“Pee?” He echoed disgustedly.
“Well we’ve got ‘Tyer’, ‘Gitty’, and ‘Sarn’ so far, so I wouldn’t mind betting…”
Jo was laughing at him from the back. She wasn’t at all keen about him getting back with Siân, and she thought this all just served him right.
Jo was meeting up with Fay and looking after her all day, so I stuck with Paul and Pete, and in between the first and second heat I went to look for Tyler. Lots of head shaking from the other drivers. One said, “Yes I saw he was down to drive, but he hasn’t turned up…”
When I rang him to check he said he had a last minute job crop up just as he was about to leave, so he’d had to give it a miss. Sorry darling, he wished he was there with me, but it couldn’t be helped.
I was about to ring off when he suddenly said, “Actually, I was going to tell you today. As soon as the Birmingham Shoot Out is over, me and you are off to Venice! I would have liked it to be a surprise but you’re going to have to book it off work. I’ll text you the dates…”
“Venice?” I echoed. “I didn’t think they had cars in Venice?”
He choked back a laugh. “No sweetheart,” he said in a soothing consolatory voice, “but they do have lots of boats and some of the boats have engines…”
“Oh shut up!” I told him. “Now you’re just taking the piss aren’t you?”
“Course I am,” he teased. “Sometimes it’s just irresistible!”
We rang off and I drove really fast all day feeling pretty damn ebullient.
Jo was jubilant about Tyler having to miss a drive. In the back of the Beast with her on the way home she exclaimed, “More points to you Eve! Let’s hope he doesn’t make up for it tomorrow instead.”
“Think he’s seeing the kids tomorrow,” I said vaguely.
“What’s his place like?” Jo asked curiously.
“Dunno,” I answered carelessly. “Never been there.”
“Never been there?” Jo sounded incredulous. “But you’ve met the kids right?”
“Nope,” I said. “I leave him to get on with that side of his life on his own. Thought it was best really. Best for me and best for the kids. They need space to grieve too right?”
Jo frowned. “S’pose…”
“And both of us only meant this to be a bit of a diversion for a few months so it’s best not to upset the kids over an on-the-rebound mid-life crisis fling is it?”
“Tyler’s a bit young to be having a mid-life crisis!” Jo objected.
“That’s what Mick his head mechanic thinks he’s having. He hates me! Steam comes out his ears whenever Tyler as much as looks at me. Thinks his boss is making a big fool of himself and should show some decorum!”
“Ah, he’s just jealous!” Pete muscled into the conversation from the front. “That’s how other men react when they’re thinking ‘how come he’s managed to get a stunner half his age and I haven’t?’”
“Ok Dad, your turn to give us your opinion on the topic!” Jo appealed.
“What about? The kids or Mick the mechanic?”
“The mechanic of course,” Jo said. “You know none of us gives a toss about kids!”
“Ok,” Paul settled into his seat as he drove. He glanced in the mirror at us. “This is how is goes. Man’s wife leaves him taking the kids and suing him for all he’s worth and all the other men stand around sympathising and buying him drinks and saying how disgusting it is, even though a part of them had been predicting this was coming for ages when he never seemed to want to go home. And they’re all as loyal as hell and put their back into helping him stay Champion since he’s sacrificed his home life and happiness for his sport, and then blow me down, six months later he’s got a young floosy on his arm and seems happy as larry! What’s more she’s an upgrade on what he had before and she’s a champion too and she’s been on TV and she’s the one that everyone’s had their eye on for the last year! And what’s more she seems perfect for him since she’s completely footloose and fancy free, not interested in him putting a ring on her finger, and is only interested in keeping him driving… It’s just so galling and makes a mockery of their ‘poor old sod’ efforts in sympathy. There’s always a bit of schadenfreude when some other bloke’s wife does the dirty on them, and now they can’t enjoy themselves smugly feeling sorry for him…”
“In other words, they’re just jealous,” Pete summed up.
