The Way Back (Not Quite Eden Book 6)

by Dominique Kyle

  I could barely keep my eyes open and I felt sick.

  “Time for us to go home before we turn into pumpkins, methinks.” He eyed me thoughtfully, then sighed. “Can’t carry you out again, it’ll cause too much furore.” He pulled me up by the wrist. “Guess we’d better tell Quinn this time.” He looked around him but the place was ram-packed. “Oh, I just can’t be bothered!” He said, pulled his phone out and texted him, and then took me out to the waiting rank of taxis.

  So I was right. I had ended up leaving with Nish. But not for any particularly awful reason. It was just that our professions were just so different. Quinn needed to be seen hanging out in all the right places and with all the right people and live a nocturnal life sussing out band venues and music scenes, and getting in with every different sort of musician. Nish and I, however, were expected to stay fresh, fit, healthy and sober, ready to hit the ground running every day of the race season. I wondered if Quinn could cope with my necessarily puritanical and single minded existence. I was a very different person to the one he’d hung out with back in the day, and the demands on my time these days were all consuming. Would we be able to put our two such contrasting lifestyles together in any way that was meaningful? And how could he possibly know that he loved me when I was no longer the girl who’d lived next door to him? No longer even the anxious, insular, ignorant girl who he’d accompanied to Italy – the last time he’d spent any significant time with me.

  I’d left for the plane long before Quinn would have surfaced, maybe before he’d have even left the club. When I switched on my phone again back in Heathrow, there was a text waiting for me. Where R U?

  I texted back. Customs in Heathrow.

  Immediately I got one back. Why did Nish txt me to say U were leavg¬ U?

  I was asleep.

  There was a bit of a pause while I put my phone away to go through passport control. But I took another look at my phone while waiting for my bags to come through on the carousel.

  The band hav invitd me 2 stA wi thm. So I’ll stop anothr week to lern sum of the rthms.

  I sighed. See, it was starting already. Ok hav fun. I mite be out in Abu Dhabi by the time U get bak.

  He sent me some kisses back, but I didn’t reciprocate. I wasn’t sending kisses yet.

  Nish was smiling broadly before the free practice in Abu Dhabi. “Rod says he might be here for the race.”

  That was the first time any member of his family had shown any sign of turning up for any of his races the whole season.

  “How come he’s making it all the way out here rather than Silverstone?” I frowned.

  “He’s out here for a racehorse owner,” Nish explained.

  “Last time I saw him he’d just had his hand up a cow, I thought he was a farm vet,” I said.

  It was Nish’s turn to frown. “When did you meet Rod?” He sounded put out.

  “I went to your house to liaise when you were taken hostage. Didn’t you know?”

  He didn’t respond.

  “I met your mother and Sappho and Roderick there.”

  He turned his head sharply away from me. I was pretty certain that I’d mentioned it in the van when he’d woken up from the drugs but he obviously hadn’t taken it in. I couldn’t entirely understand why he seemed so pissed off about it, so I tried to imagine it the other way round. Ok, so maybe I wouldn’t be that rapt to find out that he’d met my dad and my stepmother and my disabled little brother and visited my scummy little childhood home without me there to interpret them to him.

  “Rod does a lot of large animal practice,” he rallied after a marked silence, “but he’s developed a specialism in race horse fertility, so he’s often called out to the Middle East for a consultation. I’m guessing that’s why he’s out here.”

  “Ok,” I responded with a slightly forced cheeriness to overcome his withdrawal from me, “let’s make sure we put on a good show for him, shall we? It’s the last one of the season. We’ve got a new design of car for next year. The Driver’s Championship’s already been decided. What have we got to lose? Pull out all the stops, Nish.”

  His dark eyes reluctantly returned to my face. I smiled meaningfully at him with a complex message of permission, promise and challenge. He held my gaze ambivalently for a moment and then he indulged in a slow pleased smile back.

  Just after I walked away, I turned back momentarily and raised a cautionary finger to him. “Just don’t crash out,” I warned.

