The Way Barred (Not Quite Eden Book 4) Read online

  We worked our socks off to get the place cleared out and cleaned up. We hadn’t lost much, only a few things we kept on the floor. None of the cars that had been parked in our yard were any the worse for wear. So Entwistle was extremely relieved. I got up quickly from where I’d been crouching doing some last sweeping up with a dustpan and brush and I heard Jo say urgently, “Quick Tony, catch her!”

  I came to, sitting on a chair with my head thrust between my knees with a firm hand holding my neck down. “Oh bloody hell, Jo,” I complained. She let me come up slowly.

  “You’ve been doing your not eating thing again haven’t you?” She said accusingly.

  “How can I eat when I’ve been spewing for two days?” I defended.

  “Yuk, you haven’t have you?” She sounded revolted.

  “Raw sewage in that flood water,” I pointed out. “So make sure you wash your hands.”

  The men looked extremely askance and suddenly there was a queue at the handwashing sink with the antibacterial liquid soap dispenser. Then Jo organised hot sweet tea all round and kit-kats, which I noticed that everyone was somehow managing to eat holding in the wrapper instead of the normal removal and handling method.

  She dropped me back at the flat after work, as my bike was still up at theirs. Thank goodness as it turns out or it would have been completely trashed in the flood water.

  “Shit,” she said, staring around. “It looks like the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse!”

  Everywhere was red muddy filth, right up to a couple of feet below the front door lintels. There were tide marks of debris, natural and human – plastic, small items of furniture, an armchair upside down in the middle of the road, half a tree trunk, a dead swan with its neck wrapped around a lamp post. Quinn’s RAC van was metres further down the street than he’d left it, lying on its side. Smaller cars were just tossed around and left incongruously in the middle of the road. Some of the drains were still gently bubbling out water into small rivulets running down either side of the road. We both gingerly stepped out. The sludge was several centimetres deep. We picked our way over to the door of our flats. I had to step over an opened out, ripped up, swollen tampon to get there. Jo pulled a face. There was yellow and black incident tape across the open door to the basement flat.

  Jo peered in. “Is that where it was?”

  I nodded. It was still like a swimming pool down in there. The water seemed to have no way of draining out.

  I heard the distinctive throaty roar of Quinn’s flash bike approaching and went back to the front door. He got off and stared around him.

  “I’m gobsmacked,” Jo remarked to him. “I had no idea it was as bad as this!”

  He shook his head. “We’ve been out all day hauling cars out of ditches, moving them out of the middle of roads, pulling them off the edge of bridges. Tarmac is just completely ripped up on some of the roads, foundations have been swept out of bungalows. Nearly all the bridges are closed for structural assessment so it’s taking hours to go the long way around. Nine caravans were swept down the river, and one iron railway footbridge and all those items have been hitting the old stone bridges on the way down, so it’s no wonder some of them have given way. Vince found a dead salmon just lying in the middle of a field, a farmer discovered his cattle alive and well swept eighteen miles downriver, and the football club have just tweeted they’ve got three ornamental coy carp in their goal mouth!”

  He looked down the road at the van. “I think I’d better ring in to remind them about that. Thank goodness I’d left my bike at the depot!”

  We all trudged upstairs, Jo included. I insisted we took our footwear off at the door. “I’ll put a box there for us to leave boots in until it’s cleaned up outside – we don’t want to tread any of this filth in.”

  Inside was like a magic circle of protection. Everything exactly as we left it like sleeping beauty’s castle. Half used candles. Wet clothes in piles. The girls’ clothes abandoned in the bathroom. Daisy suddenly appeared at the front door. When she saw Quinn the colour came back into her cheeks and she threw her arms around his neck. “Thank God you’re ok!” She squeaked. “I heard about you on the news. I was so worried!”

  Quinn gave Daisy an obliging snog. As Jo looked revolted, I rolled my eyes in sympathy.

  “You get used to it,” I assured her. She didn’t look convinced.