“Oh dear…” I said, pulling a face. “And now all the forum threads are talking about me having castrated him…”
“Oh my God, why are men so obsessed with their willies?” Jo bemoaned.
“If you had one, you’d know why,” Pete sniped.
“All they’ve been going on about for the past year on all the threads is that the sport will be boring until we get a new Champion, and then the minute we do they blame it on me like we’re some modern day Samson and Delilah and I’ve sucked all the testosterone out of him! If I’d have won this time around they’d have claimed he let me through, for sure!”
Paul glanced sharply at me in the mirror and I thought, he’s wondering if that’s why I let Pete win it this time. He’s remembering me telling him that it wouldn’t be politic for me to win it this year.
“Oh God that’s such a disgusting image Eve please re-phrase that!” Jo begged.
“What have I said now?” I exclaimed impatiently.
Jo grimaced at me. “Never mind!”
Pete sniggered in the front and on re-running my past few lines in my head I finally worked out what she was objecting to and thumped her. “Your mind is like a sewer, Jo, and you’re the one who professes to not being interested in sex!”
Jo darted me a fierce glance and I realised that maybe her family didn’t know yet. I bet they assumed she was gay but figured she hadn’t worked it out for herself yet.
“Tyler’s taking me to Venice after Birmingham,” I announced, changing the subject.
“Is he now?” Paul said, glancing back at me in the mirror again.
“I can’t quite work out why mind you,” I joked. “As it’s one of the few places in the world where there are no cars at all!”
Jo looked at me as though I was incomprehensibly dense. “I should have thought it was perfectly obvious, according to your restrictive agreement with Tyler, no cars leaves only one thing left!”
Pete looked mystified. Paul choked back a laugh. And I said, “Oh shut up!” and thumped her again.
So life went on – in a sense holding its breath. The Uni people went back to Uni. Mariah went back to her family. Quinn carried on being cool with me but ceased throwing me hateful looks. Daisy passed her moped test and without it ever being arranged formally, ownership of the two bikes appeared to swop hands, Quinn never once asking to borrow his back. And I carried on driving races everywhere we could get me to. And slowly but surely I was creeping up behind Tyler on the points table. I kept an eye on Steve’s blog because he often mentioned a sentence about me, especially if he’d been the commentator at the stadium I’d been racing at.
768, Eve McGinty is making a heroic attempt in her chase after 89, Nat Tyler for the National Points Championship. After a three month ban at the height of the season, no-one expected her to be able to recover, but due to 89’s family and business commitments, 89 is finding it hard to put in the time to stay ahead, so all bets are off at the moment as to where the Silver roof may go, as we wait with bated breath for the outcome of this particular rivalry. Personally, I think it would be a shame if 768 didn’t end the season with at least one major title, as she has been consistently at the front of every race she’s run this year. But that’s the Stocks for you – you get seasons like that.
I was pleased with that one. And so was Jo when I showed her.
The Grand Nationals at Barford. Most of the stars and superstars were there and I was right up near the front of the grid. In fact both Pete and Tyler were behind me with Devlin just ahead. Smith, the ex-European Champion was alongside me on the outs
ide. Patterson, who had successfully defended his Scottish Championship and three other top Scottish drivers were there and they were known to drive co-operatively whenever across the border in England, clean in style, but ganging up against the English until the last few corners, cutting through the emeshed cars like a knife through butter. The Irish Champion, Kavanagh, was just behind me. I didn’t feel nervous though. It wasn’t an important race to me. Obviously I wanted to win it because I always wanted to win every race, but it wasn’t going to give me a title that would change my roof colour.
It was a hard fought race with plenty of pile ups. Patterson, maybe due to the aid of his fellow countrymen, took first place, I was second, the Irish guy Kavanagh was third. Tyler had a tyre blow out when he clipped a spinning car, and Pete’s brakes were playing up. He told me after that when he’d found himself hurtling straight at a scrum of crumpled cars and found himself unable to stop. He had just managed to throw himself around them with centimetres to spare but nearly ended up into the fence instead, so thought he’d better pull over to the infield.
