m working now. There’s nothing to worry about.’

‘You’re weeks and weeks behind.’

‘A little more time,’ he said, feeling the confidence slip. ‘You can have this as well,’ and he put the stolen phone on the table.

‘I don’t want— You’re just not getting the message, are you?’ He lifted his finger to Avtar’s forehead and accompanied each syllable with a prod: ‘Are-you-too-thick-to-un-der-stand?’ He fell back against his chair. ‘I think it’s time we paid your family a visit. Navjoht, right? And the shawl shop in Gandhi Bazaar?’

‘Please. I’m doing my best.’

‘He’s put whole families on the street if the son hasn’t paid up.’

‘Just a little more time. Please! Can’t you explain it to him?’

Bal clucked his tongue several times, in thought, then shrugged. ‘I guess you could buy yourself one last chance.’ He looked across, with intent. ‘You know?’

Avtar reached down inside his sock and pulled out another note. It was the last of his money and he’d intended on buying some meat with it, some strong food that might feed this body. He handed it over. ‘Thank you.’

He avoided the guards at Leeds station, instead stealing through a delivery gate left unchained. He crossed the car park and made his way to the hotel. The makeshift stairs only took him halfway. He had to climb a ladder to reach the top tier of the scaffolding. The wind was loud up here, so loud you could almost put a face to it. He could see how the city worked, the roads, the one-way system. From here, the motorway bridge was a mouth, and the traffic poured into it. It was all clear. Easy. It was all easy and yet still he was losing. He breathed. The wind slapped his face. How easy it would be to fall. How nice. He dug out from his rucksack the mobile he’d stolen and switched it on. There’d been several calls, probably from the gora in the suit. He put the phone at his side and probed further into the bag and found his college folder. A phrase from somewhere came to him: reaching beyond his dreams. He lifted the flap and tore into pieces every handout and worksheet and note he’d made. He threw the white pieces into the air and watched them shower and drift, until they were caught by the wind and vanished into the night.

13. THE OTHER SIDE OF THE SKY

In a single stiff shudder the minute hand docked on twelve and Tochi untied his apron from behind his back and hung it across the handle of the toilet door.

‘Off already?’ Malkeet said. He’d come into the kitchen for some batter and stood there holding a sloppy white pail of the stuff.

‘It’s four.’

‘I can see that. Set my bloody watch by you these days.’

He went through the gardens and up the main road, taking a left past the school and the lollipop lady.

For dinner he fried four aubergines into something that looked like a bartha. He ate half of it with bread and put the rest in the fridge for the next day. He was at the sink washing up when she came through the back door.

‘Hello,’ she said.

He nodded.

‘You’re early again.’

Was she making a joke? He said nothing.

She took off her coat and carried on through the beads and up the stairs. He heard a door shut and, perhaps a minute later, the toilet flush and then her feet on the stairs again.

‘Right,’ she said, re-entering the kitchen, and he hoped she might say something else. Instead, she set about making a start on her meal.

He ripped off the last square of kitchen towel and sat at the table, lifting his boot to his knee and spitting on the sheet. He worked at the dirt, scrubbing and polishing, sometimes spitting directly onto the leather. She brought her bowl of food to the table and sat opposite him. It looked like chickpeas. He glanced across to the counter and the opened tin confirmed that it was. She didn’t seem that hungry, though, sitting there weaving the spoon through her soup. She looked over.

‘I’ll be a bit late tomorrow. I’m going to look at some flats.’

He nodded, scrubbed.

Nothing more was said for a long while. She seemed distracted, looking up, looking down, fiddling with the kandha at her neck. Perhaps it was something to do with her family.

Finally, she said, ‘I can’t eat this. Would you like the rest?’

He didn’t think anything of it, but she seemed suddenly appalled at herself, her eyes wide, a hand to her mouth, and she apologized and dropped the lot into the sink.

There was a diversion further up, so the bus driver advised anyone wanting the top end of Ecclesall Road to get off outside the ’Tanical Gardens and walk. Narinder didn’t mind. It gave her time to think. Nothing can come out of nothingness, the granthi had said. So to know joy, compassion, sympathy — to feel love — means also to have in the world their opposites. She’d been reassured with that at the time, returned to Waheguru’s ship. It was only now, an hour later, that she felt the doubt and loss and fear whirling again, into a vicious storm. Stay strong, he’d advised. He knows what you are going through better than anyone. He’ll send you a sign. A sign, she thought. A sign. Walking up to the house, she turned her gaze to the stars, half hoping for the moon to explode.

The kitchen light was off as she turned the key and took a single step inside. All was quiet. Darkest was the hallway beyond the beads, as if someone were lurking there. But then she heard him moving about upstairs and there was a sudden feeling inside her of being safe. It was a feeling she recognized. It was the same feeling she used to get inside the gurdwara.

The oven wouldn’t work. She tried all four settings and then all four again after switching it off. It must be the mains. She pulled the oven away from the wall and saw that it was plugged into a wall socket, rather than straight into the circuit board. She sighed. The fuse, then.

He opened the door before she’d even stepped across the landing, as if he’d been listening out for her.

‘The oven,’ she said, one hand around the banister. ‘It’s not working. The fuse has gone and I can’t find another.’

‘I’ll get one tomorrow.’

She nodded. ‘Thank you.’ She wasn’t sure why she felt disappointed by his response.

‘I suppose you don’t have anything to eat,’ he said.

‘I’ll find something. The gas is still working.’

He started closing the door.

‘Unless you have something already made?’

He looked at her, and with the most surprising of sparks in his eyes said, ‘As long as you don’t mind eating leftovers.’

She smiled, and her smile widened in response to his own. He had such a quick, easy smile, as if it was something he did all the time.

