The Year of the Runaways (18 page)

His mother reappeared, dressed hastily in a white-and-yellow salwaar kameez. Her eyes went to the pills, still untouched. Then: ‘Will you come with me? You’re expected.’

‘Next time. Take Randeep.’

‘But I want to stay with you,’ Randeep said.

‘You mean you’re too scared to leave me on my own for a few hours?’ He wiped his hand across the table, palming up the pills, and dropped them into his mouth. He drank the water. ‘There. I feel better already. Don’t I look better?’

Mrs Sanghera said she’d be back by lunchtime – it was an akhand paat – but he had their number and there were two vegetable patties in the fridge if they got hungry. Then she kissed Randeep’s forehead and picked up a gold box of mithai from on top of the fridge.

Later, while his father napped, Randeep took a textbook into the shade of the balcony. He set aside his mother’s plant pots and sat against the whitewashed wall and made a lectern of his lap. With a faint groan, he began to read – absent-mindedly, half-heartedly – and soon the benzene rings on the smudged paper of his chemistry textbook dissolved and reconstituted themselves into images of Jaytha. He wondered what to say to her when they next met – on the way to morning assembly, most likely, as long as this time he remembered that she walked via the mural on Mondays. And he should definitely ask after her bhabhi. As if on the breeze, a feeling of shame came over him. He didn’t know why he was like this. He wished he could be more easy-going about these things. Less calculating. Less like one of those crazed stalkies.

‘Shall we go for a walk?’

Startled, Randeep looked up: his father, in trousers and clean half-sleeved shirt, hair combed. ‘Daddy?’

‘I feel like going for a walk.’

Randeep pocketed the apartment keys as they exited the lift. The old chowkidar saluted – ‘Good morning, Sanghera Sahib’ – and opened the big glass door for them. Beyond the compound gates, they started down the chunky pink pavement of Santa Cruz Drive. The road was measured in trees, one following the other, orange blossoming through the leafgreen.

‘Are you sure you won’t be cold?’

His father didn’t reply, just kept on ahead, chin tilted up to the day.

They passed under the bramble archway of Zakir Garden, which was no more than a flat expanse of shrubs – mostly roses – with a fenced-off pond in the middle. North of the pond, at the sunken bandstand, some sort of trumpet group seemed to be rehearsing. Randeep suggested they go back but his father said not to be silly, that there was a lovely quiet enclosure right by the eastern gate.

Mr Sanghera was right. A short walk up the path, a gap in the hedgerow revealed a secluded little garden: primrose, thistle, yellow jacobinia, more roses, and, in large clay pots guarded by bees, virgin-white rajanigandha twined with ice plants of the most intimate pink. At the centre of it all was a cheap and bow-legged red plastic bench.

‘Let’s sit,’ his father said.

Though the hedges were high, the sun had risen and Randeep removed his sandals and wriggled his toes in the warmth. They used to do this all the time. Spending hours together. They’d talk about music or God or the state of the country. Mostly, his father did the talking. He was a great fan of Urdu poetry and would recite lines from Bahu or Bulleh Shah, testing Randeep to see if he’d understood the meaning. No, the deeper meaning, son. Always search for the deeper meaning. There was one that Randeep had especially liked, about wafa and khata. Loyalty and error and how one followed the other. How did it go? He couldn’t remember. Perhaps now would be a good time to ask.

‘Your mother and I would come here. We’d listen to the Christian Harmony String Quartet playing Schubert at the bandstand and then we’d come here.’

‘Explains our balcony. Mamma must be trying to replicate this garden.’

‘I wonder if they’re still playing.’

‘The band?’

His father nodded. His legs were crossed at the knees, hands clasped loosely in his lap. ‘How is school?’

‘It’s still college and you asked me that already.’

‘I know I did. I’m not going mad. So this time give me a proper answer. Are we meeting anyone?’

‘Daddy!’

‘Uff, Randeep, you’ll be eighteen soon. Be an adult.’

‘But I thought I’d always be your little boy?’

‘That’s just something parents say when it suits us.’

Randeep smiled. ‘There is someone. Jaytha.’

‘Sounds Hindu.’

He said she was. ‘And she’s from the smaller castes.’

‘Your mother would have a problem with that. But problems are a long way off yet. First – is she pretty?’

‘Very much.’

‘And how long?’

‘Not long. A month. Bit less. We’re still getting to know each other.’

