The Way Back
by
Dominique Kyle
Not Quite Eden series - book 6
The Way Back © 2017 Dominique Kyle
Cover Design © 2016 Dominique Kyle
All Rights Reserved
This is a work of fiction and although, because of the subject matter, many real places, events, organisations and people are mentioned within the plot, the events and conversations in this story are completely fictitious and are not based upon, nor intended to represent any real events or actual conversations.
In addition, because F1 Grand Prix events are so minutely documented year on year, I have deliberately ‘mixed things up’ so that the events in the novel cannot be placed within any exact F1 season.
“What do you want, Posh Boy?” I demanded aggressively without looking up from my computer. I was aware of a ripple of suppressed amusement running round the office.
He was silent, so I glanced briefly round. “You know we’re on a six o’clock deadline! Give us a break will you?”
His dark eyes, outlined by their long dark lashes, rested almost expressionlessly on me. I turned back to my screen. “And leave my bloody phone alone!” I snapped, as out of the corner of my eye I saw him pick it up. And then I got so absorbed in the maths I was checking that I completely forgot about him.
At six o’clock, I went out into the carpark to see the fully re-constructed car being loaded into the huge transporter to be shipped over to the next stage. The up-grades had gone right to the wire with only half an hour to spare, but now the whole factory could give a huge sigh of relief and clock off for a richly deserved weekend. There’d be a brief breathing space and then the pressure would pile on again.
My phone suddenly beeped. I glanced down. NOW do U hav time 2 cum out 4 a drink wi me? Bloody Posh Boy! He’d obviously gone into my phone and harvested my number. I looked around. He was standing by his sports car on the far side of the carpark, watching me.
U don’t giv up do U? I texted back. I’m busy tonite. I wasn’t, but I was exhausted after our last couple of weeks of full on work stress and didn’t want to risk a late night, nor a hangover for tomorrow.
I watched him typing something back in, and waited for it to arrive.
Wat R U doin tomoro?
Heading out 2 the Mendips Raceway. I replied.
I was a bit surprised when the message that came back was Can I cum?
I walked briskly over to him and stopped sharply a couple of feet away. “If you want,” I said abruptly. “But you’d have to ride pillion and it’s a long trip, so it’ll be uncomfortable for you.”
He glanced around the car park as though he was surprised at my answer and was looking for the bike. Then he frowned. “I can drive us.”
Yeah, he wouldn’t be keen for someone else to be in the driver’s seat. Well that would suit me. I wasn’t looking forward to the long hoof up the motorway on my bike and I wouldn’t mind a trip out in that Ferrari of his. “I need to be there by about eleven thirty,” I warned him.
He nodded. “Where shall I pick you up?”
Fuck it! He wasn’t just a pretty face, was he? Now I was going to have to tell him my address as well.
As I walked across to my trusty Kawasaki ZXR 400, aware that his gaze was still following me, I figured that it wouldn’t do my fledgling career here at Williams any good if I was rude to their development driver. Then I laughed. He hadn’t asked me what I was doing at the Mendips Raceway. He was going to get a bit of a shock. It wasn’t exactly what he’d be used to.
As we turned through the gateway at the Mendips Raceway at a quarter to twelve, a lot of the drivers had already arrived and were unloading their vehicles from their trailers or transporters. I rolled down the window and leant out and yelled a greeting to Horrocks. “Is my car going to get a Silver roof this year then?”
He straightened up, looked around and then grinned and gave a thumbs up. Some of the other drivers also turned, and several of them leaned into their cars or vans to press their palms on their horns. By the time we’d traversed slowly across the first parking area we were surrounded by a noisy blare of tooting horns. Posh Boy glanced curiously at me. I’d already half opened the door. “Park over there somewhere,” I ordered waving in the direction of the public parking away from the pits, and then I leapt out. I couldn’t see the Beast here yet, so I headed for Rob Rudd who was checking over his Formula One Stock car. A powerful V8 beauty decorated with stunning graphics plus gold roof and aerofoil.
“Jo gave me the heads up that you’d be driving today,” he said, as we momentarily clasped arms. “’Bout time too! How’s life treating you down South?”
“They all talk posh and eat avocados,” I reported glumly.
He grimaced in a suitably commiserating fashion. Then he glanced past my shoulder. “Who’s this?”
I looked round. “Who? Posh Boy? Oh, he just tagged along.”
“Posh Boy?” A familiar voice commented from behind me. “Believe me mate, you need to put a stop to that pronto! Once she gets a name for you it’s yours unto death… She only ever called her fiancé by his surname and the poor sod just meekly answered to it.”
I whirled round delightedly. “Quinn!” I threw myself into his arms. “You’re back then? How’d it go?”
Quinn smiled down at me and gave me an obliging hug. His green eyes gleamed teasingly at me. I felt like crying all of a sudden. I’d missed my friends so much! I hadn’t realised just how much until this moment.
“Yeah, good,” he reported economically. “They’ve invited us to go to the US with them in the Autumn.”
“Brilliant!” I congratulated.
Rob was eyeing Posh Boy with a narrowed gaze. “Are you Nish Gilbraith?” He cut across us.