There was still some of the bartha left, which she ate with toasted bread.

‘It’s better with roti,’ he said.

‘Not my rotis.’

‘You can’t cook?’

‘A gurdwara aunty tried to show me. She said it was like teaching a horse to hop.’

Another quick smile. A lovely smile, she thought.

‘I can teach you. If you like.’

She looked down at her food.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said, brisk, retracting.

‘No, no. I’d like that. Thank you.’

He went to the Londis to see if they sold fuses. She was putting away the dishes when he returned. His hands were empty.

‘No?’

‘Closed. I’ll get one from the main road tomorrow.’

‘Try Wisebuys. They look like they sell that kind of stuff.’

He poured himself a glass of water and sat at the table, still in his jacket and scarf.

‘It is starting to get cold,’ she said.

‘There’s blankets.’

‘I can’t walk around wrapped in a blanket the whole time.’

He drank half of the water. ‘How good were the flats you went to see?’

She didn’t know why she’d lied about that, about going to the gurdwara after work. But she knew what he meant: if she didn’t like staying here, if it was too cold for her, she could move.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. He was frowning, as if wrestling with some thought or idea.

‘Can you leave the kitchen light on when you come back? It can’t cost that much extra.’

He drained the rest of the water and said nothing for a long time. ‘It’s not the cost.’

She turned round from the worktop. She was more surprised by the fact of a response than by what he’d said. ‘Do you prefer the dark?’ Then: ‘Like Panjab, isn’t it? All those power cuts.’

‘I’m not from Panjab.’

‘Oh,’ and she felt foolish for being so presumptuous.

‘I’m from Bihar.’

He looked across so piercingly she felt herself pinned to the counter.

‘My family’s Kumar.’ He kept his eyes on her but it was almost as if she didn’t care. Perhaps these English-born types didn’t understand. ‘It’s a chamaari name,’ he clarified. Still he saw no change in her face, no recalibration in her eyes.

‘Is your family still in Bihar?’ she asked, warmly.

He stood up, both hands running through his hair. It was disturbing, dizzying even, not to get the response he’d always had, since time began. ‘My family are dead.’

Half an hour passed. Nothing more had been said. She wiped down the table and prepared her lunches for the following week. He, meanwhile, went round with his screwdriver — the TV, an old kettle — to see if a suitable fuse could be found. It was as if the silence between them had swelled into a third being, sitting at the table, someone whose eye they were working hard to avoid.

Behind her, she could hear panels being loosened, the sound of metal on metal. She opened the fridge door, put her sandwiches on the shelf, and reached for a bottle of orange squash.

‘Would you like a drink?’

He dropped the plugs, screws spilling. His hands were shaking. She came over and they gathered up all the screws and the wires and the plugs themselves and set them on the table.

He told her he was thirteen when he left home to find work in Panjab. A lot of Biharis did this, he said. The Panjabis don’t work their own farms any more. Their sons have left for America, Canada, UK. The parents need servants. For six months he looked for work, travelling west from Ambala to Bathinda, then north as far as Amritsar. He slept in an aluminium tunnel he’d carried from home. For money, he scoured dump sites for plastic bottles and sold them to local recycling collectors. It was only when he reached Jalandhar that he found a good job, taking care of the farm for a family who lived about twenty kilometres outside the city. Their two sons had gone to Sydney, working in fast-food restaurants. My family were doing well, he said. I was making good money. For the first time we could afford to rent our own land and house. But after three years it all started to go wrong. He told her everything. About his father’s accident, his sister’s wedding, his attempts to make it as an auto driver. The riots that engulfed them and killed his family. His two years working in a brick factory in Calcutta and the travel across to Europe by plane, ship and truck. His weeks on the streets of Paris and the year in Southall and, finally, the trip up to here, Sheffield.

‘Life,’ he said.

On Monday, heading out to work, she left the weekly payment on the table as usual. It was still there when she came back.

‘But don’t you need it?’ she asked.

‘I’ve enough.’

She divided the sabzi and put a plate of white bread in the centre of the table. She sat down. He was looking at the food.

‘Is something the matter?’ she asked.

All at once he moved to the cupboards and pulled out the half-packet of flour. He shook it into a plastic bowl and added water from the tap.

‘Are you making roti?’ she asked, curious. She joined him at the sink.

He was using his hands, the wet dough hanging off his fingertips in stiff peaks.

‘You made the sabzi, I’ll make the roti.’

She watched him work, adding water a little at a time — which she supposed was where she always went wrong — and she saw the concentration on his face, as if nothing in the world was more important than this task. She watched the muscles in his upper arms rise and fall and a slight sheen of sweat form across his brow. When he finished, he threw the ball of dough high up in the air, caught it, and turned to her.

‘Done,’ he said. And there was that quick smile again, and here was she, feeling herself blush.

That became the shape of their evenings: one of them cooking up the dhal or sabzi, the other making the rotis, and then a meal together, quietly, peaceably. At night he stood at his bedroom window, a finger absent-mindedly, repeatedly, tracing a crack in the wall. It really did feel like the two of them were alone in the world, as if the city was all lit up while they hid away in this pool of darkness. He moved to his mattress, listening. Her room was below his. There were small noises, creaks, light-footed and careful, unidentifiable in themselves, so painfully womanly when heard together.

Narinder pulled out from her suitcase the photo of Guru Nanak and stood it on the windowsill. She brought her hands together underneath her chin and thanked Him. He’d seen that she was in trouble and had given her His sign. Tochi. That’s what this had all been about. That was why she’d been brought onto this path. So that she might help Tochi, a good man who’d been through too much. She understood now. She stood up, light-headed with relief. She wanted to rush upstairs and knock on his door. But no. She’d wait until tomorrow. She hurried into bed. It took some effort to get to sleep, though. She was restless, like a castaway who imagines they’ve seen the prow of their ship coming over the horizon.

