The Way Barred

by Dominique Kyle

“Sorry Eve,” Jo said.

  “Does anyone mind if I crawl over into the back and go to sleep?” I asked.

  “Go for it,” Pete said in relaxed tones.

  I thought it was best if I removed myself. I was on the verge of behaving inappropriately and I tried not to do that in front of the Satterthwaites. Wasn’t sure what was up with me. But whatever it was, it was best to sleep it off.

  Now, call me egotistical or anything you like really, but something had occurred to me about Jo’s strong reaction against me and Tyler’s (so mild as to be almost a pretend) flirtation.

  “Would you say Jo was gay or straight?” I asked Quinn the following night.

  He looked really surprised. “Don’t you know by now?”

  “No, I don’t,” I admitted. “Because she’s never said, and I’ve never liked to ask, and she’s never given me a clue either way. And I never liked to ask Pete either when I was going out with him because I felt like I ought to know… Dumb isn’t it?”

  He scratched his head. “I assumed gay.”

  “Yes, I know. But the first thing I thought about her, and I don’t know why I thought this is, ‘she’s the sort of woman who men will assume is gay but almost certainly isn’t’.

  “So you think she isn’t?” He established.

  I sighed. “That’s the thing Quinn, how can I not know by now? Surely it should have become obvious one way or the other, and I don’t know how to ask her after all this time!”

  “Hmmm,” Quinn was applying his mind to the problem. “Rather you than me!” He said at last.

  “Ta, you’re such a helpful soul aren’t you?” I said sarcastically. He grinned at me. After a short silence I said, “She really used to hate me and Pete canoodling as she called it…”

  Quinn looked ironically at me. “Yeah, but I really hated you and Pete canoodling as she calls it, too, and that doesn’t make me gay, does it?”

  Not work, I thought. Not appropriate at work. So one night in the barn when we were putting a new set of tyres on the tarmac car bought with my useful windfall winnings, and listening to the rain beating down on the roof, and Pete and Paul weren’t around, I tried to work my way round to the subject.

  “Jo?” I said.

  “Y-e-e-s,” she said suspiciously.

  My tone must have sounded too like a child about to ask for a favour or something. So I gave up on trying to be subtle, I was obviously no good at it.

  “You haven’t had a partner since I’ve known you, Jo. Why’s that?”

  She glanced sideways at me. “Why are you asking?”

  This was already not going very well. I shrugged. There was a lengthening silence while we got on with the second tyre. I couldn’t very well say, well I just wondered if you were jealous when Tyler kissed me because you wanted to kiss me yourself?

  I tried a different approach. “When did you last have a partner?” I asked.

  She thought about it. “Couple of years ago?”

  Oh shit, that still didn’t clarify it. In a bit it would be obvious what I was in a right tangle about. Blow it! The longer I left it, the more obvious it would be. Plunge in now and it might still seem natural.

  “Male or female partner?” I asked.

  “Oh,” she said, looking straight at me. “Is that what you’re actually asking?”

  “I s’pose,” I said, feeling my cheeks going hot. I felt so stupid for not knowing, and so worried she’d go off on one for me having to ask.

  “Well, my last one was female, and the two before that, male.” She gave a slight smile at my expression.

  “Does that mean you’re Bi?” I asked, not sure how to deal with that.

  “Actually,” she said, putting down the tool she had in her hand, “I think I’m asexual.”

  I stared at her. “What does that mean? Neither male nor female? Hermaphrodite?” (Though I wasn’t sure exactly what that was either – apart from I knew slugs were it).

  “I’ve been reading up on it. It means you don’t really get interested sexually in either gender.”

  “So you don’t get turned on by either men or women?” I frowned.

  “Nope,” she said coolly. “I have no idea what ‘turned on’ means. I’ve had sex with both men and women and I found both equally tiresome.”

  “So you didn’t enjoy it at all?” I interrogated.

  She shrugged. “I didn’t hate it. I just wasn’t interested. It wasn’t particularly pleasurable or particularly repellent. It was just a physical act I did for the other person’s sake.”

