Purgatory Is a Place Too Read online

  Steve was smiling. “Looks like you’ve even surprised your own team with that lightning announcement. So we’re going to get to see the legendary number 37 return to our stadiums! Maybe all bets on the winner of this year’s Gold roof had better be off, huh?” He directed at Pete.

  Pete laughed, but I saw he had to screw up all his self control to do it. I saw a momentary flash of anger and fear in his eyes. I understood all too well. His Dad, a previous repeat World Champion was returning to drive against him. And Pete was afraid that he wouldn’t be good enough to beat his own father. And perhaps Paul was wondering that too? Did he still have what it took to beat his own son? And shit, that meant he’d be driving against me now, ironically in my own car! And I’d meant to have a go at the Gold this year! I’d been confident that I could beat Pete to the finish line whenever I wanted to, but now I had no idea if I was in with a chance of the Gold. My heart beat faster and I met Paul’s eyes with a slow smile. At last I felt excited about the season ahead. Someone to really put me on my mettle. It was funny how interchangeable the sensations of fear and excitement were. Paul smiled back at me.

  “You look genuinely delighted, Eve,” Steve commented.

  “I am!” I exclaimed, my eyes glowing, and I hugged Paul really hard. Paul put an arm around my shoulders and for the first time for ages I started to look forward to the future again.

  As we all sat down in a pizza restaurant that evening, Jo tackled me suspiciously. “Don’t think I didn’t see you hanging out having a coffee with that Rob Rudd and talking really intensely with him! What are you up to? You’re not going to have an affair with him next are you? You’ve got a real thing about Gold roofs!”

  I rolled my eyes. “Honestly Jo, you have a very vivid imagination! Of course I’m not going to have an affair with him! I was asking him to come back to the F2s so we could all drive against each other, it would be so much fun!”

  Pete looked like he didn’t think much of the idea.

  “What did he say to that?” Paul asked curiously.

  Rob Rudd, now driving in the F1 formula, had been Paul’s ancient foe and rival back in the days when they were both fighting it out for top dog in the F2s. They never quite sorted it out. When you looked at the results charts Championships got passed back and forth between them it seemed, with predictable regularity.

  “He smiled and said that if I beat you, then he might consider coming back…”

  Pete made a bit of a scoffing noise.

  I put my chin in my hand and looked thoughtfully across at Paul. That had really put me on my mettle. First I had to beat Paul, and then I had to beat Rob. Could I do it? Paul smiled challengingly back at me.

  “Uh oh,” Jo commented. “She’s looking at Dad now like she used to look at Tyler!”

  “I hope not!” Pete recoiled. “She was screwing Tyler!”

  “No stupid!” Jo grimaced in disgust. “I meant when she was assessing whether she could beat him! And Tyler always looked back sort of motionless, because I don’t think he was sure himself what the outcome was going to be…”

  I had absolutely no idea what the outcome was going to be in this case either. Steve had told me privately that when Champions returned to the track after a long gap, the driving style and cars had often moved on and left them behind. Would Paul still have what it took? Or maybe he felt that with the demise of Tyler, the current generation was a pale imitation of his own, and he could regain his dominance?

  Back in our room, Jo and I lay on our stomachs on our respective beds.

  “Pete was pretty quiet all evening,” Jo remarked after a bit.

  I turned my head sideways on my folded arms to look at her. “I felt sorry for him actually. He’s really scared about your Dad’s announcement but of course he can’t admit to that. Especially as your Dad is his manager. He must feel a bit like it’s a betrayal…”

  Jo thought about that for a bit. “I found it hard when I took on managing you and felt like I was competing against Dad and Pete. It must be much worse for Pete to be having to face actually driving against Dad. He must feel very alone.” She turned on her side to face me, head propped on one hand. “But of course Dad’s actually coming back because he wants to race you, Eve.”

  “You think?” I queried.