He wished he could stop the words, these lies that came too easy. But however much he hated the untruths, he felt better for them, too. They seemed to allow a different version of himself to be presented to the world.

‘Well, I wish you the best of luck.’

It was an oddly formal sentence, said with something like finality Randeep looked down and retracted his feet from the warmth of the sun. Mr Sanghera laughed.

‘Don’t worry. I meant it. I’m not going mad. Many years ahead.’ Then, more seriously, ‘I will beat this. You will get your father back.’

Randeep extended his arm along the bench and cradled his father’s shoulders, which were as narrow as his own.

But the trumpet band seemed to have neared, and Randeep grew alarmed. He ducked through the gap in the hedgerow: the musicians, in red-and-white, were circuiting the park.

‘Shall we go?’ he said, trying not to sound anxious.

‘Slow down,’ said his father. ‘You worry too much. You always did.’

‘It’s only that Mamma will be back. I didn’t even leave a message.’

‘Call her, then.’

A couple dawdled towards them, sharing an ice cream. Randeep was veering left to avoid a collision when the woman called out, ‘Sangheraji? Oh, I thought it was you. How wonderful!’

She unlinked elbows with her partner and came rushing up, waving a little hysterically, a sixty-something with a bob cut and a short summer dress.

‘How are you?’ she asked, with heavy concern. ‘We missed you last week. The office wasn’t the same.’

He saw his father force a smile, and the band rounding the corner.

‘Dolan said you fell?’

‘Nothing serious. A minor act.’

She smiled with excessive slowness, as if she knew he was lying. ‘Is this your son? He’s even taller than you! A chipped block, is he not?’

The band was closing in, the trumpets shrieking on the air. Randeep looked down and saw his father’s hand shaking in his pocket, his face emptying. The woman said something else, then turned to her partner and laughed. Mr Sanghera closed his eyes. He seemed to be struggling to breathe.

Randeep took hold of his father’s elbow. ‘Let’s go, Daddy.’

The woman gave a smile of confusion as he tried to drag his father on, but now the band was marching past, the air full of brass, and Mr Sanghera clasped the side of his head and fell to his knees.

‘Is everything OK?’ the woman asked. ‘Charlie’s a physician.’

Back home, his father cried angry tears and turned chairs over, banging his fists on the walls. ‘What is wrong with everyone?’ he shouted. ‘What is wrong with you all?’

Randeep crashed down blinds, shuttered windows. Mrs Sanghera followed her husband through the darkened flat with a glass of water and two more pills.

‘Get away from me!’ he flashed. ‘You’re trying to kill me. Don’t think I can’t see it. You’re all trying to kill me.’

‘How can you say that? I’m your wife!’

He picked up a fallen chair and launched it against the wall.

‘Stop this! Please! You’re behaving like a child!’

When the doorbell rang the flat was still in darkness. Mr Sanghera sat in his red armchair. Classical music played on the stereo, as advised by the doctors:
something he associates with a more peaceful state of mind,
they’d said. Snatching up her chunni, Mrs Sanghera answered the door. It was their neighbour. She said she’d heard crying and thought she’d check if everything was all right.

‘Everything’s fine. Thank you.’

In the kite-shaped hallway mirror Randeep saw the woman trying to look in, and his mother blocking her off.

‘I was sure I heard . . . Are the children all right?’

‘The children are wonderful. The girls are out for their dance classes.’ He heard his mother sigh, then, with no great zeal, begin the battle. ‘Did I tell you the twins got their kathak level fives? Can’t be long until Lata achieves too, no? Two years she’s been trying?’

‘Three.’

‘Ah, yes. Three. And Randeep’s here this weekend. NIT next year, with God’s will.’

The door closed and his mother returned, looking strangely drained. ‘The things I do to make sure people say nice things about our family.’ It seemed to Randeep that none of the women enjoyed these encounters. It was all part of a bigger wheel that the world wouldn’t allow them to step off.

The girls arrived home together, excitedly, until the atmosphere in the flat chopped short their laughter. The twins made straight for their room, silver ankle-bells tinkling, and Lakhpreet took off her wrap and unbuckled the thin green belt around her dress. She lifted the dough from the fridge and slapped it onto the kitchen counter.

‘I can’t cook in this dark,’ she said, but the only response she got seemed to come from the CD player, where the strings began to subside and with a mighty click the whole thing stopped.