  I sat cross legged on the concrete floor and thought about it a bit. Once I’d overcome the scary initial hurdle of the first couple of times with Pete, I’d really loved all physical contact with him, and especially sex. And I was definitely one hundred percent hetero and could sometimes get a shiver of sexual feeling if a man I even slightly fancied touched me. But I could control it when I wanted to and deliberately not follow it up if my rational mind decided it wasn’t the best thing for me to do, and I wasn’t roaming the streets looking for sex like a cat in heat, unlike Quinn who seemed to need it all the time.

  She was watching my face with mild interest. Then she laughed. “I can see your brain going click – click – whir there, Eve. What are you thinking?”

  “I was thinking that it must have been more of a bore to go out with a woman than a man, because at least with a man you can just open your legs and let him get on with shoving it in, but it must be a right bind spending bloomin’ ages working on a woman to make her come if you’re not even interested in it.”

  Jo burst out laughing. “You’re hilarious Eve! You really just come out with ‘em, don’t you?” After she’d stopped giggling, she said. “No, but you’re right. I found it such a bore with the men I figured I must be gay. So I tried out with a woman and found out that it was even worse because I was expected to do even more, so I’ve decided I can’t be bothered with either of them. I’ll just be friends with everyone instead. Honestly – the point is that I don’t desire it, and so I don’t miss it.”

  “So have you ever had an orgasm?” I asked curiously.

  She burst out into peals of uncharacteristic laughter. “Nope! Told you, it doesn’t do anything for me!”

  It occurred to me that she might actually be getting a bit giddy because she was glad to be able to talk to someone about it at last.

  Suddenly we jumped a mile as Paul said, “Do I hear the remarkably unusual sound of my daughter in a fit of the giggles?”

  The pounding rain on the roof must have masked his approach. He came to a halt and folded his arms across his chest, and said with a smile in his eyes. “Hmm, from your combined expressions, am I to understand that whatever you were laughing about wasn’t for male ears?”

  “Too right,” I said robustly, “And we’re now really hoping that you didn’t catch a word of that!”

  He looked amused. “Just so as you can relax, no I didn’t. I’m actually here for you Eve. You remember you said you wanted me to take you aquaplaning one day? Well take a look outside you two…”

  We followed him to the door.

  “Oh my God!” I said.

  The field which they had the practice track on was completely underwater.

  “It’s our only flat piece of land,” Jo said. “Four or five times in our life it’s actually flooded and then frozen and we’ve been able to skate on it, haven’t we Dad?”

  I looked eagerly up at Paul and he smiled at me and dangled a bunch of keys enticingly. “Ok, you’re not having my best car, and you mustn’t forget that we’re not in a Stock with a roll bar.”

  I danced up and down in impatient delight.

  He laughed and led the way to the car. First he tested me on the physics. “So what two things do you need for aquaplaning?”

  “Speed and water,” I replied obediently.

  “Correct. Under normal circumstances if you slow down, you’ll avoid the aquaplaning, why is that?”

  “Becaus
e the tyres can gain more traction?” I guessed.

  “Why is that?”

  I frowned. “Don’t know exactly, something to do with more time?”

  “Ok, so on the average family car, a patch of rubber no bigger than a size nine shoe, is the only contact between the car’s tyres and the road surface.” He looked sideways at me. “In moderate rainfall on a smooth road surface at a speed of 60 mph, each tyre has to displace about a gallon of water every second. Each gripping element of the tread is on the ground for only 1/150th of a second, during which time it must displace the bulk of the water, drive through the remaining thin film and begin to grip the road surface. With good tyres and a moderate rate of rainfall on a well-drained road surface aquaplaning rarely occurs below 55 mph. But aquaplaning can happen at speeds as low as 35 mph if the conditions are worse.”

  I perfectly understood, but was desperately trying to remember the figures. I was really impressed that he knew them so accurately.

