The Way Back

by Dominique Kyle

  “That would be great,” I said, relieved. I didn’t know how to keep it secret any longer from my team at work that I hadn’t actually seen any of the races except for the one I’d attended as a member of the pit team and the highlights on Channel Five.

  They ended up having to watch some film from half way through instead. Any excuse not to have to talk to each other, I guessed.

  When I dished up the meal, Sahmir took one mouthful and said, “Nasim does this one.”

  “Yeah, it’s the showpiece one we both learned from your sister in law, remember?”

  He remembered.

  “So did your dad let your mum watch Nasim’s wedding? Or did you have to secretly stream it for her when your dad was out?” I’d been dying to know this ever since.

  “Actually, I was quite surprised, because he let us all sit around and watch it.”

  “Did he cry?” I asked curiously.

  Sahmir thought about it. “Mum did of course, loads. But Dad might have blown his nose a bit hard a couple of times…”

  I smiled. “She looked so beautiful and happy didn’t she..? Do you think he’ll relent one day? When the grandkids come along?”

  Sahmir looked gloomy. “I thought he might do – but who knows which way he’ll swing once Tariq is out? He may have to keep up appearances…” He looked accusingly across the room at me. “Why aren’t you having to testify?”

  I felt a bit sick all of a sudden and put my fork down on my plate. “I might still have to… They said I might – but they’ve not contacted me so I didn’t even know anything was going on yet.” I thought about it. “Thing is, I wasn’t underage. I was only pretending to be. And he never forced me to do anything against my will, because I chose of my own volition to be there to gather evidence, so it doesn’t count as a crime does it?” I’d witnessed some stuff that others had done in front of me, but they had access to all the footage I’d recorded, didn’t they? Did that count at all in court? I really, really hoped I wouldn’t have to turn up in person.

  Nish was looking in a worried way between us. I wasn’t sure how much Sappho had filled him in on the grooming gang exposé, but he hadn’t interrupted to ask any questions, so I was betting she had.

  I went into my room and gathered a few things up, then told Sahmir to use my bed and let me take the settee.

  “Nish and I are going off to a raceway tomorrow, so if you want a lie in you can stay here as long as you like. Just make sure the door is on the latch before you leave as both Nish and I have had break-ins recently. Unless you want to come with us?”

  Sahmir shook his head. “Don’t know one end of a car from another…”

  After he’d retired, Nish looked at me. “Phew,” he remarked, wiping his brow in comedic exaggeration. “Does anyone ever act normally in your vicinity, Eve? Because everywhere we go you seem to be surrounded by people in the throes of extreme emotion!”

  I sighed. “It’s not my fault!” I exclaimed. Then I frowned. “Or maybe it is?” I sighed again. “It’s just how it is, that’s all…”

  “Are you going to be ok, alone with him?” Nish jerked his head in the direction of the bedroom.

  “Sure,” I said. Then I smiled slightly at him. “But thanks for sticking around and being willing to intervene…”

  After Nish’d left, I put off getting ready for bed, and as I expected, Sahmir almost immediately emerged from my room and sat back down beside me on the settee.

  “Is there anything you want to say without Nish here?” I asked.

  “What part of Pakistan is he from?” He asked curiously.

  I was a bit startled as to how he’d managed to suss that Nish was part Pakistani, rather than any one of the other regional areas that could cause him to look how he did – India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, or even Mauritius or Turkey or Egypt – the potential list was endless.

  I shrugged. “It’s only his mother, and if he knows much about it he’s not saying…”

  Sahmir leant back into the settee and sighed. “I guess I was just wanting to make you feel really guilty that you’d exploded this bomb in our town and then disappeared off leaving the rest of us to pick up the pieces.”