  Hugh glanced at me during qualifying. Nish was driving like a demon. I had my eyes narrowed on all the data. The car was holding up to the treatment ok. Some careful tactics with tyres and weight of fuel and some split second timing and he flashed through second from last before the chequered flag. I smiled broadly as I saw his time. Fastest lap. And then the current Champion flashed underneath. I let out an involuntary yelp of joy. A thousandth of a second slower than Nish. Behind us in the garage a big shout went up. Nish had got his first ever pole position.

  “When Lewis Hamilton got his first ever pole position in his rookie year, he declared it better than sex,” I reminded Nish, and raised my eyebrows at him.

  Nish grinned. “Guess I’m going to find out.”

  Nish’s face lit up when Rod was led into the pits. Nish had managed to get him a VIP ticket. He showed him around, talking nineteen to the dozen in an eager puppy-doggish way that I’d never seen him exhibit before. Big bro, little bro, I guess. And Rod was a good seven years older than Nish, so he’d have always been the one to look up to. The team were all eyeing Rod sideways. Curious to see what a brother of Nish would be like. In public, Nish always seemed innately self-composed, approachable, and yet not gushingly open. Self-confident, but not in an off putting arrogant way. Seeing him alongside Rod, it suddenly seemed as though Nish had inherited all the charm, and Rod the commanding presence. Rod’s profile, now I looked at it carefully, was somewhat eagle-like. And he frowned more than he smiled.

  I walked up to them and tapped my watch at Nish. “Time to go and get ready. I’ll take over with Rod.”

  Nish nodded and obediently took himself off. Rod and I stood looking at each other. I jerked my head to him to take him over into the pen they put VIP visitors in where they could watch all the excitement without getting in the way. And then I went for him, big time.

  “How could you and your family do that to him? Abandon him like that? How could you?” I raged. “Just when he really needed you all, you cut him loose!”

  Rod’s nostrils flared and he sort of leant away from me.

  “Do you realise how good he is?” I demanded angrily. “Do you realise how few people ever even get as far as being a driver, let alone getting onto the podium? Let alone getting onto the podium driving a car from a middle-ranking team? Do you realise how talented that makes him? And yet none of you ever bothered to turn up to a single race! Do you realise how few drivers win a race in their first season? And he had to stand up there all on his own! And he came back in and sobbed his heart out because your dad wasn’t there with him…and not just because of your dad, because none of the rest of you were there! None of you even bothered to text him afterwards did you? And Miriam hasn’t even been invited home yet, has she? She’s a top musician with the Royal Philharmonic and yet you’ve completely cut her! I don’t care if you’ve always thought he was the spoilt little brat-brother or some dumb thing like that because he certainly isn’t spoiled! He’s worked bloody hard to get where he is today. And without let up since he was seven years old. With complete discipline too! He’s worked his butt off to get to this point. And no less hard than I’m sure you worked to get to be a vet. And he was doing all this alongside doing GCSEs, ‘A’ levels and a degree. You don’t get as far as this without complete single minded dedication and sacrifice – so if you’ve been thinking he’s a pretty little shallow empty headed muppet, then you’re way off the mark, I can tell you!”

  I was keeping my voice low and intense so my words wouldn’t carry across
the garage, but everyone was glancing across and it must have been clear what was going on. My eyes were furious and my stance confrontational. I came to an abrupt halt. Rod was silent. His shoulders tense and his eyes flickering.

  “You head off to the race wall now, Eve.” Hugh was suddenly standing beside us, his tone neutral. I’ll look after Mr. Gilbraith.”

  I turned on my heel and went. I was shaking with anger. I sat on the stool staring blindly at the screens for several minutes until one of the engineers asked me a question and then I had to shake myself out of it. I had to forget about everything now, and just concentrate on the race.

  I’d told Nish to just go for it, and he sure did. He got off to a flying start and defended his position with consummate skill. He took risks, but always carefully calculated ones. He was on the attack and never let up. The faster cars just couldn’t get past him.

