The commentator was hamming it up, making it sound like the race of the century. Jo gave me a small fist raise as I came in.
“My heart was in my mouth there,” she said as she leaned in my window.
I laughed. “Too much macho showing off going on - makes them stupid,” I said.
Shortly after, a small delegation of Ministox drivers came over and asked for my autograph. I smiled. “Sure.” As I signed whatever they thrust at me I said to the little girls, “I hope you’re going to go on into the F2’s when you’re old enough…”
They promised me they would.
A photographer was there getting shots of me and the kids. Turned out he was from the local rag. “We were given the heads up that the Thrills and Spills star was coming to our local oval – do you mind if I ask you some questions?”
I pulled a face at Jo, but agreed politely and answered all his questions with as much flattery as I could about the local track and put in some propaganda about encouraging girls to get into the sport. Once he’d taken himself off, we packed up and went home.
It was getting to be an agonisingly long wait to speak to Pete. They’d set off on Friday night to break the back of a long journey down south, and weren’t due to return until the early hours of Sunday morning. Pete crept into the room, slipped into bed beside me and put his arms around me. His hands were cold on my belly, but I was just glad to have him there. He fell straight to sleep. I left him still fast asleep about eight am and went down to find Jo and her Dad just sitting down at the breakfast table.
Paul looked between myself and Jo, “Well?”
“If a local puts some footage up on YouTube which they’re quite likely to, it’ll be worth you taking a look,” Jo told him in a muffled way through her toast. “She came fourth in her heat, and first in the Final, and then took the full lap handicap and still came first!”
He raised his eyebrows.
“And since the natives had gotten restless and decided to gang up on her, she just rammed all and sundry over and over again until they got out of her way… I wouldn’t have wanted to see her coming up behind me!” She rolled her eyes at her Dad. “Wait till you see her car though!”
I just smiled sweetly at them both.
Later, Pete came out to the barn to find me examining my car very carefully like a doctor would a patient. Oil change? How were the tyres? Any serious structural damage?
“From what Dad says,” he congratulated, “we missed another couple of cracking good races!”
I got up and ran over to him. He gave me a big hug.
“Never mind that,” I dismissed. “I’ve been desperately waiting to talk to you!”
His expression changed as he heard my tone of voice and we went over to sit on the bench.
“That Luke Trevelyn – the one you punched,” I said. I couldn’t bring myself to say ‘the one that raped me’. “He was at Quinn’s gig on Thursday and Quinn said that he was mouthing some awful stuff about me, so Quinn hit him.”
“Good for Quinn!” Pete said aggressively. “What was he saying about you?”
“Quinn said it was so appalling that he couldn’t bring himself to tell me…” I looked worriedly up at Pete. “Do you think he was there looking for me?” He’d know from the telly that I might well be there.”
Pete rubbed at his neck. “I don’t know, Eve. Why would the guy be bothering to persecute you?”
“Because I lost him his job,” I hazarded. “And he came back to have a go at Entwistle because he lost out on another job because Entwistle refused to give him any references. And I don’t know what Entwistle said to him, but Trev slammed out and he must know that whatever I told Entwistle, Entwistle obviously believed me over him…”
“Possible, I suppose,” Pete agreed. “He sounds a nasty vindictive piece of work…” He had an arm tight around my shoulders. I rested my head on his shoulder. “I wish I could be with you every moment of every day, Eve, so no-one could ever hurt you again, but that’s not possible is it?”
“No,” I said.
“Realistically, he’s never going to try and rape you again is he? He’s just being verbally unpleasant…”
“I s’pose,” I said reluctantly.
“So you’re just going to have to ignore it.”
“Thing is, Pete, what if he came up and made a horrible scene when the cameras were filming?”
“Hmmm,” Pete didn’t seem able to come up with anything comforting except finally, “Well he’d probably be so unpleasant they couldn’t show it, or would have to bleep it all out…”
We were silent for a moment. “Actually,” I told him, “I’m finding it quite a relief to be turning up randomly at tracks all over, cos it means the general public can’t predict where I’ll be – only the race organisers who have the entry lists…”
Jo walked in and went towards the cars. “Honestly, you two,” she directed over her shoulder at us, “do you never stop canoodling?”
“We’re not canoodling, we’re talking,” I defended.
“Talking while stroking,” she observed darkly. “So come on now and get down to work, you’ve just spent all night together!”
But not had sex, I thought. No doubt Pete would work out some way to fit that in later today…
On the spur of the moment I made a phone call to Tyler.
“Will you show me how to tune the car up to get the absolute best out of it on all the different tracks?” I asked.
“You’ve got Paul to help you with that,” he said.
“I can’t rely on others for ever, I need to be independent,” I pointed out.
There was a short silence.
“And you know your car inside out…”
Silence.
“And you wouldn’t sell someone your beloved dog and then refuse to tell them how to look after it, would you?”
I sensed a hesitation.
“And after all, you’re not scared of me are you? I’m just that annoying little terrier aren’t I?” I made a yapping noise.
There was a reluctant laugh on the other end of the line. “Well as it happens I’m out your way delivering a car on Thursday so…”
“Do you know where the Satterthwaites live?” I said.
