“I’ve been watching that Thrills and Spills though,” she proffered shyly. “You’re really good on it. And last week I saw Jamie on it too…”
I tried on a few dresses to see if they’d be right for the occasion, but three different shop assistants started whispering together and glancing at me as I came out of the cubicle to check in the mirror.
“Are you that Eve McGinty off that car programme?” One said.
“Yes,” I said warily.
“Told you!” She said triumphantly to the others. She giggled. “Now we can tell everyone that we’ve seen you in a skirt and you really do have legs!”
I stared at them for a second then retreated back into the cubicle and ripped off the dress. I completely lost confidence in my ability to choose something to wear. Not if complete strangers were going to comment on how I looked. I put the outfits back on the hangers and handed them back to the girl on the way out without saying anything. The girl giggled again. A sense of paranoia began to rise up in me and I went hurriedly out of the store and drove straight home. Oh God, what on earth had we started here?
They were filming Paul going over my sponsor offers with me. “I don’t have to accept them all do I?” I said. “I mean, I could turn down a firm I disagreed with couldn’t I?”
“Of course you can, Eve.”
I read all the names out aloud. I knew that was expected of me. It would go on TV and that was what they were wanting. “Not sure it sends the right message to have a scrap metal company sponsoring me!” I said jokingly. “What kind of support are these various firms offering?”
“A lot of them will be offering parts or technical support which on occasion can be far more useful to you than money. You’ll have to change your tyres on a regular basis if you race a lot on tarmac.” Paul reminded me.
“I hope I’ll never need practical support from a scrap metal merchant!”
Paul looked in a slightly concerned way at me. “You don’t seem as happy as I thought you’d be…”
“I’m finding it all a bit overwhelming,” I confessed, my voice going a bit wobbly. “I just want to race, that’s all.”
He reached out and covered my hand with his. “Don’t worry, I’ll sort it out for you Eve – you just concentrate on the finish line.”
I felt a wave of relief wash through me and tried to signal it to him with my eyes.
The engine was still behaving sluggishly at the next meet. I felt so frustrated and said so in no uncertain terms to camera. Quinn had shot off into the sunset leaving me thrashing away trying to get the power out of it. Pete, in what I couldn’t help but think of as my old car was already back leading the field.
“We’ll sort it,” Paul said calmly.
Entwistle wandered onto the forecourt when we were all sitting around on a break. “You might all be interested to know that we are definitely getting a Thrills and Spills halo effect. The hits on our website have gone up tenfold, and we are getting twice as many calls from potential customers about booking their cars in, most of them women. Keep up the good work Eve…”
Oh God, I thought. I really, really mustn’t do anything terrible this year to bring the garage into disrepute. But I’m always doing terrible things… I just do.
I was at the Satterthwaites’ when the episode I was dreading finally came out. I suppose they must have been short of interesting material that week. They had filmed me at the Men in Sheds project. The project manager gave a bit of a spiel about how it existed to help men who were isolated because of old age, bereavement, or mental illness. And then they showed me clambering around on the roof of the steam engine we were restoring. I patted it and said admiringly to camera, ‘Isn’t it a beauty? It’s destined for the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry when it’s finished.’
“I don’t know how you find the time to do all these things,” Jo commented.
I was silent. I knew she’d find out soon why I was forced to find the time.
They showed me interacting cheerfully with some of the men, and then going to get my time sheet signed.
‘What’s the time sheet all about?’ The off camera voice asks. I just ignore her and walk away. The camera comes in closer to the chap in charge. ‘What’s the time sheet for?’ She asks him.
‘She’s serving a community sentence,’ he says. ‘We’re part of her volunteer hours that she has to complete. She’s been a great asset to us and the men love having her around.’
The camera follows after me where I’m taking my dungarees off and hanging them up and picking up my leather jacket.
‘Community Sentence, Eve? What have you done?’