She didn’t catch him in the morning — he was still in his room and she needed to get to work. The evening, then, she decided. But when they sat down to eat that night she was suddenly nervous of his reaction. She mouthed a silent waheguru.

‘You not hungry?’

‘Hm?’ She gave the tiniest shrug, more a twitch of her shoulders, and put the roti down. ‘Not really.’

‘You should eat.’

‘Later.’

He thought on this. ‘You don’t have to eat with me every night. You don’t have to feel sorry for me.’

‘I don’t feel sorry for you.’

‘I shouldn’t have told you about me. It’s put you in a difficult position.’

‘It’s not. I like spending time with you.’

He said nothing for a while, as if absorbing this confession. ‘I’ll do the meal tomorrow.’

She took a sip of her water. ‘I went to the gurdwara at lunchtime and signed up for the kirtan tomorrow. And the rest of the week. I’ll have langar there.’

‘And if someone sees you?’

‘God will protect me.’

His jaw paused in its chewing, then resumed its work.

‘Why don’t you come?’ She’d tried to sound offhand.

He said nothing.

‘It might help.’

She watched him lift his face to her. The look in his eyes.

‘It might not help straight away. But in time. .’

‘In time what?’

She hesitated, then forced herself on. ‘It might help if you let in His love.’

‘If I let in his love,’ he repeated, as if trying the words out.

‘His love for us all.’

He laughed a little, and turned back to his roti.

He didn’t see her for five days. He cooked his own meals — potatoes with a thin gravy, adding peas if he could steal some from work — and ate alone at the table. He’d be lying on his mattress by the time he heard her key rattling in the lock, her footsteps on the stairs. He held his breath — if she knocked, he’d answer — but always she turned down the landing and away from the second flight of stairs. He moved onto his stomach. He wished these feelings would go away. He wished things could be as straightforward as they once were.

His phone rang — Ardashir. They’d not spoken since the hotel work dried up.

‘You still looking for work?’

‘In London?’

‘Would you go to Europe?’

Tochi was crossing the empty car park in front of the chip shop, on his way home. He switched the phone to his other ear. ‘Get to the point.’

‘Building offices. In the capital of Spain. For the city’s rich.’ There was lots of work, he said, enough for two years at least. He knew one of the contractors, and they’d get Tochi across no problem. The job was his.

‘Are you going?’

‘Me? No, I don’t think so. I’ll see out my days here.’

Tochi said nothing.

‘What is it? When do you want to leave?’

He’d reached the gates to the Botanical Gardens. He curled a gloved hand around an iron bar. ‘I’m staying here.’

‘Why?’

‘I want to.’

‘You want to take this chance, Tarlochan. That’s what you want to do. They’re talking thousands. It’ll make your future.’

‘I’ve decided.’

‘You’ll never earn as much.’

‘I know.’

‘You’re being stupid.’

‘Maybe.’

He heard Ardashir sigh — ‘I hope she’s worth it’ — and then he rang off.

He jumped the gates and was soon at the house, but one look at the unlit windows and he turned on his heel and set off back down the road.

The nishaan sahib fluttered above the gurdwara and for a long while he stood in the sudden icy rain. Inside, he removed his shoes and washed his hands and took a ramaal from the basket and tied it around his head. He could hear the kirtan playing upstairs, the plaintive chords of the harmonium, and, sort of under them, encouraging them, her voice. Slowly, he climbed up. It was his first time inside a darbar sahib since his family’s murder. He didn’t bow down before the book. He sat at the back and watched.

She had her eyes closed, her long lashes resting on her cheeks. Her necklace swung out, the kandha suspended in the air, and he allowed himself to imagine kissing her neck. She sang well, with feeling. He could see the strain on her face, as if she was working hard to dig right into the hymn, either to pull meaning from it or to force some back in. For a whole hour she sang like that, hymn begetting hymn, and when the last chords were played she bowed her head towards the book and picked up her songsheets and stood to leave. That was when she saw Tochi, watching from the back.

They walked home together in silence. The wind still contained grits of rain. As they turned up their road he said, ‘The puddles in my village when it rains, some of them are as wide as this street.’

She could hear the effort he was making. She should respect that. ‘In the monsoons?’

‘Not only then,’ he said, after a pause, and she wondered if she’d said something wrong. Did they not have monsoons in Bihar?

‘You sing really well.’

‘Thank you. And thank you for coming. I hope you got something from it?’

He said nothing. At the edge of his sight she looked beautiful, tired but beautiful. Her eyes were soft, her lips slightly parted. The wind turned her chunni into a sail behind her, exposing the small carriage of her breasts, the river of a back that flowed into the gentle roundness of her hips. More than anything he wanted to be with her tonight. They were nearing the house.

‘I’ve enjoyed this walk,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’

‘I’m singing for someone’s akhand paat on Sunday. Perhaps you’d like to come? It’ll be busy.’

He stiffened. ‘I don’t think so.’

She didn’t try to persuade him as he’d expected her to — perhaps wanted her to. She just turned and made for the side gate.

He’d done it once for her. That was enough. She was expecting too much, he thought, as she came through the beads, putting on her coat.

‘The paat starts at nine. Do you think it might snow?’

‘Maybe.’

She picked up her gloves, quickly tugging them on. ‘I’m guessing from your tone that you’re not joining me.’

‘That’s right.’

She came to him. ‘Please. I want to help.’

‘I don’t need your help.’

She put her hand on his shoulder. ‘It would mean a lot to me.’

She’d been gone some half an hour and he could still feel her hand on his shoulder. Shaking his head, he put on his jacket and locked the door behind him.

