by Rosie Thomas
Phil nodded slowly. 'But if something does happen to you up there, I won't be able to save you. I can't look after you, except to comfort you.'
I looked full at him then. He was unshaven and there were grey pouches of tiredness beneath his eyes. I knew how deeply and implicitly I had come to trust him. I took for granted his practical capabilities, and his commonsense reliability in all the details of our enterprise. But I didn't know what he felt or thought, beneath the armour of his cheerfulness. It was asking too much of him, merely as an amiable companion and not my husband nor even my lover, to bear the responsibility of taking me up into the mountains.
I finally understood what was happening. The flame of my defiance and determination died down. It was all over for us; after everything we had done we weren't competing any more, and it was my fault. I felt sick, and unable to draw breath, as if I had been thumped in the diaphragm.
'Have you asked all the women?'
I nodded miserably.
'All of them? What about her?'
He jerked his head at beautiful Maria, next but one in the line ahead of us. In fact I hadn't approached her with my muttered request. In her chic overalls with the gilt trimmings and gilt jewellery, Maria made me feel like a bag of Phil's dirty laundry.
'No.'
'Get out and ask her. This minute.'
I glanced at my watch, automatically, as if the time mattered any more. Nine twenty-six. Suddenly I was running across to the Mercedes. I gabbled out my question.
Maria arched her eyebrows and then smiled at me. 'I sink I might have somesing. I take a pill to lengsen my cycle.'
'Please, please will you find it for me?'
Kindly, Thomas and Maria unpacked their black leather luggage. I watched with my heart hammering against my ribs. Inside one of the suitcases was a black leather pouch and inside that were neat sheaves of different pills, rubber-banded together with their dosage leaflets.
Maria selected a strip. 'Here you are.'
'Thank you, thank you.' I took it and ran, with Phil at my heels. There were now five minutes to our start time. Greg and the Clerk were waiting for us at the control.
'Look, progesterone.' I popped a pill out of its bubble and gobbled it down. 'Everything will be fine now.'
Greg took the pills and the leaflet. He peered through his round specs at the German formulation.
'I need to check it in BNF.' He opened a fat paperback and began leafing through the pages. The Noors' minute came up and the Mercedes shot away. One hundred and twenty seconds to go until ours.
'Quick, quick.' Even the Clerk of the Course was dancing with anxiety now.
Greg's face cleared and he nodded at John Vipond. 'This is the right medication. She should be all right on this to Lhasa.'
The Clerk chewed the corner of his moustache, making mental calculations. And then he nodded too.
'Right. You can go.' To the marshal on the control he said, 'Stamp their book.'
We were on the minute. The rubber stamp clapped down on TC Golmud – Out. Phil and I dived into our seats and we were away. We were laughing wildly in disbelief. To have everything snatched away from us and then handed back at such dizzy speed was completely disorientating. I struggled with the Terratrip and the route notes while Phil drove so fast that the tenements of Golmud whirled past and dropped into the distance behind us. A barren road stretched ahead, steadily and steeply climbing into the dun-coloured mountains.
'That was close,' we said, understating it.
I decided that I wouldn't tell anyone, not even Phil, that Maria's pills were two-milligram dosage and there were only fourteen of them. I knew, because my doctor in London had told me, that I needed five-milligram pills, six a day. Therefore I had just about a day's supply – and Lhasa was three days' hard driving and two remote campsites away. But I calculated that if I took a big hit of the drug now, used the rest of the pills very sparingly, and kept two in reserve for an emergency, I might succeed in tricking my body back into hormonal submission.
It wasn't fair to ask Phil to worry any more about me than he was having to do already. Greg and the rally officials very properly wouldn't let me take the risk and I had hoodwinked them very slightly by not admitting what I knew about the medicine. But by not owning up to anyone about the amount of progesterone I really needed, I reckoned I was taking all the responsibility upon myself. The gamble was mine – and after the horror I had felt when we were briefly barred from the contest, and the ecstatic buzz when we were reinstated, I knew I wanted to go on throwing my chips down. I couldn't have gone slinking safely back to Beijing, when Maria Noor had given me the chance of Tibet.
