The Tribulations of Hermione

 “Malcolm Turnbull, you stupid, heartless bastard,” Hermione sobbed, “you mean-spirited, selfish, arrogant low-life.” She had just received the news of her boyfriend’s death by way of a terse telephone call from a person whose name she did not quite catch. Grief-stricken and confused, Hermione spent the next four days weeping disconsolately and wishing she was dead. Why in the name of anything did he do it, she kept asking herself. Why? The enormity of Malcolm’s duplicity and then his suicide had shaken Hermione hard. She tried going out for a walk in her local park but that didn’t work as it was the park where she and Malcolm had spent many happy moments and every single tree, every path, every flower-bed reminded her of him. She attempted distracting herself by watching films on DVD but found herself unable to muster the concentration necessary to make sense of any film. It was all too much to take.

The weight of Hermione’s misery wore heavily on her. She lost weight. Her hair looked bedraggled. She took on the aspect of the melancholy Girl with Pigs in the painting by Thomas Gainsborough.

Hermione realised that something had to be done. But what? It occurred to her that it might help to speak to another human being, so she arranged to meet a friend for coffee on Saturday morning on the King’s Road in Chelsea. It was the right thing to do because little did she know that it would inadvertently result in a lightbulb moment. As she walked through Chelsea, Hermione stopped outside a small shop which sold prints of famous F1 images. Framed in the window was a painting of F1 racing cars.

Hermione stared at the picture for a couple of minutes, mesmerised. Then in a manner reminiscent of the biblical story of the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, the enthusiastic persecutor of Christians – immortalised in oil paint on canvas by the Italian Baroque painting genius, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, in the magnificent work The Conversion of St Paul – she had an epiphany.

Caravaggio, an exceptionally gifted artist, was a hell raiser and murderer but, when commissioned to produce a religious painting, invariably produced something so profound that admiring the work made (and still makes) one’s head reel in wonder. The paintings speak for themselves. Nobody needs to tell you the biblical story about how Saul, on his way to kill Christians, was blinded by a bright light and fell off his horse when he heard the voice of Jesus asking “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” when you see this staggering picture. It is all there before your eyes.

Hermione realised at the moment of seeing the picture of the racing cars that the only way to exorcise the ghost of Malcolm Frederick Turnbull was to embrace the thing he loved: she had to cultivate an abiding interest in and love for all things Formula One. If she did this, her brain told her, she would forever be communing with Malcolm from beyond the grave. There was no time to be lost. She extracted her phone from her handbag and made a quick phone call.

“Eleanor, have you left home yet?”

“Don’t be silly, Hermione, the café’s only 30 seconds away from me. I’m still putting my face on!”

“Sorry to ruin your morning, Eleanor love, but I have to dash off somewhere urgently. I’ll phone you to rearrange our coffee. Byee!”

Hermione than dashed off home and got onto her computer. She typed in the words “Formula One” and began to peruse the numerous articles that popped up. The more she read, the more fascinated she became. She read about the early years: the days when F1 cars were not that far removed from street cars and driven by burly men like Juan Manuel Fangio and Alberto Ascari. She gasped at the tales of the danger years in the 60s and 70s when getting home after a day on the race track was a feat in itself; when talented young men like Jim Clark, Jochen Rindt, François Cevert and many others needlessly lost their lives. She smiled at the tales of mind games played in the 1990s between Nigel Mansell, Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna. She almost nodded off when she got to the years of control exercised by Michael Schumacher. By the time she got to the present day, she had been at her computer for nearly the whole day.

Hermione was puzzled by recent developments. How, she wondered, could it be that a sport so steeped in history could have got itself into such organisational difficulties that racing teams were falling off the edge by the day? The newspaper articles were scathing: “F1 in crisis” one headline screamed; “Formula One has lost its way” raged another; “F 1 can’t get a grip on costs” roared yet another. The issue causing all this consternation was the fact that costs had spiralled to such an extent that many F1 teams could not manage the financial commitments required of them. Two small teams, Marussia and Caterham had gone to the wall and it was feared that others could soon follow suit if something wasn’t done. Could these things have been contributing factors in throwing Malcom’s mind into such a tailspin that he was unable to cope with being alive?

Hermione made a quick decision. If F1 was in terminal decline, she had to see a live race before the end. The next race was in Texas, which was convenient because if there was a country she could never have enough of it was the United States of America. She would get tickets for the race in Austin. Finding a company called “Luxury F1 Holidays” on the internet was the work of an instant. The determining factor for Hermione was their sales pitch: “F1 is the pinnacle of motor sport; it shouldn’t be treated as a backpack trip”. She decided to phone them.

“I greet you in the name of Jee-Zos,” said the person who answered the phone.

“Eh? Is that Luxury F1 Holidays?” Hermione asked with some trepidation.

“I do beg your pardon,” said a posh voice. “My business partner who handles our West African luxury travel business is holed up in quarantine in Sierra Leone because of this whole Ebola business, so I am having to look after her clients as convincingly as I can until she gets back, which is rather more than I am used to, I must say, but there we are. Forgive me, I digress. How may we be of service?”

Moments later Hermione was the proud owner of US Grand Prix tickets, a Business Class ticket on British Airways, a lake view room in the Four Seasons hotel, luxury transport to and from the Circuit of the Americas and a guide to accompany her to the events in Austin during the 2014 United States Grand Prix. She had had to use the limitless American Express card daddy gave her “for emergencies” on the basis that if this was not an emergency, then what was? She was all set. Her mind was now firmly focused on things F1 and she found that she had developed a liking for the only F1 star the Americans recognised, Lewis Hamilton.

The flight to Austin on Wednesday was filled to the gunwales. As she leafed through her complimentary copy of High Life magazine she heard what she felt certain was a familiar voice.

“I didn’t think we were going to make this flight, Kaz. That was really close. I am sorry we didn’t have time to go to the lounge. It was all that fuckwit taxi driver’s fault! And my chickenshit boyfriend wouldn’t send his fucking plane over. I’ll tell him what I think about that, you wait! Anyway, I am glad I managed to get a call in to the manager at the Four Seasons and remind him about my salad. They prepare a special salad for me every time I go there . You’ve gotta try it, it’s delicious. Yum. The Nicole Special. Yum”

Hermione peered round using her magazine as a shield. To her horror, two ladies whom she recognised were walking down the aisle to occupy the two vacant seats across the aisle to her left. They were Malcolm’s Japanese widow, Kazumi, and Nicole Scherzinger. Oh buggeration!

Suddenly, going to the United States Grand Prix seemed an entirely different prospect for Hermione Urquhart Page.

Gitau

Halloween 2014