Hamilton anticipates Monaco - while eliminating distractions

Nicole woke up in Hamilton’s suite at the Mandarin-Oriental, Barcelona and immediately felt that something was not right. Only the sheets on her side of the huge bed were ruffled and there was a disquieting silence about the place. She quickly got up and looked in every room in the suite: there was no sign of Hamilton to be found. She sat down on a sofa in the living room and tried to think. Where had he gone? As she puzzled over the whereabouts of her absent lover, her eye was caught by a notebook on the coffee table. She picked it up absent-mindedly and opened it. “Velazquez?” she gasped. “What? The Goya Majas? What on earth is going on?”

Nicole put the notebook down and began to think fast and furiously. Something was not right. Lewis and art? No. Never. She remembered taking him to the Museum of Morden Art a few years ago and showing him her favourite Jackson Pollock painting, The She-Wolf. His philistinic reaction had infuriated her: “Call that a painting? This must be some kind of joke, right? It looks like a gang of nursery kids just shook some paint-drenched rags over the canvas! Why would anyone pay good money for this shit?

 

Yes, she remembered the day well. Lewis, the ignorant twit. What then? This was definitely Lewis’s notebook, but the curious thing about it was that the person who had written in it was certainly not Lewis. Nicole knew for sure that Lewis had brought the notebook with him when he arrived at the suite yesterday afternoon from Madrid because it wasn’t there when she herself had first arrived earlier. Lewis must have left it by accident after she accused him of visiting a Madrid whore-house.

Nicole began to feel discomfort. Had she gone too far this time? After all, anybody could lie for Spain if they were offered one thousand Euros “to spot Lewis”. A chill suddenly ran along her spine. She felt an icy spasm grip her heart. Lewis always came back with his tail between his legs when she had a go at him. It worked like clockwork every time. But, not this time. Lewis hadn’t said a word when he left the suite yesterday and, worst of all, he had remained silent - and away. Had she pushed him out of her life for ever?

Once she had dressed and breakfasted on black coffee in the vast Blanc Brasserie downstairs, Nicole stepped out. When in Barcelona she and Lewis always stayed at the Mandarin-Oriental, but there was one year when they had tried The Majestic. She made her way there and swept in as nonchalantly as if she owned the place. She approached a porter sashaying her hips seductively.

“Hi,” she said and flashed him her sweetest smile. “I was day-dreaming and seem to have lost Lewis. Did you see where he went?”

 

The porter did not hesitate for a second.”Good morning madam,” he rasped, his eyes widening. I think he went to the gym. I saw him going down there ten minutes ago.”

“Thanks,” said Nicole, her smile broadening.

“It’s a pleasure, madam,” breathed the porter, his eyes dancing merrily up and down her body.

At the gym, Nicole stood hidden from view by a pillar as she surveyed the interior. Under the steely gaze of his personal trainer, Lewis was wearing boxing gloves and singing while rapidly pounding a heavy bag as his feet shuffled to the beat of the song blaring out of the sound system.

Because I'm happy
Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof
Because I'm happy
Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth
Because I'm happy
Clap along if you know what happiness is to you
Because I'm happy
Clap along if you feel like that's what you wanna do

The scene hit Nicole hard. She felt as though she was a pedestrian crossing a road and had suddenly been floored by a fast-moving lorry. Without pausing for breath or thinking about what she was doing, she rushed back to the hotel lobby and found herself instructing the doorman to get her a taxi. Instinctively, she demanded to be driven to her favourite location in Barcelona, the one place where she always found solace: the Joan Miró Foundation. There, like an automaton, she glided through the rooms until she was before Miro’s surrealist masterpiece Bathing Woman.

 

Nicole first saw the disturbing, yet uplifting painting in the Pompidou Centre, Paris when she was in her early twenties. She had been told that it was one of a series on loan to the Miró Foundation for a short while. Miró painted it in the 1920s in Paris as one in a series of surrealist images which he composed when he belonged to an extraordinary group of surrealist artists and thinkers brought together by the incomparable Andre Breton.

Nicole stared longingly at the masterpiece for a few minutes before slowly sinking to her knees and weeping as though her heart would break.

