“That’s what Rob said,” I reported relieved. “He said you wouldn’t. He said he wouldn’t either,” I added. “Said he was so competitive he’d run over his own granny if she was in the car ahead of him and holding him up!”
Pete laughed. “That sounds like big bad Rob!”
“Oh dammit,” I said annoyed. “I’ve now just thought that maybe I only won because the car I built just wasn’t quite good enough!”
Pete laughed again and hugged me. “You just can’t let go can you? Maybe the driver of your car just wasn’t quite good enough!”
“Well you’ll just have to build another one, and we’ll have to have a re-match in identical cars next year,” Paul suggested with a smile.
“If we announced we were doing that, do you think Rob would be tempted to come back?” I speculated.
The car jerked to a halt and all sorts of officials were coming forward. Pete jumped off the roof of the car and reached up and lifted me down. “Now you’re smiling,” he observed. “But I have a horrid feeling it’s at the thought of racing Rob – you’re just insatiable, aren’t you?”
All three cars thankfully passed the scrutineering. By then I’d whipped the red shoes out of the cab so they wouldn’t come across them and Jo had annoyingly insisted I put them back on so she could have her trainers back. So the presentation and all the photos featured me in the most inappropriate footwear ever.
“I probably only won because I had to press so hard on the accelerator to feel it through your enormous floppy shoes,” I said to her.
“Less of the enormous, thank you very much,” she sniffed.
“And I’m never going to live that striptease act down am I?” I complained. “They’ll be forever speculating on what I’m wearing under my overalls!”
She eyed me with a fulminating gaze and said nothing. She was still utterly furious with me.
“Did you find it hard to know who to cheer for?” I asked.
“We were all three cheering for you,” she said at last, after a grumpy pause. I presumed she meant her, Rob and Quinn as I’d seen them all heading off for the stands together. Then she added, “I wish Mum had come. I thought she might, with all of us in it, and Dad too. We asked her but she made some excuse to do with the horses. But I’m sure she could have sorted something out if she’d tried. We’re only away one night and she’s made it to Skeggie for the past four years.” I could see she was disappointed with her mother’s absence from such a huge family occasion.
All the Entwistle team came over. “You are so to forget by Monday morning what you clapped eyes on when I arrived…” I murmured to Tony. He smothered a laugh.
Jo overheard. “I think you’ll find a lot of the guys had their mobile phones out,” she told me.
Dammit, that would get straight into the next edition of Unloaded, I thought.
We had photos with the car and the cup and the Entwistle team. They were just ecstatic. It was great. They were so proud of me. Even Entwistle himself couldn’t stop beaming. Then they announced they had to go. They were driving back tonight. They all gave me a hug in turn. “Well done,” they said.
“I’ll have that photo up on our Facebook page by tonight,” Steve Bolton promised.
“And on our website by Monday,” Entwistle added.
All the drivers and families ended up at the local before the end of the night.
“What does she drink?” I heard someone yelling to Jo.
“Whisky,” she supplied.
Stumpy tumblers started being slapped down in front of me.
“Someone needs to wake up the Golden Girl.” A familiar voice penetrated my dreams. I was poked. “Wake up! You’re missing your own party!” I sleepily rubbed at my face and Rob slipped in beside me on the bench where I’d lain down and passed out just fifteen minutes after sitting down on it. He nudged me to an upright position.
“And it’s pretty dull being at a party when you’re on the wagon,” he said with a grimace. He indicated the glasses in front of me. “And you need to neck down some of those sharpish, as Quinn’s not managing to keep up with all the shots they keep buying you!”
Quinn sat down on my other side looking a bit smiley foolish. I glanced at him. He was already well past his limit. Even as I watched he keeled sideways and took my place like a felled tree along the bench.
“Five double whiskies?” I guessed.
Rob smiled. “About that…”
“He’s useless,” I said. “I’m so glad you gave up drinking Rob. I was so worried about him when he used to hang out with you before, because he just can’t hold his drink. Neither can his Dad.”
“It’s his Irish blood,” Rob dismissed.
“What are you drinking?” I asked.
He grimaced. “Coffee I suppose.”
“That’s what I think I need first,” I said. I wiped at my face again. “God, I’m glad they don’t drug test us in this sport!”
Rob gave me a warning nudge in the ribs. A steward was standing right near us. I lowered my voice.
“They forced some pill down me after they picked me up,” I murmured in his ear. “Along with some vodka. I couldn’t manage to spit it out and it laid me out for several hours. I’ve got a right royal headache now!”
Jo saw I was finally awake and came over.
“Could you do me a favour?” I asked. “Could you order us two coffees. And Jo, I’ve just realised I haven’t eaten since yesterday…”
I could see Jo working up to going ballistic again. “You came and raced without having eaten for twenty four hours? You utter idiot!” I had promised the Satterthwaites to never ever do that again…
“Honestly Jo,” I assured her, “my blood pressure was so high with stress there was no chance of me passing out!”
She stormed off to find out whether they were still serving food. Apparently last orders had already passed for the main menu, but they would be doing baskets of chips all evening.
“Make that two,” Rob said. “I’m starving too. And then after that, you really should start on some of those shots. It looks like half of Scotland is arrayed in front of you.”
