The Way Back

by Dominique Kyle

  The rest of the morning was spent being shown around the parts of the factory that were apposite to the department, and hearing about the space they occupied as a cog in the wheel of the F1 machine that was Williams.

  Just before lunch, Nish wandered in, complete in sports gear. I noticed that in this department everyone straightened up at his appearance and were very respectful of him. This was fascinating. And Nish behaved differently too. In Aerodynamics he’d been prickly and sort of ignored the others. Here he made a point of giving a slight smile around and shaking hands with the guy in charge. “Eve runs with me every lunch break,” he said with a pleasant smile. “I hope that’s ok by you?”

  The manager smiled back and agreed that of course it was alright and glanced at me. “Off you go then.”

  I slipped my overalls off there where I stood, revealing my jogging shorts and tee-shirt underneath, and we went straight out.

  “Whoa, smooth talker!” I teased him as we ran along.

  “It’s best to stay on the right side of the race engineers and mechanics,” Nish informed me pragmatically. “Doesn’t do to antagonise them. Ultimately, on the day itself, your whole race is in their hands. The design is vital of course, but in the final analysis, it’s the team reassembling the car and the guys putting those wheels on in the pits that your lap time and even your life is relying on.”

  I hadn’t thought of it like that from his point of view.

  Back from lunch, the men looked fixedly at me.

  “What?” I challenged, a touch aggressively.

  “We’ve never had a mechanic having an affair with a driver before,” one said.

  “No gay mechanics then?” I joked. Then I realised I needed to nip this in the bud. “Just to be clear – I’m not in a relationship with the guy – far from it! The management asked me to become a training buddy as they were worried he’d lose motivation while he wasn’t hiring a personal trainer. Once he’s fit and well again, I guess he’ll be employing a physio and trainer again, like the other drivers do.”

  They turned away with a slight smile. Grrrr!

  “Pit practice! Get into position!”

  We got to it.

  “Eve, one second too long! Do it again!”

  “Better. Now Sam teach her the next position…”

  I was given a new role and we did it three more times till I was up to speed on that one too. This was fun!

  On the way home I called round at Nish’s. The door opened under my hand as I knocked on it, so I walked in, calling out his name. There was no answer.

  I found him lying peacefully asleep on his sofa, looking like an angel with his long dark eyelashes curved against his cheek, his breath even and deep. It felt a bit weird, because in the background, I could hear Quinn’s voice soaring and dipping. Nish had obviously gone to sleep listening to Full Frontal. I sat cross legged in front of him, expecting him to wake up, but he didn’t. I looked intently at his face. He was very beautiful. Almost exquisitely so, with the dark outlining to the creamy light brown skin, the full lips and the straight sculpted nose and the flat angles of his cheek bones. The hand curled restfully under his cheek was elegant and long fingered. Musicians’ hands. I waited for a few minutes then decided that it would be too much of a shock to him to wake him up, so I got up and crept out. I pulled the door quietly closed behind me, but not until I’d put it on the latch. He shouldn’t be lying there so deeply asleep with the door unlocked. I could have done over the whole flat by now and he wouldn’t have stirred.

  “I popped in to see you last night,” I said during our lunch run the next day. “But you were asleep.”

  “You should have knocked harder,” Nish said. “I must get that doorbell fixed.”

  I parted my lips to explain that I’d come in and he was dead to the world, but then I chickened out. I figured I’d find it a bit icky if I thought someone had crept in, watched me sleeping for a bit and then crept out again. Why should it feel any different to him?

  In the department, they’d had me doing Pit Practice in both positions to their satisfaction, then added a third. I was now kitted out in the smart Williams navy blue and white uniform with the thin red stripe. We were supplied with both long trousers and shorts, because in some of the countries you got sent to, it was just too hot to do physical work in long kegs.

  After work, I got into my bike gear and helmet and walked out to my bike. As I swung my leg over to get on, I spotted Nish sitting limply on a grass verge in the carpark close to the exit. I drove the bike slowly over and stopped beside him. “What’s up?”