  “So the slower you go, the more time the tyres have to move all the water out of the way. Ok, let’s go. Head at the sheet of water slowly to start out with. With up to 5cms of water, at 30mph you should be able to maintain traction.”

  I did as he said, we slowly ploughed into the water and it was ok.

  “So what do you have to think of with your tyres?”

  “Pressure and tread,” I supplied.

  “Yes, 30% less pressure and you’ll be aquaplaning. Under 2.5 mm of tread in the winter can also cause increased planing.”

  “Whoa,” I said. “And it’s legal down to 1.6 mm?”

  “Uh huh,” he was watching ahead, assessing the depth. “Also, it’s best not to use cruise control in wet conditions. Ok, speed up.”

  I did so.

  “What are you feeling? Tell me what you are sensing with the change of control of the car…”

  “Audible rise in the engine revs, like depressing the clutch at speed? Lightness of the steering wheel? Back end starting to fishtail?”

  “So now what would you do to regain control in a real situation where this suddenly started to happen?”

  “Don’t brake. Ease my foot off the accelerator, don’t turn the wheel sharply, allow the car to find its own path, if I am close to regaining traction nudge the wheel round to the correct direction and use light pumping action on the brakes like when you dry out the brakes after driving through some depth?”

  “Correct. Remember to disengage cruise control using the switch not the brakes, and most of all, though I hardly need tell you this, keep calm and a cool head. Right then,” he grinned at me. “Off you go!”

  Half an hour of excited skidding about, with Paul making me test things out to see whether they made it worse or better and getting a real feel for the exact moment the wheels were lifting off, then finally, to my deep regret because I could have gone on ages more yet, Paul announced it was time for tea. Pete was watching us with folded arms from the dry brightly lit rectangle of the back door. Sue had sent him to call us in. Jo was already back inside.

  I spilled back in through the door, laughing and bouncing about. I saw Sue exchange a smile with Paul. I figured she thought she had her old Eve back again.

  Next morning, Jo insisted on driving us both into work. “You’ll be like a drowned rat on that bike otherwise.”

  Every time we went through a large wash of water across the road where a beck had burst its bank, I would test out my memory for Paul’s planing statistics.

  “Oh God,” she groaned. “Dad’s got himself a pet parrot!”

  She dropped me back at the flat after work. “No point in you coming out to ours, it’s too wet. I’ll pick you up again tomorrow morning if you like.

  I thanked her and went inside. I had a shower and changed into some dry clothes and got on with making some tea. I made enough for three to welcome Daisy and Quinn home for a change.

  Then Daisy rang. “I’m staying at my parent’s tonight. The river’s burst its bank between our village and the way back to town, so all the buses have been cancelled. I expect it’ll go down overnight, so I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Ok.” I didn’t take too much notice. The river often covered that big dip in the road there. It was a regular minor drama.

  Still Quinn didn’t come home. I glanced at my watch. It was after eight pm now. Maybe he was on a late shift? I went and checked my phone. No missed phone calls, no unopened texts, but the battery was low. I plugged it in. I felt a bit weird. I could use my rational mind to tell me that everything was ok, but my inner antennae told me it wasn’t.

  Nine o’clock and still no Quinn. I went to the window to look out. It was heaving it down. Driving rain almost horizontal in the high winds. The street streamed with water. The drains were pumping water out rather than taking it in, with miniature rivers gurgling down each side of the road. I went online to look for the weather forecast. There were red triangles all over Lancashire, Yorkshire, Cumbria, Northumbria, Dumfries and Galloway. Torrential rain forecast to continue until tomorrow morning. Severe flood warnings with a risk to life. I went back to the window. Well I was sitting pretty up here in a third floor flat, but presumably Quinn was out with an RAC team rescuing people out of the flood waters. Maybe I needed to resign myself to being on my own all night. I wished I’d gone out to the Satterthwaites’. I went and gathered emergency things. Head torch, waterproof coat, over-trousers, and wellies. I went into Daisy’s room and gathered up all her scented candles that she used in the bathroom sometimes when she was relaxing, and her lighter. I put everything on the kitchen table just in case.

