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From Belgium straight to the Netherlands, a short skip and a jump comparatively. Charles still wishes they’d taken a day or two back at Maranello. In a way, he wishes he hadn’t had a summer break at all, wishes the factory didn’t have to shut down. His whole relationship with the team still feels fragile, taped over like a torn front wing under budget caps. Still, here they are in Max’s other hometown, tripping over the border to do the whole thing all over again.
He’s in a hotel in Amsterdam when he comes across a meme from Spa, a Mario Kart edit of Max throwing his tear-off like a banana skin at Charles’s right front. Every time someone tells him to get off social media for the sake of his mental health, Charles wants to throw this sort of example back at them, because so far this has been the only piece of post-race analysis to make him want to laugh rather than weep. He forwards it to Carlos first, and then to Max. Carlos sends back the cry-laughing emoji, but Max actually replies in full:
Max
I’m so sorry mate. So typical.
Charles
No it’s funny. No apologies pls. It was maybe Lance’s anyway.
Max
lol okay. You’re in Amsterdam? Want to grab dinner?
Charles pauses, but only for a moment.
Charles
Sure. You pick somewhere.
Max
Of course. I’ll pick you up.
It’s moments like these, oddly enough, that make Charles feel like an adult, as he texts Andrea and Silvia to let them know about his change of plans. He feels - responsible, making this choice and informing his trainer and press officer, rather than asking permission or trying to hide it. He gets a thumbs up acknowledgement from Silvia and a brief “divertiti” [1] from Andrea.
Then again, sometimes he thinks of a life where he never started karting, a life of not running his every move past a team, and he feels very young again.
Max picks him up in a rental car. Charles slides into the passenger seat and resists trying to make a joke about letting someone else drive. He’s not very good at being funny on purpose, anyway.
“Where are you taking me?” he asks instead.
Max responds with a noise that Charles can’t even begin to interpret. He assumes it’s a word in Dutch and lets it wash over him. He doesn’t need to know.
The restaurant, whatever it’s called, is nice, a bit upmarket judging by the prices. That’s all Charles can judge it by, because the menu is in Dutch.
“You want me to translate?” asks Max.
Charles closes his menu. “You order for me,” he says.
Max raises his eyebrows. “Any, uh, restrictions?”
Charles scoffs. “I am not Lando.”
Max laughs at that - perhaps Charles can be funny on purpose after all - and doesn’t ask any further. When the waitress comes by, he orders entirely in Dutch, ignoring her attempt to address Charles in English. Charles sits back, smiling.
“You seem relaxed,” Max says to him.
Charles shrugs. “It is Tuesday.”
“No,” Max disagrees. “Even on Sunday.”
“Aïe,” Charles sighs. “We were all relaxed on Sunday. We sat back and watched the Max Verstappen show.”
Max can’t quite contain a smirk at that. “It was of course pretty relaxing for me too.”
Charles laughs, surprised and pleased. “I will try to stress you this weekend.”
“You better,” says Max.
Around them, the restaurant sparkles with light conversation. Mostly Dutch, Charles assumes, some English he can pick out if he strains. No French, so he listens to none of it.
“How was your summer?” he asks Max. “You were with Kelly, no?”
“And Penelope,” Max adds. “It was good. Family holiday. Sort of, uh, a novelty. And you were in… Ibiza?”
“Because I am young and vibrant,” Charles teases.
“So I am old?”
“You are a… putain [2], I’ve lost the word. Beau-père.”
“Say again?”
“Beau-père,” Charles repeats. “Because you are with Kelly, you are this for Penelope.”
“Stepfather,” Max fills in.
Charles snaps his fingers. “Yes! But why is it step?”
“I don’t know. Why beautiful?”
“What?”
“In French,” says Max. “You said beau, that is beautiful, yes?”
“Oh. Yes. I have never thought about this.”
The food arrives. Max has gone for a fairly substantial option, a small portion of steak and tenderstem broccoli with pomme purée and Charles has already started adjusting his meal plan for tomorrow to compensate when his own plate is set down: white fish, with asparagus, samphire and a sauce that smells slightly of lemon.
“Not bad, Verstappen,” he says.
Max accepts the compliment with a smile. “It was the most Riviera thing they had,” he confesses.
