by Dennis Rink
“Got a job for me,” Icarus managed to ask.
“This one’s really for Con,” she said.
“But he hasn’t arrived for work yet, has he?”
“No, he hasn’t, and I suppose we don’t know when he’ll arrive. But this is a bit of a tough one.”
“I’ll do it,” Icarus said, suddenly full of confidence. “I really want to get out for a while.” He didn’t add that he thought the small office was about to suffocate him.
“Oh, okay then. I suppose so.” Helen the Despatcher explained the job to him. It didn’t seem complicated but would take Icarus all over the borough and into the City. Icarus slung his bag over his shoulder, wheeled his bike out of the shop and set off up the High Street. He had studied his brief and the map, and the route was fixed in his mind. He rode hard into the strong breeze, the activity forcing oxygen into his starved lungs and the adrenaline driving thoughts of Jo out of his mind. He cruised around Hackney and Islington like a seasoned professional, legs pumping in a regular rhythm, eyes fixed on the traffic around him, and stopping only when it would be dangerous to proceed.
I am doing Con’s job, he thought, and I must do it well. If I do it well enough, perhaps I will be the top man at the International Cycle Courier Company (Hackney Branch), and perhaps Con will be redundant.
The ride passed by smoothly, quickly, until Icarus reached the outskirts of the City. The City. Jo’s patch. Maybe he would see her, bump into her. It slipped his mind completely that he had taken this task in order to get Jo off his brain. Now she was all that he could think of, and his mind was no longer on the job. Icarus turned along London Wall towards Bishopsgate to drop off the last set of documents when he saw her. At least, he thought it was Jo under that helmet and behind the dark glasses. He turned to check, and it was then that he felt the blow to his left thigh. The next thing he knew he was lying on the ground, looking up. A ring of indifferent faces stared down at him. He stared back.
“You gotta watch where you going, mate,” one face above him intoned unsympathetically.
“Didn’t you see the light was red?” said another.
No one inquired after his health or well-being. Eventually one onlooker had the sense to call an ambulance, in spite of Icarus’s objections. He tried to get up, but the onlookers pushed him down.
“Don’t move.”
“Wait till the ambulance gets here.”
“Probably broke yer leg, mate,” another added helpfully.
“You’re a very lucky young man, you know. He was only going slowly.”
“Where’s my bike,” Icarus asked. “Is it okay?”
“It’s a bit buckled, mate. Don’t you worry yourself about it – you just look out for yourself first.”
Icarus allowed the wave of indifferent kindness to sweep over him.. He looked at the faces above him once again, then closed his eyes and tried to imagine Jo among them, but she wasn’t there.
Nothing was broken, apart from Icarus’s front wheel. And his pride.
And perhaps his heart.
As he feared and expected, his mother made more than a fuss about him that evening when he was taken home from A&E (it means Accidents and Emergency, he explained to her). Once again he had to listen to the lectures on how dangerous it was to ride a bicycle. “It was my own fault, Mother,” he tried to reason with her. “I wasn’t paying enough attention. I’ve learnt my lesson and it won’t happen again, I promise.”
He did not tell her why he had been inattentive, but he was constantly reminded of the reason by the pain in his chest. He had expected that pain to be eclipsed by the throbbing of his left leg, but somehow it was not. And so he sat there, in the armchair in the front room, overlooking the park where his life seemed to have begun, and allowed his mother to fuss over him. He sat there, looking down at the oriental rug, trying to pick out his favourite birds from among the undergrowth, but they were not there. They seemed to be hiding, afraid to show themselves, to get entangled in his pain.
Mrs Smith brought Icarus his dinner, gave him a cold compact for his bruised leg, attended to his grazed elbows. The only thing that she could not attend to was his aching heart – but then, she did not know that it was in such a desperate state, and even if she had known, she had no clue as to the remedy, because deep inside she still nursed a similar injury.
“The man from the auction house came today,” she told Icarus, “and it’s seems that your friend George was right. The man said that he sold a carpet just like it a couple of months ago, and that we would get more than enough to buy the flat.”
“Oh,” said Icarus. He could not raise any enthusiasm for this conversation.
“Well, that’s good news, isn’t it?”
