The Way Back

by Dominique Kyle

  “I s’pose,” I agreed reluctantly. I hadn’t meant to mention Nish’s collapse, but I figured now that I ought to. “Actually, after half an hour he came over faint and had to lie down.”

  He took a deep breath in. “Ok, Eve. I guess we’d better not push him too hard yet. Doesn’t look great does it?” He went to walk off, then paused. “Which department are you moving to next week?”

  “Race Team Mechanics,” I supplied.

  He gave a slight smile. “Better be overalls then, Eve.”

  I nodded obediently but in my own head I felt cross. Did he really think I was such a complete dolly that I’d turn up in heels in a practical mechanics setting?

  He checked his leave once more as an afterthought struck him. “Better come in with your own, in case they don’t have any small enough.” Then he laughed and walked off.

  Grrrr! Actually, I was a bit anxious about next week. As an intern you got rotated around departments, and every six weeks or so it was like starting a whole new job again. It was quite stressful. A whole new team to get to know and persuade to accept you, and a whole new set of skills to get your head around.

  Wednesday, and Nish trailed into the office again, just before lunch. He was in his sports gear so he’d obviously been using the work gym.

  “Piss off, Posh Boy!” I snapped. I was still angry with him.

  “I’ve told you not to call me that!” He slammed back.

  Heads lifted round the room and all eyes were on us.

  Although my instinct wanted to keep up the aggro just to annoy him, I felt the gaze of my line manager boring into the back of my neck and I could sense a disciplinary coming on. PB was a work colleague, and highly valued by the firm, and it wasn’t professional to behave like this towards him within the confines of the factory.

  “What do you want me to call you then?” I asked more mildly.

  “Nish,” he said irritably.

  “What sort of name is that?” I asked a bit dismissively.

  “My name!” He snapped.

  “Is it short for something?” I asked curiously.

  “Anish,” he admitted.

  “So, Anish,” I said politely. “What were you wanting?”

  His body language was still rigid with annoyance. “Lunch?” He said abruptly.

  “I always go for a run in my lunch break,” I said. It wasn’t true, but it would have to be from now on. “If you come with me for that, then I’ll come to lunch with you at the canteen when we get back.”

  I saw Keith glance at me. He knew I didn’t go for a run in my lunch break. “How do you propose to go for a run dressed like that?” He scoffed from across the desk.

  “Like this,” I said. I stood up, kicked off my high heels, bent down and grasped the hem of my dress and pulled it off over my head in one swift movement. There was a stunned silence round the office. It said a lot for the oppressively middle class professional environment that stripping off in a room of men didn’t elicit a single wolf whistle or cat call. Underneath I was wearing a sports crop top and a skin tight pair of running shorts. I bent over and fished under my desk for my pair of running shoes and short white socks. I put them on, laced up, picked up a couple of energy bars lying beside my computer and walked purposefully towards the door. “Coming?” I said, looking back.

  PB looked briefly around at the faces of the men who were all staring fixedly at him, then walked after me as though he just wanted to get out of there as fast as possible. I tossed an energy bar at him which he caught one handed with the automatic ease of a man who’d spent many a summer at his posh private school playing cricket. “Get that down you first, PB,” I ordered.

  “Nish!” He snarled.

  Behind us, as the door swung to, I heard a burst of laughter start up.

  After a quarter of an hour of jogging steadily, in complete silence along the pavement, I glanced at my watch and drew up by a low wall.

  “We’ll have to turn back now,” I said. “There’s no time to go further.” That was part of my game plan. Two short stints of fifteen minutes, and he’d probably get back without any problems which would hopefully build his confidence. I hitched my bum up on the wall and handed him the other energy bar. “Best you have this.”

  Again, he was barely out of breath, so it wasn’t his cardio-vascular system that was the problem. He sat down beside me, broke the bar in half and handed one part back to me. I nibbled on it gratefully. I wasn’t feeling so hot myself with a sudden run just before lunch.

