Paradise Postponed Read online

  I took the hint and rather huffily went out to sit on the stairs and ring Quinn. But apparently he was at some garage working on a car with the ubiquitous Rob. So I ended up sitting on the settee watching yet another old Top Gear episode with Dad.

  On Friday night I was worried about what to do with Nasim. Friday was the night I did the weekly volunteer hours for my Community Sentence at the College for Learning Disabled Adults. Dad had indicated that he would be out. Quinn and all the band members including Jamie would also be out at a gig until late. I tried to hint to Nasim that maybe she should ring some other friend up and arrange to spend the evening with them. For instance, maybe Beth wouldn’t be out at the gig supporting Oz, or might like the excuse at least not to have to be. But Nasim, who had already refused point-blank to ask Rajesh round while I was out, lest her dad turn up again and find them alone in the house together, also seemed reluctant to ring Beth or anyone else from school. So finally I just took her with me.

  As we got off the bike the usual enthusiastic crowd surrounded us. “Eve, Eve! We’re having a barbeque tonight Eve! Who’s this Eve?”

  I introduced Nasim and they all gave her the very friendly if somewhat intrusive Lyndale College welcome. Bobby beamed and rocked, shoved his face into hers and said enthusiastically, “BMW E92 M3 GTS. 4361 cc V8. 450 PS at 8300 rpm and torque to 440 Nm at 3750 rpm. Audi A1 1.2 TFSI 85 PS at 4800 rpm. Peak torque of 160 Nm between 1500 and 3500 rpm.”

  “Back off, Bobby,” I instructed firmly. “Nasim’s not interested in engines.” Although Bobby’s exchange of interest from car registration numbers to engine statistics had given me a more absorbing weekly challenge, the rest of the college were less enthusiastic about it. As I made my way towards Todd, the shift leader, he made some neck wringing motions behind Bobby’s back.

  “I was on holiday in Norway last year,” he greeted me. “The Lofoten Islands. And the only two museums on the Islands were the National Museum of Salt Cod, and the Outboard Engine Museum. ‘Fifty engines all in working order’ the notice proudly announced. And I thought, oh my God, what sort of person goes in to a place like that? And now I know.” He gave a hollow laugh.

  “Sorry, Todd,” I said. “For reasons too complicated to go into, I’ve had to bring Nasim along with me tonight. She’s seventeen, really nice and responsible and I’m sure she’ll get into the spirit of things…”

  He hesitated. “Well as long as you don’t leave her alone with a student as she’s not been DBS checked…”

  “Ok,” I agreed cheerfully. I wasn’t supposed to be alone with any of the students either, but life isn’t like that is it?

  “Come on Naz,” I said. “We need to get the meat on the barbeque. Dev, let go of her please, don’t touch people you don’t know.”

  Devendra was holding her hand and stroking it reverentially. As I took her other arm and dragged her off, he followed behind in a lovestruck kind of way.

  “You’ve got a conquest already,” I teased her as we arrived in the kitchen. “Meat or salad?”

  “What?” She looked a bit panicky.

  I made an executive decision and waved her in the direction of the lettuces. “You stay in here and chop that lot up, you’ll have plenty of willing helpers, I’ll go out and start grilling.”

  I ignored the look of naked appeal that she gave me and followed the scent of paraffin and the sounds of sizzling. Saul looked up from his station by the industrial sized barbeque.

  “Thank God for that!” He shoved the double pronged fork and the non-stick fish slice into my hands and make a lunge across the courtyard. “James has soiled himself, shoved his hands down his pants and is getting dangerously close to those raw sausages…”

  “Lovely,” I drawled as Saul successfully pounced on James and led him off to get cleaned up.

  Aiden brandished another implement and made himself useful turning burgers while talking non-stop. Aiden was a very able student who had worked out how to bid for things on ebay. Despite us pointing out that he only had £30 pocket money a week he was fond of putting a finger on the zero key and holding it there and was consequently facing court actions in virtually every country that had access to broadband and an organised legal system. We kept a stock disclaimer letter on the computer system that regularly got emailed to the various parties, and tried to keep the computer room locked when there was no supervision available. His parents were in hourly anticipation of a visit from the bailiffs and were crossing their fingers against a knee-capping.

