The Way Back

by Dominique Kyle

  Jamie sighed as I held him out at arms’ length. He was twenty-one now and was filling out. His hair was done all spiky and his clothes were quite different to his usual taste. Yes, she was having quite an influence.

  “Little bro?” Nish echoed with a frown.

  Quinn glanced at him. “James McGinty – Eve McGinty – didn’t you realise?”

  “No, it never occurred to me…” Nish admitted. “You never said a word, Eve!”

  I looked blankly at him. “Why would I? You’ve never asked me about my family…”

  “Haven’t I?” Nish looked a bit guiltily at me.

  “No, not a single question, ever,” I said a bit fiercely.

  Quinn ignored us. “So have you brought everything?” He directed at the other two.

  Soon they were lugging in all their guitars and some electronic stuff. I went and made coffee and they got down to playing some recordings of the current state of development of their latest material. Nish was listening with acute concentration. Quinn was watching his face for reaction. Soon Nish was saying things like, “I think the balance in that link is wrong,” and “I think you need more complexity there,” and then he went and got a black case from the corner and drew a gleaming object out of the purple velvet and was playing them sample runs of notes on his saxophone.

  I sat there transfixed. It was so different to their B.S.E. days when everything was loud and shouty and screaming. It was quite mesmerising watching the process.

  “Sing a note, Quinn, any note,” Jamie instructed. Quinn opened his mouth and a lovely sound came out. “Now you, Nish, sing the same note.”

  Nish took a deep breath and sang the same note. His voice was utterly beautiful. I stared at him and Quinn glanced across at me and smiled. He’d obviously already heard Nish’s voice. But it was so different to Quinn’s voice. How could one note sound so different in the mouths of two different men?

  “Now Quinn sing a note and Nish harmonise and Quinn keep changing the note and Nish keep varying the harmony – it’s ok to slide between the notes as you do so…”

  Nish seemed to be able to harmonise effortlessly, whatever Quinn sang.

  “Now Eve, sing the highest note you can manage,” Jamie ordered.

  I stared horrified at him. “You know I can’t sing Jamie!”

  “Just do it, Eve,” he said impatiently. “It doesn’t matter if it’s squawky or flat. In fact squawky and flat would be good – I just need a sort of high noise that sounds different and discordant to the rest.”

  “Ok, I can do discordant,” I said. I hated having to do this in front of the so musical Nish, but I opened my mouth and let out the highest note I could possible squeal my voice into.

  Quinn stared at me. Nish blinked.

  “Blimey Ginty, where did that come from?” Quinn teased. “That could crack glass!”

  “Sssh,” Jamie said crossly. He fiddled about a bit, pressing buttons, then played back all the notes at once, on a loop. It sounded weird but sort of amazing at the same time. The only voice he didn’t have continuous was mine – I suddenly squealed shockingly over the top in a stop start fashion. Then they got their guitars out and played along over the top of it, trying things out.

  “So what can you add?” Jamie said to Nish, jerking his head at the sax.

  Nish picked it up and poured liquid runs of notes through the rest, like a blackbird in the morning. I lay down on the carpet and listened to the hypnotic effect. I ended up lying there all the rest of the morning silently admiring. They were all amazing, and Jamie’s clear vision of what he wanted really impressed me.

  Suddenly the three of them leapt up, announced they were starving, and stormed into Nish’s kitchen like the Mongol hordes without as much as asking his permission. I glanced across at him and mouthed ‘sorry’ at him, ‘no manners’. He laughed suddenly. His expression was more animated and content than I’d ever seen it. This was really good for him, I thought. Good old Quinn. Knowing Quinn, he’d probably deliberately done this to cheer Nish up. I felt really grateful.

  “What are we going to have for tea?” Jamie said as they came out laden with the results of the raid on Nish’s fridge. “Because I don’t want to have us interrupted by having to go out for a meal – we’ll never get the concentration back.” He looked across at me. Then Quinn did. Then Kes. I guessed what was coming next.

  “Make us one of your curries,” Jamie ordered imperiously.

