‘This next section here is for regularity.’ She indicated two points on the map. ‘That means I’ve got to maintain a steady speed and make the distance in exactly the right time. If I arrive early, I get a penalty of a minute. If I’m late I get a penalty.’
‘How do we do that?’
‘There’s an average speed that we must maintain.’ Maddie flipped over to the relevant page in the notes. ‘There, that’s the instruction, so from that point on we need to keep tabs on our time and our speed, and you’ll need to keep me constantly updated on our time so that I can balance our speed.’
‘But there are those funny bent arrows and stuff, which means turns and junctions and things.’
‘Exactly. It’s not meant to be easy. It’s a competition, Raych. I’ll need you to call out all the corners, junctions, etc, along with the distance to each one, so that I can maintain my optimum speed by approaching each turn or junction as efficiently as possible.’
Maddie noticed the bewildered look on her navigator’s face and smiled. ‘It’s really not that difficult, you know. I can run through all of the calls for the next section if you want.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘We’ve just about got enough time.’
Gradually moving through each of the notes, Maddie specified the call and Raych wrote each one down. They were so intent on the work that neither of them noticed that James had been taking a keen interest and had gradually moved across the room with the dregs of his pint.
‘Sweeping 30 right, hairpin left, 90 right – not done this before, then?’ He perched himself on the edge of the next table, his face a perfect picture of smugness. ‘I guess the best team is going to win after all.’ He downed the last of his pint and, as Simon emerged from the Gents, left his empty glass on the table and joined his driver as they both walked out.
*
A vast old mansion, now a hotel, stood on the edge of the village of Asby, overshadowed by Grange Scar. Built in the local stone, with small, low windows deep-set in the thick walls, it made an imposing presence in the bleak and windswept landscape of Cumbria. Rain had pelted down as they drove the length of the Closed Road section through the forests of the national park, but now it had lessened to a steady drizzle. Maddie pulled into the short drive and followed the arrows round to the side, where a marshal was waiting to show her to her parking spot. She reversed in, while Raych went to the time-control to sign in.
Maddie got their tiny overnight bags from behind the seats and dumped them on the ground. She was anxious to get the car covered and protected from the drizzle as soon as possible. As they made their way round to the front of the hotel, the green Bugatti pulled off the road. The driver sped through a large puddle, showering their feet and legs with muddy water. Raych glowered and turned, about to shout, but Maddie stopped her.
‘Don’t. I know those two. They’re not real car enthusiasts. If I had to label them, I’d say they were a pair of parent-indulged petrolheads. Anything you say will just pass through the space in each of their skulls that they call a brain.’
Raych released a heartfelt and frustrated sigh. ‘With a description like that – I think you’re right. Such inconsiderate idiots just aren’t worth the attention or effort.’
The girls exchanged a sobering nod of agreement and marched into the hotel.
‘Good evening, ladies. Are you with the car event that’s staying – ? Ah, Miss Townsend, lovely to see you again. And Mr Townsend? Is he not driving this year?’
‘Nice to see you too, Robin, and no, Dad’s not too well at the moment. It was a last-minute change of plan and he’s… umm… taking some time out from competing. It’s just me and Raychelle Decoursey this year. You’ll need to sign in, Raych,’ Maddie added.
Robin presented Raych with a form and a pen. ‘I’ve allocated the rooms you and your father usually have,’ he said, turning to the board behind and retrieving the keys. ‘Perhaps Miss Decoursey will take the room you would normally have, and you can use the room your father would have had. Would that be all right?’
Maddie nodded and, paperwork complete, they followed Robin up a short flight of wide stone steps to where a tall stoneware vase filled with grasses stood on a landing. Another short flight of stairs and they reached the first floor. The corridor was dark, with walls lined with paintings. Robin strode into the darkness and within a few seconds the lights came on. The floor of the corridor sloped downwards slightly before rising again and, when they reached the end, another wide stone staircase awaited them. Maddie looked up, as she always did, just to remind herself how many more stairs there were. The ornate ironwork of the banister curled round and round, and a glass chandelier hung from a small dome above.
