Pictures of Lily (36 page)

‘Don’t you dare,’ Holly warns, as I suppress an unbearable urge to crawl under the nearest table.

We’re in Melbourne, Australia, for the start of the season, and Luis Castro has just walked into the hospitality area. I’m desperately hoping he will have forgotten all about me during the last five months, because until early November when we end up back in Brazil for his home-town race, we’ll be seeing a LOT of each other.

There’s no getting away from it – I’m going to have to face him sometime – but just not now. Please, not now.

‘Daisy!’ Frederick barks. ‘I need you to run an errand.’

My boss! My saviour! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

‘The look of relief on your face,’ Holly comments with wry amusement as I scuttle away in the direction of the kitchen.

‘Where are you going?’ Frederick asks in bewilderment as I duck under the arm he was resting against the doorframe.

‘Just in here!’ I reply brightly, waving my hands around to denote the kitchen, which is excellently out of Luis’s line of vision.

Frederick looks perplexed, but continues. ‘Catalina wants some popcorn. And I don’t have any goddamn popcorn. Go and get some from one of the stands.’ He hands me some money.

‘Yes, boss!’ I beam.

He gives me an odd look as I hurry out of the kitchen and back through the hospitality area with my head down.

Catalina is Simon’s wife. Simon Andrews is the big boss and he owns the team. But Frederick – Frederick Vogel – is my immediate boss. He’s the head chef.

Frederick is German, by the way. And Catalina is Spanish. Simon is English and Holly, while we’re at it, is Scottish. What a multi-national bunch we are.

The Australian Grand Prix takes place in Albert Park, and yesterday I spotted a popcorn stand being set up on the other side of the shimmering green lake. I grab one of the team scooters and start it up.

It’s Friday, two days before race day, but the track is still packed with spectators, here to watch the practice sessions. I drive carefully, breathing in the fresh, sunny air. It’s the end of March, and unlike Europe and America which are swinging into spring, Australia is well into autumn. We’ve been told to expect rain this weekend, but right now there’s barely a cloud in the sky. Melbourne’s city skyscrapers soar up in the distance ahead of me, and behind me, I picture the ocean sparkling cool and blue.

I can smell the popcorn stand before I see it, salt and butter wafting towards me on a light breeze. Mmm, junk food . . . I wonder if I could also squeeze some for myself in the scooter’s storage box? I consider it while the guy behind the counter scoops the fluffy, white kernels into a bag, but eventually decide it’s a no-go.

I pay for the popcorn and stuff Frederick’s change into my pocket, then unlock the box under my seat. Hmm, this popcorn is going to spill out – the bag’s full to the brim and I need to be able to fold the top over. I suppose I could ask for another bag to wrap over the top . . . Or . . . I could eat some! Yes, that’s the only logical conclusion.

I lean up against the scooter and delve in. The guy at the popcorn stand is watching me with amusement. What the hell are you staring at, buster? My glare wards off his gaze, but he’s still grinning. I stuff another handful into my mouth. It’s so warm and so . . . perfectly popped. I’ve probably eaten enough, now. Maybe just a little more . . . Right, that’s it. Stop, now. Now! Regretfully I close the bag and store it under my seat, then start up the scooter.

If there are this many people here now, it’s going to be packed on race day, I think to myself as I swerve around a group of slow-walking pedestrians. All of a sudden I spot two men wearing our team’s overalls up ahead, and just as I go to turn a corner in front of a set of grandstands, I realise they’re racing drivers, one of whom is Luis.

My back wheel catches some grit and slides out from under me as I take the corner. Suddenly the whole scooter is skidding and I can hear the grandstand half-full of spectators gasp in unison as I shoot across the gravel in front of them.

‘Whoa!’ Will Trust – the team’s other driver – jumps out of the way, but Luis stays put, frozen in a crouch as though expecting to catch me.

‘JESUS CHRIST!’ I hear an Australian woman cry as my bike comes to a stop right in front of him. ‘She almost ran over Luis Castro!’

