Deniz makes it to tenth place in the final training session on Saturday. Sandro ends up on twelve. Tom takes the opportunity to give them a briefing on how not to mess up when starting in mid-field.

  Faith declines all interview requests. The speculations about her deal with Mori are wild; she wants to wait until after the race. Strathairns new cars will be ready for Suzuka. Until then everything is still being held together by glue and prayers. Sepang is only a step on the way.

  “It’s like a dream, really”, she says at the press conference. Deniz had only finished sixth, but they had expressly invited her, and so she had dragged Tom along with her. “We were down and out in Melbourne, and now we’re in sixth place! Decisions have been made in the space of a few hours, and everything has turned around. Arigato, Mori Motors, and thank you Tom.”

  The next reporter talks to Tom. “How large is your part in this, Tom?”

  “I believe they would have done the same thing without me”, he says. Faith gives him a little shove, but he goes on, “They have great people on the team. The drivers, George Strathairn, the whole crew. I’m just proud that I’m part of it, really. And I believe that Wallace Burns made the right choice when he picked his successor.” He looks at Faith, who blushes.

  “Would you like to tell us now, Faith, how you landed the deal with Mori?”

  She shakes her head. “There is not much to say. We had lost our engines, and Mr Mori saw the chance to sell off the ones he had sitting around doing nothing. Is it not great that two generations of Akane-Mori engines are competitive? We were lucky. Sometimes you have to be lucky.”

  “But Mori is not exactly known for kindness when it comes to dealing with competitors.”

  “Is this a question? Okay. Mr Mori is a businessman, and he is fair. We have a contract. Why would he not offer a good product to an interested buyer, for a fair price? It’s not that we have won today – not yet.” She pauses for a second to let the irony sink in. “But if we take his engines and develop good things, he will also profit. In the end, I cannot really speculate about Mr Mori’s motivation. This is just the way I see it.”

  The final question is whether they are going to celebrate.

  “Like hell we will”, Tom says.

  Walking back to the garage, Tom says, “Well done. You really handle these journalists wonderfully.”

  She smiles. “There must be something I’m good at.”

  “The questions about Mori – excellent.”

  They are interrupted on their way by some people who want to shake hands. Then she admits, “I did have time to think about it.”

  He chuckles. She stops, forcing him to turn towards her. “Tom, today was good, wasn’t it? I mean, sixth and ninth. A point in the championship ranking. This is better than my grandpa did with Claymore in the last five years. It was good, was it not?” She does not know why, maybe it is the adrenalin leaving her system, but she feels that she needs to cry.

  Tom just hugs her, letting her go only when she relaxes. “It was all good, Faith. You can be proud. Okay?”

  She sniffles. “Okay.”

  He moves on but she catches his hand and says, earnestly, “Thank you.” He pulls her onwards to the garage.

  The place has been turned into a party location. The cars are at the impound. The men have improvised a large table and ordered pizza. There is also beer, which is semi okay. A karaoke machine has been connected to the large screen. Tom and Faith are led to the places of honour. They can tell that the men are a couple of beers ahead.

  For the karaoke, they have singled out Robbie Williams as a team favourite. Deniz is doing a good performance of ‘Rock DJ’, cheered on by the others, and nobody notices Daijiro Mori, who is standing in the door.

  Tom sees him eventually and makes him sit in his place next to Faith. In no time he has been handed a beer he does not touch. Faith smiles at him, not quite sure what to make of his visit.

  “We are celebrating, thanks to you”, she shouts across the noise. “It’s good of you to stop by.”

  He just nods. The noise is overwhelming.

  “Are your team not having a party?”

  He shakes his head. “None that I care for.”

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Faith clinks her bottle against his. “You are always welcome.”

  Mori hates the party noise, not so much because it is nearly impossible to talk to Faith; that she is pleased to see him is quite enough. But this kind of noise is not engines, nor is the music to his taste. And as for the singing – that is painful, too.