On reaching the third floor, Robin went to the door on his left and swiped the key over the censor.
‘Miss Decoursey, this is your room.’ He held the door open wide for her. Raych trooped in, dumped her bag and flopped onto the bed.
‘Great room, thanks.’ She looked around. ‘Just one thing. Where’s the en suite?’
‘I’m sorry but this room doesn’t have an en suite. This part of the building dates from the seventeenth century and we –’
Raych stood. ‘NO EN SUITE!’ Hands on hips, she glowered at Robin. ‘What do you mean there’s no en suite?’
‘If I could –’
‘Don’t “if” me. Today, I’ve been rained on. I’ve been shouted at. I’ve been lectured. I’ve been muddied on. And, just to make my day absolutely complete, as I arrived here I was puddled on by two single-celled car-geeks. All day my hair has been winded on to the point of destruction and you tell me there’s no en suite!’
Robin, having gradually edged himself backwards as Raych advanced statement by statement, now found himself wedged against the wall.
‘Raych.’ Maddie stepped into the room. ‘It’s true there is no en suite in this room. But,’ she raised her hand to silence a further tirade, ‘there is a small bathroom just across the hall and only the occupant of this room has access. Isn’t that right, Robin?’
Robin mustered his most winning smile. ‘Exactly so, Miss Townsend.’ He nodded to Raych and slid out of the room.
Sunday
Maddie was up at six. Her first thought was her father and she checked her phone. There were no messages, nor any missed calls. She phoned the hospital.
‘Cardio-thoracic, please.’ She drummed the fingers of her left hand on her leg as she waited to be connected. ‘Yes, hello, I’m enquiring about my father, Martin Townsend.’ More waiting. ‘Yes… OK. But he’s stable… Yes, I understand that… And someone will let me know if there’s any change, won’t they? OK. Thank you.’
Just wake up, Dad, and get better. Dumping her phone on the bed, she went to get showered and ready to face the rest of her day. There was one thought that constantly circled through her mind. I shouldn’t be here. I should be at home.
Later she stood in front of the mirror, scraping her wet hair off her face and pulling it into a tight ponytail.
‘I shouldn’t be here,’ she said to her reflection. Her decision made, she threw her things in her bag, pulled on her overalls, grabbed her coat and raced down the stairs to Raych’s room.
‘Raych, it’s me.’ She knocked on the door. ‘Raych, are you there?’
‘Morning.’ Raych held the door open, a beaming smile on her face, as Maddie brushed past her. She let the door click shut by itself. ‘Something wrong?’
Maddie paced the room. ‘I’ve been in touch with the hospital and they say there’s no change. I keep thinking that I shouldn’t be here. That I should be at home. That I should be doing something useful. That I –’
‘Woah. Slow down, girl. And quit pacing.’ Raych poured the remainder of the coffee from the pot on her breakfast tray into a clean cup and handed it to Maddie. ‘Sit, drink, and then tell me what this is all about.’
Maddie took a sip of the coffee and for the first time noticed the state of the room. The bed was already made. The small tab
le by the window to her right was covered with maps and pages from the road book, all of which had been annotated with the calls. Maddie turned to Raych. Her hair was neatly arranged in a plait and she was wearing a pair of blue overalls.
Maddie frowned. ‘Overalls! Where did you get those?’
Raych grinned. ‘From Robin. Umm, after my tirade yesterday I thought I owed him an apology and an explanation. So, we got chatting and he helped me with the road book. Which means that today I can be a much more useful navigator for you.’
Maddie hesitated, a look of distress on her face. ‘Thanks, Raych, and I really appreciate you agreeing to step in at the last minute, but I’ve decided to chuck the competition and go home. That’s where I should be.’
‘OK. If that’s what you really want, then we’ll do that. But don’t forget what you told me on Thursday. About your dad picking up a lot of business from the other competitors. That is why you asked me to help, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, but that was before I found him collapsed on the bodyshop floor on Friday morning.’ Maddie wiped her hands across her face.
