“What do you mean?”
“I was at work. I stopped suddenly. It felt like something had just crashed into my stomach and ripped a hole out. I went back to work but I was really anxious. It was like she’d just gone. I’d never been aware of her presence before, but now I was aware of her absence. I looked at my watch and it was the time she always drove with you to pick Jamie up from nursery. When they came onto the building site to bring me the news, I was expecting it. And when they said you were in the car too, I was expecting the worst.”
“She didn’t leave me,” I said suddenly. “I could still feel her there. Like she was wrapping herself around me and keeping me calm till they got me out.”
“Could you see her in the front seat?” He asked. There was something in his tone that made me twist round to glance at his face.
“Why do you ask?”
“It’s just that John didn’t let me come in to identify her. Said he’d made the official confirmation himself. He said-” Dad’s voice broke a bit. “That it had taken the top of her head off. Her brains were showing…”
“Shit,” I said abruptly.
He was instantly remorseful. “I shouldn’t have told you that, sorry.”
“Guess you had to some time.” I could see the scene in my memory now. All wonky, upside down. I remembered I was spattered with wet stuff. Red stuff, white stuff, clear stuff. Shit. I swallowed and tried not to think too hard about it.
“Do you realise this is the first time you’ve ever talked about what happened?”
“Really?”
“You never spoke about it – ever.”
“Well guess it was about time we had this conversation then,” I said abruptly. “Time for Skyfall, methinks.” I reached for the remote and pressed play.
Dad didn’t try to stop me. I lay against him on the sofa, knowing that this might be the last time we ever had a moment like this, and let the images from the film just wash over me. I didn’t look at Dad’s face in case he was crying.
On the Friday morning at the end of that week, I saw a red Camaro pull into the forecourt at work. I shot into the workshop, went right to the back and shut myself in the stores cupboard. I leant my back against the door and slid down to sit on the floor with my knees pulled up tight to my chest. I found I was trembling. I put my forehead down on my fisted hands and waited.
Outside, through the flimsy corrugated iron walls I could hear Trev’s voice. Dewhurst was sounding polite and non-committal, Steve’s tone was cool.
“I’ve come to see Entwistle. I went for another job but I didn’t get it even though I was the best candidate, and I want to ask him what sort of reference he gave me – because I really can’t account for why I got turned down…”
Dewhurst’s voice. “He’s in the office taking a payment from a customer. He won’t be more than five minutes or so I guess.”
“So what happened to Ginty?” Trev asked.
Dewhurst again. “I don’t know. She was here a few minutes ago.” I imagined him pretending to glance around. “Guess she’s had to go out on an errand.” He knew that wasn’t true so I had to gratefully conclude that he was covering for me.
But it seemed Trev hadn’t meant that. He sounded gobsmacked. “So she’s still working here? She didn’t get sacked?”
Dewhurst. “She was suspended for the rest of the week then started back on the Monday. Entwistle values her too much to sack her.”
“Right.” Trev sounded pissed off.
“So how are you? Apart from the job thing..?” I figured Steve was trying to find something to say to fill in the time.
“Utterly hacked off actually.” Trev sounded really angry. “Some loony in the street has got it into their head that I’m a paedophile! Every morning when I get up I find piles of dog shit through my letter box and a vile graffiti on my wall!”
“Hell, that’s a bit weird! How did that they get that idea?” Steve.
“I don’t know! I’ve been to the police about it and they found out that a letter claiming I was a paedophile had been shoved through every door in my street. Yesterday an officer went and called at every house and told them that I wasn’t on any sex offenders’ register and to lay off. But when he came back to see me he said he couldn’t imagine it was going to make any difference. Said that the main response had been ‘well he’s not on one yet, but someone obviously knows what he’s been up to’ and then he advised me to move to the other side of town and not to tell anyone where I was moving to. Said that once paedophile-mania starts, it gains its own momentum irrelevant of the facts and it wasn’t worth hanging around long enough for the violence to start!”
