Devil Take the Hindmost

by Martin Cathcart Froden

  I say, ‘A celebrated sportsman, like yourself, must be seeing someone.’ I hope he will tell me about some girl from a shop, or a governess.

  ‘That’s something to consider too,’ he laughs, uneasy.

  I pour him more coffee. After a while he leaves, leaning heavily on the crutches. He tells me he’d better go and see Harry. And make sure he’s being seen injured around races. It falls on me to arrange the bet, drive the odds up to high heaven and chink glasses with shallow boys and men, the financiers of our stab in the dark.

  It also falls on me to go and deliver the sad news to Mr Morton that his special bicycle boy can’t do his job for two weeks. This will not go down well, but I’m sure Mr Morton will get over it when I offer for Paul to work for free for a month once he’s back on his feet. The way to a man’s heart is through his wallet.

  Chapter 36

  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.

  Chapter 37

  I’m in my café on Moscow road. I consult my pocket watch. About now Paul is probably setting off for the big race at Crystal Palace. We decided I should stay away, which in this weather suits me fine. I’ll find out whether he won or placed lower down as soon as the race is over. I’m a bit apprehensive about the result, but I can’t do more at the track than I can do from the comfort of my café.

  My American papers are spread in front of me on the table. I’m reading about what they call a budding bull market on the New York exchange. There was a sudden fall, a sudden panic resulting in a small crash recently. A little hole in the great dam of money straining behind the walls of the exchange. Quickly plastered over with more money from some very wealthy men. There are signs that there might be a bigger quake on its way.

  I don’t know what to make of it. Some people say this boom will last forever, that the end of the war marked the beginning of better times. The rate of production we achieved then, and the prosperity it brought us, will rise forever. It sounds too good to be true if you ask me but I’m no economist, I am a pessimist. I’m happy for it to continue. Champagne tastes better than water after all.

  In a matter of minutes Paul will line up to race. The odds are good, I’ve made sure they are, but that’s as much as I can do. I can’t make him win. Paul has borrowed, or been forcefully lent, a large sum of money by Mr Morton, to bet on himself. To try to make a dent in the Russian debt. I’ll finish my breakfast, go home. Take a drink, then dress warmly and head out. But I won’t stray far away from the café, as I’ve instructed one of the little boys to leave a message with the results of the race.

  I’m about to light a cigar and order a second coffee. Last night was heavy and I need as much of the black gold as I can fit in.

  The door opens and Miriam, white as a sheet, stumbles in. It looks like she’s been crying. Before I can recover from the shock of her finding me, and the fact that she wants to speak to me directly, a thing that’s never happened before, she tells me Paul has had a fall.

  ‘I know. I know,’ I say trying to placate her. Wishing she’d use a quieter voice, as my head is about to crack open.

  ‘How can you know?’ she asks, angry.

  ‘I made him wear that cast to drive up the odds.’ I quickly decide it’s best to be honest with her. I don’t really know where her sympathies lie, but if she’s siding with Mr Morton he won’t really mind my tactics, as long as we get the money back to him. But – and her being here, with mascara trailing her cheeks, just about confirms what I’ve suspected – if her loyalty leans another way, to Paul, then I might as well tell her the truth.

  She grabs me by the collar and heaves me up from the seat, hisses angrily, ‘I know about that. The fake plaster. This is different. This is a real accident. You’d better come with me.’

  She bundles me into a taxi outside, and between rasping breaths she explains that Paul’s been in a terrible accident, and is coming in and out of consciousness. She couldn’t stay with him for fear of being seen.

  ‘I thought you went to his races, and especially this one,’ she says, not without an edge, ‘I thought you cared about Paul.’

  I start to explain, but she’s clearly upset, too upset to listen to my, and his, logic.

  She tells me it was only when she gathered all the little boys, right after the accident, and started doling out money, that one of them gave up the information about my favourite café.

  I’ve never seen Miriam upset before. She’s quite a sight. Eyes flashing, hands like little nervous birds. This is more than enough to confirm my suspicions. The ground disappears under my feet, but I have to go on.

  ***

  On our arrival at Peckham, I immediately send one of the boys to Doctor Sanderson’s house, telling him to meet me at Copenhagen Street. Then I go and have a look at Paul. He’s lying on a camp bed in the officials’ office. He’s black and blue. Wrapped up in a blanket but still shivering.

  I try to talk to him but he’s not answering. I put a hand on his forehead, try to wake him from his slumber but he can’t be contacted. I ask Miriam to find a car, then throw a roll of bills on the floor.

