Thrills and Spills Page 6

  He sighed. “I’ve thought about that. And I can’t help it Eve, but I really want a boy.”

  “Oh,” I said. It was like a punch in the stomach. I fingered the glass in front of me and for a moment said nothing. Then I lifted my eyes to his face. “I’m sorry I’ve been such a bad daughter that you can’t face having another one,” I said, feeling like crying.

  He looked shocked. “No Eve, I didn’t mean it that way at all. I love having you as a daughter, I’m really proud of you. But you’re so unique, I just don’t want another one. You’re the only one I want and I’m a bit afraid I could never love another one quite as much and that wouldn’t be fair would it?”

  “Oh Dad…” I said moved, very nearly giving into a sniffle.

  He reached over and pulled me in for a rough hug. And I was so relieved he felt that way, because I’d been trying to suppress the feeling that if I saw my Dad holding another little girl and looking lovingly down at her, I’d just want to kill her. And any girl of Pauline’s would be all pink frills and dollshouses. I wasn’t sure how Dad would cope with that. And I certainly wouldn’t…

  The first episode of Thrills and Spills hit the TV screens only a week after the Autosports show. Our media link guy (Toby), had rung each of us to let us know when it was scheduled to screen. ITV cameras had been roaming around the NEC and occasionally shoving up close to us, but the public had taken no notice as it was the sort of show that would get regional coverage.

  The Satterthwaites and I settled down on their sofa at 8pm to watch. Pre-watershed family targeted viewing. They were just laying out the stall really. An explanation of the general concept and history of the Stocks with general footage from various oval tracks including some historical clips took up the first few minutes. There was a deep toned male voice-over giving information and linking shots, and a more ‘on the hoof’ style in the current footage with the voice of a woman asking questions of the various participants, but staying out of shot.

  “There you are Eve!” Sue pointed out excitedly.

  Pete and Paul laughed as there was a shot of me in the Performance Car section of the show leaning my cheek down on the roof of a Jaguar with my arms outstretched across the roof and looking sideways into camera saying, “Do you think they’d allow me to stay here all day stroking it and purring loudly?”

  There was a shot of Quinn and Rob walking around the F1 stocks, bending over various exhibits and intensely discussing the finer points. The voice over commented, ‘Rob Rudd, previous superstar of the BriSCA F2’s, has now moved onto the F1’s with the seductively powerful V8 engines, but banned last season for drink driving in a race, he had to take time out, and used that time to mentor Adam Quinn, who consequently achieved the second place in the F2 Stocks Novice of the Year competition.’

  They had obviously crept up on Jo at some point. ‘Jo Satterthwaite, one of the rare female drivers on the F2 scene. So Jo, do you think that motorsports are unfairly male dominated or is that a false perception?”

  She gave them a look as though they were mental for asking. ‘Take a look around this hall and see it you can answer that question for yourself!” The camera panned around the huge expanse full of car exhibits and revealed Jo as an isolated island in an ocean of men as far as the eye could see.

  They’d got a couple of clips from the interviews on the stage, a bit from Tyler’s, and the bit from mine where I relate the engine being dropped on my toe incident and a close up of the audience gasping and looking shocked. Then they’d snuck up on my Dad. ‘Jack McGinty, Eve’s father, welder by trade and about to go back out onto the North Sea Oil Rigs – So Jack, does this practical bent run in the family? Has Eve inherited her interest in cars from you?’ Dad looked blank. ‘The only thing I know about cars is that they’re a metal box that can magically get you from A to B if you remember to put the right fuel in them.’ I turn round and laugh. ‘And my little brother wouldn’t know a camshaft if it hit him between the eyes! He’s going to be a rock star!’

  I was so glad they’d got a clip of my Dad. It would be the last thing I’d see of him for months.

  Finally they had a shot of me and Quinn together.

