The Way Barred

by Dominique Kyle

  “There you go now,” his tone was amused. “One thumb was still tucked in but now it’s popped out, probably in order to slap me one,” he teased, darting away.

  Before the afternoon’s racing, Tyler took us into town and bought all sorts of things for Mariah, from larger sized clothing to baby beakers and training nappies. We stopped in the van to dress her in the new clothes and slap on the nappy rash cream which made her grizzle for a bit as presumably it stung.

  When we kissed good-bye at the end of the day Tyler said, “Ring me and let me know what happens will you?”

  “Yes, I will,” I promised. I put my arms around his neck and looked gratefully up at him. “Thanks so much Tyler!”

  He smiled. “Thanks for coming to see me win the European, you missed seeing all the others. I was beginning to take it personally…”

  “Yeah, I got banned at the worst possible moment didn’t I? It’s such a bummer, but I’ve no-one to blame but myself. I’ll be back on the track in time for the World Championship. So if I don’t see you before, I’ll see you at the semi’s.”

  “Fancy your chances?” He said with a wry smile.

  I shook my head. “Not this year. This year Pete’ll get it. I’ll take it next year…”

  “Will you now?” He said dryly. “We’ll see about that!”

  I smiled serenely at him. “No use fighting against the flow, Tyler. You’ll be getting the Silver, so you don’t need the Gold…”

  “I’m going off you rapidly,” he told me acerbically.

  “Love you too,” I said with a laugh, picked Mariah up, and blew a kiss at him as I walked off. Then I had to stop to turn back to show him Mariah putting her little hand to her mouth, obviously trying to blow him one too.

  “Bye Bye Tyler,” I encouraged her and did a big kiss blowing gesture.

  “Bye Bye Gitty and Scrap,” he called and did an exaggerated kiss blow back.

  She frowned with concentration and then announced, “Bi Tier,” pouted her lips and put a hand to them. So then we both applauded her and she smiled and clapped too.

  Making graphic sick noises, Tom picked up a wet sponge he’d been wiping the car down with and threw it at Tyler’s head. Tyler ducked just in time, bent to pick up the sponge and dipped it until sodden in a convenient puddle. “Right,” he said threateningly, and raised his arm in a business like looking overarm bowl while Tom ducked behind the aerofoil.

  Scrap and I beat a tactical retreat back to the safety of the Beast.

  Back approaching our home town Paul asked me where I wanted to be dropped. I asked to be taken back to Dad’s house. Before we got there I leaned over from the back and said hesitantly to Pete. “You know when Siân and you were together, was she just pissing about or was she really into you?”

  Jo and Paul both looked sideways at him. Pete frowned and shrugged. “Dunno,” he said cautiously.

  “It’s just that she still won’t talk to me. She just tells me to piss off. But maybe she’d see you. She likes boys better than girls.”

  Jo looked fixedly at him.

  “I’m going in to Dad and Pauline to talk to them about what’s going on, so if you went in to see Siân and find out what’s going on from her point of view, I could get you back home on the bike after..?”

  “Do you dare risk her bike Pete?” His Dad teased him.

  “S’pose I could,” he said reluctantly. When we pulled up outside the two houses, he got out with me and helped me get Mariah and the frame and the bag out, looked undecidedly at the house on the left, then walked off towards it.

  I made my way into Dad’s and Pauline’s.

  “Hello Petal!” Pauline greeted me cheerfully. Dad was on the sofa with the Sloth. I put Mariah down on the floor and she immediately ran over to Dad and clambered onto his lap. He smiled at her and jiggled her up and down a bit. She smiled delightedly back. And the dog hung around with his nose resting on Dad’s knee looking jealous.

  “I need to talk to you both,” I said. Pauline sat down.

  I explained what I’d found next door and what I’d done so far. Pauline and Dad exchanged glances.

