The Way Back (Not Quite Eden Book 6)

by Dominique Kyle

  “Oops, sorry!” Steve put in with a laugh.

  Nish smiled. “No, she’s right. It’s completely unacceptable…”

  “So you’re toeing the line now?” Steve established.

  “I might have just tried it on one last time just to see how hard Eve can swing a punch…” Nish suggested smiling. “And let’s put it this way, it was a few days before I could see out of my left eye again!” He squeezed one eye up dramatically and winced.

  DC raised quirky eyebrows. “So now you’ve admitted this on live TV, will you both be in danger of getting another disciplinary?”

  “Oh no,” Nish said with a coy smile. “Because I’ll just tell the management that I was pulling your leg…” And then he winked at the camera and walked away.

  Masterly, I thought. Now no-one would ever know whether it was true or not…

  Silverstone was a big deal for us, as a British team, and for Nish as one of the few British drivers. At Silverstone the stands were always full, even on the practice day. But Nish wasn’t likely to come to the fore here because the Williams cars just couldn’t compete with the top teams on pure speed at such a fast track. Nish was rapidly showing his skill at getting round the twisty turny tracks with lots of chicanes where you weren’t reliant on speed, but which needed huge skill and timing to overtake. He’d shown a good hand too in Monaco on the narrow street based circuit, but here, unless there was some torrential rain, which always advantaged the Williams cars, he wouldn’t be able to make much of an impact. Still, the crowds gave him a great welcome and he was cheered whenever he showed his face and each time his car turned out onto the track. I found him hiding away at the back of the garage with his eyes closed and his headphones on. I tapped him on the head and smiled at him as he reluctantly opened his eyes. He pulled the headphones off. “God, I’m knackered, Eve. This is ridiculous! I can’t step outside without getting mobbed. It’s been wall to wall interviews and I haven’t got anything remotely interesting to say because we haven’t got a chance of being anything but middle rankers here. So it’s just a matter of agreeing ‘yes, I’m really familiar with this circuit from go-karting and the other GP formulas.’ ‘Yes, it’s always special to be here, great atmosphere, great British fans…’ It would be easier if someone would just staple my cheeks to my ears because my smile muscles are aching!”

  “Your smile muscles wouldn’t be hurting so much if you weren’t such a grumpy bugger and they got more of a regular work out,” I teased, pinching his cheeks.

  Ben walked by and suppressed a smile of his own. “Petal,” he added, sotto voiced.

  Nish ignored him, I gave him the finger, but discreetly. “Next time you do a triathlon, try grinning all the way round,” I suggested, “for a full body work-out.”

  “You’re evil,” he complained, pulling his headphones back on. I’d recognised the familiar sounds of Full Frontal pouring out of them. I laughed and walked away.

  “It’s such a hard life being a highly paid super-star,” Ben observed sarcastically a few moments later as he passed by me the other way. I smiled slightly, but said nothing. I hated it when people dissed the drivers because of jealousy. Admittedly, most of the drivers came from privileged backgrounds since you have to have a fair bit of cash behind you to get into the sport in the first place, but none of them could have got this far unless they’d exhibited a stunningly outstanding talent. Hundreds of kids start out every year in the go-karting circuit, but only a handful turn out to be good enough to be fed into the faster formats. And of those, only one or two are ever considered special enough to be head-hunted by the Formula One teams. And they don’t get into that position without years of sacrifice and hard work. It was a big deal to get this far. Ben leant in again on his return journey. “We’ve seen you following Chris around like a bad smell. Keep it up. It’s pissing him off something rotten!”

  I moved away and tried to look busy. That was the problem with being an in-betweener. I needed the support of the mechanics, but I also had to start keeping a bit of distance. I didn’t want them behaving in such a familiar manner and speaking disrespectfully of my line managers to me, because I had to be seen to be loyal to my superiors. But I didn’t feel able to stop Ben in his tracks in case he ended up calling me a stuck-up cow and accused me of getting above myself. Because without the loyal support of the mechanics we were completely stuffed.