  “Posed or what?” I commented disgustedly. They’d made us do the shot three times just as you come out of the corridor into the Live Action Stadium. We stood in the middle between our two cars holding our helmets under our arms. We stared meanly at each other then jammed our helmets on and slipped through the windows of our cars to get behind the wheels. ‘So Eve McGinty – first ever female to win the title of Novice of the Year, and her closest rival for the title, just a few points behind her, Adam Quinn, go head to head to battle it out for the top spot in the next season.” And they’d cut it so that the second we got behind the wheel it looked like the lights and strobes and music started up and we shot off.

  They’d told us to have a bit of a go at each other on the track, but I’d barely seen Quinn. From the footage they showed, it looked like he’d got into argy bargy with Strickland instead. Paul sucked in his breath as they showed me deliberately thumping Tyler twice when he was slowing for the snarl up.

  “You know perfectly well you shouldn’t have done that,” he ticked me off. “That bit of footage could come back to haunt you.”

  They also showed me nipping cheekily through the gap ahead of Tyler and his chase after me and bruising punishment.

  “Still,” Pete said as he watched it, “He got his own back! It shows Tyler respects her. He wouldn’t have risked it on polished concrete if he didn’t think she could deal with it.”

  The titles came up with pounding rock music and a reminder to tune in every week to see how the modern day chariot racers were progressing through their season.

  Paul flipped the TV off with the remote. “Not bad I think? I thought they might ham it up and make us look trashy, but I think it’s going to be good publicity for the sport.”

  The reaction trickled in slowly. The odd text from old school friends saying they couldn’t believe it when they switched on the TV and saw me. Jaimi rang up with her usual complaint – lack of communication. “Honestly Eve! Not telling me! And you’ve not updated your Facebook page for five months now!”

  “Thing is Jaimi…”

  “Thing is what?” Jaimi said fiercely.

  Thing is, my brother Jamie and I had always shared the home computer and I’d left it for Jamie when I moved out. Kes and I had divvied up the admin of the flat bills between us, neither of us trusting Quinn with such an adult task, and Kes had taken on the internet provision with superfast broadband and router. But he was the only one with a lap top. And I had had other priorities for my money.

  “If you’re really going to be involved in a documentary for a whole year, then you need to get it sorted.”

  I had a sudden inspiration and rang Rajesh, the only person I knew in IT. He told me to come round to his firm at lunch time. It was a big swish place all glass and modern architecture. He came and collected me at the door when I texted him to say that I was there. The office where he worked was open plan with computer docking station after computer docking station. He walked to one of the marked out areas and opened a drawer. “We’re always getting samples,” he said. “Have this tablet, that’ll help you when you’re on the move.” He handed me a Samsung in a completely untouched new box. “And you might as well have my old laptop. I haven’t used it for a year. I’ll clean it up for you and re-set it up and bring it round.”

  I was overwhelmed, but he wouldn’t take any thanks. “They’re no use to me…”

  He took me across to the café over the road.

  “Did you have a good Christmas?” I asked. Then qualified it with, “that’s if you do Christmas?”

  “Oh we’re not a family to miss out on any good festival,” he informed me cheerily.

  “And what’s happening with Nasim?” I noseyed.

  He grimaced, then he smiled, then he rolled his eyes. “Well thanks to Suki, our mutual families
actually met up…”

  “Never!” I was agog.

  “Nasim’s parents came round to ours, and we had this stiff little meeting where Mum got out the best china, and the best sweets, and we had this staged charade of ‘and this is my daughter Sucheta, the trainee psychiatrist, and this is my other daughter the environmental engineer…”

  “Goodness,” I commented. “And did you throw a tea-towel over Ganesh?”

  He covered his eyes. “Unfortunately, I just didn’t have the guts not to. I waited until just before they arrived then I put a huge family photo collage in front of him and by the time my Mum noticed it, it was too late for her to do anything about it…”

  I laughed.