She pronounces the name, ‘Lewis’, not ‘Lew-eesh’, as she’s supposed to. I may not like the jackass, but it still bugs me when people can’t say his name properly.

‘That’ll make a nice change from him running over me, then,’ I snap, getting to my feet.

I immediately realise my mistake. That woman’s mispronunciation error distracted me and I’ve idiotically just reminded him about our altercation. Maybe he wasn’t paying attention. I quickly brush myself off as I feel his eyes boring into me.

‘You,’ Luis says.

Darn.

‘You. The girl on the scooter.’

‘Er, not anymore,’ I say sarcastically, indicating the fallen vehicle. I bend down to try to stand it up.

‘Hang on, let me get it.’ Will Trust appears by my side and lifts up the scooter. ‘Are you alright?’ he asks, clear blue eyes looking searchingly into mine.

I almost jump backwards. ‘Yes, yes, I’m fine,’ I reply, blushing furiously. Actually, I’m not fine. My right hand is stinging like crazy from where I put it down on the gravel, and my knee feels horribly tender beneath the black pants of my black, white and gold team uniform.

‘Let me see that.’ Will takes my hand in his, pressing down on my fingers with his thumb to straighten my palm. He leans in and studies the graze and I feel jittery as I, in turn, study him. His light blond hair is falling just across his eye-line. I have a strong compulsion to reach over and push it off his face . . .

‘It
is
you,’ Luis says again.

Is he still here? Bummer.

I look around to see that quite a crowd has gathered to watch me and revel in my embarrassment. At least they’re more interested in the drivers than me. Speaking of which . . .

‘The girl in Brazil. The petrol station,’ Luis continues.

Will lets me go and looks at us, questioningly. ‘You know each other?’

I flex my hand. The feel of him is still there.

‘Yeah, she almost crashed into my Ferrari in São Paulo last year,’ Luis says.

‘
I
almost crashed into
YOUR
Ferrari?’ I come back to my senses, outraged. ‘You nearly killed me!’

‘Ha!’ He laughs in my face. ‘You’re ridiculous.
And
you can’t drive. I said you were a silly woman driver at the time and now you’ve just proved me right.’

‘You, you, you . . .’ I glare at him, lost for words.

‘You’re not going to call me a
coglione
again, are you?’

‘No, but you are a
testa di cazzo
,’ I mutter under my breath. It means the same thing. Literally, ‘head of dick’. I smirk.

‘What did you say?’ Luis demands. ‘What did she say?’ he asks Will.

Will shrugs in amusement and bends down to dust off the scooter. I suddenly remember what I’ve done.

‘I haven’t scratched it, have I?’ I bend down beside him and scrutinise the bike.

‘It’s not too bad,’ Will says.

‘I hope Simon doesn’t fire me . . .’

‘Simon won’t notice. He’s got too much else on his mind.’

‘Simon notices everything,’ Luis helpfully interjects.

Will rolls his eyes at me and my heart flutters, despite my fear of being axed.

‘Will, are you coming or what?’ Luis butts in.

‘Sure, yeah. Will you be okay, er . . .’ He looks at the name embroidered in gold on the front of my white team shirt.

‘Daisy,’ I say before he does. ‘Yes, don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine.’

‘I’ve seen you around. You’re a front-of-house girl, right?’ he checks. ‘You help out with the catering?’

‘Jesus, that’s all we need,’ Luis grumbles.

Will and I look at him in confusion.

‘She’ll probably give me food poisoning,’ he points out.

‘Don’t flatter yourself,’ I can’t help but say. ‘I wouldn’t go to the trouble of trying.’

I spot a so-tanned-he’s-orange marshal running over to us. ‘Are you okay, miss?’ he asks in an Australian accent.

‘We’ll leave you to it,’ Will says, winking at me. I feel my face heat up again so I quickly turn my attention to the marshal.

Orange Man eventually deems I’m not a danger to myself or others and lets me go on my way, so I carefully drive back to our hospitality area, resisting the urge to speed. I’ve been gone ages.