It was busy, as she’d said it would be. Guests were filing out of the langar hall and heading up the stairs and into the darbar sahib. He joined the queue and sat at the back of the chamber, as far from the granth as was possible. She was kneeling at an angle to the palki, her harmonium in front of her, a tabla player on either side. Her head was bowed. Hands together in her lap. For now, all was silent save for the granthi’s quiet reading.

The akhand paat was to celebrate some girl’s upcoming marriage — three years ago, the granthi said, this girl’s parents had come into this very gurdwara and vowed to hold a service if their handicapped daughter was blessed with a husband. And how God had listened! A boy from India, no less! Tochi had heard of these marriages. A marriage of desperates. As the ardaas ended, he watched Narinder lift her fingers to the keyboard, lean towards the microphone and begin the opening raag.

Afterwards, a vague sense of relief ran through the room. It was all over. Some started to leave; others milled at the back of the hall, chatting. He could see Narinder packing the harmonium into its large leather case. He started towards her. She hadn’t noticed him yet; there’d been too many present for that. He was coming up past the canopy when he saw someone who seemed familiar. A very tall, very thin man with an oversized turban that tapered to a tight point. Instinctively, Tochi took a pace backwards. Better to assume trouble than wait to figure it out. Then he knew. It was the man from the shop. The one with the divorced daughter. Tochi made to walk behind him. The man spoke: ‘It’s you, is it? And who are you trying to deceive today?’

Tochi said nothing.

‘Any more families you’re trying to ruin?’

He turned round, started to walk away.

‘Liars always run,’ the man bellowed, so loud Tochi could feel the whole room turn and stare, conversations dwindling. ‘Remember his face, everyone. He’s a chamaar who pretends he isn’t so he can marry our daughters and get his passport. Isn’t that right? Come on, which poor girl have you got your eye on today?’

He felt Narinder at his side, whispering that they should go. He shrugged her off, violently, and barged through the embarrassed crowd.

He wasn’t there when she got home. The lights were off and his room empty. She tried calling him but he didn’t pick up. She waited all day in the kitchen. In the evening, she moved upstairs.

It was gone midnight when she heard him enter. She sat up in her bed, listened. A tap was running, and now he seemed to be climbing to his room.

She knocked once, then opened the door. He was lying in the squashed centre of his mattress, an arm across his forehead. Even in the dark she could see that his eyes were open. She remained in the doorway.

‘Leave me alone.’

She didn’t move.

‘Don’t you ever ask me to go there again.’

She nodded. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Can I just ask you a question?’

‘Please,’ she said, but in a voice full of anguish, as if she knew what lay ahead. And yet still she had come. She knew what was going to happen to her and still she’d come.

He spoke evenly, as if detached from every word. ‘Where was God when they set me on fire?’

‘Please, Tochi.’

‘When they knifed my sister’s stomach open?’

‘Tochi.’

‘When they cut off my fifteen-year-old brother’s balls?’

Her tears were falling. ‘I don’t know. I really don’t know.’

‘Where was your God when I couldn’t even tell my parents’ bodies apart?’

She carried herself down the stairs and into the kitchen. She tried the switch — she needed light, this darkness was plugging up her throat — but nothing happened. Water, then, and she gulped down a glass, breathing hard as she chucked the last inch down the sink. She turned round, tentatively, as though afraid of what awaited her. The room was still. The clock said it was a quarter past midnight. The blinds made a cage on the wall. She checked the silver tin in the cutlery drawer: empty. She fumbled about under the sink and found a box of candles, lit one straight from the hob and stood it on a red saucer in the middle of the table. She sat down. The candle cast the room in antique grace. She closed her eyes and bowed her head and brought her hands together on the plain wood of the table. She could feel her breath shaking inside her. I am the dust at your feet. I am the dust at your feet. She couldn’t hear Him. I am the dust at your feet. I am the dust at your feet. No. No Him, him, no one, nothing. Only black silence and dead space. Her hands were trembling. She tried again. She couldn’t. Birds flew past her shoulder and crashed through the wall. A river rushed out of her chest. The words dried away.

She raised her fingers to her head, to her turban. She lifted it off and put it on the table. She eased out the hairpin down by her neck and placed that on the table too. And then the pin above that, and then pin after pin and clip after clip and all the while her hair was coming down in ribbons, loosening, uncoiling, falling. She heard him on the stairs, and now he was holding aside the beads and standing in the doorway. She stared at him, her arms arranged over her chest as if she were naked. Candlelight on her long hair. He came forward and knelt beside her and put his head in her lap. He felt her hands lightly touch him and they both wept for all they had lost.

14. TOGETHER AGAIN

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

Outside, he knocked on the window of the truck.

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

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

The man lurched back. ‘What you got?’

‘Nothing. Just a pain in my stomach.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘What seems to be the problem?’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Address?’

Avtar gazed at her.

She smiled. ‘Was it London you said?’

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

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

‘Jaan?’ she said.

‘Hm?’

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

‘He’s fine.’

‘Can I speak to him?’

‘He’s asleep.’

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

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

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

‘I’m fine.’

‘You sure? You don’t sound yourself.’

‘Don’t I?’

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

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

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

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

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

‘You seem a bit preoccupied,’ Jessica said.

‘No, no. Just tired.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Yes. I noticed. Thank you.’

‘It should last us through the winter.’

She nodded. ‘The winter. Of course.’

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

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

He took another roti.

‘Well?’

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

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

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

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

‘Everything’s about money.’

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

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

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

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

‘The inspector?’ Tochi asked.

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

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

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

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

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

He nodded. ‘To your family?’

‘I have to.’

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

‘Stay Don’t go.’

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

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

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

‘We have duties. I have duties.’