Later that day, a call was put through to Hamilton’s penthouse suite at Hotel Majestic. He listened carefully to what the voice at the other end had to say before saying slowly and evenly “I am racing at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya this weekend. I am going to win that race.” He calmly replaced the receiver and stared out of his window at the city of Barcelona bathed in the late Spring sunshine.

On Monday of the following week, as Hamilton pushed his trolley out of London’s Heathrow Airport, a female cub-reporter ran panting up to him poised unsteadily with a pad and pencil. “Congratulations on your stunning win in Barcelona!” she screamed. “Are you and Nicole now going to get married?” Hamilton’s face betrayed no emotion. Eyes pointed steadily ahead, he said curtly “I have a race in Monte Carlo in a fortnight and thirteen more after that this year. There’s lots to do.” With that Hamilton was gone.

Hamilton was next seen descending the steps of his blood-red private jet at Nice airport on

 Wednesday this week.

He was looking relaxed and fit; ready to do battle at the highlight of the Formula One calendar: the Monaco Grand Prix

  

 

Since his sole Formula One triumph at Monaco 2008, Hamilton had not won here. That win in 2008 was talismanic – it was from the moment he received his Monte Carlo trophy from the Monegasque ruler on that fateful day that he began to believe himself capable of winning the world championship. A win here on Sunday would mean the fifth consecutive win for Hamilton this season. It would give him the momentum he needed to surge probably far enough ahead of everyone else to secure a sufficient bank of points to make him almost mathematically impossible to beat.

Niki Lauda had expressed sentiments such as these. “Hamilton is already the world champion,” he roared. But Lauda’s words needed to be taken with a pinch of salt – as Chairman of Mercedes F1 Racing, there could be more than a hint of mischief behind them. Lauda, a seasoned ex-world champion himself, would have known only too well how mind-games work in Formula One. There was still a very long way to go.

Monaco meant so much more to drivers than any other race, it was almost tempting to think of it as a stand-alone event set apart from the world championship. Michael Schumacher’s famous words about Monaco after winning the race one year rang through Hamilton’s head every time he came here: “There are two prizes in Formula One, winning the world championship and winning the Monaco Grand Prix. If you win both, you feel on top of the world.”

Nobody understood this better than Hamilton’s hero Ayrton Senna. Before his death twenty years ago, he won six Monaco Grands Prix; five of them in a row – nobody else had ever done that before and nobody else has come close to doing it since.

Hamilton fixed his mind on Senna as he ordered his thoughts in anticipation of F1’s Blue Riband event.

Gitau

22 May 2014

Goya was not a Barcelona man, was he?

Early on Wednesday morning in Madrid this week, a shadowy young man in a hooded jersey was wandering surreptitiously up and down Paseo del Prado looking this way and that and anxiously glancing at his watch every 30 or so seconds. If he had sought to give the impression of a nonchalant tourist enjoying a leisurely stroll through the enchanting streets of the Spanish capital, he could hardly have failed more abjectly.

At one minute before 10, the young man positioned himself outside the main entrance to the Museo del Prado and was the first visitor in the grand building when the doors finally swung open on the hour. Once inside, his hunched shoulders relaxed a little and his creased forehead smoothened out. He gave one last furtive look round before slipping off his sunglasses and extracting a notebook from the folds of his jersey. On it, in a hand which was not his own, were some notes:

If in a hurry, at least see the big Velazquez and the Goya Majas.

The young man glanced again at his watch. There was no doubt about it: he was in a hurry. He approached a museum attendant.
“Excuse me please,” he said, “I have only a few minutes but want to make sure I see..” he glanced at his notebook,“..the big Velazquez and the Goya Majas. Is that possible?”
The attendant smiled. “Of course, it is possible. Las Meninas and the Majas are not far away from one another. Every man in search of an alibi in this enormous museum asks me the same question.”

The young man swore under his breath as he made his way to the gallery to which he had been directed. “Arsehole. Who the fuck does he think he is? He hasn't even got the first idea who I am. Fucking twerp. If only he knew.”

