“I’ll look after Eve, Dad,” Pete said. “You go to Mum.”
“Take her home,” Paul ordered. “Straight away.” And then he turned and walked back to the barn.
As Pete inserted me into his car, we could hear the sirens coming up the hill.
“Thank God for that!” He exclaimed.
Back at his flat, I lay curled on his bed in a foetal position still weeping. “It’s my fault!” I kept saying. “It’s my fault!” Shudders like tidal waves were washing over and over again through me. “She’s dead and it’s all my fault!” I wanted to tear my insides out.
Pete stood helplessly watching me. Some long time later on he sat me up and made me drink something hot. I choked on it but he just kept insisting I drink it down, so I did. I lay back down, the tears still squeezing out from under my lids and trickling down my cheeks. My limbs grew heavier and heavier and my mind went blank.
I woke up next morning feeling I’d been hit over the head with a mallet, and that someone had shoved cotton wool into my brain and sucked all the saliva out of my mouth. I eventually hauled myself up and sat holding my head.
“What time is it?” I asked hoarsely. My voice would barely work. I cleared my throat. My mouth tasted awful.
Pete came and sat beside me on the edge of the bed. “Midday,” he said.
He saw my accusing expression. “I’m sorry Eve. I gave you a sleeping pill. I had some left over from when I broke my leg. I couldn’t bear to see you in so much pain. I was worried you were going to start self-harming again, or run out of the flat or something. Quinn seems to take all that sort of stuff in his stride, but I’m sorry Eve, I can’t cope. I just can’t cope.”
I knew what he was telling me.
The rest of November was utter shite. The Police confirmed it was arson. But they had no leads about who had done it, though they agreed it was obvious why it had been done.
Pete had gone back up to see his parents on the Sunday evening. He came back reporting privately to Jo that his mother was beside herself and Dad had asked him and Jo to not allow me back on the premises until he gave permission. I was in my bedroom, but I could hear what Pete was saying to Jo in the living room.
“The season’s over now, so it’s not as though she needs to do anything with the cars,” Pete was reasoning with Jo.
“Do you think they targeted the horses because they saw Eve in that dressage episode in October?” Jo speculated. “Or do you think they were instructed to blow up the barn with all the cars in it and just didn’t know which building it was when they got there?”
“God, I can’t even begin to think about it,” Pete said wearily. “Nothing ever seems to run smooth when Eve’s about does it?”
I lay limp and numb on the bed and wished Pete had let me die in the fire along with Horse. I knew through and through that this was finally it. Sue would never allow me across the threshold again. And I couldn’t blame her for that.
Four weeks passed, and I was still barred from the Satterthwaites’. Jo carefully said nothing. Zanna kept glancing cautiously between our two faces. We didn’t see Pete at all. Horses’s screams haunted my dreams.
Every now and again I was called down to the Police Station and shown footage that I’d taken and asked to answer more questions about what was going on.
I didn’t miss a single day of work, and worked every Saturday morning as well to make up for the time I’d missed recently when I was having to hide out. By the end of the Stocks off-season, I would have probably paid Entwistle back all the hours I owed him. I got a horrible virus and it went on my chest and I coughed for nearly three weeks. Zanna said my immune system was down with all the stress and had me on multivitamins and big plates of salad. Jo said she thought she was pretty stressed as well. And then wished she hadn’t mentioned it, as big plates of rabbit food were plonked in front of her too. Occasionally we’d sneak out together like naughty school children to buy a secret portion of nice fat greasy chips. “We need carbohydrate for our serotonin levels too,” Jo justified.
“Dad wants to speak to you.” Jo walked into the flat and announced. “Only he’ll have to come here to do it…”
My stomach clenched. This was it. He’d come in and break the news, no doubt kindly, politely and diplomatically, that I would have to take my cars away. I began to wonder where on earth I could keep them without paying through the nose for the privilege, and how to manage transporting them now that I’d be taken off the Satterthwaite vehicle insurance? I knew that I had been heavily subsidised in my Stocks career by the Satterthwaites and couldn’t have got anywhere near the results I’d achieved without them. I wouldn’t be able to go for the Silver again, I thought. I just wouldn’t be able to afford it…
When he came round, Zanna was out, probably by arrangement, but Jo stayed. She looked a bit pale and she was biting her lip.
