The Way Barred

by Dominique Kyle

  “Did he?” I said, fascinated by this revelation. “How early on was that?”

  Mick scratched his head. “Can’t remember exactly, but before that documentary started. That’s why he recommended your name to them… Guess you caused him even more trouble than he ever expected huh? Plenty of sleepless nights in all sorts of ways.”

  The meaningful look he gave me made my cheeks burn, and he laughed and turned away, leaving me to hide away in the depths of the Performance Cars and cool my face by leaning it on some very expensive cold metal.

  The public interview with Steve wasn’t too bad. I managed not to cry when Tyler wasn’t there to swing me up on the stage and sit beside me. Pete was beside me instead with Jo on my other side, and Paul on the end by Pete.

  Steve made some introductions about the unusual nature of the 50/50 gender split of both the driving and mechanical side of our team and about what a successful year we had with both the Gold and the Silver roofs ending up in the same garage. We discussed the logistics of planning and getting to so many different races, our tactics, our roles (Paul managing Pete’s programme and Jo managing mine, with Paul in overall control and an advisory position). Prompted by a mischievous Steve we were made to touch upon the bad tempered rivalry between myself and Pete early in the year and then the way we’d had to sort it out and go on to both target Tyler instead. We discussed the effects of my ban and I found myself using this opportunity to explain why I’d got into such a severe argument with Tyler – because I’d felt the men needed to show respect to the female drivers by treating them equally and not to modify their own driving behaviour to mollycoddle and protect them, otherwise women would begin to be resented in the sport. Jo reported back on what it was like to induct a completely new female from a different driving discipline into the sport. And finally I announced that I was planning to build a new design of F2 from scratch and test it out round the tracks.

  When we got off the stage Paul said to us, “Well done, I was really proud of you all. You presented yourselves very professionally.” He put his arms around us and Jo said, “And what’s more, Eve didn’t even cry!”

  I cried later though. I hid in the crowds in the F2 area of the Oval Sports section and sat on the gritty floor with my back against the wall. While they presented all the trophies, I’d disappeared off to avoid seeing Jeanette being presented with Tyler’s, and wandered round the cars. And there was Tyler’s Daz Kitson sitting there complete with the half and half roof colours of the two different Championships, British and European, with a printed explanation of his unrivalled dominance of the sport over the last ten years, the extensive list of all the titles and trophies he’d won since moving into the sport at the age of sixteen, and a few lines about his early tragic death at the height of his driving career. Sadly missed by the whole Stocks community. Hearts go out to his wife and children. RIP.

  I just retreated to a private place against the wall and blubbed.

  I don’t know how long I was there but some long while later a little figure crawled through the sea of legs in front of me and sat down beside me with her legs pulled up to her chest like I was doing.

  She looked sideways at me, her grey eyes intense, and her dark brown hair done in two plaits. “Are you Eve?” She asked.

  I stared at her. “Are you Nadia?” I returned.

  She nodded.

  “Are you crying about Daddy?” She asked.

  “Yes,” I said wiping at my eyes. “Are you?”

  She nodded and sniffled.

  “Was it a nice big trophy?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “It was so big I couldn’t hold it so Tilly had to help me and it has his name on it four times.”

  “When was the last time?” I asked.

  “Mummy says the year before I was born.”

  We were silent for a moment. I didn’t know what to say to her.

  “Daddy told me about you,” Nadia said.

  “Did he?” I asked surprised. “What did he say?”

  “He said he’d met this lovely pretty lady who I’d really like.”

  “Oh that’s nice,” I said trying not to start blubbing again.

  “I knew it would be you. I knew it would be the lady on the telly who has a birthday when Tilly does! He showed me the ring he’d bought you.”

  “Did he?” I said brokenly, my heart squeezing in my chest. He’d bought me a ring?

  “He said he was going to take you to Venice and ask you to marry him.”

  Tears began to roll silently down my face. They didn’t seem to disturb her. She looked solemnly at me. “It was blue – sort of.”

  “What was?” I said.

  “The ring. Sort of blue. Daddy said it went with a dress of yours.”

  He’d bought it when he’d bought the earrings then, I thought. All that time ago. Right back near the beginning! He was already that certain! No wonder he’d got so depressed and upset when I’d disappeared after I was banned and he’d thought he was just being utterly stupid and had been making a fool of himself. He must have been castigating himself as a complete fantasist.

  “Do you like cars?” I asked, for want of anything else to say.

  “Yes, I want to do the Ministox but Mummy won’t let me.” She looked miserable.

  “Well, you know what Nadia, when you’re sixteen come and find me again and I’ll set you up with an F2 stock car and help you start out in the adult races. And if your mother won’t give permission for that, then wait till you’re eighteen and I’ll help you then instead.”

  “Won’t I be too old by then?” She said dolefully.

  “No, I didn’t start till I was seventeen,” I reassured her. “It was my eighteenth birthday remember, on the telly? Imagine if you turned out to be as good a driver as your Daddy was? You could have your name on the same Trophy as your Daddy has!”

  She looked hopefully at me.

  “Your Daddy loved you both very much and he was very proud of you,” I told her looking intensely into her eyes.