“Sounds about right,” Dewhurst commented sagely. “I’d take his advice if I were you. Folk always go by the ‘no smoke without fire’ principle. You’ll be getting beat up on a dark night and fireworks through the letter-box if the hysteria builds.”
“Shit, do you really think so?” Trev sounded worried. “Thing is, I need to know where I’ll be working next before I decide where to look for a flat.”
“Might be best to move to another town,” Dewhurst rubbed it in. “This type of grime tends to follow you about. ‘Specially with Facebook and t’internet and all that. You might end up having to change your name.”
“Fuck, do you think so?”
“Trevelyn!” Entwistle’s voice interrupted the conversation from some way away. “You can come in now.” I wondered what Entwistle would say to him. I wondered what Entwistle had put in that reference.
Five minutes later the door to the office slammed and a car drove off with an angry revving screech. There was silence. Then Steve came into the shed and said loudly. “You can come out now, Eve.”
I didn’t answer. He waited for a moment, then withdrew. I suspected to give me a chance to emerge with some dignity from whatever hiding place I’d chosen. I picked something at random off the shelves and walked out ready to give an excuse that it had taken me ages to find it. Neither of the men said anything.
“Blue Fiat Punto, MOT.” Dewhurst said without looking at me.
“Ok,” I said and went to get the paperwork.
Friday night was swimming night with the students. I always declined to get into a swimming costume and go into the pool with them. I didn’t particularly want to get my kit off in front of them. So I stayed on the side keeping an eye out for what was going on, giving encouragement and giving Todd the heads-up about any burgeoning bad behaviour.
The changing room was a mixed sex one with cubicles, meaning that both Todd and I could help the students with any issues. I helped a couple of the girls shower and wash their hair then went back into the cubicle area, where Todd was cloistered with Adam, trying to coax him to get dressed. Suddenly there was a huge six foot two naked man wandering up the aisle. Completely starkers except for a pair of bright green socks.
“Oh my God Mikey! Get back into a cubicle!” Somewhere from the direction of the pool I could hear a mother instructing her two daughters to get quickly showered and dressed or they’d be late for the film.
I grabbed Mikey’s wrist and hauled him back into the cubicle I’d seen him emerge from, leapt in with him and closed the door after us. Just in time. Two little girls went chattering by.
I turned round to find me and Mikey squashed face to face in the small space, him grinning with the fun of it, and his tiny little widgy, no bigger than Jamie’s when he was seven, hanging between us.
“For God’s sake get your pants on,” I said, grabbing up the superman themed items lying discarded on the floor.
“What’s happening, Eve?” Todd called.
“I’m just sorting Mikey out,” I shouted back. “Do you want to take over?”
“No worries, you carry on. I’m going to check on Dev.”
I systematically handed Mikey his clothes in the right order and when we finally emerged, everyone else was ready to go onto to the Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet which was their final treat of the evening.<
br />
When I told Todd what had happened he congratulated me on my quick interception. “Can you imagine the furore if those girls had bumped into him? I’m sick of us being so understaffed. The only reason we come to this pool is because of the mixed changing rooms so it doesn’t matter what staff we have on. It’s getting ridiculous!”
In private I asked him later why Mikey didn’t have a proper willy. He shrugged. “Some of the students don’t ever get their adult hormones kicking in, so the parts that would normally develop in their teens, don’t. You’ll notice he doesn’t shave either and has a squeaky voice. He’s built like one of those eunuchs in the old days that they used to castrate before puberty to keep their singing voices or for use as harem guards. So the irony is that everyone would have started screaming and kicking up a fuss, but he’s as harmless as a fly and as little interested in sex as an eight year old.”
