“We’re done now,” Sanjit said cheerfully. “This one’s reached eleven and a half thousand K, so it’s done its distance and needs replacing. You go if you’re needed for something.”
Rats! Now I was going to miss going into the Machine Shop to watch one of the 23 automated lathes cutting a new manifold out of a block of aluminium. Mind you, it would continue cutting it out with the ceramic tipped tools at 20,000 rotations a minute, and 300 revolutions a second for 28 hours uninterrupted so it couldn’t be that thrilling. I’d go and see some other part being loaded into them tomorrow instead.
Nish was slumped in a chair, his shoulders heaving with deep painful sobs, and Mizo was looking desperate. I walked over to Nish and put my arms around him and he clasped his arms tightly around my waist, rested his cheek against my stomach and carried on crying.
“He’s just started to properly grieve his father,” I said to Mizo. “It’s perfectly normal. Was it an important test?”
Mizo shook his head. “It was just – you know…” He didn’t want to say in front of Nish that is was one of the pretend ones just to keep Nish in a routine.
“I predict he’s going to be a bit useless for the rest of the week. If you need a test done urgently then you’d better get someone in.”
Nish didn’t seem particularly aware of us. The front of my uniform shirt was getting soaked with his tears. I absentmindedly stroked his head soothingly. “So, Mizo,” I said. “Can I run something past you? I’ve missed all the World Qualifiers, but as the reigning Champion I have a right to start from the back at the Final. But there’s no chance I could ever win from the back in the World Final. So if you were a fan watching on the stands, would you rather I turned up and made an attempt completely doomed to failure, or would that be such a feeble let-down that you’d rather I kept my nose out of it altogether?”
Mizo glanced at Nish again as though he couldn’t believe I was being so casual about him. Then he looked back at me. “I think, as a fan, I’d think it far more of a let-down, or even take it as a complete insult if the Champion didn’t turn up. I’d rather see them make a heroic attempt from the back and be present to cheerfully shake the winner’s hand, than feel they were skulking away someplace else…”
“Ok, you’ve sold it to me,” I said positively. I looked down at Nish. “I’d better get you home.”
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he sobbed brokenly.
“Oh, for goodness sake Nish,” I said impatiently. I took his face in my hands and made him look up at me. “You didn’t, ok? Now forget about it!”
“Shall I drive you both to his flat?” Mizo offered. “You’ll never get him home on your bike in that state.”
“No need, I’m on his insurance.”
Mizo raised his eyebrows. “You’re privileged!”
“No, he’s just a lazy sod with an eye to have someone chauffeuring him about,” I dismissed. “Still, I’m not complaining, it’s a lovely car.”
“Sure is,” Mizo agreed enviously.
I started to wipe Nish’s cheeks dry. “At least with his dark skin he doesn’t look all red and puffy like I would do by now. Maybe no-one will notice as we walk out. Maybe they’ll think his blood shot eyes are due to a heavy drinking bout over the week end?” I handed Nish a clean tissue from up my sleeve. “I hope that’s tears not snot on my clean uniform,” I told him robustly. I saw Mizo start to get the giggles. “So you just pull yourself together long enough to get you out of the building,” I ordered, “and then you can throw yourself on the sofa at home and cry all you like while I make you a cup of tea.”
Back at his flat he’d stopped crying. He sat limply on the sofa.
“What happened?” I asked.
He looked bewildered. “I don’t know – I just started thinking about my dad and I completely lost it.”
“It’s quite normal,” I reassured him. “You’ve been suppressing it all. You’d do better to let it out. Then it won’t suddenly overwhelm you at the wrong moment.” I sat down beside him on the sofa. “You’re in a good position right now Nish – you’re not having to drive for real, you’ve got a few months grace where no-one is expecting anything of you, so do your grieving now while you can, because if you suppress it, it’ll come back to bite you on the bum at some later date, and it might be some time when the last thing you are needing is to fall apart.”
