The Way Back (Not Quite Eden Book 6)

by Dominique Kyle

  I glanced back up at them – I still don’t get what it’s got to do with the film you’re on about?

  Sam sighed. “It’s a famous poster for the film – Clark Gable carrying Vivien Leigh in his arms. Have you never seen it?”

  “I may not know much about Pooh Bear,” I defended swiftly, “but I’m pretty expert about Herbie, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Wacky Races, Thomas the Tank Engine and Ivor the Engine…”

  “Ivor the Engine?” Ben interrupted blankly as though he’d never heard of him.

  Sam grinned. “We have absolutely no idea what Pooh Bear has got to do with the price of fish, Eve, but we get the message that nothing made the cut during your childhood unless it had an engine in it!”

  I stared at them as though they were mad. “What on earth has the price of fish to do with anything? Surely the price of diesel is more relevant?” And then I headed off towards Alan’s office.

  “I’m not sure what happened in that conversation,” Bill said to the others. “Because she still hasn’t told us what happened at that party…”

  “Did my ankle in again,” I called back to them, my hand poised to knock.

  “Bo-o-o-ring,” Ben complained.

  But it seemed to shut them up.

  So then – Belgian. The last weekend in August and the first fixture that Nish and I were teamed up on our own for. Obviously there was a big engineering and mechanical team to make the overall race strategy decisions, but when it came to the actual race I intended it to be me and Nish calling the shots. Free practice was all in the dry and they were trying slightly different set-ups on both cars to suit each driver’s style. And then as Q1 approached, the clouds got blacker and blacker. The screen with the real time satellite weather picture on it, showed a large irregular splodge of blue and green heading towards us. The forecast had been for it to pass us to the south-east, but now it looked as though it was heading our way.

  “Oh, goodness, the green stuff’s heading straight for us,” I groaned.

  The race engineer sitting next to me up at the race wall glanced sideways with a frown, “What do you mean?”

  I pointed at the weather screen. “Torrential rain,” I interpreted.

  He grinned. “Thank God for that, you were making it sound like a plague of frogs!”

  As I walked back over to the garage huge blobs of rain were just starting, and everyone in the garage was heatedly discussing what they should do about the set-up of the car, and re-checking the weather forecast for tomorrow’s race. Nope, dry conditions expected tomorrow. So all the teams would have to be sending out the cars into the rain in their dry set-up because after Q3 all the cars would have to go into ‘Park Ferme’, and we wouldn’t be allowed to change anything on the set-up except for a very narrow range of items to respond to specific climatic conditions on the day.

  Nish was already sitting in the car ready for the start of Q1. Fire proof race suit, balaclava, helmet, gloves, neck support, and the wheel in place. His visor was up and only his eyes and nose were showing. They looked expressionless. I stood at the side of the car looking intently at him. There was something oddly sexy about just seeing the eyes. As I gazed longer at him, I suddenly felt like bending over and kissing his nose. His eyes suddenly glanced sideways at me and caught mine. They seemed to hold my gaze expressionlessly for a moment and then his eyes crinkled up as though he knew exactly what I was thinking and he was amused.

  Outside the rain drummed down heavily, the drops bouncing and exploding back up from the tarmac. The safety car edged out to drive round the track to test it. Huge plumes of water were spraying up behind it, and even at its slower speed, it was aquaplaning on the corners. We couldn’t raise the low slung floor of the car because we needed it ready for dry conditions on Sunday. The best we’d be able to do would be to put the full wet tyres on and fuel heavy. Q1 was put off for ten minutes. Then another four as the rain eased off, then another seven as it started to pound down again. The team were busy changing over to the full wets and checking tiny details. Nish just sat there, looking straight ahead of him. How tense must he be? I thought. I must ask him how he dealt with delays like this. What strategies did he use to stay in the zone and yet also zone out from the stress?

  Finally it looked like the drains were beginning to work and the standing water on the track was down to a thinner film and this time it looked as though they wouldn’t put it off any more. I was stationed at the race wall with my headphones and mike on.

  “I want to go out first,” Nish said suddenly into my ears over the radio.

  “Go for it then,” I agreed.

  “That’s a hugely risky strategy,” Hugh cavilled. He was sitting beside me.

  “The Mercedes cars are rubbish in these conditions. We can get ahead if we take a risk and take advantage of our superior handling,” I reasoned with him, having switched off the feed to Nish. “Nish is capable of it.”

  So Hugh let him head out and be first in the queue in the pit lane to get onto the track.

  “This is where you show everyone what you can do,” I instructed Nish. “Take it easy, and don’t you dare crash out!”

