Paradise Postponed (Not Quite Eden Book 2)

by Dominique Kyle

  “But she is only a volunteer,” the woman turned her acerbic attention to Todd. “Not a paid member of staff, and not even eighteen!”

  “We’re short-staffed all the time,” Todd defended. “And she’s really good with them. She seems to be able to get them to do anything… Obviously we’ve never given her any responsibility or left her alone in the building with them, or had her sleep in overnight. She’s been an invaluable help these past two terms. The students love her.”

  But the woman pounced on what might turn out to be unfortunate phrasing. “She can get them to do anything she wants can she? Are you aware that the only reason she’s here is because she’s serving a community hours sentence for GBH?”

  From the shock on Todd’s face it was clear he didn’t.

  “Eve?” He turned to me, his tone accusing and horrified.

  I felt my eyes filling with tears. “I thought you knew, you sign my hours sheet at the end of every shift.”

  “Course not! I thought you must be doing it for a Duke of Edinburgh Gold award or something - ”

  “So who okayed this?” The woman demanded, looking at Todd.

  Todd shrugged. “I don’t remember how she started. I assume it was Antonia. Eve was brought in one evening and introduced to me and nothing more was said.”

  The woman turned her attention back to me. “We take safe-guarding very seriously at Craigside and we consider this an unforgiveable breach. I hear you even brought your friends along on occasion!”

  “Only one, once.” I defended, glancing at Todd. “She was a nice Muslim girl doing her ‘A’ levels…”

  “But she wasn’t police checked,” the woman exclaimed, clearly scandalised. “For all we know she might have been infiltrating to radicalise the students!”

  “But we haven’t got any Muslim students,” I protested. “Dev’s Hindu.”

  “That’s irrelevant,” she cut me off sharply. “What is relevant is that you shouldn’t be here, and what’s more you’ve been abusing the students!” Her voice raised up a notch.

  “I haven’t,” I said desperately.

  “Well we’ll find that out in court won’t we?” She said coldly. “You are to leave the premises immediately and we will take out a temporary court order to make sure that you aren’t allowed within half a mile of the place! See her off the premises,” she directed abruptly at Todd.

  As I picked up my leather at the door, Todd could barely look at me.

  “Honestly Todd,” I begged him, “You know I didn’t do it don’t you? Why would I do anything like that?”

  “People do all sorts of things and lie about it. Sex offenders are very manipulative.” He pointed out harshly.

  “But I’m not a sex offender!” I said angrily.

  He met my eyes with a spark of anger of his own in them. “GBH, Eve? You managed to keep that remarkably quiet! What else might you have done, we don’t know do we?”

  “But my probation officer organised this placement! I was sent here to do my hours. I assumed you must all know!”

  “Probation Officer for God’s sake!” Todd seemed scandalised just by the words. “What did you do?”

  “Stabbed someone,” I said miserably, avoiding his eyes. “It was self defence.”

  “Stabbed someone? Christ! You need to get off the premises straight away, Eve. Someone’s going to get sacked over this.” He opened the door for me. “Off you go. I can’t believe I thought you were doing it for your Queen’s Guide badge or something! It shows how mistaken you can be in people!”

  I walked away across the forecourt to where I’d left my bike. He stood at the door, arms folded watching me go. I half turned back. “I didn’t do that to Katie, you know I didn’t!” I shouted.

  “Just go, Eve.” He said inflexibly.

  I left.

  I drove about aimlessly for a bit, then found myself out on the moors. I revved the hell out of my poor bike, whipping it to go at the fastest speed I could make it, leaning hard into the corners, an angry monologue slamming through my head. I was so upset I didn’t know what to do. It was only seven o’clock, and I realised I wasn’t that far from the Satterthwaites’. I turned back that way.

  With these lovely long light early summer nights I found them all outside. Sue was schooling some horses in the paddock and Pete and Jo were sitting out on a bench. Jo having a smoke, Pete having a beer.

  Pete smiled at me and tossed me a can. “So you’ve turned up at last. Have you been avoiding us?”

  I sat down on the bench between them and didn’t open the can. “A bit,” I admitted. “But also I’ve been busy going down the gym every night because Quinn let slip that Rob was making him go weight training to get into peak condition, and I figured that we just have to keep up, so I signed up at one too.”

  Pete grinned.

  “And then I went and suggested sarcastically that in that case he ought to take up the running again – he used to be a County Championship long distance runner – and blow me, he only went and took my advice, so I’ve really shot myself in the foot there!”

  “So have you taken up running as well?” Jo asked idly.

  I groaned. “Yes!”

  “Bloody hell,” she observed, tapping some ash off onto the ground.

  “Jo’s in a bad mood because she’s had some bad news,” Pete seemed to feel he needed to explain. Actually, I hadn’t noticed a thing, she always seemed to be in a bad mood. I’d figured that was just her normal condition.

  “The garage I work at is being bought out. A ‘hostile take-over’ our manager called it. And the new company isn’t keeping any of the old staff on. ‘Clean sweep’ our manager called it.” Her tone was bitter. “So now I have to find another job, like yesterday!”