In our Premier Inn bedroom, Jo was silent.
“I’m so sorry Jo, please forgive me,” I begged.
“What the hell were you doing?” She slammed at me. “What the hell were you doing dressed like a fucking prostitute? Why the fuck were you in Glasgow?”
I parted my lips and then I closed them again. “Jo,” I said feebly. And then I realised I was going to have to tell her it all, because otherwise she’d just never trust me or speak to me again.
The journey home with the trailer, alternated between long silences and spurts of angry questioning and outraged exclamations from Jo.
“I’m going to tell Dad,” she said stubbornly.
I looked out of the passenger window. “Do what you think best, but please emphasise that it’s completely confidential and mustn’t, absolutely mustn’t get out. Our cover mustn’t get blown until after the team has taken all the evidence to the police and arrests have been made…”
After a bit I said, “And don’t tell Zanna!”
Jo argued with me about that for ages.
“I’m not disrespecting her,” I defended. “But think about it rationally. At least your parents and Pete aren’t going to spread it about, but all Zanna needs to do is find it irresistible to make one remark about it at work, and that next person pass it on to just one other supposedly safe person and before you know it, half of town knows! You know how it works, Jo! People just can’t help themselves…”
That was the one battle I’d won by the time we got home. She finally promised not to tell Zanna.
We arrived into work the next day to find the garage festooned in gold ribbon and a big handwritten notice declaring ‘Entwistle’s Garage – workplace of the World Champion’.
I was embarrassed. “Thanks guys,” I said, ducking my head.
Every customer was given a champagne t
ruffle when they came in. “If I’d had my way it’d’ve been a glass of the real bubbly stuff,” Steve Bolton complained. “But Entwistle was insistent we shouldn’t be seen to be promoting drink driving…”
At lunch they all came over and asked for a blow by blow account of the race from my point of view, and to watch the interview Steve had done with me after the race that was already up on the Mendips Raceway website with a report of the meet.
“So we expect to see that Gold roof painted on by next weekend,” he said to me. “You haven’t even updated your car with the European red and yellow chequers, and that was weeks ago. The public likes to see it you know!”
I was standing there in those ridiculous shoes looking like a cut price truncated BriSCA presentation girl. At least I didn’t have a muddy square on my face like you do after a wet shale race.
“Oh, God, I don’t really have the time to get that done… I need the car all the time because I’m still chasing the Silver. And then it’ll all have to be done again later in the year when I know the outcome of the World of Shale title and the National Points Title!”
“No excuses, Eve,” he said severely. “We all want to see you showing off a bit for once. It’s quite an achievement. You still hold those two other titles quite legitimately until November, so you’ll just have to cram them all in!”
I sighed. “Well how about this?” I bargained. “I leave the gold stripes just on my shale car, because it doesn’t really apply to this one, and have the European chequers just on this one because I won it on tarmac? And have the Silver and Gold on both because I won them on both.”
“I guess we’ll have to settle for that,” Steve said with a smile.
“Dammit,” I said to the men who were all grinning as they watched this. “Now I’m going to have to do it aren’t I?”
Jo glanced at me. “Seriously Eve, we need it done by Cowdenbeath on Saturday. It’ll be expected of you. Everybody loves to see the new winner taking pride in the title, or it devalues it. And little boys will want to sit on your bonnet and have pictures taken, and all sorts.”
I began to realise what a heavy weight was just descending onto my shoulders.
“But at least you won’t have to plan your Gold Roof tour duties in the same way that Pete had to,” she added, “because while you’re after the Silver you have to turn up to virtually everything going anyway. You’ll have to make an effort to get to Ireland and Holland next year though, because you can’t snub the rest of the world when you’re the World Champion. If you can’t afford it, we’ll just have to seek out some sponsorship for it.”
Now I was realising why some drivers fell to pieces when they won the Championship. The expectations on me were going to be huge.
And then another heavy fact dawned on me. I still hadn’t managed to get that pen back.
Paul demanded my presence up at the house for a talk.
“You should have told us,” he said seriously. He sat on the other side of the kitchen table. I had half expected Sue to be there as well to tell me off, but Paul was on his own.
I fiddled with my cuff and said nothing.
“Eve!” He said sharply. “Look at me!”
I looked reluctantly across at him but still avoided his eyes.
“It was dangerous – it still is – and we should have known about it.”
I said nothing.
“We could have supported you. You know we’ve been really worried about you recently.” He looked steadily across at me. “And it’s obviously been affecting you, what with your strange behaviour and that phase of biting Pete. You’re not strong enough to cope emotionally.”
“I’m having good supervision,” I said through tight lips. “The journalism team, a doctor, a psychiatrist.”
“And it’s only that fact which relieves my mind at all,” Paul stated. “If you were doing this as some mad one-woman bravado thing, then I’d insist you pulled out straight away.”
I kept my eyes stubbornly lowered. “I’m pretty much done now, anyway,” I muttered. “I doubt I’ll be going back in. I’ll be on their hit list now for running away from Glasgow and taking two other girls with me…”
“Is that supposed to comfort me?” Paul exclaimed sarcastically.