I flash an angry look at the camera. ‘I’m serving a year’s supervision order and a hundred and fifty hours community service for GBH if you must know.’
‘GBH? What did you do?’
‘I stabbed someone.’ My expression is stony now.
‘How come?’
‘If you’re so fucking nosy that you don’t know when to back off – then you’d better wait to speak to me and Quinn together, ok?” My eyes are dangerous. They bleep out the f word.
‘We’ll do that…’ They say.
They immediately then broke to the adverts. Jo snapped it onto mute and the whole family looked at me.
“Eve?” Paul queried.
My arms were folded tightly over my chest and my teeth were clenched. “What?” I snapped. I’d never behaved like this with them. I was ashamed of myself. I was acting like a teenager. But I didn’t know how to cope.
“You’ve never mentioned a word of this to us,” Jo said.
“It’s never come up,” I said in a tight voice. “You never specifically asked me why I was doing so much voluntary work.”
Sue was looking a bit shocked and I felt awful. “What happened, Eve?” Her kinder tone made me duck my head.
I jerked my head at the screen where the title had come up again. “I think you’re probably going to find out.”
Jo flicked the sound back on.
Me and Quinn were sitting at the table in the flat, side by side and facing the camera. My face was expressionless, he looked awkward and uncomfortable.
‘So go on you two, tell us what happened?’
Quinn half looks at me. ‘Um – thing is – these night club bouncers took against Eve. It was my sister’s fault. She told them something untrue. This guy slashed Eve with his switchblade. She ran away and I happened to be there.’
‘Actually I thought he was Kes,’ I say with a slight glance at Quinn.
‘I was riding Kes’ bike at the time,’ Quinn explains. ‘So we shot off on the bike and the guys followed us. And we ended up down this back alley thinking we’d shaken them off.’ He glances sideways at me but I still say nothing.
‘I thought we were never going to stop the bleeding,’ Quinn grimaces. ‘She was just one slippery mess of blood. Then she told me that Siân had been there too being threatened by the men, and I was really angry that she hadn’t told me that before, and I left Eve there to go back for my sister.’ He looks ashamed. ‘I don’t know what I was thinking about leaving you alone there in the middle of nowhere in the rain so weak from blood loss. I don’t know how I thought you were going to get home…’
I shrug. ‘I had enough money for a taxi.’
‘Anyhow, I glanced back and saw the guy coming out of the darkness at Eve, so I ran back to try to stop him.’ He glances at me again.
I take over in a bitten down tone. ‘So this unarmed idiot was running at a psychopathic guy holding a switchblade and it was obvious that Quinn was going to get gutted, so I just got a knife out of my pocket and stabbed the guy first, before he could hurt Quinn.’
‘So I was all for running away,’ Quinn said. ‘But Ginty here refused to go. She said he would die if we didn’t call an ambulance. So we called an ambulance, and then we ran away.’
‘And then when the police picked us up,’ I continue the narrative. ‘That idiot there tries to pretend he
’s done it.’
‘Well you did use my knife to stab him,” Quinn protested. ‘And it was my sister’s fault they were falsely targeting you so I thought I ought to take the blame…’
‘So the Police were perplexed because both of us were claiming to have done it and they asked my Dad who he thought had done it, and he said, ‘it’ll be my lass for sure’. Thanks Dad!’
I look challengingly at the woman asking the questions behind the camera. ‘Happy now?’ I say sarcastically. ‘That was a year ago, the sentence is nearly over.’
‘So what everyone needs to take home from this,’ Quinn says, trying to inject a note of humour, ‘is that it’s never a good idea to underestimate McGinty. And that goes for all you blokes on the race track as well. Be alert if you see her coming up fast behind you because she can strike like lightning!’
They give a close up of my face, with stony expression and narrowed glittering piss-off gaze and then the credits roll up.