  “Yep, for sure,” Jo said unequivocally. Her hazel eyes, so like her father’s looked seriously across at me. “You wiped the floor with them this season without that idiotic three month gap you had to take when you were banned last year! There was no one to touch you. Dad wants to give you a run for your money.”

  “And test my car!” I protested.

  “And that too of course,” Jo agreed. “He obviously believes in it. But it’s also serving as a good excuse. Otherwise people might think it was a bit odd if he suddenly bought a car again and got back onto the track. They might think it not quite seemly, a sort of late mid-life crisis, the old stag not happy that his son’s superseded him…”

  “Hmm, see what you mean,” I agreed. He wanted to drive against me, but had to make it not look like he was jealous of Pete.

  “Engine trouble, my foot! You’re such a liar, Eve!” Jo suddenly launched at me. “There was nothing whatsoever wrong with that car on the day of the World Final, I checked afterwards! You’d just decided that Pete should keep the Gold roof for another year and were afraid you’d end up beating him! Go on, admit it!”

  I was silent for a moment. “Maybe I should have gone for it, Jo, while I had the chance,” I said with a slight laugh, without definitively answering her suspicions either way, “because with your Dad back in the ring, maybe I’m never going to be able to win it now!” I paused. “Who are you putting your money on between me and your Dad?”

  Jo frowned and the silence extended for some time. “I don’t know,” she said at last. “We don’t know how good he is now… And we don’t know how good your car is going to turn out to be. And the competition will always have to be on tarmac which is his speciality, not yours, as that’s what your car is designed for… And he’s had the advantage of watching you closely for three seasons so knows all your little tricks, and you’ve never even seen him drive!”

  “Do you have any footage of him Jo?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “It was before the whole YouTube/filming on your phone phenomenon.” She frowned again. “I might just secretly rifle through his shelves to see if he has some old official race DVD’s. But whether you’d be able to tell much from them is hard to predict…”

  Jo had insisted I came to the wretched presentation dinner. In the depths of winter it was like the Stocks community tried to find excuses to cosy up together and keep up with the camaraderie. How many times could one be presented with the same damn cup? I thought. But Jo said I had to show respect and turn up some years, or else it would seem like I was snubbing everyone and I’d be written off as a snooty cow.

  We were staying over at the hotel and were expected to dress up posh. My hand had hovered indecisively over my outfits, but I knew I had to rehabilitate the red dress sometime, just as I had the jewellery, and this seemed like an innocuous enough event to do it at.

  Pete stared at me as I walked over to him in the function room. Jo turned round and exclaimed, “You look amazing, Eve!”

  A bit of me wished I hadn’t done it. Every time I approached one of the drivers to talk to them, there was a moment of shocked silence before they recovered themselves. I suppose they were used to seeing me in filthy fireproof overalls, helmets, oily jeans and scruffy leather. On the Saturday at the NEC I’d reverted to the jeans and leather. It didn’t do to stand out too much when you were almost the only female around. I remembered my first ever job interview at the garage when Dad had insisted I wore a skirt. That skirt had lost me that job.

  “You look very elegant and sophisticated,” Sue whispered to me as I sat down beside her at the meal. She squeezed my hand. “And what’s that lovely scent you have on?”

  The scent was definit
ely a mistake. It was the one Tyler had given me the last night we’d ever seen each other. I had suddenly decided that I couldn’t keep it forever and part of the process of moving on would be to start using it. But all it did was bring Tyler back so vividly for me that I could hardly bear it. By now, Tyler and I might have been attending this dinner as newly weds, and he might have been receiving the cup for the World Championship again instead of Pete. You can’t slump your shoulders in a dress, so I sat very upright, my head held high, but when Jo nudged me and hissed, “Go on Eve, it’s your turn to go up now! You’re not listening to a thing are you?” I knew she was right and that the evening had passed in a blur.

  I walked to the front and everyone was clapping loudly. To give them their due, the Stocks community was utterly thrilled that a female was making it to some of the top spots at last. No-one had been churlish about it.

