The Accidental Cyclist

by Dennis Rink

  The Grey Man’s wife used to cook good roast potatoes. It was a long time since he had thought about her, and her roast potatoes, and about their two children. He wonders where they are now, what they are doing. It is a good twelve years since he left them. His son, Sammy, would be about the same age as Icarus now.

  This is a strange train of thought, he thinks, from roast potatoes to Sammy. But he knows that this train of thought is going on a circuitous route because it is trying to circumvent the single issue that keeps flashing up an urgent message in the back of his brain: what am I doing here?

  The Grey Man looks at his two hosts – they are both unusually quiet, absorbed in the meal and their own thoughts. Again, he thinks: what am I doing here? Here is a boy who knows nothing about the ways of the world, and I am helping to detach him from the single human being that gives him life and strength and love. I am taking on a father’s role, a role that I could not fulfil even for my own children.

  And this woman: even as I know that I am taking away her single reason for living, so I remain in her home to console her, to give her support, and to eat her mediocre roast potatoes. What am I doing? Soon both of these people will depend on me. And that’s what caused me to disappear, to leave my family, my work, my world.

  Yes, the Grey Man has one serious phobia: he fears commitment. What happens, he thinks, if these two become dependent on me? I am responsible for the situation that all three of us are in. What am I going to do about it?

  He looks down at the chicken leg that he is cutting. Now, he thinks, it’s difficult not to roast a chicken properly, and as roast chicken goes, this roast chicken is pretty damn good.

  13. GO WITH THE FLOW

  A couple of days later Icarus decided to ride alone along the route that he had taken with the Grey Man. He headed along the High Street and then south through Islington, but he lost his way when he reached the intricate web that formed the City. He tried to retrace his tracks but only became more confused.

  The weekday traffic made it much more difficult to navigate, especially because much of his concentration was focused on remaining safe. Every time he thought he recognised some building or landmark he would find his direction blocked by a stream of traffic, forcing him to a halt and preventing him from turning the way he wished to go. On his previous ride all the buildings had looked quite distinctive, different. Now they looked alike. Old buildings were all made stone, with columns and arches; modern buildings were all glass that reflected the new and the old alike, adding another dimension to the amazing labyrinth.

  Icarus stopped at a junction to try to find his bearings. He watched the flow and counterflow of cars, cabs, vans and bicycles as they twisted and entwined, merged and split. On the pavement pedestrians performed a similar dance, dodging and weaving in a never-ending waltz, unfazed by the vehicles and traffic lights and road signs.

  Icarus stood and watched this amazing performance. Every part appeared to have been choreographed. Everyone, every car, van, bicycle, pedestrian seemed to know their part, where they were going – everyone except Icarus, the island in the midst of this human torrent. This isn’t the fun that it was on Sunday, he thought. He remembered how he had enjoyed the previous ride. That was fun, this is all hard work, concentration. It wasn’t the free-wheeling, easy-riding heady experience that his first ride had been. And it struck him: this is what his job would be like – cycling every day through this mass of people and cars and buildings. Still, he thought, this is better than school. And the sun is shining. But it won’t always be shining, it will be cold and wet and miserable, Icarus said to himself. I’m not tough enough to do this. I’m going to go home and put the bike away and ask if I can go back to school. I’ll tell the Grey Man that I can’t do this job, I can’t live this life, I’m frightened by all of this. I’ll just go home…

  But he couldn’t go home. He was still lost, standing on a street corner somewhere in the City of London.

  Icarus pulled from his back pocket the tattered map that the Grey Man had given him on Sunday. He unfolded it, trying to picture his route. He looked around him to see the name of the street that he was on – Little Britain, what a strange name – but he could not locate it on the map. The first seeds of panic had been sewn and he sensed that he might soon reap some devastating harvest, although he had absolutely no idea what such a silly simile meant. His whole world seemed to be tilting, swivelling, like the dial on a compass. Icarus shut his eyes tight, trying to still the spinning. But instead of slowing, the movement increased, and Icarus found himself spiralling out of his body and looking down at himself and the streets around him. Slowly he turned in the air – ahead he saw a landmark that he recognised: the distinctive dome of St Paul’s cathedral. Icarus opened his eyes to find he was looking at his map, correctly oriented with Little Britain at the centre. He looked up, and was facing St Paul’s. The tide of traffic and people seemed to have receded, and Icarus pedalled to Wren’s masterpiece as if pulled along by some irresistible magnetic force. If this was what panic does, he thought to himself, it has its uses.

