[Caerphilly, Wales – 10:12 AM, 21st of February, 1922]
The Talbot gleamed in the little light that made it through the clouds hovering above the pale Welsh morning.
Its bonnet shone silver beneath the thin veil of mist that clung to the mountain road, every polished line catching the weak February sun. Kitty stopped dead in the gravel, her gloved hands pressed to her mouth as she was unable to breathe for a moment.
"Teddy…" she said in a voice that was a mixture of disbelief and elation. She turned her head to look at me, but her eyes remained looking at the car next to me.
I stood against the motorcar with my hands in my coat pockets, trying and failing to look casual. The smile tugging at the corner of my mouth gave my satisfaction at her reaction away.
"Well?" I asked, then adding a sarcastic tone. "You've been staring at it for nearly a minute. I'm beginning to think you don't like it. Is it the wrong colour? they come from the factory grey but we can have it repainted."
Kitty turned to me so quickly her coat flared slightly around her knees.
"Don't be absurd."
She crossed the yard in three hurried steps and threw her arms around me.
I gave a startled laugh as she hugged me fiercely, nearly knocking the cap from my head.
"It's beautiful," she said as she began to try and open the bonnet. "Oh, Teddy, she's beautiful."
I wrapped one arm around her as she stared in awe at the engine.
"Your first Talbot," I said. "A proper racing machine. Or near enough for one."
She stepped back and turned immediately toward the car again, her eyes shining. She ran her fingertips reverently along the edge of the bonnet, as though afraid it might vanish if she touched too hard.
The Talbot was not the newest machine in Britain nor the most powerful, but to Kitty, it may as well have been a Grand Prix winner. Narrow-bodied, purposeful, and elegant in that restrained way only the best motorcars seemed to manage; it looked fast even standing still.
"You truly mean for me to drive her?" she asked.
"I mean for you to race her." I replied, which caused Kitty to freeze.
For weeks she had talked of little else but the upcoming hill climb at Caerphilly. The mountain road with its punishing bends and steep gradients had become something almost mythical in her mind. She had read every scrap of race coverage she could find, memorised the names of the men who competed there, and traced the route with her finger on an old motoring map until the paper had nearly worn through.
There was something about seeing a person you cared about obsess over something that just fed the soul, wasn't there?
Now the dream stood before her in polished metal and wire wheels.
"At Caerphilly?" she asked, scarcely daring to say it aloud.
"At Caerphilly," I confirmed.
She turned so sharply to face him that the hem of her skirt brushed the Talbot's tyres.
"But… as a driver?"
He laughed softly. "That is generally how one races."
Kitty gave him a look, half scandalised and half thrilled.
"This would be my first amateur event."
"I know."
"There'll be real competitors."
"I should hope so."
"Men who've done this for years."
Teddy pushed himself off the fence and came closer, his expression gentling.
"And a few women who want it more than any of them."
The words settled warmly in her chest.
Kitty looked back toward the Talbot, imagining it already: the climb; the crowd gathered along the roadside in heavy coats and flat caps; the smell of oil and cold air; and the nervous tremble in her hands before the start.
Her first race.
Not a secret dash down country lanes. Not a borrowed motor on some estate road where no one was meant to see.
A real event.
A proper amateur hill climb.
She laughed then, unable to help herself, the sound bright enough to scatter the morning stillness.
"Oh, Teddy," she said, "I shall either make a splendid debut or roll backward off the mountain."
He grinned. "Preferably the latter."
Kitty pushed me sarcasticly as she circled the Talbot, inspecting every detail with growing delight.
"What made you choose this one?"
I patted the bonnet affectionately.
"Reliable engine. Responsive steering. Enough power to climb well without being so temperamental it frightens a first-time racer half to death, or at least that's what the man who sold it said."
She raised an eyebrow. "And you assume I frighten easily?"
"No…" I replied, smiling. "I assume the opposite, which is rather more dangerous, I think."
That earned me another quick hug, less wild than the first but no less heartfelt.
When she pulled away, her face had changed.
Still excited, still glowing…but now sharpened by purpose.
"When do we leave?"
"For Caerphilly?"
She nodded.
Teddy checked his pocket watch. "If we make good time, we can reach the paddock before the other amateurs begin their practice runs."
Kitty's pulse leapt.
Practice runs.
The phrase alone made it all feel suddenly real.
She climbed into the Talbot's driver's seat, settling behind the wheel with a kind of reverence. The leather was cold through her gloves, the instrument panel simple and stern before her.
Teddy leaned on the door.
"Nervous?"
Kitty placed both hands on the wheel and closed her eyes as she took a deep breath in.
"Yes."
"Good."