  “I’m sorry, Sahmir, I really am,” I sat limply on the settee beside him. “I don’t know how to make it up to you. I didn’t want to leave. I cried when Paul told me I had to go. But Mohammed was threatening me, and stalking me, and following me in his car, and then he had the stables at the Satterthwaite’s bombed and one of Jo’s mother’s most valuable horses died horribly in the fire. Then Paul just walked in and said he’d arranged for me to go to Ferrari in Italy. I tried to refuse but I wasn’t given any choice in the matter. They sent me away and that was that.” I whisked a tear away from my eye. And I’d been in exile ever since.

  “I didn’t know all that stuff about bombs and the horse and the threats,” Sahmir admitted. His eyes as they met mine held a background of fear.

  “I don’t think they’ll attack your family…” I tried to comfort him. “Because of Tariq. But I really think that you yourself should leave the area as soon as the trial is over. I know it’s scary and miserable,” I said sympathetically. “But it’s done me the world of good, and Nasim’s managed to do it, and so has Jamie. So just bite the bullet and turn it into a positive.”

  I felt quite a lot different about Nish when I saw him the next day. He had shown a lot of skill in his management of Sahmir last night. And I’d felt really confident that he could handle the situation for me if it came to it. And he’d not baulked for even a second to step in and sort things out.

  “Everything go ok overnight?” He checked.

  “Yep, thanks. He wasn’t up when I left,” I reported, “but I think he’ll be ok.”

  We chatted more than usual on our way there.

  “So there’s you and your younger sister,” I prompted. “Any others?”

  “My older brother – Roderick,” he revealed.

  “Anish, Sappho and Roderick?” I exclaimed. “How did that happen?”

  He didn’t seem to think it was odd. “The eldest son always gets called after the grandfather,” he explained. “So the names of the eldest alternate between Roderick and David.”

  “Pardon me if in my opinion your dad got the better part of that lottery!” I observed sarcastically. “And who are you named after?”

  “My mother’s father.”

  “And Sappho?”

  “A famous first century lesbian poet,” he said without batting an eyelid.

  Well that explained her opening remarks to me I guess… “Why, for goodness sake?” I asked incredulously, “What was wrong with your grandmother’s name?”

  “Fatima,” Nish summed up succinctly. “They didn’t think it would play well for her at an English school…”

  “But they thought a dead lesbian poet was a better idea?” I marvelled.

  Nish shrugged. “It’s just that Dad’s favourite dog when he was a child was called ‘Sappho’.”

  Well! That said it all really. Names his sons after their grandfathers and his daughter after a dog! If his father wasn’t so recently dead I’d have something a bit pithy to say about that!

  The Beast wasn’t there when we arrived so while Nish went off on a curious wander around, I headed for Rob Rudd in the F1 section of the pits.

  He smiled up at me from his position crouched by his car. “How’s life with the avocado eaters?”

  “Improving,” I said. “Nish has tagged along again – any motorsport in a storm I guess. But I’m worried he’ll forget where he is and knacker the engine…”

  Rob laughed. “If I had a spare F1 lying around I’d gladly loan it to him, he’d feel more at home – but unfortunately I don’t!”

  I suddenly noticed something on his left ring finger. I stared at it. Yes it definitely was! “When did that happen?” I exclaimed astounded. “You never mentioned that you were getting married!”

  He grinned. “You needn’t sound so insult
ingly gobsmacked that someone would have me!”

  “I didn’t think you were the marriage and babies sort…” I said.

  “Who mentioned babies?” Rob dismissed.

  “How old is she?” I asked nosily. I had no idea how old Rob was, but he was quite a bit older than Tyler.

  “Thirty-seven,” he informed me.

  I looked meaningfully at him.

  He sat back on his heels. “Ok, so maybe there’ll have to be babies.”

  “Pronto,” I agreed.

  “So I’m thinking of retiring in the next couple of years,” he admitted. “Don’t look so betrayed!” He added with a slight smile. He stood up. “I’d had a fancy to ask you to make three identical cars and then I’d have come back and driven against you and Paul for a season, just for the fun of it, but I guess that’s off the agenda now you’ve got another race calendar ruling your life?”