  I watched the coverage when I got home. With Nish being one of the very few British drivers, Steve Jones and DC had made sure they’d caught a couple of minutes with him. After the obligatory eulogies about Silverstone having the best atmosphere of the season and such like, they asked him if he was looking forward to the summer break and what he’d be up to. He told them that Full Frontal were waiting until August to lay down the tracks for their new album so he could be free to spend a month composing and recording with them. Nish hadn’t ever said anything about that to me. I sighed. I guessed he now just didn’t dare mention seeing Quinn to me, in case it upset me.

  Germany – Hockenheim, then a really swift turn around and the very next weekend, Hungary – Magyar Nagydij – the twisty turny Hungaroring. Chris was still squeezing me out. He didn’t discuss the data with me. I studied it really hard myself to get a complete handle on it. We expected Nish to do well here. The car was well balanced. We’d sorted out the down force issues we’d been having on and off all season. He qualified into fifth position on the grid, his best position yet. He was well on form and seemed to be really looking forward to it. We got the tactics right with the pit stops. The pit stops were mega-fast – we took the record for that day ahead of the other teams. Nothing went wrong with the car. Nish drove a tight and intelligent race. He negotiated each corner brilliantly taking the perfect line, and he’d managed to overtake three cars by the last lap and not allowed anyone to pass. The team in the garage were holding their breath, and each time he passed one of the other leaders a huge cheer went up. It was electric. These days, Williams tended to end up somewhere between fourth and eighth position in the Constructor’s Championship, usually in the points, but rarely on the podium. Today, if nothing disastrous went wrong with the car, or wrong with Nish’s driving judgement, and if he managed to stop anyone passing him, then we had a chance to make it onto the podium. But anything could happen in Formula One at this speed. The track temperature was sky high in the hot summer sun, and already there’d been two different cars having tyre blow outs several laps before the official predicted life time of the tyres, resulting in one yellow flag and a virtual safety car while they removed debris from the circuit.

  Coming into the last lap, I was watching all the screens for the figures. I could see that Nish was playing it safe.

  “Come on Posh Boy, get your arse in gear,” I said suddenly into my microphone.

  “And which particular gear would you like my arse in?” Nish came back into my headphones, with a slight laugh in his voice.

  “Overtaking gear,” I ordered. “Show us your last bender.”

  “Negative, Gilbraith,” Chris interrupted. “Your brakes are overheating.”

  I glanced at the figures again. “You know how to do it without using your brakes, PB. They’ll last fine if you go easy on them.”

  “Negative, Gilbraith.” Chris voice was angry. “I repeat – your brakes are heading towards critical.”

  “Tyres, Eve?” Nish asked.

  “This is your chance to find out if you’ve looked after them properly. If you can’t get past him then it’ll motivate you to take more care of them next time, won’t it?” I pointed out brutally.

  “Gilbraith,” Chris said in the voice of a headmaster, “I am telling you to stay where you are.”

  I was watching the on-board camera and the footage on the TV coverage. There was dead silence in the garage. Everyone was holding their breath.

  “Now,” I said suddenly.

  And in exactly the same millisecond he stepped on it. The leader was defending the inside line so Ni
sh had to go on the outside. I watched closely. There was a moment when it wasn’t certain what the outcome would be and then I knew he had it in the bag, and then I allowed myself to smile. Our cars couldn’t compete on a long fast straight, so if we were going to win we needed to exploit their superior handling on the corners. A few seconds later the rest of the garage exploded into clapping and cheering as it became clear to the rest of them that he’d made it. Seconds after that, he flashed under the chequered flag and whooped triumphantly.

  “Congratulations PB on your first Formula One podium,” I said formally, and took my headphones off.

  Chris ripped his off and threw them down. “This is completely unacceptable!” He yelled at me. “Who do you think you are? That was dangerous, irresponsible, unprofessional and I’ll be putting in a complaint about it!”