  Going first meant he had clean air ahead of him so there would be no turbulence affecting his downforce, but he’d have to lay down the line for the rest of the cars following him, who’d be gaining clues about the track from his tyre lines, whereas he himself would be going round blind. He did it beautifully and posted the fastest lap on the board. Massa had chosen to follow Nish out second, and he came second fastest. Hugh glanced at me. The Mercedes team had decided to wait to send out their cars in the front of a second bunch when the racing line would have begun to develop, but their cars wouldn’t be held up in traffic. The Mercedes driver leading the Championship in the points promptly span off the track, one of his tyres just touching the very slippery concrete kerb and losing traction. He ploughed into the tyre barrier, but got out unharmed and the car looked ok. It didn’t break its suspension but it had registered that it had gone beyond its operational load so it had to go back to the garage for a check-up. A yellow flag came out and messed up a number of cars’ flying laps. Nish remained miraculously at the top. Some were following the drying ‘racing line’, Nish was showing his skills on the wet ‘karting line’. Two more cars spinning out and dumping dramatically into the advertising hoardings in front of the tyre barriers caused two successive red flags and suspension of the qualifying time. Each time a red flag came out, drivers were having their flying laps interfered with and some were repeatedly getting their timing wrong and coming back out on the track just before another red flag and not getting a proper flying lap in at all. When Q1 finished, Nish had repeatedly posted the fastest lap on the board, with all the other drivers from the smaller teams after him and the two Mercedes drivers nearly in the drop out zone, just squeezing in by the skin of their teeth.

  At the end of Q1, the Williams team were euphoric.

  “It won’t stay like this as it dries up,” I commented to Hugh.

  “No, it won’t,” Hugh agreed. “Shame though, because it would give a real shake-up to the normal grid lay-out.”

  Q2 and it was still slippery. Wets remove 65 litres of water a second, Inters only 20. But while the full wet has more movement and gives you more to lean on, it gets to the point where that movement starts to overheat the tyre and loses performance, so it’s always a big decision about when to change over to the inters. Plus we only had three sets of wets in our allowance for this weekend, and four sets of inters, so you had to manage them carefully. Massa changed over to Inters first of all the drivers. Nish immediately decided to follow suit and come back in to change his own. While Nish was in, Massa went head first into the barrier. Massa was obviously furious with himself. “So sorry guys,” he radioed as he removed the wheel and got out. The team all groaned. If they could get the car mended by tomorrow, he could start from the pits. If not, he’d be out of the race altogether.

  I didn’t bother telling Nish t
o be careful. That would be too insulting…

  He pulled it out of the bag again. Though the order was dropping back more into its usual pattern as the track dried, the Champion Points leader had to withdraw with some sort of issue with his car due to his dump into the barrier.

  Q3 and Nish announced after a single flying lap, “I’m coming in for slicks.”

  No-one else was showing any sign of doing the same. “Are you sure you can thread the needle of the dry sections and keep the tyres in the operating window?” I established.

  “Yes.” There was no tension, only certainty in his voice.

  Hugh glanced at me again.

  “It’s drying up out there,” I justified to Hugh. If we don’t take risks we’ll lose our advantage.”

  There were still pools of water lying just off the racing line. Whenever another car skidded on the kerbs they sent sprays of water over the dry sections of the track, and some of the corners had blind approaches where you couldn’t see in advance if that had happened. I watched the screens tensely. One of our main competitors lost gear box synchronisation and it ruined his flying lap. Nish threaded the dry line successfully. His laps got faster and faster. But so did everyone else’s as they gradually copied him and went back in for slicks. The remaining Mercedes driver left it to the last possible moment to come back in on his slicks. He knew with the way his car was handling he had to wait for it to be truly dry out there.

  “Two minutes to go Nish, you’ve got to be last over that line to get the best time.”

  Several drivers lost brake temperatures in the last two corners before their final flying lap because of the press of traffic as they all tried to be in the best position to be last over the line, and they consequently were unable to post their optimum time. Nish managed it almost perfectly. He flew over second from last with the quickest time of all – until the Mercedes driver shot out of the pit lane on his new slicks and came over the finish line in the final second and snatched pole position at the last possible moment.

  The whole team let out a huge sigh of mixed satisfaction and slight disappointment.

  “Nice one, Nish, best grid position yet,” I rewarded him, and switched off.

  Hugh raised his eyebrows at me. “He’s good isn’t he? That was an impressive performance, especially for such a young driver.”

  “Yep,” I said, meeting his gaze square on and with complete confidence. “That’s why Williams put in such a lot of effort to support him last year when he looked to everyone else like a spiralling disaster zone. And you’re going to see more of that level of performance from now on.”

  Hugh looked thoughtfully at me. “I begin to understand why you were given the job…”

  “Yep,” I asserted. “Chris was muzzling him. I won’t be.”

  Everyone was talking about Nish’s second podium finish in two races and his sudden improvement. Commentators were waxing lyrical about his driving style. He’d never managed to pass the Pole Position Mercedes. On the other hand he’d otherwise kept control of the race and never allowed anyone to pass him. For Williams it was bittersweet, as Massa hadn’t been able to start the race at all due to the fact the team hadn’t been able to return his car to operational status overnight. But Massa was touchingly pleased for Nish and made that known.

