Velvet Viper

Before the first appointment

Priya Soke carries one egg timer between the housing clinic's front desk and the room where people meet to settle disputes. She never puts it out for anyone who hasn't agreed that they'll both get a turn. A boy who came in with his mother once turned the timer all the way around before she was supposed to speak. Priya unplugged the desk telephone, took the smaller chair and gave the boy's mother the entire wind-down. At the end of it they still disagreed about what had started the trouble. They agreed where to put one shoe rack and signed separately, while the boy watched the last little mark appear. Priya got home too late that day to use her own front room and went back out for noodles.

Tariq, a friend she's eaten with for years, can tell which noodles she's ordered without looking, because for the cheap ones she puts her chopsticks down as soon as he starts a question. He has stopped asking what she needs when she puts them down. These days he waits.

One clean appointment

At DGM she first sat beside the Jaguar 2015 F-Type Project 7 in the paddock while the people around her tried to explain when she'd get to drive. They all started from a different arrangement. She brought the egg timer back the next practice and asked for one continuous window even if it was short. On the board at the practice gate she could see exactly when it would end, and which other names would follow. Suddenly the people making arrangements could come to her from one direction. She went through the whole first stretch quietly and only corrected the Jaguar once, with a short firm movement she had felt herself making before she got to see it on a clip.

When her time ended, there was a lot more space by the bench because the next person had been able to wait without asking for updates. It took her an hour to find the egg timer after the session. Nobody had taken it. Priya had walked past it three times while looking for something much smaller.

Leaving a clear path

The argument about the benches left a loose collection of things all the way to the track entrance. Priya watched Elisa Duque bring a good drawing of the way around them. She asked if they could push the cart to see the turn with all the towels and cones still in it; she wanted somebody using it to be able to get through without help. They could go around by the fence if they turned at the first end of the rack. Priya helped Samir find a place where there'd still be space for an elbow after they made the change.

She likes waiting for the front of the Jaguar to accept weight before she gives the car one firm steering input. She can judge that wait on short practice runs. The ambition is to retain the same rhythm across a string of fast corners, when a person watching could reasonably wonder if she's taking too long.

One minute for Tariq

Tariq has asked to come watch. Priya is supposed to call him as soon as she knows an end time, because he knows the last bus down through Nightjar City and has promised noodles on arrival. She set the timer on the bench and saw someone else read it sideways. There was still a space beside it for a key, and she placed hers where the person could go on telling time.