Paradise Postponed Read online

  Nasim looked downcast. “And I’ll bet it’s even worse in Pakistan,” she said heavily.

  “I don’t understand why you don’t just run off to Gretna Green like they always used to do in the old days,” Dad chipped in cheerfully.

  Nasim’s eyes widened. “What like in historical romances?”

  “Scotland still allows marriage at sixteen, with or without parental consent,” Dad informed her helpfully.

  Rajesh glanced at Dad as though he wished he’d shut up. “Yes, I’ve looked into that too. We both need a British passport to prove citizenship though and I wasn’t sure if she had one.”

  Nasim looked surprised. “Course I do. I was born here, weren’t you?”

  Rajesh looked a bit cornered. I thought that meant he would turn out to be just on a visitor’s visa or something a bit dodgy. But no, he agreed that he was born and bred here and had a UK passport, so I couldn’t see what the problem was.

  Nasim was looking in a painfully excited way across the table at him.

  “Look, let’s drop the subject for now,” he said irritably.

  Nasim looked crushed and Dad stepped admirably into the breach to ask him more about his line of work and the rest of the evening passed off fairly well I thought.

  That night in bed, Nasim was going on and on about running away to Scotland with him after her AS levels. She was in a tangled tizzy of hopes and dreams.

  “Once we’re married my family won’t be able to do a thing. And once they meet him and find out how nice and responsible he is and how well he’s provided for me and once we produce some grandchildren for them, they’ll come around to it I’m sure!”

  “I hope you get it settled with him first that you want to finish your education and make sure he’s prepared to support you in that,” I said severely.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Nasim said. “Maybe I don’t really want to go to university. Not if I can marry Raj.”

  “But you could do both!” I pointed out frustratedly.

  But really I was more worried that she’d end up doing neither. Because if she didn’t marry Rajesh and her family took her back, they may refuse to let her go to Uni and make her marry someone of their choosing. Or on the other hand, if Rajesh didn’t marry her and her family refused to take her back, she probably wouldn’t be able to afford to put herself through a degree on her own.

  To finally make her shut up, I pretended to be asleep, but actually I lay awake worrying for ages about what to do. I had my suspicions about Rajesh and for the sake of Nasim’s wellbeing and mental health, I needed to smoke him out.

  Sunday started out ordinarily enough. A lie-in and then Dad’s famous fry-up. I’d warned him by now about the pig issue, so he’d just done Nasim eggs, beans, tomatoes and mushrooms. Jamie was in a good mood for once, reporting that the gig last night had gone particularly well. Which probably meant he’d had another woman flashing her tits at him.

  After brunch I spotted an RAC van drawing up outside the Quinns’ house and beeping its horn. Since I’d had some ideas about spending the afternoon with my supposed amour, perhaps a run out over the moors on the bikes in this fine sunny weather, I glared out the window with all the ferocity of a dog spotting an approaching postie. I assumed at first that he must have been asked to do an extra shift, but when Quinn wandered out in his oldest scruffiest jeans and most ancient leather jacket, I realised that this couldn’t be work related. I got out there in double quick time.

  “Oh, hi there Eve.” He seemed slightly put out, and he didn’t kiss me in greeting.

  I looked pointedly into the van and the man inside opened the door and got out. He was tall and broad shouldered with big hands, a craggy face, a shock of thick black wiry hair, and bright blue eyes under big black brows. He smiled in a friendly way and held out his hand to me. “Hi, I guess you must be Eve, I’m Rob. Nice to meet you at last.”

  I shook his hand and tried to smile back but I was in shock. This guy was in his mid thirties, maybe older. I’d imagined this mysterious Rob to be some other young apprentice the same age as us. Why on earth was Quinn spending so much time with him? What on earth was the attraction?

  Rob clapped Quinn on the back. “Hop in, no time to waste! We’re on a knife-edge right now and hours behind schedule…” He inserted his long body back into the driver’s seat.

  Quinn went round to the passenger side and got in with alacrity. Not a backward look towards me. “What happened?”