  I sighed, got up, and went out to the bike to go into town to shop for the ingredients.

  By the time I’d got back after my lengthy sojourn to source all the right bits, another person had joined the gathering at the flat. My heart sank. Sappho seemed to have got wind of the visit, or else she was just ‘popping over’ again. Nish said he suspected his mother was sending her over to keep an eye on how he was. He admitted that he hadn’t been home since the funeral – couldn’t face it.

  Sappho was like an exotic butterfly flitting around in the middle of them. Silky, gleaming, short turquoise dress, hair loose and flowing, complexion glowing, eyes huge and dark and thickly lashed, long elegant legs with high heeled shoes. I was just in my jeans with my hair tucked behind my ears. I felt ungainly and unfeminine. And Quinn just couldn’t take his eyes off her. So I took myself off to the kitchen.

  I heard Sappho laughing at my stop start squawks. “You should use me,” she told them confidently and opened her mouth to let out a stunningly beautiful noise. As I chopped the onions I didn’t stop to query whether the ensuing stinging tears were chemical or emotional – they just felt really painful. I kept out of the way for the rest of the afternoon and served up at six o’clock. The men were all really grateful. Sappho grumpy that I was garnering the acclaim for a bit.

  But finally she had to retreat to the spare room as we all settled down to sleep. Kes and Jamie crashed on the floor in a couple of sleeping bags, and Quinn and I shared the sofa. We curled into each other and Quinn held his arms tight around me.

  At some point I opened my eyes to see Nish sitting in the armchair across from us, watching us in the early morning light.

  “What are you doing?” I whispered, feeling uncomfortable. “What time is it?”

  “Five.” He supplied. “I told you that sometimes I just can’t sleep at all,” he added. “It’s when my brain gets overstimulated I think. My mind won’t switch off.”

  “Well read a book or something,” I suggested.

  “Can’t concentrate,” he answered miserably. “Will you come and talk to me?”

  I sighed and began to carefully extricate myself from Quinn’s slackened grasp. He barely stirred. And then I stepped carefully over Jamie. “What’s going round in that head of yours?” I asked, then yawned.

  “Will you two just shut up!” Jamie hissed, opening one baleful eye.

  Nish grimaced at me, and jerked his head towards his bedroom. I sleepily followed him in and got into bed with him without even thinking about it.

  “Oh everything,” he said. “In the night everything seems so apocalyptic.”

  I knew that feeling. I reached across and put my arms round him and made a vague attempt to massage his neck like Quinn had done for me the previous night. He sighed and relaxed. I tried to have a go at his shoulders too, but they were broad and hard.

  “My hands are too small to do it properly,” I excused after a minute or two.

  “Don’t stop,” he begged. “It’s nice anyway…”

  I remembered how nice it had felt when Quinn put his arms around me after I’d had no physical contact for so long, so I figured that the least I could do was attempt something similar for Nish. I changed over to massaging his face and head, and his eyes closed under irresistibly heavy lids. Within minutes I could tell he’d slipped into sleep. I flopped back onto the pillow. His sheets were a quality dark terracotta orange linen, the pillows and duvet soft feather and down. Oh well, I thought, it’s a shame to waste a good bed, and within seconds I’d joined him in his slum
ber.

  Quinn looked askance at me when I emerged from Nish’s room three hours later. Jamie was still asleep but Kes was stirring. I yawned. When I’d stop yawning and stretching I found Quinn was still sort of Paddington Bear staring accusingly at me.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” I said defensively. “He came out and got me because he couldn’t sleep and wanted someone to talk to, and we went back in there because Jamie was snarling at us to shut up. Then he went and immediately fell asleep, and I did too.”

  Quinn turned his head away.

  “He’s not my type, Quinn,” I said.

  “What is your type?” Quinn asked his green eyes darting briefly at my face.

  I sat down beside him and wrinkled my nose. “I don’t know really. But I definitely don’t trust pretty boys!”

  “What, like me you mean?” He tackled openly.

  I glanced at him. “Well, would you trust you?”