I took out the strip of progesterone pills again and swallowed two more. When I had a minute to spare I found my diary and scribbled down the details of the situation as I understood them, in case there should be any debate later.
That morning's drive was the best we had done so far. It was a tough road, winding all the way up to the Kunlun pass at 16,000 feet, and in some places we could look up ahead and see the great side-to-side sweeps of it awesomely scarring the snow-patched mountainside. All along the way, like puffs of smoke, were the dust-trails of rally cars forging or faltering upwards. We were so happy to be there. Adrenalin was charging both of us and it made Phil drive harder and faster than ever.
We began overtaking vintageants, and some of the classics ahead of us in the start order. The road was narrow and rough, and it needed careful driving to keep enough revs and enough power in hand to be able to overtake slower cars as soon as the right moment presented itself. Some drivers were very generous and pulled over to let us pass immediately we came up behind them. Others were less considerate and we had to oscillate on their tails, looking for a place to slip through. The Amazon was going like a dream, apparently almost unaffected by the punishing altitude. I was even happy that I had jettisoned my second kitbag, to spare it some unnecessary effort. We passed Dan and JD, going very slowly with a gearbox problem. They gave us a slightly dubious thumbs-up as we went by.
This was the first time I had seen Phil really driving. I was impressed. He stuck out his lower lip in concentration, steering closer to and away again from the hideous drop at the edge of the road, working through the gears and forever fighting against a drop into crawling second, watching the way ahead and waiting for a crack to open up and let him accelerate past the car in front. Gravel spat from under our wheels. We passed the yellow Morgan, the black Mercedes 220, the two American women in the Hillman Hunter. It was breathtakingly exciting. We were shouting at each other over the howl of the engine, encouragement and imprecations. Go go and Let's have him and Yeahhhh!
I looked up at the white teeth of the mountain peaks against the sky. We knew we were going to make the morning's control, up on the glacier plateau beyond the pass. At this moment I might have been down at the airport in Golmud, trying to get a flight back to Beijing – but by a great stroke of luck I was here. Rally Syndrome sent me soaring into the heights of euphoria. We flew over the pass.
On the other side, winding more slowly down towards the time control, we had time to glance at each other.
'Well done, Phil.' I leaned across and kissed him on the cheek.
'Thank you. Nice one.' He gave a twitch of a smile and turned his attention back to the road.
'I don't care what John Vipond thinks of our chances. I think we're going to get a gold. I think we're going to win.'
'We'll do our best, eh? How do you feel?'
'Okay, thanks.'
This exchange became the ritual. Every morning, and sometimes one other time, he would ask me how I felt. And I'd answer that I was okay and keep the details to myself, partly out of embarrassment and partly out of a sense that he didn't want to hear any more unless there was something that he would have to deal with.
We pulled in to the side of the road, a few metres short of the control. We had done it with more than half an hour to spare.
That afternoon, on the wa
y to our night's campsite at Tuotuoheyan, the bleak plateau road deteriorated from acceptable to indescribable. Most of it was unmade, and parts of it were so churned up by the succession of rally cars that it became no more than a series of greasy mud chutes. Some of these were so steep that the front end of the preceding car disappeared into them and the rear wheels were left spinning on the lip of oblivion. Rocks and boulders reared up to assault differentials and low-slung petrol tanks. The pace slowed to just a few kilometres per hour. Numerous cars were in difficulties – with suspension problems, gearbox troubles, or just bogged down in the treacherous mud. Everything was made uglier by sudden heavy rain. The four-wheel-drive crews made lots of new friends.
Our Amazon skidded and bucked through the first hour of the distance. Gouts of reddish mud flew up and splattered the windscreen and the wipers worked with a monotonous hum to clear it. We worried about our exposed rear fuel tank, but we had in any case kept it half-empty in order to save weight over the pass and we had a full upper tank waiting. Everything else seemed to be functioning well. I kept quiet and let Phil concentrate on negotiating the twists and turns.