The guy giving out the trophies quipped that it looked like the ideal start for a classic ‘Englishman, Irishman and Scottish man joke’ but none of us were quick enough to think one up in reply.
Jo was grinning. Yet another occasion where Tyler had missed out on points. She was getting really hopeful now.
During that fortnight between the Grand Nationals and the World of Shale Final at Belle Vue where I would be seeking to defend my title, Tyler came over twice. The first week we went to see Full Frontal play at a Thursday night gig. While we were waiting for it to start he jokingly passed me his pint over. “What does that smell of then?”
I bent over his glance and sniffed. Lifted the glass then nearly to my lips with my nose right in it and breathed slowly in and out twice through my nose then took a tiny sip and held it in my mouth, swallowed it, and then let all the aftertastes develop. “Honey and elderflower,” I concluded at last. “But it doesn’t taste of it. That’s weird isn’t it? How something can smell of one thing and taste of another? Usually things taste like their smell. Like goats’ cheese tastes of the sharp musty smell of goat.”
He took back his pint and sniffed it, then huffed it, then breathed in really hard then tasted it. “Hmm,” he said. Then he looked sideways at me and asked teasingly, “So what sort of honey then?”
“Heather honey,” I said promptly. “Like the smell of the moors on a hot sunny August afternoon…” A sudden image came back to me of the summer that Jamie and I, for want of anything else to do, had spent every afternoon up on the moors, while Dad was working away. The summer I first had my bike. I’d drive it madly up and down over lumpy stony tracks and dried up peaty cracked up ground, mastering its every buck and wobble and then I’d throw myself down in the heather by a skinny, reticent, baby faced, fourteen year old Jamie. And here Jamie was now, coming to the front to introduce the band. Eighteen years old, confident, broad shouldered, face contoured and defined, but with his soft brown curls strangely the same, as he’d cut his hair back short again for the first Full Frontal gig they’d ever done and completely changed his dress style. It made him look much older.
“He’s a nice looking lad, your brother,” Tyler murmured to me.
I stared at Jamie, assessing him for the first time for ages. “Yes, he is now, you’re right.” I realised, pleased. “He went through a bit of a stringy unprepossessing phase a couple of years back, but now he’s filled out hasn’t he?”
The music started, and by three songs in Tyler was well impressed.
“I see what you mean about the musicality,” he said to me. “And the way they use Quinn’s voice like an instrument. It’s fabulous. I’m really liking it. And Quinn’s got a really distinctive tone to his voice hasn’t he? Pitch perfect, but with several other layers going on at the same time.”
Quinn was still diffident in his style. Standing back and letting the others lead and speak between songs. He wasn’t anything like the manic frontman of his B.S.E. days. He glanced across and saw us sitting at the table in the corner, and if anything he looked anxious once he noticed us. During the break, Tyler waved him over. Quinn brought his pint over and hesitated before sitting down. Tyler made fulsome compliments about the music and Quinn’s contribution to it and Quinn blushed. Lacking any sense of shame or desire to conform to social norms, Quinn was an infrequent blusher, but with his pale Celtic skin it stood out like a livid stain when he did.
Tyler exchanged an amused glance with me as Quinn retreated. “He’s very insecure at the moment isn’t he?” Tyler observed.
“This isn’t his comfort zone,” I surmised. “He doesn’t know how to judge the outcome of what Jamie and the other guys are asking him to do. Whether it’s inspired and outstanding or just pretentiously awful…”
We left early to get some private time together alone in the flat. Tyler said a cheery hello to Daisy on our way out, stopping to smile and ask how she was. The second person of the evening to blush when spoken to by Tyler. When we got out in the fresh air I started teasing Tyler about how intimidating he must be.
“So what did you think of me when you first met me?” He asked.
I frowned. “Don’t remember really, it was so long ago!” I racked my brains. “Actually,” I confessed, “I was quite scared of you come to think of it…”
“Why?” He sounded surprised.