  “I’ll explain on the way,” Rob told him as he slammed the door shut and yanked his seat belt across. He glanced back out the half open window at me. “Bye luv!” And then he drove away with a lot of unnecessary acceleration and a loose spin of the wheel on the corner taking them straight down the middle of the road. Racing driver was he? Well he certainly fancied himself as one. I walked slowly back into the house.

  I’d only been back in a few minutes when I heard another car draw up outside. A bright orange Mini Metro was parked at a strange angle in front of our house and a big busty blonde woman was getting out. I couldn’t imagine that it was anything to do with us so I walked away from the window and tried to decide what to do today since it seemed a shame to waste my day off.

  “Fancy a ride out over the moors this afternoon?” I asked Nasim.

  She was sitting at the computer working on an essay. “If I get enough of this done.”

  Then the doorbell rang. I wanted to exchange querying glances with Nasim, but she didn’t look up. I opened the door cautiously. It was that woman. Bottle blonde, I could see now that we were close up. “Yes?” I said, slightly aggressively.

  She beamed at me. “Eve is it? How wonderful! I’ve been dying to meet you! I’ve heard so much about you! Where’s your gorgeous Daddy?” Her voice was an extraordinary mix of girlishness and sexy huskiness. She peered past my shoulder into the house.

  I stared at her. I didn’t yet feel like I’d been punched in the stomach, but it was only going to take another few seconds before I was going to wonder what had hit me. “He’s upstairs having a shower,” I said blankly.

  Without any by-your-leave she stepped confidently over the threshold and looked brightly around. “You’re much smaller than I expected,” she told me in congratulatory tones as her baby blue eyes returned to me, “A mere wisp of a thing. What with all the mechanics milaaky I assumed you’d be rather butch.” She fluffed up her carefully coiffured hairdo and looked self-satisfied as though she had decided she had nothing to fear from me after all. Her eyes fell on Nasim who by now had been looking round. “Oh! And is this your little Paki friend? Hello! I’ve heard all about you as well!”

  My jaw dropped and then at last I got my shit together. “How dare you!” I launched furiously. “How dare you walk into my house uninvited and hurl racist insults at my friends!”

  She looked amazed and then alarmed. “What have I said? All I did was call her a Paki! It’s only the same as when people call us ‘Brits’, the German’s ‘Gerries’ and the Danish ‘Danes’!”

  I went to the stairs and yelled up it. “Dad! You’d better come down here quick! There’s a really inappropriate woman down here who claims to know you, won’t leave and is getting abusive with us!”

  Dad’s shower had switched off a few minutes ago and within seconds he was hurrying out the door, his clothes clearly thrown on in a rush and his hair damp and sticking up. He galloped down the stairs looking harassed. “Oh Pauline – you should have rung first.”

  “Sorry Petal!” She oozed, making to give him a snog. “I didn’t think you’d mind if I just popped in.”

  He ducked her lusciously glossy lips, managing to get them to smack against his cheek instead, while studiously avoiding my eyes.

  I glared pointedly at him.

  “Um, Eve, this is Pauline. I – um – meant to say something about her but-”

  But clearly he’d retreated into complete cowardice and she’d pre-empted him by turning up. And it was obvious that she had no idea what
she’d done. “Don’t worry Flower!” She patted his cheek. “Your lovely daughter and I have already introduced ourselves!” She beamed around at me, without a trace of sarcasm in her voice. “Where’s Jamie?”

  “Just gone out.” Dad said abruptly. “Um.” He appeared to cast around for an idea. “Ah – would you like a cup of tea now?”

  “Ooh that would be marvellous,” she enthused. “Shall I go and get Mr. Pickles while you’re putting the kettle on?” And she buggered off out.

  In the dead silence that followed, two pairs of eyes fixed on my Dad. The grey pair accusing, the dark brown pair merely gobsmacked. Dad fled.

  Nasim looked at me awestruck. “Is she for real?”