‘Forget them.’

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

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

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

‘You’re wrong. You won’t. Stay.’

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

*

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

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

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

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

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

No one answered.

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

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

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

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

Randeep nodded. ‘I understand.’

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

‘You had no choice.’

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

‘I’m sure you’re right.’

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

He nodded, though he didn’t seem to want to talk about it. ‘I’m better now. I think I’m going to be OK.’

The darkness thickened and they didn’t see the woman until they were gathering up their legs to let her pass. She halted at the house next door. The neighbour, then. An older white woman with small earrings like gold semicolons. Her bleached hair was duck-white at the roots, and her nose pitted with red spots.

‘Can I help?’ she said. She didn’t sound friendly.

‘We’re waiting,’ Avtar said.

‘I can see that.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Why don’t you leave the poor lass be?’

‘Do you know where she is?’

‘Go on, get away. Hounding her like this. There were more like you last week. I’m calling the police.’

‘You don’t understand,’ Avtar said. ‘She’s his wife.’

‘Oh, I understand very well, don’t you worry. I understand all about your arrangements.’

‘He’s her husband.’

At the threat of police, Randeep stood up and started pulling Avtar away and back down the hill.

They went to the gurdwara, where they charged their phones and slept on one of the mats inside the langar hall. In the morning they could only afford one phonecard between them. They topped up Avtar’s — he had more work contacts — and then Randeep took the phone and said he was going to call her.

‘What will you say?’

‘That I want to meet.’

She was waiting for them at the back door, inside the kitchen. She wore no turban. Her hair was bunned up tight. It was the first time Randeep had seen her like that and this was a fact she seemed embarrassed by, as her smile showed.

She poured the tea into mugs and handed it to them sitting at the table. The kitchen looked different from when they’d lived there. The beads over the doorway were tied neatly to one side with a red curtain strap, and containers for tea, sugar and coffee stood on the counter, along with spice racks and chopping boards. The table was laid with square blue place mats, which Randeep rested his elbows on.

‘You said you had to leave the flat?’ he asked.

‘My brother found me. But where were you, Randeep? That inspector calls every day. I rang you so much!’

‘Nowhere,’ he said, too ashamed to admit he’d been living like a tramp.

‘You should’ve called.’

‘You were worried?’ Randeep asked.

Tochi walked in from the hallway. Clean, healthy, warm in his scarf and jacket and gloves. He looked like he was doing well. Next to him, Avtar felt like a dog come in off the street.

‘They’re here,’ Narinder said, pointlessly.

Randeep nodded at him and looked over at Avtar, who said nothing. ‘Is no one else here?’ Randeep asked. ‘Is it only you two?’

Narinder nodded. ‘For over two months now.’

He felt himself flush crimson, maybe a little humiliated. His wife. ‘We should go,’ he said.

‘We’re staying here,’ Avtar said.

‘Is it safe?’

‘Must be.’

‘You’re not staying here,’ Tochi said.

‘Who asked you?’ Avtar said, rising.

Narinder stepped in. ‘Stop it, all of you. Of course you’re staying here.’ She looked at Tochi, her lips parted in surprise. ‘You can’t expect them to spend winter on the streets.’

He said nothing and shut the door hard on his way out.

Narinder exhaled, as if at least one obstacle had been successfully negotiated. ‘I should go to work, too.’

‘Work?’ Randeep said, smiling a touch to himself.

‘Yes.’ She put on her coat and took her bag from the doorknob. ‘We’ll talk more tonight. But eat what you want. And if you want to wash there are towels in the first floor cupboard. It’s next—’

‘We know where it is,’ Avtar said. ‘We were here first.’

Avtar suggested they share his old room, but Randeep said he’d take the one next door.

‘You sure?’ Avtar said, a little shocked.

‘I’m sure.’

They washed and shaved and brushed their teeth with toothpaste for the first time in months. They even held their heads under the tap and ran several jugs of hot water through their hair, for the feel of it. Afterwards, Avtar tried calling home. No one picked up. It was late there, he supposed. He’d try again in the morning, to make sure they hadn’t had any trouble.

Next door, Randeep lay on his mattress, on his side, on his own.

‘We need to find work tomorrow,’ Avtar said, coming in.

‘How’s your stomach?’

‘Fine.’

‘Was it something you ate?’

‘You know,’ Avtar said, changing the subject, ‘if you want any chance of getting with her, you need to stop calling her Narinderji for starters. Like she’s better than you.’

‘I don’t want to get with her.’

‘Because girls don’t go for boys who give compliments all the time.’

Randeep sat up. ‘Can I ask you something? Are you in a relationship with my sister?’

Avtar looked across. He didn’t feel surprise, though. ‘Yes. We’re going to marry. I’m sorry we didn’t tell you, but I hope we can have your blessing.’ He was her older brother, after all.

‘Of course.’ He held out his hand, which Avtar took. ‘Congratulations. I think you’ll be a fine brother-in-law.’

‘I hope your mother agrees.’

Randeep chuckled lightly. ‘Can I be there when you tell her?’

‘You can take my place.’

They waited for Tochi — Narinder insisted — but eventually she had to give in and let them make a start before it got cold.

‘I’m sorry it’s not more,’ she said.

‘It’s a feast,’ Randeep said, though he spooned very little of the sabzi onto his plate, as if he’d got used to eating morsels. It made her wince to imagine how he might have been living.

‘You’ve lost weight,’ she said. His shoulders seemed even bonier, pointy under his thin turquoise shirt.

‘It happens. Narinder,’ he added, smiling at his food.

‘We didn’t have a kitchen,’ Avtar said, pushing on. ‘Of course we were going to lose weight.’

