Paradise Postponed (Not Quite Eden Book 2)

by Dominique Kyle

  “Have you seen her to speak to?”

  “Are you kidding? Her family could rival a tender by G4S to set up a private security service!”

  Rajesh’s lovely lips twisted in response. “I miss her,” he said, and his big luscious brown eyes looked mournfully across the table at me.

  “Well it’s a bit bloody late to decide that now,” I said harshly. “She adored you. She risked everything that was precious to her for you because she thought you loved her and would take care of her – but you didn’t, did you? What the hell did you think you were doing, going out with her and messing with her head in the first place?”

  “I just didn’t expect it to be like that!” Rajesh defended. “Most families are pretty relaxed these days. Of course I hadn’t clocked she was Sindhi then. And then she just sprang the whole running away and getting married straight away thing on me, and her family was hunting me down…”

  “They firebombed us,” I put in.

  “Shit! I’m glad I gave up the flat now. I was too scared to stay there so I’ve moved back in with my parents for the mo.” He paused to take a mouthful before continuing, “Thing is, I did go to my parents about marrying her and I thought my parents would be cool with it. I mean, when one of my sisters announced that she wanted to marry this English guy she’d been going out with, they didn’t do much more than tut a bit and ask if he had a good job! But they went ape about Nasim being from Pakistan and I didn’t expect that and I just couldn’t face having to piss them off.” He looked miserably down at his plate and stirred the chick peas around with a fork. “But now I realise that if I’d insisted, they probably would have come round to it eventually. Like Nasim said, once we had kids Mum probably wouldn’t have been able to resist.”

  “Well it’s too late now,” I said unsympathetically. “Because of you, her relationship with her family is destroyed, she may not be allowed to go to university, she’s been denounced at the mosque and you’ve broken her heart.”

  He looked miserable. “It’s just that you imagine your wedding day surrounded by hundreds of beaming congratulatory faces and it was a shock to me that it wasn’t going to be like that. I guess I just had this vision of us trying to live a normal life in the teeth of two families’ disapproval and having to watch our back for years. And then when Tariq turned up that day I just panicked.”

  But I wasn’t letting him off the hook that easily. “What the hell did you think you were doing going out with a school-girl anyway? And surely the continual chaperoning of Sahmir might have given you a bit of a signal as to what sort of family she came from?”

  The lad came back out with a selection of small dishes of various veggie curries and a small portion of rice each. Rajesh waited till he’d gone before saying mournfully, “I know you’re right but I just fell in love with her. She’s so beautiful, kind, good, gentle and clever, isn’t she?”

  “Yes,” I said. I sighed. Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone feel that way about you?

  “But I’ve completely messed up now haven’t I?” He said desperately.

  “Yes,” I said brutally. I tried out a few of the dishes in turn and found that most of them were hot enough to light a Guy Fawkes bonfire without a match. I tried not to gasp and blinked my eyes to stop them watering. Mustn’t let the side down.

  His own eyes suddenly went suspiciously bright and he had to blink it back, but not as a result of the food. “I guess it wouldn’t have worked anyway. You monotheistic religions can’t cope with Hinduism.”

  “Pardon?” I said blankly.

  “You Christians, Jews and Muslims. You’re always appalled by us. Nasim never came into our house but if she ever had, the minute she saw Ganesh or Kali in their shrines she’d have completely misunderstood and gone on about idolotry – I bet you!”

  “Who?” I was bewildered.

  “Ganesh is the elephant headed god, remover of obstacles and Lord of Beginnings, and Kali has ten arms, and sometimes ten heads and legs as well, Goddess of time and eternal energy.” He saw my face. “You see, even you non-religious westerners can’t cope, you think it’s weird. Charming back in India but anachronistic here.”

  I tried to scrabble for the information I learned the year that Kathleen guilt-tripped my Mum into sending me along to the Catholic Sunday School. It had turned out to be the year Mum died. Kathleen had been certain that my attendance that year had been ordained by God to enable me to cope with the bereavement. But being introduced to a God that instantly takes your mother away from you isn’t the best way to start a relationship. I refused to go back after that. I didn’t know who else he might take away. Best keep away from him.