  Anyone who has ever cycled through the City of London will know that it was never designed for motorised transport. Actually, the City itself was never really designed – it sort of grew organically, changing with the needs of its times, adapting itself to modern life, be that the life of the twelfth or the seventeenth or the twenty-first century.

  Every time that there has been the opportunity to rebuild the city, after fire or war or pestilence, those in authority resisted to chance to start afresh. Instead, they allowed the wounded city to heal itself naturally, leaving behind scars to remind citizens of its painful past. At the time of the most extensive destruction of this city – the Great Fire of 1666 – there were no cars or vans or lorries to think about when rebuilding. These modern inventions are better suited to the big American cities that have sprung up in the new world, designed on simple grid systems with wide avenues, huge car parks, and long open roads that go on forever. They were not designed for ancient cities, even less for ancient cities on small islands.

  The bicycle, on the other hand, is perfectly suited to city life – compact enough to allow easy movement and storage, clean enough not to pollute its surroundings, and quick enough to take its passenger from A to B in a minimum amount of time. If you think about it, a little more than a century ago most journeys in London would still have been undertaken on foot, and most food produce or commercial commodities would have been transported by handcart. Only the very wealthy could afford their own horses and carriage. The better-off could afford cab fare, while the vast masses would simply walk. Nowadays every man and his dog owns a car – that is the curse of modern life.

  Icarus may have been thinking these thoughts as he circumnavigated St Paul’s, but it is hard to tell, because he was still mindful of the Grey Man’s instructions to be slightly paranoid, to watch out for car doors opening ahead, cabs making a u-turn, lorries and pedestrians and all the other perils that awaited him. After years of his mother’s example, paranoia came easily.

  Icarus proceeded past St Paul’s, but instead of continuing down to the Tower, he paused to watch the ant-like figures scurrying across the Millennium Bridge. The slight paranoia was still there, but it did not quite prevent the return of his sense of enjoyment. He was about to continue along the route that the Grey Man had taken, but felt an urge to cross the river, find his own way along the Thames. This was his choice, this was him venturing into the unknown, undirected, unshepherded. Icarus’s hesitation was but momentary. He wheeled his proud machine across the narrow walkway and then set off pedalling along the South Bank, upstream against the pedestrian tide, smiling like a lunatic at everyone he passed. He cruised along easily, past the South Bank Centre and the London Eye. He crossed under the arch of Westminster Bridge and came out of the tunnel opposite Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, recognising the spot that many television presenters used for broadcasts. On he went, past the MI6 building that
he had seen in a James Bond movie.

  On reaching Vauxhall Bridge he decided that is was time to turn back towards home. He pulled the map out of his pocket and looked at it for a few moments, but before he had even determined his position on it, he folded the map, put it back in his pocket and plunged into the northwards flow towards Victoria.

  Once Icarus was in the stream of traffic he allowed the flow to take him, winding this way and that, rushing at times, then slowing, then regaining momentum. Where the stream divided, he simply took the direction that felt right. The rushing torrent took him past Buckingham Palace, a tranquil island in the midst of the raging tide. He was swept along The Mall, past Trafalgar Square and through the delta that is Soho, and eventually to City Road, where he realised that he was once again in familiar surroundings. Familiar, he thought, but everything before that was familiar too, even if I had never been there.

  All thoughts of getting rid of the bike and returning to school had vanished from Icarus’s head. He loved every minute of the ride home, and had no fear of getting lost again. As he freewheeled down the High Street towards his flat, he rubbed his cheeks and wondered why they hurt. His smile was still etched deep into his face, and he could not turn it off.