  I rang the Thrills and Spills team to tell them to get down here pronto to get the full effect of the zombie apocalypse look, and they turned up an hour later and interviewed us at the same time. The following Thrills and Spills episode was dedicated to Quinn and my adventures, cobbled together from the stuff we told them over the phone, the mobile phone footage, news reports with films of the floods from the helicopter, and the after flood wreckage shots and the after flood interview.

  “So they must have been really grateful to you?” Tanya suggested breathlessly. Tanya, normally immune to Quinn’s charms, seemed to have gone a bit ga-ga hormonal at the thought of him heroically hacking his way through doors to rescue distressed women.

  Quinn and I glanced at each other. “Not sure really…” Quinn said sounding doubtful.

  “Well, I’m sure they were glad not to be dead,” I filled in. “But they never said thank you or anything. But if I were in their shoes, I wouldn’t feel very grateful either. All this country will seem to have done to them is trick them into coming here, lock them up, rape them repeatedly, leave them to drown, then hand them over to the police. I felt dreadful when we took them into the police station. You could see they hated us for it.”

  Quinn glanced sideways at me, “When you put it like that Ginty, it does sound horrifying…”

  “I think it’s a complete disgrace that this sort of thing is going on in the streets of my own town – and I’m not having it!” I said in a sudden burst of anger.

  “What do you intend to do about it?” Tanya asked curiously.

  I pursed my lips. “Not sure yet. But it can’t be ignored. If anyone out there has any ideas how to help..?”

  Tanya changed tack. “So the water you were diving into was contaminated with raw sewage I believe?”

  “Yep, we were chucking up for twenty four hours from something we picked up in the water,” Quinn said, before adding with a grin, “Or else it was that suspect looking meal Ginty made for us all when we got in!”

  There was an outraged protest from me and quick as a flash, without his eyes leaving the camera, Quinn had caught my wrist mid swing and stopped the slap that was coming his way.

  “Years of practice…” He said with a smile to the camera.

  Next day, Jo tossed the local newspaper down on the workbench at the garage. “Glad I didn’t bet against you,” she said.

  Underneath the feature photograph of myself and Quinn posed in front of the police tape at the door of the basement flat, was a picture of a new born baby with the heart warming story of the sprog being born in the upstairs of a flooded house, delivered by his father while receiving instructions over the phone from a paramedic. His middle name was going to be Noah.

  “At least they had the common sense to make it his middle name and not his first name,” I said.

  Thrills and Spills wanted to have one last January episode, so had asked us to make sure we were racing at the Belle Vue ‘Christmas Cracker’ event between Christmas and New Year, as well as the trip the entire cast were making to the Autosport International show at the NEC in Birmingham in early January. They wanted to show the year going full circle for the F2 Stock car racing fraternity. Since Belle Vue functioned as our local oval, and was shale so wouldn’t mess up my nice new tarmac tyres to no good purpose, it wasn’t that much of a hardship.

  There was quite a festive atmosphere and we were just racing for fun as the points weren’t counting towards anything. There was a whites and yellows series grade Final on as well, that had been postponed from earlier, so it made the whole thing feel a bit more worthwhile, all the children in their Minis
tox were wired up with multi coloured fairy lights in the back, and the whole thing finished with a grand firework display. The crowds ooed and ahed at the showers of coloured stars being let off in the centre of the oval so close to us that the fizzing burning bits were coming down on our heads and black stuff was getting in our eyes. Safely hidden in the dark and the crush, I sought out Tyler. When I found him I pinched his arm hard. He glanced around, startled.

  “Can you see any Satterthwaites or cameras?” I said urgently.

  He glanced around, able to see further than me over people’s heads. “Nope,” he pronounced. “Why?”

  “I need to talk to you without anyone hearing.”

  “Go for it,” he said with a smile.

  I tucked my hand through the crook of his right arm. “I’ve overheard Pete and Paul talking, and Pete is ordering a new RCE car. He’d determined to beat me, I know he is! I need you to tell me what to do to my car to make sure it’s as good as his new one!”

  “You’re a cheeky mare, you know that,” he said, looking sideways down at me. “Are you expecting me to help you make your car even faster?”

