“Thanks Rob,” I said, nudging his arm.
He glanced sideways at me and said nothing.
“So are you ok?” Quinn said. “And what the hell is Heather Holt doing here? Don’t tell me she’s one of them too?”
“No, her friend took her along to a dodgy party where she passed out and woke up in a car with several strange men and two other girls and was driven up here. She was nearly hysterical by the time I saw her,” I reported.
“I’m not surprised!” Quinn was looking horrified. “Her Dad’ll have something to say about that!”
“It was when I saw her that I pressed the button,” I said. “I realised that I wouldn’t be able to keep her safe for long. They were coming in and taking girls two at a time. There were nine of us when we started. I managed to stop them taking Heather the first time, but I figured they’d soon think up something else for her to do…”
“How did you stop them?” Rob asked curiously,
“Oh well-” I started to get all coy and then I exclaimed, “Oh what the hell, you’re both adults! Basically I opened up a vein in my arm and bled all over her underwear and then later on I showed her knickers to them and told them she was on her period, so they backed off.”
“God Ginty,” Quinn grimaced in distaste.
“And then they didn’t fancy me as first choice as my arm was a bit of a mess, so I got put back in the room for a while. But basically, the girls told me that they generally get kept there for several days to service guys who like the weird stuff, so I knew we wouldn’t be able to keep them off for long cos they don’t sound fussy.”
“Shit Ginty, I’m glad we were on a night shift! Imagine if I hadn’t seen it until the morning? We couldn’t have got there until lunch time!”
“I thought you’d just ring the police,” I said.
“And tell them what?” Quinn said sarcastically. “I can’t see them taking it seriously. They’d probably think it was a wind-up!”
“Yeah, see your point…” I agreed. I looked at my watch. “Quarter past six.” I sighed. “I’m waiting for seven to ring Jo. At about that time she’ll wake up and start going ballistic when she finds I’m not in the next room and nor am I up at the Satterthwaites’ waiting for her at the car. Not looking forward to that one!”
Finally Quinn nudged me and handed me his phone. “Seven o’clock,” he said helpfully. He’d even retrieved her number from his address book.
Her reaction was as might be expected. Quinn bit his lip trying not to laugh as I held the phone away from my ear for a minute or so.
“Jo, calm down. It just means I’ve got to make my own way there. You take everything down to Bristol. It’s all there, we double checked and packed it last night. And bring me some clothes will you? Yep, honestly Jo, I’ll be there. Um… well, look, can you leave the keys in the ignition of the spare car? I’ll use that. I reckon I’ll be able to pick the car up there about-” I glanced at the men queryingly.
“Nine,” Rob supplied.
Shit. “Nine,” I said, trying to sound insouciant. “Yeah, yeah I know the race starts at one, Jo. Yes I know it can sometimes take nearly four hours to get there so you just need to have everything ready to go and I’ll leap in… Trust me! Yes, I promise. Yes. Yes. No, I’m passing Penrith right now. No, I haven’t been in Penrith, I’ve been in Glasgow. No, I didn’t plan to be in Glasgow, no sane person would plan to be in Glasgow at five am on the day of the Final! Right yeah ta very much Jo.” Quinn laughed as he guessed what sort of answer she’d given to that last remark. I sighed and ended the call. “God, I’m exhausted already, imagine what she’s going to be like when I actually get there!”
“Don’t worry, Ginty, I’ll drive you down,” Quinn offered. “We can go and pick my car up when we drop Heather home.”
“What that rackety old thing?” Rob dismissed. “It’ll be a case of RAC man mend thyself before you get to Bristol! We’ll take my car.”
“Thank you both,” I said gratefully.
“You need to get some kip,” Rob suggested. “It’ll be at least another hour now, and then four hours down to Bristol. You can lie down on the back seat as we drive down.”
It was completely beyond me to sleep at the moment, but I knew he was right.
Gemma had come round by the time we hit town, so we turfed them both out at the town centre MacDonalds, and at my prompting, Quinn gave Heather some money to buy themselves some breakfast and get a bus home.
