The Accidental Cyclist

by Dennis Rink

  THE ACCIDENTAL CYCLIST

  A modern fable about flying without wings

  Dennis Rink

  Smashwords edition

  Copyright © Dennis Rink 2013

  ISBN 9780957580619 (Smashbooks edition)

  Dennis Rink asserts the moral right to be identified as author of this work.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to events, is entirely coincidental. Most of the places referred to do exist.

  Follow Icarus Smith’s progress on Facebook and Twitter.

  The author’s blog: www.live-cycle.com

  published by

  downhillfast10@gmail.com

  To Pam, who has put up with far more than she ought to, and who has always supported me in this venture, whether I be out riding my bike, in writing my book, or just sitting there staring into space, neither in nor out.

  To Caroline and Matthew, who were probably never quite sure that I would ever finish this project (a bit like decorating the house). Well, I’ve done it, so there! Now get on your bikes and go for a ride.

  And to Caroline (again) for her wonderful cover design.

  *

  Author’s note: No bicycles were intentionally stolen, harmed, cannibalised or otherwise damaged by the author during the production of this book, and no policemen lost their teeth either.

  The Icarus myth

  Daedalus set to work to construct wings from feathers and wax for himself and his young son, Icarus. When the work was done, Daedalus taught his son how to fly, as a bird tempts her young ones from the nest into the air. When all was ready he said, "Icarus, my son, keep at a moderate height, for if you fly too high the sun will melt your wings. Keep near me and you will be safe."

  1. THE END ... OF INNOCENCE

  Icarus Smith knew he would never fly. Like his namesake in Greek mythology, Icarus had no idea where life’s journey would take him. But one thing he did know for sure: his feet would never leave Mother Earth, he would never soar close to the sun. He would never know the freedom of flying.

  Icarus was so named because his father, a Greek, was called Dedalus. Icarus had never met his father. One day, about a month before the boy was born, Dedalus had hopped onto his bicycle, kissed the heavily pregnant Miss Smith goodbye, and pedalled off, to work, or wherever, never to return. As a result, Icarus’s mother had a severe aversion to bicycles, and she often warned the boy about the dangers of cycling.

  “Bicycles don’t look at all dangerous,” young Icarus had often protested.

  “That is because they are so craftily designed,” the doting mother whispered into the boy’s innocent ear, “they lull you into a false sense of security.” For that is exactly what had happened to her. Dedalus had seduced her by cycling circles around her as she walked down the road from work, sweet talking, singing her praises, pleading with her and, finally, she was persuaded to allow him to take her for a ride on his bicycle. It wasn’t the last time that he took her for a ride.

  “Your father let me sit on his crossbar …” she would begin telling the young Icarus, before lapsing into some sweet reverie. Icarus would watch his mother gazing into the dreamy distance and realise she was on a journey into a wondrous past, and would not be back for some time. At such a young age he knew nothing about bicycles. He had no idea what a crossbar might be – was it the opposite of a happy bar? He wondered for a moment if it might be some kind of euphemism, but then realised he had no idea what a euphemism was and so, like a crumpled slip of paper, he cast that thought aside, already forgotten, into the waste basket in some cobwebbed corner of his unformed mind.

  Unlike his mother, who always needed to know absolutely everything about everything, especially everything that did not matter, Icarus was curious in an innocent, unquestioning way. He was always happy to ask the what? but never the why? or wherefore? – two different questions that are essentially the same. When, while very young, he had asked his mother about his father’s whereabouts, he was answered with a simple, straight-forward, seven-word statement: “He left us before you were born.” Icarus felt no compulsion to ask the natural follow-up question of why (his mother honestly did not know why – it was a question she had been asking herself ever since he had gone). Nor did Icarus ask where his father had gone (ditto the parentheses above) – Dedalus had gone, and that was all there was to it. And so Icarus was brought up isolated, trapped on an island of his mother’s making, never venturing out into the world. His idle hours were spent gazing from the big bay window in the front room of their flat. From there he could look out over the park across the road, a sea of many greens that flourished and faded with the seasons. Beyond that ocean was the City of London, a huge continent of skyscrapers rising high into the sky. To Icarus that was another country, another world that he could only dream of, should he wish to dream such dreams. He had no desire to escape this maternal prison. He had no father to create wings of desire, of passion, of curiosity with which to fly, to flee, to escape this tower of motherly love.

  Motherly love was not the only thing that Icarus had to contend with in his growing years. His mother had many phobias, which she tried to pass on to her offspring as if it were his genetic heritage. Because of her brief encounter with Dedalus, chief among these phobias was bicycles. All through his early years Icarus heard everything there was to know – or imagine – about the pitfalls and problems associated with cycling. “Potholes can swallow a wheel in one big gulp,” was one helping of advice that Icarus was regularly served along with his supper. Then, dished up for dessert: “Beware the bicycle chain; they chew up trousers.”

  The growing Icarus swallowed these titbits of information without digesting them, and so they filtered into his being and infused his beliefs. In this way his mother instilled in him a fear of bicycles, and all that they represented.

