“What for racing?” I queried.
“No, for coming out racing after what’s just happened. It must be absolutely awful having to face everyone!”
“Is that a question?” I established cautiously.
She got all embarrassed and tangled up. “No, it’s just what I think. I think you’re amazing – I hope you do really well. That guy was a total shithead! Um it’s just that my boss wants some sort of scoop and I think it’s awful and I don’t know what to ask you cos I think it’s wrong to go after you like that.”
I thought about it for a bit. What would Chetsi advise? “Ok, let’s sit down and write something together. Something that’s out there enough for your boss but which I don’t mind being reported. In fact, let’s be a bit controversial shall we?”
Jo instantly looked nervous.
Jo dropped me back at my flat. “See you at work tomorrow. Do you think they’ll print it?”
“Must be the most Scoopy thing they’ve had for ages,” I said. “We’ll see…”
When I walked into the flat, Kes and Quinn both looked up and rather touchingly, both their faces lit up, and they both came and hugged me.
When I was sat on the settee with my feet up, Quinn came and sat beside me and said, “I knew from the start he was a complete tosser. I’m glad I smashed his face in.”
“Yeah, well done,” Kes congratulated him. “I only got the boot in on him a couple of times…”
“Thanks Guys,” I drawled. “Much appreciated!”
“Shit those photos were awful,” Kes said. I found myself tensing at his reference to them and felt angry for him bringing them up. But then he continued, “I just keep thinking that it’s going to be my genitalia that’s plastered next all over the press.” I saw the extreme strain in his eyes. Yes, to be fair – a lot of people already, myself and Quinn and Kathleen included had seen rather more than we wanted to of his genitalia. Not to mention all the Satterthwaite family. Not that he knew about the latter.
“They’ll stick some stars suggestively all over them,” I said morosely. “But not so large that you can’t work out what’s underneath…”
“That’s what you should have done Kes!” Quinn suggested helpfully. “Got some tattoos of stars all over it to save them the trouble!”
Kes threw something at him, but I could see from his face that the long period of suspense waiting for the axe to fall was killing him.
I got into work a bit early – Quinn had given me a lift in as I still had to pick up my bike from Chetsi’s. By the time everyone came in, I was already bending over something.
“These part-timers!” Dewhurst scoffed. Good, he was taking the ‘just act like normal’ instruction seriously.
If the general hilarity by lunchtime seemed a touch hysterical due to over-compensation then never mind. We’d all be back to normal soon.
“You know what Quinn told me yesterday,” I said to Jo. “He said that last Thursday morning the boss of their sector called the whole shift into the office and said, ‘Did you see Thrills and Spills last night?’ And of course everyone there follows it. And he gave them a big warning that if he finds out that any similar sort of bullying is going on in the workplace there then the culprit will be instantly sacked, because he didn’t want to hear some young woman, or ethnic minority person, or gay bloke ever reporting that anything like that had ever happened to them within the RAC. And then he said that if anyone knew that it was happening they should report it straight away and it would be taken seriously. And when Quinn hung around after to ask why he’d done it, the boss said that his wife had turned to him and said, ‘I hope none of that sort of thing is going on at your workplace’ and when he said ‘of course not’ she’d said, ‘but how can you be sure?’”
Jo raised her eyebrows. “Well maybe some good will come out of it all then…”
On Tuesday night when I got home from work I found an email from the Sheffield reporter with a link to the online version of the article that had been printed in the paper version today.
‘Eve McGinty, star of ITV’s Thrills and Spills was racing at the Startrax Oval at the Owlerton Stadium this Sunday blah blah blah’(there was a nice photo of me sitting on the bonnet of my car looking into the middle distance).
