Paradise Postponed (Not Quite Eden Book 2)

by Dominique Kyle

  “The evil deed is done. I’ve now officially paid to have my own first grandchild killed,” he said bitterly.

  I stood awkwardly, with my toes curling into the new deep squish of the carpet. “Oh,” I said. Then figured more was needed. “How’s Sally?”

  “Missed several of her GCSE exams and lying on her bed crying. She’s going to have to wait till the Autumn to re-sit them.”

  “Oh dear, poor thing,” I said automatically. “Does Jamie know?”

  “Jamie’s a little turd,” Dad condemned.

  I decided not to enquire too closely as to why.

  “I’m going round to see Con,” Dad said suddenly, heaving himself out of the sucking vortex of softness.

  “You remember what’s happening with Kathleen don’t you?” I warned.

  “Yeah,” he said darkly. “Life’s a bastard.”

  “Yes it is,” I agreed with real feeling.

  On a lighter note, Pete kept quizzing me as to what I wasn’t confident of when racing. The answer was shunting cars ahead out of the way. So first of all we sat around with a brew discussing all the tricks of the trade – the basic shove, the ghost push, the pool trick, the parking manouvere, the insider and the spinner. We took a look at some useful YouTube footage to see if we could spot any of them in action. Then we went outside and Paul drove Jo’s car round the dirt track while I came up behind him and hit him in various places from different angles to see how it felt and what effect it had. How fast did I have to be going in comparison with him to have any impact on his trajectory or to fatally affect my own instead?

  Pete watched on, giving a running commentary to me over a two-way radio. The basic shove, “leave your braking a touch later and use his bumper to reduce your speed instead. The momentum will be passed onto Dad…” True to theory, Paul was forced to go wide on the turn and I could get by him on the inside line. Then Pete kindly informed me the disadvantage of doing this. “Dad will now have the wider line round the turn allowing him to get on his accelerator sooner than you, which means he’ll be carrying more speed at the end of the next straight and able to repay the compliment at the next turn.” And right on cue I got a thump from behind and got thrown out myself.

  “Now the ghost push…” Pete instructed from his distantly perched position. “This requires far more skill. As you chase Dad down the straight you need to gently press on his rear bumper so he barely notices you’re there, but as you both approach the braking area for the turn you’ll be using your momentum to push his car past its optimal braking point and sending it out wide on the turn…”

  We had to do this a lot of times before Paul signalled to Pete that he felt I’d got the hang of it.

  Without other cars to shove into, we couldn’t do the pool trick, using one car to cannon into another and rid oneself of two rivals at once, or the parking manouvre where you nudge the car ahead out of line just in front of a pile up so it has to slow down or back up to get around the blockage.

  They gave me a couple of goes at the more advanced and difficult ‘insider’ manouvre where the aim is to hit the opponent’s car somewhere around the front third of his siderail, causing his front wheels to break traction, turning the car towards the outside of the turn and the fence. In theory the opponent will then have to back off his throttle in order to regain control of the car and will this slow him down sufficiently to avoid the possibility of a revenge attack on the next bend.

  Paul called it to a sudden halt. “She’s getting tired,” he shouted to Pete.

  He was right, but I don’t know how he knew. He came over to the car and helped me haul myself out. I was grateful. I felt completely exhausted, to the point of shaking.

  “You’re doing well, but it takes a lot of concentration.” Paul told me. “Best to stop at the peak of the learning curve.”

  A mug of hot sweet tea later and I was fine. The whole thing was a brilliant help. I couldn’t wait to try my new skills out in proper racing conditions.

  On Friday evening at Lyndale, we took a group out shopping to a supermarket as part of a project to teach them how to plan, budget, shop for and cook a meal. As Katie leaned enthralled over the freezers full of ice cream, despite the fact she was meant to be looking for the mince, her incontinence pad was showing an acreage again. I yanked up her leggings to cover it up, and Todd reeled back.

  “Oh for goodness sake, not again! Whose idea was it to swop her over to suppositories every Friday?”

