Paradise Postponed Read online

  “Good-bye, Quinn,” I said, my tone cold. “I’m going back to Naz.”

  “I wish you’d call me Adam,” he muttered as I slammed out. Behind me I heard the music being turned on full blast again.

  Dad was just coming off the phone as I walked in. Jamie was sitting at the computer, but without his head phones on, so I figured he must have gone to someone else’s house for the game, maybe Dylan’s. Dylan was one of his online clan, but also one of his oldest school friends.

  “Have you got any aftershave I could borrow, lad?” Dad was saying to Jamie. “Some of that Lynx stuff you’re always spraying around?”

  I walked into my bedroom. Nasim was ready for bed, all curled up. I’d given her my own bed last night and unrolled the foam mattress thing that masqueraded as a chair in the corner of my room for myself. I figured she wouldn’t be used to roughing it.

  “Someone should tell men that they’re the only ones that like that smelly Lynx stuff,” I directed at Nasim. “They’ve got such a poor sense of smell compared to women that the manufacturers have to make the scents overpoweringly strong just so they can detect them. Never mind that us women are fainting away with asphyxiation and opening all the windows!”

  Nasim lowered her book and put a case for the defence. “It shows they’ve made an effort though, doesn’t it?”

  I thought about Quinn. Yes, in the beginning I was always having to stand by an open window, but these days he only smelt of engine oil and fags. I began to lay out my bed again, grumpily yanking the spare duvet into place over the mattress as I dwelt on the shortcomings of our relationship.

  “Did you get your reading done?” I asked.

  “Yes, I finished it.”

  “And how was it?”

  “Brilliant!”

  I hadn’t expected such enthusiasm about a school book. I guess that’s why I’d left school and she hadn’t.

  “The heroine got her man in the end and the family were ecstatic, and get this – when she was only fifteen the hero’s sister nearly eloped with this unsuitable bloke, but the family found out just the day before and put a stop to it and kept her virtually locked up after. Then the heroine’s sister, also only fifteen, runs off with the same bloke and the family rushes after them and pays him to marry her!” She sat up on the bed looking wistful. “Oh, I wish our families would insist we got married so I’m not ruined, it would solve everything!”

  I undid my hair and brushed it vigorously. Somehow I hadn’t even got around to sorting it out after work where I always had to have it tied back in some manner if I didn’t want it trailing through pools of diesel and oil. Maybe I wasn’t making much effort either. “Sounds like your family’s more likely to be on the side of locking you up right now…” I observed dubiously. “What is that book anyhow? Sounds ridiculously Victorian.”

  She held up Pride and Prejudice. “Austen,” she said cryptically. “It’s Regency. That’s even earlier.”

  “Austin. Now they were a good company. Started out in Longbridge in 1905,” I informed her. “Designed the Mini you know. Eventually became part of British Leyland Motor Corporation and finally sold out to Rover in 1987 and then MG Rover collapsed though it’s sort of got going again.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Austen not Austin! Do you think about nothing but cars?”

  “Pretty much,” I agreed. I picked up my pyjamas and went out to the bathroom. Nasim and I had never had a sleepover when we were younger, so I didn’t know how she’d react to me stripping off in front of her. I heard the front door slam as I walked across the landing, so I diverted half way down the stairs to discover who’d gone out. I could still see Jamie’s legs stretched out to one side of the computer as he tipped the chair back.

  “Where’s Dad gone?” I called.

  “Why should I know? And why should I care?” Jamie snapped. He was still sore from earlier so I left him to it.

  Back in my room I got into my nest on the floor and tried to manhandle my pillows into a more supportive shape.

  “I can see that I’m going to have to educate you,” Nasim announced. “I’m going to read you some of my favourite bits, because I can see I’m not going to get you to read it any other way.”

  “Oh, Naz,” I protested. “I haven’t read anything other than auto magazines and car manuals since I was thirteen!”

  “Surely you must have read the set texts for your English GCSE?” Nasim quibbled. “I remember you being in my class.”

  I shook my head. “Nope, I just got away with asking other people what the story was and listening to discussions in class. You always had lots to say. In fact I can’t even remember if I passed my English…”

  She stared at me over the edge of the bed. “How can you possibly not remember?”

  I shrugged. “I just glanced at my results then tore the paper up and threw them away.” I’d already decided to leave school, and I’d already got my sights set on the job at Entwistle’s, and that’s all I’d cared about.

  She looked at me like I was an alien dropped from outer space. I closed my eyes. “Night, night, Nasim,” I said firmly.

  But she was determined to read to me. I could hardly make head nor tail of it. It seemed to consist of lots of people just talking and saying stuff that seemed to be meant to be witty but I didn’t get it, and nothing much happened. Still, it was kinda soothing hearing Nasim’s voice rising and falling. And she did the voices too. I remembered that Mum used to read to us. After she died we asked Dad to read to us but he read like every word was disconnected and he didn’t punctuate with his voice so all the sentences ran together and didn’t make sense. And he wouldn’t do the voices. He used to stop suddenly before the end of the story and close the book and say ‘bedtime’. When we pointed out that there were only two pages to go before the end he still wouldn’t relent. So we soon gave up asking him. Maybe I should find something a bit more up to date and get Nasim to read it to me. She was good at this.