‘Just a moment ago, you said there had been no change in his condition. Remember our conversation yesterday in the pub in Kirkgrove?’
Maddie nodded.
Raych sat down on the bed beside her friend. ‘I just want to remind you that your dad is in the right place with the right people. And yesterday you said that if you were back in Leeds rather than here, you would be climbing the walls.’
Maddie sighed.
‘And what was it that strange lady said?’ Raych went on. ‘That Miss Silvershine, or whatever her name was? Something about inner calm?’
Maddie picked up her coat and started rifling through the pockets. ‘The pink stone!’ She held it in her hand and gazed at it for a few moments. Miss Moonshine’s words from the previous day echoed through her mind. ‘Her name is Miss Moonshine. And she was right.’ She dropped the stone in the top pocket of her overalls. ‘I just need to focus and remain calm and we –’
The phone on the bedside table rang. Raych answered the call. ‘Yes, she’s here, Robin.’
Alerted, Maddie motioned to her friend to give her the phone. Raych shook her head.
‘Yes, I’ll tell her.’ She replaced the receiver and let out an exasperated sigh. ‘Robin says one of the tyres on your car is flat and he thought you would want to know as early as possible.’
‘Well, whatever we’re doing today it won’t be until I fix that tyre.’ Maddie checked her watch. ‘I’ll get something to eat and I’ll meet you outside in half an hour, OK?’
*
Maddie stood in front of the car. ‘Damn it. Both tyres are flat.’
Squatting down, she ran her hand over the front offside tyre and frowned. Moving to the other side, she did the same with the nearside tyre. They were both smooth, with no indication of where the damage may have been. She took a step back and regarded the car.
‘Well, Charlotte, old thing, you’ve definitely been in the wars,’ she said. ‘Must have been the forest roads, but… odd that I can’t feel the damage on either tyre.’ She shook her head in confusion. Forest roads were notorious for giving tyres a very hard time… unless… She moved to the rear of the car and her anger began to simmer. She prodded the spare mounted on the back. It was spongy under the pressure she exerted. Every single tyre was flat. Had the spare been intact she might have been able – only just – to accept that it was one of those things. But the spare was flat too, when it hadn’t even touched the ground since she fitted it to the wheel three months ago. That was downright deliberate. That was mean and it was cheating. Maddie circled the car again and again as she tried to control her rage.
Breakfast forgotten, she dumped her stuff on her seat, retrieved her jack and set to work to put the components together. A realisation made her pause for a moment.
I’m going to have to check every tyre to make sure there really are no punctures, she thought. She nodded in response to herself, got down on her knees, fitted the jack under the body and started to raise the car.
‘Congratulations. You finished yesterday with no penalties,’ said Simon, striding by on his way to the Delahaye. He stowed his bag and then came across to Maddie. ‘That looks a lot of work. Want a hand?’
Maddie’s dark, accusatory look made him take a step or two back.
‘Hey. I didn’t do this. I would never do this.’
‘Is that right? According to the results posted this morning, you’re trailing in fifth position and yes, I did come in first yesterday and I intend to keep that position today, too.’ She gave him a hard stare before getting on with her work.
Simon hesitated for a moment and then disappeared. A few moments later he was back. ‘I didn’t do this, Maddie. But considering some of the comments in the bar last night, I think I might know who did.’ He placed his own jack in front of her. ‘It might be quicker and easier if we divide the job between us, don’t you think?’
Just as she acknowledged his presence, the team from the green Bugatti walked by. The two of them sniggered to each other.
Maddie leapt to her feet and followed them. ‘You want funny? You want something really funny?’
They stopped and looked at her.