Then we came to the edge of a particularly muddy trough that slewed into a slight dip and then rose steeply on the other side. A brisk run down into the rocky bottom with speed and plenty of revs would offer the only hope of getting up and out again. Several cars were waiting in line to make their attempt.
I got out to see what was happening, taking my camera with me. The big Australian Rolls Royce Phantom V, previously used by the Queen on stately peregrinations Down Under and now driven by Richard Matheson and Jeanne Eve, was stuck in the mud. A Land Rover was nudging up with a tow-rope and Lord Montagu, the Phantom's passenger, was standing at the top of the bank hunched against the cold like a brooding albatross.
I zipped up my down jacket and settled the hood around my ears because the wind was icy and the rain was turning to sleet. With mud sucking at my boots I slithered forward to take some photographs of the Rolls being rescued.
It took a few minutes, but the Land Rover hauled it clear. The next car through was David Arrigo in his Allard – it slewed and skidded and fountains of mud churned behind it, but he went down and up the other side with ease. He waved at me, beaming happily from under his leather helmet. The other cars followed on behind him.
I looked back to Phil, intending to signal that his way forward was clear.
But the Amazon's bonnet was up, and Phil was poking underneath it. I plodded back to see what was wrong.
'Don't know. Won't start – just completely dead.'
He was worried. A couple of cars behind us were revving their engines so I waved them past, and then stood aside to let Phil make his diagnosis. It was very cold now. Deprived of the Roller a handful of Chinese onlookers began to cluster around him, peering into the car's innards and helpfully pointing and prodding. A tide of mud crept around our ankles.
'I think it's something electrical. Fuck it.' He was confident about most aspects of the car, but he admitted to haziness around the electrics. He had me sitting in the car, switching the ignition on and off to order. 'Distributor, I think. I'm going to change it.'
I glanced at my watch. Two forty-five, due in at 16.56, about 104 km still to cover. It was all right, we had some time in hand.
'Okay. What can I do?'
Just . . . nothing. Sit in the car. Keep warm.'
I retreated. Phil worked in grim silence, ringed by grinning Chinese. Once or twice he sent me to find a tool or bring a part from the spares kit. The distributor changeover reached a crucial point and he asked me to find the spare rotor arm, the one that went with the second distributor. It was a little orange-brown plastic thing, I knew that much because I'd just seen it. But it was now nowhere to be found, not amongst the litter of tools nor on the ground nor in our pockets.
'It can't just disappear.'
But it had done. There could be no explanation other than it had vanished into the pocket of one of the spectators. Without it the new distributor couldn't be made to function, so it was back to the old one and an attempt to repair it. Time was going very quickly now.
I had heard a car bouncing up behind us, and now it pulled in alongside. It was one of the rally Fronteras and inside – glory be to God – were Trev and Jingers and curly-headed Richard, the second paramedic. They were back-marking the field and fixing up the stragglers as they passed them.
'What's up with you?' Trev asked, beaming golden-toothed out of the open window. I could have fallen into his arms. Two minutes later they were all heads down over the innards. It turned out that it was the coil at fault again. The new Chinese coil was overrated, and although it had worked for a couple of days, it had now burned out the points.
I looked furtively at my watch. We were going to get a time penalty.
Phil and the mechanics worked on it together, but whatever they did the car still refused to start.
'Have to give you a tow, guys,' Jingers said.
At least we'd be moving, and out of the snow and wind. The rope was fixed and we sat numbly in the Amazon. Jingers' thumb stuck out of the Frontera's window, the rope went taut and we rolled down the dip. Phil had to brake to stop us from crashing into Jingers's bumper and the car slewed dangerously as the Frontera struggled for traction on the steep slope. The rope tightened again and we were jerked upwards and over the lip of the hollow.