“It’s up to her whether she tells her Dad,” I said to Quinn, “so don’t make any gaffs next time you see him will you?”
We shot round the ring road out to Rob’s and he parked the van up outside his house. On the drive was a rather luscious Hyundai Genesis Coupe. Rob allowed us two minutes to gallop in and use his loo and then he insisted we were away. “Saturday traffic and we’ve got to get past Birmingham at peak time,” he reminded us.
I got into the back seat. “Don’t get any speeding tickets will you Rob?”
He glanced in the mirror with a steely gaze. “I don’t put up with back seat drivers,” he warned me.
I laughed and lay down as instructed, curling up against the seat. “Racing drivers huh?” I murmured. I didn’t think I’d manage to sleep, but I was spark out before we’d even got onto the motorway.
I woke up when we were nearly there and looked at my watch. Twenty past twelve. “How long away are we?” I asked.
“Thirty five minutes,” Rob said grimly.
“It was backed up right past Birmingham,” Quinn said. “Bloody football match.”
“I’d better ring Jo,” I said.
Quinn handed me his phone.
“Yeah Jo, honestly – I’m nearly there. But I’m going to have to just get straight into the car. If you need any help remember all the guys from work are there. They’ll muck in to change the tyres if you think it’s too dry for the wet weather set up. And Tony knows his way around the engine now. Even Entwistle might actually remember which way up to hold a spanner. No, don’t tell him I said that! Yes, yes, well I don’t know, Jo, do I? I’m not there! I can’t tell from here how the track looks! It’s no use asking your Dad, he’ll just give you an enigmatic sphynx-like smile, but Pete’ll give you an opinion. Or failing that for some reason, go to Horrocks. Yes of course he’ll help you. He’s a real sweetie. But I’m sure Pete will too… Yep, not far now Jo. Honestly, yes, I promise. Have my driving clothes ready will you? I’ll have to change into them as soon as I get there.” I handed the phone back to Quinn.
“Honestly,” I exclaimed. “It’s not like Jo to go to pieces!”
“She doesn’t want to have the responsibility for the set up,” Quinn said, glancing round at me.
Rob looked in the mirror at me. “Horrocks is such a sweetie,” he mocked. “Thus you see, Quinn, how the female sex winds us around their little finger…”
“Oh God Rob, I need to pee,” I said suddenly.
“No time,” he said brutally.
“I need to pee. I need to pee!” I insisted. “And when we get there there’ll be a horrendous queue at the ladies, there always is!”
“Can’t you go into a bottle or something?” He complained.
“Wrong plumbing!” Quinn reminded him. “Actually Rob, I need to pee too, and she’s right, there won’t be time when we get there…”
Rob swore and pulled over into a farmer’s gate. I leapt out.
On the other side of the hedge I could hear Rob saying to Quinn as they both stood and pissed, “Any woman who can vault a gate like that in those heels, really needs to pee!”
“I can hear you, you know!” I shouted.
Luckily, most of the spectators had already arrived, so we weren’t held up by a queue to turn into the Raceway. The skies were overcast, so I could see why Jo had been in a quandary. Rob went to pull up in the carpark but I said fiercely, “If you think I’m teetering through those pits in these heels…”
He grinned, wound his window down and jammed h
is hand on his horn. “Make way for the National Points Champion! Silver roof coming through!” Everyone leapt out of the way and he snailed us steadily towards our place in the pits.
“There she is!” Quinn spotted Jo first.
Rob drew up and squeezed the car in alongside Jo’s. Quinn and Rob half opened the doors and slid their way out in the limited space and pulled the seat forward to let me leap out.
“Thank God for that!” Jo exclaimed. I’d never seen her so stressed. Tony was there, so she’d obviously asked for some support. Paul and Pete looked round in relief.
“I wasn’t going to do a Tyler on you guys!” I said. I glanced at my watch. Seven minutes to. Jo handed me my overalls. I ripped off my cardigan and top and wriggled out of my skirt while a gobsmacked Paul and Pete looked on and a host of catcalls began from all the other drivers as I was revealed in my lacy underwear and red heels. I realised I was going to have to bend over to put the overalls on, and I really had no idea exactly how much a thong covered, so I reckoned it was best to point my butt in Pete’s direction. Unfortunately Paul also happened to be standing beside him. But hey, he was an adult. He’d have to cope. Rob and Quinn grinned appreciatively, and as the wolf whistles echoed from round about, I showed everyone a middle finger.