‘When I asked her about the harrowing rape that she suffered last year at the hands of a male work colleague which seemed to be at least partially egged on by the misogynistic culture of the all male workforce at her garage she had this to say:
”This is the sort of thing that men have done to women for centuries – if they can’t find any other way to keep them down, they rape them. I’m not unique – unfortunately what happened to me isn’t even unusual - there are thousands of women out there that this has happened to. Until prime time TV decided they were going to broadcast my story only three people in the world knew what had happened to me – plus the perpetrator. So there will have been thousands of men out there watching their TV screens, disapprovingly tut-tutting, and they will have no idea that the woman sitting next to them on the sofa has had exactly the same thing happen to them. And why is that? Because men have invented the crime, they perpetrate the crime and then they inflict the shame that you’re supposed to feel as a result of the crime. My friend told us on an earlier episode of Thrills and Spills of the history of her family, where the fathers and brothers during Partition in India, would rather kill their own wives and daughters than have them raped, and would shun as an outcast any unfortunate girl who was a victim of this same crime, while at the same time they committed the same act against the females of the opposing side! Rape has been used as a weapon of war as long as men have been around and imposition of shame has been used as a punishment against the women who have suffered it.
Well I am not ashamed. Why should I be? The person who let themselves and all humanity down is the guy who did it to me. For two days now, no-one has spoken to me – there’s been a magic invisible ring around me like I’m a leper – well tough everybody! Sorry if it offends you that I’m carrying on as normal. Being raped is not the defining fact about me. I’m not going to crawl away in the corner and hang my head like I’ve done something wrong just because I was born with a double X chromosome and someone physically stronger than me has taken advantage of that.
It is still true that most men are physically stronger than most women. So I’m lucky to live in the twentieth century in the West. I have the pill so I don’t have to have a baby every year, and I can get into a machine with an engine that means I have exactly equal power at my disposal to the man in the vehicle lined up right next to me. Everything is equal in the modern world, it’s just that not everyone has realised that yet.”’
I was impressed. She’d done a really good job. I asked Quinn to drop me round at Chetsi’s. I rang the doorbell.
“I’ve come to pick up my bike,” I said. “And to show you this – I hope you’ll approve.” I handed her my tablet at the beginning of the article.
She sat down and read it very seriously, scrolling slowly through. “Phew – fighting talk Eve! They’ll be having you guesting on feminist discussions on Woman’s Hour next!”
“Nah,” I said. “I’m sticking to racing. Got to win some titles off those men.”
Next day all the headlines were ‘Eve declares “I am not ashamed”’. Toby rang me up to say that the link to the article was trending on twitter and the newspaper article had already had over 100,000 hits. I hoped that meant that it qualified as a Scoop for Nicky…
On the programme that night they said something like, “Number 768 Eve McGinty returned with a vengeance to the racetrack this weekend. She struck like lightning and then she left. When asked by a local reporter how it felt to be back racing again she said this:”
And they basically got someone to read out the last two paragraphs of the text starting ‘For two days now, no-one has spoken to me – there’s been a magic invisible ring around me’, while inserting ‘I am not ashamed. Why should I
be?’ after the line ‘Sorry if it offends you that I’m carrying on as normal.’
It sounded pretty good actually. And by missing out the first part of the rant, it made me seem much less like I had a bad case of misandry. (I had to look it up. Chetsi told me what it meant but I didn’t know how to spell it – it rather delighted me that there was an equivalent opposite word to misogyny.)
Other than that, they left me alone.
Jo sat down and talked to me at work. “You realise that the races you’re booked into this weekend are both down south don’t you?” She said.
I took a deep breath. I guessed what was coming.
“So we have to all go down together in the Beast and sleep overnight in it?”
I nodded.
“So will you survive that do you think?” Jo asked.
“I’ll have to, won’t I? We can’t carry on like this forever can we?”
“True,” Jo agreed practically. “So you can sit in the back seat on the journeys, and share a mattress with me, so it won’t be too bad. I won’t leave you on your own with him ever.”
“Ok,” I said.
We left on Friday evening and slept over half way down. I slept in a sleeping bag next to Jo and that was fine. Nobody talked much.
