Thrills and Spills Page 5

  Dad met my eyes for a very brief millisecond, then squeezed his own shut as though against an imminent explosion.

  “When’s it due?” I heard my voice asking in a colourless tone.

  “A May baby, just like our favourite Adam here,” Pauline gushed.

  For the Quinns, used as they were to regular announcements of this nature, the moment sank without a ripple, but for myself the rest of the next half hour passed at one remove as though I was underwater with everything echoing distantly to me. When Quinn was sent out to fetch in some more crisps and peanuts I struggled up from my squashed position on the floor and followed him out.

  “Where are you sleeping?” I asked him.

  “Mum and Mariah are temporarily back in with Dad while Mum’s well, so I’ve been given my old room back.”

  “Shall we retreat there?” I suggested. “I don’t think I can stand charades.”

  “Me neither,” Quinn agreed. He grimaced. “Nor Pictionary!”

  As soon as he’d delivered the top-ups, we hoofed it up the stairs.

  We sat cross legged on his bed. “How soon can we reasonably go back home to the flat do you think?” I said dismally.

  “I was tempted to volunteer for the Boxing Day shift,” Quinn admitted. “But that wouldn’t have been fair on Mum. But I’ve let them know that I’m available from the twenty-seventh…”

  “Entwistle’s doesn’t open again till the twenty-eighth,” I said glumly. “Guess I might have to retreat to the Satterthwaites’.”

  Up on a high shelf I spotted a dirty old bear dressed in eighteenth century Russian soldier’s costume.

  “You didn’t bring Dubetskoi with you to the flat?” I remarked surprised.

  Quinn pulled a face. “Kes ripped the shit out of me about whether I was going to or not, so I just couldn’t…”

  “Can I borrow him?” I said miserably.

  “Yeah, go for it,” he said obligingly and got up to reach him down for me. I took the dirty object and wrapped my arms around it. He’d have to do until I could get back to Pete.

  When I’d walked into my old bedroom last night, now occupied by Pauline’s ten strong dollshouse collection, I’d been vaguely surprised that she hadn’t re-decorated it. When I’d commented on the fact, she’d said, ‘oh your Dad and I were waiting to find out what colour to paint it’ and I’d thought it was a bit of a strange remark but it hadn’t even crossed my mind as to what it might mean… Now I knew…

  Back in the house, Dad said, “Are we going to see your young man at all?”

  I shook my head. “I think it’s better for us if we all have a complete break from each other for a couple of days.”

  “Oo, that sounds a bit dire!” Pauline remarked teasingly.

  “The team spends so much time together on the cars, and then there’s me and Jo at work and me and Pete outside of work, it’s been such an intense season and next year’s season will start almost immediately so…”

  Pauline yawned pointedly. “Well I’ll be going up Jack. I’m sleeping for two now, not just eating for two!” She bent over to the spaniel who was cocking its ears at her. “Come along Mr. Naughty Knickers, up we go!”

  The dog followed her up the stairs. I raised my eyebrows at my Dad.

  “The dog sleeps with us,” he explained.

  “Don’t you get dog hair in your mouth?” I said revolted.

  “Sometimes,” he said unenthusiastically.

  There was a long silence.

  “Don’t look at me like that, Eve,” Dad said.

  “Like what?”

  “You know like what,” he said.

  “Do you want another child?” I said at last.

  He looked gloomy. “I don’t have a choice, it’s happened now.”

  “Weren’t you using something?” I asked impatiently.

  “She’s a grown woman, I thought she’d have it sorted. And she’s forty you know – it never crossed my mind…”

  “Oh for goodness sake Dad, don’t you know any biology? Lots of women have babies at forty!”

  “It comes to something when your teenage daughter is ticking you off about not using contraception,” he said, making an attempt at a humorous laugh.

  He was so naïve, I thought. Biological clock, tick tock. Widower with own house and kids about to leave home. Move in and shell one out as quick as poss.

  “So is there anything else you haven’t told us?” I asked.

  He nodded miserably. “I’m going back out on the rigs.”

