by Archer, Kiki
Connie smiled as the perfectness of the day swelled with happiness inside her, their final adventure now underway. She took a deep breath and enjoyed the warm evening breeze across her cheeks and through her hair. The suggestion of a peaceful ride along the promenade in a pedal-cart proved just splendid. Her hands were on the steering wheel but she wasn’t driving. Neither were Noah or Alice who were sitting in the basket seats at the front holding steering wheels of their own. Theirs had the additional bonus of two tooting horns, which they could squeeze every time they saw anything living or stationary. The only person who had any real control over their vehicle was Maria. She was in the driver’s seat playing it cool as she tried to adapt to the heavy steering and sudden leg strain in a vain attempt at making the ride as smooth as possible. They’d only been travelling for one minute and that had been with the assistance of the small ramp from the shop and a preliminary push from the owner.
Maria suddenly shrieked. The pedal-cart had a mind of its own and the pretty yellow canopy and shiny red frame did not hide the fact that they were about to be a menace on the seafront, noisily hogging the wide path as Maria desperately tried to gain some control.
“Watch the bin!” shouted Connie, suddenly catapulted from her daydream.
“I’m not near the bin!” gasped Maria, pulling down on the heavy steering wheel.
“Bin!” screeched Noah and Alice in unison, tooting their horns as loudly as possible, thrilled to have finally twisted their mummies’ arms after the day had been spent with Connie and Maria saying “Maybe later” each time either of the children spotted what they had decided were “choo choo carts”.
Connie breathed deeply as her head spun with the unusual exertion. Pedalling this choo choo cart was starting to take its chuff chuff-ing toll.
“We need a man,” she gasped.
Maria turned her head and lifted her sunglasses. “Excuse me?”
“We need a man to drive this thing.”
“You know that’s like a red rag to a lesbian, don’t you?”
“No, I’m just…” Connie gulped as she was thrust back into her seat, Maria’s sudden surge of pedal power propelling their vehicle forward. The children started to beep their horns once more.
“Faster, Mummy, faster!”
Connie held on tight, trying her steering wheel as if it had miraculously become the one in charge of their direction. It hadn’t. She stopped pedalling only to find her feet still moving around in time with Maria’s.
“I can feel you’ve stopped pedalling,” said Maria through clenched teeth. “Come on, Connie, let’s show the kids what we’ve got. I hate the idea of Alice thinking she’s missing out because she’s not got a big strong father here to pedal us faster.”
Noah tooted his horn and banged on his steering wheel. “Faster, Mummy, faster!”
Connie pushed down on the pedals, trying to catch up with the rotations. “Fine,” she said, feeling her thigh muscles tensing, “as long as you’ve got control of the steering.”
“I have.” Maria tried to turn the wheel gently to display how in control she was but the cart continued to move in a straight line. Alarmed, she tugged on it harder, lurching them towards the seawall.
“Wall!” screeched Connie.
“Wall!” beeped Noah and Alice.
Maria tugged left, jerking them back onto a collision course with rows of parked cars that were lining the wide promenade on the landward side.
“Cars!” beeped Noah and Alice, shrieking at the tops of voices as if this was the most exciting adventure they’d ever been on.
Connie clutched her steering wheel even tighter as a particularly large people carrier appeared in her line of vision.
“Could you straighten us up a bit?”
“I’m straightening!”
Connie threw her body to the right.
“What are you doing?” gasped Maria, feeling Connie pushing into her shoulder.
“Every little helps! We’re getting too close to the cars!”
“Big red car!” squealed Noah, reaching out and beeping Alice’s horn as well as his own.
“I’ve got it. We’re turning.” Maria’s voice sounded almost as strained as the tension she was putting on the stubborn steering wheel.
Connie allowed her bottom to momentarily relax onto her seat as they began to pass the parked people carrier at a safe distance.
“Shit! The door!” She yelled as the owner of the big vehicle decided to get out at the exact moment they passed.
“Hello!” called Noah and Alice, waving politely to the shocked driver who was about to get his door ripped off.