‘Yes,’ Narinder said, measuring out each letter of the word. Avtar seemed all too willing to be offended. ‘It can’t have been easy.’

‘It’s never easy when you don’t have a job. Or when someone steals it from you.’

‘Tochi. .’ Randeep explained.

She nodded. ‘You said.’

‘He’s a thief,’ Avtar said.

‘I’m sure there’s more to it than that,’ Narinder said quietly.

Avtar looked up from his roti. ‘Not really. He planned it. He told him — ’ nodding at Randeep — ‘that he was going to do it. And then he did, while I was away. He forced us onto the streets.’

‘I’m only saying it’s not easy for anyone. He’s suffered as well. He’s been through a lot.’

‘And that gives him the right?’

‘At least you have visas. If he gets caught, he doesn’t have anything.’

‘I’m surprised you’re defending him.’

‘I’m not, but—’

‘My family is up to here in debt because I wanted to come here. If I don’t have work God knows what will happen to them. Do you understand that? Do you know what they do to people in India that don’t pay up? Do you?’

He shoved his plate with such force that it rattled to her side of the table. ‘Stuff your food,’ he finished, getting up, but the slowness of his exit took all the sting out of it.

‘I’m sorry,’ Randeep said. ‘He doesn’t mean it. He’s worried about his family. And he’s not well.’

‘He should see a doctor.’

‘That’s what I said. He thinks they’ll inform on him.’

They carried on with their meal. He hadn’t asked her about the kesri, about why she’d discarded it and now kept her hair uncovered. Her slender wrists were bare, without their kara, and he’d not seen any images of Guru Nanak. The shrine, that too seemed to have disappeared.

‘Have you spoken to your family?’ she asked. ‘How’s your father?’

‘It’s been a while. I imagine they’re fine.’

‘Oh. Good,’ she said, a little confused.

The side gate sounded — scraping the ground — and Tochi came in. If he was surprised that they were still at the table he didn’t show it.

‘There’s plenty of food,’ Narinder said.

‘I’ve eaten,’ he said, and carried on under the beads and up the stairs.

Randeep looked at Narinder, who was staring in the direction of the hallway.

It was getting better. He was sure of it. The yellowing along his left groin had lessened, definitely, and peeing didn’t seem such a hardship any more. Only the flesh beneath his stomach felt worse: the soft patch of skin like old fruit, as if it might slip straight off if he pinched too hard. He soaked his bandage under the cold tap, wrung out the water and rewound it around himself, fastening the end with a safety pin he’d found in the kitchen.

He could even walk quite far without stopping for breath.

‘Maybe you are getting better,’ Randeep said.

They were heading for a timber yard in Manor Top, where they’d found a couple of days’ work loading lorries with sawn-off wooden poles.

‘The body is strong, janaab,’ Avtar said, and did a muscleman pose.

But the wooden poles were thick and square and heavy, and soon Avtar was wheezing and Randeep asked if he wanted to take a break.

‘Don’t be stupid,’ Avtar said, lowering his shoulder and then the pole onto the lorry floor. ‘Can you afford to lose this job?’

‘You seem to be struggling, that’s all.’

‘Well, I’m not.’

There were nine lorries and two vans in the yard, and when the last of them was loaded, Avtar collapsed against one of the huge tyres. His arms were quivering, as though his muscles wanted out.

Randeep jogged back from the low barn-like building, their pay in his hand. ‘He said good job and he’ll think of us for next time.’

‘Nothing for tomorrow?’

‘Nothing. He said there might be more work in some other factory. In Rotherham. We’ve been there, haven’t we?’

Avtar managed to shrug, shake his head. ‘Maybe. I lose track.’

The next day, Avtar couldn’t get up from his mattress. He moved onto all fours and tried sliding his hands up the wall, climbing it, expecting his legs to follow. His knee shook and his leg buckled and he collapsed back down. Randeep was there to catch him.

‘Rest, bhaji. We’ll look for work tomorrow.’

He lay under his blanket all day. In the evening, Narinder boiled vegetables and he ate a little. Then he slept for a bit. When he woke it was dark and his armpits felt thick and oozy, tingling strangely, and a harsh drubbing went on behind his eyes. His insides were in agony. He thought he was going to shit them all out. He rose onto his knees, arms cradling his stomach, and felt a hot stream down his thigh, thudding onto the mattress. Shuffling sideways, crouched over, he made it off the bed and to the door, where he sat for a minute against the wood, sweating, wondering if this was it for him, then telling himself that it couldn’t be, that he had work to look for in the morning. He reached up and opened the door. He tried standing but couldn’t and crawled out of the room on his hands and knees. In the dark, disoriented, he started for the stairs across the landing, hands padding on ahead of him, knees scraping the carpet. He got as far as the banister when, dimly, he had a thought that the bathroom — because that was where he was headed, wasn’t he? — was actually behind him, next door to the room he slept in. He turned himself round, hand by hand, knee by knee, each movement seeming to wring his stomach. But he couldn’t go on. He was exhausted. He could hear himself panting. His elbows gave way, then his legs.

*

She worked late and had to catch the slow bus home. She didn’t mind. She was in no hurry to get back to the house. She preferred sitting on her own by the window, letting the bus carry her through the city in the lovely pretence that she could stay sitting here forever, going round and round, observing. She noticed things more now, she realized. What people were holding, the way they spoke. She wasn’t sure why. They passed the dark-green shores of Millhouses Park, the denuded trees and the brown Y of their mortification. She looked up at the sky and it really did seem full of snow. Everyone at work said it was coming, that it would be here before Christmas and last until the new year. At least that’s something you won’t have to worry about, Jessica had said. You’ll be back in London soon enough, as if London had its own bespoke weather system. She knew that, by then, she wouldn’t be able to marry Karamjeet. She’d lived her life by enough falsehoods.