  His lips parted to defend himself and then they closed again. He sighed and flopped back against the sofa. “Guess not,” he admitted. Then he observed, “Neither Pete nor Tyler were lookers. What did you like about them?”

  “Kind and reliable,” I answered, after a moment’s thought. “Though Pete didn’t turn out to be all that reliable in the end, did he? But Tyler was a complete darling and absolutely adored me. That goes a long way. He’s the only person who’s ever just completely accepted me – just as I was, without trying to change me. I knew he was the only person I could completely trust to never hurt me.”

  I saw Quinn flinch and I guessed he was scared I was going to cry, so I thought I’d better wrap the conversation up before I fulfilled his fears. “I’ll go and put the kettle on shall I? Don’t go and wake Nish up, he needs his sleep. I’m sure he’ll emerge by ten at the latest…”

  When the guys all left at two in the afternoon after a long re-writing and re-arranging session with Nish who had finally emerged, Sappho looked around the empty room as though cheated. “Well, those three are definitely the pin-ups of the group!” she remarked. “Have you seen the drummer?” Her voice flicked mockery at poor Danny. She moved restlessly around. “Do you think I made any impression on him?” She demanded of me.

  “Who?” I asked blankly.

  “Adam of course!” She exclaimed. “You know him really well…”

  Nish glanced at me.

  I shrugged offhandedly. “What kind of impression were you hoping to make?”

  She glared at me.

  I wasn’t going to tell her that he couldn’t keep his eyes off her. But unfortunately it was true. He couldn’t. And she’d laughed and giggled and looked all big eyed up at him and snuggled up on the sofa next to him whenever she could.

  “Well, what now?” She asked in dissatisfied tones.

  “I’m off for a run,” I announced.

  “I’ll come with you,” Nish said quickly.

  “And what am I supposed to do?” She complained.

  “You’re welcome to come with us,” Nish offered. I sensed he was deliberately needling her.

  She eyed him with a fulminating gaze and snapped, “I’ve got an essay to write, so I’d better just go back to college, hadn’t I?”

  Nish said nothing, so she left.

  “What college is she at?” I asked.

  “St. John’s reading Classics,” he supplied.

  I frowned.

  “Oxford,” he said with a slight roll of the eyes when he realised I didn’t automatically know what he was talking about.

  I didn’t know what ‘reading Classics’ constituted either, but I wasn’t going to show myself up by asking.

  He’d managed a full forty-five minute run without collapsing, but next morning at ten-thirty Mizo and I were still waiting for him. Mizo looked impatiently at his watch.

  “I’ll ring him,” I suggested.

  It rang and rang, but eventually a groggy voice answered.

  “Oh God, Eve, is it really ten-thirty?” There was a short pause. “I just can’t Eve,” he said at last, a despairing note in his voice. “Apologize profusely to Mizo will you but I just wouldn’t be able to do it today…”

  After I rang off, Mizo looked at me.

  I sighed. “He’s just knackered Mizo. It’s that wretched illness. One day he’s fine, so he overdoes it and then the next day he’s virtually bed bound…”

  “Partying all weekend?” Mizo surmised cynically. “Heskett won’t be pleased.”

  “No!” I set him straight, surprising myself by how defensive I felt on his behalf. “He was composing music with some friends.” And then I found myself deciding not to mention that they were my friends, in case I got the blame.

  Mizo frowned. “We’re on a tight schedule here – more than one department is waiting for the outcome of the testing and can’t move on until we get the results…”

  “I’ll do it,” I offered.

  He looked worried. I don’t suppose it was normally allowed.

  “You know I’ll be re-testing one of the set-ups anyway... Just tell them it’s preliminary results and you’ll re-test them tomorrow, and I’ll call in on Nish tonight to make him some tea and soothe his fevered brow and such like. And tomorrow I’ll fetch him in personally myself if I have to, for you to re-do them.”

  He made his decision. “Ok – hop in. We’ll do the most urgent gearbox change one.”

  While waiting for Nish to turn up, we’d already had an hour and a half to discuss the four different set-ups we were planning to test, and key all the data into the computer, and predict what we were expecting to see as a result, so I knew what it was all about. He stopped me after ten laps and I got out and we looked through the stats and discussed whether it was what we’d hoped to see or not. Then he surprised me by telling me to get back in to try one of the other ones.