  It was flattering that he’d even considered it.

  “That would have been great,” I agreed rather wistfully. “But right now I don’t know what I’ll be doing next year. There’s no guarantee I’ll be employed by Williams at the end of my internship.”

  “I had another thought too,” he said. “I’m not necessarily intending to immediately sell my cars, so I could loan them to you for a season if you want to move up and try your luck with the big boys. I wouldn’t mind starting out by supporting you until you got your own team trained up…”

  He smiled as he watched my face. “You’re trying to look cool but your eyes are betraying you, Eve!” He glanced across to somewhere on our left. “And for God’s sake don’t hug me! Lynn’s watching and I haven’t broken that latest idea yet!” He jerked his head. “Off you go, Posh Boy’s moseying back and Jo’s just turning in. But don’t forget. I’ll do one more season and then the cars will be available for a year, so you’ve time to sort yourself out by then.” He turned away so I couldn’t thank him.

  I threw my arms round Jo. “You’ll never believe what Rob’s just offered me!” She looked a bit shocked when I told her.

  “Sounds good to me!”

  I turned swiftly round. Tony was standing there. I shrieked and hugged him too. He smiled. “I believe we have you to thank for finding us a temporary worker!” Tony worked at my old garage, Entwistle’s, alongside Jo. And I knew he sometimes came along with Jo to support her at the race days.

  “Quinn?” I interpreted. “How’s he doing?”

  “He’s doing great,” Jo reported. “He gets right on with it, doesn’t need telling anything, and gets it done really fast. Unlike you,” she added dryly, “if you don’t stop yakking and get these unloaded.” She glanced at her watch. “There was a big accident on the motorway southbound and it really held us up.”

  We started unloading the two cars. She’d brought Pete’s along. She shrugged. “He didn’t seem that bothered. Said you might as well get some use out of it…”

  Nish and I were in different heats. He qualified for the Final in seventh place. I high-fived him. “Congratulations! That’s the first time you’ve got through without having to go to the Consolation…”

  He smiled and looked as though he was actually enjoying himself for once. “This is more like it!”

  “By that, I suppose you mean you put your foot down from the front and hardly anyone could go fast enough to give you a shove?”

  His eyes lidded at me.

  “That’s a good car you’ve got there. It’s won four or five world championships and it used to be mine, so it’s no wonder you’re doing better…” I glanced at Jo. “I’ll be aiming for about seventh myself. No point in pushing it in the heat. There’s no advantage to coming first when I’m not chasing points. I only have to qualify.” I got in and drove a conservative race. No, I was saving my engine and tyres for the race against Nish in the Final. That should be fun.

  “I might not even catch up with you from right at the back on this track,” I warned him as we pulled on our balaclavas, helmets and gloves. Jo had kindly brought all Pete’s stuff along for him, which was a much better fit than what we’d been trying to shoe-horn him into before. “But if I do, I’ll line up with you and race you?”

  He grinned.

  “Just don’t blow that engine up!” I reminded him.

  I had to manage it all carefully. Push without overdoing it. I got to him three laps from the end. I managed to nudge him over so I was on the inside. A bit of a tap at the right angle did it. We glanced at each other and then we were off! Damn! What I’d give for a V8 engine now! Just before the race, Tony had whispered to me that he’d used a few of the hints off Rudd to tune my engine perfectly, so it might all hang on what condition Pete had left his own in… With our engines screaming on the edge of survival we fought for the lead. At the end it all hung on my greater experience of the format. An engine blew up big time in the car that was just ahead of us. I headed straight at the still juddering, slewing sideways vehicle, and hoofed it out of my way into Nish’s trajectory. He didn’t have the nerve to kick it out of his way, so instead had to swerve out to get round it. We came under the chequered flag in first and second position. I was laughing.

  We drove back to the pits, smiling, and hauled ourselves out alongside the Beast. “Congratulations on your first F2 Stocks podium,” I greeted him.

