Paul has been given a day off. No races, no deliveries. It’s about as likely as winning the lottery. It’s a lovely bright day in June, and after being paid upon completion of his first month with Mr Morton, Paul cycles to Jack Lauterwasser’s shop. Feeling like royalty Paul can spend money on things not absolutely necessary for his survival. The sensation is unfamiliar to him, and he grins like a maniac coming through the door of the shop. The jingle-jangle of the bell and the smell of grease, leather and oil come to meet him in a familiar embrace. Jack laughs at him and asks Paul who the lucky lady is, to which Paul replies, ‘No one. There’s one lucky man, and it’s me.’ Jack looks doubtful but Paul continues, ‘I’ve been paid.’
‘I see.’ Jack smiles.
‘So, what’s new? What are the professionals using?’ Paul says sauntering around the shop.
Bowing, Jack directs him to a display by the counter.
‘I’ve got something here,’ Jack says, wiping his hands on a rag from his back pocket. Gleaming dully on a pillow of wood shavings are a set of pedals. They’re like nothing Paul’s ever seen, far from the simple platforms he uses.
‘You clip your shoes into them,’ Jack tells him. ‘This way you can pull your leg up as well as push down. In a sense this doubles your output.’
‘Can I hold them?’ Paul asks, and at Jack’s nod he picks them up. They’re light but feel solid. There’s a spring holding a plate in place. He tries it a few times with his thumb.
Jack gently takes the pedals back from Paul. He’s not a stupid salesman, he knows the power of holding something, the ebb and flow of ownership. He takes a pen from behind his ear and starts to point to the pieces of the mechanism. To Paul the pedals are as intricate as the inner workings of a pocket watch, and possibly as expensive. And that’s before considering the specialist shoes that no doubt will have to be purchased to go with the pedals.
Jack reads out loud from a catalogue, sounding like a school teacher. The words coming out of his mouth are like a different language to Paul. He soon stops listening and lets the torrent of words wash over him. It’s a foreign tune of technical terms, a hymn heard in passing.
‘It’s a Belgian make. Dinant. The Dutch Olympic team used them for the games in Amsterdam this year,’ Jack says, and points to a series of pictures at the back of the catalogue, adding Gerard Bosch van Drakenstein, Johannes Maas, Piet van der Horst, to the melody of mechanisms and merchandise.
With the shoes, an extra set of springs and a small bottle of clear oil, the pedals end up costing Paul more than a month’s rent. Paul smiles and walks a full lap of the shop. Then he returns to the counter.
You need to spend to earn, Silas has told him more than once. While Jack puts them on his bike Paul walks around the shop, fingering objects of desire, then abruptly stops himself. He forces himself to stand by the window. To not touch anything, to stop thinking that he can afford anything. The only thing he allows himself to do is to look at the people passing by. This is the last free activity in London; the experience of lives flicking past like snowflakes.
In a gap between two cars, he sees a woman who looks like Miriam. He runs out of the door, the bell doing a double jinglejangle behind him. Leaping this way and that, running in the gutter, being sworn at by coachmen, drivers and cyclists, he eventually catches up with the woman. The fox fur on her shoulders gleams in the afternoon sun. Her step is forceful but not hurried. He overtakes her, a silly grin on his face, his mind blank as to what to say, but his body telling him it is very important he speaks to her.
After apologising to the surprised woman, Paul returns to the shop, and has to explain to Jack why he dashed out. Jack laughs, and finishes putting the pedals on the bike before following Paul out of the shop. He smokes a cigarette, wiping his hands on his apron.
‘It must be a woman that’s made you this happy,’ Jack says.
Paul is on the bike struggling with the action of the pedals, tip of his tongue pointing out, and can only nod.
Jack, turns his cigarette to inspect the tip, says, ‘By the way Paul, a Mr Halkias was here a couple of weeks ago. He said he was your friend.’
‘What else did he say?’ Paul says, a hand on the shop window, now strapped in.
Jack exhales and says, ‘Nothing much. Didn’t seem to be very interested in bikes.’
‘He’s not,’ Paul says.
Jack grinds out the cigarette with his heel, and asks, ‘Is he your financier? A sponsor?’
‘He paid my rent when I first got here. And bought me the bike. You remember I was here with another man, Rupert?’
Jack nods, and asks, ‘And what do you have to do in return?’
‘Nothing. Pay him back.’
‘Look, it’s not my business, but I’ve heard rumours about this Mr Halkias. Be careful.’
‘I am.’
‘I’m just speaking as cyclist to cyclist. I’ve seen some bad deals and more than my share of scary managers in the past. I was winning a lot of races for a while but wasn’t getting any money out of it, until I realised what my backer was doing.’
‘I appreciate your concern, but I’m fine.’
‘Well, from now on I want to sponsor you too. To even the odds. I’ve got a couple of racing tops I had made for a guy I was racing a tandem with ages ago. He was huge. As big as you. The perfect stoker. But he’s retired from cycling now. You might as well have them.’
‘Thanks Jack,’
‘I’ll give the tops to you if you promise to wear them when you race. And if you send people this way for their purchases, I’ll give you a good price on whatever you need for the bike in the future. What do you say to that?’
‘I’d be delighted to race for you.’
Jack nods and ducks into the store room to fetch a box. The tops are on the big side, but Jack tells him they’ve never been washed and will come down a bit in size, if he knows someone who can do his laundry extra hot. Paul says he does, but he doesn’t. He’ll be doing it himself. The top he prefers is a black one with two yellow lines across the chest, and the same lines with the name of the shop in an arch over his shoulder blades, and space for a number, on this one 34, underneath, on the back.
‘There’s a white and a yellow one too. One long-sleeved, one sleeveless, one for every condition,’ Jack says, smiling proudly.
Out in the street Paul clips into the pedals and immediately falls off. Laughing to himself and ignoring the whistles and jibes from coal porters and newspaper boys, he gets back up. He takes it slow. Cycles round and round De Beauvoir Square for a while. Soon he’s mastered it and gets out on a real road for some speed. He quickly realises his power transfer, as Jack called it, has increased significantly. As he eases out into Holloway Road into heavy traffic, it feels like there’s more space in his head now to think about other things. Breathing, traffic, the wind, horses, women, children, the road, potholes and the highway oysters dropped by horses. How to find the way to where he is going. Then realises for the first time in a long while that he doesn’t know where he is. He doesn’t need to. He’s still got change in his pocket and would like this to be a day of celebration. So he cycles to Elephant and Castle. But not to the Carousel, not to the Ram’s Head, not to the apartment up three creaky stairs. To a coffeehouse across the road from it.