Once back, she went upstairs and knocked on Tochi’s door, not expecting him to answer, not surprised when he did. Every night, sitting on her bed, she’d listened to him in his room, trying to think what he might be doing, trying to think what he might be thinking, but this was the first time she’d seen him in five days, since the night of Avtar’s collapse.

‘I thought you’d be at work.’

‘I’m on lates. I’m going in an hour.’

She nodded. ‘Will you — will you let me in?’

He turned sideways on and she stepped past. He’d moved his mattress into the alcove, beside the chimney breast. A dirty plate lay beside it, a spoon atop that.

‘How’s the patient?’ she asked.

‘I’ve not seen them.’

‘They’re only in their room.’

He nodded, said nothing.

‘This is for your boss,’ and she held out an envelope. ‘Avtar gave it me yesterday. So thank you. For the doctor.’

‘Wasn’t me.’

‘Still.’

Too scared to dial an ambulance, Tochi had called Malkeet, who rang back a few minutes later to say a doctor was on his way and what payment they were both expecting.

‘I’ll leave it here,’ Narinder said, placing the envelope on the windowsill.

‘Thank you.’

She smiled flatly and nodded to leave. He wanted to punish her for denying them a chance. He wanted to hold her thighs apart and suck her cunt into his mouth. He wanted to make her happy. His hands jerked out of their pockets.

‘Kanyakumari,’ he said.

She turned round.

‘Where I’d go if I could go anywhere.’

‘I don’t know it.’

‘It’s at the end of India. Nothing but sea from there.’

‘It sounds very beautiful.’

‘I wouldn’t know.’

She tilted her head to the side. ‘Why there?’

‘Because it’s the end and there can be no more false dreams.’

‘Only real ones? Then are they still dreams?’

‘I’m leaving,’ he said.

‘To go there?’ she asked, lightly mocking.

‘I’m leaving here.’

She didn’t seem surprised. ‘When?’

‘Maybe two weeks. After Christmas.’

She nodded, wished him luck. He heard her on the stairs, then he picked up the phone to Ardashir and asked if that building job in Spain was still going, and when could he start?

The doctor — a baby-faced elder Muslim with a short, coarse beard, his upper lip hair-free — had advised going to hospital, saying that all the symptoms pointed to a severe lack of nephron reabsorption, which meant things weren’t quite balancing out in his body. ‘It’ll be a small operation followed by a few weeks’ rest. You don’t want to risk septicaemia. And you’ve got a visa on file. There’s nothing to worry about.’

In the meantime, to help manage the pain, he left them with some insulin which Randeep drew into the syringe and passed to Avtar. They’d got good at doing this over the last week, three times a day. Avtar passed the syringe back to Randeep and started to retighten his bandage.

‘You should have told me about the operation,’ Randeep said. ‘Does Lakhpreet know?’

‘No. And it’s staying like that.’

‘You should go to hospital soon, though. Before it gets worse.’

‘Hmm.’ He was worried about the recovery time. A few weeks. Which probably meant months. It might as well be forever.

He rang home again that afternoon and this time, at last, someone answered. His father.

‘Thank God. Are you OK? I’ve been ringing every day for the last week.’

He said he was fine, his mother was fine, his brother was fine, the shop was fine. Everything was fine and Avtar wasn’t to worry and should concentrate on his studies.

‘Papa, what’s happened? You’re not telling me something. Put Navjoht on.’

‘Nothing’s happened. There was just some difficulty with some men last week.’

‘What difficulty? Did they do anything to you?’

‘We had to give them a few things.’

‘What things? Did they hurt you?’

‘The TV, the radio. Nothing important. Don’t worry.’

‘Did they hurt you?’

‘Uff, it was nothing. I’m fine now.’

He called Bal straight away, shouting at him to leave his family alone, that he’d kill him if they went near his papa again.

‘All your fault, man. We’ve given you chance after chance. You’ve got one week to settle up or we’ll do more to your pop than just take his TV.’

He didn’t sleep that night. He kept thinking of their old neighbours, Mr and Mrs Lal. How they’d been thrown out of their home, how broken and humiliated they’d looked.

He went to the chip shop in the morning, knocking on the rear door and asking the new gori if she could fetch Malkeet, please.

‘Mal-kit!’ she shouted. ‘One of your lot!’

Malkeet emerged from the service area, telling the girl — Megan — to go out front. Avtar hadn’t seen him since the drama with the chickens. He seemed to have got even fatter.

‘How are you, my friend?’ Malkeet said. ‘Feeling better?’

Avtar held out the crumpled notes. ‘Could you wire this across to my parents’ account? They need it now.’

‘Sure,’ he said, taking the money. ‘I’m going to the bank. I won’t even charge you a fee.’

‘Thank you. Is Harkiran here?’

‘He’s on afters.’

‘OK.’ Then: ‘Is there any work, bhaji?’

Malkeet shook his head. ‘It’s quiet. Always is before Christmas.’

‘I’ll clean the floors.’

‘Avtar.’

‘The toilets.’

‘Avtar.’

‘You must have something.’

‘Maybe in the new year.’

Behind Malkeet, Tochi came into view, working, earning, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the hem of his orange uniform.

In the afternoon, he and Randeep tried the takeaways on Ecclesall Road, the corner shops in Darnall. Someone mentioned a Muslim clothes outlet up in Ridgeway, but when they got there the car park was empty and the factory seemed to have been closed for some months. They came straight back to the house, Avtar slamming the bedroom door shut.

‘What a wasted bhanchod journey.’

‘Maybe we can sell something,’ Randeep said, and they looked around the room and down at themselves and said nothing more about that idea.