He didn’t waste any time on pleasantries.
“I’ve arranged a six month internship for you,” he said. At the Ferrari Design Centre in Marenello in Italy. It starts in January.” He looked expressionlessly at me. “You haven’t any choice in the matter. I’ve already spoken to Entwistle. It’s well paid for an internship, so you’ll be able to live on it.”
I stared at him in shock. “You’re sending me away?”
“I’m arranging a good opportunity for you to develop your mechanical engineering design skills,” he corrected coolly.
“I don’t speak any Italian!” I protested.
“They’ll speak to you in English within the team, and you’ll soon pick up the basics.” He told me.
“Where will I live?” I panicked.
“I’ve asked them to sort a flat out for you.”
I began to feel like I was drowning. Like someone was pushing my head under. I was terrified.
“No!” I exclaimed.
“Yes,” Paul said inflexibly. “I’m afraid, ‘no’ isn’t an option. You’ll be on your way to Marenello, on the fifth of January, whether you like it or not.” He got up to leave.
“No!” I shouted at him and burst into tears. I’d never lived anywhere else but this town. I’d never been anywhere abroad on my own. I was just a mechanic, how could I possibly contribute anything to an elite design team? They’d think I was the dumbest person alive! A complete fraud! Outside of my town, and my friendship network, and my work at Entwistle’s and my Stocks racing, I had no identity. The prospect of having every one of these things ripped from my grasp left me gasping in terror. Those were me! And what would happen to my F2 design and build company that Jo and I had planned? What would happen to Cody next year? I’d be leaving her high and dry! And what would happen to my Gold roof duties? The Stocks community would be really disappointed in me. It seemed criminally insulting to win six major championships and then just not bother to turn up next year!
“Did you know about this?” I attacked Jo.
Apparently only for a couple of days.
“When did he tell Entwistle?” I demanded furiously.
“Last night.”
I began to cry again.
She kept running through all my concerns. “I’m upset too Eve! And I’m losing my best friend suddenly too remember? I’m so selfish I don’t want you to go either! But this is such an opportunity for you! You should leap at the chance! I’ll take on Cody by myself next year. And if you get any orders, I’ll build the cars for you. We always planned that didn’t we? I’m sure I can do it!”
But nothing helped. I just felt like I was staring into a black void of nothingness. My feet were slipping downwards and my hands scrabbling to just hold on to anything.
An hour later, she got on her phone. Her voice sounded despairing. “I really need you to come round. It’s Eve. She’s lying in a foetal position on the settee and won’t stop crying. Will you come to the flat?”
When a car drew up twenty minutes later she went outside, and I could hear her talking in a low voice, filling them in.
Pete, I thought.
She’s called Pete up. But a few minutes later Quinn walked in. He sat down beside me on the settee. “What’s this I hear about you being given an opportunity that every mechanic in existence would happily kill for?” He opened in cheerful tones.
I sniffled unhappily in response and refused to look round, so he just scooped me up and sat me on his lap like Dad used to do when I was a child.
“Tell me what you’re so upset about, Ginty,” he said in a kind voice, with his arms around me.
“Paul’s sending me away because it was my fault that Horse died,” I choked out. “And Sue’s never going to forgive me!” And then I began to weep again.
He was silent for a moment, his arms tightening around me. Then finally he said, “Poor Eve, it’s the curse of your name again isn’t it? You get the blame for everything and then you get cast out…” His tone was sympathetic. “Everything you love most seems to get taken away from you. It’s so unfair…” He rubbed his cheek on the top of my head. “And now even your lovely new mother doesn’t want you anymore. Poor Eve, always on the outside looking in.”