  “It’s ok for you to laugh! I can understand why my parents never wanted to be in this position. At least Doosie’s husband’s family is just an ordinary white one with no particular beliefs, they just go along with anything and think it’s all such jolly fun.” He looked gloomy.

  “Still, we never thought you could even get this far,” I reminded him.

  He cheered up. “Suki made a big play on how good it would be for Nasim to go to Oxford, and offered to mentor her about how to cope at University. So now Nasim and I are allowed to meet up at Suki’s as long as Suki is always present…”

  I lifted my hand up. “Come on Raj, high five! It can only get better!”

  He gave a reluctant grin and lifted his hand to meet mine. “You’re an eternal optimist aren’t you?”

  “Nah, just enjoying life at the moment,” I said. “I never thought it would come – but it has and I can barely believe it.”

  For the second episode they were wanting to show us in our normal lives. They followed Quinn and Rob for a day with the RAC and came down to Entwistle's to show me lying flat on my back under an Audi in blue dungarees covered with oil. It was all a bit set-up. “I know what you can do,” I suggested to them afterwards. They lapped it up. Consequently we all sat on the sofa watching footage of Quinn walking round the kitchen doing everything one handed with something tucked under one arm then turning round to reveal little Mariah and sitting down to feed her expertly with the bottle.

  “So who is this, Adam?” The woman’s voice offside.

  He beams at the camera and lifts her up to show her off. “This is my lovely little sister,” he says and Mariah laughs and gurgles and stamps her feet up and down. “My Mum is having chemo at the moment and she couldn’t start it when she should have because she was pregnant and they wanted her to have a termination, but who could dream of aborting this delightful little creature huh?”

  The voice off side. “Chemo? Has she got cancer?”

  A shadow passes over his face. “Yes,” and he says nothing more.

  “I can hear the sound of cracking hearts all over the country and then them melting into puddles,” Sue commented looking weepy.

  “Yeah, the cameraman said to me that a man holding a baby is to women what catnip is to cats,” I told her. “He swears that a friend of his, going on a six month filming job in the jungle on a study of chimpanzees, was never short of a mate once he learned how the chimpanzee males went about it…”

  The Satterthwaite family all stared at me.

  “Apparently, the younger males con females into mating with them by borrowing babies and carrying them around and looking after them because it makes them look good father material, and by giving presents of sweet berries and fruits because the females have a sweet tooth. Apparently he took photos of his little nephew and niece along with him and showed them to the female scientists and talked lovingly about how he was missing them, and kept a store of sweets in his camera case. Never failed apparently!”

  “So that’s where I’ve been going wrong all these years!” Pete joked.

  “Nah, you’ll be glad to know babies are a turn off to me,” I assured him. Then I tipped my head on one side. “You could maybe do a bit more on the sweet treat side of it though…”

  “I should take that as a hint if I were you, son,” Paul said with a wry smile.

  I loved sleeping with Pete. I loved waking up with Pete. I loved snuggling into Pete in the morning. I loved having his arms around me as we drifted off at night. Now I found it quite hard to get to sleep if I was on my own, with my mind running on. But the minute he stroked my back or even my arms or my hips or my waist or rested his hand on my stomach I would instantly relax and become calm, whatever the circumstances.

  “Mum says it’s oxytocin,” he said to me when I remarked on it. “She says girls carry on producing it all their lives whenever they are cuddled or touched skin to skin but boys stop when they’re eleven or so, which is why start pushing people off when they touch them…”

  “Oxywhat?” I was perplexed.

  “It’s a hormone or something,” Pete explained. “To do with bonding. Women get a rush of it after giving birth, Mum says. And adult men only produce it after sex probably to bond with their mate.”

  “Why’s she telling you all this?” I teased.

  “Educating me in women, I expect.” He smiled at me. “She said that if I watched girls I’d notice that they automatically knew to hug a female in distress whereas men are a bit thick about things like that. So I started watching girls, and she was right, the minute something upsets them they’re clinging together like monkeys!”

