Read Online Early One Morning by Robert Ryan - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Robert Ryan
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wasn’t enough, there were still missing pieces to the jigsaw puzzle.
Williams went downstairs, selected two large bowls and placed a sugar cube in the bottom of each. He poured in the thick black coffee and then crushed the cube with a spoon. That would be enough for Eve, but he hadn’t quite shaken off the very English need for milk in the morning. He tried the wire-fronted larder, but there was none. Two of the porcelain containers, but empty. Which meant going outside to the cool shed across the courtyard.
Eve paced out his actions in her mind, timing him. Put on coffee, get bowl, fetch sugar, pour coffee, crush cube, discover no milk, go outside, take two paces and …
Williams’ whoop must have been heard in Caen, a window-rattling scream that conveyed disbelief and delirium all in one rush of air from his lungs. She heard him run back, halt, retrace his steps and then a sound like tearing calico, sweeping to a deeper throb as the engine revved.
Leaving it ticking over, Williams sprinted up the stairs and threw himself across the room into her arms and smothered her with kisses.
‘Is it the right one?’ she asked disingenuously, as if talking about a hat or a shirt.
‘A Thirty-five B? Absolutely gorgeous.’ He looked very serious. ‘There is only one thing.’
‘What?’
He listened to that rasping engine note as if something mechanical was bothering him.
‘What?’
He stepped closer. ‘The colour. Blue. Bugatti Blue. It’ll have to be British Racing Green.’ He puffed out his chest with mock pomposity. ‘I am, after all, an Englishman.’
Eve reached up and grabbed him and outside the beautiful sleek Bugatti racing car chugged on, alone and neglected, for another twenty minutes until the new owner came down to take it for a spin.
Six
TRIALS DAY, MONACO, April 1929
R OBERT BENOIST SAT on the terrace of the Café de Paris and watched the cars come round the Casino Square as they powered through the gap between the casino itself and the Hotel de Paris, checking the braking and handling of each one, paying particular attention to the Bugattis. Trial day, the first time most of the cars had run this new street-racing circuit. Already it was taking its toll—Benoist had seen two cars limping round, their mechanicals or engines unsettled by such a low-revving, convoluted and bumpy course.
Benoist wasn’t convinced by this circuit. He liked big sweeping autodromes, like Montlhery and Avus in Germany, where the driver could go flat out. Here, he doubted if any of them could get into top gear, and rattling over cobblestones and tram lines put extreme stress on tyres and chassis. He as much as anyone would concede that Ettore Bugatti was a genius, but mechanical reliability was not his strongest suit when it came to race models. He knew there were other dissenters, too—the Autocar magazine had editorialised that such a Grand Prix was ‘astonishing’ and ‘dangerous’.
Behind him his brother Maurice scanned the crowd, the faces at the hotel windows, those on the makeshift grandstand across the way and played his own running commentary.
‘Josephine Mannion. You know all about her. I think that is her sister with her. Very different proposition. They say you need a car jack to get her legs apart. Ah, look, Kiki with some ugly artists. I hear Mistinguett is coming tomorrow. See, Noghes has got a few famous faces down here.’ Antony Noghes was the cigarette tycoon who had bankrolled this attempt to start the Monte Carlo season early by running what he hoped would become the most fashionable motor race in the world. Maurice lowered the glasses. ‘And shouldn’t you be in the pits?’
‘Ettore banished me. Says I intimidate the drivers.’ Maurice laughed. He could just imagine his brother, eyes so piercing you felt as if he could see into your soul, making the young blades feel uneasy, as if they weren’t up to the job of filling his shoes. Which, as far as Robert was concerned, they
Williams went downstairs, selected two large bowls and placed a sugar cube in the bottom of each. He poured in the thick black coffee and then crushed the cube with a spoon. That would be enough for Eve, but he hadn’t quite shaken off the very English need for milk in the morning. He tried the wire-fronted larder, but there was none. Two of the porcelain containers, but empty. Which meant going outside to the cool shed across the courtyard.
Eve paced out his actions in her mind, timing him. Put on coffee, get bowl, fetch sugar, pour coffee, crush cube, discover no milk, go outside, take two paces and …
Williams’ whoop must have been heard in Caen, a window-rattling scream that conveyed disbelief and delirium all in one rush of air from his lungs. She heard him run back, halt, retrace his steps and then a sound like tearing calico, sweeping to a deeper throb as the engine revved.
Leaving it ticking over, Williams sprinted up the stairs and threw himself across the room into her arms and smothered her with kisses.
‘Is it the right one?’ she asked disingenuously, as if talking about a hat or a shirt.
‘A Thirty-five B? Absolutely gorgeous.’ He looked very serious. ‘There is only one thing.’
‘What?’
He listened to that rasping engine note as if something mechanical was bothering him.
‘What?’
He stepped closer. ‘The colour. Blue. Bugatti Blue. It’ll have to be British Racing Green.’ He puffed out his chest with mock pomposity. ‘I am, after all, an Englishman.’
Eve reached up and grabbed him and outside the beautiful sleek Bugatti racing car chugged on, alone and neglected, for another twenty minutes until the new owner came down to take it for a spin.
Six
TRIALS DAY, MONACO, April 1929
R OBERT BENOIST SAT on the terrace of the Café de Paris and watched the cars come round the Casino Square as they powered through the gap between the casino itself and the Hotel de Paris, checking the braking and handling of each one, paying particular attention to the Bugattis. Trial day, the first time most of the cars had run this new street-racing circuit. Already it was taking its toll—Benoist had seen two cars limping round, their mechanicals or engines unsettled by such a low-revving, convoluted and bumpy course.
Benoist wasn’t convinced by this circuit. He liked big sweeping autodromes, like Montlhery and Avus in Germany, where the driver could go flat out. Here, he doubted if any of them could get into top gear, and rattling over cobblestones and tram lines put extreme stress on tyres and chassis. He as much as anyone would concede that Ettore Bugatti was a genius, but mechanical reliability was not his strongest suit when it came to race models. He knew there were other dissenters, too—the Autocar magazine had editorialised that such a Grand Prix was ‘astonishing’ and ‘dangerous’.
Behind him his brother Maurice scanned the crowd, the faces at the hotel windows, those on the makeshift grandstand across the way and played his own running commentary.
‘Josephine Mannion. You know all about her. I think that is her sister with her. Very different proposition. They say you need a car jack to get her legs apart. Ah, look, Kiki with some ugly artists. I hear Mistinguett is coming tomorrow. See, Noghes has got a few famous faces down here.’ Antony Noghes was the cigarette tycoon who had bankrolled this attempt to start the Monte Carlo season early by running what he hoped would become the most fashionable motor race in the world. Maurice lowered the glasses. ‘And shouldn’t you be in the pits?’
‘Ettore banished me. Says I intimidate the drivers.’ Maurice laughed. He could just imagine his brother, eyes so piercing you felt as if he could see into your soul, making the young blades feel uneasy, as if they weren’t up to the job of filling his shoes. Which, as far as Robert was concerned, they
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