These two meets were big on the circuit. A World Qualifier on the Saturday. Drivers over from Ireland. All the big boys. And I’d never raced here before. I didn’t expect to make a good showing, but I’d just go for it. I had a really good car. Now I just had to drive it well. Quinn was there. He bounced up to me and gave me a twirl. “Fun isn’t it?” He said enthusiastically. He was right, there was some real atmosphere and tension. The music was loud, the crowd eager. His excitement communicated to me. Yes, just have fun. That’s what it was all about. If you lost the enjoyment then what was the point?
I came back to pits, smiling.
“What?” Jo said.
“Quinn’s so excited he’s skipping around like a puppy.”
I saw Pete glance up. We were sharing a pit space. Actually, at a big intimidating meet like this, it felt good to have the protection of the men again. With the men back with us, everyone was stopping to chat as they passed. Mostly to Paul and Pete, but a friendly word to us too. I could see Jo was also more relaxed. But I knew we’d both try not to admit that to each other.
I was in the second heat, with Tyler, Horrocks, one of the Irish guys, lots of top talent. As Tyler went to come by, I got in his way. He nudged me in a certain forbearing kind of way to give me a chance to back down. I didn’t back down. I put my foot down, but didn’t get out of the way. I hoofed someone out of the way ahead and into his path. He swerved round. I screamed tightly round the corner whisked past the start of a pile up, and got tight back in again. He went to pass on the outside, I speeded up and drifted out just wide enough to get in his way again. The silver roof, Horrocks started bashing him from behind. I shot off before Tyler could be cannoned into me by Horrocks and I continued bumping everyone out of the way ahead. Behind me the situation had resolved into the Silver falling back due to a tangle up and Tyler was after me again. Finally it became myself, Tyler, Horrocks, the Irish guy and a previous European Champion all shafting each other in turn with various changes in fortune right up until the last lap. The European spun the Irish guy out of contention. Horrocks and Tyler, Silver and Gold, were battling it out. Then the previous European came after me. I nipped through the tiniest of gaps on the inside up one of the straights as Tyler was attacking Horrocks and they left some unwise space in the process. So the ex-European went to take them both out at once and misjudged it. Wheels locked, Horrocks shot up into the air and landed just ahead of Tyler and they all ended up in a pile while I sailed along the last half a lap and passed the chequered flag with hardly anyone even in my mirror.
“Well!” Paul said with a raise of the eyebrows.
“Gobsmacking,” Jo commented.
Pete smiled.
“I didn’t win that,” I said, pulling off my gloves. “They just combined to lose it, idiots…”
“Your driving’s come on in leaps and bounds,” Paul said approvingly. I’d forgotten that the men hadn’t seen me drive for ages, apart from straight at a gate.
“Now I’ll be put way to the back,” I said glumly. “And they’ll all be out to target me early on this time.”
“That’s the Stocks,” Paul agreed. “A lot of luck involved, even in the best races and even for the best drivers.”
Quinn and Pete both made it into the Final. So we were all there. Quinn and Pete both just let me pass. Unnecessary chivalry I thought, I wouldn’t have let them pass. Horrocks pulled over to the infield after only three laps due to damage acquired in his salmon leap in the heat, but not before he’d leaked a huge amount of oil over the track. From there on in, carnage commenced. I concentrated on skidding round and keeping control, and avoiding successive pile ups. This track was famous for the sparing use of yellow flags so cars were busy backing and forwarding trying to extricate themselves, as the rest of us clogged up trying to get past. Tyler passed me as I executed a huge swerve to avoid another car heading off for the infield. So I shot after him. Bash, bash, bash. He’d was heaving the cars ahead of him to one side often into my way and then I’d just heave them off the other way. The current and the previous European Champion were targeting each other as old rivals. I was vaguely aware that Quinn had ended up on the infield. I caught Tyler up as he had to slow for some damaged car making its way off. And I took my opportunity and slammed him out of the way at full force. He came after me, got in a contretemps with another superstar regional title holder, came after me again, bashed, but not effectively enough and I screamed through to the chequered flag a bonnet length ahead of him.