  “You don’t look awfully happy about it,” I said cautiously.

  He didn’t answer directly. “Pauline wants us to have some money behind us, so a stint on the rigs will bring in enough to keep us going for a bit. I’ll come back in time for the birth, and then we’ll get married of course.”

  Why ‘of course’? I thought.

  “Shit,” I said looking around at the sea of faces packed into halls 9 and 10 of the NEC. “You don’t expect me to speak in front of all these people do you?”

  Tyler grinned, picked me up by the waist and tossed me up on the stage giving me no chance to refuse, and then hopped lightly up behind me. A performance by the Impact Dancers, three girls in basques, suspenders, fishnets, stilettos and top hats was just coming to an end and Steve the interviewer was showing us how to use the hand held microphone and reminding us to hold it right near our mouths when speaking. He ushered us into two chairs and sat down slightly in front and to one side of us.

  “So here we are at the Autosport International Show in the Oval Racing and Extreme Motorsports Experience with two representatives of the opposite ends of the BriSCA F2 spectrum,” he announced as soon as the music and clapping had died down from the performance and before folks could move away, “Nat Tyler, five times World Champion and three times National Points Champion and seventeen year old Eve McGinty in her first ever Formula Two season about to be crowned Novice of the Year.” He turned to Tyler who was holding the mike. “So, Nat, World Champion five times, with three of them in a row, do you have any new ambitions for this coming year, or are you aiming just to defend your title?”

  As Tyler answered the questions put to him, I half listened to what he was saying to pick up handy pointers in interview technique, and half stared around at the blur of faces looking up at us. Somewhere out there were the Satterthwaites, all the men from work, and my Dad. Once Entwistle had gathered what exactly it meant for me to be presented the trophy at the Autosport International, he had walked in and announced another ‘works day out’. ‘Can’t think what’s come over the guy,’ Dewhurst had said ironically, ‘two works days out in one year as well as the annual Christmas Curry – do you think he’s discovered life outside his spreadsheets?’

  And then because Dad was heading off for the rigs in two days’ time, I had suggested he came along with the Entwistle team. He’d felt obliged to invite Pauline, but to my relief she had answered with a slight sniff that she wasn’t all that interested in cars.

  “And now I’ll hand the microphone over to Eve,” Tyler said with a grin, “who is sitting here looking like a rabbit in the glare of the headlights!” He passed the microphone over to me and winked.

  “So, Eve McGinty – this is your first season in the BriSCA F2s. Most novices come from a racing family and have cut their teeth on the Ministox, or more recently in the Micro F2s, but I gather this isn’t the case with you – so how did you get into Stock car racing?”

  I took a deep breath. “Well when I left school, I got a job as a garage mechanic, and just after I’d passed my driving test I happened to get a lift to the Belle Vue stadium to see the oval racing, without having any real idea what I was going to. But the minute I saw it I fell in love, and was absolutely furious that no-one had introduced me to it before! But the problem was, I couldn’t spot any women drivers and didn’t know whether we were allowed to be part of the scene or not. So the second I spotted Jo Satterthwaite getting out of a car I approached her team and ask
ed if I could become a support mechanic. Then when her brother Pete, who is also a driver, broke his leg in a parachute jump…”

  “- as you do-” popped in Steve with a laugh which rippled on round the audience.

  “…he kindly suggested I borrow his car for the rest of the season to test out whether I was any good or not.”

  “And the rest is history, as they say,” Steve said with a meaningful smile at the audience. “So Eve, you’re the first female to have ever won this title. Would you say you have experienced any sexism in the F2 Stocks scene as you’ve clawed your way up the ranks this year?”

  “That’s a good question,” I said. I thought about it for a moment. “Actually, surprisingly, no. At least no-one has said anything to my face. Obviously I don’t know what they’re saying down the pub behind my back. But it was far worse when I first started out as a mechanic. I encountered huge resistance from the older male mechanics there and sometimes it got quite nasty.”

  “Such as…?” Steve prompted.