  Suddenly we heard her name being called. Insistently and a bit panicky.

  “Mummy,” she said gloomily.

  “You’d better go,” I said. “She sounds worried.”

  Nadia glowered. “I don’t want to. I want to stay here with you!”

  “You’ll have to go Nadia, she won’t like it otherwise. But don’t forget what I said about helping you into the Stocks when you’re old enough.”

  She stood up reluctantly and pushed her way back through some legs. I stood up too to check she got safely back. I saw Jeanette grabbing her by the wrist and saying something sharp to her. Nadia tried to yank away but couldn’t. She looked longingly back at me and Jeanette followed her gaze. Jeanette’s eyes met mine for a split second and her face darkened like a thundercloud and she turned abruptly and dragged the resisting Nadia away.

  What a cheek, I thought. She doesn’t want him, but she doesn’t want him to want anyone else. It enrages her that she declared that he was impossible to live with and then another woman came along and seemed to find it perfectly possible after all.

  I’d refused to drive in the Live Action Arena, so Paul and Jo took me in to watch with all the other five thousand punters. It was unbelievably loud. The thumping music and roaring engines. I put my fingers in my ears and Paul laughed at me. He said something jokingly but I couldn’t hear what it was. Pete’s Gold roof went round and round. I bet Paul’s really proud of him, I thought.

  On the way home in the Beast, Jo and I agreed to re-invest the money we’d made from Fay into buying the car back off her so we had a car specifically set aside for the business. It had been Paul’s sensible idea. When we got out at home and opened the back of the Beast to unload Pete’s car, I found two cars there. The other one was a Daz Kitson with a half and half British and European Champion roof.

  “What are you doing with Tyler’s car?” I asked, shocked.

  “We thought we’d better buy it off Jeanette,” Paul said
. “You don’t want anyone else with this one do you? It’s been winning everything all year, is nearly identical to yours, and is only a year old. We’ll decide what we do with it in time for the start of the season.”

  “Yes maybe you should take on Tyler’s, and I have your one,” Pete suggested. “So we know we’re evenly matched. And then maybe you and Jo can buy one of my old ones off me so you can have one shale car and one tarmac car permanently set up for your customers so you don’t have to waste so much time swopping the car over between races.”

  “And if your new design is successful,” Jo said, “then you’ll have to make Pete one too so that it’s fair.”

  Pete drove Tyler’s car into the barn and left it in the middle between his end and my end, like a kind of truce. I sat in front of it cross legged and stared mournfully at it. After they’d finishing unloading Pete’s car, Jo and Pete headed for the house. Paul stood there with his hand on the light switch.

  “Are you coming?” He asked.

  I shook my head.

  After he’d gone, I got into Tyler’s car and curled up in the seat. Could I smell him in here? Not with all the protective clothing one had to wear in the driver’s seat. Maybe I would just catch an echo of something though if he’d been working on it with bare hands? But Mick and Tom had done too good a job of cleaning and polishing it up to a perfect high gloss. Nothing. Nothing.

  Jo came out and tried to get me to come into the house. “You’ll freeze to death out here!”

  “I’m staying here,” I said stubbornly.

  Sue came out a few minutes later with a duvet and covered me with it. “You have to let her do what she needs to do, Jo,” she said firmly to her daughter as she walked out of the barn again and shut the door.

  I curled up tight in the uncomfortable seat and went to sleep. I dreamt that I was driving and Tyler was in the next car. He pulled off his helmet and smiled at me. I didn’t know which one of us had won. I woke up freezing cold. It was one in the morning. Was this hole shot through my middle ever going to heal? The pain was unbearable. I wanted to die. I straightened up and pulled myself stiffly out of the window. I had pins and needles in one leg. I limped to the door, switched out the light, hobbled over to the house through the crunching layer of frost, went quietly inside, crept upstairs and got into my own bed.

  At the end of the week a small package arrived for me in a padded envelope. I didn’t recognise the handwriting. Inside was a very brief note. I think this was meant for you.

  “What is it?” Jo leaned across the table at me.

  I held the small dark purple velvet box in my hand. It was identical to the one the earrings had been presented in.

  “I know what it is, and I can’t bear to open it,” I said.

  Sue glanced round from where she was preparing some veg.

  “I suppose I’d better though,” I said reluctantly. “Just to check I’m right.”

  I was right. The ring was the same smoky blue stone as my earrings, the gold the same intricate design. I bet he would have asked me to bring the blue dress with me to Venice, I thought.

  “Oh God, here we go, she’s going to cry again,” Jo said impatiently.

  Sue washed her hands and wiped them on a tea towel and came over. “So what has she sent you?” She asked.

  “The engagement ring Tyler bought me. He was going to ask me to marry him when we went to Venice. Nadia told me, but I’d kind of guessed anyway…”

  “Whoa!” Jo exclaimed. “I had no idea it had gone that far! And what would you have answered?”

  My lips quivered. “I’d finally decided to say ‘yes’. The last time I ever saw him I’d sort of told him I’d be saying yes.”

  “Well at least he died happy,” Sue said consolingly.

