“Yeah, moving on to Gilbraith…” Sam agreed.
“And he doesn’t let you ever do a thing, does he?” Ben pointed out. Both Ben and Sam were often on the pit team so hanging out at the racetrack garage and able to observe what was going on.
“He waits till you’ve walked out the joint before he heads over to Hugh.” Sam revealed. Hugh was the head trackside race-engineer. “And so you’re never there when they conference call to finalise the race strategy with the top bods.”
I was taken aback. I’d had no idea it was so stark a problem. I frowned ferociously. “So what should I do about it?”
Sam and Ben looked at each other and shrugged slightly.
“It’s hard to tell what the management realise or not,” Sam said. “He’s trying to make it look like you’re not doing anything and he’s still the main man, but how you overcome that without looking like a troublemaker, I don’t know…”
Nish was sitting waiting for me on a small two person table in the canteen. I got a tray and a chicken salad, and walked over to him.
“Shall we go outside?” He suggested as I arrived.
I shook my head. “It’s best we’re seen to speak in public,” I warned. “And we need to keep our body language very neutral.
He sighed but didn’t argue.
I smiled at him. “So how was your weekend?”
He smiled back. “Good,” he said meaningfully,
I raised my eyebrows. “Really successful?”
“Really successful…” he confirmed, his eyes lashing momentarily.
“Good!” I said. No-one could possibly have read anything into our conversation if they’d been flapping their ears to hear, which the two guys on the next table definitely were. But Nish and I couldn’t help meeting each other’s eyes and smiling broadly.
“Hole in One,” he announced naughtily.
I choked on my lettuce. Then I got the giggles. Then I eyed the next door table. “Honestly Nish, you know I’m clueless about golf!”
And then he got the giggles too, and far from being discreet, it ended up with the whole canteen stopping with their forks poised, staring at us while we collapsed into helpless waves of laughter that we just couldn’t stop. It’s fatal to know that you mustn’t laugh, it just makes it all the more explosive.
Monaco – end of May. Turkey – early mid-June. I bore in mind the warnings from Ben and Sam and began to push Chris a bit more. Staying less politely quiet in front of the management and putting in my pennyworth as Heskett called it. Hanging around for longer after the main business of the day to catch him having those conversations, and wandering over to stand prominently alongside him whilst he was having them. I saw his lips drawing into a thin line. But his hostility never became blatant, which made it more awkward for me because I couldn’t actively confront him, and nor did I ever have anything concrete to complain about to someone higher up. I resigned myself to being patient, to see how it would work out in the wash. But I was worried that the subtlety of his campaign would have its intended effect, and make me look as though I was just free-riding on his expertise with no ideas of my own, without anyone in management ever realising what was going on.
It was because I’d ignored Chris’s hints that there was nothing left for me to do and that it was time for me to pack up and go that I was still hanging around in the garage when Kielty called me over. He jerked his head at the screens that showed the live broadcasts going out on Sky and the British terrestrial TV. On one of them, David Coulthard and Steve Jones had managed to accost Nish as he passed and were taking a sneaky go at having an unofficial interview with him. Kielty turned the sound up.
“So, Nish,” (they’d soon moved on to first name terms with him, and as one of the young rookie drivers, tended to take a jolly joshing approach with him), “you’re into your seventh race weekend of your first season and this is the fifth time now that you’ve got into Qually Three, and you’ve been in the points for all six so far, so are you pleased with how it’s going?”
Nish mouthed something smiling and bland, and followed it up with a stock statement implying that he and the team had more to pull out of the bag yet, so they clearly wanted to get him onto a subject where they might winkle something more interesting out of him
“So how are you finding your new race engineer? The mysterious Eve McGinty that we’re never allowed within a mile of?” Steve teased.
