Rise of the Petrol Queen

by Jon Hartless

  ‘Spectacular!’ bellowed Lorenzo, giving her a hug, even though his small arms could barely get around Poppy’s substantial torso.

  ‘Absolutely first rate,’ agreed Anthony, warmly. ‘I thought I had that one in the bag until you roared by!’

  ‘It’s all down to the car,’ smiled Poppy. ‘I’m lucky to be the only person in a petrol vehicle.’

  ‘I’m sure that will change soon,’ laughed Lorenzo. ‘The car manufacturers must now be sitting up and taking notice.’30

  Poppy pondered this remark as they were collected by Harry and taken to the mobile podium. The three friends made elegant speeches thanking the crowd, each other, their respective pit crews and finally the race stewards, and Poppy’s day was complete as Harry announced Hepplewhite’s illegal early start had incurred a penalty relegating him to ninth out of eleven runners.

  ‘What are your plans from here?’ asked Anthony as they finally climbed down from the podium to where Simeon was standing with an impatient proprietorial air, waiting for Poppy to descend.

  ‘As many more races as we can do,’ replied Poppy, her mind still on Lorenzo’s comment. ‘After all, I have the best car in the country. Don’t you agree, Simeon?’ she asked as Simeon shook his head in exasperation.

  ‘This is only the beginning,’ replied Simeon. ‘Your victories are going to spur your rivals into improving their vehicles. You’re not going to have it all your own way, you know,’ he added in a meaningful tone.

  ‘Oh, bother to you; we’ll take on all comers, won’t we?’ said Poppy, ignoring Simeon’s comment and patting Thunderbus. ‘Let them bring their best!’

  27 “Being overtaken by Poppy in Thunderbus was an act of sheer poetry.” Sebastian Fuller, Motor Racing Memories, chapter three, Marshall Press, 1937.

  28 Hepplewhite laid a formal complaint afterward with the officials who rejected it outright, though the right-wing press supported his unfounded protest.

  29 At this point, most manufacturers were still in denial on the superiority of petrol over steam.

  30 Poppy described the Fourth Estate as being nothing more than the sycophantic lapdogs of the status quo rather than fearless exposers of the truth. Nothing has changed today.

  Chapter Eight

  Immediately after the race was over, the assembled journalists covering the event rushed a few miles down the road to Tranters, the club of choice for the racing elite when reluctantly visiting the Midlands, in order to drink their expenses and shout headlines and quotes at each other.

  ‘Look, Baggeridge is a dump, everyone knows that,’ stated one, presumably on the grounds that anything outside London was of inferior character. ‘I’m saying on a proper race track, somewhere in the blessed south, the result will be different.’

  ‘You must be joking,’ roared another, downing half a pint in one gulp. ‘The tart had a delay of sixteen seconds by my watch and she still got to the front and won.’

  ‘Twenty six seconds,’ said a colleague, increasing the drama for the sake of good copy. ‘That car is fast.’ He drained his gin. ‘Another round, Tumpy,’ he bellowed at the barman, provoking enthusiastic cheers.

  ‘Makes you wonder how fast it would go with a proper driver in the racing seat.’

  ‘Yes; one who isn’t an attention-seeking slapper.’

  ‘Yeah; who does she think she is? Stupid little girl, thinking she can play with the big boys.’

  ‘Imagine if Lord Oswald had a petrol car, eh?’ giggled another. ‘He wouldn’t have needed to set off early and wouldn’t have got that penalty!’ The group exploded in laughter, agreement, denial and abuse which abruptly died down as the doors to the club swung open to reveal Lord Hepplewhite, his son, Oswald, and the small group of racing dignitaries who had consented against their better judgement to journey north to witness the effect of handicapping on a race.

  ‘Can we get a quote on the race today, my lord?’ mumbled one of the reporters, deferentially. The group pulled out a variety of audiophonic recorders, pens, notepads and old shopping lists, all the while blinking in humble defiance at Hepplewhite. Although the press alone had the power to challenge the wealthy and the powerful, it very rarely did for fear of inadvertently sweeping away the establishment and replacing it with a genuine meritocratic democracy based on truth and decency, a world which would have no place at all for a capitalist-owned media.31

  ‘Today was an interesting race,’ replied Hepplewhite senior, who knew the value of keeping the press satisfied in terms of quotes and soundbites, ‘and although we are disappointed at the marshal’s complete mishandling of the start, we are glad that Baggeridge has admitted the fault lies entirely with them.’