  “I thought Christians had three gods,” I proffered.

  “Three manifestations of the one divine spirit,” Rajesh corrected, “but we’ve got thousands of manifestations of the one formless and nameless Supreme Being and to the religions of the Book, that reeks of idolotry.”

  I was completely out of my depth and as I glanced surreptitiously at my watch I realised I was nearly out of time. He saw the motion and lay off the lecture. “I’ll take you back.”

  As I got up, I glanced at the friezes around the upper third of the walls. Heroic stories, executed with bold lines in brilliant colours, thickly peopled with humans and other odder creatures and lots and lots of flowers, mountains, sky and clouds. There was one recurring male figure flying around the rest.

  “You look awfully like that hero up there,” I commented.

  He rolled his eyes. “Don’t! I get teased enough about it already! My cousin painted those. She’s really talented but she went and used me as the main character…”

  “I think she fancies you,” I said.

  He groaned. “I think she does too, but I unlike those Pakistanis I don’t believe in marrying my cousins – too much genetic risk.”

  “Me-o-ow!” I commented with a laugh, making a cat’s claw.

  “And by the time I get home tonight, the bush telegraph will have been working overtime and they’ll all be assuming I’ve got a new girlfriend…”

  “Leave them thinking it,” I advised. “It’ll get them off your back for a bit.”

  Back at the garage they recoiled back from me in exaggerated fashion. “Whoa, garlic breath!”

  And next day I was in and out the toilet a few times with it burning as much on the way out as on the way in. Next time I was going to insist on something milder.

  Jo knew I couldn’t help out on Friday nights due to my Lyndale work. She seemed to consider me noble for my volunteering in that sort of field, and I decided not to enlighten her as to why I was having to do it. I’d thought it might be a problem to her that I couldn’t turn up Fridays, but she said that if the cars needed that much doing to them the night before the race, then they were taking it too close to the line for comfort.

  It was a one o’clock start at Buxton and no more than an hour and a half’s journey, so we didn’t have to leave until nine. Very civilised. She warned me that when we were going down south it could be a 6am start, a drive through the night, or a stop-over job. I could see myself having to get regular time off my weekend working for this and wondered how to keep Entwistle sweet.

  The Sattertwaites were well set up with a big transporter to accommodate their two race vehicles. Affectionately referred to by the family as ‘the Beast’ it included a pull out sleeping area to save them money on hotel fees. If I hadn’t seen Rob getting by with friends and small trailers, I’d have been feeling even more depressed by now at the financial outlay involved.

  We arrived at Buxton Raceway before eleven, to a place on the edge of the moors that might have seemed bleak on a dreary day, but on this sunny spring day was a hive of boundless industry and welding sparks. Pete was pretty chipper about the day but I could see Jo looked stressed. She admitted that her results last year had been poor, yo-yoing between the blue and yellow grades, and that this season wasn’t looking up much.

  “I did three years in t
he Ministox and often came in first and I started out with high hopes of being the first woman for years to make a dent in the championship, but I just can’t break in, I don’t know what’s going wrong.”

  We were leaning against a fence outside the pits so she could smoke. She sucked in fiercely on her fag then tossed it down, wastefully to my mind, with still a third to go. I watched it lying glowing on the ground, the smoke wreathing rankly up.

  “It’s not like I’ve had an accident or something and lost my nerve – I just seem to be lacking something, and I don’t know what! People have started hinting that maybe I should back off into the Mighty Minis, or do the charity women’s races and that I’d have better results there, but I don’t want to retire to the ghetto. I wanted to succeed here!”

  I was sympathetic, but I didn’t know what to say. Just listening to her knocked my own nerve. I too wanted to make it in the mainstream racing, but if Jo couldn’t make it with all her experience and family mechanical back up, what chance did I have?