  He shook his head. “I got called up to test a new set-up on the simulator for the guys out in Hockenheim and because I was feeling quite robust I decided to jog back in for the extra exercise. But now I’m just too knackered and I was sitting here debating whether to call a taxi when I remembered I hadn’t brought my wallet with me, so now I’m trying to muster the energy to walk home.”

  “Never mind, just hop on and I’ll give you a lift,” I suggested.

  He looked dubiously at my bike.

  “It’s only to the outskirts of Wantage,” I pointed out. “It’ll be fine as long as you sit still and don’t get tempted to try driving this thing from behind me, because I’m too light to counterbalance you…”

  It seemed he was feeling too pathetic to even attempt to put up a fight. He hauled himself to his feet and swung his leg over behind me holding on behind him to the cissy bar. I revved up and took us off in fine style, perfectly aware that we were being curiously observed out of the windows by at least a hundred of the six hundred workers at Williams. No doubt this bit of gossip would delightedly do the rounds of certain departments as fast as all the other titbits had…

  Outside his flat I got off the bike, removed my lid, and followed him in without waiting to be asked. I found him standing frozen at the entrance to his living room, staring around him. The place was a complete mess. The whole place had been turned upside down.

  “Shit,” I commented. Then, as he still didn’t speak. “What’s happened here?” Then, when he still didn’t answer me, I asked. “Is there anything missing?”

  That seemed to suddenly galvanise him. He began to search for something. Looked under cushions on the sofa. Pulled stuff up from the floor. Got on his hands and knees.

  “What are you looking for?” I queried calmly.

  He straightened up, still on his knees on the carpet. “My lap top. I left it on the coffee table.” He looked distraught. “All my photos were on it. All the photos of my dad.”

  “But they’re backed up right?” I established, feeling sick on his behalf. “You’ve got them in the cloud somewhere?”

  I saw some of the tension drain out of him. “Yeah, One Drive. Yeah you’re right…”

  “Has anything else gone?” I enquired.

  He checked his bedroom, and then his spare room, both of which were an equal mess, and then the kitchen and bathroom which seemed untouched. Finally he shook his head. “I took my phone with me.”

  I frowned. “There’s your wallet look – on the floor by the sofa. Check it.”

  He did. I spotted quite a wad of notes in there, plus a number of cards.

  “Nothing missing,” he concluded.

  “Don’t you think that’s weird?” I put to him. “They haven’t taken the easy cash or the credit cards, nor anything else of value. You haven’t got any engineering secrets on your laptop from the Williams team have you? No plans for this year’s car upgrades or anything?”

  He stared at me, suddenly frozen again. Then shook his head.

  “You’re certain?”

  “Pretty certain,” he said. “But if it was journalists rather than industrial espionage, then the social and gossip side is just as interesting to them.”

  “Would journalists make this sort of mess?” I observed dubiously.

  He shrugged. “If they wanted to make it look like a regular burglary, maybe?”

  “You need to
report it to the police,” I advised robustly. “And also let Williams know.”

  He nodded.

  “Ring them now,” I ordered.

  The police weren’t in any hurry to come, and we didn’t want to start clearing up till they’d seen it. I went into the kitchen to make us a drink. He asked for apple juice. When I came back out I found him on his knees by the orchid which had been knocked violently off the coffee table and disgorged all its wood chipping type compost in a messy pile on the carpet, its silver roots exposed to the sky and one of its beautiful branches of pure white waxy flowers snapped off and thrown at a distance. Nish was reaching for it, looking as though he might burst into tears.

  “My dad gave me this,” he said with a quiver in his voice. “It was just coming into bud.”

  “Really?” I said with a slight laugh. “The only thing my dad ever gives me is tools and engine parts!”