I quietened down and listened to him, breathing him in. It was a familiar smell. It calmed me down. The tears still trickled out unbidden, but I stopped sobbing.
“So this Ferrari thing,” he said after a bit. “You really need to do it you know! How about I come with you? I’m bored with the RAC. It’s time for a change. And poor little Mariah needs her bedroom back. She’s far too old to be creeping into bed with me every night. I can stop with you for the first few months at least, until I have to go on tour with Full Frontal. Would that make a difference to your decision?”
I stopped crying and wiped at my nose with the back of my hand and looked uncertainly at him.
His green eyes smiled at me. “What do you think, Ginty? Would you be up for that?”
“Really?” I rubbed roughly at my own eyes. “You’d really come with me?”
He nodded. “Sounds like fun. There’s bound to be some local work for a mechanic or a roving troubadour, or even just a waiter. I’m bound to be able to find something.” He wiped my cheeks with the palm of his hand, looked into my eyes and smiled. “So you just tell Paul you’ll do it, huh?”
After he’d left, Jo disappeared into her room and got on her phone to her Dad. “Yep, she’s going.”
Paul must have expressed surprise at the speed of the change of heart because she said, “Yeah I know Dad, me too! I expected two weeks at least, not a mere two hours! It was Quinn. He’s a complete miracle worker. He knows how to handle her right down to the last breath. Yep. Yep. He’s going with her. So that’s good isn’t it? We’ll know she’s being looked after and won’t have to worry so much…”
At work the next day, the men were smiling. Entwistle had told them before I came in.
“You jammy devil!” Steve Bolton teased.
“What a long face!” Dewhurst chided. “Anyone would think it was a punishment!”
I went in to see Entwistle. “I’m sorry to be leaving so suddenly,” I said. “I had no idea Paul was organising this.”
“Well we’ll miss you of course,” he said. “But we won’t miss the tornado of events that you seem to tow in your wake…”
“And if I wanted to come back at the end of the six months?” I asked anxiously.
He looked at me for a long moment. “I can’t see you wanting to come back,” he said.
“But you will hire another female to replace me, won’t you?” I urged.
“I’m not sure we can stand the strain,” he murmured.
Out the back, over a mug of tea, I sat with Tony. “You know Jo isn’t gay don’t you?” I said conversationally.
He choked on his tea and nearly ended up spitting it out. “I thought she was living with a woman?” He got out at last after I’d helpfully thumped his back for him.
“Hmm, y-e-e-s,” I agreed cautiously. “But she can go either way. She says she doesn’t think she’ll ever end up with a man though, because all men assume she’s gay. She says Quinn’s the only one who smiles at her like she’s a normal female.”
“Why’s that then?” Tony grinned.
“Actually, I thought about it and decided it wasn’t because he’s so testosterone laden that he can’t help himself – it’s because I told him outright a couple of years back that she’s asexual.”
Tony frowned. “Don’t you mean ‘bisexual’?”
“No,” I said. “Just Google it. I can’t be bothered to explain. But I just thought that now I’m going, at least one other person here needs to know – just so she won’t be so lonely.”
“You’re not telling me this because you’ve heard I’ve just split up with Rachel are you?” He queried.
I raised my eyebrows. “Honestly Tony, me and Jo are always the last to know stuff like that! You know it’s Steve that’s the gossip round here.” I looked sideways at him. “Did you enjoy working on my car?”
“Yeah, I did actually,” Tony agreed.
“Just wondered if you were ever at a loose end if you’d support Jo occasionally at the stadiums when she takes Cody about? Just so she doesn’t feel so lonely…”
“I might just do that,” he said.
In the last week before Christmas I stood on the stage at the front of the hall at the morning assembly of St. Bride’s Girls’ Grammar and gulped nervously as I saw all the faces looking expectantly up at me.
The headmistress of Cody’s school had asked me to come in and give a talk on how to spot and avoid grooming, and generally how to stay safe.
