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 fromInside 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’syoungest 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 amanagerand 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.