  Later in the day I cornered Pete. They were a nice family, barely a hint of sibling rivalry and Pete supported Jo all the way, but I knew it galled her that he was making headway moving up the stats when she wasn’t. I asked him to tell me where he thought she was going wrong.

  Pete had a habit of rubbing at the back of his neck when he felt a bit awkward. He started doing that now. “Hmm, she’s got a cool head in a race, and she’s calculating the best move to make every second of the time and she’s got plenty of nerve…”

  “But..?” I prompted as he trailed to a halt.

  He wrinkled his nose. “I don’t know what separates a good driver from a winning one but it somehow comes down to instinct. Reaction time. Just somehow letting go and becoming one with the car and in that split second instinctively just making that move, turning that wheel, powering on by. And aggression. Controlled aggression,” he added hastily. “Hot heads just lose it and go that one step too far and end up spinning out in the race or getting disciplined or banned because they lose their judgement and go a step too far…”

  I looked at him. He met my gaze for a moment then shrugged, unwilling to commit a judgement on his sister.

  I looked intensely at him. “I’m going to win,” I said suddenly. “I’m going to do this and I’m going to win.”

  He looked startled then a slow smile spread. “You’ll have to be really hungry for it.”

  “Oh I am,” I said with absolute conviction. And suddenly I knew that I was. Absolutely starving for it, in a fever of longing, rage and desire.

  He turned away. “Good luck then,” he said as he left for his own race.

  It was nearly four before I ran into Quinn. Rob and the Satterthwaites were in different format ghettos at opposite ends of the pits and Quinn wasn’t expecting to see me there so consequently just hadn’t spotted me. I had my eye on him most of the time but didn’t intend to approach, I wanted him to bump into me. Finally, I was walking back from viewing Jo’s last race to meet her in the pits and Quinn walked slap into me, carrying four coffees. The scalding liquid slopped over his hands through the inadequately fixed lids and he swore.

  He stared and then he glared. “What are you doing here?”

  I pointed at my team tee-shirt. “F2. I’m working for the Satterthwaites. And next week I’m registering to drive myself.”

  He stared at me and then I saw his jaw clench and his eyes narrow.

  “You driving today?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Rob said it was too much faff to bring a banger today. Haven’t had time to sort out the bashes I gave it last time.”

  “Bangers…” I said with delicate condescension in my tone. “I’ll be going straight on to the F2s.” And then before he could respond in any way I swung on past him. “Sorry, need to get back to my team, one of the drivers is returning to the pits right now…”

  As I walked back to hear Jo’s post race dissection with her father and brother I bit my lip. Why the hell had I lied like that to Quinn? It wouldn’t take more than a few weeks for him to find out just how much I was bull-shitting and then I’d look seriously dumb. It took a bit of a shine out of the day. As I tried to glean clues about race tactics from the impassioned discussion going on in front of me, my mind kept wandering. Did I dare ask them if I could use one of their vehicles for a race? No, I couldn’t. At no point had either of them made the merest hint of a suggestion that I might even try out one of the cars on their specially set up dirt test-track at home and I knew that I couldn’t ask them. They both had a season to fight out here. You couldn’t let someone else borrow and possibly wreck your only car. I felt a bit sick. Why had I felt it necessary to take the wind out of Quinn’s sails which such a stupid lie? Surely I should have grown out of such childish impulses? Ok for a seven year old, but a seventeen year old? I was so dumb!

  When I got back home, knackered and longing for a shower, I found Jamie hanging about anxiously needing a lift to their late night slot at a pub on the other side of town. Apparently he was meant to be going with Quinn, but Quinn hadn’t turned up.

  Inside the venue the band were all set up and in their glad-rags, but Quinn wasn’t there either.

  “Where is he?” Kes demanded of me.

  I frowned. “Last time I saw him he was in Buxton,” I proffered. Surely he couldn’t have forgotten? Maybe they’d broken down? RAC men mend thyself.

  “What the hell’s he doing in Buxton?” Oz groaned.