I glanced across at Mikey who smiled benignly back as though he knew we were talking about him but didn’t mind. But probably he was just thinking about his maxi sized chicken bucket. And that isn’t a euphemism…
Sunday dawned wet. A lot of the racing in the Northern stadiums seemed to happen on a Sunday but we’d been looking through all the potential race fixtures for the rest of the season and I’d had to go into Entwistle and book off every Saturday where I might be expecting to be driving. He’d sighed, but said that he could see that the Stock car involvement would be widening my skill base and thereby adding value to the garage, and once I’d reminded him that I wasn’t planning any holidays this year unlike Dewhurst and Steve who had fortnights booked to sunnier climes, he agreed that having every few Saturdays booked off was a reasonable request.
I was at the Satterthwaites’ at the crack of dawn and we set off for Buxton. Pete was coming with us this time to sit in state and order us about. On the way in the van I picked his brains about how to handle the car on a tarmac track after heavy rain.
“Sometime, when we’ve had torrential rain, you ought to go out to a flooded carpark and have a go at driving at speed around it and aquaplaning. It would give you a good chance at learning how to respond when your wheels suddenly lose their grip.” Pete advised.
That was a brilliant idea. “Though I doubt Dad would let me borrow his car if he knew what I was using it for…” I said glumly.
“Don’t you even have regular access to a normal car?” Pete marvelled. He thought for a moment. “Guess we could organise for you to go out with Dad one night after some rain.”
I glanced at Paul who nodded agreement. It must be fantastic having a Dad who’d been a racing driver himself and didn’t bat an eyelid when it was suggested he took someone out to skid dangerously around in his own car in some seriously slippy stuff.
“Will you do ice with me as well?” I asked speculatively, not sure if I’d be pushing my luck here. But Paul just grinned at me as though he’d been waiting all his life for someone to ask.
My only regret about today, was that with Rob banned, Quinn wouldn’t be here have his nose rubbed in it while I raced and he watched. But on that score I was wrong.
About half an hour before my first race, I became aware of a figure standing watching me. Out of the corner of my eye I could see it was a driver from the gear he was wearing. I looked round and was rendered speechless by finding that the fireproofed figure was Quinn. He smiled at me in that teeth bared, eyes narrowed way which meant he couldn’t wait to see my reaction to whatever he was about to say next.
I kept my expression neutral. “Are you driving in the Bangers again?” I asked offhandedly.
His green eyes sparked triumphantly. “Same race as you.”
“F2s? How come?” I fought with myself to sound like I was barely interested.
“Since Rob’s banned, he did a deal with someone to loan them his F1 motor for the rest of the season if they loaned him their F2 for me.”
I raised my eyebrows politely. “So does that mean you’ll be driving for the rest of the season?”
He smiled slowly at me. “Yup. So you’d better watch out McGinty, because I’m going to make sure you eat dust!”
And then he swung away.
I scrunched up the polystyrene cup in my hand and hurled it across the pit.
Pete looked up. “Who was he?”
I glared after Quinn’s retreating back. “The boy next door.”
Pete looked curiously at me. “That doesn’t explain very much.”
I kicked hard at one of the Beast’s huge tyres. “He’s been my neighbour since I was four. He’s like a second really annoying younger brother…”
“He looked older than you,” Pete commented.
I suppose that Quinn had been looking rather dashing and mature in his driver’s clothing. “He’s nearly two months younger,” I snapped.
“So more like a twin then?” Pete suggested.
“My evil twin. Yeah, you’re right. It’s so fucking annoying!” I was fuming. “He’ll have the black cross up and will be taking full advantage of it, and everyone will be bumping me!”
A flicker of a smile passed across Pete’s lips. “Well you’ll just have to drive fast enough to keep ahead of everyone then, won’t you?”
I glared in the direction he’d disappeared. “Don’t you worry,” I snarled. “He’s going to be toast.”
The white tops all lined up at the front. I eyed sideways. There were four of us here, and there were two more at the back with the black crosses up, so I wasn’t sure if I’d be aware of exactly which one Quinn was once the race started. Jo was in this one too, but I wasn’t even thinking about her this time.