*

Randeep finished unpacking the wretched suitcase and kicked it underneath his college bed. He sat on the tight cotton sheet, elbows on knees and fingertips to fingertips, looking through the circle of his hands at a burn on the carpet. He heard more doors shutting, more loud goodbyes – other students, other arrivals. He reached for his pillow and pushed his face into it.

It had turned cooler by the time Abhijeet arrived, yanking his enormous cricket bag off his shoulder.

Randeep sat up, rubbed his eyes. ‘Hi.’

‘Oh, hi. Thought you were asleep.’ He was groping about on the floor for something. He seemed in a hurry.

‘I’ll switch the light on,’ Randeep offered.

‘Don’t bother. I’m going straight out’ – he found his runners. ‘All the girls are in the lounge.’

‘Oh,’ and then, in a moment of daring: ‘Which girls?’

‘The usual. Shirenjoht, Mausam, Jaytha, Pups.’ He turned round at the door, hesitating. ‘Do you want to come?’

He was asking out of pity, that much was obvious. They’d never become friends, he and Abhijeet.

‘Maybe later,’ Randeep said. ‘I want to finish this chapter.’ He looked to his desk for a textbook with which to supplement the lie. Abhijeet was already on his way, the luminous green of his moon-boots zipping through the darkness.

Randeep made an eye in the window blinds. The day was darkening over, the yellow of the trees retreating. No, he wasn’t going to go down. It was stupid. He felt ashamed, recalling how he’d engineered the meet in the quad the week before. He opened his ring binder and turned to his timetable, determined to prepare for his lectures. Ten minutes later – nothing written, nothing done – he closed the folder and looked round for his wallet.

The corridor was too narrow and carpeted an ugly brown, the dreariness compounded by a large black-and-white close-up of Albert Einstein hanging at one end. He took the stairwell down to the lounge and waited his turn at the vending machine, behind a boy in a white turban. What to choose? What to choose? He tried not to stare at her. She was sitting with friends on three squashy sofas, staring reverentially up at the television. He could see only her profile: the hair all loose and pulled forward over one shoulder, the knifish uptwitch of her thin smile, as if there was a tiny pulse at the very corner of her lips. He imagined lying beside her in a sunny park and every now and then getting up to bring her flowers. Someone called his name. It was Abhijeet, his arm around a girl at the other end of the room.

‘You won’t find no theorems here,’ Abhijeet said.

And then Jaytha turned round. ‘Randeep!’ She beckoned him over. ‘Come sit, come.’

He looked to Abhijeet, who was nodding at him, so Randeep closed his wallet and strode across.

‘Hi, Jaytha. How are you this evening?’ It sounded stupid now, though she didn’t seem to notice.

‘Here, sit with me,’ and she tucked her feet underneath her bottom, making room.

He wavered, then slid in, jamming his hands into the crevice between his thighs. Her elbow jutted out and touched his own and that point seemed to be the epicentre for the wild buzz radiating through his body.

‘How was your weekend with your bhabhiji?’

She smiled. ‘That’s what I love about you. You remember things. You’re so thoughtful.’

Across the room, Abhijeet cheered. ‘Good on you, man! You got through her fortress. And believe me, many have tried; many have failed.’

‘Don’t be so vulgar,’ Jaytha said. ‘Not everyone’s a Neanderthal.’

There was a woollen blanket over her legs which she opened out and spread across both their laps. She nudged closer to him so that elbows, arms and shoulders all touched. It took a while for his heart to calm, and he didn’t dare move. He just sat there with the others, watching some American TV comedy. The only interruption came when two girls entered the lounge and asked if they could change channels. They must have been scheduleds because some of the other girls pinched their nostrils together. He felt Jaytha tense up, her eyes hard on the TV. He sought out her hand under the blanket and squeezed and this she didn’t seem to mind.

*

One morning, a week later, he was shaken awake by Abhi, looming groggily over him, saying something about a call.

Still in his pyjamas, Randeep went down to the stairwell where the receiver was gently bouncing on its blue coil. He put the phone to his ear.

‘Hello.’

It was his mother, which meant it was his father. Yesterday, she said, he’d had a fight with someone at work. He’d broken furniture. She’d had to go in and calm him down. It had taken nearly an hour to get him up off the floor. She paused. ‘They all saw him crying.’