  “Unfortunately, it seems she is, and she’s got her claws into my Dad and she’s in my living room and she clearly has no intention of getting out any time soon!” My stomach began to clench up in a knot and I felt sick. “And who the hell is Mr. Pickles?”

  I soon found out when the door was flung open again and a frenetic white and brown blur flashed in and tornadoed round the room, nose to the floor and stump of a tail wagging so hard it looked like his back-end would drop off. The cocker-spaniel stopped momentarily to huff up some cake crumbs by the settee before hurling himself up at Nasim’s lap barking non-stop and when she tried to push him off, he leapt up at me, wrapped his front paws around my knees and started enthusiastically humping my legs.

  “Naughty, naughty, Mr Fresh Freckles!” His mistress admonished, wagging a finger at him as I kicked him off me. “I’m afraid he’s not fussy,” she added in my direction, which sounded vaguely backhanded apart from the fact that it could have been worse if she’d implied that her dog was only trying to shag me because he recognised a bitch when he saw one. She was now crouched down grasping his front paws and holding him up on his hind legs like a ball-room dancer while he flopped his ears at her and panted enjoyably. “Now, now, Mr Naughty Knickers,” she was telling him in fond tones, “if you don’t stop this we’re going to have to take off those fine bollocks of yours that you’re so proud of and you wouldn’t want that would you?”

  Nasim choked.

  Dad came out of the kitchen. “Tea for you, Eve, Nasim?”

  “No,” I snapped at him. “We’re just going out, aren’t we Nasim?” I could see Nasim looking despairingly at the computer. “You can bring some reading with you,” I told her, “and finish that tonight.”

  She knew she couldn’t stay. She sighed and started switching the computer off.

  “That’s a shame,” Pauline gushed.

  “Yes that’s a shame,” Dad echoed feebly.

  “That’s a shame!” I exploded furiously as I got off the bike as far out into the middle of the moors as I could get us. “They couldn’t wait to get rid of us! They were clearly ecstatic to have the house to themselves because they couldn’t wait to get their hands on each other the moment we left!”

  Nasim got the giggles. “Do you think she pats your dad on the knee and says, ‘naughty naughty, Mr McGinty, if you don’t stop this right now we’ll have to remove those fine bollocks of yours!’?”

  “Oh my God, Nasim,” I groaned, ripping off my lid and hurling it down onto the springy grass, “I can’t believe this! How can he possibly have such poor taste? And oh my God, she’s in the house right now!” I bemoaned. I felt sick. Physically sick. And it was my own fault. Not more than a few months ago I’d told him that I wouldn’t hold it against him if he ever wanted to get married again. “And then she went and called you a Paki, right to your face and didn’t even think she’d done anything wrong!”

  Nasim seemed fairly phlegmatic about that. “Well at least my parents really do come from Pakistan, Rajesh goes completely ballistic when he gets called a Paki…”

  “Like when someone mistakes a Yorkshire accent for a Lancashire one?” I queried.

  “Hmmm,” she sounded unconvinced. “Much worse than that…”

  “I can tell you’ve not met many Yorkshire men then,” I teased.

  As we lay in the sunshine in the hummocky ground, the newly springing tightly curled bracken looming bright green, our coats tightly wrapped around us against the spring chill, I wondered what the hell I was going to do now. What had I imagined for God’s sake? A lovely shy creature that Dad would woo over many months and introduce to us with charming pride and diffidence, who would tiptoe around us all, bending over backwards to get to know her prospective step-children, who I would finally put at ease by being really kind to her? I hadn’t sat around imagining anything concrete, but I hadn’t expected this! This appalling tsunami!

  “What the hell does he see in her?” I fumed aloud.

  Nasim looked up from her set text. “An enormous pair of knockers?”

  “Nasim!” I exclaimed scandalised. It was all very well for her to find it funny – she wasn’t going to have to live with her. “Sex should be banned after the age of thirty-five,” I said through gritted teeth.

  Nasim looked sideways at me. “That doesn’t give us much time then does it?”

