Chapter 14
MINNIE
‘Your dream was to open a café, and you did it,’ Jack says softly.
I can’t find it in myself to be surprised that he knows. We’re in near darkness, the car illuminated only by the incandescent moon overhead.
‘I did it twice. I’d still be there if I just owned one.’ My bleak laugh curls my stomach. ‘Fork and Flour.’ I haven’t spoken that name in months, and it wilts something inside me. I bite my thumb and look at him, moisture clinging onto my eyelashes. ‘I’m a really good baker, Jack.’
‘I bet you are.’
‘And they were really good cafés. One in the Brighton Lanes and one on the seafront. Healthy cakes, fresh bread, sandwiches, salad boxes, coffee. We did events, we allowed dogs, we fed the homeless, we ran charity initiatives, NHS discounts – you name it. In fact, we were so popular that I opened a second.’ I cross my arms tightly as memories come hurtling back.
Memories I store in a pretty locked box at the back of my mind that have no business surfacing now or ever.
‘Turns out you can’t be in two places at once.
‘Anyone can start a business; the dream comes from making it work year in, year out.’ I sniff hard. ‘So this is me trying Plan B after Plan A fizzled into nothing – and left me with mountains of debt.’
He nods like he understands, but how can he?
When was the last time he pleaded with a bank manager?
How many documents covered in red print land on his doorstep?
How many times has he felt completely hopeless, every door closed to him?
Has he ever lain awake at night knowing he’s his own worst enemy?
Fresh tears leak down my face and I squeeze my eyes shut.
I hate that I’m baring my soul to Jack Bowden.
Tomorrow I’ll inevitably shrivel into a mortified ball and refuse to leave my room, but today, I can’t stop myself.
There’s no one in my life I can be honest with so the only option’s someone not in my life.
‘I wouldn’t accept help.’ My voice wobbles.
‘I know that sounds dumb and martyr-ish, but—’
‘It doesn’t.’
‘It’s all I know.’ I shrug weakly and wipe my cheeks.
‘Strength comes from independence. My dad left when I was a teenager, taking everything with him. I’ll never let anyone do to me what he did to my mum.
She had to build us a new life from nothing.
From a penthouse to a tiny flat. Jet-setting around the world to a nine-to-five.
Posh private school to a local comprehensive.
I got bullied for my accent and my— That’s not the point.
I can’t even remember my point.’ I knead my forehead.
I don’t know how to explain the great tangled knot of shit living in my chest. Usually it’s quite small, easy enough to ignore, but since the altercation with Brian it’s swollen and swollen and now it’s impossible to plug.
I take a deep breath. Here goes nothing.
‘It’s kind of like… I didn’t care that my dad didn’t want me – I mean I cared, obviously, but I could manage it – because I could help myself.
I could be strong like my mum, and create this beautiful, thriving business, and all the feelings of rejection and not being good enough would sort themselves out. ’
My sob’s halfway to a hiccup. ‘But it died,’ I say faintly.
‘And I went bankrupt, and I couldn’t bake anymore, and I got depressed and stopped washing.
’ Bloody hell, why did I add that? ‘After a while I realised I’m never going to move forward if I’m continually ignoring the past, so I had the genius idea of merging a new career path with F1.
I thought if I could at least tackle my issues head-on, I’d be doing something right.
But… I don’t think I can do anything right anymore. ’
It’s humiliating to confess, especially to someone at the peak of their career.
Jack worked his arse off and achieved his dream.
Meanwhile I worked my arse off and ended up with a credit score I can’t look at and the emotional resilience of Sadness from Inside Out.
I collapse into thick, ugly sobs which rock the car.
‘Get out,’ Jack says gently, and after a pause, I gracelessly comply.
He walks over to my side and pulls me to him, cupping the back of my head and holding me tightly as hopelessness wracks my entire body.
‘I’m sorry I cried all over your rental,’ I say when I’m steady enough to talk.
‘It’s not a rental.’ The pause that follows is strangely loaded. ‘It was Luca Zanetti’s.’
I withdraw enough to see his face. He’s staring into the distance, expression neutral but there’s something impossibly sad about it.
Luca Zanetti’s a driver I know little about. He was a big deal during the ten years I didn’t follow the sport, being Martinelli’s youngest rookie and tipped as our generation’s Ayrton Senna. But none of that is what he’s remembered for.
‘I know something about heartbreak too,’ Jack says, voice distant like he’s seeing things I can’t.
‘I didn’t like him in our karting days.’ His lips quirk.
‘He was Italian and he dressed like an Italian and his parents were zillionaires and he supported Juventus and he had a manager and his kart was gorgeous.
I called him Super Mario – I was such a twat. Not even an inventive twat.
‘We both got onto Pagari’s Young Driver programme, but my family couldn’t move to Italy with me because…
we lived hand-to-mouth. It was a pipe dream.
