Rev Girl (29 page)

Clover tapped Ernie on the shoulder as she went to leave. ‘It was great to meet you, Mr. Watson.'

John rose from his seat and took her hand. ‘Great to meet you, too, Clover. I was serious about what I said. I think you'd have a real shot in Oz and we'd be more than happy to give you a helping hand, a place to stay and all that. Good luck in the race. Not to put too much pressure on you, but if you can finish on the podium, it'll help a lot to sell you to the teams back home.'

‘Thank you, Mr. Watson. Thank you so much.'

‘No, Clover!' Shazza said from her seat across the table, next to Leslie. ‘Call him John!' She jumped up, and then reached down to give Leslie a quick hug (the two were now well acquainted after sharing a bottle of red wine). ‘You should get to bed, need your beauty sleep to pass those fast bitches.'

Clover glanced at John, expecting him to be annoyed by his daughter's swearing. Apparently, he hadn't even noticed, still deep in conversation with Ernie.

‘See ya tomorrow.' Shazza pulled her against her chest. ‘I've got me some work to do.' She winked, and was off like a shot towards the bar, where Sexy Surfer and a few of the others were still lingering.

Ryder was there, too, and for the second time their matching eyes connected, Clover was just as excited, to the point of a humming uneasiness in her stomach. One that left her needing more.

On her way back to bed, Clover was surprised to find that the pain in her leg muscles had vanished. Her feet felt light, like a cloud was carrying her across the floor. As she cast her mind back, it was as though dinner and the hours afterwards had been a dream. Ryder's smile, and the fire it had lit inside her then the news of the opportunity in Australia, and the offer of help from Shazza and her father were surely too amazing to be real. Shazza seemed as though she could become a great, fun friend. An Australian friend, who was willing to help.

Clover's face erupted into pure bliss. It was as though a bright light had flicked on in her future.

From a dream to a nightmare. Day 2 and 3 of the WSEC were awful for Clover. She didn't have the energy to go down to dinner either night, and stayed tucked up in bed. Leslie brought her platefuls of pasta and garlic bread. Both these days, Clover nearly ‘houred out', which would have meant disqualification. She had only just managed to limp into the final control, with frozen tears streaming down her cheeks, her shoulders curled in pain.

To help get through the course, her numbed mind had developed a script, which it set on repeat,
‘Throttle … brake … clutch in, throttle wheelie! Ignore the pain … throttle … turn … ignore the pain!'
She even resorted to using bumps in the trail to get her butt off the seat, as her legs had stopped working from fatigue. Worrying about trying to go fast was beyond consideration at this point. She was in pure survival mode, just making it from time control to time control, hopefully within an hour of her scheduled time, without getting stuck or sliding off the edge of a cliff.

Girls all around her were dropping like Louis Vuitton handbags at a ‘$50 for Everything Sale'. The German and one of the Swedes disappeared into a bog hole, not to be heard from again until the end of Day 3. The French girl, Henriette's, pace had dropped right back, as she nursed a knee injury and badly blistered hands. Clover was fortunate to have developed nice callouses from all her pre-event training, so her hands, for once, were the only part of her body not causing her agony.

The fourth day started as the others had, with her body so tired it would hardly mould to the bike. Sleeting rain, freezing cold. But the trail was fresh and turned in a new direction, opening up along fast fire roads, with no rocks or holes in sight. Clover made the first two checks on time, and even managed to pass the fastest of the Swedes in one special test.

When she and Kerry took off from Check Point 5 together, roosting out onto a forest road and down a wide ridge, Clover was able to stand on the pegs without assistance, and her spirits rocketed. She actually took the time to enjoy the scenery, for the first time in the race. Kerry, too, seemed impressed, and the girls yelled back and forth about the beauty of the valley below them. The cloud cover had lifted, leaving uninterrupted, pale blue sky, laced with a fine mist. Clover could see all the way to a tiny town, lining the bottom of the valley. At this moment, the crisp air was again welcome to Clover's wind-chaffed cheeks. The vibration of her bike again thrilling, no longer painful. Sugar, not salt, to her weary muscles and bones.

Kerry revved along beside her, and the girls exchanged a smile and thumbs-up.

This is why I do it
, Clover thought, looking from her friend to the serene valley below.
This is the magic of Enduro. My heaven.

The afternoon of Day 4, however, saw the doubt return to Clover's newly enlightened state. Her bike had held up exceptionally well, with just routine maintenance required during each of the afternoon work periods of the first three days. Day 4, however, her pipe was dinged from a crash, the plastics scratched up, and the tyres worn out. The rear tyre, at least, would have to be changed.

Changing tyres could be a tough task, even for the strongest of guys. Ernie had taught Clover a specific technique that involved tyre levers, chisels and a specially constructed machine. She'd practiced more than a dozen times, finally successful the last half dozen. But performing the task under this kind of pressure was a whole other ball game.

Clover was cursing herself for not practicing more, as she knelt on the stiff new rear tyre, pulling with all her might on two long metal tyre levers. She'd managed, with the help of the tyre machine, to get the tyre most of the way on to the rim. But the last bit of the cold rubber was refusing to play.

‘You have got to use the chisels, and take smaller bites,' Ernie said into her ear.