  “Only I don’t think these guys are going to be awfully patient about waiting,” Kes whispered, jerking his eyes in the direction of the audience. “I really wish we’d known what sort of crowd we’d be facing because I really don’t think Adam’s LA gay hooker look is going to go down awfully well with this lot…”

  I looked cautiously around. The place was full to bursting with what looked like real old fashioned hard core Hell’s Angels with their chapter colours on the back of their leathers. Half drunk already and hard as nails. And all fortyish or above. Shit. I hoped Quinn could handle this lot.

  The natives were getting restless and a few catcalls were starting when Quinn suddenly burst through the door and pushed his way to the front. He looked stressed as hell, and leapt straight onto the stage. “Sorry Guys!”

  “For God’s sake, Adam!”

  But he picked up the microphone and launched them straight into the first set without missing a beat.

  Afterwards I told him it was the most fortuitous accidental best call ever. Because he hadn’t had time to change he’d rolled up in filthy oil stained torn denim and leather, with dirty nails, uncombed hair and a black streak down one cheek. “You saved yourself and the band from good kicking!”

  He glanced around at the press of old dirty leather and shuddered eloquently. “Shit Eve, and you were so bloody right the other week! I should have told Rob I couldn’t drive. But I just couldn’t bring myself to. He went and got bloody rat-arsed again didn’t he? And then he tossed me the keys, and Dave and Tolly had already left and then we couldn’t get home! We had to wait for them to drop the trailer and come back for us to get all the vehicles home and now Rob’s bloody ballistic with me.” He looked gloomy.

  I wanted to say something caustic about what comes of lying, but with my own enormous porky pie to him today weighing down on my conscience, I couldn’t manage to be quite that hypocritical.

  As I walked back into the house after work on Monday I reeled back as I was hit by the smell of new paint and the sight of everything piled into the middle of the room under some bright pink sheets. SHE was there of course. I looked round for Dad. He came out of the kitchen with two mugs of tea, clearly for him and her but he immediately tactically offered one of them to me, so I took it.

  “What’s going on?” I asked in prickly tones. Though it was obvious.

  “It’s going to be gorgeous,” she gushed, “But it’s going to take all week, darling, so brace yourself! This whole place needs a complete make-over. Doesn’t it
Blossom?” That last part was directed at Dad.

  “Is there anything you want to rescue from this room?” Dad asked me.

  I looked round, shellshocked. “Is everything going?”

  “Looks like it,” he agreed cheerfully.

  “The computer?” I queried.

  “Oh Jamie’s already swept it up to his room,” Dad reassured me.

  Bugger. That would be the last time I got to go on it for weeks until I could wrest it back off him, and I was needing to continue my F2 research. Since I’d already rescued Mum’s picture, I couldn’t face even thinking about what else I might want from this room. Let her just wipe out my whole family’s history in one fell swoop! But I’d kill her if she laid even one finger on my bedroom.

  “I’m going out,” I said abruptly. I handed the mug half drunk back to Dad. I was trying hard to be self controlled about it all, for Dad’s sake.

  Maybe from gratefulness at my lack of reaction, Dad said enthusiastically, “Eve should make you a curry Pauline, my girl makes a jolly good curry.”

  Pauline gave me a sparkling smile, “Does she? I like a good curry. Did she learn it from her Paki friend?”

  I turned on my heel and walked out.

  I headed into town to the Arts Centre. There was a good chance there’d be someone in the café or the Vats Bar that I knew, even on a Monday. It turned out to be Lauren. It’d been ages since I’d seen Lauren to actually speak to. She waved me over. She was waiting for Kaitlyn, but Kaitlyn was late. I had no idea who Kaitlyn was, but I didn’t let on.

  “So who are you seeing these days?” She inquired after we’d got past the work and college questions.

  I shrugged. “Quinn still.”

  It was the expression that flitted across her face that gave me the warning. My friends may occasionally complain at my lack of perception, but I my double X chromosome instantly knew what that look meant.

  “What?” I threatened. I felt my stomach tighten.