Surprisingly, they are only interrupted once, by a young man in a nice suit. Charles wonders who he has left behind for this photo, a patient girlfriend, a business partner, a potential client. Will this diversion for a selfie with Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc make or break that date? Before he leaves, he congratulates Max on his honour. Charles waits until he is gone to ask, “What honour is this?”
“The, uh, Order of Orange-Nassau,” Max says. “They are making me an officer.”
Charles’ eyes widen. “Woah. That is something. Congratulations.”
Max shrugs. For the first time, he glances around, lowering his voice. “It is whatever. I am a driver.”
“It is for driving, no?”
Max’s nose wrinkles a little. “I think it is also for the charity things. There are better charity people.”
It doesn’t seem to Charles that charity is something that should be a competition, but he lets it go. “And is there a big ceremony? With a proper dress code, no caps?”
“Only a little ceremony,” Max demurs. He ignores the comment about the caps. “They said I should bring my whole family, but my dad of course cannot come.”
There’s a challenge in Max’s eyes as he finishes the sentence that wasn’t there at the beginning; he had perhaps not thought all the way through before he started. Charles considers his options and then reaches for his sparkling water. “So you are taking Christian?”
Correct answer; Max smiles, his eyes crinkling. “So I am taking Christian.”
But that makes Charles think of his own team, his own relationship with the people he works with, relies upon. He looks down at his plate.
“Ah, sorry,” says Max. Charles chuckles, shakes his head.
“No, no, Ferrari is not your problem,” he says. And then, because he cannot stop himself, “And that is my problem, that Ferrari is not a problem for you.”
“Not a problem,” Max agrees, but he continues: “A challenge, a competitor. It is more fun with you than with Lewis.”
“It is easier with me than with Lewis,” Charles mutters.
“Stop,” says Max. When Charles looks up, Max is solid, stolid. “We are having a nice dinner.”
Charles nods, takes a breath. “You’re right, I am sorry. Tell me about…”
But they have reached the end of their commonalities, it seems. Charles wracks his brain, but they have already covered their summer break, and they have already established that they cannot talk about racing.
There was a time[3], ten, fifteen years ago, when Charles could walk up to any other kart driver and strike up a conversation regardless of any language barrier, age difference, even driving ability.
There was a time, but it is not today.
“I will tell you about the cats,” Max decides. “Everybody likes cats.”
Charles sets down his knife and fork. “True. Go on, show me cat photos.”
And there the conversation rests, on pet cats, and then their younger siblings, the trials and tribulations of living in Monte Carlo. Max tries out some basic French phrases and Charles laughs at his pronunciation.
“Like your Dutch is better,” Max protests.
“I do not live in the Netherlands,” Charles points out, arch.
Max concedes with a smirk. He takes a drink of his non-alcoholic beer.
“It’s one of the best things about Ferrari,” Charles blurts out. “That I can speak in Italian, instead of English. Italian is more natural for me.”
“You know Kelly speaks four languages?” Max asks. “Her mum is Dutch, even. But we speak in English mostly.”
Charles frowns. “And that is okay for you? It would be difficult for me, to have a relationship in English.”
The bill arrives before Max can answer. Max has signalled for it without checking if Charles wants coffee (not this late) or dessert (obviously not) and he pays without checking if Charles wanted to split the bill. The waiter asks Charles a question, maybe whether he enjoyed the meal. Charles catches Max’s eye and Max steps in, smoothly answering for him. Charles smiles at the waiter, beatific.
Perhaps Charles walks faster than Max; perhaps Max pauses to tuck his chair in; perhaps it’s just that Charles’s chair is closer to the door; however it comes about, Charles finds himself walking out of the restaurant with Max tucked up behind his shoulder. Charles can feel him, almost. He thinks back to Austria 2019, back to Val D’Argenton 2012, and wonders when it became reassuring to have Max Verstappen directly behind him.
They’re almost back to Charles’ hotel when Max asks, “Do you mind that we all call you Charles? Like the English, not the French?”
“No,” Charles scoffs. “It’s just a name.”
“And Arthur?” Max asks. “That must be different in French too.”
Charles duly pronounces it for him. “But no, he doesn’t mind either. We joke together, call it in English when we are being too polite, too media.” He pauses. “That wasn’t proper grammar, sorry. You understand?”
