"Guy N. Smith - Blood Circuit" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Guy N)

and just as he closed the door behind him the phone stopped ringing. A sigh of relief mingled with natural
curiosity. He shrugged his shoulders. Probably it was somebody trying to contact the last owner. If so,
they would ring again. He dismissed the matter from his mind. There were chores to be done. Fires had
to be made and lit, food prepared, rooms cleaned ... all foreign to his nature, but he'd learn. The hard
way. He would not seek help from anybody. If it was offered he would spurn it. Politely at first, of
course. But it had to be a lone battle. All the way. Every house, every man needs a woman. He tried to
find an alternative to that one as he filled a glass with water from the tap in the sink, reached down a small
brown bottle from the shelf above, shook out a tiny yellow tablet, and swallowed it. Valium 5. Three
times a day. Possibly a third of the population existed on them. Their reasons over-work, family and
business pressures, something to help ease a routine of boredom. At least those were the reasons Slade
had given the doctor. Hell, how else could he have explained it? 'Fact is, Doc, I've just lost my nerve.
Can't face the track again.' He knew it, but he would never be able to put it into words.

Few people admit to losing their nerve over anything, even to themselves. A steeplejack takes a
motorway construction labouring job and tells everybody that it's because he earns more money that
way. The only person he doesn't succeed in kidding is himself. He'll never do that. He fears that one day
he'll step off a piece of scaffolding and drop seventy feet to the concrete below. Likewise Slade had lied
to Stern, his manager. Seamark, too. All lies.

'My contract finished at Daytona. I've made my pile. I'll never spend it if I live it up for the rest of my
days. That's why I'm quitting.'

Persuasion. Pleading. Cursing. Ill-feeling on both sides, but they still wanted him back. He hadn't the guts
to tell them that before every race he was scared that it might be his last. He had seen better drivers than
himself burned to a cinder in a heap of crumpled, twisted metal. Cremated within a matter of minutes,
rescue-teams and ambulancemen helpless. Christ, he might not even make it to the finals at Daytona. It
could happen in the qualifying rounds at Riverside. Or even on the Seamark circuit. Anywhere. These
lanes, a speeding Land Rover. All over in seconds. God, he hated cars. Even that bloody run-of-the-mill
Cortina.

He studied his reflection in the mirror on the kitchen wall, stroking his new growth of dark beard, amazed
to note flecks of grey already evident amongst the stubble. Thirty-three. According to the so-called
allotted life span of three score years and ten he was practically half-way there. Middle-aged. He hadn't
thought of it that way before. And so far he hadn't started to live. Well, this was it, the beginning of life,
right here in these remote hills. The beard, the cropped hair, a new approach, fresh thinking, new ideals
that all added up to one thing. Mark Slade, racing idol, was dead. In his place was just an ordinary guy
whom people in the streets would scarcely glance at a second time. That was the way it would be from
now on. He might even change his name by deed-poll.
He settled for a scratch meal of corned beef and baked beans. Sometime he would have to learn to cook
property. The idea was not attractive to him, but his determination would overcome it. Perhaps it was
something else at which he would eventually attempt to attain perfection. Cordon bleu, another Daytona.
The ultimate. Something more to chicken out of when it was within his reach?

As he ate, his thoughts turned to Yvonne. He knew he would never be able to get her off his mind . . .
ever. That was the way with racing drivers, another occupational hazard. One got through wives like sets
of tyres. They couldn't stand the pace. Husbands away from home for long periods, other women
fawning on their idols.

Temptations on both sides. Yvonne had never taken a lover whilst Mark had been away. Perhaps it
would have been better if she had. There was no way of knowing. AH too often fidelity does not make a