  Icarus wheeled his bike to the basement of the flat to put it away. His mother had insisted that he could no keep it in the flat, so the basement was the only place for it. He was slightly surprised to find The Leader there, tinkering with bits of bikes.

  “What are you doing?” Icarus asked.

  “Building a bike,” The Leader replied. “Hope you don’t mind me working here, but me Mum chucked me out.”

  “Chucked you out? Why?”

  “I got grease on her white leather sofa. She had a bit of a rant, said she could never forgive me, bla, bla, bla, and in the end she said she didn’t know why she brought me into this world in the first place.”

  “So you came here to build your bike?”

  “Well, yeah, sort of. And to sleep. Hope you don’t mind.”

  Icarus had no reason to mind, except that this was the boy that had threatened him, teased him, and almost got him sent to prison. Icarus seemed to have forgotten all that. In fact, Icarus sensed a change in the boy, and almost felt inclined to like him. Icarus could not grasp how a parent could throw a child out of their home and condemn them to a life on the streets. His mother certainly would never do that.

  “But I’m not living on the street,” The Leader explained, “I’m living here, in your basement. She’s not really a bad mother, she’s just got problems. Lots and lots of problems, and I’m one of them, I s’pose.”

  Icarus looked around. Indeed, the basement had been tidied up. On one end of the discarded sofa was a sleeping bag, a pile of books at the other end. Next to the sofa was a sports bag overflowing with clothes, a pair of trainers parked neatly alongside. On a box next to the sofa was a small portable television. Icarus ambled over and picked it up.

  The Leader could see what Icarus was thinking, and pre-empted any accusation. “I got it on Freecycle – nothing stolen in this room. Of course, reception down here’s pretty crap, but some time I’ll get round to rigging up a decent aerial sometime, or tap into one of the aerials on the roof.”

  Icarus still could not really believe that this was all true. “But how do you eat? Wash yourself? All that? How do you feed yourself?”

  “I’ve made a few quid,” said The Leader. “I’ve sold two bikes already, and got another two one order, once I’ve finished fixing this one.”

  Icarus found it difficult to discern “this one” that The Leader was referring to, so many and scattered were the component parts that made up the bicycle in question. Icarus looked at the parts lying around them, then at The Leader, to see if in fact it was the same boy that had taunted him in the park just a few weeks before. The face was the same, slightly flat, nostrils flared, except for once he did not appear to be looking for a fight.

  “So you’re actually making some money out of this?” Icarus asked.

  “Yes,” said The Leader, “and I s’pose I gotta thank you for it.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you an’ your old mate. After you an’ him built your bike he said that I could use the other bits if I wanted. So I used the rest of the stuff to build another two bikes, an’ I sold ’em. Your mate told me where you got all the junk, on Freecycle, so I just got some more. It’s like I got my own business goin’ here.”

  Icarus nodded slowly, as if in approval of a young reprobate’s reform.

  “Turns out,” The Leader continued, “that I’m not a total waste of space after all, like me Mum says I am. I might’ve been crap at school and learnin’ and stuff like that, but now I think I’ve found somethin’ that I can do.”

  In spite of himself, and his previous apathy towards The Leader, Icarus was impressed. “Does that mean you’ve given up stealing?” The words tumbled out of Icarus’s mouth before he knew it.

  A dark look crossed The Leader’s face. He froze for a moment, then another, and then a third moment. “I’m really, really hurt that you should think such a thing.” Icarus’s face fell, but a big smile spread across The Leader’s face, and he went on: “I’m just kidding. I s’pose I did all that stuff ‘cause I was bored, ‘cause I thought I was crap at everything, and I wanted to impress the other guys.” The smile slipped and he looked directly at Icarus and said: “I s’pose I don’t need to go stealin’ no more. You and the old guy actually paid attention to me, not to stuff that I had. You never judged me, really. I s’pose maybe that was the lesson he said he was going to teach me, ’cause it’s the lesson I learnt. And now that I’ve got you and the old guy as mates, I don’t need to impress no one, do I?”

  The smile came back, and he held out his hand to Icarus and said: “Mates?”

  “Mates,” Icarus responded, and shook his hand.