  The garage had been yelling, jumping up and down and high fiving in the first moments after the finish but they’d quickly gone quiet to find out what the outcome of the drama was going to be.

  I kept cool and expressionless. I wasn’t going to show any weakness, but I wasn’t going to annoy him by trying to make any defence. “Ok Chris, let’s let the management sort it out, shall we?” I suggested calmly.

  He gave me a murderous look and stormed off. I knew there’d be cameras on us, ready to show the reactions of the winning team. They wouldn’t be able to hear us, but they’d almost certainly be beaming out the live footage all around the world right now. I turned away and began expressionlessly flicking off switches and shuffling papers. I walked over from the pit wall back into the garage where the guys who had their eyes now glued on the presentation ceremony. At first Nish was standing there beaming and being handed the trophy. Then the other two started deliberately spraying him with champagne, soaking him completely. But when someone shoved a bottle into his own hands to get his revenge, he stood there motionless. The camera telephotoed onto his face, while the commentator said something jolly about him seeming to be completely overwhelmed and in shock.

  “No, he isn’t,” I disagreed, my eyes narrowing in on his face. “He’s just devastated that his father isn’t here to see it.”

  The men glanced at me.

  “He’s trying not to cry,” I added. “So please don’t get funny with him if he comes back into the garage and gets upset will you? Leave him be.”

  When he finally returned they variously shook his hand or clapped him on the back and then left him alone. He walked straight across to me where I’d positioned myself round a corner out of range of the media cameras, threw his arms around me and burst into tears. I sat down and he knelt down beside me and sobbed into my lap. I stroked his hair, sticky from champagne, and patted his wrenching shoulders.

  “I know, it feels like a punch to the stomach, doesn’t it?” I said. I remembered how I used to burst into tears whenever I received a trophy and suddenly spotted Tyler’s name engraved against some previous year on it, and realised that he’d never be there to see me win a title again, or win one himself.

  Hugh came over. “He needs to go out for all the interviews fairly pronto,” he directed at me.

  “Yeah, but not in this state,” I said.

  “And Claire is waiting to speak to him. She’s gutted she wasn’t here to see it. Says it’s typical – the one time she’s not here we get a podium, and his first ever too.”

  I squeezed Nish’s shoulder. “You need to get into a calmer headspace, Nish. Go and have a shower and change and compose yourself. You can talk about your father in the interviews, but the public need to see you ecstatic about your win. Your first ever podium, and it’s a first place. They’ll all be really happy and excited for you, so you need to reward them for that.”

  He nodded, wiped roughly at his eyes and headed out the back without looking at us.

  I stood up and met Hugh’s gaze straight on. “How’s Chris?” I inquired.

  “Incandescent,” Hugh reported, his expression carefully neutral. “I told him to save it for Monday when we’ll have a meeting to discuss it once all our tempers have cooled down. Separate to the normal debriefing and race dissection,” he added.

  In private, I interpreted. So that no-one could ever report what went on. I nodded and said nothing.

  “Still, we’ve got a first place podium finish,” Hugh added with a slight smile, “and it’ll be hard for anyone to argue against that…”

  Nish had a skype call with Claire who was at an extended family member’s wedding, who she said should have known better than to fix the date for a race weekend. Still, she told us, the whole wedding party had come in to watch the end of the race live, so there was a right jubilant knees up going on right now. Then he went out to the interviews and I watched admiringly as he sailed through them with such professionalism. He explained why he found it so hard to celebrate on the podium and paid tribute to his father. He went through the race highlights with them. But when he was asked about me and Chris he looked blank.

  “It looked as though a full on argument broke out between Eve McGinty and Chris Donne straight after the finish-line. Do you know what was said?”

  A flash of anxiety passed momentarily across his face, quickly smothered. “No-one mentioned anything about it to me,” he said, “and of course, I wasn’t there at the time…”

  “What made you follow your trainee race engineer’s instructions above Donne’s?” The interviewer drilled down nosily.

