I wrinkled my nose. “Depends if Rob needs me to drive him home. And then I’d have no transport to get back to work tomorrow…”
“If I promised to get you to work on time?” He bargained.
“I’ll talk to Rob,” I promised.
“Do you need me to drive you home?” I asked Rob as I helped him load the car on the trailer.
“No, I’m on the wagon these days,” he told me.
“Really?”
“You don’t need to sound so disbelieving,” he said. “I’d already nearly ruined my driving career, and I could see I was one step away from getting sacked from work as well, or losing my licence which would amount to the same thing.”
“Ok,” I said.
Rob glanced behind me and I guessed Tyler must have followed me over.
“Can you spare her?” Tyler intervened.
Rob gave a slight smile. “Course I can Tyler, looks like you need her more than I do…”
Tyler’s team took his car home while he made some excuse about needing to stay over to see someone. After discussions on various permutations of options we ended up going for the most familiar one of driving back to our usual Travelodge on the outskirts of my town.
In our room he held me so tight I thought I was going to suffocate. “I thought you didn’t want me anymore,” he said desperately.
“I don’t understand why,” I responded reasonably.
“The last time we saw each other you were really angry and slapped me, and the time before that you didn’t want to sleep with me…”
“I was on my period,” I reminded him. I wriggled out of his over-tight grasp and made for the kettle to calm things down.
“Listen Tyler, I think we need to have another discussion about what you’re wanting,” I said. “When we started this you were clear that you didn’t want a committed relationship, so I’ve been assuming you want your own space to live your own separate life and see your children and run your business and that you’ll call me when you want to see me. I didn’t think you’d want me texting you every thirty seconds about what I’ve had for breakfast and ‘nite nite kiss kiss’ every time I go to bed!”
He accepted the tea in the piddly little cup they provide, and sat down on the edge of the bed. He gave a rueful smile at last. “When you talk like this anyone would think that you were the one who was seventeen years older and I was the teenager! How did you get to be so rational?”
I shrugged. I leaned my backside against the surface and sipped my tea opposite him, keeping a distance between us. “You tell me exactly what you want and then we can discuss if it’s feasible.”
He reached over and put his cup down on the surface by the bed and leant back, throwing his head back and closing his eyes. “I don’t know Eve,” he said despairingly. “I just want your eyes to light up when you see me and I want your eyes searching for mine across the track and I want you to smile your special smile at me.” He opened his eyes again and looked apologetically at me. Then he held a hand out to me. “Come here sweetheart.”
I put my cup down and went slightly reluctantly over to him. He pulled me down on his lap and put his arms around me. “What happened with Pete?”
I shrugged. “I gave myself heart and soul to him and then without any warning, completely out of the blue I found him in bed with someone else.”
“And now you don’t want to give yourself heart and soul to anyone else?” He summed up sympathetically, giving me a squeeze.
I shrugged and laid my head on his shoulder. “One day maybe,” I said. “If I feel I can trust them. But I’d been working with Pete for six months before I took up with him, and I was sure I could trust him, so now I don’t trust my own judgement…” I blinked back some tears and hoped Tyler wouldn’t notice.
He gave me a kiss and I thought, somehow he’s turned it round so he’s the one in control again. Still, I suppose it doesn’t matter. I kissed him back, feeling suddenly vulnerable. He laid me down on the bed and we were both trembling as we kissed and undressed each other. He stroked me admiringly. “You’ve been down the gym a lot I see.”
“And running miles,” I agreed. “Trying to work off my frustration and loneliness,” I admitted.
“You mustn’t ever be lonely, sweetheart. You can always turn to me,” he said, looking lovingly into my eyes.
I said nothing. I felt a bit overwhelmed by the expression in his eyes.
“You’re so precious my darling,” he said softly, kissing me again. “So, so precious…”
I noticed his eyes were sort of grey, like mine.
I was cautious around Jo at work the next day. I still didn’t understand why she was so cross with me. She was grumpy but didn’t bring the subject up with me. At lunch time she said, “Mum’s invited you to tea tonight.”
“Is it a team meeting?” I queried. They were usually on Mondays.
“There’s no hidden agenda to the invite, if that’s what you’re asking…” Jo said with a sideways look at me.
“Ok,” I said politely. Clearly I was being expected to turn up, so I couldn’t really refuse.
Jo and I worked on the cars together for a couple of hours then retreated to the kitchen for the evening meal.
“How are you?” Sue directed at me after the whole family had sat down.
“A bit depressed,” I summed up. “Doing lots of running with Quinn.”
“And how’s Quinn?” Sue pursued.
“A bit depressed. Started singing with a new band…”
“And how’s Tyler?” She finished up.
“Seemed a bit depressed too when I bumped into him at the weekend…”
“Oh dear,” she said sympathetically, her blue eyes signalling compassion for us all.
“Well I hope you cheered him up,” Jo said roughly.
“He seemed offended that I was helping Rob out, despite the fact that Rob was having to manage on his own and Tyler had his full team there!” I reported pulling a face. “But he seemed to cheer up when I offered to support him over the Skeggie Speed Weekend. Are you coming again Sue?”