  “Why won’t you come back to my flat?” He asked like a little boy who can’t get a play mate.

  “I’m just being bloody minded because you’re trying to force my hand,” I admitted honestly. “Why are you so desperate for me to come back to your wretched flat anyway?”

  He rubbed at the side of his nose without answering for a long few moments. “I don’t know. I guess I just dread going back in there. It’s so empty and silent. And I don’t know what to do with myself. It’s this wretched illness!” He slammed his fist down on the top of the wall, then looked in an almost surprised way down at his hand as though he hadn’t expected it to hurt so much. “It’s like a monster draining all the life out of me! I feel like my head’s stuffed with cotton wool and I just can’t think straight and sometimes I can’t get up from the sofa for hours at a time, and my sleep cycle’s all to pot. Sometimes I sleep for fourteen hours at a time, and other times I’m totally exhausted and yet I still can’t sleep at all… I just sit in there for hours staring at the four walls.” He bit his lip. “I know I should do something constructive like studying some of the latest simulator performance stats or even just composing some music – you’d think this was the ideal time as I’ve always moaned that I’m far too busy to do develop music these days…but I’ve no energy, no motivation, no ideas, no interest in anything! And no-one seems to be able to tell me how long I’m going to be like this. Some say six months. Some articles I’ve read suggest the post-viral syndrome can go on for up to seven years, and I’ve read of some people where it’s turned into chronic fatigue syndrome and they’re still like it twenty years later!” He plunged to a halt, his expression desperate. “I’m terrified that this is it for the rest of my life and I’m never going to get back into the driving. I’ve got this short window of opportunity and if I miss it, then that’s it for good.” His fists were clenched. “At the moment I can only manage the simulator for a couple of hours or so, just about. It’s hard on the arms and legs, and exhausting on the brain power and concentration, but it doesn’t reproduce the G forces involved in a real race. On some corners you’re subjected to the same G forces as an astronaut being fired into space, and if you’re not one hundred percent, unbelievably fit, then there’s no way you can take it.”

  I felt for him, I really did. He was in a horrible position, poor sod. But men don’t like sympathy. It makes them feel condescended to.

  “You’ve got six months yet,” I said robustly. “The whole Williams team are right behind you and willing you to get back behind the wheel. A lot can happen in six months!” I glanced at my watch. “Time to get back,” I reminded him and I jumped down and started jogging us back to base.

  Back in the office Keith looked sideways at me. “You’re a tricksy beast, aren’t you, Eve? He fell for that hook, line and sinker…”

  I smiled. “Yep, and he’s agreed to go for a daily lunch time jog now,” I confirmed.

  Keith smiled. “Mission half way to being accomplished I’d say,” he observed.

  We fell silent, our eyes on our screens, and then he added, “But beware of mission creep, Eve.”

  I glanced at him. His blue eyes darted briefly my way. “It’ll be fine for him. Whatever happens, he’s going to be able to trawl off into the sunset with all the advantages he’s been born into, but it won’t end so well for you. Watch yourself. His sort have no idea what damage they’re trailing in their wake.”

  After having my heart strings tugged at so thorou
ghly this lunch time, I’d been going to pop round to his flat on the way home to make up for upsetting him before. But with Keith’s warning I had second thoughts and went straight home instead.

  Thursday and Friday, Nish came in and used the gym, then came out with me afterwards for a half hour run before eating lunch with me in the canteen .

  “What do you do in the afternoon?” I asked him on the Friday.

  “I’m so knackered I usually just end up lying on the sofa listening to music,” he said glumly.

  “You remember I told you Quinn was coming this weekend?” I said. “Do you want to come round for a meal tomorrow, about six, and then come on to Oxford with us to catch a band he wants to see?”

  He brightened up. “Yes, I would.”

  “Ok then, rest up earlier in the day and come round to my flat at six.”

  Quinn was just stopping off for twenty four hours on his way down to London, where he and the band had some kind of interview and photoshoot for a magazine. “We’re not famous enough yet for them to have to come to us,” he said wryly. Then he laughed.