Jo switched the TV off and there was a profound silence. I didn’t know what to do. I was trapped there on the sofa between Jo and Pete with Sue and Paul on the large easy chairs to either side, and my whole happiness and future in the Stocks relied on them. Every scrap of success I’d had over this last year originated solely from their kindness, big heartedness and generosity and I was terrified that now they knew what I was really like they were going to cast me out. In the end I couldn’t bear it any longer. “Well, say something,” I said in a small voice. All my hard resistance inside began to crumble. I couldn’t bear it if they said I wasn’t welcome on their team anymore. A tear began to roll silently down my cheek. I kept my gaze lowered so I wouldn’t see their expressions.
Finally Pete’s arm came around me. He’d sat there motionless and resistant throughout the revelations and he hadn’t held my hand or put his hand on my knee as he usually did. I had felt the waves of anger coming off him. But now he pulled me tight to him and I burst into tears. “I’m sorry I’m so bad,” I sobbed. “I’ve always been like that, I can’t seem to help it…”
“Don’t be ridiculous Eve,” Sue said. “Of course you’re not bad.”
“You don’t know all the things I’ve done,” I said tearfully.
“You’re only seventeen, Eve,” Jo said roughly. “By the time you’re twenty no-one’ll give a toss what you did when you were a kid…”
Pete rubbed my arm soothingly.
“Cocoa anyone?” Sue said, standing up.
“Man up, Eve,” Jo said impatiently. “We don’t care, you just should have told us, that’s all…”
That night, lying naked in Pete’s arms, I felt exhausted by emotion. He was stroking me gently without saying anything.
“Are you oxywatsitting me?” I inquired tiredly.
“No, Eve,” he said, smiling into my eyes. “I’m admiring my beautiful girlfriend. Is that allowed?”
“Do you think I’m beautiful?” I asked, disarmed.
He leaned over me so he could see my face better. “I think you’re lovely, luscious, gorgeous, great, fantastic, wonderful…”
But as soon as he started making up lots of exaggerated words it kind of devalued the first one and I discounted it.
“Thing is, Pete,” I said. “You’re not a family who asks questions. And I’m not a person who blathers on, so if you want to know anything you’re going to have to ask.”
“Thing is, Eve,” he deliberately matched my tone. “I don’t know what I don’t know, do I? So I don’t know what questions I need to ask.”
“Well you’ll have to wait for the weekly episodes then, won’t you?” I said. “Unlike you, that Annette bitch is bloody nosy.”
I arrived in early at the forecourt, and as I drew up in Dad’s car, I saw there was already a customer patiently waiting in her Hyundai i30. I went over to her and she got out.
“Oh Eve, there’s this funny symbol come up and I don’t know what it means!”
I was beginning to get used to all the customers suddenly knowing my name. I peered into the display but it was off. I turned her key in the ignition to get everything to light up, then turned it further so the engine came on. Still no funny symbol. She shoved her head in too. “Oh it’s gone now! It was there all the way here, and two days ago as well but not yesterday.”
“Can you describe it?”
She did her best.
“Sounds like the exhaust warning.” I deduced. “That won’t be anything too urgent. Just book your car in when you can, and we’ll take a look for you.”
“Can’t I leave it now?”
I glanced up at the office. Entwistle wasn’t in yet. “If you hang on a couple of minutes you can speak to the manager when he arrives and see if we have a slot.”
A Skoda Fabia drew up and another woman got out. “I’ve got this funny intermittent graunchy noise.”
“When does it happen?” I asked. “And where does it seem to be coming from?”
“When I’m on a steep hill mainly, I’m usually breaking but sometimes on a tight left hand corner. Front, left I think.”
“Sounds like it might be the wheel bearings, that’s potentially dangerous. If you can leave it here now…”
“I need to get to work…”
“I strongly advise you to leave it here now or get it seen to as soon as possible…”
“How come she gets to leave it here now and I get told to come back another time?” The first woman complained, sticking her bottom lip out like a sulky child.