I didn’t tell them he was coming. I met him at the gate as he turned in and led him to the barn. We kept a kettle out in the barn so I made him a coffee and led him to the car.
“Ouch,” he said looking at all the dints in the nerf bars.
“Sorry,” I said. “It’s just that every red roof and red blooded male has got it in for me at the moment and I’m just having to out bash them. I turn up to some track I’ve never raced on before – I’m trying to get around all the tracks in turn to get the experience-” (That was a lie, but a line I was spinning so people wouldn’t realise I was picking off the low hanging fruit), “-expecting no-one to know me, and then the bloody commentator starts yodelling 768 Thrills and Spills star Eve McGinty and then of course I’m for it then aren’t I? Target number one! They all gang up and head straight for me…”
He suppressed a smile. “But if I’m reading the results tables right, you’ve been winning a few things haven’t you?”
“Two weeks, two final wins and two Grand National wins,” I agreed. “But of course, you weren’t there,” I added politely.
“I saw that last one on YouTube,” he said. “I saw what you did there you cunning little vixen…”
I smiled sweetly at him. “So, Tyler, the car..?” I prompted.
He took me over the whole car, showing me all the hidden ballast secrets (nothing more than 6mm thick of course, but somewhat unnecessary for the function) and we talked over the set ups for different conditions and specific tracks. We went through every bit of the engine, discussed everything we possibly could. At one point he suggested I wrote some of it down but I shook my head.
“Are you sure you’re going to remember this?”
“I’m sure,” I said definitely. “I neve
r forget stuff like that…”
He accepted it.
By the time Sue wandered in, we were both sitting on the floor in front of the car, chatting.
“Oh, I thought it might be you in here, Eve,” she said.
“This is Tyler,” I said to Sue. “Do you know Sue?” I asked Tyler.
He shook his head and stood up and held a hand out. “Nat,” he said.
She shook hands and smiled at him. “No, I never come to the ovals. I couldn’t stand seeing my children rolling over in those ghastly Minis, so I just sat at home and put my fingers in my ears and said, ‘la, la, la’ whenever they talked about it. Are you staying to tea?”
He glanced at me.
“Can he?” I asked like a little girl asking for her playmate to stay.
“Course he can,” she said. “You know I always make loads.” She glanced at her watch. “Where are you staying?”
“I’ll hole up in the van,” he said.
“I won’t hear of it,” she said firmly. “We have a spare room.”
“I’ll have to leave quite early,” he warned.
“No problem,” she said. “We keep early hours here what with the horses and all the rest of the family’s various jobs… I’ll be dishing up in ten minutes,” she warned, and wandered out.
He looked at me.
“You’ll have to stay now, she always gathers everyone in…” I told him.
She had obviously neglected to tell the others because when Tyler and I walked in to the kitchen they all looked a bit gobsmacked. Paul came forward straight away and shook his hand in a friendly fashion.
Tyler seemed to feel some explanation was needed, “Eve here is so persuasive, she has somehow managed to winkle out of me all my fiercely guarded racing set-up secrets!”
We all sat down to dinner and Tyler was charming, and so was everyone else, so it got relaxed pretty quick.
“So how did you find her?” Tyler asked, jerking his head at me.
All three of them glanced around at each other and shrugged.
“She sort of just turned up out of the blue,” Pete said.
“Yeah,” Jo agreed. “She just turned up at Belle Vue one day and started asking me questions about the driving…”
“And you were so rude, Jo,” I said. “I thought you were the grumpiest person I’d ever met!”
“That’s our Jo,” Paul said with a slight laugh.
“Well you looked like a complete tart, how could I take you seriously?” She suddenly stabbed a fork in the air across the table at me. “And I’ve never asked you why you were looking like that – I’ve never seen you dressed like that since…”
I pulled a face. “I needed a lift, Jo. Quinn was all ‘Rob this’, ‘Rob that’ and then getting secretive and I was determined to find out what he was up to, and I asked to go with them and Quinn was all, ‘the boys don’t want you along’,” I imitated his head shake where he throws his head back with the mean competitive look. “So I thought, we’ll see about that! So I got the legs and tits out and stood by the car and asked if I could come along, and Rob looked me up and down and said, ‘Why not, you’ll be useful for getting the coffee.’ And Quinn was in such a rage. And when we got there I was pretty soon under a car as usual and Quinn ended up being the one having to get the coffees!”
They were all howling with laughter.
“And then at the end of it, Rob got rat-arsed – now there’s a surprise – and he tossed Quinn the keys and I said to Quinn, doesn’t he know you’re not seventeen yet? I’d had to forge Quinn’s parental permission form for him cos Rob had put him in the Bangers, and Quinn admitted he hadn’t dare tell Rob he hadn’t passed his driving test yet, so I had to take the keys off Quinn and pretend that I thought he’d also had too much to drink, and drive the bloody pair of them home within weeks of having only just passed my own driving test and having never driven on a motorway before or towed a trailer, with them both stopping for a piss every five minutes.”
By now the table was helpless with laughter.