Sue glanced at Paul. “I hadn’t thought about it…”
“I’ve just had this brilliant idea that on the Friday we could have a sand car digging competition with Tyler and me in a team together against Jo and Pete, and Paul could judge it,” I outlined enthusiastically. “And Sue can make us her usual sand horse.”
“Does Tyler know about these machiavellian plans for his day off?” Paul asked, suppressing a smile.
“Tyler, digging sand cars?” Pete scoffed.
“Oh, come on Pete. He’s got two little girls,” I pointed out. “What do you imagine a racing driver does when he’s trapped for a day with two kids on a beach? I wouldn’t mind betting he’s a dab hand at it!”
“Dad!” Pete appealed, appalled.
Paul laughed at him. “Sounds like a great idea…”
Pete crashed his forehead down on the table and groaned dramatically.
“We’re off to the Netherlands next weekend,” Paul changed the subject. “Pete will be racing at Venray. Do you want to come with us?”
I was raising a fork to my mouth, but now I paused and put my hand back down. “I haven’t got a passport,” I said. “And I wouldn’t be able to get one in that short time. Because I was banned I didn’t bother looking into it.”
“Why don’t you have a passport?” Jo sounded gobsmacked.
“Never been abroad, so never needed one,” I explained succinctly.
“What never?” Pete sounded amazed.
I shook my head. “Auntie Jean and Uncle Ted – friends of my mother used to take me and Jamie once a year to Lytham St Annes for a week, but apart from that we never went on holidays after my mother died.”
“Well I suppose that explains her sand car building obsession,” Jo remarked glancing across at her brother.
Paul and Sue exchanged a glance as well.
“Well perhaps I’d better come again so we can
all have a bit of a family holiday,” Sue suggested. “I’ll ask the girls to look after the horses again…”
I beamed at her.
“So have you been to see the Reivers yet?” Paul asked, diverting the subject again.
I perked up. “Yes, and the Pullmans, and Tom Davies.”
“For God’s sake Eve!” Jo exploded. “We work together every day and you never told me that!”
I looked anxiously at her. “When we’re at work we tend to just stick to work stuff,” I tried to explain. “If you’d happened to ask me, I would have told you…”
Jo sat back in her chair with her arms folded and her expression thunderous.
Paul glanced at her then back at my worried face and intervened. “So tell us about it now, Eve,” he invited.
I launched in with alacrity, comparing and contrasting their different models and theories, unleashing a barrage of figures in Paul’s direction, which I knew from experience that he could follow with ease, and very soon I’d hoofed Pete out of his spot beside his dad and demanded a pen and paper, and was drawing diagrams for Paul with arrows and measurements on them. “Only I think I might try this instead,” I said, drawing something different. “I think it would work if you lengthened this,” I stabbed the paper, “and slightly shortened that. What do you think?” I demanded of Paul.
Paul frowned and picked up the pen. “Yes it might as long as you got the weight ratio right here, and added a couple of kilos there…”
I glanced up to find the rest of the table completely silent and watching us. Paul looked up then as well.
“You only have to tell her a thing once for her to get it,” Jo reported to her Dad. “Anything technical, anything involving practical applied maths, and she understands it straight away and remembers it.”
Paul looked sideways at me. “Have you ever thought about applying to train on a design or engineering course?”
“Nope,” I shrugged dismissively. “I was absolutely crap at school. I left the second they’d let me out…”
“There are practical applied apprenticeship style courses around,” he informed me. “It doesn’t have to be academic.”
I looked a bit blankly at him. “I’ll just get on with making this car – that’ll do for now won’t it? Once I’ve tested it out and fettled it until I have something innovative, I can try making another one can’t I?”
He sat back in his chair. “Yes, you do that, Eve. Bring me your designs once you’ve thought about them some more and we’ll see how we can turn them into a reality.”
I looked across the table at Jo and caught a look of naked jealousy on her face. She thinks I’m stealing her Dad, I realised.
I pushed my chair back and stood up. “Time for bed,” I said abruptly. “Night everyone.” And I left the room.
Some while later, there was a tap on the door and Sue came in. I had showered and got into the pyjamas I kept in their spare room, but not got into bed yet. She came and sat on the bed with me.
“Why did you leave so suddenly just then Eve?”
I lowered my eyes. “Jo was getting jealous.”
“Oh,” she said, her tone conveying the fact that she understood what I was talking about. She put an arm around me. “You remember she was jealous when Pete first offered you to drive his car, but she got over it didn’t she?”
I nodded.
“And she was jealous when you first took up with Tyler, but now she’s rooting for him and telling you off when you don’t pay him enough attention?”
“Maybe,” I said cautiously. “It’s just she’s angry all the time with me at the moment…”
“I know she has a very funny way of showing it, but inside, Jo’s very affectionate. She wants you to treat her like a trusted friend, not shut her out all the time.”
I thought about it for a bit. And as I did so Sue went on, “You don’t have to shut any of us out, Eve. You don’t have to be so self-sufficient all the time.”
“Yes I do,” I argued. “I need to be able to manage on my own. I can’t be reliant on other people or else what happens when they’re not there anymore?”