  I retreated to the kitchen, found a glass tumbler, filled it with water, and carried it back in. I knelt down beside him and took the branch gently from his hands, relocating it into the container and setting it back on the glass top of the coffee table. “It’s ok, see? It’s not dead. It’ll be happy there for ages…” Then I picked up the transparent plastic plant pot and packed the compost back in, before tenderly tucking the plant back into it. A couple of its leaves were ripped, but the other branch of flowers were mercifully still intact and firmly attached. I placed it back on the table. “It’ll live to flower another day,” I promised gently. “Come on now, you need to sleep.” I led the seemingly completely overwhelmed Nish to his bedroom, where he lay obediently down on the bed and immediately blanked out. His eyelids fluttered momentarily and then his breathing deepened into sleep pattern.

  Poor sod, I thought. I knew, in theory, that this guy must have been, very recently, abnormally fit and intensely focussed to have been able to survive the physical and mental extremes of the elite racing circuit. But if I hadn’t known what his history was, right now I wouldn’t have been able to guess it. I wandered into the kitchen to see what there was, food-wise, to provide him something to eat when he woke up.

  I ended up letting the police in myself. One of them opened with, “Nish Gilbraith? Is it the Nish Gilbraith?”

  I nodded. “And since only the laptop has gone, I think he’s wondering if it’s either journalists or industrial espionage.”

  They shrugged.

  I went to wake Nish up, which was quite a task. Finally his hand clenched convulsively round my wrist. “Hey now,” I soothed him. “It’s ok.”

  He blinked in a bewildered way at me. I reminded him about the break-in and the presence of the police and retreated to make some strong coffee all round.

  The police, initially looked as though they felt they should refuse the offer of coffee, but once Nish appeared on the scene and charmed them with ruthless skill, they dropped their show of resistance and sat down. I could see that they were sucked into the glamour of interviewing a racing driver as Nish artfully dropped in some nuggets about the current season that would give them some good anecdotes to take back to impress their colleagues back at the Station. When I remarked humorously on it afterwards, he reminded me that we had to be full time ambassadors for Williams. As an independent team existing only to race, and on a fraction of the budget of the other big names, they not only had to be constantly on the cutting edge of engineering technology, they also needed all the good publicity and local goodwill they could muster. He jerked his head at my clothing. “You’re still in uniform remember? Everyone round here will know what those colours stand for. Be careful what you’re seen doing in it.”

  I glanced down at myself. I’d just thrown my bike leathers over my new uniform. He was right. It was a big responsibility. When three years or so ago the Stewards of the F2 Stocks had ticked me off in a disciplinary and told me I was an ambassador for the sport, both on and off the oval, and I must mend my behaviour accordingly, I hadn’t taken much notice. But now I suddenly got it. Nish was right. I had to be exemplary on this placement. Absolutely trustworthy. I bit my lip. Was I even capable of that?

  He reached out a hand and touched my arm. “Please don’t go,” he said. His big dark eyes were fixed mournfully on my face. “Please stay the night. I don’t want to be alone.”

  I stared at him. Underneath the exquisitely polished mask, his raw vulnerable centre was screaming out at me. I wavered.

  “Spare room,” I established fiercely. “And we don’t let anyone know at work.”

  The tension drained out of him and he nodded. “Spare room,” he agreed.

  More Pit Practice at work. All three positions in swift succession. All up to speed.

  “Good,” Alan announced. Everyone smiled. All afternoon I was instructed on the exact sequence of what went on in the team behind the scenes on a racing weekend. They used the next race at Hockenheim as an example to take me through the process.

  As he hadn’t turned up for his lunchtime run, I thought I’d better call in on Nish on the way home to see how he was doing. There was a car parked outside that I’d never seen before. When I knocked on the door, an extremely beautiful girl answered it, bit younger than myself, with the same creamy coffee coloured skin as Nish and classic features.

  “You must be Eve,” she launched. “I’m Sappho, and no, I’m not!”

  “No, you’re not what?” I echoed bewildered.

  “Gay,” she announced.