  ‘I’m buying the bed and your help for five minutes,’ I tell whoever is in the room.

  Four officials, all in formal but frayed black, carry him out on the makeshift bier, Miriam and me walking behind like mourners. The rain which was just threatening in the morning is now coming down. Slow, heavy, unrelenting – English. Makes me pine for Zakynthos.

  Miriam has found a covered lorry. The race officials, rain pouring off their top hats, help me load Paul onto the back of the lorry.

  Miriam, with water running down her cheeks, plastering her hair to the sides of her head, jumps into the dry comfort of the driver’s cab. I take a seat on an empty crate in the back and knock on the partition wall three times to let the driver know we’re ready to go. As we drive through the streets, I realise Miriam must know where Paul lives. But to give her the benefit of the doubt, I also have to admit that she found me in an hour, in a small café across town, hidden behind a newspaper.

  As we rock into motion I take Paul’s hand. I expect cold and clammy, but I get warm and papery. His face is bruised and bloody, and one eye is closed up. I rest my head on the back panel and hold onto him.

  ***

  The house on Copenhagen Street is dirty, neglected, and a great source of income. Looking at Paul as he is examined by Doctor Sanderson I am ashamed of myself. Of what I have become. I send Rupert out to buy hot toddy for the doctor, Miriam, myself, and as an afterthought I tell Rupert to get some for himself too. Miriam and I still haven’t spoken, but I can see she’s worried. I hope she’s not worried about more than the investment Mr Morton has made into the body lying prostrate on the bed. It’d be better if she was viewing Paul as a piece of machinery.

  Doctor Sanderson stands back and puts away his stethoscope, straightens his back and takes off his glasses. Rubs the bridge of his nose with a thumb and an index finger. He tells us that Paul needs to rest. Apart from concussion and bruised bones and a few cracked ribs, the damage is largely muscular. The sheer amount of bruising and blood lost will slow him down for a few days. I am to make sure he’s contactable on the hour and the half hour all through the night, for breathing purposes, as the main problem is not his body but the head trauma suffered. We should be thankful and worried at the same time, is the doctor’s conclusion. I try to give him some money, but he waves my hand away.

  ‘Get me tickets for his next race instead. If you look after him he will be able to race again, maybe even within six months, but it won’t happen automatically.’

  ‘He can’t stay here,’ Miriam says once the doctor has left.

  ‘I can’t have him at my house,’ I say. ‘Not officially. Maybe for a night or two.’

  ‘I can maybe house him somewhere. A hotel or something,’ she says. By the way she l
ooks at him, at me, at the door, I can tell she wants to be alone with Paul, but I can’t give her that satisfaction. I don’t know why. And besides he’s not responsive. If he couldn’t feel Doctor Sanderson’s hard pokes into shattered ribs, he won’t be able to feel a woman’s light touch.

  Eventually she says goodbye, and I stand in the room on my own, feeling the draught from the window. Listening to rodents and neighbours. I should maybe have asked her about the nature of their relationship, I’m happy I didn’t. What I don’t know I can’t lie about if asked. I kiss Paul gently on the forehead and go over to Madame Dubois’ rooms. I remind her about how she owes me a favour for letting her pay rent late, and that I want to borrow one of her girls, not for anything sordid, for something noble and at the girl’s normal rate of pay. She nods and promises to see to it.

  Leaving a prostitute – a young girl called Olivia – to watch over Paul’s breathing, I go to my house. I soak in a bath. Then I dress as smartly as I can and head over to the Strand. Not to celebrate, that’s the last thing on my mind, especially as I’m now sober, but to bump into people. I’ve got a few names on my list. One of them the shipping magnate’s son, or indeed the man himself, but I’ve also read that Clarence Hatry is back from his Ivy League trip, so I set out to find him and his money. But anyone’s money will do. Mr Morton is away in Belfast or Dublin again – I can’t remember which – but he will hear about this within the hour.

  I have to buy Paul time, and I realise I don’t care if that’s done by loan, theft, blackmail or worse. Maybe I can mix a dangerous cocktail of all these elements and serve them to Clarence Hatry? Putting on my twenty-four carat cufflinks, my heart soars at how low I’ve sunk, and how little I care.

  Chapter 38

  Paul hears voices and feels himself being carried, but can’t do anything. Can’t say anything.

  ***

  When he wakes up something feels wrong. At first he can’t work out where he is then he recognises the dining room at the Baths.