‘I'm trying!' Clover yelled, letting her hands fall from the slippery levers, to wipe the sweat from her eyes. It was still freezing, and raining not that she cared, she was so hot from exertion. She could hardly see for the stinging pain and the dirt in her eyes.

‘Here.' Ernie grabbed a chisel off the work mat and passed it to her. ‘Get this one in first, like I showed you, to keep the bead down.'

Clover snatched the chisel, and tried to wedge it between the tyre and the metal rim, but the blasted thing kept slipping. Sweat poured, unrelenting, into her eyes. Blisters had finally opened on the palms of her hands and edge of her thumbs. Her arms and hands were so sore, they weren't doing what she thought she was telling them to. All she wanted to do was sit down, maybe spew.

The lever slipped, catching her finger on the rim and gouging a cut. Blood. She cursed and collapsed onto the ground.

‘Just take a deep breath,' Ernie said.

‘I can't do it, Dad. It's too hard!'

‘You're not serious?' Ernie knelt down in front of her. ‘You didn't make it all this way, get through all that crap, to let some silly tyre beat you.' He hauled her back onto her feet. ‘That's not my daughter!'

Clover shook her head. ‘I hate this, Dad! I should have just left the old tyre on!'

‘It had no knobs, Clover. All the other girls have changed a few tyres by now. And you've still got to get through that ski hill special test at the end of tomorrow and the final motocross on day six. You wouldn't have even made it out of Parc Ferme with that tyre, it was a road slick. Now ' He scooped up a chisel and enclosed her hand around it ‘You can do it, Clover. Leslie, how much time?'

‘She's still got seven minutes!'

‘Do I?' Clover asked, feeling a wave of relief. ‘I thought I was nearly over my fifteen?'

‘Plenty of time,' Leslie said, handing her another chisel.

‘Right.'
Seven minutes to go,
Clover thought.
You can do this!
She wiped her eyes, and repositioned herself on the machine. ‘You're right, Dad, I'm gonna make this tyre my bitch!'

The final special test of Day 5 stretched up in front of Clover like a scene from the most horrifying horror movie she'd ever forced herself to watch. She was tempted to close her eyes as she would've at the movies, as the wind and freezing rain ravaged her muddied, bleeding face through the front of her helmet, but she knew closing her eyes wouldn't do any good. The rider-littered ski hill would still be there when she opened them.

Clover glanced at the timing officials, who were huddled together under a quick shade beside the narrow start platform and the three ambulances, one already being loaded with a ‘casualty', the other two ready to cart the unlucky away. Clover quickly diverted her attention to the starting lights on the pole in front of her. Still red. In less than thirty seconds the light would go green, as Kerry had just taken off. Clover had let Kerry start the test first after the pair had arrived simultaneously. They'd had to work together to get their bikes through a tough, rocky creek section of trail, a section that had really pushed Clover past the point of exhaustion, frighteningly close to hitting the wall.

If Clover had thought she was spent after the first four days of the race, she was truly exhausted now, drenched from the pouring rain, shivering, her saturated jersey and pants clinging to her frozen skin. She hadn't had time at any of the controls to find her jacket, and now she wished she'd made the time. It was all she could do just to keep her protesting body from curling into the foetal position and toppling off the bike. And then there was this ski hill. A hill from hell, which, when she'd walked it pre-event, had looked quite nice. It hadn't been raining then, with slivers of sun sneaking through the clouds. The hill rose up in steep steps, and had been green and lovely, scattered with wild flowers. Now, she was relieved that the rain was falling in sheets and the cloud was so low and dark that she couldn't see past the first step in the hill. The hill from hell looked impassable, that was for sure. Riders were strewn on every defined line. Water ran in muddy rivers, washing bikes and riders down with its fast-moving current. People screamed, bikes screamed, bogged up to their seats. Steam rose from the fallen bikes, the faces of their riders bright red with strain, veins popping in their foreheads and necks. The red bunting defining the course had been buried or washed away, riders now taking any line possible in desperate attempts to reach the summit.

Clover had no idea where she would go once the light went green. She couldn't see Kerry, who had swung out wide and miraculously found an unoccupied rut that had carried her up and through the cloud, to the next step in the steep hill. This rut, however, was now a raging river.

Clover searched the hill, frantic for an idea, some light to guide her which way to go. But all was slick mud. The entire hill was a swamp of stuck bikes, riders swearing some now trying to ride the wave back down, calling it quits.

There was no hope, she couldn't help but think, before using her last remaining ounce of strength to will the light to go green, so she could at least move, as she feared she was about to lose the ability to remain on her bike. But the light stayed red.

It's too long,
Clover thought, feeling her heart sink.
The timers
must be giving us longer, probably a minute … hoping the track will clear.
The thought nearly made her laugh out loud, and then a fit of hysteria gripped her chest, and it became hard to breathe. Darkness fell over her mind and, in an instant, it was as if the wind became the icy breath of a black-faced, Enduro Grim Reaper. Getting closer. Closing in on her and her mud-filled and spluttering WR250F, ready to bring his scythe down on her dream of finishing this race.

Clover didn't see the start light change to yellow she was gasping for air, freaking out that this was it. But the green light came, cutting through her moment of despair, bringing hope. It was time to go, time to hit this up and try her best to make it to the top.