  I stared at her and blinked. “Well I’m glad we’ve got that sorted!” I observed sarcastically. Then, “why the hell would I think you were gay?”

  “Because of my name?” Her voice took on that annoying upwards inflection at the end of the sentence, combined with a sort of ‘d-u-r are you thick?’ tone.

  Nish appeared behind her. “Don’t mix her up with someone who’s educated, Sappho!” He advised her with a contemptuous twist of the lips.

  I stared at him, hurt, feeling like I’d just been punched. Coming from him in that tone of voice, it sounded really bitchy.

  “I warned you she was a bit prickly,” he continued. “She’s got a right working class northern chip on her shoulder!”

  Sappho giggled. “Does she say aye and ey oop, and eeh bah gum?

  I glared at her. “I come from Lancashire not Yorkshire, you ignoramus!” I snapped.

  “Ooo, I see what you mean!” Sappho rolled her large, luminous and thickly lashed dark eyes in her brother’s direction. At least, I presumed that’s what the relationship was.

  “She’s says ‘owt’ and ‘nowt’ sometimes as well,” Nish informed her slyly.

  I turned sharply on my heel and stormed off.

  “Oh don’t go, Eve,” Sappho called after me. “We were only joshing with you!”

  I jammed my helmet on and threw my leg over my bike.

  “Now see what you’ve done, Sappho!” Nish chided her.

  I turned my key in the ignition and the bike roared into life and I took it off down the street at an illegal speed, not bothering to even look back in the mirror. Absolutely furious.

  Back in my own flat, I sat and licked my wounds and thought primitively violent thoughts. What a bastard! Last night he was all big eyes, pleading me to stay, letting me cook for him and clean and tidy his whole flat up, and today, back with his own sort, he was showing his true colours. Condescending arrogant posh git! He was just using me like a servant! And didn’t respect me any more than that either…

  I don’t know what woke me in the night, but suddenly I was wide awake with my heart thumping. There’s someone in the flat! I thought. Then I realised I was being stupid. It was just a dream set off by the break in at Nish’s. And then I realised that no, there really was someone in the flat, moving quietly around in the living area. I froze. Quinn? I thought, come in on the way back from some trip and not liking to wake me? But I just knew it wasn’t. Quinn didn’t have a key and I’d definitely locked that door.

  I reached quickly for my phone and without ev
en getting out of bed I dialled 999.

  “They’re right in my living room, I’m on my own and I’ve got no lock on my bedroom door,” I whispered, after giving my name and location and swift details. “What should I do?”

  “Just sit tight. Don’t confront them,” the woman on the other end advised. “And there’s someone on their way…”

  I felt really vulnerable. I was sleeping in just a tee-shirt. So I slipped out of bed and pulled on a pair of jeans, throwing a fleece on over my shirt. I kicked my laptop further under the bed. With Nish’s recent experience fresh in my mind, I’d brought all my electrical things into the bedroom with me. I used the light from my mobile phone screen to search for some socks, and I was just pulling them on so I could get into my trainers, in case I had to run for safety, when the door knob turned on the door of my bedroom. My heart jolted and I straightened up quickly, poised to attack or run or defend myself.

  A male figure was silhouetted against the faint light coming in through the curtains from the street light. We stared at each other then I lifted my phone and pointed it at him. My intent was to shine a light on his face, but I realised afterwards that he must have assumed I was taking a photo and he turned and fled. I ran after him and just caught a glimpse of him slamming out of the front door. I rushed over and yanked it open to see a dark blue Renault 6 screaming off up the street. A couple of minutes later the police arrived. So a fat lot of use they were. I could have been dead or raped now if he hadn’t run off!

  “So you can’t tell us what he looked like, but you can tell us the exact make of his getaway car and the last half of his licence plate?” They summed up suspiciously.

  “I’m a car mechanic not a hair dresser! What do you think I’m most likely to notice?” I retorted impatiently. They were implying I was making the story up for some nefarious reason of my own.