After passing a few barber’s shops around Victoria station on Tuesday morning after the Roman Feast, Paul goes inside one and asks for a fashionable haircut. Once he’s done he is sold a bottle of Stephenson’s Hair Pomade – For the Discerning Gentleman, which he’s not sure he is. He comes out feeling silly, and vain, but after a few hours of rubbing his unusually naked neck and trying to look at his reflection in shop windows without being caught, he starts feeling good about it. And he thinks, but can’t swear, that a pretty girl at a flower stall smiles a little extra to him. But then again that’s how flowers are sold after all, and he retraces his steps and buys a bouquet of red, white and yellow tulips from her. He lugs around the flowers all day, and that earns him more smiles from passing women than any haircut could. Then he makes his last delivery and cycles to Kensal Rise, eating apples all the way there.
It’s a midweek meet. The racing calendar calls it The Tuesday Tumble as the track is quite tight and not all that smooth in places. People like Paul, who have raced on the track a few times know where the worst parts in the decking are, but it’s always enjoyable to see the more inexperienced riders come off, usually flying forwards over their handlebars. The accidents happen either high up on the banking in curve two, or close down by the black line in curve four. The race is a part of a monthly series, the Cadbury’s Cup. There are also biweekly races, the main spectacle on Sundays as well as a smaller race every Thursday. Usually out of town. This concentration was Silas’ suggestion, but Paul knows who’s behind it. Paul knows and Silas knows who is wielding the whip.
Paul knows, or knows of, most of the other racers. As it’s a Tuesday the crowd will be small but dedicated. Possibly even near to sober. Enthusiasts. Not just happy to be out in the sun, not at work, watching other people almost kill themselves, but knowledgeable. It won’t be the gin-fuelled Saturday night revellers you sometimes get at the bigger velodromes, or the Sunday crowd who have decided to make a day of it; the ones who save up, steal, borrow, pawn, to come and enjoy themselves, almost disregarding the racers. For the weekend crowd, the entertainment could be anything from tigers killing ocelots, to boxing, rowdy soapbox preachers, or bearded ladies on stilts. It just happens that this year they have decided to flock to cycling. Next year it might be something else. But today at Kensal Rise, it’ll be a crowd with stubs, with notebooks and pens behind their ears, mumbling odds and race pedigrees. Offering litanies to the gods who reign in the Kingdom of Money. Praying to the numbers they have chosen, or feel have chosen them.
Almost two months ago, in the back of a taxi on their way to Mr Gullard, the pawn broker, Paul asked Miriam if she’d like to come and see him race at Kensal Rise sometime. He’s not sure what she usually does on a Tuesday night, but hopes she’s above routine.
Warming up, circling the track slowly, avoiding high up in turn two, and low down in curve four, he looks out for her. He knows where she’ll be sitting if she turns up. She said she would, but her business, whatever it is, is probably as fickle as his. He knows he would have to drop everything and leave the track if a message came through from Mr Morton that something was to be picked up and delivered. Even if it was just a piece of paper.
By the time the commissarie calls the racers in for a quick speech about the rules, the number of laps, the standings in the cup and the points they are able to earn today by placing in certain ways, Miriam is nowhere to be seen. With a sigh the commissarie explains about the two extra sprints where sponsors and a certain unnamed film star are offering cash prizes. Gives no word about the bad track. He’s an old hand who knows that despite the apparent sophistication of the crowd, they too like blood and screams as much as anyone else.
Recognizing Paul, Emrys and Percy Wyld as regular racers, he winks and walks off. Paul shakes Percy’s hand, feeling like it was a hundred years ago that he was being tested for his abilities. Pleased now to think he’s surpassed his old heroes, he rolls out onto the track. Still she’s not in her seat.
Harry walks up to him after a brief chat with his brother Percy.
‘Paul, come here,’ he says. ‘You know this track don’t you. The pitfalls and all that?’
‘I’ve been on it before.’