“Paul says he’s really sorry now that he was so hard on you.” Sue changed tack. “He said Tyler begged him not to be and he realises now that Tyler was right. You don’t have to stay away from us just because you’ve messed up you know. We don’t think any the less of you. We all mess up sometimes…”
“It’s just I mess up more than most,” I said gloomily. I was silent for a moment. “It’s just that Jo already thinks she’s let you down by not being into the horses, and let her Dad down by not being a good enough driver…” And I could see her looking at me like I’d have looked at Ethan if he had been a girl and Dad had suddenly started paying enthusiastic attention to her instead of to me.
Sue sighed. “I don’t love Jo any the less because she likes cars instead of horses. It was my own stupid assumption that the boy would be into cars and the girl into horses. And Paul doesn’t love Jo any less for not getting the Gold roof like he did. He’d rather she was happy and found her own thing to be passionate about. So you can’t destroy our family by just existing Eve. You’re not some wicked canker that is festering in our midst that’s going to split us all up.” She gave me a big hug. “Nothing you do can make our family not love each other anymore, so why don’t you just get on with being your own delightful enthusiastic self and allow us to enjoy all the extra dimensions you bring to our family?” She kissed the top of my head.
She was talking like they’d formally adopted me, I thought.
Trying my best to follow Sue’s advice regarding her daughter, I went and sat next to her during my lunchtime at work and asked her how Fay was doing.
Good apparently. Not very confident at making contact but competent on the track and getting faster. Still enjoying herself, which was the main thing.
“And you’re training her up in being independent?” I investigated.
“In the last minute set up, and the between race adjustments,” Jo reported. “But she’s not a mechanic so she’ll always need technical support.”
“On the racing side we need her to get independent don’t we?” I figured aloud. “Even if we continue to do the maintenance and repair side of her car for her? Then we could take on a new customer.”
Jo nodded. “If we started to get more than about two who needed maintenance and repair between race days, then we’d need to start doing it full time because we’d just kill ourselves with exhaustion otherwise.”
“Full time?” I echoed. “That’s a scary thought isn’t it? To put all our eggs in one basket.”
“Well if you get going with this design and build idea and you can come up with something a bit innovative, then it might make a viable business, with us maintaining, and repairing the cars you’ve built and sold. We could also hire cars out for people to have a go at racing without having to make a big financial investment.”
“Hmm,” I thought about it for a bit. “Maybe we can leave employed work one at a time. I could build the first few cars in my spare time while still working here and racing, and you could work on the maintenance side full time, and I would only leave here to build cars full time when we get enough orders?”
We both sat in a bit of an intimidated silence. “We might just starve to death of course,” I voiced our thoughts aloud. But I still had to come up with a good design for a car, so it was a significant way off at the moment.
“What does Fay think of me now I’ve been banned?” I asked anxiously.
Jo pulled a face and I knew that the answer wasn’t going to be good. “She’s a bit dismissive. Uses phrases like ‘seriously out of control’ and ‘well she’s still just a teenager really, what can you expect?’ She even once referred to you as an ‘air head’ and I really couldn’t understand how she could possibly think that!”
“It’s that Thrills and Spills,” I surmised gloomily. “Everyone seems to think they know me because of seeing me on
the telly. The team always cut it to show either the most dramatic bits or the most light hearted bits, so people just saw me mucking around or getting violent, or getting dressed up for weddings and magazine shoots. Fay’s always looked at me like I’m a right chavvy cow. I thought we’d get a few eager sixteen year olds wanting to try out the driving, and I could have managed one of them. But I find Fay a bit intimidating. Every time I speak she tunes me out. So I’m sorry Jo, I know I set this up as a joint venture, but you’ve ended up being the one having to do it! You’re really good at it though.”
Jo nodded. “Yes, I’ve really enjoyed it. Turns out you’ve sorted out something for me that really suits me and yet it would never have occurred to me…” She glanced sideways at me. “I reckon you’re going to turn out to be better at the design and ideas side of things. If we split it that way I reckon we could be quite complementary – I would run the practical business side and race inductions, and you would be the famous face heading it up, and the one coming up with all the ideas.”
“Famous face?” I cavilled.
“Well I’m expecting you to win every title going of course so we have a figure head!” She teased me.
I smiled at her. “I’ll do my best!”
When I walked back into the flat I suddenly remembered that Quinn had had his first gig.
“How’d it go?” I asked.
He smiled a bit wistfully. “Yeah, it was good. But it wasn’t B.S.E. I miss the guys…”
“But you didn’t mess up? And Jamie’s lot were pleased with you?”
“Yeah,” he said. He sounded weary. “I didn’t mess up. I remembered all the words. And plenty of B.S.E. fans turned up to support us.”
“Daisy at the front I presume, looking adoringly up at you?” I teased.
“Siân and Liam came along too,” he told me.
“Oh that was nice,” I agreed. I tended to forget that Liam was old enough to be almost a human being now. I wandered over to Quinn and gave him a hug round his shoulders from behind. He seemed a bit down and it was bringing out my mothering instincts.
“How’d Rob do?” He asked, covering one of my hands with his.
The Way Barred Page 17