Nish smiled. “Yeah, me and Eve get on fine. She has equations instead of a brain, so she can just glance at a screen of data and immediately know its significance while I’m still trying to get my head around which way up to look at it…”
I smiled to myself and Kielty glanced at me. Nish was doing his bit to promote me. Good chap…
“So when are we going to be graciously granted an interview with her?” Steve persisted. “It’s harder than getting near the Queen, I can tell you!”
Nish wrinkled his nose. “You’ll have to talk to the Williams management about that…” he said cautiously.
David Coulthard smiled at him now. “Come on Nish,” he teased, pulling ‘us drivers together’ rank on him. “You must know why Claire doesn’t want her in front of a microphone.”
For a second, Nish kept up the careful media mask, but David just grinned at him. ‘DC’ (as he was generally known), had driven for Williams himself in the past, and he was making it sound like it was ok for Nish to confide in him – just keeping it all in the family…
“She’s just got no mental filtering process like a normal person,” Nish suddenly admitted with a laugh. “I mean, you and I might just be a bit careful about what we say, and to whom – but with Eve it’s all or nothing! It’s either complete silence or she says what she thinks. And you don’t always want to know what she thinks, I can tell you! She claims they call a spade ‘a spade’ oop north,” – he put on a comedic northern accent, “but there’s a big difference between calling a spade ‘a digging implement’ and calling a spade a ‘shovel’!”
DC and Steve glanced at each other then smiled in an ‘all boys together’ encouraging way at Nish. “That sounds like fun! Give us an example…”
Nish had suddenly relaxed and looked as though he’d forgotten he was being filmed. Oh shit, I thought. I glanced at Kielty who raised his eyebrows at me.
“Well, for example, I made the mistake of taking her to a post-race party at Monaco,” he told them and eloquently rolled his eyes. “Never again!” He declared with feeling. “I only walked up to find her disapprovingly asking Prince Albert if he didn’t think that an inherited monarchy was a complete anachronism in a modern society?”
DC and Steve were chuckling delightedly.
“I mean – I wouldn’t even have guessed that she knew what such a long word meant!”
“Condescending git!” I commented sideways at Kielty.
“So I quickly removed her from his orbit,” Nish continued, “and shoved her at Massa and asked him if he could keep her out of mischief for a bit because I had people to see, so Felipe asks her politely if she’s ever met his wife, and she puts her hands on her hips and says, ‘no and I don’t want to if she’s going to talk about babies. I don’t ‘do’ babies. Surely there’s someone to talk to about cars to in here?”
DC and Steve gently creased up on the side lines.
“So Massa introduces her to the chief race engineer from Red Bull, and forty minutes later she still has him pinned in a corner so I figured I’d better go and rescue him, but he says that’s ok, he was just about to pass her on to Stewart from Maclaren and he takes her over and says ‘Ed, meet Eve McGinty, Gilbraith’s trainee race engineer and general force of nature,’ and she stands there, hands on hips, glaring around and demanding, ‘so what did he mean by that introduction?’ and Stewart smiles and says, ‘I think I’m about to find out…’”
The interviewers grinned at Nish.
“And so half an hour later I retrieve her from Stewart before she does his head in, and take her sw
iftly away…” He rolled his eyes at them for the second time. “Anyhow, can’t stop, things to do…” He suddenly darted off, presumably because he realised he’d been conned into saying too much.
DC and Steve looked at each other after he’d gone and Steve said, “We so have to get hold of this woman,” then he turned to camera, “We’ll see what we can do for you all…”
They signed off and the credits came up and Nish skidded to a halt at the entrance of the garage. He saw my hands on my hips and my accusing glare and he glanced up at the screen behind our heads. “Uh oh,” he said with almost ludicrous dismay, “That was never live was it?”
Kielty laughed. “Mistake number one, never trust a media interviewer with a microphone in their hands at a Grand Prix event… If it’s not actually live, it’ll be recorded and trotted out at some later date for sure…”
“And mistake number two?” Nish queried.
Kielty frowned. “Nope, guess the rest of it was actually ok. Your unconscious name-dropping in every other sentence won’t do either of you any harm…”
Nish looked at me. “Sorry Eve,” he said penitently.