  “Well the head mechanic broke my foot by dropping an engine on it – deliberately. He held it up, said, ‘whoops sorry’ and dropped it from a height on my foot.”

  A gasp rippled round the audience.

  “That’s rather extreme! What did you do?”

  I shrugged. “You just have to suck it up don’t you?”

  Aware that Entwistle was in the audience and that he might well be displeased at my bad publicity of his garage I ploughed quickly on to distract everyone from what I just said. “But now everything’s completely fine there and Jo Satterthwaite has been taken on there as well and it can be quite amusing because when one of the male customers doesn’t want to deal with me because he doesn’t believe a female can know anything about cars and asks for a different mechanic, the current head mechanic just calls Jo over, and usually the man doesn’t dare admit that he doesn’t want her either so just looks really disgruntled.”

  Everyone laughed.

  “So what would make your life as a BriSCA F2 driver easier?” Steve asked.

  “More sponsors! I am hugely grateful to my boss Mr Entwistle who became my first ever sponsor some months ago and enabled me to buy my first car which I’ll be using from the beginning of the new season. But I’m only on the young person’s minimum wage right now and I don’t live with my parents, so after all my rent and bills and such like, I don’t have much left over to spend on my car and all the other racing expenses – and after all, a driver is only as good as their car - so I would be grateful if any businesses can offer me sponsorship.”

  Steve looked out into the audience. “So there you are Mr. Entwistle, if you’re listening, you need to put this girl’s wage up!”

  Everyone laughed.

  “And finally, Eve, the big question – shale or tarmac?”

  “Shale,” I answered promptly. “But if I’m going to get this guy worried,” I nudged Tyler with my elbow, “I’m going to have to master tarmac as well!”

  “And who would you like to thank?”

  “Firstly my Dad, who wasn’t paying attention when I asked him to sign the consent form when I applied for my F2 licence, and who neglected to ask me what I was doing every weekend until it was far too late-” (more laughter)

  “My boss and sponsor Mr Entwistle who has supported me and believed in me against all the odds-” (A slight cheer from somewhere in the audience which I recognised as being Dewhurst and Bolton).

  “And the Satterthwaite family and driving team who have done everything humanly possible to help me to get started, and without whom I’d still be standing on the side lines raging at the unfairness of the world. I never knew that anything in life could be such fun!”

  There was lots of clapping and a few cheers. Steve thanked us and we walked off.

  “That was masterly Eve,” Paul said when I caught up with them. “If your boss doesn’t give you a pay rise now…”

  Jo turned round. “Eve, I’m utterly shocked! Are you saying Dewhurst did that to you?”

  I shook my head. “No, it was the head mechanic before your time – Bowker. He’s retired now…”

  Pete put an arm round my shoulder and leaned in and gave me a kiss. “I’m really proud of you,” he whispered when no-one else could hear.

  The presentation was highly embarrassing. There were three long legged girls in gold sequinned crop tops and shorts and high heeled gold shoes giving us bouquets of flowers. Strickland kissed his girl on the cheek and Quinn gave his a snog. But me and my girl, who, chosen for the task due to her model looks and superior height was consequently much taller than me, just looked rather awkwardly at each other. Whilst the other two girls posed for photos hanging off the boys with one knee up, she stood behind me smiling in a strained fashion with one hand on my shoulder. A photographer yelled, “Hold the trophies up.”

  We did so, and various flashes went off.

  “Someone get the girl a chair!” One of them shouted. Even on the slightly higher middle podium I was smaller than the boys. Quinn turned round and grinned at me. He exchanged glances with Strickland and they tossed me up between them onto their shoulders while I squealed, grabbed at Quinn’s hair and tried not to drop the trophy. At least in the resulting photos we all ended up looking natural and laughing.

  The final hurdle of the day was the BriSCA F2 oval racing in the Live Action Arena for the delectation of the public.

  “Five thousand people watching us?” I said. “Shit you’ve got to be kidding me!”

  Paul laughed. “Just go in there and ignore all the strobe lighting and do your stuff… Don’t go too fast, remember the surface is polished concrete which is really slippery.”