  “I think they thought it would mean that it wouldn’t disrupt lessons during the week,” I replied, trying not to gag at the ripe smell.

  “Well instead it just means it ruins every weekend trip!” Todd was angry. “We won’t be able to take her swimming next week. And if it carries on like this she’ll end up missing out on all the fun trips. It’s not fair on her, nor on the rest of us who have to deal with this when we’re trying to keep everyone safe whilst off the premises and don’t have the facilities to sort her out properly! I’m going to bring it up at the next case conference, I’m sick of it. And of course we’re completely understaffed as usual!”

  Suddenly Bobby erupted behind us with wildly waggling fingers, “Kawasaki ZXR400, 398cc, 62bhp, 139mph, 160kg. E-e-e-e-v-e! Kawasaki ZXR400, 398cc, 62bhp, 139mph, 160kg!”

  I looked round swiftly as Todd rolled his eyes and made a pistol motion to his own head. Surely Quinn couldn’t be here? My gaze followed Bobby’s now pointing finger. Yup, there they all were, presumably pre-gig, in full rock star costume browsing the alcohol section. Except for Danny who was browsing the chocolate.

  As soon as Katie saw them she squealed with joy. Ever since they’d reluctantly done the gig at Lyndale in March as the final deal of their unofficial ‘community hours’ in return for being let off Holty’s life time Youth Club sentence, Quinn was all Katie could talk about. I hid a delighted grin as she ran at him like a torpedo.

  Todd had an instinct that things were going to get out of hand. Katie was clinging to Quinn and screaming like a teenager at a Beatles gig whilst Quinn rolled his eyes in panic and tried to tug his arms out from under her limpet like grip, and Bobby fulfilled his name by bobbing up and down chanting Quinn, Kes and Oz’s dad’s van’s engine statistics.

  “Quick Eve, you chase Adam down – you know his obsession with electrics – he’s been known to switch off every freezer in the Compston Street Co-Op without anyone realising till the fish all stank to high heaven and he knows an opportunity when he sees one! And round up Dev if you see him too. It’s time to leave!”

  After my momentary disorientation about being asked to chase down Adam, I shot off down the aisle after the disappearing college student, though I was loathe to miss the fun of seeing the band under siege. Adam had to be managed carefully as he had a habit of lashing out if you tried to hurry him, but I coaxed him to follow me back to the door by promising him that he could get the autographs from the members of the famous band, B.S.E.

  The whole store had come to a standstill by now, convinced that the hysteria of the fans must mean that the boys were genuinely famous. When Jamie caught sight of me he pulled a face and groaned.

  “I might have known you’d be involved!”

  Oz was being polite to Mikey who was an enormous 6ft 2 autistic lad, almost non-verbal and built like a tank, and Kes was caught almost hypnotically bobbing up and down with Bobby like two cockatoos in opposite cages. Danny just stood in bovine calm, munching his way through a family sized Cadbury’s Milk, watching the scene almost disinterestedly. Todd was disengaging Katie’s fingers one by one from Quinn’s flowing shirt and trying to stop the hand he’d just removed from regaining its grip whenever he started on the other one.

  Lisa, Beth and Siân suddenly appeared at the entrance to the store, wondering why the boys hadn’t come back and stared open mouthed at the scene.

  Bobby suddenly stopped bouncing up and down, stood stock still and sniffed the air. “Phwaw, what’s that smell?” He said loudly.

  I
had a hand on Adam’s arm and a hand on Dev’s. “Come away Mikey,” I called. “Time to go home!”

  A circle of people were standing in our way, ogling at the spectacle. A young woman with a baby in a buggy was parked right across the end of the aisle that would gain us the exit.

  “Excuse me,” I said politely.

  She just gave me an ignorant look and made no move to make space for us to pass.

  “Excuse me,” I tried again.