I went to get up to go and put the kettle on. He reached out a hand and grabbed my own. “I’m sorry,” he said fervently, his large dark eyes intense on my face. “I’m so sorry, Eve. I knew I was hurting you. I could see your face was all screwed up and you were gritting your teeth. I knew I should stop. I nearly did, and then I just carried on anyway. I can’t believe I did that! Hell, Quinn was right to warn me off wasn’t he? Because I’ve just gone and done the very thing he must have suspected I would!”
I sighed impatiently. “We agreed to forget it,” I told him roughly. “So just forget it will you?” And I absented myself into the kitchen to make the tea. But in the kitchen I suddenly felt a bit shaken. He’d been more aware of what was going on than I realised. He’d known he was hurting me and just carried on anyway. That was indeed, dangerously close to verging on rape. But the fact remained that I’d made a conscious decision to let him do it and hadn’t made any attempt to stop it. So I just had to believe that had I protested and asked him to stop, he would have done.
They left him alone for a week and he kept away from the factory and didn’t even come in to use the gym. He told me he’d been going swimming instead in the local pool. And I took him out for a run every evening after work. He was looking exhausted, drained and haggard and often had blood shot eyes, so I guessed he was still crying a lot. Good, I thought. He needs to. Every night I went into his flat and made him a different curry and then after we’d eaten, I left him to it.
I didn’t admit to myself how much of a difference this was making to my own life though. Having a purpose, having someone to see every night and eat a meal with. If they hadn’t asked me to look after Nish, would I still be here now? Or would I have been so lonely and friendless that I’d have run away home? Or would I have found some other interest or spent a lot more time studying engineering manuals like I probably should be..? Ferrari had been a whole new world, and I’d been very much an intern, and on the production vehicle side of things, not the racing. Here, now, I was beginning to realise that I didn’t have much time left before I had to make a major life decision. I couldn’t see how Williams could employ me at the end of this – everyone else here seemed to have a degree in something really obscure, specialist and technical. But I couldn’t go back to just being a mechanic in a backwater provincial garage – I just couldn’t. I’d be bored stiff in three months. Paul Satterthwaite had been right, even though I’d hated him for it at the time – I could do so much more and I needed stretching to achieve my potential. Not that I knew what my potential was exactly. But it was more than just doing endless MOT’s, and explaining to newly widowed little old ladies that they needed to go and put some more petrol in the car when the little fuel pump icon lit up on the dashboard. I was terrified that my brain wasn’t good enough to be of use to any engineering company, and yet I couldn’t face going back to being a mere wrench monkey. I needed to be able to do something that involved being analytical and solving problems and coming up with new creative solutions. Suddenly I realised that even that last thought was a breakthrough. Did that mean I was beginning to gain a vision for my life?
On Saturday evening Nish came round to my flat for the meal instead. He said he couldn’t stand the sight of his own four walls any longer.
“What are you doing tomorrow?” He asked.
I knew that tone of voice. “Hednesford,” I answered uninformatively.
“Am I supposed to know what that means?”
“Driving,” I said, wiping the onion tears from my eyes. I glanced round and saw his expression. “No!” I said. “How would we get there? How can you get another day’s
insurance in time?”
“I put you on for the whole year,” he confessed.
I raised my eyebrows.
“Well it was hardly any more expensive, and it just seemed the most sensible thing to do…” He spread his hands slightly apologetically.
“Are you wanting to drive?”
He nodded. “I’d drive a go-kart right now if that’s all there was available. It just feels good to be out somewhere real with the smell of fuel in my nostrils and the taste of grit in my mouth, instead of in that damn sterile simulator!”
I swept the onions into the pan and wiped at my eyes again. “Hmmm. Hednesford. You’re bound to knacker the engine…”
“Firstly – why? Secondly – that’s a bit of an insulting suggestion!” He pulled a face at me.
I turned the heat up under the onions and leant back against the surface. “Hednesford is the biggest oval the F2’s get to drive in and it’s banked up like a velodrome and every lap gets faster and faster and you rarely get a chance to plant a hit on anyone, so it’s more like a normal race.”