She looked up at me.
"Good?"
"It means you understand it matters."
For a moment neither of us spoke.
Then Kitty nodded slowly.
It did matter.
Not because of trophies, or newspaper lines, or the possibility of scandalised society gossip when people learnt another young wayward woman had entered a hill climb.
It mattered because this was the first thing that was wholly hers.
Her first race. Her first Talbot. Her first step into the world she had only ever admired from the edges.
She took a breath, tasted the cold mountain air, and brought the engine to life.
The Talbot answered with a rich mechanical growl that sent a thrill straight through her.
Teddy stepped back, smiling as the car trembled eagerly beneath her.
"Well then, Miss Kitty," he said, tipping his cap. "Off to your first amateur race."
Kitty grinned, her eyes alight with fierce joy.
"To Caerphilly."
And with that, she let out the clutch and sent the Talbot rolling toward the mountain road, toward the climb, toward the first moment of the life she had always wanted.
From where I stood behind the rope line, the whole business of the hill climb had an odd sort of ritual to it.
The mountain road had been closed since dawn, the officials posted at intervals up the course in heavy coats, each man armed with a flag and a stopwatch. Unlike a circuit race, there would be a pack of motorcars thundering wheel-to-wheel.
Caerphilly was a contest against the mountain itself. Each driver took the road alone, one after another, sent off from the start by the drop of a marshal's arm and the bark of an engine brought suddenly to life.
The winner would not be the boldest in overtaking or the cleverest in traffic but the one who could coax the quickest time over the twisting climb.
My eyes followed the road as it snaked upward along the mountainside, vanishing between stone walls, winter hedges, and bare trees before reappearing higher above in cruel, narrow bends. The course looked deceptively simple from below.
Almost like a ribbon of pale paths cutting into the slope…
But I could guess the challenge that lay in every yard of it. The driver had to launch cleanly from the line, take the lower section fast enough to build momentum, and then preserve that speed through the bends without losing nerve or traction as they went up an ever-steeper inclination. A moment's hesitation at the hairpin, a gear chosen too late, and precious seconds would be gone.
Now Kitty sat waiting in the Talbot at the starting line, goggles pushed down, gloved fingers tight on the wheel. I could not see her expression from here, but I knew the set of her shoulders well enough to imagine it: utterly still on the outside, every inch of her alive beneath.
If I were to say I was not worried, I would be lying; after all, we all have that little worm in our head whispering doubts, but those were not my own.
The starter stepped forward, his hand raised.
The crowd quieted in that peculiar way crowds did. It wasn't not silence exactly, but a tightening of sound as voices quietened with expectation. I found myself holding my breath along with them.
Then the arm dropped.
The Talbot leapt forward, rear wheels biting at the gravel before finding traction, and Kitty was away, charging into the hill alone, with the mountain waiting above.
Motor racing in the early 1920s still carried the air of something gloriously unrefined. The cars were not yet the sleek, specialised machines they would one day become but great long-bonneted beasts of metal, leather straps, and exposed mechanical nerve.
Engines coughed, spat, and thundered with personalities all their own, every machine seeming less built and more tamed. Drivers sat high and exposed behind enormous steering wheels, goggles pulled tight against the sting of wind, oil, and flying grit, with little between themselves and disaster but nerve and instinct.
There was danger in every part of it, and that danger was accepted almost casually. Roads used for racing were often ordinary public roads closed for the day, from country lanes to mountain approaches or even just broad circuits marked only by straw bales, ropes, and hopeful spectators who stood far closer than anyone sensible ought to.
The surfaces were uneven, patched with loose stones, mud at the verges, and ruts left by weather or waggon wheels. A driver did not simply race the other competitors; they fought the road itself, the machine beneath them, and the constant threat of a tyre bursting or brakes fading at the worst possible bend.
Yet there was romance in it that I found no safer age would ever produce. Motor racing was still young enough to feel adventurous, a proving ground not only for speed but also for courage and ingenuity. Then again that was what happened with most things, wasn't it?
Wealthy amateurs mixed with professional works drivers, aristocrats with mechanics, men and the occasional daring woman, all united by the same appetite for velocity. The crowd did not come merely to see who won; they came to witness machines doing what common sense said they ought not. To climb impossible hills, to hurl themselves through village roads, to chase the very edge of what the modern age believed possible.
For Kitty, I don't think that was the true magic of it after all; only I, with the benefit of hindsight, could see that it was not a polished sport yet. I think it just spoke to her; maybe in another time she never would have found the spark I saw in her eyes when she spoke of it, or maybe the pressure of society's expectations snuffed it out.
I just know for sure that I'm going to feed it as much fuel as it needs.