“Watch out!” yelped Connie, as the driver closed himself back into the car, saving them all with millimetres to spare. “Shitting hell, Maria!”
“Sorry.” Maria couldn’t help but laugh. “Crikey, I know it’s not funny. But he should have been looking anyway and I’ve got it now, we’re fine.” She nonchalantly straightened the steering, pedalling along as if nothing had happened. “Isn’t this lovely, everyone?”
Alice turned around in her seat. “Mummy, Connie said shitting. What does shitting mean?”
Connie shook her head, trying to think quickly. “No, I was singing.”
Alice frowned up at her. “Shitting’s a silly song.”
“No, I should have sung it like this,” Connie took a deep breath and tried to replicate a slightly alternative early morning chaffinch call, “shhhhh-iiiiiiiii-tttt!”
The little girl shook her head. “That’s shit.”
Connie continued the sing-along. “Yes, like shhhhh-iiiiii-hhhhh-iiiii-ttttt! I’m having so much fun on this pedal-cart that I can’t help singing. Oh look, there’s an ice cream van. Do you think you could pull us up alongside it, Maria?”
Alice spun back around to check out what lay ahead. “Ice creams!” she shouted, beeping her horn in approval.
Maria turned to Connie. “Well that was a beautiful bit of birdsong.”
“I didn’t know what to say! I panicked.”
“And you thought impersonating a foul-mouthed chaffinch would help?”
“Oh stop it.” Connie nodded at the ice cream van. “Do you think you can park us up there?”
Maria heaved on the steering wheel, finally feeling as if she had some control over the contraption. “I’ll pull us so close that you won’t even have to get off.”
“I don’t mind getting off. We’ll have to stop to eat them anyway.”
Maria steered them closer to the van. “You can eat as we ride. I don’t fancy one.” She smiled and nodded at herself in approval. “A man couldn’t park us this close.” She made one final fine adjustment to the wheel and pulled on the brakes, parking Connie right in front of the ice cream van’s hatch.
“Excuse me love, there’s a queue.”
So busy with their wayward machine, neither had noticed the line of people snaking around the end of the van.
“Oh hang on, let me see if I can reverse.” Maria tried to pedal backwards but the chain went slack. “Ooops, sorry, I don’t think I can go back.”
Some of the line of people started to tut as Maria tried to work out the best thing to do.
“Hello there, what can I get you?” asked the jolly ice cream man, poking his head out the hatch, unaware of their illegal position. “Are you young uns having a fun day?”
Alice put her hand up to answer the question. “It’s,” she started to sing, “shhhhh-iiiiiiiii-tttt.”
Noah joined in. “Shhhhh-iiiiii-hhhhh-iiiii-ttttt!”
Connie tried to ignore the offended gasps and rumblings of the waiting queue. “Three ninety-nines please.”
“Sauce, sauce, sauce!” giggled Noah.
“Shhhhh-iiiiii-ttttty sauce,” sang Alice.
“And sauce please,” said Connie in a whisper, handing over the money.
Maria hauled on the steering wheel as hard as she could, willing the front wheels to twist into position on the warm concrete. She flicked the righ
t pedal back around into a high starting position, ready to make a speedy exit.
“There you go, love,” said the ice cream man in a tone that Connie couldn’t quite place, unsure if it was condemnation or condolence.
“And pedal,” barked Maria, pushing down hard with her legs.
Connie couldn’t contribute much, what with juggling three already dripping cornets, so their getaway wasn’t quite as speedy as Maria had hoped. It gave the disgruntled queue members time to shake their heads and mutter under their breath as the awkward contraption squeaked slowly away along the prom.
“Well that was embarrassing,” said Maria as the muttering from the ice cream queue finally disappeared behind them.
“At least we didn’t have to queue,” said Connie brightly. “Did you see the size of it? All the way round the back of the van.” She smiled and offered her ice cream. “Would you like a lick?”
“No.”
Connie smiled again. “Go on.”