“What’s wrong with that?” He looked pleased, like he was looking forward to a good fast race where he didn’t get assaulted from all sides.
“What’s wrong with that is that it’s great for the V8 engines – they can go full throttle for once – but every time we’re there, some poor little 2 litre Pinto blows up. And you’d have the Zetec…”
“And you think I’m not capable of nursing it?” He said, offended.
I rolled my eyes. “Once you get out there and put your foot down you’ll just go for it and treat it like a normal race and bang – one expensive blow out!” I thought about it for a moment. Then I reached for my phone.
“Hi Jo, are you all set for tomorrow?”
She was.
“Nish wants to drive again, and I wondered if Pete would do me a favour and loan me his tarmac car? Tyler’s old one? That would be more suitable. And then Nish and I would be pretty much on a par… Could you ask Pete for me? Actually, I’m not so keen on him selling it you know – it was mine first – it has sentimental value, but I don’t think I’ll ever be able to afford to buy it back so I’ll just have to lump it, won’t I? Otherwise, just bring Cody’s. Thanks Jo!”
I rescued the onions just before they burned to a crisp. “Now we’ll just have to wait and see what she turns up with…”
I’d started to put the spices in and give them a quick fry when the doorbell rang. I handed the spatula to Nish. “Don’t let them burn! It’s important! Don’t be an Alfred!” If there’s one thing I’d learned about Wantage, it was that King Alfred was born there, and he was the one who burned the cakes…
Nish made some kind of wry retort but I didn’t catch it because I was already at the door, opening it. I blinked. No-one I could have possibly expected. Sahmir was standing there. Sahmir who was the younger brother of my friend Nasim, from back home, and an old school friend of Jamie.
“God, Sahmir – has something happened to Nasim?” My heart flipped a beat.
He shook his head and stepped in. “I’ve been driving all bloody day to get here!” He seemed tautly wound up. His eyes immediately fell on Nish. “Who’s he?”
“Anish Gilbraith,” I said calmly. “He’s a friend and work colleague. I’m just making a meal. I presume you’ll stay?”
Disturbance was coming off him in waves. I was deliberately keeping everything very low key to counteract it. “Anish, this is Sahmir – a friend of my brother’s.”
Nish nodded politely, but his shoulders had tensed and his eyes were flickering between the two of us, on the alert for what was going on. I took the spatula back off Nish and took the pan off the heat for a minute or two while I chopped peppers. “Can Nish get you a drink, Sahmir? Tea? Coffee?”
“He needs to go,” Sahmir said in an almost threatening tone, jerking his head in Nish’s direction.
Nish raised his eyebrows. “I’m going nowhere mate, and you need to calm down…”
Sahmir’s nostrils flared angrily. But I was quite impressed at Nish’s refusal to be intimidated, and his clear intention to stick around to watch my back. Nish squared up to him. Sahmir was taller than him, but Nish would be by far the stronger and fitter if it came to it.
“Have a cup of tea, Sahmir,” I said coolly, “And tell us what you’re so upset about…”
“What do you think I’m so upset about?” He yelled at me. “You don’t even know do you? It’s ok for you swanning off around the world! But I’m left there facing them every day!”
I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye.
“The trial’s been on for three weeks now and I’ve been called in nearly every day! And I have to stand and face them! Men from my own mosque! Hussein! And Tariq’s due out of prison any day!” He turned and slammed at the wall with the side of his balled fist really hard, over and over again.
I switched the pan off and walked towards him. Nish stood watchful and wary. I reached out to put a comforting hand on Sahmir’s arm but he shook me off. “Don’t you dare fucking touch me!” He snarled wildly at me. I backed off immediately. I glanced at Nish. I had no idea what to do.
“Cool it, mate,” Nish advised. “Why don’t you just sit down and have a cup of tea like Eve suggested and have a meal with us and then we can all talk about this rationally?”