Avtar didn’t go down for breakfast — he had no appetite, he’d hardly slept — and lay on his mattress trying to think where there might be work. Nothing came to mind. He heard the kitchen door opening and moved to the window. It was Tochi, in the yard. He looked like he’d only come out to catch some air, head tipped up. He remained in that pose for several minutes, unmoving, as if in some staring contest with the sky, and then he zipped up his jacket, decisively, and went to work.

Avtar climbed to the landing and tried Tochi’s door. It was locked, so, limping slightly, he fetched the metal pole from his rucksack. The first lock broke away and he listened out, for Randeep, for the girl. Nothing. He broke off the remaining two and then the gentlest of touches sent the door swinging open and he walked right into Tochi’s room.

He called Bal, the five thick rolls of money stuffed into his jeans pockets.

‘Come and get your money.’

‘Great. We’ll be there tomorrow.’

‘Now. I won’t have it tomorrow.’

Bal arranged for one his local cousins to meet Avtar outside the gardens. Avtar passed the cash over. Then he waited. He sat in the kitchen with the lights off and he waited.

Tochi stopped off at the station — he needed his tickets to London — but the counters were all closed, the green blinds laddered down. He spent some time trying to work the self-service machines, then gave up and went back to the house. He unlocked the kitchen door, not flicking the switch. He could see Avtar sitting there, at the table. Tochi said nothing and went through the beads and up the two flights. He saw that his door was broken. Inside, the bottom drawer of the wardrobe had been pulled out, the dummy panel smashed through. He went downstairs.

‘Give me my money.’

‘It’s gone.’

‘Give me my money.’

‘I said it’s gone.’

‘Where’s it gone?’

Avtar stared. ‘You stole my job. I stole your money.’

‘Where’s it gone?’

‘Fuck you.’

Tochi punched him, his knuckles slamming into Avtar’s cheekbone. ‘Get me my money.’

His nose was bleeding. His face ached. ‘Fucking thieving chamaar.’ He spat in Tochi’s face and charged forward. But he was weak now, his blows thin, and Tochi easily pushed him off.

‘Get me my money,’ he said again, drawing his fist back behind his head and driving, catapulting it into Avtar’s stomach. Avtar heaved, his head snapping back as if it was his face that had been hit. Another punch, once more into the stomach, where it was most tender. ‘Get me my money.’ Avtar staggered into the cooker, arms protecting his middle. He felt blood rise up his throat. He fell sideways onto the floor and could see his feet moving, scrabbling, though he had no sense of this.

All through the night he couldn’t stop shaking. Randeep kept fetching him water. He gave him another shot of insulin, too, though it made no difference. He was still grimacing, in terrible pain. Randeep knelt beside him and cradled the back of his friend’s head and brought his lips to the water. Avtar sipped, then flopped back.

‘Maybe we should go to the hospital,’ Randeep said.

Avtar didn’t seem able to speak.

‘You’re not dying, are you?’ Then, louder, ‘Bhaji?’ and this time Avtar opened his eyes and groaned weakly. ‘Would you like some more water?’ Randeep asked. A single nod. He laid Avtar’s head back down on the pillow, gently, picked up the glass and hurried to the bathroom. When he returned, Avtar was shaking again, shaking violently all over, in a way that reminded Randeep of the jackhammer at the old hotel site.

The snow came at dawn, quietly, gracefully. She brought her hands together in prayer, then didn’t know what to say, or to whom. She turned away from the window. Tochi entered the kitchen.

‘Still no word,’ she said.

He nodded. He withdrew two slices of bread from the fridge and spooned some cold sabzi onto each. He sat down and ate.

‘Is that it? Aren’t you even sorry for what you did?’

The side gate rattled and Randeep came past the window and into the house. His eyes were red, as if he’d been up all night.

Narinder stepped towards him. ‘How is he?’

He had his back against the door, looking at Tochi at the table. ‘They don’t know. They operated. They say they have to wait. To see how far the poison has spread.’

‘But he’ll be all right? Randeep?’

He said nothing. She told him to sit down, that he must be hungry, and got the tava out to make roti. Tochi washed his hands and reached for his boots.

‘Are you going to work?’ She looked at the oven clock. ‘Already?’

‘I’m going to the station first.’

Her face turned into a question.

‘To get a ticket. I told you. I’m going to London. And then to Spain.’

‘Spain? You mean you’re not coming back?’

Randeep snorted. ‘Running away.’

Tochi came right up to him, squaring up. ‘I never run away.’

‘I’m not scared of you,’ Randeep said. He shoved Tochi aside and went up to his room.

‘Did you have to do that?’ Narinder said. ‘Can’t you see how he’s suffering?’

Without a word, Tochi put on his jacket and shut the door behind him. She listened to him leave, then moved slowly to the table and stood with one hand on his chair. She thought of Tochi’s face, of Randeep’s, of Avtar lying in hospital. Who would be a man, she thought, in a world like this.

Upstairs, at the window, Randeep took the phone from his pocket. He could still see Avtar’s terrified face when the doctor said he might very well have to lose his foot. He’d promised Avtar he’d contact his family and let them know what had happened. First, though, he had a call to make for Narinder. The receptionist transferred him through to Vakeel Sahib.

‘Randeep!’ the lawyer said. ‘How’s my boy?’

‘Please start the divorce. It’s been over a year.’

They went over a few details, the lawyer confirming he’d already applied for Randeep’s stamp. ‘I’ll just need the girl to send me a copy of her passport. Fax or email will do. Can you ask her?’

‘I’ll do it now.’

He heard the lawyer laugh. ‘You sound like you’re in a hurry.’

‘No hurry,’ Randeep said, as he watched Tochi heading down the road, hands in his pockets, on his way to Spain. ‘But there’s no point in waiting.’