  That was just the last straw. I ran out of the room, and upstairs and threw myself on my bed and sobbed inconsolably. I cried until I nearly threw up and then I cried some more.

  On Saturday afternoon, Jo came to me with the local paper. “Look,” she pointed at an advert for a two bed flat rental on the outskirts of town, on the main road that led out to the moors and up past here. “How about it?” She said.

  I looked at the price. “I’d never afford that.”

  “Not on your own, you Noodle!” She said sarcastically. “I meant you and me. How about it?”

  I hesitated. “It doesn’t make sense for you does it? When you can live at home for free and just walk a few steps out to the barn?”

  “Well you seem to manage it!” Jo said. “And you earn less than me and are running two Stock cars! With not having to spend a penny on my Stocks this year, and with not paying any rent, I’ve built up a healthy bank balance to pay my advance rent and deposit. We’d be on the direct road out to here so it wouldn’t be too much hardship to work on the cars. I can’t spend my whole life living with my parents, can I?”

  Paul and Sue had refused to allow me to pay any rent, so I too had built up enough for a month’s advance rent, and I’d hung on to my returned deposit to put down on the next one.

  “Are you sure you can cope with working all day with me, living all evening with me, supporting me every week at the Stocks and running a business with me? You used to get some time off…” And equally to the point, could I cope with 24/7 grumpy Jo?

  “If I need some time out, I’ll just come home for a night or two,” Jo said cheerfully.

  Her eyes were bright and excited. I rarely saw her so positive and animated.

  I made a decision. “Ok then, let’s go for it,” I said.

  Paul came into the living room and leant over the back of the sofa where Jo and I were both flopped, I with the technical design book in my hand, and she on her smart phone googling something.

  “Ok Eve, are you ready to start building that car then?”

  I glanced up at him and put the book down. “Yes,” I said.

  “Come into the study then and let’s analyse exactly what materials you need to order, and then research where to order them from.”

  Paul waited for me as I heaved myself out of the sofa, stretched, and followed him to the door.

  Suddenly he looked down at me and smiled. “Are you excited?”

  “Yes, I am,” I realised. A year of thinking about something I wanted to do but didn’t know how, and now it was coming to fruition. I got a flutter in my stomach just knowing I was about to start.

  “Your eyes are sparkling,” he said with another smile.

  “Ok,” I said determinedly. “Let’s get on with it then.”

  He led the way to his studio and flicked the light on. “You told us with complete confidence before you’d even sat in a Stock car that you were going to be a good Stock car driver, and it turns out you were right. So now that you tell me you’re going to be a good Stock car designer, I’m expecting great things of you.”

  “You won’t be disappointed,” I told him, looking him challengingly in the eye. “I’m going to be the best!”

  Helpline Numbers and Advice Websites

  (These details were correct at the time of publication in 2016)

  BriSCA F2 – official site for info about Formula Two Stocks – www.briscaf2.com

  Karma Nirvana – forced marriage support – 08005999247 – www.karmanirvana.org.uk

  Rape Crisis (England and Wales) – 08088029999 – http://rapecrisis.org.uk/

  Rape Crisis (Scotland) – 08088010302 – http://www.rapecrisisscotland.org.uk/

  Rape Crisis Network Ireland – 1800778888 – http://www.rapecrisishelp.ie/

  If your region isn’t covered by the above Rape Crisis contact details then try this page – http://rapecrisis.org.uk/international.php

  Samaritans – if you feel suicidal ring this number – 116123 – www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help-you/contact-us

  Mind – mental health charity – ring infoline – 03001233393 – www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/suicidal-feelings/#.V311zDUrLio

  Cruse
Bereavement Care – support after someone has died – including help for young people – 08088081677 – www.cruse.org.uk

  Macmillan Cancer Support – help for people with cancer and their families including bereavement support – 08088080000 – www.macmillan.org.uk/information-and-support/coping/at-the-end-of-life/after-death/bereavement.html

  Sue Ryder – hospice and neurological care – (http://support.sueryder.org/practical-emotional-advice?_ga=1.267494605.2121099773.1467964756) for advice about facing the imminent death of a loved one and bereavement, and to find their online community of bereaved people go to – https://support.sueryder.org/community/coping-death-loved-one?gclid=Cj0KEQjwnv27BRCmuZqMg_Ddmt0BEiQAgeY1l8nVm7ra437eKNeTckXf3wFlMkwAOjjiuU0ifkGXE_saAtoS8P8HAQ

  Marie Curie – care and support through terminal illness – 08000902309 – www.mariecurie.org.uk/help/bereaved-family-friends/dealing-grief/bereavement-or-grief-counselling

  SCARD –Support and Care After Road Death and Injury – 08451235542 – www.scard.org.uk

  Contraceptive advice – www.nhs.uk/conditions/contraception-guide/pages/contraception.aspx

  FPA – Sexual Health Charity - info and support on sexual health, contraception, sex and relationships – www.fpa.org.uk – the page to go to with lots of extremely helpful info, advice and support links if you are facing an unplanned pregnancy is – http://www.fpa.org.uk/unplanned-pregnancy-and-abortion/pregnant-and-dont-know-what-do