“You’re such a condescending tosser,” I snapped at him. “Why wouldn’t I know what ‘anachronism’ meant?”
“Well, you didn’t even know who Pooh Bear was…” Nish defended.
I stared at him, astounded. “What has that got to do with anything? I’m not going to learn a word like ‘anachronism’ in a book for five year olds, am I?”
Nish began to flounder and flail around for the conversational exit, and Kielty just began to laugh.
They achieved their aim at the very next fixture, a couple of weeks later in Canada. Nish and I were walking across the paddock to get back to the pits when David and Steve hopped mischievously in front of us and blocked our way. Nish glanced around for rescue and pinched my arm warningly. I shook his hand off. “Why don’t you just dress me in black from head to toe with a niqab on to hide the gag, and trail me meekly behind you?” I launched.
Nish looked like he was about to panic. But I had no intention of doing anything too outrageous. I valued my job too much for that. I was just going to get my revenge, that’s all.
“I suppose this is live?” I asked DC and Steve.
They indulged in a noncommittal smile.
“So what are you wanting to ask us about?” I invited.
Nish anxiously shifted weight from foot to foot in the background.
“We’ve got something to show you,” Steve said to me. They pointed at a monitor and showed some film of Nish and me in the background of something. “We wondered what Nish is up to here?” They asked with the sort of smile that indicated this was intended as the comedy slot of their coverage.
I frowned at the screen. Nish was coming up to me and catching me to him and then standing there talking to me while stopping me from leaving by holding me by the waist. So far, so unremarkable. And then he did something extraordinary – he tugged up my shirt so his hands were on my bare waist while I wriggled impatiently to get away. I stared fixedly at it, then at DC and Steve Jones and then at Nish. “Yes, Nish,” I demanded, folding my arms aggressively across my chest, “what are you doing there?”
Steve looked at Nish. “We’ve had numerous texts about this from viewers over the past few shows. Apparently they claim that you do this quite a lot and so we took a look at some previous footage to see if we could spot what they meant…”
I raised my eyebrows amazedly at DC and Steve. “Are you sure he does this a lot? I’ve never noticed…”
David Coulthard grinned mischievously at me. “According to our viewers he does – and after some careful trawling, we spotted it somewhere in the background at least three times.”
All our eyes turned on Nish and I put my hands on my hips combatively. “So go on Nish – explain yourself!” I challenged. I watched his face. “Look at him! He’s blushing!” I accused.
Nish went a slow shade of red then covered his face with one hand. “Oh God. I’m so embarrassed now…”
DC bit his lip as he tried not to laugh.
“Ok,” Nish brought his hand down from his face, pulled an apologetic expression and bit the bullet of explanation. “This is going to sound awful. But it’s just she’s got these phenomenal stomach muscles. And if I catch her when she’s really busy and ask her a question and then stop her rushing off by grabbing her round the waist, she gets all antsy and impatient and tugs to get away and her muscles ripple like steel rods down her side and it fascinates me…” He saw us all standing there open-mouthed and said. “I told you it would sound awful!”
I folded my arms crossly. “You need a reet good slapping, you do!” I threatened. “And that’s what you’re going to get if you ever try that on me again!”
“Sorry, Eve,” he grovelled penitently. “It’s not on is it? I realise that. I mean, it’s really inappropriate.”
“It so is,” I snapped furiously.
“It’s just that it’s so tempting…” he admitted with a subversive grin.
“And you’ve got a girlfriend too!” I pointed out accusingly.
He looked to camera, “Sorry, Miriam!” he apologised. “It doesn’t mean anything, honestly…”
“So are you going to give him a reet good slapping?” DC suggested enjoyably to me.
I sighed. “Can’t I’m afraid. I’m already on a verbal warning for punching one of the mechanics, and if I battered Nish I’d probably get escalated onto a written one.”