It was with huge relief that I saw Entwistle coming round the corner to open up his office. I waved him over.
“Exhaust light,” I summed up succinctly pointing at the first woman. “Potential wheel bearings,” I pointed at the other one.
“Well ladies,” Entwistle said pleasantly, “If you’ll follow me to the office, I’ll take a look at the diary and see what our schedules look like…”
When Jo arrived in, she walked straight up to Dewhurst and Bolton and said, “So did you two know about this GBH thing then?”
They looked a bit surprised. “Yeah, course. Didn’t you?”
After the women had left I walked over to the office and tapped on the door. Entwistle glanced up. “Yes, Eve?”
I sat down opposite him. “I’m sorry about last night’s episode,” I said. “I’m going to try really hard not to bring the garage into disrepute but I can’t stop them finding out about things that have already happened.”
He seemed unbelievably laid back about it, considering how furious he’d been at the time. “I thought they dealt with it rather well actually.”
“You did?” My tone was amazed.
“Well they gave you two a chance to explain it before the media got hold of it and had a field day…”
“Right,” I said uneasily. It hadn’t even occurred to me that ‘the media’ would in any sense an issue.
“Anyhow, Eve, more importantly, how are we going to cover all this extra workload that’s flooding in? Is it time to hire another member of staff? How’s that Pete of yours fixed for work?”
“Ummm,” I said cautiously. It didn’t seem worth going into Pete’s current work arrangements with him. “I really don’t think that’s a good idea. You’ve already got two members of staff on the same race team that have to be off on the same days, so it’s not a great idea to add a third…”
“No you’re right Eve. So do we maybe want another female then?”
“Is that fair on Bolton and Dewhurst?” I inquired.
“Dewhurst has a wife and two daughters, he’ll cope,” Entwistle said.
“Maybe he comes to work to get away from a pink fluffy explosion,” I suggested.
“And Bolton is- ” Entwistle carried on, ignoring me.
“A bit of a soppy git?” I finished for him.
Entwistle coughed to hide a laugh. “Ok Eve, let’s see what we can do about recruiting someone shall we? I’ll take a look at our skills profile and see what hole we need to plug…”
Sheffield Owlerton Stadium. Shale. Jo’s car. Jo’s car, not surprisingly handled pretty much like her brother’s had last year. I took out all my pent up frustrations on the track and came first in my heat. Then I just did it all again and came second in the final – finishing just after Tyler.
“What a shame the points aren’t being counted yet,” Pete commented to his Dad.
“But on tarmac it’s just as well at the moment,” I pointed out glumly.
“We’ll sort it…” Paul said.
“But maybe we should make sure she attends all the qualifiers for World of Shale just in case huh?” Pete urged.
He himself had had to pull up before the end of the final due to his engine misfiring. So we really weren’t having much luck at the moment, and I still didn’t have the triumph of beating him in a race yet.
I saw the documentary cameras heading for us and ducked away into the crowds. Somewhere in a scrum I bumped into Tyler. Literally. He held his cup of coffee away from him to stop the liquid splashing all over him.
“Just hiding from the cameras,” I explained. “Can you see them at all?”
Our heads bobbed up like two meerkats. “Nope,” he reassured me. “Shall we hide somewhere together?”
We crouched secretively on a bench in the stands like two naughty school children evading teacher, hidden behind a crowd of fans watching the Bangers.
“You’ve stopped giving me a bash as you go by,” I observed.
He grinned. “You made it clear that you’d had enough of that…”
I sniffed. “Or maybe you’re worried that if you hang around long enough to give me a whack, I’ll get ahead of you.”
He suppressed a smile. “Maybe!” He lifted his paper coffee cup to me like a toast. “Good results for you today…”
“Bout time!” I exploded. “We just can’t get the engine sorted on my tarmac car. I put my foot down and nothing happens. I find myself leaning sideways and talking to the car like it’ll make something go faster!”
Thrills and Spills Page 8