Maria glanced back over her shoulder. “You realise we’ll have to pedal all the way down to the end before we can turn back around to make sure everyone in that queue’s moved on.”
“There are loads of these buggies,” Connie reassured her as she licked a run of ice cream from her cone. “They won’t recognise us again.”
“Oh really? We’re the only buggy with two kids in front singing the shit song.”
Connie laughed. “I think they’ve got it down nicely. Go on, have a lick of mine.” She waggled her eyebrows and winked at her friend.
Maria rolled her eyes and was unable to stop herself laughing. “You’re going to get me into lots of trouble, aren’t you, Miss Parker?”
“That’s the plan. Come on, have a lick.” She held out the ninety-nine once more, but fumbled as the cart hit a bump. She was unable to stop the ice cream spilling and landing on Maria’s seat, directly between her two pedalling legs.
Connie instinctively bent to use the cone to try and scrape the melting mush back in.
“What are you doing?” gasped Maria, trying to keep her eyes on the route but unable to avoid the prodding and poking between her thighs.
“My ice cream’s fallen off!”
“But why are you jabbing me with the cone?”
“I’m trying to scoop it back up.”
“Shall we save the finger jabbing till later?”
“Queue jumping lesbians!” The sharp shout was accompanied by a tringing bell and tooting klaxon.
Connie and Maria were suddenly brought face to face with a sun-wrinkly old woman riding alongside their pedal-cart on a red mobility scooter, complete with front mounted shopping basket containing a fiercely yapping and equally elderly chihuahua. The woman was dressed entirely in mauve velour leisurewear, except for her tan double-velcro sandals.
“Excuse me?” called Maria.
The old woman revved her handlebars and snarled. “You ’eard me.” She sneered at Connie’s position with her hand between Maria’s legs. “And ya can’t even wait till ya get ’ome.” She revved once more and started to pull ahead of them rapidly, weaving in and out of bemused pedestrians. “Poor kids,” she called at the two women as she belted along.
Maria snapped her thighs shut, crushing the ice cream cone in two. “Pedal, Connie, pedal. We’re not having this,” she growled.
Connie flicked the ice cream off her fingers and took hold of her steering wheel. “Hold on, kids, we’re in a chase.”
“Chase, chase, chase,” came the chant from the front.
Maria lifted herself off her seat, forcing more pressure and speed onto the pedals. The pedal-cart began to rumble along briskly and the children’s ninety-nines started to waggle from side to side as their mouths kept missing the ice cream.
“She’s up there near the seawall,” said Connie, taking her role as seek-and-destroy sniper very seriously, and realising the mauve tracksuit was harder to miss than the red scooter.
“We’ll pull alongside her and have a quiet word.”
“Agreed,” said Connie, pedalling her hardest as they steadily reeled in their quarry.
Maria turned the wheel, bringing them level with the mobility scooter and trapping the old woman between their cart and the seawall.
“Excuse me,” she shouted.
The old woman turned around and snarled, “Feck off.”
Maria continued to pedal, keeping up with the mobility scooter’s top pace. “And you dare to criticise how we are with our children?”
“I said, feck off!” The old woman lifted her elbows like wings and stuck out her chin, driving her scooter as fast as it would go.
Maria continued to pound on the pedals. “Our cart can match your scooter for speed any day,” she yelled furiously
“Yeah we’re lesbians you know,” added Connie. “Faster than most men.”
Maria looked at her friend, impressed, but suddenly remembering she had to steer as the cart lurched to the right, leaving no space between them and the scooter as they barreled along neck and neck.
“Hello!” giggled Alice and Noah sweetly, waving at the old woman as they licked on their ice creams.
“We’d just like an apology please,” Maria continued, trying to sound reasonable and not pant. “You can’t go around shouting obscenities at people or using derogatory labels like that. I hope you understand we didn’t mean to queue jum—”
“Maria!” shouted Connie, spotting the fork in their path up ahead.
It was like a scene out of Grease: both vehicles on the same track but only one would survive.
“I’m going left!” she gasped, but it was too late. The little old lady was forced down a concrete ramp that led straight onto the beach.
