Paul sits next to Harry at the Peckham velodrome, where he should have raced. Harry talks about everything but Paul’s leg. They both look like scarred war veterans, their legs straight out in front of them. Harry’s leg is stiff, and his knee cap is full of fluid. It’s almost a smooth ball, like a grapefruit. Next to it, Paul’s white plaster and flapping, short, trouser leg. Paul makes sure to stand up and wave to the cyclists he knows, Emrys and Harry’s brothers among them, and makes sure to be spotted by the ones he doesn’t know. Since he’s had a good season he knows that people know who he is, and that word of his injury will travel fast.
As they’re sitting right next to the finishing line, Harry talks about all the close races he’s been in.
Harry offers Paul a drink, but Paul’s stomach turns at the mere thought of alcohol. So instead Harry muses, ‘You know the drill by now. A bell. Ding, Ding, Ding. Last lap. Then a gun: Blam. Just the one blast, same as how the race began. Your ordeal is over.’
Paul nods, recognising the scenario. Harry continues, ‘Now the pace drops. You’ve won you think, but looking to either side of you, you can’t be sure. There are three or four racers very close by. All with their heads down. All with their chests heaving. You look up to the stands for a sign. Your head is so clogged up with sweat and counting laps, and the powders and pills, that you can’t think straight.’
Paul nods to a Dutch man he has raced with – against – before.
‘Then one of the other racers, one of the fast ones you’ve spent a hundred years trying to kill, rides up alongside you. Pats you on your shoulder, says ‘Well done.’ You ask if you won, and he laughs and tells you ‘Yes, yes you won you mad man.’ So, it seems you won.. But you’re too spent to feel happy. Now off the bike. Now change shoes. Now a drink of a sugary kind. A seat, closed eyes. Wait for the shakes to subside.’
Paul smiles and nods, looks at the dignitaries about to start the race. Realises he’s never really watched a race before. Just raced himself.
Harry says, ‘Then an official comes walking over. A strange smile on his face. He tells you it’s been a great day for racing. Then tells you they have been looking at the photo finish record and there seems to have been some confusion. There was someone else over the line before you. By a quarter of a wheel. Your mashed up head can’t take that in either. You had trouble with the first idea, now that a second has come clambering for attention you give up. Breathe in, breathe out. That’s the extent of it. Drink-eat-sleep, that’s the only thing you can think, one long thought. You don’t care, not right now anyway, about positions, remuneration, fame, glory. About anything. About anything but air.’
Paul feels himself breathing faster in recognition of the post-race feeling, as he looks at the racers lining up, taking their last normal breaths for many hours.
Harry shouts a ragged ‘Good luck!’ to his brothers, then turns back to Paul, ‘A little later. A bit of cash, a short, curt bow from the top of a chair, this one not as high as the highest one, but higher than the lowest one. The winner bends down to you. Offering his hand as an apology. Almost. But as you know by now, a win is a win.’
Paul nods.
‘You think that hopefully tomorrow you can strike gold. Twice the money. A higher tier. A line higher than before in the statistics. You smile and shake the man’s hand. Why not? Today you’re tired, tomorrow you’ll be at each other’s throats like maddened ferrets. Your Saturday and Sunday pass this way, your midweek races pass this way. But now that’s not the case is it Paul? You won’t be racing for a while by the looks of it.’
Before Paul can make up his mind about what to say the sound of the starter gun splits the evening air in two and the racers are off. It’s a lot more exciting to watch than to race, Paul thinks, at least initially. But if this was the way he was going to spend the next six months, he wouldn’t last long. He, too, would resort to drinking, he thinks.
***
Two and a half weeks later he’s dressed in his cycling gear, ready to go. He does one last check of his medical bag, his spares and his extra layers for the ride there, and the ride home after, then he stands up. On the floor, discarded, is the cast he’s been in for weeks. Now he’s ready to rid himself of the yoke Mr Morton has hitched him to.
Silas has told him the odds of him placing in the top three are ridiculously high and that those of him winning are astronomical, as everyone knows that he’s been on crutches for ages, and should have about two months to go to full recovery.
Then he sets off for the velodrome by Crystal Palace. It’s a cold Saturday morning, and he knows Silas won’t be there. They have agreed it will look better if Silas is not on the stands celebrating.
He makes sure to come as late as possible. Rolls off the street and straight into the line of racers. All of them raising their eyebrows. All of them looking down on his leg. Which is great as this means he gets the start.
The race is quite short, and Paul has decided to go all out from the beginning to build up a buffer where there’s less of a chance of someone crashing and pulling him down with them. As long as he leads, he is winning. As long as he is winning, he’s on his way to paying Mr Morton back the money he believes Paul owes.
All is going well, and Paul is extending his lead. Then he hears a noise. A click, not more than the closing of a door, the pick of a muted guitar string.
Then a spoke snaps behind him and his back wheel starts to wobble. As it starts to warp, two more spokes snap, and the rear wheel is now wobbling quite a bit. After half a lap the whole bike is shuddering so much it’s difficult to see. More and more spokes creak and snap. He needs to change a wheel, but can’t. He needs to stop, but he can’t. He can’t. All he can do is pray and pedal on. One lap remaining. The pack quickly catching up.
If his bike breaks it’s all been a waste of time. He counts the number of yards remaining. It’s not many. It might work. He gets out of the saddle. Leans forward as much as he can, to ease the weight on the rear wheel. It helps.
Time has slowed down to an almost standstill. The rim is ready to throw him off as if it was a bronco. The wheel is ready to kill. Soon touches the frame on either side of the wheel. First lightly, just a butterfly’s kiss. The Jim Dunlop Pneumatic tyres he’s paid so much for start whispering sweet nothings to the chain stays. Soon the tyres are stripped of most of their outer layers.
The frame starts to lose paint in big flakes. The coating comes off like the Devil’s dandruff, followed by delicate canary yellow metal leafs. A disastrous confetti strewn behind him.
Paul’s afraid. The wheel is beyond repair and the frame is starting to warp. Soon it’s too late to straighten the frame with some planks, and a couple of Cardellini clamps. This is a welding job now, best left to professionals. If the frame is salvageable.
‘Jack is going to cry when he sees this,’ Paul thinks.
He can’t stop. He can’t go on. He knows he won’t win. All he wants to do is roll over the line. Top three is all it takes.
Another spoke snaps behind him and as it catches on the frame Paul is thrown off course by the involuntary skid. He forces the bike back down on the track, turning a sudden sharp left down towards the innermost line. The pack close now. But so is the line. Just when he thinks he can regain control of the bike someone flies into him. It’s a big fellow from Portsmouth. Paul can’t even blame him for the crash. Paul is the one who made a sudden illogical break in his line. Paul comes off the bike and hits the track. At first the pain is white light. It’s a scalpel. Then it gets worse. The pain is a rusty, serrated knife slowly separating his arm from his body. Then the pain is so intense he stops feeling anything at all. More and more bikes, and racers pile on top of him. As seconds tick by, the length of hours, his body is mangled. Pressed into the now bloody boards.
Slipping under, entering darkness is a relief. Soon his arm hangs limp at the side of his body. His yellow bike is bent and cracked beyond repair. The sticker, Vélodrome d’Anvers Zuremborg, flaps in the wind. Paul’s torso is a battlefield of welts, blood pooling under his skin. His head rings and his legs are full of gashes and cuts. The last sound he hears before passing out are his ribs crunching like gravel.