Two hours later Tom is standing on the front steps of Wake Hall, drawing in the clear night air. Burns had offered him to stay the night, but he had declined, under the pretence of staying with another friend in Oban. He needs to be somewhere alone, and to scream at the night sky. Driving through the moonlit night will make the evening complete.

  His dream is coming true. Burns had offered him a place on his Formula 1 team, Claymore Racing. A contract for one year, as a driver, with the option on another year. This is standard. Two hundred and fifty thousand pounds per year, which is exceeding his expectations. Burns had called it a chance. He had told him that he was not going to win any races, but Tom is very much aware of that anyway. Claymore had never won anything ever. But Claymore would be his chance. When he had asked how he could ever thank Burns, the old man had said that he must be world champion one day.

  That is not impossible. Sometimes Tom wonders where this belief comes from, and whether he is overconfident, but he really thinks that he could become the world’s best driver. He hates it when other people decide his fate, it makes him nervous when he is not in control, but tonight he had been dealt new cards, and he intends to play them well. The straightforwardness of race car driving – straightforward even when employing certain tactics – is what he likes. People are complicated, but on a race track he could leave them behind. That is what he is going to do. Burns has given him two years to prove himself, to get better teams interested in him, and in a few years’ time, he could be the number one.

  He starts to move around the corner of the manor, his steps crunching on the gravel. The moon is so bright that he has to blink to adjust and find his bike. Above him, on a balcony, he notices an orange dot of light moving against the darkness of the wall. The dot becomes brighter for a second. Somebody is smoking a cigarette. Then the person leans forward, elbows propped on the balustrade, and the moonlight illuminates the figure. Faith.

  Tom remembers her playing and regrets having declined the invitation to stay the night. At some point, he and Burns had stopped their talking and listened to her playing in the other room. The music had changed, it had been the same piece, but played differently, more precise, forceful. There had been no wariness any more. Even Tom had felt that it was painfully angry and intense. He had looked at Burns, who, again, had just nodded and smiled. They had sat in silence until the piece had ended and the lid on the manual had been slammed shut. Faith Casadoro might be an interesting person, indeed.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “I wouldn’t have told him”, she says, out of the blue. Tom needs a moment to figure out what she is talking about, but she goes on. “You need not have worried anyway. He likes you. It would not have made any difference. But I wouldn’t have told him.”

  “That’s good to know”, he says, taking his gloves from the bag on his bike. She is not like his sister who is also sixteen.

  She draws on her cigarette again. “Can’t you talk? You had no problem talking this afternoon.”

  He cannot see her face, so her irony irks him. “I’m sorry if I was rude. I hadn’t seen you there. The sun was in my eyes. It was directly behind you.”

  She laughs. “Was it? I had been fascinated by the moon. It had just risen, all pinkish and red, directly behind you.” She laughs again.

  For some reason, Tom decides to charge ahead. “What was the piece that you played? It was very pretty.”

  “Pretty. The fourth movement of Brahms’ third symphony, pretty?” Her tone is cautious again. He must have said the wrong thing. She is a minefield.

  “You play very well.”

  The orange dot makes a rash movement. “That wasn’t me. I was playing, but the music wasn’t mine. I was playing along to a recording, I had my headphones on. I was just playing along. That wasn’t me. I’m not that good.” She says it in a way that implies that she cannot play at all. As if his praise had hurt her. He keeps saying all the wrong things. But her telling on herself like this, her honesty, is also impressive.

  “Well, I liked it, anyway.” And when she does not answer, he goes on, “Where are you from?”

  “California. From paradise.”

  He sees that they are not getting anywhere. Not tonight. He puts on his gloves and gets his bike ready. She extinguishes her cigarette. Before he puts on his helmet, he says, “I’ll see you around, maybe.”

  “Maybe”, she replies, and then she adds, “Good luck.”

  When he waves to her, she has already left.