Connie watched mesmerised as the red scooter and scowling face careered from view like someone doing a funny disappearing walk past a window.
“Brakes,” she shouted.
“The sand will stop her,” Maria shouted back.
“Not her, us! She might be thrown off when her wheels hit the beach. We’re in Brighton, it’s pebbles not sand!”
Maria hauled on the brakes, shuddering their cart to a halt and allowing Connie to jump off and race to the seawall. Connie peered down onto the beach. There was no sign of the red scooter. Spotting movement, she looked across at the ramp.
“Shit!” she cried, “she’s reversing up! Go, go, go, Maria!”
“Shhhhh-iiiiiiiii-tttt,” sang Noah and Alice in unison.
Now expert in getting the thing underway, Maria started to pedal, forcing Connie to perform a stunt-woman jump onto the moving cart.
“Is she okay?” Maria gasped.
“She’s fine, but she’s clearly out for blood! Get us somewhere we can hide.”
Maria looked at the long wide stretch of open promenade. “Where?”
“There! To the left! That circus tent. Pull us in there!”
“No! They might be doing a show.”
“I’d rather be eaten by lions than face the wrath of that nasty old bat.”
Maria didn't need more encouragement. She swerved the cart off the concrete and across the grass into the big top’s entrance. In the tent it was silent and quite dark and there definitely wasn’t a show happening. She stepped down from her seat and ran to the entrance on shaky legs. She peeped out as the old woman went haring past on the red scooter. She sighed with relief and turned to Connie.
“Shall we just hide in here for a bit?”
Connie joined her in the entrance. “Suits me,” she said with a smile. “You’re one mighty fine driver, Miss Mariano.”
Maria laughed and pulled Connie in tight, locking her arms around Connie’s warm waist. “We survived.”
Noah beeped his horn loudly and Alice copied him before singing at the top of her voice. “This ride has been shhhhh-iiiiiiiii-tttt. Shhhhh-iiiiii-hhhhh-iiiii-ttttt! Shhhhh-iiiiiiiii-tttt!”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Connie moved the paddle brush through the final section of her hair, following i
t carefully with the straighteners. She tied the long, now smooth, blonde layers into a loose ponytail and studied herself in the huge table top mirror. She looked so small in comparison to her surroundings, sitting on the stool like a child on their first day of school with everything so grand and imposing. She stared at her reflection and decided to button her red checked pyjama top right up at the neck. She took one final look at herself and nodded, making her way back into the suite’s main living area.
“Mummy, look, den!” Noah was banging his hands on top of the duvet that had been tucked into the sides of the two chaise longues, securing both him and Alice in their makeshift double bed.
Maria spoke from the bar in the corner. “Shush, shush. You two promised to stay quiet.” She continued to pour the drinks without turning around. “They wanted me to push the chaise longues together to make a den so they could watch the film all snuggled up, but I’ve seen their eyes drooping already.” She picked up the glasses and turned to face Connie. “Oh wow,” she said, unable to hide her surprise.
Connie self-consciously lifted her hand to the neck of her pyjamas. “What?” she asked.
The stare continued with an open mouth. “You look incredible.”
“I do not.”
“You do. Your hair.”
Connie shied her shoulders into herself, uncomfortable with the inspection. “I always straighten my hair before bed. But I still wake up looking like Worzel Gummidge.”
“I bet you don’t.”
“I do.”
Maria handed over the glass of wine.
“And I’m loving the tight top button look. It’s very on-trend.”
“They’re pyjamas.”
“You could wear that on a night out, like you would a shirt.”
“Can we just sit down in that nice dark corner over there, please?” She pointed toward the leather sofa beside the bar.
“You don’t want to snuggle up with them in their den and watch Frozen?”
Connie laughed. “Hmm, let me think about that. No. We’ve got the film, the CD, the book, the Kristoff doll, the jumper, the backpack, the alarm clock, the pencil case, Sven the singing reindeer, and I think Noah’s even wearing the pyjamas.”