“I suppose so.”
“But the strange thing was that the man said this is a very rare and unusual carpet. When he saw it he thought it was the one he sold recently – but he knew that it couldn’t be, because he had sent the other one to somewhere in South America. ‘It can’t possibly have got back to North London in that time,’ he said.”
“Uh huh,” said Icarus.
When he went to bed, Icarus insisted on undressing on his own, in spite of his mother’s protestations. In his small bedroom he stripped down and stood naked in the middle of the floor. He looked down at his legs: his right leg, he noticed, had lost it chubbiness and was lean, muscled, and a little hairy. Those are new, he thought. Will I have to shave them. He had noticed the smooth legs of Justin and Jason. And Jo. Did you have to shave your legs to be a good courier, he wondered.
Then he shifted his gaze to his left leg. It was swollen to almost double the size of the right, and was bruised almost black, with angry purple welts where the car grille had hit him. It was not a pretty sight.
The nurse at the emergency room had given him a set of crutches, which leant up against the wall in the corner of the room. He had used them so far only with difficulty to get up the stairs to the flat after they had taken a taxi home from the hospital – an extravagance his mother had insisted on.
It struck him that perhaps he should have contacted the International Cycle Courier Company (Hackney Branch) to let them know what had happened. It was too late now – they would be closed. Then he wondered what had happened to his courier’s bag. His bike, he knew, was at a police station – probably the one where he had had the unfortunate encounter with Helmet Two and the very large police seargeant.
He climbed gingerly into bed. He lay there, staring at the moulded ceiling. The painkillers that the nurse had given him seemed to ease the aching in his leg, but not the hurt in his chest. He stared at the moulded ceiling. Light from the street outside created new patterns in the moulding. When he was young he used to imagine that the moving patterns were really alive, they that had to remain in constant motion in order to stay attached to the ceiling. If they stopped, they would fall off the ceiling, and onto him, tangling him up in their eternal struggle. Icarus wished that the night was totally black, that the patterns would disappear. He could not turn over and shut his eyes. He seemed to see Jo’s face emerge from the patterns. But she did not see him.. Eventually, with the help of the painkillers, darkness came to him, and the pain in his leg eased, although his heart still throb-throb-throbbed in the dark.
18. THE CON JOB
Icarus and The Leader stood in the basement of Icarus’s flat, regarding the buckled front wheel and bent forks of his bike. The Leader had reluctantly agreed to collect the mangled bike from the police station. “I try to stay away from police stations these days,” he told Icarus. He had carried the bike all the way back to the flat, and now they were trying to decide whether they could salvage it.
“I could fix that front wheel,” The Leader said, “but I wouldn’t be sure of the integrity of the rim.”
“Integrity?” Icarus was quizzical.
“I can read, you know. I’m not totally stoopid.”
Indeed, The Leader appeared to have adopted self-help with a similar alac
rity to the way he had tackled making and mending bicycles. Icarus looked around the basement. A number of open books littered the sofa, and in one corner there was a newly installed bookshelf with an array of neatly arranged cycle maintenance books, alphabetically catalogued from Ballantyne to Zinn. Around it the piles of books seemed to proliferate.
“What you need,” The Leader went on, “is a new front wheel, new fork and new tape for the handlebars.”
“That’s great. How long will it take?”
“Well, it might take a while to source the right parts, so I reckon a week or so. When are you due back at work?”
“I don’t think I’ll be back for a good few weeks. Well, as long as I need, Helen said, but I really felt that the sooner I get back the better.”
“I’m surprised they’ll even take you back. You managed to lose your courier’s bag and got knocked down. What kind of courier are you anyway?”
Icarus began to feel defensive, and a little hurt. “It was a proper accident – I was distracted. I was thinking of, um …” He couldn’t tell The Leader what he had been thinking of.
“I was just winding you up,” said The Leader lightly.
“Oh,” said Icarus, slightly relieved. “To tell the truth …”
“I always do that.”
“…to tell the truth, I thought they might not want me back, but Helen the Despatcher was really nice when she came round to see me. She said I could take sick leave for as long as I needed.”
They stood in silence for a while, looking at the offending wheel.