  “Bummer,” I commiserated. I toyed with telling them about what had just happened at Lyndale, but I couldn’t face it. What if they thought ‘no smoke without fire’? And I’d have to tell them why I’d been working there, and up until now they’d never queried it. “So what have you got for me to do this evening?” I inquired instead.

  Pete grinned. “Dad’s going to bash the hell out of you so you learn how to take it.”

  “That’s a very old fashioned attitude to women,” Jo drawled ironically. “Very un-PC.”

  “I know I said I’d been going down the gym, but I don’t think I’m a match for your dad quite yet,” I joked, clenching my fists into boxing position.

  Pete put a fist up by mine, seemingly amused by the size difference. His looked massive alongside mine.

  “Better fight it out in the cars then,” he suggested.

  Paul hit me up the butt, from the side, from every possible angle except the illegal driver’s door move. And I screamed away working out all my aggression, finally creeping up behind him when he wasn’t paying attention and getting my own back with a big one up his jacksie.

  We both got out.

  “Feel better now?” He asked.

  “Yeah,” I agreed, “except for the thought of all the work we’ve just caused ourselves by beating the car up.”

  He examined it. “Just cosmetic,” was his verdict.

  Just as well, as I’d decided what I was going to do next, and needed to leave sharpish, and it wouldn’t have looked good if they expected me to work on the vehicle I’d just smashed up for them.

  Just after half past nine found me sitting on the wall outside the Holt’s house waiting for him to come home from the Youth Club.

  He got out of his car and pressed the button on the remote to lock it. I knew he’d seen me as he drew up, but I sensed he was ignoring me for a moment to decide what approach to take to me.

  He glanced up. “Hello Eve. What can I do for you?”

  “I need to talk to you about something.”

  He came over to me. “Is it about what’s going on with Jamie?”

  I shook my head.

  “Ok,” I could see he was still reluctant. “Do you want to come in?”

  I nodde
d and jumped down off the wall.

  In the house, Bryony ran at us in her pyjamas, “Daddy!” He caught her up in his arms, “Night, night darling!” And he kissed her.

  His wife came out and caught sight of me. “Hello Eve.”

  “Is Heather in bed?” Holty asked her. He put Bryony down. “I’m just going to have a chat with Eve in the living room.”

  She nodded and held out her hand to Bryony. “Let’s go upstairs and have a story shall we?”

  The squishy peach of their living room suddenly seemed less exotic now we had squishy green of our own back home.

  “What can I do for you, Eve?”

  I spilled it all out to him, my hands screwed tight in my lap. “Honestly John, I didn’t do it! But at the rate they’re going they’re going to have me on a sex offenders’ register for something I didn’t even do! And I haven’t finished my hours now so I might get penalised for it, and they’re never going to let me back, and I love working there, I really love it!”

  He was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and hands loosely clasped, listening frowningly. “Sounds a bit of a mess,” he agreed. “And sounds like someone really slipped up somewhere along the line organising this placement…”

  “What should I do?” I asked desperately.

  He sat back in the chair, looked straight ahead of him and drummed his fingers soundlessly on the soft arm. Finally his eyes focused back on me and he shook his head. “There isn’t much you can do, Eve. It all depends on what line this Craigside company decides to take. You need to go straight to your Youth Justice Worker and explain it all to him and then you just need to keep very unemotionally repeating the truth, over and over again if needs be. You’ve been put in a very awkward position and it wasn’t your fault that you were placed in it. It’s most unfortunate…”

  John’s wife popped her head in.

  “Eve’s just going now,” he told her.

  I took the cue and got up, disappointed at his lack of solutions. As we filed back through the hall he put a hand on my shoulder. “Seriously Eve, the most important thing to do is ring your sentence supervisor first thing tomorrow morning and leave a message saying you need an urgent meeting, and accept the first one on offer.”

  As I stepped outside I could see he felt the need to try and offer more. “You can keep me updated, Eve, and I’ll see what I can do… Sorry I can’t be of more help right now – but this can’t be just magicked away – if someone’s made an allegation, whether or not it’s true, they’re going to have to look into it.”

  Glumly, I returned to my bike. Why did this sort of thing always happen to me?

  I rang Alan first thing on Saturday before I went into work and he answered his phone straight away. I knew he worked Saturday mornings. He arranged a meeting with me for five thirty on Monday at the Youth Offending Team offices. I always hoped no-one I knew would spot me going in there as it was right in the centre of town near the council buildings and the court.

  When I got into the garage a few minutes later. I recognised a familiar figure setting up a welding arc.

  “Dad?”

  He turned round and grinned at me. “Thought I’d surprise you!”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “What does it look like?”

  Apparently Entwistle had come good with his offer of work and was getting Dad in to weld together the frame of an extra workshop space.

  “Though what he expects to be using it for when he won’t pull his finger out and get us another mechanic, I don’t know,” Dewhurst muttered to me.

  Later, Dewhurst and Bolton sat down on either side of me as I sat watching my Dad at work in a shower of sparks with a fascinated gaze.

  “What’s so riveting?” Dewhurst asked.