‘Well, that got your attention, didn’t it?’ Maddie stood her ground, arms crossed, and glared at them. ‘You see those cameras up there?’ She turned towards the wall of the hotel. ‘That’s Robin’s CCTV. Now I haven’t the least idea whether it was you or someone else who let down all my tyres. But someone did. And guess what? Now they, whoever they may be, will feature in footage that I can pass on to the Motor Sports Association. I don’t know if the Association will take any action or not, but that would be the right place to go to in the first instance, wouldn’t it? After that, there’s always the internet, isn’t there?’ Maddie looked from one to the other. ‘But, as I say, I don’t know if it was you two or not, but you might want to do me a favour and pass on to the other drivers that there is a cheat on this tour. OK?’ Maddie marched back to her car.
‘Well said.’ Simon smiled at her. ‘They needed pulling up. Last night in the bar they were causing trouble. My navigator, James, and those two almost came to blows at one point.’
‘They’re just a pair of – never mind.’ She cast her eye over the second jack and the second air-pump that had joined it on the ground. ‘Are you sure you don’t mind helping?’
‘You’re a genuine car enthusiast, and from what I’ve heard, a great mechanic. I like to think that others would help me if I found myself in a situation like this. So, yes, I’m very happy to help out.’
Maddie looked at the Morgan and thought through how best to undertake the work. ‘OK. I can use my ramps as stops at each back wheel and we’ll jack up the front, and if you check the offside, I can do the nearside. We can then do the same with the back and hopefully we will both make our starting timeslots for today’s event.’
Simon nodded. They moved to their respective sides of the car and set to work.
*
The weather for the drive back to Haven Bridge was more clement than the day before, and although there were patches of cloud, the sun shone throughout. Maddie and Raych had checked in at every passage control and had been exactly on time in the regularity section of the return journey. The forest road, which had been used as a Closed Road section for the day, had been an opportunity for Maddie to finally let out all her frustration and anger. With Raych’s more informed preparation and concentrated approach, she had been able to maximise her speed on corners and at junctions. On the straights, Charlotte had been pushed to her engine’s limits.
Raych shouted the call. ‘0.4 miles, T-junction 90 right.’
‘OK.’ Maddie checked the speedometer and slightly lifted her foot off the accelerator. She changed down and swept round the bend.
‘Fifty yards hairpin left into Ingleborough Lane.’
‘OK.’ Maddie took the turn. The road was lined with sp
ectators and marshals. ‘I’ve got the route from here,’ she shouted. ‘Get ready to sprint to the officials’ table as soon as I pull up. OK?’
‘OK.’ Raych collected the necessary paperwork for the officials together and dumped the road book in the footwell. As they roared by the waving and cheering spectators, she waved back.
Maddie turned into Station Road and then into the station car park, where the finish line was set. Once across, she pulled up in the space she had been given at the start. Raych jumped out. Maddie let the engine run for a few moments before pulling on the brake and switching off. Seconds later she was at the officials’ table, signing in with her navigator.
Strolling back to the car, Maddie cast her eyes over the paddock. An Austin Healey 3000 was parked to one side, as though it had never left its space. She scrunched her eyes up to read the number plate. She thought so. It was Robin’s car. Hmm, what was he doing here? A short distance away the green Bugatti was being loaded on the back of a tow-truck, the driver and navigator standing around talking.
‘Would you just look at that?’ Maddie pointed to the Bugatti.
‘There is justice in the world, after all.’ Raych laughed. ‘What about striding over there and giving them your business card, Maddie?’
‘Raych, you are unbelievable at times.’ Their roar of laughter was drowned out by the arrival of another competitor, the sound of the car engine and the exhaust echoing across the paddock.
‘Well?’
Maddie shook her head. ‘It might feel good to be able to do that, but I’m not going to.’
Back beside the Morgan, Maddie dug her phone out of her overalls and checked it.
‘Two voice messages,’ she said, holding it up for Raych to see. She quickly clicked through and listened. The first message brought an irritated frown to her forehead. The second a smile of relief and tears. ‘He’s awake. He’s going to be OK and they expect to be moving him onto an ordinary ward tomorrow.’
Raych ran around the car and hugged her friend. ‘That’s great news. That’s the best news,’ she said, wiping away tears from her own eyes.
Miss Moonshine's Emporium of Happy Endings: A feel-good collection of heartwarming stories Page 18