  “There’s been people from the church going in and out all weekend,” Pauline reported. “Now we know why…”

  “Oh good,” I said. “I don’t understand why Con wouldn’t let you in Dad? He was so good to you when Mum died and you just wanted to do the same for him…”

  Dad looked seriously across at me. “I keep telling him he’s got to knock off the drinking and he doesn’t want to hear it. And now he’s too ashamed to let us in because he knows the whole family’s going to the dogs and he knows it should be himself sorting everything out, and he can’t manage it.”

  “Oh,” I said. That made sense. We were all silent for a minute. “I’m hoping to find someone to take Mariah for a few weeks until they all feel a bit better and Thérèse can sort out some nursery care,” I reported.

  Pauline looked at Dad. Dad looked down at Mariah who smiled sweetly at him. Dad looked across at me. “Me and Pauline have been talking about it, and we think it would be best if she came to us. That way she’s just next door. After all we’re already tied up with Ethan, and it might brighten up the lazy little sod,” Dad said.

  “Jack!” Pauline chided.

  “Might liven up the little lad,” Dad corrected obediently with a little sparkle in his eyes across at me.

  “Thank you so much you two, thank you so much!” I couldn’t believe it. I went over and kissed them both in turn. Pauline went a bit pink with pleasure. “I’ll go and get her stuff!”

  I ran next door and went in without ringing the doorbell. “Siân! Pete! Where are you?” I called.

  They came downstairs. “Here,” Pete answered. Siân just glowered from behind him.

  “Pauline and Dad are going to look after Mariah for a few weeks to give you all a break Siân. Will you give me a hand over with the cot Pete? And will you gather up all her things Siân?”

  Siân looked sulky at first, but as we all went back up to Quinn’s old room and she began to pick things up, I could see the relief beginning to dawn, and I knew I’d done the right thing.

  Pete and I were in my old bedroom, now Ethan’s, trying to put the cot back together that we’d dismantled to get here. The bedroom was blue and Peter Rabbit themed. Plus twelve dollshouses, one garage scene and a Frankenstein scene. I looked extra close at it for a minute, that couldn’t be right could it? But it was complete with gothic pointed windows, cobwebs, bats and Victorian electric sockets so I figured it must have been for some Halloween edition of Dolls House and Miniature Scene Monthly magazine which I knew she was now a regular contributor to.

  “Hold this upright will you?” Pete asked me, so I returned my attention to the job at hand. As we straightened up, our task complete, Pete said, “Do you remember the last time we were in this room together?”

  “Yes,” I nodded. “I was crying and Dad was lost at sea and you were hugging me. You were really kind to me that weekend. Thank you Pete.” I suddenly gave him a hug. “Thanks for being so lovely to me.”

  Pete suddenly looked like he was going to cry. He held me tight for a moment. “I’m so sorry Eve for messing up. I’m sorry I hurt you so bad.”

  “All water under the bridge now,” I said abruptly, and found myself pulling away. To think of all those months I’d longed for Pete to do that, and now it just felt wrong. He smelt wrong. He was the wrong height. He held me in the wrong way. I wanted Tyler. Tyler who had been so bloody brilliant this weekend, not batting an eyelid at my turning up to a Stocks weekend with a baby that wasn’t even my own and expecting him to look after it.

  We heard Siân jogging up the stairs and moved way apart. Siân already looked more cheerful. She put several bags of baby things down beside the cot.

  “Eve and I need to go now Siân,” Pete said. “But I’ll pick you up on Tuesday night?”

  She nodded and I could see her perking up even more.

  �
�That was a good idea,” I complimented him as we stood by Quinn’s bike. “It’ll give her something to look forward to that she has to dress up for…”

  He nodded and studiously avoided my eyes.

  “We haven’t got a helmet for you, so I just hope we’re not spotted,” I said.

  “More to the point I just hope you can drive this thing!” He said sarcastically.

  “Well don’t you try to drive it from behind me or you’ll definitely have us both off!” I warned him severely. And we bickered in a friendly way right from there all the way to his home.

  When I got back into the flat later that night I ignored Quinn, who also ignored me. You’d think he’d ask how come I ended up with Mariah for the weekend wouldn’t you? It still stung that he’d not only implied I was meddling, but he hadn’t even come round to our end of the pits on a visit to see his little sister! Guilt, I thought. He doesn’t want to hear what a state his family is in because he doesn’t want to feel responsible.