“Have you brought me some trainers along?” I asked Jo.
“Why would I bring you trainers along?” Jo asked blankly.
I stared at her. “I asked you to bring me some clothes along…”
“I thought you meant your driving gear. It never occurred to me that you’d turn up in those ridiculous things!”
“Oh God,” I groaned, looking down at my stilettos.
“What size are you?” She ascertained.
“Five,” I said.
I could see she was stumped. “I’m size seven,” she said. “And even Cody’s a six…”
“I’m size eleven,” Quinn put in helpfully.
“Oh shut up!” I said. I looked at her feet. “Cody’s not here Jo, so it’ll have to be yours…”
She stared at me. “And I’m supposed to..?”
“Suddenly find a previously unsuspected vocation as a hippy chick for the next hour or so,” I said firmly.
“Oh for God’s sake!” She snapped, bent down and untied her shoelaces. She threw her trainers at me and stood in the mud in her socks. Then she hurled my gloves, balaclava and helmet at me. Quinn held my helmet for me as I pulled the balaclava on. Everyone was getting into their cars and driving out to line up in front of the gate. I suddenly realised I still had the bloody earrings on as they got caught up in my balaclava. I pulled them out and handed them to Quinn.
“Guard these with your life!” I ordered. Then I looked down at my watch. I realised it could get smashed if I had a crash, so I took it off and handed it to Rob. “Please look after this for me?”
“Toss the shoes in will you,” Quinn urged with a grin. “And then I can watch them twirling round and round in a circle on my phone.”
“You’re s’posed to be watching me, not your bloody phone!” I said. “And there’s bound to be a rule against it!”
“There’s no way it’ll have ever occurred to them to make up a rule about not having a pair of stilettos in the cab!” He teased. He picked up the shoes and tossed them in behind the seat. “For luck!” He said.
I didn’t have time to argue with him or scramble around trying to fish them out. I jammed on my helmet, pulled on my gloves, and inserted myself through the window. Then I started the ignition. Rob thumped the roof. “Off you go!”
“Remind me which grid position I’m on?” I said to Jo.
She rolled her eyes. “Honestly Eve, inside, third row. Like you didn’t carefully orchestrate it!”
I joined the end of the line filing into the oval.
It took a while for us to get sorted. We were all driving round and edging into our correct grid positions. The commentator was Steve himself, and he was introducing us all and giving a huge build up. Mendips insisted on having that bloody annoying pace car that had better darn well get out of the way swiftly enough today! With Paul on pole position and with the responsibility of choosing when the race started, and with Pete alongside him, they’d just suddenly go, and we didn’t want to all get tripped up.
When we went, Paul just put his foot to the floor. That was his game plan then. Get away fast and stay in the lead. Pete on the outside of him was forced back into second position. Horrocks and the Dutch World Cup holder Toon were ahead of me, the Scottish Champion Patterson on my right. The less favoured positions behind us were already getting jammed up together as the thrust came from behind in the initial shove at the first corner.
The first seven of us, including the top Irish guy just behind me, stayed ahead of the crush, and by another three laps, we’d already lost a few of the cars at the back to the infield. Paul would be hoping there were no flags in the race, drivers at the back would be hoping there would be to give them an opportunity to catch up. I didn’t really care. Either way would do me.
Out at the front here, nothing much was happening. We were all going fast and not making much contact. Well I’d settle for that at the moment. We’d let the rest of the field trip each other up as they tried to jostle forward. Us leaders all slammed our wheels to the right as we came round a corner to find a collision right in the act of taking place. We all got round safely. A warning flag came out but they didn’t stop us. Every driver in the race was at the top of their game or they wouldn’t have got as far as the Final. Everyone seemed to be of the same mind. Avoiding the disappointment of a stop/start race. The speed was kept right up, collisions were few and cars nobly retired to the infield as soon as they realised that they were out of the game for whatever reason.