  ‘What? No, I haven’t,’ began Ralph Morton, Earl of Shropshire and the owner of the track, before being quickly hushed.

  ‘My son’s vehicle was also hampered throughout by poor tyres which, coupled with the marshal’s error, cost him victory.’

  ‘Bad luck,’ chorused the journalists, ordering more drinks in support.

  ‘And how are you gentlemen going to cover today’s race?’ asked Hepplewhite of the press. ‘With a proper regard for all the people involved, I hope?’ The coded message was greeted with vigorous nods and mumbled agreement which became raucous agreement as Hepplewhite announced drinks all around. ‘Put them on my bill, please, and I hope to see all of you maintain an excellent standard of dedicated journalism in the future,’ he added with a snide smile.

  ‘That we will, sir, that we will,’ chorused the braying journalists.

  ‘No doubt you have a rough draft of the copy you will be submitting?’ demanded Hepplewhite, still needing reassurance.

  The journalists were extremely skilled in dredging up new articles – based on all their old ones – to satisfy the demands of their rich paymasters; as such, it was just a question of who reacted first.

  ‘My lord!’ said one of the younger reporters, leaping from his stool at the chance to ingratiate himself. ‘I do have an outline prepared, my lord. Shall I give you a taster, my lord?’

  ‘Please do.’

  ‘Very well, my lord.’ The man smirked as his colleagues bitterly ordered fresh drinks to compensate for being too slow to butter up Hepplewhite before pulling out the article he had written that morning, several hours before the race. ‘Headline: Disgusting scenes at race track, by J Wilberforce, The Man Who Knows. Chief Feature Writer of the Daily Delivery.’32

  ‘Ah, yes, pithy, grabs the reader, good stuff,’ nodded a journalist into his drink.

  ‘Just a work in progress, you understand, my lord,’ continued Wilberforce, fortifying himself with a gulp of gin. ‘The rest, my lord, runs thusly. “At first glance, observers may be forgiven for thinking something is rotten in the state of motor racing. Needless to say, motor racing is at a crossroads. Pity the poor racing driver who not only risks his life for our entertainment, but who must now do so at the risk of being ungallant. For men must now compete against women on the track.

  ‘“Yes, women are racing. We saw it last year and hoped it was an advertising stunt, but these hopes have been dashed on this first race of the new season. Poppy Orpington has returned in her foul petrol car to terrorise decency and common sense.

  ‘“As a nation, we pride ourselves on our manners and sense of fair play. Indeed, these are the chief characteristics of the English man, from the lord in his castle to the humble salt in his terrace house.”’ Wilberforce paused to spit at the thought of the humblest of the land; work-shy scrounging bastards to a man, as he never failed to mention when raging about the idle poor. He fortified himself with more gin from his expense account before continuing.

  ‘“Lord Geoffrey Hepplewhite is no exception to the rules of chivalry. As such, he can no more object to the presence of a woman on the track than a woman can understand logic.

  ‘“It is a sad fact more and more unmarried women are demanding more and more power; power which they wish to take directly from men.

  ‘“This b
egs the question of how these women would use that power. We all know the answer to that. Badly. This is a cautionary tale for our times and it remains to be seen how history will judge Miss Orpington. Needless to say, it will not be favourable.” How’s that, my lord?’

  ‘That’s good,’ acknowledged one of the throng, despite his irritation that Wilberforce – the grovelling little bastard – had got in with Lord Hepplewhite before anyone else had a chance.

  ‘Perfect prose,’ babbled another into his scotch.

  ‘Shakespeare himself could not have written better,’ announced a third, holding his drink aloft in salutation.

  ‘A fair and excellent report,’ replied Hepplewhite, marvelling that he didn’t even need to guide the press toward the angle he wanted them to take; they were already there of their own accord. ‘I congratulate you, gentlemen, and I look forward to reading all your copy when it is printed.’