There was a heavy silence.
“Have you thought any more about my suggestion that you do some sort of design or engineering course?” He said at last.
I glanced sharply up at him.
“Pete’s decided it’s time to go back into formal education to enhance his skills base. How about you take a leaf out of his book?”
I stared at him in a frozen way. Education was just my worst nightmare. Essays, exams, classrooms.
“You’re an intelligent woman, Eve. You’ve a lot of talents that you aren’t making the most of.”
“What’s wrong with being a mechanic?” I said angrily, getting up and pushing back my chair with a loud scraping noise on the red tiles.
His eyes searched my face, I wasn’t sure what he was looking to find. “Nothing,” he said at last. “I’m sure you’ll do a lot with it. I just think you could do so much more if you’d broaden your horizons and ambitions a bit.”
I picked up with a loud jangle my set of bike keys that lay on the table in front of me, stared him out aggressively for a moment, then turned abruptly and walked out. I didn’t slam the door behind me. That was behaviour only fit for thirteen year olds. But I got the message over just the same.
I rang Nick to make the confession that I’d be unable to get the pen back.
“Can’t be helped,” he said. “What you got instead adds some useful perspectives on the trafficking charges.”
“It’s quite shocking isn’t it? That poor little girl who just passed out at a party… and her Dad’s a policeman too! Do you think they’d have done it if they knew that? Or would it have just added spice to the whole thing?”
“Her Dad’s a policeman?” He ascertained. “That’s brilliant! I think we’ve just solved the problem about how to get the police to back us!”
“I don’t think she was planning on telling him,” I said dryly.
“Well she’ll have to won’t she?” He said. “Because all this will be going to court and she’ll probably have to testify.”
I thought about it. “I s’pose.”
“Those guys coming to rescue you, that’ll make great TV,” he added. “Shame they didn’t have to punch a few of the men on the way in!”
“No it isn’t!” I exclaimed. “Quinn would have hated that, he’s a very peaceable sort of chap. And the last thing Rob needs is to risk breaking his hand in the middle of the Championship season!”
Nick ignored that. Probably didn’t have the foggiest idea what I was on about.
“And anyway, I thought this was about catching the perpetrators not entertaining the public?”
Nick sighed. “Listen – we absolutely want these bastards put away, but we only make any money if one of the networks wants to buy the programme off us. We have to put together an hour long, shocking, edge of your seat, totally unmissable exposé, full of jeopardy. And with the recordings you and Ishaq have provided, we should manage that nicely.”
Damian rang. “Just one more, Eve. We’ve already edited the first three episodes and they’re good to go. We put the windsurfing one in with the climbing one as we didn’t think it we had enough material to stretch them into two. So now we need you Monday to Wednesday next week, because we’d like to screen them each week in October.” Aaaargh! I could just predict Entwistle’s expression. But at least I could reassure him that this was the last time.
Actually, it felt good to be out of town. I had been tense as hell every time I left home since the Glasgow trip. I’d taken to wearing my leather at all times to look as different from Ellie as I possibly could, riding my bike absolutely everywhere, even to the corner shop, and not taking my bike helmet off unless I really had to.
This time it wasn’t far. Just to Blackpool
. I was mystified. “What could they possibly have for us to do here?”
Quinn shrugged.
“Well at least there’s the big rides at the Pleasure Beach,” I said. “If it’s too awful, we can console ourselves with that in the evening.”
“And the lights are already up,” Quinn said cheerfully. “So we can do a tour of them.”
“Abseiling off the Blackpool Tower?” I hazarded.
“That doesn’t take three days to do,” Quinn pointed out. “And wouldn’t fill a half hour episode…”
“Well as long as it doesn’t involve water,” I muttered.
It was only when we were led through the doors of the Winter Gardens, and walked into the Empress Ballrooms that the full horror dawned upon me. The only thing worse than water to me, I suddenly realised, was to have to dance in public. Quinn turned round and grinned delightedly at me. “Ballroom dancing,” he said. “How cool is that?”
When this episode screened in the last week of October, I sat on the sofa at the Satterthwaites’ and pulled my jumper over my head. “Oh G-a-a-wd,” I said in muffled tones from underneath. “I can’t tell you how I showed myself up in this. I’m so embarrassed! Really – I behaved appallingly.”
“Oh come out,” Jo hauled my jumper back down. “We’re know you’re a right prima donna, just let us sit and laugh at you…”
I picked up a cushion and covered my face with it instead. “Just appalling, I was!”
Quinn was pushing me backwards around the room. “No,” he said frustratedly, giving me an extra hard shove. “One two three, one two three.”
“Stop pushing me,” I snapped at him, my colour high.
“I have to,” Quinn said crossly. “I’m supposed to lead, you’re supposed to follow! It’s what men and women have to do in ballroom dancing.”
“I’m not following you anywhere!” I snarled. “If they think I’m going to be pushed around by you, they have another think coming!”
He grasped hold of my waist with an iron grip, gripped my wrist tightly and forced me backwards. “Just fucking well do what you’re told Ginty!” He said through his teeth. “It’s only a bloody dance for fuck’s sake.”
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