“I understand,” says Max. Perhaps he does, because he continues, “Maybe if we meet up like this again, I will call you Charles.” His French accent could be worse. “And at the track just Charles,” with his slight familiar lisp on the s.
And this is why Charles could not have a relationship in English because son prénom n’a rien à voir avec son caractère, sauf la présentation, l’être pour-soi contre l’être pour-autrui, l’impossibilité de réaliser l’être en-soi en tant que personne et pilote.[4]
And things too which Charles could say in English but never would: the sense that despite the scant three week difference in their ages, Max is somehow much more grown-up, en tant que personne et pilote[5]: beau-père to Baby P, champion du monde[6] to the rest of them. Il était une fois, aux circuits de l’europe, deux enfants pareils[7], but Max soared ahead and away from Charles, directement to Formula One, to a team who would come to be a second family to him, to a championship title.
Four months ago, Charles thought he was finally ready to catch up. Now, he feels… précaire. Fragile.
Jeune.[8]
In the absence of all these words, he leans over the central console of the rental car, now parked outside his hotel, and presses a kiss to Max’s cheek. Just a little too long, just a bit too much pressure. Impossible to disguise as a friendly bise. Un baiser perdu.[9]
“Congratulations,” he says. “For your honour.”
He doesn’t say: for your second championship, which is surely inevitable. For your unprecedented six year contract with the team who love you just as much as you love them. For your little family, with a little step-daughter you can teach to speak in your langue natale[10] and four more, so she can find home wherever she decides to find herself.
“Charles,” says Max. He says it in French first, and then in English. “Charles. I am glad to be driving with you.”
Charles smiles, and knows that his eyes are still shadowed.
“Merci,”[11] he says.
He gets out of the car and watches Max drive away.
Footnotes
1Have fun (Italian). [ return to text ]
2Literally, this means 'whore' but it's used as a very generic, quite tame curse word. There is a very funny YouTube video which posits that 'putain' is actually the only French word you need to speak the entire language. [ return to text ]
3This will come up later, but in French instead of "once upon a time" you say "il était une fois", literally, 'it was a time'. [ return to text ]
4Alright, strap in. As a native English speaker, this is what I would have said if I were Charles: "And this is why Charles could not have a relationship in English because his name has nothing to do with his personality, except for the presentation of it, the person he is for himself balanced against the person he is for other people, and the impossibility of ever really creating an authentic self both as a person and as a driver." What's missing in English is that Charles has gone a bit Sartre - he's talking about the difference between "l'être pour-soi" (the being for yourself), "l'être pour-autrui" (the being for others - ever heard the phrase "hell is other people? Originally French and from the same philosopher, l'enfer c'est les autres) and "l'être en soi" (the being within itself). Does Charles Leclerc know anything about Sartre? Who knows, this is fanfiction, let it be. Other lovely bits of French: I've translated it above as creating an authentic self but the French verb is "réaliser". As in, to realise a goal or a dream. To make it real. Also, "personne et pilote" sounds much better than "person and driver" just for the sake of the alliteration. [ return to text ]
5Told you, "as a person and a driver" just sounds worse than "en tant que personne et pilote" [ return to text ]
6World champion/champion of the world - you pick. [ return to text ]
7Told you this phrase would come back. "Once upon a time, at European circuits, there were two children who were the same"[ return to text ]
8"Delicate/insecure/unstable (sorry, I love this word in French). Fragile. Young."[ return to text ]
9Okay, you know how French (and Monégasque, yes Charles) people greet each other with kisses to each cheek? Those little air kisses are called "bises". A "baiser" on the other hand is a proper kiss (and also slang for a fuck but NOT IN THIS CONTEXT). "Un baiser perdu", a lost kiss, is a reference to a song by Mika called "Les baisers perdus" which is beautiful and mournful, about kisses that never dared land, kisses that lose themselves on their way, kisses that wander on Parisian rooftops like cats going about their lives. Again, I have no idea if Charles Leclerc likes Mika but fuck it, this is fanfiction.[ return to text ]
10Native language, but it sounds more poetic in French, something more like "birth language". Think of the English phrase "mother tongue", it feels more like that.[ return to text ]
11Mate, if you needed me to tell you that's thank you in French, then well done for making your way through this entire fic.[ return to text ]