  She quite deliberately moved her buggy and trolley more in the way and reached for some tins off the shelves as though to say that mothers and babies should have priority. But Mikey wasn’t one to put up with any delay. He stared fixedly for three seconds at her then put back his head and let out a banshee like howl. Once Mikey starts up, the decibel levels are more air raid siren than human being. Miraculously the way parted open like a police siren clearing a motorway, with people falling over themselves to let us past.

  As I passed the three girls staring gobsmacked at my departing back, I couldn’t help reflecting that life wasn’t always a bastard, sometimes it was remarkably sweet…

  “You set that girl on me deliberately!” Quinn hurled over the hedge at me sometime on Saturday afternoon.

  “No, it’s just the magnetic attraction between one mentally challenged creature and another!” I jibed with a grin.

  He glowered. “I’m sure I could smell whiffs of her all evening…” He complained with a disgusted expression.

  “Sometimes she sticks her hand down her trousers and smears it.” I informed him.

  “Smears what?” He asked with a frown, then interpreted my laugh with a look of dawning horror.

  “I should wash that shirt if I were you,” I advised.

  He screwed up his face in disgust. “I don’t know how you can bear working there!”

  “I love it actually,” I defended.

  “Like attracts like,” he got back at me.

  “Maybe,” I said mildly. Then I changed the subject. “How’s your mum?”

  “Pregnant and being a martyr,” he said gloomily.

  “So no change there then?” I remarked.

  “You’re such a bitch,” he muttered and turned away.

  That evening there was no sign of HER and I found Dad dossing on the new sofa. I plumped myself down beside him and bounced a bit.

  “Comfy isn’t it?” I remarked.

  “Where are you off out to tonight?” He inquired.

  “Nowhere,” I said, settling down against the opposite arm of the sofa and putting my stockinged feet up on his lap. “Finished the cars. Nothing to do now until I drive again next weekend.”

  “Same here,” he said, ignoring the car part. “What do you say to a pizza and a DVD?”

  “Only if you get one of the more modern Bonds,” I said sternly. ‘DVD’ might as well be Dad’s code word for ‘Bond movie’.

  When he returned with ‘Skyfall’ I gave a thumbs up. Big motorbike chase set-piece, mental woman chasing in landrover and an immaculate 1965 Aston Martin DB5.

  We collapsed back on the sofa while the pizzas were cooking.

  “Might be our last DVD,” Dad said. “Pauline’s ordered a new TV which can stream the internet and all sorts of other bells and whistles.”

  “Can we afford that Dad?” I asked with a frown. “And how did we pay for all this?” I indicated the blinged up living room.

  Without thinking, he answered, “Oh Pauline’s paid for most of it.”

  A miserable cold trickle ran through me. “So I guess that means she’s moving in does it?”

  He realised his mistake and looked uncomfortable. “Well she’s just in a rented flat, so it makes sense. Saves lots of money. She paid for all this with the money she would have paid in advance rent next month.”

  No idiot, this woman. Spied a nice widower had she, who’d paid off his mortgage and owned his own house and whose kids were about to leave home?

  “So she’s moving in at the end of this month is she?” I said sharply. “And when were you thinking of telling us this?”

  He looked miserable. I could see him thinking that this was the end of our cosy evening together and that I would now throw a wobbler and flounce out.

  “I’m sorry I’m so useless, Eve,” he said helplessly, hanging his head.

  “Oh buck up Dad,” I said impatiently. “Don’t spoil the evening by getting all maudlin. This might be the last night we ever get to have alone together.”

  He instantly cheered up, relief flooding his face. As the timer pinged and we went back to the kitchen to haul out the pizzas I felt ashamed that he was obviously so scared of my reactions that he dreaded telling me anything.

  Back on the sofa I said in a matter of fact way, “So it’s probably best if I move out soon then?”

  “You don’t have to, Eve.” He put a hand on my arm reassuringly. “It’s not what I’m angling for.”

  “There isn’t room in this small house for two women being responsible for everything.”

  “Thing is, Eve, you shouldn’t have to feel responsible for anything.” He looked earnestly at me.

  “But I do feel responsible,” I insisted. “And I can’t bear seeing her doing all the things that are my job.”

