Thrills and Spills

by Dominique Kyle

  I laughed. “Thanks Dad…”

  “Well I must say it makes me feel a lot better about that incident… For us adults at the time it did seem extremely – um – worrying…” He paused briefly. “I mean, they came within a hairsbreadth of taking you off me…”

  “Yeah, I know Dad. I’m sorry.” I felt genuinely penitent.

  “I love you my darling, you do know that don’t you?”

  I was touched. He never normally used endearments. “I love you too, Dad,” I said gruffly.

  And we rang off.

  I’d mentioned the rigs when they’d asked me on camera what I was going to do for my eighteenth birthday. I’d told them that I wasn’t planning anything as my Dad was out on the rigs and the only other relative I had in the world was a little brother who wouldn’t be wanting to hang out with me.

  The Satterthwaites had been dismayed when they’d watched that. “We had no idea, Eve. Of course you need to do something for your eighteenth! We’ll take you out for a meal…” Sue had been less than enthusiastic when the Spills team announced they’d send a camera along to film as she’d managed to avoid appearing on camera so far.

  “It’ll only be Mr. Beardy,” I reassured her. “He’s fun. They’ll want a couple of posed scenes such as someone bringing a cake out and then they’ll bugger off.”

  Before that however, I felt obliged to fulfil my promise to my Dad. I went back to my old home to visit Pauline. She was surprisingly welcoming when she opened the door to me. She was huge. I was shocked.

  “God, Pauline, when’s it due?”

  “Seven weeks yet,” she said, but it was without any brightness in her voice.

  “So have you turned my bedroom into a nursery?”

  “Yes, come up and see it.”

  I steeled myself to see my beloved old room made welcome for some other brat. But the main thing I noticed when I walked in was that everything was blue. I could have cried with relief. I hadn’t dared inquire into the sex of the expected cuckoo for fear of the answer, but now I felt a lot of tension draining out of me.

  “The dollshouses are still here I see,” I commented.

  “Well, he won’t notice them until he’s at least two…” She excused. And maybe she was hoping that by then Jamie might have left home?

  I could hear music issuing loudly from next door. “I’ll just pop in and see Jamie…”

  He was lying on his bed on his stomach, watching a music video on his tablet. He sat up and yawned. “Oh it’s you.”

  “Yeah, hallo Jamie, nice to see you too,” I drawled. I sat down on the bed beside him, feeling suddenly guilty about how little support I’d offered him at being left alone with HER.

  “How is it living with her while Dad’s away?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Fine. The food’s a lot better than when you were in charge, well, once she got past the throwing up stage anyway.”

  “And college?”

  “Yeah, fine.” He picked up his tablet again and I took the hint.

  As I walked down the stairs again to HER I felt a bit raw. Jamie and she were obviously getting on fine. And that crack about the food really stabbed me painfully in the chest. All those years of coming home from school instead of going back with my friends, just to make sure Jamie got fed. Spending all day at school when I was only about eight, keeping on checking the key Dad had tied round my neck on a piece of string because he’d be working until after six, terrified of losing it. Letting us both into the house and going to the table where Dad would have left us a tin of baked beans with the lid undone which I’d heat up for us. Taking on all the shopping and cooking once I’d moved up from the last year at Primary school. I knew I wasn’t the world’s greatest cook, but it hurt that the little brother that I’d adored so much that I’d sacrificed so much of my time to look after, seemed glad to be rid of me.

  “Cup of tea?” Pauline offered in a dull voice.

  I glanced at her. She was sitting in an armchair staring rather blindly at some Soap on the TV. “I’ll make it,” I said. The normally manic spaniel of hers followed me into the kitchen and looked up at me with big mournful eyes as subdued as his owner.