  I was watching the field. Watching all the data. Calculating all the stats. “Come in now,” I ordered. “Super Softs,” I told the mechanics.

  Hugh’s lips parted to put in an opposing point of view, but then closed again as I saw him decide to let me have my head and see what happened. After all, he knew that in the last race of the season, a few points either way wouldn’t change a thing. Here was the perfect race to let everyone off the leash to test out their skills.

  As the Williams pit team yet again took the race record for the shortest pit stop time, Nish shot out again in the perfect position ahead of the two fastest rivals who had already made their last pit stops so couldn’t use a well-timed one to get out ahead of him where he might not be able to ever get past again. Having hung on to his last tyres for a couple of laps longer than his nearest rivals, Nish was now on new tyres and ate up the last three laps with efficiency and supreme confidence. As he flashed under the chequered flag with the Mercedes’ nose nearly on his back bumper, he let out a yell of delight and slapped the wheel. The whole Williams team erupted in joy. It was a brilliant end to the season.

  I turned to Hugh. “Will you make sure that his brother is taken up to be on the podium with him?” I asked.

  Hugh nodded and disappeared off.

  When I watched the screen showing footage of the ceremony, I saw that both Claire Williams and Rod were up there with him. They both put their arms around his shoulders and Claire Williams said she was really proud of him, and then so did Rod. And then Claire made a tactical dash behind Nish as a jet of champagne was aimed at her, and Rod, as a podium virgin just stood there looking shocked as one hit him square on. Nish was beaming and laughing and looked so happy. I smiled and turned away from the screen. What a perfect end to the season for all concerned…

  Claire Williams, of course, had a change of clothes with her. Poor Rod didn’t. He stood there all wet and sticky holding his arms out stiffly from his side. “Yuk,” he commented in disfavour.

  “You go around sticking your hands up cows’ arses, so I’m sure you’ve had worse on you,” I pointed out dryly.

  He glanced at me. “Cows’ birth canals actually…”

  “Is that a coy veterinary term for a cunt?” I queried with a frown.

  Kielty suddenly put an arm around my neck and dragged me forcibly away.

  Claire Williams was interviewed for Sky and the terrestrial TV coverage. I didn’t stop to listen to it. She was smiling and she’d obviously be saying all the right things.

  I was a bit surprised when Hugh came over to me and told me I was to go out with Nish to have and interview with Steve and David Coulthard for the TV. I went out reluctantly.

  DC and Steve smiled at us both with that look in their eyes that meant they were hoping to have a bit of fun with us.

  “So Claire’s let you out of purdah at last has she?” Steve teased me.

  “Only as long as Nish is with me to pinch me if I say anything wrong,” I said. “Ow!” I rubbed my arm indignantly. “Like that! Apparently I’ve already said something wrong and I don’t even know what it is…” I glared at Nish. “That hurt! Can’t you just give me a subtle nudge instead?” I demanded.

  “You don’t recognise subtle,” Nish dismissed.

  “You’d better just interview him,” I snapped, and sat down on the tarmac.

  “What on earth are you doing?” Nish enquired astounded.

  “Keeping out of camera shot,” I replied, shrugging.

  Steve was creasing up with ill-contained hilarity. “You’re not out of camera shot,” he explained. “You just look like a midget with only your head showing.”

  I shrugged again. “Do a close up of Nish instead. He’s much more photogenic than me.”

  For a bit they stuck to interviewing him. Then occasionally they’d direct the same question at me while the camera bent downwards at me. I’d shoot a suspicious glance at it and keep repeating, “Yeah, like what he said…”

  When they asked him what it felt like to start on pole position for the first time, I glanced up at him and asked, “So was it as good as sex then, like what Lewis Hamilton claimed after his first pole?”

  Nish’s eyes hooded for a moment. “I guess that would depend on whom I was having sex with,” he said meaningfully, with a deliberately humorous quirk to the lips.

  I stood up and brushed myself down. I raised my eyebrows at him. “That’s very cryptic! How am I supposed to interpret that unless you’re more specific?”