  Nish smiled slightly. “Have you ever seen Eve race? She’s phenomenal. She’s the Queen of overtaking. If she makes the assessment that I can do it, then I know I can.”

  The interviewer frowned. “She’s a Stocks driver, isn’t she? How can that compare?”

  Nish smiled. “She starts from the back of twenty five cars and ends up at the front every time… I had a couple of goes at it in her spare car and kept ending up on my roof into the fence. And besides, she was only ever about four seconds behind me on the simulator, so I figure she sure can drive… Plus she crunches numbers in her head like a computer, so yes,” he paused momentarily while he assessed it, “I’d trust her judgement above anyone’s.”

  Ben, Sam and Kielty had been standing behind me, earwigging the interview rather than sorting out the car which they were meant to be doing. “He’s exaggerating,” I objected. “Four seconds behind him over only ten laps. Which is actually around sixteen…”

  Sam slapped me on the back. “Looks like you’ve got your vote of confidence, Eve. Upstairs aren’t going to go against that…”

  Back in Grove, late Monday, after I got in from the flight, Heskett called me into his office. I sat down on the other side of his desk.

  “So we’ve had all the dissections and discussions,” he informed me. Without me there, I noticed. “And now I want to hear what you have to say for yourself..?”

  I met his gaze steadily. “He was getting tired – losing concentration. I needed to wake him up and remind him that he could do more about the outcome if he paid attention. He didn’t have to settle for second place.”

  Heskett looked thoughtful. “You think he was losing concentration?”

  “That’s what the stats were showing. After all, this time last year he was having to sleep twelve hours a day, and coming over all faint and having to have a lie down like a Victorian matron after a twenty minute run. A post-viral syndrome like that isn’t going to just magically go away. He needs to give himself plenty of recovery time. I think Niall’s pushing him too hard physically. He needs a complete rest.”

  Heskett frowned and drummed his fingers on the desk top. “And the brakes issue? What gave you the confidence to over-ride Chris’s explicit instruction to Gilbraith not to risk overtaking.”

  “I wasn’t over-riding him,” I defended. “I was merely offering Nish an alternative point of view. He was the guy at the wheel, he had the ultimate decision. But I could see that the brakes would be fine if Nish drove at his best – he’s superb at staying off the brakes and I calculated that he wou
ld be able to take the win if he was warned to go easy as he did it. He’s ideally matched to the Williams’ car strengths. We excel on the circuits that are tight and need smooth and accurate cornering, so we need a driver whose skills lie in cornering cleanly and overtaking in tight spaces. That’s Nish.”

  “And the tyres?” Heskett checked.

  “I’ve told him before that one of the most important skills he can work on is driving light on the tyres. He needs to learn his lesson early on how valuable it is to have kept the tyres in good nick for putting up a good fight over the last few laps.”

  Heskett seemed to examine my face carefully for a moment. “Ok,” he said at last. “So here’s the position. Chris is refusing to work with you anymore. He’s laid down an ultimatum. It’s you or him.”

  My heart sank. But I tried not to show it. I waited in silence.

  As the silence continued, Heskett started to smile. “You know, this is where I suddenly get the difference between working with men and women…”

  I raised my eyebrows queryingly.

  “If you were the male of the species you’d have been fighting your corner by now, arguing black was blue that you were right and Chris was wrong…”

  “I don’t need to,” I pointed out coolly. “The results speak for themselves.”

  Heskett smiled again. “You need to blow your own trumpet a bit more, Eve,” he advised. “That’s what all the men around you are doing. Male managers have a habit of overlooking the workers that don’t draw attention to themselves. They interpret it as not being hungry enough for success. You may think your good work should speak for itself, but men have a habit of overlooking the quietly reliable workers, they’re happy that you’re reliable but they don’t promote you because you don’t appear to be leadership material. In the male animal kingdom, you get to be the Alpha King of the Castle with lots of posturing and clashing of antlers.”