  “But they should never have been your jobs,” Dad said with a sorrowful air. “Pauline tore me off a right strip about it the other day - ”

  My mouth was full of chewy cheese so I couldn’t answer. I raised my eyebrows instead.

  “You’d have laughed if you’d heard me saying what a good girl you are!” He smiled at me. “Pauline was moaning because you hadn’t offered to wash up the other day when she made us that roast, and I got angry and told her that you’d been a fantastic daughter to me – that ever since you were about ten I’d never had to worry about the shopping, and the cooking and the housework and about Jamie getting looked after and fed after school – and she told me in no uncertain terms that I shouldn’t have been relying on you like that – that I’d been robbing you of your childhood.” He looked really sad and contrite. I couldn’t bear it.

  “Don’t be silly Dad! I’d have been really upset if you hadn’t let me find ways to help you.” I interrupted him to stop the rolling guilt trip. “We’ll never know what life might have been like if Mum had lived. We just did what we needed to survive. So now it’s no use having a dissection of it all. Now it’s time for you to start your second life, and me to start my first.”

  He put the slice of pizza that was half way to his mouth back on the plate. “What’s made you so lovely all of a sudden?” He asked me with a smile reaching out to ruffle my hair.

  I pulled my head away and shrugged. “Guess I’ve grown up.”

  We munched silently for a bit.

  “You and Adam could get a flat together,” Dad suggested suddenly.

  “I keep telling you Dad, we’re not an item any more. Quinn cheated on me and I chucked him.”

  “I thought you said that you hadn’t slept together?”

  I tried to be patient. “He managed to cheat on me before we’d managed to even get around to sleeping together. He’s incapable of keeping it in his trousers. I wasn’t going to put up with that. Seemed best not to start.”

  He sighed. “He’s young. Raging testosterone levels and all that, and adoring girls hanging on his every word…”

  “Not just on his words either,” I muttered.

  “Try again with him in a couple of years when he’s settled down a bit…”

  It was my turn to sigh now. He just didn’t seem to be able to envision a future world where me and Quinn weren’t a couple.

  “So did you ever cheat on mum?” I asked idly. I expected a big fat negative.

  “Once,” he said heavily.

  I stared at him. “Did she know about it?”

  “Yes, I told her.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She cried.”

  “Oh, Dad…” That was awful.

  “I k
now…” He looked sad and regretful and ashamed. “It wasn’t long after our Jamie was born and she’d had a difficult birth and just didn’t feel like – well you know – for a year after. And it just sort of happened. I was working away, the woman was laying it out on a plate. It was just a one nighter…” He tailed off. “I never did it again…”

  “Did she forgive you?”

  He pulled a face. “She had two small children under three. What option did she have? We got over it at any rate…”

  I handed him my last couple of slices. I’d gone off the whole eating thing with this conversation.

  “So, you know when she died? You hadn’t argued or anything had you, so she was driving too fast?”

  He glanced at me. “No. But I was working away that week and hadn’t rung her the night before so I always felt eternally guilty that I hadn’t rung her and told her I loved her… I usually rang, but I went down the pub and got back so late I didn’t want to wake her up – she was always so tired with you two. Was she driving too fast then?”

  “No – I don’t think so.” I tried to picture the journey. “You don’t really notice much as a kid do you? Anyway, the lorry was from Poland wasn’t it? Turned the wrong way up the dual carriageway. Head-on impact.”

  He nodded confirmation. “They said she was killed instantly. No chance whatsoever.”

  “Yeah. The car was like a crushed tuna can,” I said. “We were upside down, wheels spinning. Everything seemed to stink of petrol. I was in that child seat, held in upside down by the straps. Guess it saved my life. They smashed the window to get me out.”

  “They?”

  “Police, Fire, Ambulance. They were all there.”

  He reached out a hand and pulled me towards him so he could put an arm around me. He pressed his face into my hair like he had when I was a child. “I thought you were dead too – when I felt it happen…”