  Icarus lived close to everything that he needed in life – school, shops, library, doctor’s surgery – so it was easy for his mother to steer him clear of all forms of transport, but he had heard the saying “know your enemy” and, unknown to his mother, he began surreptitiously to learn all there was to know about bicycles. While other boys of his age were stealing comics and smutty magazines from the top shelf of the newsagent, Icarus was plundering the sports section, stuffing his shirt with cycling magazines. And that was how he learnt almost all there is to know about the mechanics and lore of mankind’s most fascinating and enduring invention.

  The life-changing shift in Icarus’s relationship with bicycles – and his mother – came on a summer’s day just before his sixteenth birthday. Miss Smith was at work and, it being the start of the school holidays, she had told young Icarus, as usual, to remain inside the flat and not answer the door to anyone. Most of Icarus’s life had been spent alone, inside the flat, not answering the door to anyone. On this hot summer’s day he had flung open the big bay windows that overlooked the park, a place where seldom had he ventured unchaperoned. He sat in the big leather armchair, an unread book on his lap, staring at the carpet that filled the parlour floor. Icarus thought of it as his magic carpet: a tapestry of interwoven tropical plants with tentacles entwined, a mass of writhing greenery with no beginning or end. This shrubbery was a haven for birds, some common or garden, many rare and exotic, and they peeped through the foliage as it swayed lazily on a breeze that occasionally whispered through the open window. Every time Icarus looked at the carpet he saw something different. If he watched carefully, he could see swallows, kingfishers, nightingales, chaffinches and quails. Occasionally there would be a peacock, or a bird of paradise, and once, he was sure, he saw a chameleon that seem
ed to have the head of a stoat. On quiet days, if he listened very carefully, Icarus could hear the birds singing, chirping tunes so divine that he thought this must be heaven.

  Today, in the stifling heat, he could see no birds, hear no chirping. What he did hear was an excited chatter. It was not birdsong, but the sound of pubescent voices, and their noise seemed to summon him to the window. There, in the park, he caught sight of a tight knot of boys. He gave no regard to the noise, and the boys, until he saw what it was that held their attention, and that, in turn, captured his.

  Often Icarus’s mother had told him, don’t talk to strange boys, but today he wasn’t bothered about the boys, strange or otherwise. The only thing that Icarus saw was the shiny, unusual racing cycle that was the centre of their attention. After no more than a moment’s hesitation, and contrary to all his mother’s careful instructions, he left the flat, crossed the road and went into the park.

  At the core of the group admiring the bike were three boys who were clearly the main players in this scenario. One was bigger than the others, not tall, but stocky, like a young bullock. His manner clearly indicated that he was The Leader. His lieutenant was shorter, squatter, with ginger hair. The third, almost dwarf-like, had spotty cheesegrater cheeks that told volumes about poor diet and impoverished hygiene.

  Icarus went up to the group and stood there, taller than the rest, looking over their heads. He could see the racing bike clearly now and all his expectations were confirmed. The bicycle had a most unusual frame – it lacked the dominant triangle that forms the basic structure of a regular racing cycle. Instead it had a single top-tube, no down-tube, and the seat-post was stepped. The delicate red, white and blue decals were the final confirmation – the bicycle was a Condor Paris Galibier, an elegant single-speed machine. He had recently read about it, one of the most desirable two-wheelers, and to buy one he would need more than his mother earned in a couple of months.

  Now, Icarus was not used to talking to groups of boys, especially groups of strange boys, but his interest had been aroused, and he forgot his mother’s instructions, and her disdain for what she called the hoi polloi, the common herd.

  “Nice bike you’ve got there.” Icarus heard the words as if someone else had spoken them, but he knew it was his own voice. He seemed to have addressed no one in particular. “Where did you get it?”

  “Bought it,” said The Leader.

  “Gee,” Icarus heard himself say, “it’s such a beautiful bike. Can I ask how much it cost you?”

  “Fifty quid.”

  Icarus, for all his innocence, knew that such a bike would cost much, much more than that, and he tried to give the boy a slightly dubious look. Never for one moment did it occur to Icarus that the boy might have stolen the bike.

  “He never bought it,” said Gingerhead in a concerted attempt to shatter Icarus’s illusion of innocence. “He never buys anything.”

  “Wanna buy it?” asked The Leader, trying to head off any awkward questions at the pass. “It’s yours for just 45 quid.”

  For the first time in his life Icarus found himself in a position of superiority, a situation where he knew more than the next person. He looked at the bicycle for a few moments, then, quite nonchalantly, informed the gathering: “This bike,” he said, “is a Condor Paris Galibier, and if you bought it new it would cost in excess of two thousand pounds. Of course, this model appears to be a vintage, so it could be worth a lot more than that.”

  The Leader’s jaw dropped ever so slightly, then ever so slightly further, before he regained his composure and said: “You gotta be shitting me. It looks like some home-made piece of ...”

  “No way,” said Gingerhead in a slow, incredulous whine. “It can’t be. It doesn’t even have a proper crossbar.”

  “Two effing grand,” gawped Shorty shortly. “That’s like worth as much as a house, isn’t it?”