  When I came back a bit later and put the mug down beside her I asked, “How are you Pauline? You don’t look that great…”

  She looked up at me and her eyes filled with tears. “They say my blood pressure is getting dangerously high. They say I might have to finish the last month or so in hospital if it gets any worse. They’re talking about pre-eclampsia. I wish your Dad was here. But I can’t tell him that because he has to finish his contract. I’m so stupid! I should never have sent him out there. It was my idea, I made him go. I thought I wouldn’t need him till the baby was born. But I do! I’m really scared I’m going to lose the baby…”

  When Dad rang back on the pre-arranged call twenty four hours later I said, “You need to come home Dad. She’s got pre-eclampsia, she may have to go to hospital, and she’s scared she might lose the baby…”

  There was a short silence. “I’ll try and get on the next flight out,” he said. “But there’s no guarantee that there’ll be any places on it, and they’re talking about suspending the helicopters for the next few days as there’s a force ten imminent.”

  “Ring her and tell her that,” I said. “Even if it takes a bit of time, she’ll feel better knowing that you’re on your way…”

  I was on the phone then to my styling team – Jaimi and Lisa – “What shall I wear to my birthday meal? They’re going to film it!”

  What would have been a simple decision three months ago was now taking on nerve wracking monumental proportions. Sasha had rung up and said in severe tones, “Now make sure you dress up for it, Eve. We want to see legs, Eve…”

  “What should I wear?” I’d asked her.

  “We’re not here to micro-manage your life, Eve, wear what you want, just make sure you look gorgeous. There was a complete storm on Social Media after the wedding episode because you looked amazing. So try to pull it off again.”

  “It mustn’t look like I’m trying too hard,” I said to Jaimi. “It’s one thing to get tarted up for a wedding, but I’m just going for a meal with my family, so it can’t look overdone.”

  They dragged me down some shops again and had me take things on and off ad nauseum. “Pl-e-e-e-a-se, you two, please let me stop,” I begged at last.

  They were in frowning discussion together.

  “We’re picking you three different outfits,” Jaimi explained, “So you’ve got some back up in your wardrobe for a sudden demand later in the year.”

  I sat dolefully on the pull down seat in the changing cubicle. “Yeah, knock yourselves out,” I said dismally.

  Lisa laughed at me. “Anyone would think it was a punishment to be made to buy clothes and dress up…”

  I said nothing.

  I was meeting the Satterthwaites at the restaurant because there wasn’t any point in driving out to their place on the moors just to be driven back into town again, so Jaimi and Lisa became my dressers and make-up artists for the second time.

  They’d gone for a 1960’s style baby doll mini-skirted dress in a silvery moss green with knee length soft suede boots. They piled my hair up and allowed wispy curls to escape, carefully orchestrated with hot tongs, with a few bigger bobbing ringlets down the back. Then Lisa set to work on my make-up. “Natural!” I begged.

  “We can make your eyes look much bigger,” Lisa looked at me with a professional eye. “You’ve got grey eyes so we have to avoid blue, but natural colours with a touch of grey-green will give them a lift.”

  First she plucked my eyebrows though while I yelped and squawked and protested. Since they were so blonde I’d never much bothered, but now she was shaping them into perfect arches.

  “What are you doing to her in there?” Kes yelled. “Sounds like you’re torturing her!”

  “They are, Kes!” I shouted back, digging my nails into my palms as Lisa tugged at a parti
cularly persistent hair.

  But when she’d finished the eye make-up I was a bit shocked at how large my eyes looked, and how heavy my lids, without it being obvious how it was done with the subtle shadings and highlights.

  “We’ll contour your cheek bones and go for pale pearly pink lippie,” Jaimi commentated.

  “But first the mascara,” Lisa said. “You are to keep absolutely still and not to blink.”

  When I looked afterwards I was surprised to see that it was just a touch darker than my own eyelashes, and whilst emphasising my eyes, still looked natural.

  “Yes, you’ve always made the elementary mistake of putting black on,” Lisa said disapprovingly. “It’s far too dark for your fair complexion.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me then?” I said.

  Jaimi and Lisa looked at each other then looked at me.

  “Because, Eve, in case you’ve never realised it,” Jaimi answered, “none of us ever dared tell you anything.”