  When she drew to a halt, I murmured sleepily, “Night, night, sleep tight, mind the little bugs don’t bite…”

  She started scuffling around in the bed and exclaimed in an alarmed way, “Surely you’re not telling me there might be bed bugs in this bed?”

  I opened one eye. “It’s just a silly saying for kids. Don’t you say it at home?”

  “No, we most certainly do not!”

  “Ok,” I adjusted, “just night, night, then.” And I dropped off immediately. At least heavy physical labour all day means you sleep pretty well most nights.

  Next morning, Dad wasn’t there, and his neither was his car. I couldn’t remember if he’d told us that he had a really early start today. He often had to leave at five if he was working a long way away.

  “Did you hear Dad coming back in last night?” I asked Jamie.

  He shrugged.

  I dropped Nasim off at school after circling round as was becoming our custom. I left her with some money for a taxi as I didn’t feel that my reputation at work could stand up to any more emergency phone calls from her. She’d admitted that she’d left home with only ten pounds to her name and that she had no bank account of her own, so I could see that I was going to have to help her out for a bit.

  When I arrived at work, Steve Bolton jerked his head at me. I went over.

  “Bowker’s given in his notice,” he informed me in a discreetly lowered voice. “Yesterday afternoon, after you left. Apparently he’s bought an apartment in Spain and he’s decided it’s time to retire. Thought I’d better fill you in before you see him.”

  I raised my eyebrows. That was a best-kept secret and a half. “Has he got a woman all of a sudden?” I asked cynically.

  Steve pulled a face. “Well he’s been whistling a lot recently…” He suggested.

  “Yeah,” I winced dramatically. “Shame he can only whistle three notes and all of them flat… So who’s going to be head mechanic then?”

  “Dewhurst says he’s going to go for it,” Steve reported.
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  “What about you?”

  He shook his head. “I won’t get it if Dewhurst has a mind to. He’s senior.”

  “So we’ll get a new junior mechanic then?”

  “Entwistle’s putting the ad together right now,” Steve agreed.

  Well I for one wouldn’t be missing the misogynistic git, but it felt unsettling to not know who we might be working with in a few weeks time. What if we didn’t like him? Or her of course.

  That night, Jamie had his girlfriend Sally round. Big adoring pansy blue eyes and strawberry blonde curls. The lucky child got to sit and watch him play one of his booked online clan games. He really knew how to look after a girl! A whole hour she had to sit there watching his online soldier avatar blasting the enemy to kingdom come.

  Nasim and I retreated to my room where she started on her homework, and I picked up an edition of Octane magazine that I’d pounced on when I’d found it lying about at work. After a bit I lowered it again.

  “Have you rung Rajesh since the first day you arrived here?” I asked. I expected her to be ringing and borrowing my phone to text him every day now she was free to.

  She shook her head.

  “Well why not?” I demanded perplexed.

  She looked blank as though it hadn’t occurred to her.

  “This is your chance to see as much of him as you want,” I suggested. “You can have him round here whenever you like as far as I’m concerned.” They’d never sort things out if they didn’t see each other.

  “Beth’s lent me her old mobile,” she explained at last, “but I haven’t any money to put any credit on it.”

  I went over to my bag, pulled out my purse and handed her another tenner. “Well put some money on the phone and use our landline whenever you want.”

  It was at that moment that someone put their finger on the bell and held it there. Nasim and I froze and looked at each other. “Stay here,” I hissed. I stuck my head out the bedroom door and heard Dad muttering as he got up from the settee where Jamie, having finished his online clan excursions had relocated Sally and himself to watch the footie. I tell you, she’s a lucky, lucky, girl.

  Thank God Dad was in. Because it was Nasim’s dad, Nasim’s Uncle and Nasim’s older brother, Tariq, and they were very, very angry.

  “We know she’s here! Bring her out! You have no right to be keeping her here!”

  It occurred to me that Dad hadn’t yet got around to asking me why she was here and I was terrified he’d just let them in or make her go with them. But Dad doesn’t like being threatened and Nasim’s family had immediately got right up his nose and he stood braced in the doorway, arms folded aggressively across his chest.

  “Eve,” Dad called up. “Nasim’s menfolk want to speak to her, does she want to speak to them?”

  Nasim, hunched statue-like on the bed and looked terrified. I gestured to Nasim to stay put. “No,” I shouted down. Instinct told me that it was best I stay out of sight as well. My tight jeans and uncovered long blonde hair being very likely to underscore their already fixed belief that I was a bad influence.

  “It appears she doesn’t want to speak to you,” Dad reported aggressively.

  “We’ll be back!” They threatened. “We’ll report you to the police for kidnapping!”

  But Dad was unmoved. “And if you come back,” he informed them, “I’ll report you to the police for threatening behaviour and if you try to drag that lass away from here without her consent then it’ll be you that gets done for abduction!” He slammed the door on them and shot the bolt over. After kicking on the door a couple of times, they left. In the sudden silence that followed, we heard a car engine start up in the street, and a goal being scored in the living room.