‘Well, you might think it’s the actual track that’s your biggest enemy today, but that’d be wrong. Today, as any day, the track is full of new men as desperate as you.
‘Some are angry, others are by nature more easy-going. Light-hearted racers for whom exhaustion is a laugh, something they do to pass the time. The angry ones run out of anger, especially if they occasionally win. But the happy ones – the ones undeterred, and simple-minded in their beaglelike contentment to just run and row and race and then eat and then sleep – these boys you ought to fear like the plague. If you are not like them you will have a harder time of it. You will think too much, laugh too little and generally lose to them.’
‘I’ll make sure to read less, and race more.’
‘Joke all you like young man. I know the competition. You have to think yourself invincible. Rely on your strength in finding the calm while your lungs are rasping. You have to train your ability to shut out the daily problems, the distractions of life. Just seeing the front wheel, the person in front, and making sure that that person ends up being behind you. That money, rent, love, racing politics, managers, sponsors, hurts and any intelligent thoughts all stay outside the bubble. It’s an absolute calm in the eye of the chaos of spokes and legs.’
‘I’m only telling you this to scare you a little. I’m just trying to make you faster, which will make me richer, and Silas too, so – best of luck.’
‘Thanks,’ Paul says and rubs a little more liniment into his left thigh, always his weakest leg. Harry walks up to his spot by the starting line, grinning to Paul over his shoulder.
The official in the black tails starts brandishing the starter gun, a sure sign that things are about to kick off. Paul lines up, holding onto the barrier on the top side of the straight. It’s such a long race today that he hasn’t bothered asking for someone to hold him upright as he starts off. The jostling and positioning will come later, when people have been racing for close to three hours. When they are tired and thirsty and irritated and angry at themselves and their bodies for not responding to the messages they are trying to send. Annoyed that the commands sent from brain to legs are not being followed. This will go on until the brain gives in too, when any motivation dies under a blanket of exhaustion. That what he’s saving himself for, the last fifteen laps or so. Until then he’ll make sure to be in the first ten riders, maybe go for one of the cash sprints. Staying in the race is the key. Still she’s not there.
She would have been sitting very close to where he’s balancing now. She would have smiled, maybe even noticed his haircut, she would have bent her head and buried her nose in the flowers he’s had left on the railing where he thought she would stand, but still she’s not there.
Then he spots a face he knows well. A face he’s dependent on: Silas. Paul raises a hand in greeting. Takes his eyes off the bike. The gun cracks and he tears himself off the balustrade, almost falling over. It’s a terrible start. He’s last by almost half a lap before the pace has even picked up, and still she’s not there. He didn’t think it’d mean so much to him, but pedalling off to try to catch them, he realises he’s thought about and planned every move up until now. And after the race too. Little comments, excuses, compliments and jokes. Without her watching him, Paul feels like a different man. He’s the same as before he ever had the thought of involving her in his life. It’s an independence and innocence he feels he can’t go back to. On lap twenty, when he’s caught up properly, avoided three crashes, and found himself in a secure enough position in the depleted field he raises his head. Looks again, but nothing. Silas looks up from his papers and waves to him. A lazy hand brushing off a fly mid-air. Not great, but at least someone has come to see him, to keep him company from the stands.
He regains control of his breathing and overtakes a redfaced Yorkshireman. Paul now tries to control the pace from one or two places behind the first man. He would let one man go off into the distance, maybe even two, but if there were three sprinting away, he would like to be one of the three. He tries to keep the pace high enough to tire the less seasoned riders, and possibly put a dent in the lungs of the fitter ones, but low enough that he still has some energy, or dynamite as Harry calls it, for the last ten percent of the race. This is experienced racing, not exciting racing. This is him maturing, not necessarily gaining any new fans on the stands. But then again, a Tuesday race is less about being flamboyant, or a daredevil, and more about being consistent. About guarding his position and controlling the situation.
Then all hell breaks loose.