  I took him up on the Downs and we lay in the sun amongst the chalky upland flowers and exchanged news. He reported back to me how the band was doing, and about my little brother Jamie’s new girlfriend Tiana who was determined to re-style him. And the good news that Kes was now going steady with a girl he was completely crazy about.

  “That’s such a relief,” I said, snuggling in to Quinn’s side. I never even thought twice about doing that now. After four months sharing a flat in Italy at the start of my time at Ferrari, we’d given up on all the fighting and snipping at one another and just settled for being physically close friends.

  “So what’s been happening with you?” He reciprocated. “How’s life at the Williams factory?”

  I filled him in on Nish.

  “So you’ve stopped calling him ‘Posh Boy’ have you?” He laughed.

  “He took your advice to him seriously, and proceeded to shout at me till I stopped,” I admitted. “But I’m finding it hard to remember not to do it…”

  We began to walk back along the Ridgeway to his car. “But the reason I’ve invited him round is that he’s such a big fan of Full Frontal. He thinks you’re amazing. He streams you all the time and believe me, he knows what he’s talking about musically… He was a choir boy like you and ended up at the Royal School of Music!”

  Quinn looked impressed. “Well in that case, it’s a huge compliment.” He looked pleased. “When people say they enjoy our music it’s always nice, but it doesn’t mean much. But if someone musically trained likes it, then that says something…”

  We had to eat on our laps, as my tiny rental flat didn’t have anything larger than a small stained coffee table. Nish ate a couple of mouthfuls of the curry I’d made, and then shot a look at me as though he was surprised. “This is really good,” he said. “Just like one of my mother’s.”

  Now that was a nice compliment, I thought. Especially as my friend Nasim’s husband Rajesh, always sulked if I cooked the meal, as I never managed to make it hot enough for him. I’d had to resort to putting a bowl of chilli flakes on the table so he could doctor his own plate.

  Quinn looked across at Nish. “Is your mother Indian then?” He asked outright.

  Nish looked taken aback. “Her parents were from Pakistan originally,” he muttered reluctantly.

  Quinn didn’t seem to notice that he wasn’t keen to talk about it. “Our town is thirty percent Pakistani heritage and ten percent Indian, isn’t it, Eve?”

  I noticed that in front of Nish he was calling me ‘Eve’. Normally he called me ‘Ginty’. “So Eve has learned all her curries from our various friends…”

  “I don’t really identify as being Pakistani,” Nish said quickly. “Well not at all really. Dad was English through and through, and that’s the only bit I picked up…”

  Quinn latched on to the mention of Nish’s father and looked directly across the room at him. “I’m was sorry to hear about your dad,” he said. Boy he was going for the jugular tonight wasn’t he? “My mum died about three years back, and Eve’s fiancé died about two and a half years ago, didn’t he, Eve?” He glanced at me. I felt a bit like I’d been punched in the stomach at the unexpected mention of Tyler. Quinn saw my stricken expression. “Sorry Eve, I just thought Nish should know about it, that’s all.” He looked back at Nish. “She’s been sworn off relationships ever since.”

  What’s he playing at? I thought. It sounds like he’s warning Nish off.

  “I know it’s hard mate,” Quinn careered on, “but you’re going to have to find yourself another manager. How do you set about that in the racing world?”

  Now Nish looked so stricken, I thought I’d better intervene. “Time enough for that nearer the end of the year,” I said. “So why don’t you tell us about this band you’re taking us to see, Quinn?”

  On the way to Oxford, Nish sat in the front with Quinn and they talked about Full Frontal and their music and how it was composed and how it was recorded and on the way back from Oxford Nish sat in the front again and they spent the whole way back dissecting the musical construction of the songs they’d just heard. I tried not to feel jealous that the two men were more interested in each other than me. After all, I was nothing more than friends with the pair of them. It was just what Nish needed – a mate to talk about something other than the depressing subject of Formula One racing with, given his inability to take part at the moment.