  “It’s just I’ve never seen my Dad working before,” I explained.

  “That’s a bit damning!” Bolton teased.

  “No! I don’t mean it like that!” I said, slapping at him. “I mean, they don’t let children onto building sites and oil rigs, do they? So I’ve never got to see him doing his stuff!”

  “Well I don’t suppose your dad’s ever seen you working either,” Dewhurst pointed out, “And at this rate, he never will, so get your arse back in gear Ginty, we’ve got two more MOT’s to get through before lunch.”

  Later, I straightened up as someone slapped my backside hard when I had my head under a bonnet.

  “Oh it’s you!” I said when I found my father standing there.

  “Well who else would it be?” He asked.

  “Oh Dad,” I groaned, “you’re so naïve! What do you think happens on a regular basis to a woman who has to spend half her life bending over engines?”

  He looked a bit shocked and I laughed at him.

  “Will you be home this afternoon?” He asked.

  “Why?”

  “Pauline’s moving in today,” he admitted awkwardly.

  “So are you asking because you’d rather I wasn’t there or because you’d rather I was?”

  He rubbed at the side of his face. “Not sure really, I just wanted to know what to expect.”

  Suddenly I knew what was the best line to take. I had to stamp out my rights to be in the house and not allow her to drive me out.

  “Maybe I’ll stick around then and help carry some boxes, or whatever. Shall I make us a curry for tea?”

  His face lit up. “That would be brilliant, Eve. What a great idea!”

  He went off happy.

  On the way home I called into a supermarket for ingredients and pulled up a simple chicken korma recipe on my phone. I didn’t have time to find out how to make those chickpea things or the tapioca patties – I’d have to try them out some other occasion.

  I arrived back just in time to see the bright orange mini metro pull up and the busty blonde and her irrepressible hound spill out. I went to help with the first load of boxes.

  “Oh dear, oh dear,” she was lamenting half way up the stairs, “Jack, your bedroom’s already full! This house just isn’t big enough! Where am I going to put my dollshouse collection?”

  “Your what?” I said, thinking I must have misheard her.

  “My dollshouse collection,” she repeated. “I have ten, and I make things to sell at Miniature fairs as a hobby. You must show me yours later.”

  “My what?” I said blankly.

  “Dollshouse, petal, you must have got one?” She beamed at me.

  I shook my head. “Never had one.”

  Her face looked ludicrously appalled. “Jack, how could you deprive your lovely daughter so? She’s telling me she’s never had a dollshouse!”

  My Dad managed to look worried, contrite, bewildered and repulsed, all at the same time. I burst out laughing.

  “Never mind Dad, I’d have only blown it up. I much preferred that spanner set you bought me when I was eight!”

  Pauline tut tutted, and the dog started shagging my leg.

  I’d just got back from the gym and was about to shower when Pauline yelled up the stairs, “there’s an extremely fit as well as handsome man at the door for you, Eve!”

  I couldn’t quite relate that combined description to anyone I knew so legged it down to find Quinn at the door in skimpy jogging shorts, vest and running trainers.

  “You coming out like you promised McGinty?”

  I sighed. I really hoped I wasn’t going to make a complete fool of myself but this was the only way to make myself do it. I went back upstairs to swop into shorts, the sports bra I’d bought for use down the gym, and a tee-shirt and came back down to find Pauline making the most of having a nearly naked Quinn to herself. I rolled my eyes at him from behind her back as she purred compliments.

  “Look at those lovely quads, Eve, and my, what great biceps!” Accompanied by some admiring stroking of course. “Oo, show us your abs!”

  Quinn took it all in his stride. “Got those new shoes?” He directed at me, appearing oblivious to her intrusive hands.

&n
bsp; “Yep just getting them on now,” I agreed. Better hurry or there might not be much left of him, she might just have chewed him up and spit him out.

  Outside, as we started jogging down the path, I mocked, “Ooo Grandma, what big teeth you’ve got!” Then added, “What are quads anyway?”

  Back to another wonderful roast, I could get used to this, and then I had to have a lie down. I’d got a fair way with Quinn before being doubled over and unable to take another step without feeling my chest was going to blow up and my legs drop off in agony. Meanwhile, unfairly, he himself had barely broken out in a sweat. He’d left me flopped on a bench in the park while he finished his circuit then came back to pick me up and insisted I did my warm up exercises before I started up again.

  “You’ll get better every day if you stick to it,” he encouraged me.

  I thought it was pretty big of him given I was only doing this to beat him on the track.

  And to think I was such a lazy cow at school that if we’d ever been sent out on a run, me, Jaimi, Lauren and Fran would always hang to the back and jump over this low wall into a patch of woodland, and lounge around smoking and chatting until the group hoofed past us again, when we’d hop back over and join the end again! If back then I could have seen a vision of myself in the future, I’d have choked with disbelieving laughter…

  I arrived at the Satterthwaites just in time for tea. Sue, being so generous, saw me arrive and laid another place at the table.

  “So is there anything at all that you are still worried about when you’re out on the track?” Pete asked me between mouthfuls.

  I hesitated, and Paul saw it. “Go ahead, Eve.”