  ‘Thank you, very kind,’ rumbled the men, preening in satisfaction. Not one of them felt the indignity of being voluntary quislings to the wealthy establishment; they were all bought and owned, their price being no more than acceptance into popular servitude.

  ‘Excellent,’ smirked Hepplewhite, satisfied with the whelps of the British press. ‘This way, gentlemen,’ he said to his companions. ‘Our dinner awaits in the private chambers upstairs.’

  Lord Lidington couldn’t resist a small dig at the British motoring supremo as they climbed the stairs. ‘Congratulations, Geoffrey, old boy; that got the press on side and will stop them reporting on your car’s awful showing.’

  ‘It wasn’t my fault,’ interrupted Oswald, petulantly. ‘It was the tyres!’

  ‘Of course it was, Oswald,’ soothed Lidington as they entered the private room. ‘The way that girl came from the back of the pack after a huge delay and still won had nothing to do with power and skill. It was all in your tyres.’

  ‘You may think this funny, gentlemen,’ snapped Hepplewhite as several of the directors sniggered, ‘but have you considered what that car will do to our beloved motorsport if it continues to score such victories?’

  ‘Yes; it will bring in quite a lot of revenue,’ replied Lord Phipps as he headed for the table piled high with rich food.

  ‘There is more to this than money,’ snapped Hepplewhite. ‘Some things are about prestige!’

  ‘If you wish to talk of prestige, what of the fact that manufacturers are increasingly unwilling to race their prototypes at Purley because of the dilapidated surface?’ asked Lidington, somewhat sharply. ‘That is a true loss of prestige, Geoffrey, yet you insist on only investing paltry sums in basic maintenance.’

  ‘Indeed. When was the last time any race went round the lake?’ remarked Morton, still smarting at being made the scapegoat for Oswald’s loss.33

  ‘We have coped perfectly well without that section,’ snorted Hepplewhite, angry he was being questioned.

  ‘Only because you raised the price of admissions,’ replied Phipps, hunting for potatoes. ‘That wasn’t a popular move at all.’

  ‘And as for the number of letters complaining about the shortened track,’ sneered Lidington. ‘We now have cabinets full of them.’

  ‘Very well,’ spat Hepplewhite, the unusual mutterings of rebellion overruling his business sense and prompting a ridiculous scheme to stamp his authority on the board and prevent Thunderbus from racing – and therefore winning – at Purley. ‘As you are so concerned about the state of the track, I will close Purley completely in order to make repairs and alterations.’

  ‘What?’ yelped Phipps, his roast potatoes shaking in agitation. ‘It’s too late to do that! Any repairs should have been made when the track was closed for winter.’

  ‘I say we shall do them now,’ snapped Hepplewhite, glaring around the room.

  ‘Look, Geoffrey, I know you’re upset about that girl beating both your son and your best vehicle, but to close down the entire track under the pretence of repairs is utterly ludicrous. Any repairs will cost a fortune and they’ll take months to finish. The track may not open again until next year!’

  ‘Besides, she’s going to be racing at other tracks so your actions are completely pointless,’ snapped Lidington in disbelief.

  ‘Then we will have a series of half-races through the next few months, invitation only events, to help us keep afloat,’ replied Hepplewhite, realising his plan to close the entire track was commercial suicide yet refusing to back down on principle; to do so would be a sign of weakness.

  ‘Half races are fine for smaller vehicles,’ protested Phipps, ‘but they don’t bring in the same excitement and crowds as the free-for-all entries with the big powerful cars.’

  ‘The decision is made: Purley will be closed for maintenance,’ barked Hepplewhite, feeling vindicated in his victory over Poppy and the board despite the substantial loss of revenue it would entail. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me and my son, we have ordered a private meal as I wish to telephone an old friend of mine; Hugo Merriman, one of our splendid Members of Parliament. I have some concerns about road safety I wish to put to him.’

  31 Founded by Daniel Robert Murray, otherwise known as Lord Cartwright, The Daily Delivery was a carbon copy of the Daily Post in that it had strict (albeit unwritten) guidelines concerning how it portrayed society; the rich were fawned over, women were objects for admiration or scorn depending on their class, while the poor were despised and foreigners loathed. Wilberforce later became one of the most acclaimed editors of the paper for his efforts in legitimising hatred against the most vulnerable people in the land.