At the end of the rolling start I put my foot down and kept it there. I wasn’t slowing for anything. I just wrenched the wheel round and kept my eyes glued on the track. A few cars started to pass, but none of them were white. And no-one bumped me.
Afterwards, Jo pulled up in the pit behind me and got out.
“That was mental,” she said blankly.
“What was?” I asked.
Pete smiled at me. “You drove like a maniac.”
“Oh dear, sorry…” I looked worriedly at him. “Did I do something wrong? Did I miss a marshall’s flag or something?”
Paul patted me on the shoulder reassuringly. “Wrong? No. You only came in fifth after the gold, the silver and two red tops, not even any blues, that’s all-”
“Where did he come?” I asked suspiciously.
“He’s driving the consolation,” Pete said, being the only one who knew who I was referring to.
“Yes!” I was triumphant. But it wore off in seconds. I grabbed both Pete and Paul’s hands at the same time. “Seriously you two, you have to teach me everything you know. Everything! He’s gonna be good – I know he is – really good, and he’s got Rob behind him.”
“Rob?” Pete’s brow wrinkled.
“Rob Rudd?” Paul queried.
I nodded. “Really good but can’t keep off the juice, just been banned.”
Paul looked thoughtful. “Rob and I had a bit of rivalry going when he was in F2. He rose through the rankings really quick. We were fighting it out, but about the same time that I retired he moved on to F1’s.”
I frowned, thinking about Rob’s interest in me. “I reckon he’s deliberately set Quinn on me.”
“You think?” Pete said with a frown. “Why would he do that though?”
Paul glanced at me, then at Pete. “He’s using them like cocks in a fight.”
“What do you mean?”
“Like setting two pit bulls at each other, or two boxers into a ring. He’s out of it for the time being, and I’m out of it. So it’s a proxy rivalry.”
They both looked at me. “So are you up for it then?” Paul asked me robustly. “Are you willing to do what it takes to leave them wondering what’s hit them?”
“Course I am,” I said fiercely. “Told you, he’s toast.”
The men grinned. Jo just sat on the concrete curb, hands hanging loosely, wa
tching.
Quinn qualified in the consolation in the last available place. That meant he had now had two races under his belt so would have his eye in now, and goodness knows what facilities Rob had to give him advance training. I couldn’t see where he was during the Final. He never caught me up from the back, but on the other hand, I didn’t appear to ever lap him. I was in sixth position at the black and white chequered flag. The marshals had us all get out of our vehicles for a few minutes for some reason just after the red flag was waved and we’d all pulled up. During this hiatus, the driver of the gold top wandered over to me, his helmet tucked under his arm.
“Who are you?” He asked curiously. “Don’t think I’ve ever seen you before.”
I pulled my helmet off too and I saw his eyebrows raise. “McGinty.” I answered. “It’s only my third race day. There’s been no reason for you to notice me.” I realised it might be to my advantage to stay on the right side of the champion so I smiled at him. “Gold, huh? So that means you’re pretty much the dog’s bollocks round here right?” I signalled with my eyes that I was just winding him up and in reality I was pretty impressed.
He looked me up and down then gave me a slow inviting smile. “If you say so…”
I gave just the right calibration of smile back.
The marshal told us to get back into our vehicles. I drove back to Pete and Paul. Jo was already there.
“What was Tyler saying to you?” Paul asked.
“Who?”
“The Gold.”
I shrugged. “Just asking me who I was.”
Paul nodded. “That’s a good sign.”
“How did Quinn do?” I asked urgently.
“Pretty good for a complete novice,” Pete reported. “Kept up at the back at any rate without falling behind and getting lapped multiple times which would be the normal state of affairs…”
I made a low growling noise in my throat. “I knew it! It won’t take him long to catch up! So now we really need to talk tactics. You need to run all sorts of scenarios by me. He’ll be functioning on instinct, so I’ll need to be able to out-think him. Maybe go through lots of film footage on slow-mo to show me what I need to be looking out for and how to react?”
Paradise Postponed (Not Quite Eden Book 2) Page 26