  “Damn!” Dad hates missing seeing the goal. He stayed to watch the replay then came up to my bedroom. “So what was all that about?” He demanded.

  Nasim was still looking shell-shocked. Downstairs, on the TV, another huge roar went up.

  “Damn!” Dad swore again.

  “You go and watch the match, Dad,” I said soothingly. “We’ll talk to you after, heh?”

  He didn’t need a second offer and retreated in disgustingly double quick time. Men.

  Needless to say he’d managed to miss the only two goals of the match and wasn’t in the best of moods by the time he came back. During the half hour we had been on our own Nasim and I had been discussing what was best to say to him and what on earth we were going to do now that they’d found out where she was staying? She thought she’d seen Sahmir hanging around when I’d dropped her off this morning, and that was probably what had given us away. She was now even more terrified of going to school. I took her into Dad’s bedroom and left her there with the phone extension to ring Rajesh. Dad came back up to my own room while she was in his.

  “I don’t like it,” Dad said after I’d filled him in on the details. “I don’t think we should be keeping her from her family. I’d be furious myself if you ran off to someone else’s house and refused to speak to me.”

  So I found myself doing exactly what I’d disapproved of Nasim doing only twenty-four hours ago. “But they might put her on a flight to Pakistan and force her to marry that cousin of hers there!” I protested.

  Dad looked worried.

  “And I’ve been looking it up on the internet… there’s hundreds of girls every year get battery acid thrown in their face by their men because they think they’ve dishonoured the family by getting into a relationship the family don’t approve of!” I shuddered as I thought of it. I knew all about how corrosive battery acid was from my work at the garage.

  “Surely not?” Dad said feebly.

  “It’s true, Dad!” I insisted. “There’s support groups for the survivors and they’re disfigured for life. And that Tariq,” I pointed out, “he used to hang out with Luke Beck and Tino and Hussein! I don’t trust him as far as I can throw him! He’s a nasty piece of work, Dad!”

  At that point Dad began to look seriously worried and I began to get genuinely stressed for the first time since Nasim had arrived. It occurred to me that Tariq may come round to the garage and throw acid in my own face to punish me for helping Nasim. He’d get arrested for it after but it would be too late to save me. I felt sick. I remembered Beck and co beating me up at the garage. There’d be no guarantee of safety even if I made sure I never stayed there on my own, because an acid attack would only take seconds. It could be done in front of everyone and no-one would be able to stop it.

  “Ok,” Dad relented. “She’d better stay here for now. But you need to do all you can to sort this out, because we really didn’t ought to be getting involved.”

  Typical male, I thought. She’s my friend. Of course I’m involved.

  That night, as we lay in bed, I asked Nasim, “Does your Tariq carry a knife?”

  Nasim looked at me as though I’d gone mad.

  “Some of his friends do,” I explained. “And if I get into any more trouble with knives then I’m looking at a custodial sentence.”

  “Custodial sentence?” She echoed blankly.

  “Oh, never mind,” I dismissed. “Read me some more of that book will you?”

  It would soothe me and make my mind go blank and then I’d be able to go to sleep.

  “You were shouting out in your sleep,” Nasim said in the morning as we got ready for work and school.

  “Was I?” Now, in the light of day, I realised that I’d probably been exaggerating the threat from Tariq. I’d read something on the internet and just over-reacted. There was no reason to think that Tariq would do anything like that. But he did know a number of questionable people, and I was a bit worried.

  I dropped Nasim at school where I’d convinced her she’d be safe, as she only had to run to the headmaster again and ask for the number of that forced marriage case-worker to get some help.

  “It’s not so much a forced marriage as a forced non-marriage,” Nasim quibbled.

  “Don’t split hairs,
” I told her impatiently. “That case-worker will surely have dealt with other situations just like this. Give her a ring if you have to! Now I’ve got to get to work on time for once this week!” And I revved up and roared off.

  On the way home that night I had to go to the shops to get something for tea. As I walked back to where I’d parked the bike I passed a bookshop. I stopped short and turned and went in.

  I tossed the book I’d bought into Nasim’s lap. “Present for you.”

  She turned it over. “Romeo and Juliet!”

  “Seemed appropriate,” I said. I’d had to ask the chap on the desk but I’d known the name of what I was looking for at least. I went into the kitchen and put the frozen pies in the oven to heat up, put some water on for the peas, put the kettle on to boil and got the packet of smash and tub of gravy granules out ready.

  An hour later I was furious that two portions were wasted as neither Dad nor Jamie came in and neither were answering their phones. I plated up for the two of them to microwave later. Men! I was beginning to lose patience with the lot of them! But on the other hand at least we had the computer and TV to ourselves for once. I was enjoying having another female in the house, it felt companionable.

  We pulled the curtains across once it got dark and sat on the settee together watching some crap. Suddenly there was a loud banging at the door and shouting. We shot out of our seat, hearts thudding wildly.