  We’d brought Pete’s car down for me because I hadn’t done a proper test in mine yet and this wasn’t the time to start.

  It was really weird being funnelled up a narrow corridor then lining up in an indoor arena with flashing disco lights and our engines roaring like Hercules planes in the small space. The background music was so loud I wondered if I’d ever be able to hear again afterwards. All three of us novices were included, I suspected, just because we were available, and maybe just so there was someone for the rest of them to beat. The rest were all well known drivers who had current titles or who had won them regularly in the past. And this was the first time my Dad would have ever seen me race…

  First corner and we flew out like we were aquaplaning. Well it wasn’t a real race, we were just putting on a show for the public. I thought I might as well enjoy myself. I put my foot down and chased Tyler. He was going to pay now for giving me a crafty bash every time he’d passed me in a race over the past year. He seemed to divine my purpose, would slow down until I was nearly on him then scoot away just as I lunged. Round and round we went, diesel fumes building, music thumping, coloured lights whirling. Finally I got him when three cars got all jammed up in the narrow space and he had to slow down. Right up the arse, then from the right hand side as I came alongside (carefully avoiding the driver’s door of course). So that was it then. I was for it. He pulled back and headed in for me now as I shot away through a sudden opening gap, only finally catching me up for one huge thump to one side a few metres from the finish line that threw me first to one barrier and then nearly back off the other as I corrected the wheel and slewed into the finish line after him.

  After we’d funnelled back down the corridor and pulled up out the back, he half pulled himself out and sat in the window grinning at me. “You’d have got disciplined for that,” he told me, wagging an admonishing finger at me.

  “Who cares?” I threw back. “It wasn’t a real race. You’ve had that coming for months, Nat Tyler!”

  He slid back into his car. “See you on a podium some time,” and drove off to his team.

  “What was all that about with Tyler?” Paul frowned. Pete had his hands on his hips.

  “He had it coming to him,” I said, ripping off my driver’s gloves and balaclava. “One day he won’t think it’s so
hilarious when he sees me coming up behind him!”

  Paul and Pete looked at me for a long moment. “Ok, Eve,” Paul said at last. “We believe you’ve got what it takes, we’ve now just got to get you there…”

  The following day, after a long lie in, I went round to see Dad. He was getting the train up to Aberdeen on Monday to set off for the rigs.

  “Every time there’s a big storm forecast I’ll be thinking of you,” I said dolefully as I sat in the armchair opposite him. He’d told me of the huge waves the size of blocks of flats that would crash down like a wall of concrete right over the rig.

  Pauline was sitting in the other armchair, smugly rubbing her not yet particularly obvious baby-belly and smiling.

  “Shall we have a Sunday afternoon drive out for a good-bye drink?” Dad suggested.

  Pauline stuck her lip out. “No alcohol for me at the moment, remember?”

  Dad looked at me, “Eve?”

  “Yep!” I said immediately.

  We drove across the moors in the car. It had been pretty filthy weather recently – wet and warm and no snow at all, not even on the tops. A disappointing winter. But today the sun was breaking through and the bleak expanses glowed with mauves and russets and pale yellows.

  “I thought you could take charge of the car while I’m away,” Dad said. “It’ll only seize up on the driveway and get in Pauline’s way. She wants to keep her Metro, and I want my own car to come back to so I can get work.”

  “That’s great Dad, thanks!” I’d be ecstatic not to have to continue getting soaked every day on my bike, and I was already on his insurance in case of emergencies.

  In a cosy corner of a traditional stone built village pub we got a chance to talk properly for the first time for months.

  “So do you want a boy or a girl?” I asked. I’d tried to think about it myself, but it was doing my head in. Our family had been just me, Dad and Jamie for so long I couldn’t envision anything else. I could cope with just Pauline as a kind of separate adjunct to Dad, but a new family member that I was supposed to relate to as a sibling just because it shared fifty percent of my genetics was a terrible fate. I just knew that every time I looked at it I would instead see the other fifty percent - HERS.