I park up and locate the, well, it’s not really a bag
full
of popcorn anymore, and go inside to look for Catalina. I scan my eyes around the room. There are a fair few people here today, considering it’s only Friday. The tables are peppered with guests: sponsors, wives or girlfriends and the occasional friend or family member of someone in the team. Bigger teams than ours often invite the odd celebrity, too, but Simon doesn’t seem to know anyone famous.

Aah, there she is.

Catalina is sitting at a table next to a skinny, tanned brunette, with medium-length, wavy hair. They look alike and, as I approach, I realise they’re speaking Spanish. I wonder if they’re sisters. Holly will know. Holly knows everything.

‘Hi, Catalina, Frederick said you wanted this?’ I offer it to her.

‘What is it?’ Her tone is as horrible as the look she gives me. ‘Oh, popcorn,’ she says, spying the crumpled packaging. ‘Where’s the rest of it?’ she demands to know.

‘Um, I couldn’t fit it in my—’

‘Have you been
eating
it?’

‘I couldn’t fit it—’

‘Put it there,’ she huffily interrupts, pointing to the tabletop in front of her.

The catering here is excellent, so why she’s demanding popcorn in the first place is beyond me. Actually, I take that back. Nothing beats popcorn. But unlike her, if the rumours are to be believed, I won’t be throwing it up in the toilets later.

I finally return to the kitchen.

‘Where the hell have you been?’ Frederick shouts.

‘I had a bit of an accident,’ I explain.

‘You smell like you’ve been eating . . .’ He leans towards me and gives a single loud sniff through his extremely large nostrils. ‘Popcorn!’

He looks like a cartoon gangster, Frederick. Big nose, greasy black hair. And he’s very tall and extremely lanky. I glance back at him to see him eyeing me suspiciously.

‘Um, do I?’ I ask innocently. He has an annoyingly good sense of smell. I guess it’s useful if you’re a chef, but in situations like these . . .

‘What sort of accident?’ he snaps.

I anxiously lead him outside to the scooter.

‘It could be worse,’ he grumpily concludes after he’s inspected the damage.

‘What happened?’ Holly appears around the corner, full of concern when she sees us kneeling on the floor studying the scratches.

I fill her in, her eyes widening when I tell her who my audience was.

‘Right, enough,’ Frederick interrupts. ‘Back to work. There are three bags of potatoes for you to peel, Daisy.’

I notice that Holly gets to decorate a cake. I always get the shittiest jobs.

‘Hey,’ Holly says later, when Frederick pops out of the kitchen. I’ve been watching her distractedly for the last ten minutes as she’s cut a sponge cake into large cubes and plastered them with chocolate icing. ‘A few of the lads have been talking about going out tonight. Fancy it?’

‘Sure, where?’

‘St Kilda,’ she says, dipping one of the chocolate-covered cubes into desiccated coconut.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ Curiosity gets the better of me.

‘What?’

‘With that cake.’ I nod at the furry-looking cube.

‘Lamingtons,’ she explains. ‘They’re Aussie cakes.’

We always try to cater according to the country we’re in and it sometimes makes for an ‘interesting’ menu.

‘Anyway, back to tonight . . .’ She leans against the counter and wipes the coconut off her hands.

‘Where’s St Kilda?’ I ask.

‘It’s a really cool suburb on the other side of the park.’

‘Will we be able to get away in time?’

‘Yeah, should be fine. We did the early shift and half the team is going to that sponsorship event anyway so we don’t really need to be around after eight thirty. I’m gagging for a drink.’ She puts her hands up to her head and tightens her high, bleached-blonde ponytail.

‘I need a drink, too. Especially after earlier . . .’

‘I still need to hear all about that,’ she says. ‘Not now, though,’ she adds, as Frederick walks back in, so we both put our heads down and crack on.

‘You called him a dickhead again? In front of Will?’ Holly claps her hand over her mouth in wide-eyed shock, then starts laughing through her fingers.

The air is hot and humid and we’re seated outside a pub in St Kilda. We walked here straight from the track, along Fitzroy Street’s dozens of cafés, restaurants and bars, all spilling out onto the pavement with rowdy revellers.