  “This is fascinating,” I exclaimed at the end of it. “You’ve always only put me on the one that Nish decided was the best all round drive, but now I’m finding out how different these adjustments make even this virtual car handle. I’m beginning to forget that it’s just virtual and that last run was really scary. I kept finding my back end sliding out with massive understeer and I was slewing round trying to grapple the control back, terrified I was going to end up in the barrier! My heart even started pounding – and yet I know it’s just a mock up and the worst that will happen is that I take a tour round the beer tent!”

  “That’s because you’re a genuine race driver, albeit in a different format,” Mizo pointed out. “You’ve had real races and real crashes, so it doesn’t take you long for your brain to key in to it.”

  I glanced at him.

  “I looked up some of your Championship races posted on YouTube,” he explained. “Impressive. Mistress of the Ghost Push and the Insider and the Last Bender.”

  “Second from Last Bender,” I corrected. “I know Last Bender is more traditional, but I prefer to sort it out a bit before, although you need to make sure you’ve really dealt with them if you do that, or they’ll hot foot it back on the throttle and get you back on the last bend instead.” I tipped my head on one side. “Sounds like you know all the right lingo? Did you used to go to the Stocks?”

  He smiled. “I love any motorsport. I’ve done the rounds of the lot of them in my time.” He frowned. “It’s been a while though. Long while. Satterthwaite retired, Rudd went onto F1, but whatever happened to Tyler? He didn’t seem to be still on the scene when I went to check out last year’s points’ tables to see where you were in it. Didn’t take me long to find you – first name on the list – National Points Champion huh?” He grinned at me. “Then a guy called Horrocks. I’d expected it to be Nat Tyler.”

  My eyes filled with tears. “He was my fiancé. He died.”

  Mizo looked shocked. “What happened?”

  “He ran a garage and the AA asked him to go and recover a car from some smash on the motorway and as they were loading it on the recovery truck some inattentive jackass drove into him
on the hard shoulder at seventy miles an hour. Massive internal injuries. He was dead before the ambulance got there…”

  “I’m sorry,” Mizo said as the tears started pouring down my face. “I had no idea…” He looked helplessly at me. “Me and my big mouth…”

  I scrubbed roughly at my face. “Ok,” I said abruptly, “Shall we go on to number three then?”

  “Are you sure you’re not too tired?”

  “Think I’m ok,” I said, quickly regaining my composure.

  He tossed me one of those chocolate milk bottles. “Here, drink some of this first.”

  I caught it automatically. “What is it?”

  “Something claimed to be a very high tech energy drink marketed at a hugely inflated price,” he informed me, “but it just tastes like chocolate milk to me.”

  The following day I didn’t come into the department until just after lunch, as during the morning Nish would just be repeating my tests. Yesterday, Mizo had stopped me before we’d gone onto the fourth set-up. We’d started late so it was already lunch time and he could see I was exhausted. Now Nish had diverted to the toilet, so I had time to ask Mizo how it had gone.

  Mizo grinned at me. “He asked me your times first before each one, and kept asking me if your feedback was the same as his, and then wanted to know exactly what you’d been doing at the wheel if yours differed to his.”

  “So what were his timings like?” I asked curiously.

  “Still averaging about four seconds faster than you,” he reported.

  “Drat,” I said. “So I’m not getting any faster then? I thought I would be!”

  Mizo gave a secret smile. “I didn’t say that did I? You get slightly faster every day, but then so does he…”

  I smiled slowly back. “Good,” I said. “Glad to hear it! Because as far as I understand that’s the whole point of this exercise isn’t it?”

  Nish walked back in then, so we changed the subject. But boy did I pull out the stops on my ten laps that afternoon. I was determined to narrow the gap. And from the look on Nish’s face as I got out at the end and he glanced down at the final time score, it seemed I must have managed it. Mizo and I exchanged a glance and Mizo looked like he might get the giggles.