  Icarus, despite his nervousness, realised that he, rather than the bike, was becoming the centre of attention, and in some strange way he was enjoying this. “Yes,” he continued, “two effing grand…” he had no idea what an effing grand was – some kind of street language, he was sure, “... although this one may well have cost more.”

  “And he thought he might get fifty quid for it,” said a high-pitched voice at the back of the group, mocking The Leader.

  “You won’t get anything for that, mate,” ventured another, “or, if you're lucky, you might get five years.”

  At first Icarus did not catch the meaning. “What do you mean?” he asked. And then the full import of the boy’s statement struck him. Icarus was aghast, especially at such possibly dire consequences. “You actually stole it,” he exclaimed, uttering words that usually went unuttered in these circles. The words had flown out of his mouth even before he knew that he had intended to say them. The thought of stealing something precious had never entered his head. Icarus knew he wasn’t as innocent as he seemed, but he had never stolen anything more than his regular supply of cycling magazines. Well, the magazines, plus a couple of bicycling books from the local library. He looked at The Leader, trying to give the young bullock his mother’s sternest look. The Leader was unmoved. “I found it,” he countered, not quite convincingly.

  “Yea,” said Gingerhead. “With a lock on it.”

  “But not a very good lock,” The Leader parried.

  “Not a very good lock,” Shorty mimicked him. “Not a very good lock, your honour.”

  The Leader’s arm snaked out swiftly and grabbed Shorty’s ear, twisting sharply. Shorty yelped like an injured pup, and sulked off, nursing his mangled ear.

  “If whoever owned it doesn’t look after it, he doesn’t deserve it …” said The Leader, hoping to put an end to this strand of the conversation, “… even if he spent two effing grand on it. He should have spent that much on a chain to lock it up.”

  Now, it would not be entirely wrong to say that Miss Smith had put some strange ideas into her son’s head. Miss Smith – or Mrs Smith, as she preferred to style herself, not wanting to be cast in the role of the unmarried mother – had never had a particularly strong grasp on the facts of life. She had been brought up without religion or creed, so all that she believed in was what she had picked up along life’s journey, usually the cast-offs that others had shed along the way. These beliefs she had passed on to Icarus as matters of fact, and he had come to believe much of it without questioning. That was why Icarus believed Mother Earth would always take care of him, as long as he never allowed his feet to leave the ground. And that was why he would never fly. Or ride a bicycle. Come to think of it, ever since he last rode in his baby buggy, Icarus had never, in his small, insular world, ventured onto any form of vehicular transport, be it bus, train, car, boat, aircraft or – heaven forbid – bicycle.

  And so Icarus Smith had grown up believing he had a special understanding with the Earth. True, whenever the young Icarus had fallen, never was he hurt in any way. But then, if we are never to rise very high, we cannot fall very far and so, in consequence, we can never be very hurt. Or can we?

  We are not sure whether it was Mother Earth who had whispered these words of wisdom to the boy in a dream: it may well have been Mrs Smith trying to reassure herself concerning her own fears and prejudices, repeating her acquired beliefs by rote, while lulling the child to sleep, like a good Catholic reciting her rosary while rocking the cradle.

  As for Icarus, despite all of his maternally induced beliefs, he was totally without fear or phobia: flying was never an option in his small, earth-bound life where even buses had only one purpose – to be looked out for when crossing the road. Prejudices, too, were something he was without. But that is not necessarily a good thing, as he was about to find out, because without prejudice, we are unable to discern character, or make judgments on how we should be influenced by others.

  Back in the park, a small boy with a partly shaven head pedalled up to the group. Tufts of gristly blond hair were trying to force their way through th
e shorn region of his misshapen scalp, but the growth was not enough to disguise an angry scar that shouted out that stitches had recently been removed from here. He was riding a mountain bike, a full-suspension affair that his father had bought from the local car dealer, probably for whatever it would be worth as scrap, because surely, thought Icarus, it must weigh a full half tonne. Scarhead circled the group several times, and then nosed his front tyre into the centre of the group.

  “Hmm,” he said, looking at the dazzling racing bike at the centre of the group, “quite nice, but I bet you can’t do this on it.” He swung his bike around, grazing several shins as he did so, and sped off, turned and headed back. As he neared the group of boys his skinny legs began to spin dervishly and, with his two puny arms, he heaved at the handlebars, lifting the front wheel off the ground. For several yards, legs circling furiously, Scarhead maintained his wheelie until suddenly his legs were drained of all power, and the front end smacked down onto the grass, bounced several times on the oversized springs that formed the suspension, and the bicycle was brought to a juddering halt.

  Unimpressed, the small crowd turned away from him, and directed their attention back to the multicoloured racer in the centre of the group, and the main protagonists.

  The Leader said: “Wanna ride it?”

  It took Icarus a few moments before he realised that he was being addressed. “I don’t ride,” he replied. The thought of riding such a beautiful machine – or any machine, come to think of it – had never entered his head. The bike was there to be viewed, admired, but to ride it … the idea had never occurred to him.