Tyler drew his car up beside me. “You’re driving very aggressively all of a sudden.” He commented.
“Would you still call it aggressive if it was Horrocks sitting here?” I queried.
He rested his elbow casually out the window and looked narrowly at me. “Well I might still categorise it as aggressive, but I guess I wouldn’t think it worthy of comment.”
“Well it was yourself that indicated I needed to be more – (I made a deep barking noise) – than yip yip – (I made a yappy terrier impression).”
He gave a wry smile. “Think I’d better start keeping my big mouth shut, hadn’t I?”
I smiled sweetly at him, and drove off.
Paul was grinning his head off when I got back. So was Jo.
“I think you did actually win that one,” Paul encouraged me.
“He’ll be regretting selling you that car soon,” Jo put in. “Let alone telling you the secrets of how to tune it up…”
“Think I’ve knackered something,” Pete said as he arrived back. “I kept going through the flag, but I should have pulled up a couple of laps earlier. I’ll be skipping the National.”
“And I’ll have the full lap handicap, so no chance!” I said.
“Oh yeah, well done Eve!” Pete congratulated. He held up his hand for a high five just like he used to. It would have been churlish to have spurned it so after a millisecond’s pause I raised my palm briefly to his but he’d seen my face change, and for a split second I saw a deep pain run jaggedly into his eyes. I turned sharply away.
With the chance of double points if I got placed in the Grand National, I wasn’t about to go mental proving my metal. Better to drive a bit more conservatively than get spun out by vengeful superstars targeting me. I bashed myself through, or sometimes got respectfully let through by lower grades, and got myself into a good safe position, out of a wrestling scrum in front and a jostling crowd behind to be best poised for the last couple of laps. They’d cleaned up the oil, so the surface was better. I never quite caught up Tyler, and although I could have tried harder, I knew it was politic not to. He’d issued his tacit warning, and if I passed him he’d be like a great white shark attacking, and I’d be spun out to teach me a lesson. Hmm, that’s where
the psychology of the racing came in. Would I ever intimidate him into keeping behind me? Did it mean he was winning the war right now, or was I making a clever tactical decision? I wasn’t quite sure. I rolled home in third place with hardly a tangle with anyone.
“That was a very different race,” Paul observed.
“I thought it best,” I said. “You know, with all the big egos around. Play meek and mild and arrive home in one piece.”
“You should flutter your eyelashes as you say that,” Jo observed cynically.
“Hmm,” Paul said. “You’re good at keeping your head, I’ll say that for you…”
We got into the Beast and headed off even further south and parked up short of our target in a lovely old fishing town on the coast. It was late, but an Indian take away was still serving, so we took it down onto the shingled beach in the moonlight and sat with our backs against the concrete sea wall and ate it there, chatting idly about the day and catching each other up on gossip that we’d gleaned.
Jo got up. “I’m knackered. I’m turning in.” I knew she was on her period and was feeling rather wilted.
A few minutes later, Paul got up and wandered off down the beach along the water’s edge. That left just me and Pete, so I started gathering up the plastic containers to use as an excuse to escape.
“I’m sorry Eve,” Pete said, reaching a hand out to stop me leaving.
I stopped, motionless. “Sorry for what exactly? What you did, who you did it with, or the way you did it?”
“All of them I suppose,” he said miserably.
“I trusted you Pete,” I launched. “You were the only person I’ve ever trusted!” I struggled to hold it back but broke into racking sobs.
Paul walked discreetly away even further down the beach.
“I’m sorry Eve,” Pete said in desperate tones. “I’m really, really, sorry.” He tried to put his arms around me but I threw him off.
Thrills and Spills (Not Quite Eden Book 3) Page 27