  “Those monkeys again…” I murmured.

  The night after, I found a box of chocolates on my pillow. Good at taking a hint is Pete.

  We’d been working hard on my car ever since it had arrived. They’d sourced me an engine and we’d fitted it and now we kept taking it out on the practice track round the field and fine tuning it. Pete now had his own name and number (#103) and red roof back on his car and had been rectifying all the damage I’d done to it during the season, fettling it ready for his goal this year which was to get into the World Championship Final. The three of us rushed around the small track in anticlockwise circles, shoving and jostling and trying out all our various adjustments. Sue thought it was hilarious, saying we looked like kids on the dodgems.

  When I got back to the flat that night, Sasha and Damian were sitting at the table talking with Quinn, whilst Kes wandered about in the background.

  Damian turned as I walked in. “That’s handy, Eve, we’re just working out the filming schedule for the next fortnight.”

  “Ok,” I said, throwing my bag down on the sofa and going to put the kettle on. The water was already hot and everyone else already had coffee in front of them.

  Sasha was looking down in a slightly horrified fashion at a sequence of photos that Kes was spinning through on his tablet for her. “Oh my God,” she uttered faintly. Kes was grinning. I raised my eyebrows enquiringly at him.

  “They want to film us at a gig,” he explained. “So I’m showing them some photos to give them an idea what to expect, just in case they want to vet Quinn’s sartorial presentation in advance.”

  “Where on earth do you get hold of these clothes?” Sasha marvelled.

  Quinn grinned subversively. “Tranny sites. Kinky Boots and the like – you know-”

  Sasha and Damian exchanged glances and Sasha started looking more closely at each picture. “We can’t have an outfit that makes him look like he’s cross dressing – it wouldn’t suit the image we’re trying to create…”

  Quinn leant back in his chair, put his feet up on the one opposite him and exchanged amused glances with Kes.

  “There’s already been a bit of a flutter about Thrills and Spills in the twittersphere,” Damian explained, glancing across at me. “And a lot of it is from the younger end of the audience saying they want to see more of Adam and you. Which is promising as we need to keep this up and running and hitting top viewing figures for a year which is challenging…”

  “The baby sequences caused a bit of a storm amongst the female demographic which is great as we need to have cross gender appeal in a series that could mainly be about cars…” Sasha added.
<
br />   “Notice she said cross-gender, not cross-dressing Quinn,” I needled.

  He proffered a lazy middle digit.

  “So what else can we film you doing?” Sasha asked.

  “The gym?” I suggested. “Quinn and I go out jogging together. I volunteer once a week at a ‘Men in Sheds’ project restoring a steam engine…”

  Sasha was tapping this all into her tablet. “Great – great…”

  “It would be worth going back to Quinn’s house to get shots of him with their huge Catholic brood and the dying mother,” I said.

  “God yes!” Sasha agreed enthusiastically. “That’s a great story line – will she die? Won’t she die? Sacrificing her life for her baby…”

  Quinn stared at her like he’d gone right off her.

  “And Adam’s sister is quite a looker,” Kes said. “You should get her in shot more often.”

  Damian pursed his lips and nodded. “The more eye candy for the blokes the better, I’d say. Since most of the rest of the shots are of hundreds of fat blokes staring at cars driving noisily around in circles…”

  He looked across at both of us. “We’ll do a splurge of filming for the next couple of weeks because we fully understand that once the season starts proper you’ll be busy with the car maintenance and racing side of it. We won’t necessarily show it all at once, we can keep some of it up our sleeves to enliven less interesting episodes further on…”

  “Yes, trickle your stories out bit by bit – tease the audience with hints of things going on behind the scenes…” Sasha agreed eagerly. “We need to get you both tweeting so you exist in the real online world out there.”

  “No way,” I said and got up from the table.

  “When do we start?” Quinn said with a smile at Sasha that I noticed made her blush.