  Nasim came out carrying a large bowl of greenery followed by an adoring entourage, headed up by Devendra. This reminded me to put some veggie burgers on.

  “Devendra’s parents don’t want him eating beef,” I explained. “They’d prefer he was veggie but they’re being realistic, as long as he keeps off beef. But the problem is he loves the stuff. Every time we look round he’s gone and nicked someone else’s burger. I can’t decide if we’re being really respectful to his family’s culture by trying to stop him or just being really mean to him. After all, he’s over eighteen and he’s got the legal right to choose...” I removed some nicely blackened sausages from the grill and reached for some more raw ones. “Sausage or burger?”

  “What?”

  “For you, Nasim. Sausage or burger?”

  “Umm,” she said awkwardly. “Actually I’m not meant to eat any meat at all unless it’s Halal, and you have to get that from special butchers, and I definitely can’t ever eat pork...”

  “Ok,” I said with false cheeriness to cover my embarrassment at the sudden realisation at what the whole sausage incident last night had been about. “I’ll put another veggie one on then shall I?” Why the fuck hadn’t she told me? “Maybe you can be on Devendra watching duties, and make sure he only eats veggie with you hey?”

  The evening passed off well enough, Nasim eventually settled down into enjoying herself and we got off on time at ten thirty.

  “Still time to call in on the band!” I called to Nasim behind me as I revved up the bike. I avoided Bobby with a bit of a last minute swerve as he stood watching me leave with his fists pressed together high under his chin and a manic grin on his face. He liked to step out in front of me as I set off but I was used to this by now and was ready for it. Nasim wasn’t though and grabbed at me, her wild wobble taking the bike well off balance. Still, we survived, and I mentally reminded myself to drive with tame stability while I had her on pillion.

  Nasim’s jaw dropped as we walked into the pub towards Quinn. I forgot that she’d never seem him in his stage persona. Tonight he was in high heeled thigh-high boots over red leather lace-up trousers, with what looked like a girl’s white loose sleeved blouse unbuttoned nearly to his waist to reveal a hairy chest and a strikingly large gold medallion adorned with a huge false ruby in the centre. He had an Elizabethan type frill round his neck rising up behind to frame his head, with his long wavy dark hair backcombed with blue streaks sprayed through it. Purple eye shadow, lipstick and nail varnish completed the ensemble, and his long eyelashes were heavily mascaraed. He looked as though he couldn’t decide whether he was auditioning for the part of principle boy in Puss-in-Boots or the pantomime Dame. He had a flock of women around him which he was entertaining with his twat of a policeman story which took place in the cold snap just before Easter.

  “So there I am, bombing along, full speed ahead to the rescue when this copper steps out of the darkness on the corner right in front of me and holds up his hand in a commanding sort of way. So I slam on my brakes and it turns out I’m right in the middle of a sheet of black ice! So my bike shoots off one way and I shoot off the other and I twirl across the ice on my back and land up at his feet slowly spinning like a dead beetle, on my back with my feet and hands waving helplessly in the air. And he looks impassively down at me and says in pompous tones, ‘do you know why I stopped you?’ And I say, ‘was it to warn me about the black ice, officer?’ Because I’ve got my RAC uniform visible under my leathers so I’ve got t
o remain polite. And he says, ‘that’s right young man, you need to watch out for black ice on this road.’ Like he’s doing me a favour! Wanker!”

  His adoring crowd collapsed in fits of laughter and when he saw me he hurriedly extricated himself from the arm that Daisy, one of the regular B.S.E. groupies had clamped around him.

  “Hi Daisy!” I said, smiling. I knew she had the hots for him, but on the other hand if it hadn’t been for her and her friend Sara’s witness statements, Quinn might have ended up doing time on a false accusation of drug dealing, so I owed her for that. “No don’t kiss me,” I shielded myself from Quinn’s advances, “I’ve run out of make-up remover at home.”

  Sara giggled.

  “Don’t let me cramp your style,” I told him. I didn’t turn up much to B.S.E. gigs these days mainly for that reason. Quinn was a great front-man, and much of the band’s success was based on his pulling power. Not that they’d admit it of course, they imagined it was their superior musical abilities. And having a jealously glaring girlfriend hanging on the number one star’s arm the second the last chord died away would soon have put paid to a good number of the faithful following. That was the noble reason. The baser reason was that there is only so much of B.S.E.’s music that a normal human being can stomach and turning up just after that last chord had died away suited me just fine.