  “We were scared stiff of you,” Lisa confirmed. “But frankly we’ve always thought you’ve wasted your looks. You’ve always either dressed like a boy or dressed like a tart and nothing in between…”

  I stared at them, shocked.

  “So now we’re taking you in hand,” Jaimi said firmly. “And you’re going classic. No arguments now, Eve. You just do as we say…”

  By the time I walked into the restaurant, the Satterthwaite family had already arrived, and the camera was already whirring. I could see the staff were in a right twitter, peeping round the kitchen doors and standing on tip-toes to see me arrive, like I was royalty or something.

  I saw Pete’s face change when he saw me. I realised that he’d never seen me dressed up except on TV on the wedding episode.

  “You scrub up well,” he said his eyes signalling that he meant a bit more than that and he kissed me briefly on the lips. “Happy Birthday.”

  He and Paul were looking thoroughly smart in proper shirts. I’d seen Paul in one plenty of times as he worked as a consultant structural engineer and was often going off to meetings with architects and such like, but I’d mostly seen Pete in tee shirts and overalls, so it was a pleasant change for me too.

  Paul, Sue and even Jo took a turn kissing me on the cheek and wishing me ‘Happy Birthday’, though on the episode on TV they only showed Pete.

  We’d agreed to do the ‘present and cake’ bit first so that the cameraman could go. So Paul explained that the family had decided to buy me a new engine for my tarmac car for my birthday as the current one just didn’t seem to be coming up to scratch. I thanked them effusively (in the footage I saw that my cheeks flushed with pleasure and my eyes glowed – ‘it’s only a chunk of metal,’ Jaimi had commented disgustedly while watching, ‘how can you get so excited about that?) – and Paul explained apologetically (and unnecessarily) that there wouldn’t be time to get it into the car before Barford on Saturday.

  The cake was brought out by the staff with eighteen candles alight for me to blow out. Sue had made it for me which was sweet of her. The candles were all orange and purple as a reference to the livery on my cars. The cameraman, who wasn’t Roger after all and didn’t have a beard, asked me to stand up at the end of the table to blow out the candles and he re-positioned the camera in readiness. Later when I was watching back at the flat, I realised he’d done it so he could get a full length shot of my legs in the mini-skirt as I bent over to blow. When I straightened up I looked direct to camera and blew a kiss, “That’s for you Dad, and all the other guys on the QU platform in the ETAP complex out there in that force ten…keep safe!” For whatever reason, they kept it in. Maybe because of the human interest or maybe because I now saw that I looked rather provocative in a Marilyn Monroe baby doll kind of way as I pouted and blew the kiss. But I figured there’d have been a massive cheer go up in the common room so it was worth prostituting myself for…

  Barford Raceway, County Durham, tarmac. Paul was frowning. “It’s a tight track this. There can be frequent pile ups and yellow flags. Your best bet would be to get out in front…”

  But we both knew that unless the work we had done on the engine this week had wrought a miracle, that wasn’t going to be an option. During the past few weeks we’d stripped the whole thing down three times and still not been able to solve the conundrum.

  There was a pile up in the first turn, and the only reason I was out of it was that I just hadn’t been able to get the car to go fast enough to be in the midst of it.

  There was an immediate yellow flag. After we’d circled round in single file in our race positions while they cleared the wreckage the green was waved and we all shot off.

  Two more laps round stuck in a shoving and jostling pack and then my engine started to misfire. I would have pulled off to the infield but there was a car on either side of me with myself jammed in the middle and another corner approaching. Then something really bad happened with the engine. I wasn’t sure what, but as I felt the car judder, the Stock behind gave me a massive bump up the backside. Two other cars ploughed at full speed into the back of him. The car on my inside got hit at a funny angle throwing it into me and the one on my outside got another car using his back bumper to brake. In the middle of this sandwich my own car was thrown straight over the one on my outside, launching airborne and coming down on its roof, aerofoil flattened completely, skidding across the last bit of remaining tarmac to come to a huge impact head on with the barrier, whereupon the engine burst into flames.