  I squeezed his arm. “Come on Tyler, you’re not scared of me. I’m not beating you yet am I? At least, not very often. But I am beating Pete and he doesn’t like it…” I peered round at his other arm. “Is your hand better yet?”

  He laughed. “You little minx. All you care about is whether my hand is recovered enough to do your car isn’t it?”

  I smiled coaxingly up at him. “Come on Tyler, don’t make me have to flutter my eyelashes, I’m no good at that.”

  He sighed. “I’ll be over your way on the third. Will that do?”

  I smiled a reward up at him.

  He looked wryly down at me. “I’m not taken in you know. Six pm in the Satterthwaites’ barn?”

  “I’ll warn Sue,” I said. “I’m sure she’ll invite you in again.”

  “Ok,” he said. Then I slipped away into the darkness.

  On the way home in the Beast, Jo and I were sitting in the back seats. She was in an unusually loquacious mood. She’d gone off to the bar and indulged in several drinks with an old friend who’d turned up out of the blue, and she was a bit pleasantly tipsy now.

  “So is Daisy still spending all her time draped over Quinn?” Jo inquired completely out of context.

  “What?” I said blankly. Then I remembered back to the last time she’d seen them. “Yep. Actually I’m seriously hoping they might make a go of it. I think they’re well suited. If Quinn was blonde, he’d regularly have the word ‘dumb’ applied to him. And although Daisy’s older than him, she absolutely adores him. He can do no wrong. And she’s such a laid back ditzy chick herself she doesn’t even notice his lack of backbone.”

  “How can you say that of him Eve, when he was pickaxing his way through doors to rescue people?” She defended on his behalf.

  I wrinkled my brow. “It’s not on a physical level. It’s emotional. He avoids everything difficult and he can’t work out what to do about anything. It’s always ‘Eve what should I do?’ And then I nearly always have to sort it out for him. I can’t run his life for him forever can I?”

  She flopped against me and rested her head on my shoulder in a way she’d never ever done before. I put an arm around her. “You are very drunk Jo, aren’t you?”

  I saw Paul glance into his driving mirror at us.

  Jo was smiling to herself. Something suddenly occurred to me. I whispered in her ear so the men wouldn’t hear, just in case they didn’t know. “That ‘friend’ you bumped into, was it your last partner?”

  “Uh huh,” she agreed.

  “Aaah,” I said, the light switching on. “Now I get it…”

  “No you don’t,” she said.

  “Yes, I do,” I said firmly. And I kissed her affectionately on the cheek.

  “Yuk,” she said automatically making a vague attempt to wipe it off.

  “Poor Jo,” I sympathised. “We’re all so horribly slobbery aren’t we?”

  “It’s those horrid little slapping, slurpy noises,” she agreed. “They think they’re being discreet but all you can hear is slurp, slap, slobber. Saliva. Blah! If there’s some couple at it near me in a cinema I have to move seats because I want to start screaming!”

  I laughed. She pulled a face at me. And then five minutes later she was fast asleep with her head in my lap.

  Pete twisted round in his seat to take a look. “What’s got into her?”

  “Too much alcohol I think,” I said wryly. “She spent the last hour in the bar.”

  He frowned. “Who with?”

  I didn’t answer. And I saw he didn’t like that. He didn’t like the fact that his sister and I had secrets from him, and that he no longer had access into our confidence. It occurred to me that Jo had deliberately started that conversation about Quinn in front of Pete so he could hear my dismissive answers. Because she could have asked that question a hundred times in private down the garage, and she hadn’t.

  Third of January and I waited up in the Satterthwaites’ barn for Tyler. I’d told Sue and she’d offered for him to stay. I’d accepted on his behalf as I figured he wouldn’t be getting much wifely treatment at the moment and he might appreciate some home cooking.

  Tyler carefully looked over the car like a vet would a cow, and hummed and hahed. Jo came in to join us.

  “This is a secret Jo,” I told her with a severe warning look.

  She sat down cross-legged on the floor with us and said prosaically, “I’m your mechanic so you can’t keep it a secret from me.”

  “From Pete and Paul then…” I bargained.