  Just to piss Siân off, I made my way over to Kes who was being jealously guarded by her, though since Kes was bending over to put his guitar away in its case, she couldn’t prevent his cute arse being ogled at by certain female fans, and one almost certainly gay one. I slapped the presenting backside with obvious relish as I arrived and he straightened up quickly. But since he’s such an innocent at heart, he completely failed to notice Siân’s basilisk glare and he grinned in a friendly way at me, kissing me on the cheek. Over his shoulder I saw Nasim taking refuge in the comparatively safe shelter of Beth and Oz, and I spotted Jamie, dressed in denim jacket and jeans sitting on the edge of the stage with a much older girl targeting him with outrageously flirtatious behaviour and when she finally pulled her blouse up and flashed her enormous tits at him I could see he didn’t know where to put himself.

  “S’cuse me, Kes,” I said, forgetting my Siân baiting campaign, and went off to the rescue of my little brother.

  Not that he was grateful. “Why did you do that?” He demanded grumpily when I summarily dispatched her. He glowered at me. “I’d nearly pulled there!”

  “In your dreams,” I sneered, reacting badly to his sullen response. “She was so old it would count as necrophilia!”

  Drummer Danny’s girlfriend Lisa came over as Jamie stomped off.

  “Did you see what that woman did?” I demanded, scandalised. Lisa had been recruited to the sound desk, so attended most of the gigs these days.

  She laughed. “That’s nothing! I’m telling you, by the end of some evenings when the alcohol’s been flowing and the you-know…” She indulged in a significant grimace and made a puffing wacky backy signal. “Well any way, let’s just say it’s just as well you’re not here, Eve to see what temptations get handed on a plate to your two men.”

  “And what about your Danny?” I asked with raised eye-brows.

  She looked fondly across at her squat and spotty beloved. “Well he’s not exactly hunk of the month is he?” She admitted lovingly.

  I worked my way back to Quinn, who was by now propping up the bar with his fan club and was as usual ignoring his responsibilities in the clearing-up department, even leaving Kes to put his guitar away for him.

  “What are you up to tomorrow afternoon?” I shouted over the music.

  “We’ve got to get Rob’s car ship-shape by next weekend.” Quinn yelled back. “And we estimate another twenty man hours at least!”

  I frowned. I was sick of hearing about this Rob and his bloody vehicle. If he was a fellow RAC mechanic himself, why couldn’t he do his own car himself? “Why?” I shouted.

  “For the race next Saturday.” Quinn’s tone of voice was impatient as though I ought to know.

  “What race?” I demanded.

  “Stock cars.” Quinn was turning away to order another shot. “Rob races Stock cars.”

  So robbed by Rob of an afternoon with Quinn, I suggested to Nasim that she invite Rajesh round for tea with us.

  “Dad ‘n’ all,” I said. “So Rajesh can’t make any excuses about it being compromising.”

  She was sitting on the edge of the bed, brushing out her waist length sleek dark hair. She stopped and looked uneasily at me. “Not being rude or anything, but I don’t think he’ll like the kind of food you make.”

  I tried not to feel wounded. “Well what does he eat then?”

  “Curry,” she said. “Like we mostly do at home as well.”

  “Well we’ll get one of those Patak’s sauces then,” I suggested.

  Her expression clearly showed that she didn’t think much of that suggestion.

  “Well you cook then,” I suggested.

  She looked even more awkward. “Umm.” She slashed at her hair a couple of times with the brush then admitted, “I’ve never learned how to.”

  I stared at her. “Surely your mum will have taught you?” I didn’t want to give into cultural stereotypes and all that but I assumed that Nasim would be relegated to all the cooking and cleaning at home.

  She shook her head. “Mum always tells me to go to my room and study.”

  “Ok,” I said. I was re-adjusting in my head. I’d thought Nasim was being pressured to leave education. Whereas it seemed like her mum at least was all for it. “Well there must be some recipes online,” I announced robustly. “Just how hard can it be?”

  We alternated between Pakistani and Indian sites. There were billions of recipes on the internet, the hardest thing was to decide which one. Saturday being my half day, I’d rushed home straight after work and now we sat staring boggled at the screen.