But then Luca told the team principal that his dad would be my guardian – said I was the only boy who could give him some competition – and that was it.
‘We were inseparable. He taught me how to not dress like a chav; I introduced him to garage music. He was a better driver than me, better looking, better with girls—I was a better dancer, though.’ He grins and I glimpse the Jack I’m familiar with.
‘Luc was the brother I—’ He stops himself, the look in his eyes oddly tormented.
‘I was a pretty lonely kid growing up, and I remember thinking, I’ll never be lonely again. ’
He ruffles his hair. ‘I was two cars behind when it happened. I’ve never seen rain like it.
The stewards flip-flopped about whether to postpone the race or not, and eventually they decided it was safe.
There was nothing safe about it. I couldn’t see my front wing for half the lap.
’ His eyes glisten. ‘Luc lost control and collided with a wheel loader. His roll bar slid straight under it.’
I can’t imagine what Jack went through. It was bad enough seeing photos in the news of the flattened car surrounded by medical staff and officials, differing statements beneath, each party blaming everything but themselves. To have been close to Luca… it must’ve been the worst pain imaginable.
Jack’s silent in front of me. An owl hoots in the distance.
A car passes by, its exhaust plumes visible even in the darkness.
I have an overwhelming urge to do something, anything, to mask this silence, to keep Jack from remembering it fresh, to make it all go away.
I’m still thinking when Jack resumes, his voice thicker than before.
‘I saw the wreckage right after he crashed.’ He clears his throat.
‘I’ll never forget that moment for as long as I live.
I couldn’t see much, but his car wasn’t a car anymore.
It was this crumpled mess. Bits of chassis everywhere, two wheels off.
Every muscle in my body was telling me to pull over but I couldn’t – for his safety as well as mine and the other lads.
‘He had a diffuse axonal injury, which is a fancy way of saying brain damage. Not surprising considering his head impact measured at two hundred and fifty-two Gs. We train to withstand seven.’
I can’t stop my hand clapping over my mouth.
‘They flew him from Buenos Aires back to Turin and he was in a coma for four months. It was hell,’ Jack goes on. ‘Then, on the fourteenth of October, his parents told me to come and say goodbye.’ He swallows loudly. ‘And on the eighteenth, they switched his ventilator off.’
My heart aches for him. He’s only a year older than me and yet he’s been through so much.
‘I won my first World Championship a year later, but it should’ve been him,’ he says, steadier.
‘I made them play the Italian national anthem when I was on the podium, and the whole crowd took a knee.’ He looks down at his feet.
‘I think I cracked in two in that moment. I cried the whole flight home.
‘You asked me before about not wanting commitment. I’m not going through anything like that again. I can’t lose another person I love, Minnie, it’ll kill me. I’m no one’s Prince Charming.’
I nod. Who understands the fear of abandonment better than me? I walk over to a patch of grass and sit facing the view – what little of it I can make out. Jack silently joins me. That was a lot, to give and take. I’m sure he feels like an open wound as much as I do.
At least my hands aren’t shaking anymore, and my chest has stopped constricting. I no longer feel like I’m imploding. Jack will never know what he did back there, how grateful I am that he pulled up. How much it means to me that he bared his soul too.
‘Thank you,’ I say softly.
He seems to have been pulled out of his own reverie. ‘Hm? For what?’
‘Just, thank you.’
He nudges me with his shoulder. ‘Welcome.’
‘It’s nice talking to someone who gets the commitment thing.’ I hug my knees into my chest. ‘I feel judged most of the time, like there’s something wrong with me.’
He tuts. ‘There’s absolutely nothing wrong with you, Roberts.’
That’s not entirely true. There’s nothing wrong with being single, but it’s not healthy to be scared, panicky and sometimes sick at the prospect of loving someone. I have work to do, and it starts in Monaco in two weeks’ time. Urgh I’m too exhausted to worry about that now.
‘So you’ve never had a girlfriend?’ I ask.
He snorts and picks a blade of grass. ‘I tried when I was younger – at least I thought I was trying. I didn’t make time for them, didn’t make an effort, didn’t share shit.
We never talked like this. You should feel well special.
’ He laughs impishly and I push him. ‘I know my lane and it suits me fine.’
I arch an eyebrow. ‘Shagging models every Sunday?’
His grin widens. ‘Nah, flirting with outrageous Chelsea girls.’
My hand flies to my chest. ‘Chelsea girl?’ I don’t know whether to be flattered or offended.
Visions of when I used to watch Made in Chelsea flash back and I very quickly decide it’s the latter.
They’re hyper-privileged, frivolous, two-faced socialites swathed in designer. ‘You’re so wrong about me.’
‘I know. Might be why I can’t stay away.’