  The team members take turns, each singer nominating the next one, and also picking their song. When it is George Strathairn’s turn, there is a debate. Strathairn refuses to sing a Robbie Williams song. They settle on ‘Return to Sender’ eventually, and when Faith joins in for the chorus, everybody is singing along, and nobody pays attention to the way Strathairn slurs his way through. He gets his round of applause anyway. Then it is back to Robbie, a talented mechanic, and ‘Supreme’.

  This is fascinating. The music video shows Jackie Stewart in his young racing days, apparently mixed with the singer as his opponent. Mori watches and forgets everything around him. He notices only towards the end of the song that Faith has been singing along. Tom shouts across the table that this ought to be their anthem, to which she nods excitedly.

  Then the mechanic chooses the next song and calls for Tom and Faith.

  “Oh no”, she laughs, but she rises and joins Tom in front of the screen. The song is ‘Something stupid’.

  “No, no, no”, she protests. “Give us ‘Road to Mandalay’, please. Anything but this.”

  “No, ma’am. This is it. Give it your all.”

  Tom takes another swig from his bottle. Faith loosens her ponytail and tightens it again. The song starts, and they sing the first verse together. Then, to the surprise of everyone including Tom, she breaks from the main line and sings a harmony to it. Tom does his best to maintain the melody, but Faith’s voice soars above it or sinks below it, wrapping itself around it just beautifully.

  Mori listens to true music for the first time this evening, and it is coming from her. The video shows a beautiful couple in standard situations, but he is all ears. The finishing lines are a repeated “I love you”, which is being sung with enjoyment. Everyone applauds and cheers, but then something is off. Faith returns to her seat without a word, and Tom calls for Sully to sing ‘Road to Mandalay’. Then he disappears. Mori is not an expert, but something is weird.

  The party, however, continues, and after a while he signals to Faith that he will be leaving. She accompanies him outside and walks with him towards the paddock.

  “I’m sorry to keep you from your celebration”, he says.

  “Oh, not at all. I don’t really enjoy such things. But they’ve earned it. I’m sorry that you had to endure our awful singing.”

  It is only later, when he analyses their conversation, that he understands that she must have been joking. At this moment he takes it seriously. “Your singing is not awful at all. You are a musician?”

  “Not really. I play the piano. Boarding schools in Europe – they make sure you do.” She hesitates, and then she goes on, “I’ve had a phase in my life when I thought I wanted to be a concert pianist. I must have been sixteen then. But I was not good enough.”

  “I believe you could be anything.”

  She laughs a little.

  “You still can. Let me assure you that my interest and my offer are holding up. With me, you will be free to do whatever you like.”

  Faith stops and he turns to her. She says calmly, “I appreciate your offer, and I’m thinking about it every day. I still do not understand how I deserve it.”

  “I have decided that you do.”

  “And I cannot forbid that.”

  “I want to invite you to my house in Suzuka. I would like to show it to you.”

  Faith sees no other way than to accept the invitation.

  “Then I will send you an email to fix a day.”

  “With pleasure.”

  He is getting better at reading her. She has been smiling. He cannot see her face, it is too dark, but her voice has carried a smile. He is sure by now that she is the most beautiful woman in the world.

  “Good night then”, she says.

  He bows in the darkness.

  Faith takes her time on the way back to the party. Why must everything be so difficult? Why, if one thing is going well, and it is going well indeed, must something else become complicated or escalate? Mori is not going to back off, she is beginning to feel flattered. To have been singled out by this weirdly virginally reclusive man – she is starting to warm up to the thought. He is determined but unobtrusive; there is no harm in getting to know him better. Marrying him still seems impossible, but they could be friends, couldn’t they?

  No, the thing that troubles her is what had happened to her and Tom when they were singing that stupid song. She has been feeling so good around him. They work well together – and then they are singing “I love you” at one another, and she is feeling self-conscious. Somehow, everything they have has been ruined. He must have felt the same, or why did he disappear so promptly? She feels bad for him, for herself, for them.

  When she braces herself before entering the garage again, Tom comes forward from the shadows. “What did he want?”

  She hides the shock he has given her. “He has invited me to his home.”

  “And?”

  “Should I have said no?”

  Tom scoffs.

  “Pity”, she says.

  “What?”

  “That nothing is ever perfect, apparently.” She opens the door and the party noise engulfs her once more.