  She sat for a moment expressionless, assessing the situation. Then she nodded. “Fine. I can see that we need to stay independent.”

  “Will you find it awkward?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “Time to move out of the fold. If Pete’s cross that’s his own bloody fault. And I think that’s what’s making him cross – he knows all this is of his own making and if he says a word we’ll all just turn round and tell him so in no uncertain terms, so he has to keep his mouth shut. He’s beginning to bubble under the surface though.”

  I stared fascinated at her. “Is he?”

  “Yep.” She looked steadily at me. “We’re a slow moving family emotionally – you’ll have noticed that by now. That’s why your arrival in our midst was rather like a whole set of fireworks exploding off at once. Pete’s beginning to get up a head of steam and we’d do well to have made a break for it by the time he boils over.”

  Tyler was listening in. I glanced at him and grimaced. “Not sure I’m liking the picture she’s painting.”

  “Hmm,” he said thoughtfully. “I think I’m going to source you a new engine.” He said. “And we can make the odd tweak to the chassis…”

  “Not a word!” I threatened Jo.

  “As if I would…” She said, offended.

  Pete looked shocked when Tyler walked in for tea. Paul had obviously been informed by Sue so just held out a friendly hand.

  Conversation ranged over the season just passed, the success of the Thrills and Spills documentary, speculations about the new F2 season, and some checking details for the NEC bash in a couple of weeks’ time. When Sue started asking Tyler how Christmas had gone with access to his little girls I excused myself. So did Jo.

  “We’ll leave your Mum doing the concerned social worker bit, shall we?” I said as we made our way upstairs.

  She laughed. “I thought exactly the same thing. I suppose you’re on my floor again are you?”

  “Sorry Jo. I just need to pop into the spare room to get my things before Tyler gets in there.”

  “I’ll go and put the foam mattress down shall I?” She suggested. She began to walk away along the corridor, leaving me at the door to the spare room. Then she glanced back. “Or you can just share the bed if you want – it’s Queen size.”

  I hesitated. “No the foam thing will do,” I sai
d. I wasn’t sure what to make of that. But given her avowed asexuality, she was unlikely to be making a play for me. No doubt she was just being practical. There was no earthly reason why I shouldn’t share her bed. I had platonically shared a bed with Quinn more than once. In the old days, and in poor countries, it was the norm to share beds within families. It just felt a bit weird that’s all.

  On the way down to Birmingham in the Beast, Pete seemed a bit grumpy. “You seem to have Tyler on a string,” he said a bit snappishly to me.

  I was in the back with Jo again. We’d taken to splitting up along gender lines like that. “I have no idea what you mean by that remark,” I said with dignity. “I asked him to take an end of season look at the car to see what he thought.”

  “Why would he help you with your car?”

  “Why wouldn’t he?” I challenged.

  “What’s wrong with Dad’s opinion?” Pete sounded cross.

  “Nothing,” I said coolly. “I’ve listened to Paul’s opinion, and I’ve listened to Jo’s and now I’ve listened to Tyler’s, and if I find anyone else to consult, I probably shall do. It doesn’t hurt to hear as many different points of view as possible.”

  Paul was just quietly listening in as he drove. He wasn’t intervening.

  “So I come back to the question - why’s he coming out miles to help you out?” Pete demanded combatively.

  “I still don’t understand what you’re implying,” I replied calmly. “You’ll have to come out and say what’s really bothering you. Both times he’s come, he’s been over this way for work. And why wouldn’t he help me? He’s not yet scared that I’m going to beat him. And I think he’d like to be.”

  “What the hell do you mean by that?” Pete was really rattled now.

  “Well it can’t feel like much of a challenge to be the only dominating figure in the F2s can it? Your Dad had Rob to fight it out with. If you go out on the track and know that barring accidents you are almost certain to win, what fun is that? He’ll probably have to make the move to the F1s like Rob has. My best guess is that he’s happy to help me keep my equipment roughly equivalent to his own, to be certain that when he beats me it’s because of his driving and not have a little maggot of doubt wriggling around that it might just be because I can’t afford the right kit.”