PB nodded.
Rob glanced speculatively between PB and myself. Then he directed at me, “You should get him a day licence and give him a go…”
I ignored him because Horrocks was approaching. We shook hands. “How’s my car performing?” I asked.
He smiled. “Full marks, Eve. You’ve built a little cracker.”
“I’ll come round later and you can show me the adjustments you’ve made,” I told him. “Of course I’ve got loads more ideas now to put into the next one. I’ve just spent six weeks in the aerodynamics department and we’ve been designing a new wing that should take 0.1 seconds off the lap time. At least that’s what the scale model seemed to suggest in the wind tunnel, and the modelling on the simulator.” I finally paid some attention to my self-invited guest. “Was it you who did the test driving on the simulator?”
Posh Boy nodded.
“Well I guess we’ll find out if it makes any difference in real conditions over the next stage,” I dismissed.
“How long since you last drove?” Quinn asked me.
“Birmingham, last November,” I reported. “And I’ve been feeling desperately guilty about not performing my Gold Roof duties, so Jo suggested she brought the car down.”
“Well at least you’re dressed more appropriately than last time you drove here,” Rob flicked at me with an ironic look from under his dark craggy brows.
“Yeah, Jo’s never going to forgive me for that,” I sighed.
“For what?” A female voice assaulted me from my left. “For turning up looking like a lap dancer on day release? Only you could get accidentally trafficked to Glasgow the night before the biggest race of the season!”
“Jo!” I hugged her tight. She put up with it for a moment then intervened.
“We’re parked up over there,” she pointed. “But Cody’s in the back of the Beast crying and saying she can’t face driving.”
“That’s all we need,” I groaned. “What’s up?”
“Just period pains. But she gets them really bad. I’ve tried paracetamol, ibuprofen, and heat pads to no avail…”
Rob pulled a face. “Too much information!” He complained.
I ignored him. “So does that mean we’ve got a car free?” I glanced at Posh Boy. “How about that day licence then?” I suggested.
Posh Boy blinked.
“Though he’ll find the Zetec engine a bit frustrating,” I said to Rob. “It only performs to full capacity in a very narrow rev range.”
Rob gave me a slow smile. “I somehow doubt he’ll ever get as far as needing full capacity,” and the gleam in his eye was so wicked that I couldn’t resist it. I knew what he was suggesting.
In the stewards’ office, while PB was sitting outside on a bench filling in the form, I murmured into the steward’s ear. “This could be really good publicity for you. Make sure you send the track photographer along, and maybe Steve or Jonny should snaffle him for an interview.”
The steward’s beetling eyebrows waggled in an exercised manner. Then he hurrumphed and nodded. “Good to have you back, Miss McGinty,” he added as an afterthought as I walked out.
Formula One drivers aren’t overly tall else they can’t fit into the cars, and they have to keep their weight down like racehorse jockeys. So quite a bit of Cody’s gear fitted him with her being a buxom girl. She also had a large helmet due to her huge mop of wild copper curls, so all we had to borrow off another male driver were some fireproof gloves. Cody had stopped crying the minute she realised we weren’t going to insist she drove, and perked up with the added interest of this new semi-famous driver.
I was in Heat One. I slipped into the cab. “Tyres or points, Jo?” I asked cheerfully.
“Hell, points all the way Eve!” Jo urged robustly. “They haven’t seen you for ten months. Remind them all why you’re still the European, World, and National Points Champion!”
I saw Posh Boy look sharply at me when she said that. I guess he hadn’t known what all the different colours on my roof meant.
Jo patted my roof. “Off you go. Slaughter them, girl!”
As World Champion, I had to start from the back. I wasn’t nervous, I was ecstatic to be back. Everything just fell into place. I slammed my way through the pack, many of them just getting straight out of my way as a sign of respect, and then I led from the front for the last three laps.
Then it was Posh Boy’s turn in the second heat. I noticed some cameras pointed at us as I leant into the cab, but pretended I hadn’t noticed them.
“So it’s all a bit primitive compared to what you’re used to,” I teased him. “Only three gears, reverse, crawler and race, and no electronic gadgets to tell you how your engine is doing, you just have to use your ears. As a novice, you start from the front. If you’re in a smash, you mustn’t get out under green or yellow flag conditions unless your car is on fire. If you need help from the stewards do a thumbs down sign, and if you’re upside down and can’t work out which way is down, then just flap your hands around a bit and they’ll come and pull you out.” I grinned at him and patted the roof. “Off you go. Have fun!”
And then Jo and Cody and I rushed up onto the stands to be entertained.
Of course, we hadn’t told him that novices normally had the luxury of a ‘don’t touch me’ black cross on the back to stop the other cars making contact with them. And Rob had obviously done his work well and primed all the other drivers to make a point of giving him a good old thump as they passed. Poor Posh Boy was roundly rammed, hoofed, and turfed out of the way, then thoroughly spun and shoved. Finally he ended up on his side piled into the fence. I grinned. Fantastic!
Luckily, once the stewards had helped shove the car back upright at the end of the race, the engine started up again ok, and Posh Boy was able to make his way back to us under his own steam rather than being towed ignominiously back by a tractor.