  At a quarter to ten I heard footsteps jogging up the stairs. The characteristic approach of Quinn. Thank goodness! He pushed the door open and shook himself like a dog.

  “It’s biblical out there!” He exclaimed. Water was showering everywhere off him. “I had to bring the van home because we can’t get back to the depot. They told me to drop Vince off on my way here, and keep the van. But the water on the street was over my ankles. How close are we to the river here? It’s burst its banks further down.”

  “Is there anything you ought to get out of the van in case it gets deeper?” I suggested.

  He frowned. “Maybe I should get the more expensive electrical kit out. And my personal tool kit.”

  “I’ll help you,” I said. I threw on the waterproof jacket, put my head torch in my pocket and pulled on the wellies. Then I flopped down the stairs after him. He pulled open the doors of the van, looking worriedly down at his feet. “I’m sure it’s deeper Ginty, even in that short time…”

  “Hurry then,” I said. “Hand me anything you want taken up and I’ll run it in to the stairs and then we can ferry it up after.”

  He started tossing me stuff and I slopped my way in and put it half way up the stairs and went back for more. Even in that time, the water had definitely inched up to our calves. As I went backwards and forwards for a third time I heard muffled thudding and yelling. At first I took no notice, but then I stopped and listened and it seemed to be coming from the bottom flat. I stared at the door. That flat was partly underground. Half basement, half above street level.

  I bashed on the door and yelled, “Anyone in there?” Not really expecting an answer. There were suddenly two voices yelling and more thudding in reply. The voices were female, but I couldn’t understand what they were saying. I tried the door. It was locked.

  “Hurry up Ginty! It’s getting deeper,” Quinn shouted.

  “Quinn, quickly, come here and bring a crowbar!”

  “What for?”

  “JUST DO IT!” I yelled.

  “Ok keep your hair on!”

  Finally he appeared at my side.

  “There’s someone trapped in here,” I told him urgently. “They’re yelling and banging.”

  “Shit!” He immediately started trying to use the crow bar but although it splintered the wood it made no headway against the strong metal latch. Once they heard us bashing on the door they star
ted shouting again. Quinn stopped for a moment. “This is no use Ginty, we need to break through the central panelling, it’ll be weaker.” He ran back out to the van and came back with a pick axe and began to just hack it into the door. I was amazed at how quickly he blasted a hole through the two layers of the door. He reached his arm in and turned the lock mechanism from inside. The door swung open. The lights were on but we could see that steps led downwards into the living area and that must be chest deep down there. There was no-one in sight. The lay out was rather like our own flat with four doors leading off the kitchen, living area.

  “Where are you?” I shouted.

  Thudding came from behind one of the doors. We waded gingerly down into the water. It was freezing cold and up to chest height on me, lower on Quinn.

  “Stand back!” Quinn shouted and started to slam at the door with the pick axe. The woman behind the door started screaming.

  “It’s ok!” I tried to reassure her, but she was speaking another language, sort of eastern European sounding so I didn’t think she understood me. I clenched my teeth. Shit this water was cold.

  He bust a hole in the door but this time had to get it big enough to get a person through. It was a weaker hollow core inner door though, so he made quick headway. I motioned to her to quickly come out. I grabbed her wrist as she got to me, and helped her climb through the hole. She clung to me for a moment. She was taller than me so the water was not so high on her then she grabbed my arm and pointed at the next door and started really urgently talking at us. She shouted through the door and another woman’s terrified voice answered. Still not in English.

  Quinn started grimly hacking away again like a woodcutter in a fairy tale rescuing the princess. The water was nearly to my collar bone now. Still getting deeper? He finally burst through but this time the woman trapped inside wasn’t rushing to the hole. He yanked at the splintered pieces to pull the hole wider. He bent over and peered in. “There’s no light on in there.”

  “Can you flick the switch?” I asked.

  “Don’t want to touch the switch with all this water about,” he said dubiously.