It was Nish’s turn to stare astounded at me. “When did this happen?”
I shrugged. “Ages ago.”
He grinned. “Who was it then?”
I glowered. “Duncan,” I snarled. “Giving it-” I made the hand snapping giving it lip sign.
“That doesn’t surprise me,” Nish responded, suppressing a laugh. “You can’t have done much damage though…”
“Took him a while to straighten up,” I reported with satisfaction. “Alan had already exploded out of his office and hauled me in before he could breathe again…”
Nish grinned delightedly at the scene I conjured up.
“They tried to tick me off further up the food chain too,” I reported. “But they were laughing so hard they couldn’t make themselves sound severe enough…”
I looked back at DC and Steve who were keeping quietly out of it to let our interactions run naturally, and raised my eyebrows at them. “You done now?” I tapped my watch at Nish. “We’re not going to be popular back at the garage…”
With my increased wage, I’d invested back home in all the infrastructure to watch and record all the Grand Prix coverage, so when I got back to my flat a couple of days later I searched through the series link recordings for the piece. The camera had followed us sprinting back to the garage at a fast run and another camera must have homed in on our arrival back there, as we tumbled in through the entrance. We were filmed standing like two naughty school children, hands behind our backs, getting ticked off.
“We can’t hear what’s being said of course,” Steve commented. “But it looks as though we’ve just got them both into hot water!”
DC smiled. “In common with all international sports teams, the Formula One garages are full of young people who need keeping in order. They have to snap them up in their teens at the peak of their developing talent, but they’re not mature enough to cope without guidance, so a responsible team sets stiff discipline in place for their own good…”
“Yes, because we know how arrogant and uncontrollable you drivers become once you’re further up your career ladder, don’t we?” Steve teased him. “Once you’re worth millions you think far too much of yourselves to knuckle under to any orders, don’t you?”
DC smiled enigmatically.
“Note to self,” Steve remarked, pretending to tick an invisible box in front of him. “If we want a comedic turn, interview those two together – they’re priceless.”
Back in Grove I was r
ibbed mercilessly by the guys. “Can we feel your awesome abs, Eve?”
“No you damn well can’t!”
Endless jokes about six packs…
Finally I gave in and let one of them clamp his hands around my waist while I swayed from side to side. He raised his eyebrows in the direction of the rest of the men. “Gilbraith’s not wrong you know. That’s pretty damn impressive!”
The door to Alan’s office yanked open and a face with suspiciously narrowed eyes looked out. Suddenly the circle around me melted away and we were all going about our business completely innocently. He glowered at us as though to indicate he wasn’t fooled and then he retired back inside again.
But David and Steve were on my case now. As I swung past them on my crutches in Austria they pounced again. “What’s happened, Eve?”
I stopped. “The guys from Ferrari sent me up an E3 the other night,” I explained obligingly. “And since it didn’t occur to them that I wouldn’t be able to do it, it didn’t occur to me either… But when I hit the crux I suddenly remembered that I’d never led harder than E1 before and I fell off.” I shrugged. “Still, only one tiny micro-wire popped, so I’m pretty pleased about my quality of gear placement and it’s not broken, just badly sprained. But Gianluca had to lower me off and piggy-back me down, poor guy…”
I wandered off and as I left, DC said in bewildered tones, “Were we meant to understand any of that?”
“Climbing, you idiot,” Steve teased him. “Some of those Ferrari guys are mad on climbing… And Eve served an internship with Ferrari before she went to Williams.”
“What were they asking you?” Nish asked suspiciously when I got within range of him.
I smiled secretively to make him paranoid and declined to answer.
Back home though, I found out that he’d done his own sneaky interview.
“So did we get you into trouble with Claire?” DC had asked him with a cheeky grin.
Nish pulled a face. “Just a bit. Now I’m on a disciplinary for inappropriate behaviour towards female colleagues…”
The Way Back (Not Quite Eden Book 6) Page 32