He got out slowly and pulled off his helmet and fireproof balaclava.
“You ok?” I asked cheerfully. “No broken bones?”
His dark eyes rested noncommittally on my face.
“You up for it to try again? See if you can qualify for the Final in the Consolation?” I asked. “You only have to come in the first eight. You start from the front, so if you put your foot down straight away, you’ve got a good chance of doing it.”
Suddenly, his lips curved into the first smile I’d ever seen on his face. “Ok,” he agreed.
“Good,” I said. “I’ll go and get my welding equipment then, and sort the car out.”
He did it. He got his act together and slammed his foot to the floor and slewed round with increasing professionalism on every lap. By half way through some cars were starting to pass, but he was more prepared for the effects of the attacks on his bumper and recovered quicker to get back on the accelerator. He came in seventh. And he came back to us with a broad grin on his face.
I won the Final. I was determined to. I had to. I gave him a right good thump up the arse as I went by. So did everyone else. Now in a race with all the elite, he was back in twelfth place, but at least he finished upright.
“You did that deliberately!” He accused as we both got out by the Beast in the pits. “You could have got past without slamming into me!”
I smiled mischievously at him. “Of course I did! That’s part of the fun of it! Are you going to enter the National?” A heat for the National Series was held at every track at the end of the day’s racing, and always worth entering if you were chasing points. If you’d won the Final you had the right to take a full lap handicap in the National, and if you did this and still came in the top ten, you would double your points. But you had to calculate whether it was worth the risk. You might get more points by not starting so far back, and thus having an increased chance of getting onto the podium, rather than doubling the meagre score you’d get for coming in tenth.
He stared at me for a moment. Then his lips set in a determined line. “Of course,” he said coolly.
As I got out of the car after the National, Jo slapped me on the back. “Hat trick and double points,” she congratulated. “You’ve got the full fifty points, and you haven’t driven for ten months! That’ll remind them you’re a force to be reckoned with…”
Posh Boy was pulling off his balaclava and stripping off his gloves. He’d come eleventh. He eyed me sideways from under his long eyelashes. “I don’t know how you manage to win when you have to start from the back all the time,” he commented.
“Was that a question or a compliment?” Jo asked him bluntly.
He stared at her as though he was unused to being spoken to so directly. Then he smiled slightly. “Both I guess…”
Behind him, both Jonny and Steve were approaching for an interview. Jonny for Stoxradio, and Steve probably for the Mendips Raceway website. There were cameras following behind them. I nudged the Posh Boy warningly.
“Get your smiley face on,” I instructed.
On the way home he was as silent and unsmiling as on the way up. My instinct was to fill the empty space between us with questions about his Ferrari 488 GTB. But actually, I didn’t have any questions. I’d seen the latest incarnation being tested on the Fiorano circuit at Maranello. It had set an identical one minute and twenty three second lap time to the F12 model, and I knew all the technical specs off by heart. Anything I said would just look like boasting. An auto version of name-dropping. Instead the radio blasted away to fill the place of conversation. Finally he asked about Quinn.
“Who is he?”
I shrugged. “An ex-neighbour of mine. A mechanic. Used to work for the RAC.”
He frowned. “He looked more like a rock star…”
That pulled me up short. “I guess he is a bit. He’s just come back from a European tour with Full Frontal, as the support act to the Bronx Brothers.”
Posh Boy looked sharply sideways at me. “Seriously? He’s tha
t Quinn? The lead singer from Full Frontal? I wish I’d known. I love them!”
I was gobsmacked. “You know them?” I established, amazed.
“Yeah,” he confirmed. “I stream them all the time. It’s so musically complicated I never get bored of it – I keep spotting new things in it… And he’s got such a fantastic voice…”
“Yep, he has,” I agreed, shaken. I had no idea they had become so popular that complete strangers had heard of them. My little brother’s band! I was well impressed.
On Monday, half way through the morning there was a bit of a stir around the office. I ignored it. My line manager was watching something on his computer then he looked across at me and remarked incredulously. “What seriously, Eve?”
I frowned at him, puzzled.
“Come here,” he ordered sharply.
I stood awkwardly at his shoulder.
“Our media department has just sent me this link to a clip from Saturday night’s ITV West Country Regional news…” He said, and clicked to re-run the piece.
The Mendips Raceway had obviously taken my advice to use it for publicity. A news reporter was saying that the Williams Reserve Driver, Nish Gilbraith, had been spotted having a go at an alternative format. ‘European, World, and National Points Formula Two Stocks Champion, Eve McGinty, showed him the ropes.’ They showed a clip of me leaning through the window of the car and introducing him to the primitive equipment. They then streamed a section from the official race footage showing him having seven bells knocked out of him and ending up on his side before adding, ‘but he got out smiling it seems’, and cutting to a clip from Steve’s interview with him. Steve was asking him how he’d found his first ever go at Stock car racing, and PB turned on the charm with all the skill of a man thoroughly trained in media technique. “Yeah, well it was a bit of a shock to the system at first, but once I got the hang of the contact rules, I had a lot of fun.”
The Way Back (Not Quite Eden Book 6) Page 1
