He did. Marnie wilted gratefully. The timing was that crucial. For, after the straight in front of the house, he had to negotiate the chicane, a cleverly constructed piece of engineering which also took him back across the stream again, through a series of tricky bends then back towards the main section in front of the pits.
She followed each sound all the way around, knowing to within a metre just where the car should be.
By the time he hit the pits straight he would really be opening up the throttle, his tyres warmed and ready to respond to his lightest command. It would be the second or maybe the third circuit
before he was really flying. And then the crew would be out with their stop-watches, clocking his track time, just as they would do in a real race.
Trembling, she spun away from the window and made for the dressing-room, dragging on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt without bothering with underwear, determined to be back at the window by the time he came past again.
She just made it, breathing fast. He roared past at full throttle, a mere blur on her vision. And she closed her eyes on a silent prayer that he would judge the first bend correctly.
He did. She held her breath. The chicane next. Through—tyres prostesting when he must have touched one of the concrete kerbs on a slight error of judgement.
Don’t do it again! she scolded him silently as he began negotiating the series of bends. Then the smooth roar as he reached full speed past the pits. She waited for him to reach the S-bend, hating his need to test himself in such a way. Hating even more his reason for doing it.
Marnie watched him go by her a third time, and knew with a sinking heart that he had to be driving that car with the turbo charger full on, because she had never seen it go so fast! She almost dropped to the floor with relief when he got safely around the next bend, then the chicane—it was like having her own personal scaled-down model running around her head, she could be that accurate on where he was at any moment.
The straight in front of the pits again, and the roar as he boosted the turbo, the sound seeming to fill the whole valley. Then the S-bend—
She waited breathlessly for the familiar protest from the engine as he throttled back sharply—and certainly the change-down did occur, but the immediate uplift of power never followed it. Instead there was the tooth-grating sound of squealing brakes and screaming tyres followed all too quickly by nothing.
Absolute silence.
For a full five seconds Marnie didn’t move a muscle, the echo of those screaming tyres consuming her every sense, while she used those few precious seconds to accept what had happened.
Then she was running, barefoot, out of the bedroom, along the landing and down the stairs. Hair streaming out behind her, face pure white, she ran across the hall, past Roberto without stopping, even though some sane portion of her mind told her that he too must have heard the crash and understood its frightening possibilities. But she was too wrapped up in her own terror to stop, running out of the door and around the side of the house, racing across neatly shorn lawns, slipping on the wet grass as she went, knowing exactly where she was making for, exactly at what spot Guy had spun the car.
She saw the plume of thick black smoke curling up into the sky just as she reached the thick hedge which separated the track from the house, and she stopped, taking this next horror with a choking whimper before she was off and running again, forcing herself through the hedge without a care to the scratches it issued to her arms and face. Careless of everything but the one thought that was going around and around in her head.
Guy was dead, and she had not told him she loved him.
She saw the emergency van at the scene as she rounded a curve in the track. The red van was parked at an angle, its doors all swinging open. The blue and white car was not far away, lost to a blaze of fire and smoke while the men fought to contain the flames. White clouds of foam were emitting from their hand-held extinguishers, fluffy particles of the stuff floating in the air all around them.
Dismay took her legs from under her, sending her tumbling to the ground, her choked cry of horror splitting the air around her. Then she struggled up again, pushing her hair out of her face, terrified of going on yet drawn by some morbid desire to see, witness the worst for herself.
It was as she neared the emergency van that she saw him. He was standing by one of the open doors, his left hand holding his right shoulder, his attention fixed on the tangled mess which was all that was left of the car.
For some reason, seeing him just standing there as large as life, silver flame-proofed suit hardly marked, protective helmet still firmly on his head, Marnie lost touch with reality, and on a surge of white hot fury she launched herself at him.
‘You crazy, stupid man!’ she yelled, the grinding force of her voice bringing his head sharply around to see her running furiously towards him.
‘Marnie…’ He put out his left hand in a calming gesture. ‘It’s all right. I am not—’
But she wasn’t listening. Rage consumed her. And on a cry that came out like an animal howl she threw herself at him, hitting out with her fists, tears pouring down her cheeks, eyes almost blind with shock and anger.
Guy tried to field her blows by catching her fists, but she was too quick and he was still feeling dazed from the crash. And she caught him on his right shoulder, making him wince, and draw back instinctively.
Then someone was catching her from behind. And a different voice tried bringing the tirade to a halt. ‘Mrs Frabosa!’ it said sternly. ‘The man is injured; you can’t—’
‘Let go of her,’ Guy rasped. Marnie was sobbing by now, great big racking sobs that by far outstripped the ones she had sobbed the night before. ‘Let go of her, Tom.’
‘But she—’
‘Let go.’
The man set her free and stood back, but ready, despite what his employer said, to catch her if she made another attack on Guy.
But she had already hit herself out, the anger replaced with a deep inner ache that sent her crumbling to her knees on the wet ground in front of them.