Ok, I thought. We’re not getting any flags. We’re not tripping over any back markers. We’ve only a few laps to go. So it’s time to start sorting this order out. Toon and Horrocks. They were really close together, but they hadn’t held me up any, they’d kept just centimetres behind Paul and Pete, so I hadn’t had to make a move on them. The Irish guy, Kavanagh, was giving me a slight nudge. Yep, I agree, I thought, time to go. I held my bumper gently against Horrocks’ and slowly built up the pressure. I felt the Irish guy doing the same on my own bumper. I grinned. I’d let him help me. On the next corner we both went in for the shove and Horrocks was pushed into Toon and they both went out wide. I went through the gap followed by the Irishman. Horrocks and Toon pulled back in, but they were behind us both now.
I was going to have to watch my own back bumper but now I was up with Paul and Pete. Paul had obviously been keeping something in reserve. He speeded up. So did Pete and so did I. But the Irish guy’s engine or tyres obviously had run to their limit and he gradually began to fall back and get in the way of Horrocks and Toon who had to sort him out.
I waited till the approach to the next corner and then slammed Pete out the way. Better done earlier rather than later. I needed to stay right up with Paul and I couldn’t trust Pete to have nursed his tyres. He might suddenly start slowing down and get in my way. He pulled back in but seemed to have trouble catching back up.
I kept my eyes fixed on Paul. Only two laps left. My car didn’t seem to be under any ominous strain. Neither did Paul’s. He actually started to marginally speed up. I squeezed a bit more out of mine. He knows I’ve often gone for the challenge on the penultimate corner rather than leaving it to the traditional last one, I thought. He’s staying ahead so I can’t get close enough. Well I’m going to play a little game, I thought, I’m going to look like I can’t catch up. I’m going to make no attempt whatsoever on that second from last corner. I stayed right up with him but made no move. We were on the penultimate straight. He managed to pull something even more out of the car. But so did I. I got ready. It would all hang now on whether he could stay just far enough ahead of me for my challenge to be ineffective or not. At the optimum moment I slammed the accelerator flat and wrenched the wheel round.
I made huge contact. He flew out and I slid round, flying out sideways myself, but I was the one in front as we both hauled the wheels back round and engaged the accelerators again. With only half a straight left to go, even with us both stamping our right foot to the floor, there was no chance he’d pass me now. I passed the black and white chequers with his front bumper a centimetre behind my back one, and there was nothing he could do about it.
My heart was thumping. Bloody hell! I’d actually won it! Jo, up there on the terraces would be hoarse, I thought. We’d done nearly another whole lap until the flag was waved for us to stop racing. We pulled up. Steve was still giving it what for over the tannoy, and the spectators were cheering. It felt really good. Fever pitch still. Not that I could hear anything Steve was saying. Probably going on about me being the first ever female World Champion. Men were hauling me out and hugging me. Pete, Paul and myself were put on the roof of a vehicle and taken on a Victory lap.
“Still got scrutineering to go,” I muttered to Paul. Gold roofs had been lost in the past at the scrutineering phase, even after cups had been shoved into hands. And I suddenly felt a bit anxious that Rob might have tinkered a bit too helpfully with something while I was away on that Saturday and my car wouldn’t pass.
Paul didn’t tell me not to be silly. He just nodded. Maybe he too wondered if my new build car, which had passed so far, might suddenly get picked over and some fault found.
“I won’t relax till they’ve announced it officially,” I said.
Pete put an arm around me. “Smile,” he said with a laugh. “Even if they snatch it off you again for some stupid reason, us three know you really won that, don’t we Dad?”
We all wobbled sideways as the car we were on jumped jerkily forward. I looked at Paul. “Did I Paul? You promise me I really won that and you didn’t just allow me through at the last minute?”
He smiled at me. “Just because you play your little games, doesn’t mean the rest of us do. I went all out for that like I always do. I’ve never thrown a race.”
Purgatory Is a Place Too Page 29