“He’s priceless that lad isn’t he?” Tyler said. “One minute he’s clutching his teddy bear and losing his baby sister, and then…well let’s put it this way – I can safely say that I’ve never seen a guy in an Elizabethan ruff and what looks like a piece of woman’s corsetry nut someone in the face before!”
I had been sincerely shocked last night when I’d seen the footage of the fight. I didn’t know Quinn had it in him. He’d just suddenly gone for Trevelyn. Punched him real hard in the face and then nutted him. And then Trev had blood pouring down his face and started punching back and Quinn got him down on the ground and was like a steam hammer, all the muscles that he’d built up in these months down the gym rippling in his shoulders and arms…
“Anyone know what it was about?” Tyler asked with a laugh.
Various shaking heads. Various eyes turning on me. I shrugged and spread my hands.
“Bound to be a woman,” Tyler surmised. “At that age it always is.”
Paul joined in. “It was when they showed him coming out of the police station that tickled me, and he said a WPC had loaned him some make-up remover. He doesn’t care, does he? Said he suspected they kept a job lot of it ready for whenever he got hauled in. Said one of the PC’s had told him this time that he thought he preferred him in the red lipstick…”
Sue was nearly weeping with laughter, rubbing at her eyes.
“The bit I liked,” Jo put in, “was when they asked him if it had spoiled his eighteenth birthday and he cheerfully said no – he supposed he’d celebrated coming into his majority by it being the first time he’d been arrested without them having to call his parents to come down with him…”
By the time we retired to the living room, the whisky was out, and so were the old photograph albums. Tyler and Paul were reminiscing about the old days and Paul was talking about his own father who was into the Stocks right back at the beginning in the 1960’s. I sat cross legged on the floor and pored over the old photos. “Wow, they look so different – they didn’t have aerofoils or anything!”
“Yes, you could just about drive them straight off the track onto the roads home,” Paul agreed.
There were photos of Paul holding cups. Gold roofs, silver roofs, one black and white chequered roof (European Championship). “Why aren’t you still driving?” I asked him.
“Well one day you have one injury too many and you realise you’re not bouncing back so well and Pete had moved into the F2’s a couple of years before, and then Jo announced that she wanted to follow through as well, and I just thought it was time to move over – what with the finance and work load implications as well…” He reached over and patted Sue’s knee, “and poor Sue here had forgotten she’d even got a husband…” She smiled serenely at him. “And so I retired and immediately handed over the silver roof to Tyler here, who of course really did think he was the dog’s bollocks then!” Paul’s shoulders shook.
“I told you, I was trying to be polite!” I defended.
But everyone in the room had just collapsed.
Despite the whisky and bonhomie, we didn’t make it a late night, as we all had work the next day. Tyler was still sitting at the breakfast table when Jo and I down next morning.
“What have you got on today?” Jo asked me yawning as she put four slices of bread in the toaster.
“That trans woman – Trudy – you know the one who always turns sideways through the door to the toilet and sticks her chest out and says, ‘whoops, they’re nearly too big for me to get through this door’ and then somewhere in the background I hear Dewhurst muttering, ‘well you shouldn’t have gone and made them so bloody big should you?”
“Oh God, I don’t envy you her!” Jo said. She peered impatiently into the toaster. “And yes, she obviously has no bloody idea how much those enormous bazookas are going to get in her way…”
“And then I work for ages on her car, doing everything she asks me to… while she drops l
ittle anecdotes in about her previous life as a truck driver – and then when I’m just about done, she changes her bloody mind and makes me do it all again but different! And then Dewhurst says to me, ‘well if she can’t even make up her bloody mind about what sex she is, how can you expect her to make up her mind about how she wants her car set up!’”
Jo snorted and tossed me a couple of the pieces of red hot toast as they popped up. As I turned to the table I found Tyler watching us with amusement. “My life suddenly seems very dull!” He observed. “Why don’t I ever get any customers like that?”
The post to the flat on Friday morning had delivered an interesting large envelope. I found it when I came back from work in the evening. It was a complimentary copy of the magazine that I was featuring in. I flipped through the pictures. I was gobsmacked. Didn’t recognise myself. Apart from the fact I was perched on the Aston Martin and astride the fabulous 1966 500cc Velocette Venom heritage motorbike they’d also produced for me. They’d done a fairly perfunctory interview with me. Pointless stuff. Like, ‘how do you try to make yourself feel feminine again after a long day in the garage?’ ‘Eve stares at us as though she doesn’t know what we are talking about, (like you’re bloody mental, I thought), and says blankly, ‘I’ve got a double XX chromosome, what else do you need to make you female?’
Quinn glanced over my shoulder. “My God, Ginty, they’re amazing.”
I felt my cheeks going hot and tried to shut the magazine up.
“Will you buy me a copy?” He wheedled. “I don’t want to be seen going in buying one…”
“Ask Siân,” I said abruptly.
“No, I daren’t,” Quinn admitted honestly. “I think she’s getting really jealous of you again. She’s getting that mean look in her eyes whenever your name is mentioned.”
Thrills and Spills Page 18