  “Don’t tell me he’s vegetarian like Devendra?” I groaned.

  “No, he’s not that strict, but definitely no beef.”

  “And so what with the whole pork thing, what say you to chicken or lamb?” I suggested. I hit a problem. “What about this Halal thing? Wouldn’t that mean going down to your part of town?”

  Nasim pulled a face. “Someone would be bound to recognise us…” She sighed. “I’ve broken the Halal rules ever since I arrived here, I might as well carry on I suppose. It’s either that or go outright vegetarian.”

  The list of ingredients were enormous. I knew we only had a few of them in our cupboard. Cinnamon and mixed herbs and not much else. “Where are we going to get all these spices?” I despaired.

  “There’s loads of shops round my way,” Nasim said, “but I’m sure a supermarket would have most of them.”

  “Ok,” I said. “But you’d better make bloody sure he’s going to turn up because I’m not going through all this for no good reason!”

  Three hours and a chaotic Asda trip later, we were subsumed in a warm fug of sisterhood in the kitchen as we chopped onions and fried and added spices. It was amazingly easy. You just measured everything out exactly as they said, and followed all the instructions to the letter and bingo, it all turned out exactly like the picture! If I’d known cooking was this easy I’d have done it years ago. Nasim knew how to make chapattis from when she used get to do them as a child, and we fried some ready-made poppadoms. Finally we put on the basmati rice which was gobsmackingly easy to do in only fifteen minutes, opened a jar of mango chutney and tipped out some plain yoghurt into a bowl. I wasn’t that rapt with the plain yoghurt myself since it reminded me of having to eat it to clear up the squits when I was on antibiotics last year, but Nasim said I’d need it with the hot curry.

  Finally, Dad turned up making encouraging remarks about the delicious smells and the door bell rang. Nasim squeaked excitedly, and I sent her to let the main man in. Jamie was usefully over at Sally’s then out at another gig.

  “Wou
ld you like a cup of tea?” Dad asked Rajesh as he ushered him to sit down. See – it wasn’t just me then!

  “Ok, no milk,” Rajesh agreed.

  I made Dad’s strong and milky with two sugars (he’d recently cut down from three when I pointed out he was putting on weight), and Nasim made her beloved’s. I noticed her tipping out a cardamom pod from one of our newly purchased range and dropping it into the black tea. She took it out to him and then we ran around laying the kitchen table while Dad sat in the living room and talked awkwardly to Rajesh. Since we didn’t eat at the table much and didn’t entertain at all, I was hard put to find enough matching crockery and cutlery, but finally we were ready to bring the men in.

  Rajesh was a tinsy bit ill at ease, I could see. But he complimented our cooking and Dad said with evident satisfaction that he could get used to this sort of treatment. Nasim had nudged my elbow when I was adding the chilli powder, telling me that Rajesh would be used to it hot, so by half way through Dad was sweating profusely and mopping his brow, and I was reaching for my glass of water, but otherwise things were generally going rather well. Dad complimented Rajesh on being a whiz with computers, admitting to being a luddite himself, and Rajesh commented admiringly on Dad’s practical skills, professing himself to be a klutz in that department. Nasim gazed adoringly across the table the whole meal at Rajesh, who on the whole, I noticed, didn’t meet her gaze. I saw Dad suppress a grin as he glanced at Nasim’s expression.

  “So when are you making an honest woman of her?” He teased in jolly tones.

  Rajesh tensed. “We can’t do anything without her parents’ permission until she’s eighteen,” he said.

  “What about flying out to India?” Nasim said hopefully.

  “I’ve looked into it,” Rajesh said. “It’s hopeless. By law we’d have to stay in India for at least thirty days beforehand to get a resident’s permit. Then we’d have to go along to the registry office to apply with certified copies of passports and birth certificates and evidence of eligibility to be married. We need a ‘Certificate of No Impediment’ each and then we have to hang around for another thirty days. If no objections to the marriage are received within thirty days of the application, a civil ceremony at the registry office can then take place. And then we’d have to hang around for another couple of weeks before the marriage certificate is issued! We’d have to jump through a ridiculous number of hoops to get a visa for you as a Pakistani to stay in India for that long to start out with and besides, there’s the eighteen years old rule there too.”