  14. HEIGH HO, ASAP

  On Monday morning Icarus kissed his moist-eyed mother goodbye and set off for work at the International Cycle Courier Company (Hackney Branch). The company office was no more than a tiny shop with one desk, one telephone and a few uncomfortable chairs dotted about the place. In one corner was a lopsided kitchen cabinet that had been rescued from a skip. On it were a kettle, half-empty jars of instant coffee and a few mugs. Through a door in the corner was a lavatory and cracked basin.

  Apart from Helen the Despatcher, who had interviewed Icarus for the job, the office was empty. Helen the Despatcher looked up from her copy of The Sun as Icarus wheeled his bike in. “Can I help you?” she asked.

  “I’m here for work,” said Icarus.

  “Sorry, we’re full up.”

  Icarus was confused. “But you said you have a vacancy. The other day, at the interview.”

  Helen looked at him more closely. “Oh, it’s you. Didn’t recognise you with your helmet on. We’ve got a lot of chaps coming in here looking for work, so I thought you were just another one. Why are you so early?”

  “You said to be here by eight.”

  “Oh, okay. None of the others ever shows up before nine-thirty or ten. Never known one of them to be on time. Well, park your bike over up against the wall – not against the glass – and make me a cup of coffee. There’s nothing to do just yet. Just make yourself at home.”

  Over the next two hours Icarus’s new colleagues drifted in to the shop, half awake and carrying disposable cups of coffee from international establishments dotted along the High Street. They greeted Helen the Despatcher and ignored Icarus, who sat in a corner, head down, pretending to read a motoring magazine. He noticed that there was no Grey Man.

  After a while Helen the Despatcher spoke loudly: “Listen up, guys. This is Icarus, and he’s new. I want you to be nice to him and show him what to do.” There were a few mumbles, but no one moved. “Look guys, I said be nice. Introduce yourselves, and talk to him. He’s going to be riding with you chaps for the first few days.”

  Reluctantly the crowd moved acros
s to Icarus, who stood up to acknowledge them. “Hi, I’m Justin,” said one. “I’m Jason.” “Tony.” “Marcel.” “Mike.”

  “This your bike?” asked Marcel.

  “Yes,” said Icarus.

  “Bit retro,” said Jason, or was it Justin?

  “What are these for?” asked Marcel, pointing to the brake levers.

  “They’re the brakes,” said Icarus, “for stopping.”

  “Wow,” said Marcel. “Whatever will they think of next.”

  “And these?” asked Justin, or was that Jason? pointing to the gear shifters.

  “They’re gears.”

  “Gears? What are they for?”

  “They help you to maintain your cadence on uphills and downhills,” said Icarus. He glanced across at the bikes that the others had brought into the shop. They were all identical – black fixed-wheelers with pared-down handlebars and no brakes.

  For the first few days Icarus shadowed other young riders as they pedalled laconically from one job to the next, barely raising a sweat in their eternal quest always to look cool. Icarus had no concept of style or fashion. He knew what a good bike looked like. He knew what purpose different types of bicycles served. But he could not, for the life of him, fathom why anyone would want to tackle London’s streets on a black fixed-wheel bike that had tiny handlebars and no brakes. Even less, why would one want to cycle about wearing a tiny peaked cap back to front and with one trouser leg rolled halfway up the calf, as if to signify membership of some secret society.

  Icarus was anathema to fashion. His bike had 16 gears with derailleur changers and levers on the down tube. It was blue. And he wore a helmet. And bicycle clips to prevent his trouser leg from becoming entangled in the chain. And a luminous yellow Sam Browne belt from shoulder to waist so that he could be seen by day and by night. Mrs Smith had insisted on that. And on the helmet. And on the bicycle clips. Icarus did not mind. He did not notice that his fellow couriers looked at him as if he were some kind of alien, and appeared to be slightly embarrassed as they glided along with this strange being in tow. What was worse, Icarus asked so many questions, so they were forced to talk to him, and could not simply ignore him. Without the questions, they could have pretended that he was just a bed smell that follows you around after you step in something nasty. But with all those questions it was like being forced to look under your shoe to see what you’d trodden in.