  Shut in my room, I rang Tyler. We had a really long chat and I told him everything that had happened since I’d left him earlier that day, even Pete hugging me and saying sorry. “I just wanted it to be you there Tyler, it felt so wrong,” I told him.

  “Oh sweetheart…” He said, sounding touched.

  “Thanks so much for helping me with Mariah,” I said with real feeling. “It means a lot to me, it really does!”

  “Sweetheart, I’d do anything for you,” he said soppily. “I’m glad she’s in a safe place now, I was really worried.”

  But that was the thing – he said he’d do anything for me, but he hadn’t been doing it for me, that’s what really touched me – he really cared about this little scrap that was nothing whatsoever to do with him and he’d have looked after her like that whether I was there to see him doing it or not.

  We kept trying to say good-bye and then not managing to actually end the call.

  I realised this was the first time I’d ever rung him, and the first phone call we’d ever had that wasn’t just a short arrangement type of thing, and it was the first time I’d ever been really chatting to him freely about anything and everything.

  “Actually,” he said suddenly after our third attempt at a signing off, “it’s my birthday next week before the World Semis, would you like to meet up and celebrate it with me?”

  “Yes, I would,” I said my heart flipping unexpectedly. “A dress up one?”

  “Of course,” he agreed with a smile in his voice. “A really dress up one!”

  And this time we managed to say good-night. I curled up in bed and wished he was there beside me. I realised that it was the first time I’d done that as well.

  I rang up Lisa. “I’ve got a favour to ask you – I need you to come and help me buy another red dress.”

  We sat on the sofa in a Costa Coffee in the centre of town before starting to shop. I kept my voice low so nobody on the table behind us would hear.

  “I want to rehab the colour red,” I explained.

  Lisa frowned. “I know last year you just kept repeating ‘nothing red’, but I didn’t know why…”

  “You remember that red dress we bought for the Hindu wedding I went to with Rajesh?” I reminded her.

  She nodded.

  “Well that’s the dress I got raped in,” I said in a low voice in her ear.

  She looked horrified. Then she lowered her eyes and said, ‘I thought I recognised the dress…”

  I pulled back from her. “So you saw the photos then?” I said stiffly.

  She looked apologetic. “I’m sorry Eve, everyone did you know. You couldn’t avoid seeing them.”

  I felt a bit sick. Virtually everyone had pretended ignorance and avoided mentioning the whole topic and I’d finally lulled myself into the security of imagining that hardly anyone had actually seen them… Tyler, Rob, Paul, those middle aged stewards, all the other drivers at every track! I was naïve to think that they wouldn’t all go straight to their computers and phones to Google them, if they hadn’t already seen them in the newspaper. Word on the Stocks circuit would have gone round like wildfire. Was that what they all saw in their mind’s eye when they looked at me?

  Lisa reached out a hand and lay it over my fist that I was clenching in my lap with my fingernails digging into the palm. Suddenly I felt like I might be tempting fate trying to make it alright in a red dress with Tyler. What if it all went horribly wrong? I hadn’t liked Trev one bit, but I’d had no inkling that he’d do that to me. He was a guy I worked with every day. When it became clear that he was intending to get me drunk in the hopes I’d succumb to his charms I’d expected it might get a bit embarrassing or uncomfortable turning him down point blank, but it had never crossed my mind that he wouldn’t just take me home at the end of the evening, with poor grace maybe… But when I’d tasted that bitter background taste in that last drink, and looked at the expression in his eyes as he tried to make me drink it all up, I’d sort of known. I’d got a bad feeling. But I still thought I hadn’t drunk enough of it for it to affect me. When my legs had gone from under me I’d been really scared. I knew then what he’d done, even though he himself was still pretending that I was just drunk… And then later on, I’d completely trusted Pete and had no inkling whatsoever about anything going wrong before I’d found him in bed with Siân. What if I just had no judgement about men? What if you just couldn’t have good judgement about men because they were all completely untrustworthy when it came to sex?