“Well you kept bashing me every time you went by, even when you didn’t need to!” I reminded him.
He laughed and opened up the van. “Oh yes, I did didn’t I?”
I got in. “Jo said you were just flirting with me.”
“Did she now?” He said dryly.
“But Paul seemed to think I should show a bit more respect- ”
“And not be such a cheeky confrontational bolshy little pup?” Tyler finished off with a grin.
I sniffed. “Maybe…”
Back at the flat, over a mug of tea, he said a mite cautiously, “I was thinking about bringing the girls over to see Sue’s horses once the season’s over. Maybe you could meet them then?”
“Maybe…” I said, also cautiously. “As long as you think we’ll be together long enough to not upset them to no good purpose?”
He hesitated, then decided not to say whatever it was. Instead he said, “We’ll go to Venice first and see how we get on shall we?”
“Like a test?” I said gloomily. “I don’t like tests…”
He reached his hand over the table to cover one of mine. “No, I didn’t mean it like that.”
“What if we have nothing to talk about when there are no cars around?” I said worriedly. “You might find out that I’m really boring!”
He put his head down into his hands and gave way to fits of laughter. Finally he wiped his eyes but started laughing again when he saw my folded arms and fulminating expression fixed on him across the table.
“How can a girl who by the age that my Nad is now, had already lost her mother, been sent to a psychologist, locked a boy up in a box, brained a boy for cutting her plaits off, and set that same boy’s wendy house on fire by means of a hacked walkie talkie doll combined with a radio controlled car and some improvised explosive materials, ever be considered boring?” He grinned at me.
“Is Nad your favourite?” I asked curiously.
“Why do you ask that?” He sounded taken aback.
“It’s just that she’s the only one you ever mention – except to Sue because of Tilly and her horse thing.”
He wrinkled his brow. “No, I love them both equally, honestly. It’s just that when I’m with you and you tell me all your adventures, I just try to imagine what I’d think if my Nad was doing them, because she’s the one who’d most likely get up to mischief, whereas Tilly’s much more of a good little girly girl. And then I think that by my Nadia’s age you had already lost your mother, and I think about poor little abandoned Mariah and I feel all the more determined that whatever Jea
nette does to make access difficult for me, I’m not going to let my girls grow up without their father. I’m determined to be there for them!”
As we lay in bed together later, in the dark. Tyler said, “You’re a bit quiet my love?”
I sighed. “I was just thinking that if I want to stay with you for much longer I’m going to have to get involved with your life aren’t I? And help you with your children? And I’m not much good with children. What if they hate me?”
He hugged me to him. “They won’t hate you,” he assured me. Though I figured he had a naïve lack of understanding about just how much one little person can hate. “And you’re good with people. I’ve watched you. Once you bother to talk to kids you treat them like they’re proper equal human beings – you don’t adjust your voice or your language – and they like that.”
“Oh, well, we’ll see,” I blocked, and we left it at that.
A weekend of driving. Tyler was meant to be somewhere that Saturday as well, but we found out when we got home on the Sunday night that again he’d been forced to miss it. Jeanette had asked him at the last minute if he’d have the girls for the whole weekend and because he wanted her to feel able to ask again, he’d ‘knocked the driving on the head instead’.
Jo was on the edge of her seat with excitement. “You realise this means that if you do better than him next weekend you’ll have done it! You’ll have the Silver roof. So it’s all down to how you drive next weekend! This is so thrilling!”
Although I didn’t want to win due to Jeanette pissing him about, I couldn’t help admit it was exciting. Trouble was, I hated to think that maybe Jeanette knew exactly what she was doing. She’d been around the Stocks for the past fifteen years so she’d know how it all worked and what was important to him. She could easily get onto the BriSCA website and follow the points tables. She’d know how to find out what was going on, what he was aiming for. She must know he’d already lost the Gold roof. What if she was vindictively manipulating him via his children with the deliberate intent of losing him the Silver as well?
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