  As we drew up at my flat, Nish, who had obviously clocked that my miniscule flat only had one bedroom said casually, “Where are you sleeping tonight?”

  “The sofa, I guess,” Quinn shrugged. “But it’s a bit of a short one, Ginty!” He turned his head to grin at me. “I’ll have to fold myself in half!”

  At just over six foot, Quinn was a bit big to kip on sofas. I sighed. “You have the bed, Quinn. I’ll take the sofa.”

  In reality, we were playing out a bit of a game in front of Nish. Quinn would probably get into bed with me. We’d slept platonically together plenty of times in the past.

  “I’ve got a spare room,” Nish offered. “Why don’t you come back with me? And tomorrow morning before you go I’d like to play you back one of your tracks because I think you’ve missed a trick in the arrangement.”

  That was all the bait Quinn needed. He dropped me off at my flat, waved me a cheery goodnight, and disappeared off with Nish. I sat in my empty flat trying to fight off my disappointment. I’d been so looking forward to Quinn staying over this weekend and now I was going to barely see him.

  I got into bed and struggled to get to sleep, fighting off a desperate feeling of loneliness. What would I give to have someone here who considered me the centre of their universe? Someone to look lovingly into my eyes as though I was the most precious thing on earth? Why did you have to go and die on me, Tyler? I thought miserably. I felt as though a knife was stabbing me in my chest. I didn’t appreciate you when you were with me, I thought. I was fending you off, not wanting to commit. And now I wished I’d spent every moment of that year with him, thrown myself into his arms from the start, told him every day how wonderful he was. But now it was too late and he’d never know how much he meant to me.

  Quinn still hadn’t come back by ten the next morning, so I got my sports kit on under my leathers and took my bike off up to the downs. And then I ran and ran and ran and ran until I was so exhausted I could barely get back. I lay for some time on the turf and stared blindly up at the clear blue sky and high scudding clouds. At two o’clock, just as I got back to my bike, my phone buzzed.

  Sorry 2 miss U x

  Quinn had obviously left for London. I tossed my phone to one side without texting him back. I was here to learn new skills and try to start a new career, not to chase after men. Love would just have to wait.

  When I walked into the Race Team Mechanics Department next morning, the men turned as one and looked me up and down.

 
“Don’t you have a uniform?” The guy in charge asked.

  I shook my head.

  He glanced at one of the other men. “We’ll have to get her one smartish. Can you organise that please?” He looked back at me. “I guess the overalls will have to do for today.” He paused then laughed. “We all wondered what you were going to come in…”

  I tried to temper my glare down to a less aggressive silent stare. God, they really did take me for a muppet, didn’t they? I’d noticed that before… You either had to dress and behave like a man and blend into the background, or behave and dress like a woman and be treated completely differently. Swopping between the two never worked. And it was only this rotation system I was on that had forced me to break with my usual strategy.

  “Ok,” he barked out with sudden authority. “Pit practice! Ben, show Eve her position.”

  Although they proceeded to assure me that they did regular pit practice so that they could do it in their sleep and not lose it in the heat of the moment, I was pretty certain this was their attempt to throw me in at the deep end and test my mettle.

  Ben instructed me carefully on my role in a simulated pit stop in the middle of a Formula One race with refuelling and a tyre change. There were three people assigned to each tyre with designated roles that had to be co-ordinated together in a minutely choreographed procedure. They did it once with me just observing, and then it was my turn.

  “Not good enough, Eve!” The boss snapped. “That was three seconds longer than it should have been. Every second is gold dust – you know that! Our Williams team record is one point nine seconds. Do it again!”

  We did it again.

  “Better. Again.”

  We did it again.

  “Ok.” He clicked off his stop watch. “That was up to scratch. We’ll do it again this afternoon to see whether you can perform to the same standard.”

  I was pumping with the adrenaline of it. Phew, this was great! Back in aerodynamics I had been on the back foot all the time because they all had mega degrees in something really technical, but here I was on home ground. I could do this. It felt like a relief.