  32 Lake End – actually an artificial pool – had been closed off since one infamous contest saw nine vehicles retire owing to damaged wheels and suspension caused by the huge pot holes.

  33 The caution was for a separate incident and was a travesty of justice; see Volume I for full details.

  Chapter Nine

  Why does VIOLENCE follow the hysterical PETROL QUEEN? A special report, by STEPHEN DINWOODY

  Following on our revelations of the criminal associates of racing driver POPPY ORPINGTON, investigative journalist Stephen Dinwoody has unearthed fresh, horrific allegations of her violent past! As a PROBLEM CHILD in a deprived school in Dudley, she CRUSHED the hand of a terrified pupil in her metal grip! A crime which resulted in a police caution!39

  “It was awful to see,” said Darren Weldon, who witnessed the attack. “We’d just been sitting by the gates, minding our own business, when Poppy Orpington grabbed hold of Paul Hibbert and got his hand in that Casbic-Turner34 of hers and crushed it!”

  “It made us feel sick,” agreed Lee Jasper, who also witnessed the attack. “Paul had to go to the local apothecary to have his hand stitched back on again! He still can’t use it properly now!”

  Both men expressed bafflement as to why the VIOLENT Poppy Orpington attacked their friend. But one thing they do know; they live in FEAR of her coming back to Stourbridge.

  “We wouldn’t want to see her again, not after what she did,” said Mr Jasper, looking concerned.

  Paul Hibbert was unavailable to comment on the story, stating he hurt his hand in a car engine.

  ‘Why are you so eager to take a role in this evening’s pleasantries, Poppy?’ asked Helena as a necklace was laid around her shoulders by her maid. ‘You’ve turned down at least three invitations a month from us so far this year, and I believe you have never attended a ball in your life. Or shown any interest in doing so.’

  ‘Can’t a girl want a change every now and then?’ replied Poppy, fidgeting in her dress. She and Amy were suitably clothed in gowns chosen by Helena earlier that day. Poppy’s dress was cream in colour and did very little – despite its best prudish efforts – to hide her Amazonian build, while Amy’s blonde hair and slender English Rose beauty fitted perfectly with her long powder blue gown. She might have been confused for someone born into wealth if only she hadn’t been so self-conscious in the rich, unfamiliar fabric.

  ‘Most girls can, but y
ou have never been interested in social events before,’ pointed out Helena. She moved her heavy necklace around, trying to make it more comfortable before thanking her maid, who bobbed down and left the dressing room.

  ‘Why are you wearing that old-fashioned dress?’ asked Poppy, changing the subject. ‘When you go out socialising you put on much lighter items. Why constrain yourself in heavy nineteenth century wear? And why inflict it on us?’

  ‘There is still a strong belief that formal occasions demand formal wear,’ said Helena.

  ‘Despite the manifest lack of comfort and the restricted movement?’

  ‘There are certain standards and expectations within society. A great many of my contemporaries prefer to hold on to the past.’

  ‘Why? The new age isn’t really any different,’ replied Poppy as she walked around the room, trying to get comfortable in the dress. ‘The rich and titled still hold all the power and all the opportunities.’

  ‘We do exist in different worlds, I’m afraid,’ admitted Helena, ‘but there are doors into your world which are forever closed to me as well as doors to my world closed to you.’

  ‘Yes, but we’re never even told the doors are there,’ replied Poppy in irritation at the inequality of English society.

  ‘Don’t mind Poppy; she’s been reading her socialist books again,’ interrupted Amy, embarrassed by Poppy’s comments. Amy herself still retained many deferential tendencies toward her supposed social superiors.

  ‘You can’t deny society holds people back,’ responded Poppy. ‘The majority of people need luck to make something of themselves; talent alone isn’t enough. That’s the only reason I’m standing here now; exceptional good fortune. If dad hadn’t taken Thunderbus out that first day, at that time, and taken that route, we would never have encountered you and Simeon. He would never have got to the Sussex and I would never have got to Purley.’35