“I read that article about you in the Guardian,” she told me on the phone when she first contacted me. “And I was interested in your back story of being the World Champion in your racing format – we always like to encourage aspiration in our girls. You already know Cody of course, one of our little characters…” For that read - one of the girls she’d really rather not be wearing her uniform, I thought.
“We try not to limit the intake here,” she continued. “We take all sorts…” For that read working class scum such as myself, I thought cynically. “And we have about a fifty percent intake of Pakistani and Indian heritage girls,” she added warningly. “As our single sex, strict disciplinary, and highly academic ethos, suits their cultural expectations.”
I got the message.
Towards the end of my talk, I thought I’d chuck a few extra things in. “And where does arranged marriage shade into forced marriage? As soon as any psychological pressure is put on you to guilt trip you into agreeing to it! If you suspect this is happening to any of your friends, then there are organisations you can advise her to turn to for help. And if you suspect a friend might be in danger of FGM, then you can report it to the authorities, because it’s illegal in this country and illegal to take a minor out of the country to have it done.”
I could sense the teachers shifting about uncomfortably in their seats, so I drew it to a close.
“Do you have any questions for Ms. McGinty?” The Headmistress, who wouldn’t have seemed out of place at St. Trinian’s, asked her girls.
A hand went up.
“Yes?”
A bit of a giggle. “What’s Adam doing now?” More giggles.
“He’s helping me move over to Italy to take up an internship at the Ferrari factory, and then he’s going on tour round Europe with Full Frontal supporting the Bronx Brothers…”
An impressed ripple went around, so I guessed that meant the Bronx Brothers were seriously famous. Well, good for Jamie!
Afterwards I said dryly, “So that went well – we give them a talk about aiming high and not letting boys get in their way and the only question they want to ask is what a particular boy is up to!”
“Oh, they have to keep up a front,” one teacher said cheerfully. “It sinks in really. They’re just not allowed to admit to it.”
I wondered if they used to say that sort of thing about me? I wasn’t so sure it was true…
The Headmistress, took me
along to the staff room. That was a shock. Me? In a staff room? All friendly like with the teachers?
One of the teachers said, “I was really impressed with the analogy you gave in that recent serial, that understanding formulae and equations is just like being able to read music, just another form of notation. I decided I’d use that as a concept next time I teach equations…”
Me? The maths guru? I could have fainted. But my blood pressure was too high.
I looked around at them. “You have realised that you’ve got one of them at your school, haven’t you?”
“One what?” The Headmistress asked in her cultured tones.
I pulled my sleeve up to reveal the scars on my inner elbow. “The girl in year eight who keeps getting excluded. Two spots, like me. It means she’s in Mohammed’s group. You need to help her, not keep excluding her.”
The memory of their shocked faces stayed with me all day.
* * *
Epilogue
The phone rang on my desk. “Someone for you at reception.” I glanced at my watch. I was due to clock off now, I just never normally got around to it until nine pm. I picked up my bag and went downstairs. Paul was standing there. He smiled slightly when he saw me.
“I was over this way on business…” He said.
I slung my bag over my shoulder. “Are you hungry?”
“If you’re suggesting we go for a meal, then yes, let’s do that.”
We got in his car and I took him down the old town centre to a Trattoria I often frequented that was within walking distance of my flat.
We sat out at a table on the street under the bougainvillea in the sunshine. I ordered for us, and also ordered the wine. The waiter gave me one of his special attentive glances. “The Italian men are such flirts,” I dismissed. “Luckily I can’t understand what they’re saying most of the time.”
I crossed my legs. Here in Italy I’d found it was completely ok to be all woman, despite being in a professional job. Stilettos were de rigueur. You didn’t have to frump it down a bit like in England. I was wearing a square necked fitted white dress, stopping just above the knee. I kept away from skirts that flared from the waist, since I felt Paul had been right when he’d said that they were a bit flirty. Classy, sleek, understated, that was the look round here.
Purgatory Is a Place Too Page 37