  Nish glanced across at DC who was subsiding into the giggles, and said firmly. “I am definitely not going to get more specific.”

  “Annoying or what?” I directed at DC. “And the damn guy doesn’t even drink, so I can’t even get half a bottle of whisky down him to interrogate further! Come to think of it, pole position itself sounds like something from the karma sutra. Ow!” I rubbed ruefully at my arm again.

  “So what’s it like being Nish’s race engineer?” Steve asked me.

  I frowned. “As opposed to being someone else’s race engineer? Or as opposed to not being a race engineer at all?” I established.

  Nish grinned. “She likes to define her terms before committing to anything.”

  “Ok, so let’s reverse the question,” Steve compromised. “Claire Williams seemed a bit vague about where Eve had appeared from. Apparently she just materialised suddenly out of nowhere and no-one seems to quite know how. How do you find working with her?” He directed at Nish.

  Nish smiled. “Yeah, great, I couldn’t wish for better.”

  I glanced swiftly at him.

  “She doesn’t say very much over the radio,” Steve observed.

  “I don’t need to,” I interrupted. “He’s a brilliant driver. I have no intention of interfering when he’s right on target. I just let him know when he has an opportunity to do something better.”

  “That sounds like the ideal respectful relationship,” DC commented in Nish’s direction.

  Nish nodded. “If she pipes up with anything, I sit up and take notice.”

  “So what are you most grateful to your race engineer for so far?” DC asked Nish.

  I thought it was a curiously phrased question, but David Coulthard was a previous F1 World Champion runner-up himself, so maybe it was a question that would make sense from one driver to another.

  I suppose he expected Nish to talk about some aspect of my management, or some specific incident like the sudden intervention on the occasion of that first podium position. But instead Nish looked for a long moment at me then said, “What can I answer to that except to say a big thank you to her for saving my life?”

  I frowned. “I didn’t save your life, Nish.”

  He looked seriously at me. “You did, Eve. If you hadn’t come to find me when they were holding me hostage, I doubt I’d have survived. The doctors said that a few more days of the sort of treatment I was receiving before you turned up and put a stop to it, and I’d have probably died of liver and kidney failure.”

  I thought about it for a second or two. “I did point out to them that a dead hostage wouldn’t be a usefu
l bargaining chip,” I agreed.

  Nish started laughing. “Yeah, thanks for that, Eve. She’s always so bloody logical,” he directed at DC.

  I reached out and lifted his arm to the camera and pulled back the cuff to reveal the horrible scars from the cables they’d tied his hands with. “See this? He’s got the same on his ankles too. When I saw how swollen his hands and feet were and so dead and white looking, I thought he might never be able to use them again. I was terrified he might never be able to drive or play a musical instrument again. I’m just so grateful that he made a full a recovery. If he hadn’t have been so fit to start out with, I doubt he’d have been able to.”

  Nish looked directly at DC. “So yes, that’s what I’m most grateful to my race engineer for…”

  “So on that note…” Steve began to wind up.

  I glanced at my watch and turned away to walk off.

  “You’re supposed to wait to say good-bye to the viewers with us,” Steve chided.

  “You might have the luxury of being able to woffle on all day, but I’ve got better things to with my time,” I threw back.

  I heard Nish snorting behind me.

  “So, in the company of one of the rising stars of the Formula One circuit, and the retreating back of one of the burgeoning characters from the Paddocks, we’ll say good-bye to you all now and wait with baited breath to see what next season brings with some new rules, some new drivers and some brand new designs of cars.”

  Back in the pits, Nish caught up with me and rolled his eyes. “Pinching you is useless! I need nothing less than a Taser to keep you in order! They’re not going to risk letting you out of the garage again for anything less than me making it to World Champion!”

  I grinned unrepentantly at him. Characters make good publicity for a team. Everyone loves a ‘character’. Everyone except the team itself, I guess.

  “So go on then,” I challenged him naughtily. “Which time when you had sex was better than pole position?”