When the young man found himself in a gallery dedicated to Francisco Goya, he quickly forgot about his irritation with the impertinent attendant when he read the story beneath the pair of Goya paintings he saw before him which had changed painting history, La Maja Desnuda (The Naked Maja) and La Maja Vestida (The Clothed Maja). Before Goya, artists painted nude girls with their eyes bashfully averted away from those of the viewer or their heads facing the rear wall. Goya’s model has an assertive gaze towards the viewer, which can be deemed as provocative by those less charitable than Goya.







It intrigued the young man to learn that in the 1930s, Spain caused outrage in the puritanical United States of America by issuing postage stamps depicting the innovative La Maja Desnuda. Any letter bearing one of the stamps was denied entry into the USA. The young man shook his head in bemusement. Christ almighty, he thought. If they could only have seen what comes out of America today!

Later that morning the young man caught a flight to Barcelona. In his taxi on the way to his hotel he tried to empty his mind of the sights he had visited during his sojourn in the south of Spain and Madrid. There would be ample time to think about those things later. Now he had important work to do.

As soon as he had stepped into his hotel suite, he saw out of the corner of his right eye a shoe fly past his head and strike the door. This was following by its partner which just clipped his left ear.

“Where the fuck have you been, you chicken shit!”

He held his hands out in alarm. “Nicole, what are you doing…”

A cricket-ball sized glass paperweight struck the door behind him.

“I bust my ass to get a break from all the shit I have to do in the States, get over here to give you a surprise and you ain’t here. I was going to give you two clear days with me before your fucking race but, no, you had to disappear. Where to huh? Where, motherfucker?”

“Nicole, I had no idea…”

Hamilton ducked in time to avoid a pen aimed at his right eye.

“Did you tell anyone where you were going? Do you have any idea how hard I have tried looking for you?”
“If you will just allow me…”

“Do you think that all I want to do is spend my fucking time looking for your sorry little ass? That I haven’t got enough to do. Do you, asshole? Do you, huh?



Hamilton sighed heavily. Talking to Nicole when she was in this excitable state was useless. He turned his head slightly to look out of the window to his right, almost as if he were in search of inspiration. Just as he did so, Nicole swept out of the room into the bathroom and slammed the door behind her.

Hamilton sank heavily into the nearest sofa to him. He knew with faultless certainty that histrionics like those he had just witnessed were the last thing he needed ahead of an important racing weekend. With four points between himself and championship leader and team-mate, Nico Rosberg, he couldn’t afford to allow anything to cause him to lose focus. Mercedes had a speed and reliability advantage over the other teams at the moment, but that would soon disappear as the others rushed to catch up. Bagging pole position on Saturday was critical at a low overtaking circuit like Barcelona and full concentration was essential if pole position was to be converted into victory on Sunday. He did not need to be told that his mind could ill afford the distractions represented by potty-mouthed, missile-lobbing women.



The bathroom door opened and Nicole emerged. Curiously, this time she was smiling cheekily. She walked up to the sofa and sat next to a very perplexed Hamilton. Kissing his ear fondly, she whispered “how was Juliana?”

Hamilton’s body immediately stiffened. He tried opening his mouth to say something but no sound came out of it. Nicole began rubbing his belly. “Did she do this to you?” she said throatily.

Hamilton got up suddenly and walked quickly to the drinks cabinet were he poured himself a large whisky and feverishly drained the glass. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Nicole,” he said without turning round to look at her. She laughed sneeringly.

“I knew you were never going to be brave enough to visit a brothel in Barcelona. You never imagined that I would suspect you of going to Madrid, did you? Well, I paid 3 madams at the classiest whoring joints in Madrid to tell me if they saw you. Everybody knows who you are, Lewis, you idiot. Guess what? One of them phoned me this morning. I know everything you little chicken-shit, everything!”

Hamilton walked slowly to the door and out into La Rambla. As he walked down towards the sea shore, he concentrated his mind on positive thoughts. Barcelona was far too important for distractions. “You have the best car,” he said to himself. “Nobody comes close to matching your speed, not Nico, not Fernando, not Sebastian, nobody. 2014 is your year. You are a colossus, just like the one in the Goya painting. Every other driver will flee from you once they see the majesty of your greatness. You are invincible!



“A giant. An unbeatable beast. Barcelona is your race. Yours, Lewis, YOURS!”

Gitau
7 May 2014