  “Has Rajesh texted you since yesterday?” I asked abruptly.

  She shook her head, some of the fun going out of her eyes.

  I got up sharply and walked away. There was no signal on my phone here, so I headed up the hill until I got one.

  “Kes, can I come and see you?”

  Kes sounded reluctant. “Siân’s due round later and she won’t be happy if she arrives to find you here.”

  “Blow Siân, I need to talk to you. How about Pizza Hut then?”

  “Umm, she won’t like that much either…” He cavilled.

  “Well, it’s one or the other, which can you explain away the most easily, me cosily ensconced in your bedroom or you and me having a pizza together?”

  He chose the latter, perfectly well aware that Siân considered there to be only one valid use for bedrooms and was unlikely to believe any other explanation for my appearance in his.

  I dropped Nasim at Beth’s. I didn’t know what else to do with her given that we couldn’t risk going back to mine yet and I didn’t want her along on my date with Kes. I figured she and Beth could talk English Lit essays, or failing that, about Nasim’s doomed love prospects. Meanwhile, I bent Kes’ ear over a pizza.

  “Oh my God, you’re kidding me?” Kes’ reactions were satisfactorily sympathetic.

  “Kes, you had to put up with the advent of your stepfather, and then the appearance of the twins, how on earth did you deal with it?”

  Kes pulled a face. “It wasn’t the same. I mean, I was a lot younger and I still had my own Dad and Ken wasn’t that bad really. I mean he tried hard to be nice to me and used to arrive with toys and sweets and would take me out to kick a footie around. Dad was the main pain in the arse, always trying to find out from me what Mum was up to and trying to make me feel guilty for liking Ken but eventually I just refused to tell him anything and finally it all settled down and Mum and Ken got married and now Dad’s at last found a woman who’ll have him, so it’s all sorted. Obviously, I can’t stand the twins, but I wouldn’t like them any more if they were my full blood sisters, and at least I can comfort myself with the fact that they’re only half related to me…”

  I tore a piece of pizza off and stared fiercely at the cheese as it stretched and stretched then hung with repellent cool limpness in loose arcs. I twirled a finger into it, then yanked. It still didn’t break.

  Kes looked seriously at me. “Don’t get about her like you used to be about Adam. Life’s too short and believe me, you’ll just make yourself miserable and ruin your relationship with your dad. And you’ve no where else to go, Eve. At least I could have run off to Dad’s if it got too unpleasant with Mum and Ken. You’ve got no-one else to turn to.”

  It wasn’t what I wanted to hear at all.

  Back home the woman’s suffocating perfume still hung thickly around the living room, despite her no longer being in the house. Nasim and I went up to my room and stopped short, stari
ng around in dismay. I pounded back down the stairs and confronted my Dad.

  “That vile beast has been in my room! There’s muddy paw prints all over Nasim’s duvet, it’s ripped apart a tissue box and there’s bits of soggy tissues strewn all over the room, and it’s gone and eaten all the chocolate we were keeping for later!”

  “You’d better keep the door closed in future,” Dad said. “He’s not a year old yet, so he’s inclined to get up to mischief.”

  “What the hell do you see in her?” I raged.

  I saw Dad’s jaw harden and his eyes flicker in a way that I’d never seen before. “You will treat her with respect if you want to carry on living in this house,” he said coldly.

  I stared at him. He stared back at me his expression unyielding. I gritted my teeth so hard that I thought I’d hear my jaw crack, my nostrils flared and I could hear my own heart pounding in my head. But there was no where I could go with it. Dad turned away first. And I retreated to the bedroom, physically shaking.

  Nasim had cleaned up all the shredded tissue and ripped tinfoil and stripped the bed. “I really do have to do that essay now,” she said apologetically.

  I was relieved when she went downstairs to the computer. I sank down on the bed feeling numb.

  Outside, I heard a van drawing up. Quinn! I leapt up and grabbed my leather and hot footed it next door.

  “You’re kidding me!” Quinn exclaimed looking entertained.