  I clutched the cup. There was my name on it. Just after Nat Tyler’s. My car had carried the Silver roof for two years, but my name was only inscribed on it for the current year.

  “So Eve, a speech is traditional,” the guy who was presenting it prompted with a laugh.

  I stared at him and then looked around at all the faces waiting expectantly. “What is there to say that hasn’t already been said?” I said awkwardly. “Anything I say now would be either repetitive or cheesy!”

  He smiled at me. “Well, go on, surprise us with something completely different!” He suggested benevolently.

  I stared around at the faces again. Mostly familiar. Mostly liked. But not the one I wanted desperately to see. “I wish Tyler was here,” I blurted out. “I miss him desperately. Nothing’s been the same since he died.”

  Eyes averted. Gazes went down. A few people, some of them male drivers, actually wiped surreptitiously at their eyes. I was touched. Lots of them had seemed genuinely gutted at the time but now no-one ever mentioned him. It was nice to find out that they still missed him.

  “Someone should organise a ‘Tyler Memorial Trophy Race’,” I said suddenly. I paused and sighed. “But I guess that’s the sort of thing that the family usually does…” But his wife had divorced him for being away racing too much, and taken his little girls away, and refused to let his daughters have anything to do with the Stocks.

  “But, still,” I tried to rally. “At least Paul Satterthwaite’s returning to the track, so maybe we’ll be in for an interesting season after all…”

  I handed the heavy piece of metalwork back to the guy and stepped down off the stage to complete silence. The poor bloke made some kind of covering soothing remark welcoming Paul back behind the wheel and used it as a link to call up Pete as current World Champion.

  “Talk about the spectre at the feast!” Jo complained in an under voice as I sat down. “You really know how to kill an atmosphere don’t you Eve?”

  After Pete’s bit was done I got up and walked out, past the loos and out the back into the cold night air. After a moment Sue appeared. She put an arm around my shoulders. “Are you ok, darling?”

  I shook my head. “I shouldn’t have worn this dress!”

  Sue looked puzzled.

  “I got raped in a red dress and I refused to wear red for a year after that and then I thought, ok, I need to sort this out, so I bought this dress for a night out with Tyler on his birthday, and then he went and died on me a couple of weeks later. So I haven’t worn red for another year! And I thought I’d wear the dress again to stop me getting superstitious…” But I’d dream of him tonight for sure, what with the scent as well. I dreaded and looked forward to it in equal measure. A wonderful moment back with him, then a gut wrenching eternity realising he wasn’t there anymore.

  I wiped at my eyes and Sue gave me a hug. It was at this moment that Steve the commentator and sports journalist came out. He stopped short and looked at us.

  “Are you ok?” He asked me.

  I shook my head.

  Sue looked across at him. “Were you aware that Nat and Eve were engaged?”

  He looked utterly shocked. “I’m sorry I had no idea!” He stopped, blinked a bit, and reassessed. “Does anyone know that? Because no-one has ever mentioned it to me…” I could see he was a bit put-out that his information feeding system had broken down so catastrophically on this occasion.

  “Only his daughters, I guess,” I said. I pulled myself together. Then I glanced pointedly at him. “Don’t imagine that the divorce had anything to do with me. We didn’t get together until well after she’d left him…”

  “Yes, sure,” Steve said hurriedly.

  I didn’t ban him from passing the tit-bit on. Maybe it would be better if everyone knew… Maybe I’d get more support that way. More sympathy at least.

  I retired to my room without going back in. I couldn’t dance. Not tonight.

  Cody’s initial outing was on the first day of March. The official start of the F2 Stocks season and the first day that the points started to be counted for the National Points Table. She was bouncing with excitement. We made her start from the back with her novice black cross up, despite her protests that she didn’t need it.