  I always changed my sim over on the race weekends so I wouldn’t be bothered by lots of annoying messages, and when I put my usual one back in on Monday there were loads. I only bothered to look at Rob’s, Paul’s, Jo’s and the guys from Entwistle’s. Rob’s said. Unleashed indeed. But I hope U’ve kept a dog whistle up your sleeve.

  Jonny from Stoxradio rang and asked me to do an interview.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said apologetically. “It’s part of my contract that I don’t do interviews unless they’re arranged through the Williams media department.”

  He sighed, but said he understood.

  After he rang off, I went through deleting all the texts and saw one from a number I didn’t recognise. This is my new number. Q x I saved it into the address book. It wasn’t much, but I guess it was better than nothing.

  I mused on Rob’s text. With back to back European race fixtures, Nish and I had both stayed out and gone on early to the Monza area. I asked him to go out jogging with me as I’d lapsed after spraining my ankle.

  “I’ll be crap,” I warned. “First time back for weeks. But if I don’t go with someone else I’ll give up too easily and find some excuse to stop.”

  He was happy enough to do it. Niall was beginning to get on his wick, he said. You can see too much of one person, he said.

  I managed forty-five minutes before warning twinges in my ankle told me to rest up. We lay in the dappled shade of an ancient olive grove on the side of a hill with a panoramic view over the old town.

  “Nish,” I broached carefully. “You’re going to have to trust me.”

  He rolled over and looked at me.

  “What’s this about?”

  “Nothing as yet,” I reassured him. “But I want us to lay down some principles well ahead of time in case something crops up.”

  “Ok,” he said cautiously, his dark eyes flickering warily.

  “I’m not going to interfere with your driving. It’s up to you how you want to attack it. I’m fine with you going at it aggressively, you know that. But Williams can’t afford lots of big smashes, so I don’t want you attacking at all costs. If the risks are high as you go into the last lap, and it’s the difference between sixth place and fifth, just don’t bother. Save it up for another day. On the other hand, if a risky manoeuvre is the difference between fourth, or being on the podium, then go for it, if you think you can do it. And it’s up to you how much you push once you’re into the first three – then it’s between you and the other leaders.”

  He nodded. He could see the sense in that.

  “And then, on top of that, if I give you an instruction, even if it doesn’t make sense to you, or you think it’s going to lose you a finishing place, please don’t argue back over the radio, please just do it promptly. I engage to give you your head ninety percent of the time and not to give you pointless interfering instructions, but you’ve got to engage to sit up and take notice if I do tell you to do something…”

  He listened without saying anything, his eyes on the view.

  “For instance, last weekend, the Ferrari team ordered one of their drivers in, citing their reason as getting him ahead of someone. The guy argued back, saying what on earth are you talking about? There’s no-one in view at the moment, and didn’t do it. If he’d come in as asked, they’d have got him out again ahead of you, and you may have ended up in third because there was a good chance you couldn’t have got round him again. Instead he stubbornly stayed out an extra couple of laps, came in when he fancied and ended up coming out again straight into traffic and I overheard him admitting to someone that it probably cost him a podium finish.”

  Nish nodded. He was listening carefully but not looking at me still.

  “There may be reasons for an instruction that I don’t want to explain over the radio with everyone listening in, because of team confidentiality or giving away an advantage. There may be all sorts of things that I know, but you don’t, about the situation of the other drivers or your own stats that I can see but don’t want other earwiggers to know about. If you can trust that the thing I am most committed to is seeing you get on that podium the most times possible, and that any instruction I give you is to advance that prospect, or save you from being harmed in some way, and that I don’t do it lightly, then you won’t get all high and mighty when I ask you to do something.”

  He glanced at me at last.

  “We need to take the long view. We may need to lose a minor battle to keep our powder dry to win the war. You know what I mean – save on engine wear or brakes so we don’t get a grid penalty for having to change a unit too early. You might not know why we’re making that decision in the split second we inform you of it. B
ut if you bear in mind that my ultimate goal is to gain you the opportunity of making it to World Champion on another team, then you’ll remember that what you and I are working towards is giving you the opportunity to strut your stuff on the world stage, and show everyone what you can do in all sorts of different difficult circumstances. And unless Williams is just a couple of points behind another team in the Constructors’, you gaining or losing a point here or there is of no real odds to anyone except perhaps your own pride, because you’re not going to be able to be at the top of the table, whatever you do. So if you keep your head and show everyone how mature you are, and how skilled you are at calculating the risks versus benefits, you’ll quickly become the one to watch.”

  He met my gaze and nodded. “Understood,” he said at last.

  “And agreed to?” I asked.

  “Agreed to,” he confirmed with slight smile.

  “And make sure you’re at your most charming self at all times with the media and the public,” I warned. “No sulking. Admit openly to mistakes. Appear humble when you do well. Treat the fans with respect. Look like a guy who’s a joy to manage and act really grateful to every member of the trackside team. They’re the ones who’ll do you the damage if you disrespect them. They’ll be quick to sabotage your reputation about the garages.”

  He gave me a hard playful shove. “You make it sound like to be a decent human being I’ll have to put on an act…”