  “You are evil!” He accused me. “That was deliberate sabotage!”

  I laughed. “It’s all legitimate tactics in this format, Nish! You have to think like a chess player… You should have just gone for it and bashed it out of your way!”

  He pulled his balaclava off and scuffed a hand through his flattened short dark curls to straighten them out. “I’m a nervous wreck now!” He remarked.

  “No, you’re not,” I said robustly. “You’re just annoyed you didn’t have the guts to try a nerf!”

  We had a re-match in the National. I chose not to take the full lap handicap as I wasn’t interested in getting double points. I just needed to catch up with Nish again.

  I only just did it. He really went for it this time. But he’d been hard on the tyres over the past two races and was beginning to drop back. He wove around in front of me to block me getting past. I figured he’d probably not know about the ghost push. So I gently got my front bumper onto the left hand side of his back bumper and gradually built up the pressure so he wouldn’t notice and then on the bend he was sent sailing out towards the Armco safety fence. He pulled it back in, but in doing so got in the way of Devlin who was dead set on a podium position, chasing the Silver roof as always. Devlin dealt with him ruthlessly and he was thrown so far out that by the time he got back onto the accelerator he trailed in seventh.

  “Damn!” He said, pulling off his helmet and gloves back in the pits.

  “You still achieved some points,” I reminded him.

  “No, I meant, damn you’re good! How’d you do that?” He marvelled.

  I smiled slowly at him.

  “You are so going to be answering some questions on the way home!” He told me. “I clearly need to have some tutelage on manoeuvres and tactics.”

  “The main thing you need to get your head around is that you’re not going at two hundred and thirty K and that you’re not going to die horribly if you thump your bumper against someone else’s!” I suggested. “You don’t have to desperately avoid touching anything in this format – that’s what all the bumpers, nerf bars and armouring is for…”

  He laughed ruefully. “Dad was such a purist! If he could see me now..!”

  I thought that was a good sign. He’d mentioned his dad quite casually and without his body going all rigid and his face setting like stone.

  He asked me a few questions on the way home then fell silent. So I thought I’d bring up my own topic.

  “It’s never seemed to occur to you to inquire as to whether I was on contraception that night,” I remarked suddenly.

  His head turned sharply and I sensed him tensing. “Hell, you’re not..?”

 
“It would serve you damn well right if I was,” I said tersely. “But no, I’m not pregnant.”

  “I never even thought about it,” he admitted apologetically.

  “Well, you ought to think about it before sleeping with a girl,” I rebuked sharply. “You can’t assume things like that. You’re the one who’ll get lumbered with maintenance for the rest of your life so you ought to show a bit of interest in the subject! But as it happens I went on the pill last year when I was worried about the possibility of getting raped, and it seemed more sensible to stay on it and not keep stop/starting.”

  “Right,” he said awkwardly. He stared out of the window for a bit. “Sorry,” he added as a tardy afterthought.

  And that put paid to any further conversation.

  At work it was manic. Last week I’d helped the team in the Race Bay take the two returning cars apart and strip them down to their component parts. And then I’d been sent following the parts round as they got tested and checked. And ever since then, I’d been shadowing the replacement parts as they were made. I got to watch another couple of carbon fibre wings being made in the Composites and Autoclaves department. First the milling machine carved out the shape on a pattern board, then a mould was produced from it. Next all the different shaped carbon fibre sheets were cut out by an automated machine cutter. Then each one was skilfully layered over the mould at different angles by a highly trained human being to vary which way the grain ran to increase the material strength. Finally, it was vacuum packed to suck the layers of carbon fibre tightly against the mould, before being put into the chambers of the Autoclaves with their 10 cm thick steel doors to be slow cooked at high pressure. Even then they weren’t finished. Each front wing was made up of 45 separate carbon fibre pieces which then needed to be fitted together like a complicate jigsaw, bonded, dried, cleaned and checked.