  “The good thing about being at the very back is that I’ll be just in front of you,” I pointed out. I was in the same first heat as her. In Oval Stocks racing the higher up the points table you are, the further to the back you’re put in a race and you’re expected to be skilled enough to push your way through to the front. So as the holder of the Silver I would be starting out at the back of everything at the moment, unless the Gold roof was in attendance. Pete would always have to start behind me. “So I want you to try out just following me… As soon as I go, you go. And then you try to keep up just behind me, and if you get left behind, I’ll probably end up lapping you and you can tuck in behind me again whenever I pass and we’ll see how long you can keep up for…”

  I could see she liked that idea. Her eyes narrowed determinedly. That’s the spirit, I thought.

  The heat went ok. Despite hanging around momentarily each lap for Cody to tuck in back behind me, I just pipped #72 Devlin, the Silver roof holder of five seasons ago, to the finish line to win the heat. Then we put Cody into the Consolation race for all those who hadn’t qualified for the Final in the first couple of heats.

  “What the hell does she think she’s doing?” I snapped to Jo as we stood in the stands watching her. She was cruising along getting in everyone’s way, ignoring their frustrated attempts to get by, and worse, attacking everyone who passed, including the leaders who were lapping her for about the third time and weren’t allowed to shunt her out the way because of her black novice cross. She made a particularly bad lunge at the leader of race as he passed, tripping him up and costing him the win. I was absolutely furious with her.

  As soon as she drew up beside us back at our place in the pits, I hauled her out of the car and yelled at her. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? You don’t – I repeat – absolutely don’t attack the cars who are lapping you! How dare you! You treat your seniors with respect and when you’re a novice you make sure you get out their way, because they’re not allowed to touch you so how else are they to pass?”

  Her eyes sparked and she tossed her head. “I’m not a novice! I’ve been driving Bangers for years now!”

  I looked coldly at her. “No-one is impressed by childish behaviour round here, Cody. You’re a complete beginner in this format and you’re going to have to unlearn most of what you imagine you know. And you’re going to start by apologising to the guy whose race you just lost for him!”

  Her eyes took on a mean gleam for a moment, and then as I matched it and stared her out, she hesitated and her eyes flickered away from mine and she looked at the ground, drawing patterns in the mud with the toe of one trainer. Jo watched on in silence, letting me deal with her.

  I marched Cody over to the guy whose race she’d sabotaged and made her stand in front of him. She hung her head. Campbell was one of the Scottish drivers. All the more pissed off with her b
ecause the Scottish drives tended to have a very clean style, only using contact when absolutely necessary.

  “I’m sorry Alain, it’s Cody’s first day in this format and she’s come out of the Bangers and not listened carefully enough to what she’s been told about our protocols, so I believe she has something to say to you…” My tone was severe and I gave her a sharp nudge.

  Campbell was still looking pretty pissed off, so waited unsmilingly for her apology. Cody darted him a swift look then muttered, “I’m sorry, I was wrong to attack you.”

  Campbell was in his late thirties, old enough to seem intimidating to a sixteen year old, young and good looking enough to also seem like someone she’d want to gain and keep the respect of. He didn’t excuse her, following her apology up with a short lecture on what was expected of novices at the start of their career if they were going to be accepted into the F2 family. It was perfect. At last I saw a bit of a glistening coming into Cody’s eyes.

  Campbell and I exchanged amused looks above the bent head of the finally penitent, and I communicated my thanks to him with my eyes.

  Back at the cars, I set about checking over my engine for the Final. Cody was sitting with drooping posture and dangling hands on the tail plate of the trailer.

  “Never mind Cody,” Jo said robustly. “We’ll go over all the rules again on the way home and next time maybe you can concentrate more on honing your speed instead of wasting time messing about.”

  Cody looked utterly crushed. I suppose she’d been fantasising about appearing on the track and becoming an instant success, shining like a brilliant star from her first ever outing and shooting up the tables faster than even I had done.

  “Now you’d better go and learn from Eve about what you need to do to your engine before every race, otherwise you’ll never become independent in this game…”