  “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea Lisa,” I said quickly. “I could wear that moss green one that you dressed me up in for my eighteenth birthday…”

  “No don’t give up,” Lisa urged. “You can’t go around for the rest of your life avoiding the colour red!”

  “What if it triggers Tyler to remember the photos though?” I said anxiously to her. “What if everyone is secretly thinking I deserved it because I was dressed like a slut in red?”

  Lisa got cross with me. “Red is not a slutty colour! And you were not dressed like a slut. That was a beautiful classy dress and you looked great in it! Elegant, not tarty!”

  I got all panicky. “I can’t do it!”

  Lisa’s hand gripped mine tightly. “Listen to me Eve, the colours you suit are silvery greens, silvery blues, golds and deep yellows, and most of all, red. When you’re dressed in red you look drop dead gorgeous and heads turn as you pass. I’m telling you that you need to rehab the red, Eve.”

  “Really?” I said surprised.

  “Yes really…” She said firmly.

  We went into four different shops and she brought several dresses into the cubicle in each. She was very strict with me. Her rule was either legs or boobs but not both. And she warned me I was such a short-arse it normally needed to be legs with high heels. Anything from cocktail length just above the knee to sixties style baby doll barely covering the bum. And nothing too loose or flowing. Neat and classy was the look to aim for.

  She finally picked a fitted cocktail dress in a deep wine red (rather than the scarlet of the original dress) and then dragged me off round shoe shops to match it with some elegant heels and a small clutch bag and some tiny earrings and a clip for my hair and some glamourous underwear. I had to buy it all on a credit card and cross my fingers that I didn’t have too high an expenditure next month. She promised to come round and do my make-up and hair on the evening in question and I went home with an armful of bags and boxes.

  Then I got on Quinn’s bike and went round to Dad’s to see how they were doing with little Mariah after their first week. She seemed fine and blooming, running towards me calling, “Gitty, Gitty!”

  I picked her up. “How’s she doing?” I asked Dad.

  “Great! She’s just like you were at that age, bright as a button and into everything.”

  “Has anyone been in to see her from next door?” I asked.

  Pauline walked in from the kitchen carrying Ethan. “No, flower, they haven’t. Not a single one of them
.”

  “Oh dear,” I said, worried.

  “Hmm,” Dad shook out the paper he was reading. “It’s hard to tell if they’re just refusing to speak to us because they’re angry, whether they’re just enjoying the rest, or whether they’re avoiding the guilt they’ll feel if they come and see her here and she runs towards them expecting to be taken back with them.”

  “Is Jamie in?” I asked.

  “I think so,” Dad said vaguely.

  Jamie was sitting with some sort of computer contraption on his bed with ear phones on. I pulled them off him and he muttered at me.

  “What you doing?” I asked.

  “Writing music,” he scowled. “You’re interrupting me, I was just recording that.”

  “Sorry Bro,” I said, not sounding very sorry. “I’ve come up to ask you a favour.”

  “What?” He responded with suspiciously narrowed eyes.

  “Kes is back from Uni for the summer and I wondered if you’d have him as a guest guitarist for the summer at your gigs?”

  “Why?” Jamie exclaimed. “We’ve already got a lead guitarist, and we could use Quinn if we wanted another one.”

  “It’s just that I can see Quinn is really depressed and I think it would really cheer him up if he could be on stage with Kes again. They’re such good friends and there’s good chemistry between them.”

  Jamie frowned. “They’ll just take over!” He protested. “It’s my band and I call the shots!”

  “Kes is pretty laid back Jamie, you know that! If you make it clear to him that it’s a whole new start and he’s just a guest…”

  “I’ll think about it,” he muttered grumpily.

  “Thanks,” I said. I knew not to push it any further. “So what are you going to do now you’ve finished college?”

  He got a bit more animated. “You remember that Decibel Studios that offered B.S.E a contract to record and then got burned down by the owner in an insurance scam?”