  For a second I just hung there upside down with the pressure going through my neck, realising I was trapped with my helmet hard down against the crumpled roof, then as the flames woofed higher and engulfed the whole front, I undid my harness and started to make shift to get out. Marshalls were running from all directions with fire extinguishers. As men were aiming the jets at the engine, hands were reaching in to haul me out. Someone got me under my arms and yanked me free. As I found tarmac under my feet I got my balance.

  “Thanks,” I said, and pulled my helmet off. The last of the flames were just going out. They squirted a bit more for good measure.

  “Are you alright?” The man asked.

  “Fine, thanks,” I said calmly.

  “There’s a red flag. Walk over to the infield and we’ll bring the car over to you.”

  “Ok, will do,” I said. I began to walk over to the infield, past the rest of the pile up that they were trying to disentangle, asking them to move off one by one. They’d have to get them all out of the way to move my own car. A tractor was getting ready.

  Suddenly a hand grabbed my arm. I swung round. It was Quinn.

  “What the hell are you doing, you idiot?” I hissed at him. “You’ll get suspended. Get back to your car!”

  I could only see his eyes through the helmet.

  “Are you ok?” Quinn asked urgently.

  “Of course I’m fucking ok!” I snapped. “What do you think the fire marshals are for? Get back to your car!”

  He turned sharply and went back out onto the track and walked back to his car. But a marshal was yelling furiously at him abandoning his car at the side when they were wanting to re-start the race and he was ordered to drive off to the infield.

  He arrived back beside me in his car about the same time as the ITV cameras did.

  “What happened there, Eve?” The ITV chap asked.

  I explained.

  “And how are you feeling now?”

  “Fine. A bit gutted about my car though.” I pointed at the mangled remains across the way. I made a comically sad face to camera. “My poor car…”

  Quinn had hauled himself out of the window of his own car and started taking his helmet and balaclava off.

  “So why did you leave the race and come running over?” The interviewer asked him.

  “Because he’s an idiot!” I said fiercely.

  “I was worried,” Quinn confessed. “About Eve, I mean, because of how her Mum died.”

  I stared at him.r />
  “How did your Mother die?” The interviewer asked me.

  I turned my piss-off stare on the interviewer instead and refused to answer.

  Quinn was leaning back against his car with his arms folded. “Tell them how she died, Eve.”

  I glared at him and then at the camera. “A Polish juggernaut turned the wrong way up a dual carriageway when Mum and I were driving to pick up my little brother from nursery. It completely mashed us and Mum was killed outright but I was in the back in a child safety seat so I was ok.”

  “Come on, Eve, that’s not the whole of it, is it? Tell them what happened to your Mum’s head…” He turned to the camera. “Eve was just six remember?”

  “How do you know what happened?” I attacked him.

  “Dad told me – not when I was six mind you – I asked him once when I was about eleven. I was horrified when I heard.”

  “How’d he know? They wouldn’t even let my Dad see her. Holty identified her.”

  “PC Holt?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “It was Holty that pulled me out.”

  Quinn looked gobsmacked. “I didn’t know that Ginty…”

  “Who is PC Holt?”

  “Guy who goes to my church,” Quinn said off handedly still staring intently at my face.

  I was angry. I never knew that Quinn knew what happened. I’d thought it was my secret. Me and Dad hadn’t even talked about it until six months ago. I felt cheated. But also a tiny bit impressed that Mr. Motormouth over there had never used it against it me or blabbed it around school.

  “So you still haven’t told us what happened Eve,” the interviewer prompted.

  I looked irritably back at him. “Ok. If you really think your viewers will want to know the gory details!” I folded my arms and said somewhat aggressively, “the car rolled onto its roof and was crumpled like it had gone through an industrial crusher and something to do with the impact took the top of Mum’s head off, and I was left hanging upside down in the harness of my child seat covered in my mother’s blood and brains for absolutely ages until the emergency services smashed a window and hauled me out.”