“I am not your mate!” Sahmir shouted furiously at him. But even so, he suddenly sat down on the settee, leant forward and put his head despairingly down into his folded arms resting his knees.
“I’ll put the kettle on,” I said relieved.
Nish sat down in the chair opposite Sahmir and asked in a relaxed tone. “What’s the problem?”
Sahmir looked over at me. “She knows.”
I was still waiting for the kettle to boil. “I’m sorry, Sahmir,” I apologised from my position over there. “I’m just so sorry.” I abandoned the kettle to walk over and kneel down on the carpet beside him so I could look up at his face, being careful to leave him plenty of personal space. “I feel responsible for it, but I just never thought it would turn out like this! Truly I didn’t. I never envisioned you having to go through all this. I didn’t really believe we were going to find out anything at all! I mean – did you?”
Sahmir clenched his hands together, fingers tightly entwined, then grudgingly shook his head. “No, I didn’t believe a word of it. In fact,” he added, his expression convulsing, “I only went in to it to prove you wrong! I thought – this is disgusting racism and prejudice – a total fucking fabrication being put out by the BNP – and I’m going to prove that it’s all a complete pack of lies!”
I was a bit taken aback that was his motivation. He’d said nothing about it at the time.
“So the more bits of kit they offered me the better – I was going to have unassailable proof of how innocent we all were! And I really threw myself into it! Got in like that,” he lifted crossed fingers up at me, “with Hussein, determined to become so friendly with him he’d tell me anything… And yet still nothing… Yes, some dodgy landlords, yes, a bit of political back scratching, but still nothing like what that girl was claiming. And then you came across what might be a bit of sexual stuff, but I didn’t know those guys. They’re from another part of town, a different community, a different mosque and I was feeling smug that my brother’s friends and my own close community were coming up smelling of roses! And then that happened!”
“What happened?” Nish intervened with a frown.
Sahmir wouldn’t look at him. “She knows!” He glanced briefly at me.
I nodded soberly.
“And I was devastated. There was no denying anything then. I could barely face up to the fact that it was all true, and worse than I could ever have possibly imagined.” His fingers clenched convulsively onto each other. “And I know we’d agreed not to watch each other’s material, but Suki got me to look at some of your footage to see if I could identify any of the men, and I was horrified to r
ecognise an old acquaintance from school, and a councillor I’d helped canvas for and get elected, and a few other big shots from round our way. And then when I saw the finished programme on TV and found out for the first time all the things you’d been through too, I felt so ashamed. It was humiliating, appalling, horrible, shameful! And everyone round the country was seeing what was going on in our town – in our own community and making everyone hate us!” He put his head back down on his arms. “I wanted to die of shame. And now I have to stand in court and tell everyone about it, and testify against my brother’s best friend!
I knelt there, my hands lying helpless in my lap. “How’s Tariq taking it?” I asked quietly.
His eyes raised to mine. “Not well…” I could see the dread.
“When’s he out?”
“Soon.”
“Will the trial be over by then?”
“Maybe…”
“As soon as it’s done, you need to get your firm to move you to one of the other branches – it’s international isn’t it?”
He stared at me. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
“Yes, unfortunately I am. And if they won’t transfer you then you need to start applying for jobs someplace else.” I got up. “I’ve got to get back to cooking or we won’t be eating tonight. You two can chat, or ignore each other and rest, or watch TV. Then we’ll eat.” I went back to the tiny corner that constituted my kitchen.
Nish flicked my TV on and looked for the list of channels. “Don’t you have Sky?” He asked, sounding astounded.
“Can’t afford it,” I informed him bluntly.
“How can we watch the cricket then?” He exclaimed.
I said nothing. Obviously, they couldn’t.
“And how do you watch the Formula One races?”
I glanced at him. “Well obviously I get to see the highlights on terrestrial…” I let the sentence trail away.
He looked appalled. “Eve, that’s ridiculous! I’ll have to either get you some kind of role at the Live Stream events, or we’ll have to arrange for you to go round and watch it at someone’s house. Mizo for instance…”
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