The road stretched across the plateau – an unending vista of mud, rock and sleet. It was going to take a long, long time to cross more than 100 kilometres of this at the end of a tow-rope.
There was no engine power and therefore no heater, and we drove with the window opèn so Phil could make hand signals to the Frontera. Gobs of snowy mud splattered all over us and our feet and fingers went numb. The question was no longer whether we would get a time penalty, because we were due in at 16.56 and it was already almost five o'clock, but whether we would reach the time control at the campsite within our maximum permitted lateness. Every section of the rally had a time allowed, and at the expiry of that time there was another probationary interval, usually two hours but sometimes three, during which only time penalties were incurred. Once the maximum permitted lateness had been exceeded, however, even if it was only once in the whole journey, the chance of a gold medal was gone. Today's interval, luckily, was three hours.
Phil kept asking me for the time and distance still to go. It was a hideous job to steer the car and keep the rope tight on the unmade sections. Every time we came to a tarmac stretch he would lean out and make a winding-up signal to Jingers. Faster, go faster. It was a crazy journey; sometimes our speed crept up beyond 100 kph in the wake of the flying Frontera, at others we were stationary beside the road while Trev and Jingers investigated other crews' problems. We left the Phantom V with a broken rear spring, waiting for a low-loader to bring it in, and Maurizio's 2CV also in need of a tow.
Darkness fell and the minutes flew. From being sure that we would make it within the lateness period I began to be afraid that we wouldn't. I tried to console myself, and Phil, with the reminder that this morning we would have been happy to be in this position, just rallying at all. The gold medal didn't matter. We'd still be in for a silver.
Seven-thirty came and went. It was an effort to keep staring ahead into the unrelieved darkness, we were aching from the jarring of the road and the constant jerking of the rope, and we were beyond cold and hungry. Then the Frontera flashed and hooted. I looked across the plain and saw a pinprick cluster of lights. It was the campsite. We passed through some gates into an army barracks and then bumped onwards along a rough track. There were rally cars lining up at a bowser for fuel. I stared at my watch, counting the minutes, willing Jingers just to stop so I could run for the control.
'How long?' Phil asked.
'We'll make it.'
I jumped out and ran. Sarah Catt was manning the control in the big, warm brightly-lit tent. She stamped my card 19.39. Still in for a gold, with 17 m
inutes to spare, but we now had a 2-hour 52-minute time penalty which would put us down into something like 60th place. At least we were here now. We'd been on the road, pitching between exultation and despair, for ten solid hours.
Grim-faced and snappy with anxiety, Phil instantly started work to diagnose what was wrong with the car. Dan and JD came to help. Somewhere during the day they had lost the kitbag containing their tent from the boot. I went to the cook tent to find Arkle, who gave me hot tea in an enamel mug to take back to Phil. Then I pitched my own tent, making a bad job of it in the snow-raked darkness. The flysheet sagged dispiritedly against the inner but I was too tired to start all over again.
The Amazon's engine suddenly coughed, caught, and roared into life. I dropped the mallet and ran over to see what was happening.
'Blown fuse,' Phil beamed. 'That was why it wouldn't start even after I changed the points.'
'So now we're fixed?'
'Now we're fixed. For tomorrow, at least.'
We put our arms around each other for comfort. I didn't want food, or even hot water. I just wanted to lie down and be safe, to get warm and stay warm, and above all to close my eyes on this interminable day.
I suggested to Phil that he might let Dan and JD have his tent, and share mine for warmth. Before long it was going to be at least fifteen degrees below.
He stepped back at once, with a look in his eyes that I hadn't seen before. It took me a minute to identify it and then I recognised fear. He was like a rabbit trapped in the headlights.
I was caked in mud, bleeding like a drive-by shooting and it was snowing in camp. We had come this far together and we had survived the last two days. And now my co-driver thought I was coming on to him.
If I hadn't been so tired and cold I would have laughed.
As it was, I just said coolly, 'Don't worry, I won't touch you.'
'You won't get any response even if you do,' Phil retorted.