“Of course,” The Leader broke the silence, “I’ll give you mates’ rates for the parts and labour.”
“Mates’ rates? What’s that?”
“Special discount, you know, just for friends.”
“You mean like the discount that we give you for living in our basement?”
The Leader shrugged. “You drive a hard bargain, you know. How am I meant to run a successful business if I keep having to give you freebies like this?”
“How about you come for lunch on Sunday? I’ll organise it with my mum.”
“Your mum doesn’t like me. And I’m a bit scared of her, to tell the truth.”
“And you always tell the truth,” said Icarus. “Don’t worry, I’ll fix it with her..”
“Okay then, you’ve got a deal.”
After work that evening the Grey Man stopped by in the basement. He found Icarus and The Leader there, sitting in silence, reading. After inspecting Icarus’s war wound he looked at the wrecked bike, then asked: “How on earth did you let that happen? Didn’t you remember everything that I told you?” He was more concerned than angry.
Icarus explained the chain of events that had led to his accident, again omitting any reference to Jo. When he finished, the Grey Man said: “Hmmm. I’m surprised that Helen the Despatcher let you do that route so soon. Usually it’s only done by very experienced riders. Normally I’m the only one to do it …”
“But Helen said that Con usually …” Icarus did not finish his sentence. The chain that turned his brain seemed to slip a gear, and for a moment he floundered, before re-engaging brain and mouth. “Oh,” he said, as a flashbulb lit up above his head, “you must be Con.”
The Grey Man was silent for a moment, then said: “At work you can call me Con.”
“But you said your name was George,” said Icarus.
“In front of your mother,” said the Grey Man, “you can call me George. And at work you can call me Con.”
“I don’t understand,” said Icarus. “What do I call you when you’re not at work and not with my mother?”
“Then you can call me whatever you like, as long as it’s not too rude.”
“But George isn’t your name, is it?” asked The Leader.
“Let’s just say that it’s my middle name.”
“So what is your real name then?” Icarus and The Leader asked together.
The Grey Man paused for a while, then said: “My name is Lazarus Georgiou Constantinou.”
“Aah,” said Icarus, “so that’s why they call you Con.”
“Lazarus Constantinou,” said The Leader. “What kind of name is that?”
“It’s Greek. Like mine,” said Icarus.
“Smith? That’s not a Greek name,” said The Leader.
“No, but Icarus is. My father was Greek.”
“Oh, I thought that Icarus was just some kind of crazy made-up name.”
The Grey Man said: “It’s from a Greek legend, so it is kind-of made up. But it was made up thousands of years ago.”
The Leader asked: “So is there a book where I can read all about it?”
“There are many, many books about it. Probably hundreds of them. If you’re good, I’ll get you some,” said the Grey Man.
“If I’m good,” said The Leader with a harrumph. “You sound just like my mother.”
“Well, do you want the books or not?” asked the Grey Man.
“What do you think?” said The Leader, then: “Oh boy, how many more books do I have to read? I’m busy trying to get through all of these – and they’re mostly just about bikes. Now I find that there is other stuff that I have to find out about.”
Icarus brought the conversation back to its original course: “So why don’t we just call you Lazarus?”
“Because my name is the story of my life,” said the Grey Man.
“Yes, I get it,” said Icarus, remembering the Grey Man’s tale. “I can see why you wouldn’t want to be called Lazarus.”
But The Leader didn’t get it: “Sorry, I just don’t know what you’re talking about?”
“It’s the story of Lazarus, from the Bible,” said Icarus.
“Another story?” said The Leader. “What’s this one about then?”
“It’s about a man called Lazarus, who was brought back from the dead by Jesus.”
“From the Bible. So you mean it’s another myth?”
“No, it’s not a myth – it’s from the Bible.” Icarus turned to the Grey Man, looking for some support.
The Grey Man said: “Some people would argue that it’s true, and some would say that it’s a myth. It depends on your point of view, really, on what you believe, and what you don’t believe.”
The Leader asked: “Anyhow, what do you mean when you say it’s the story of your life? Did you die, or something?
The Grey Man sighed, and said: “Well, in a manner of speaking. But it’s not something that I want to talk about right now.” He turned to Icarus’s buckled bike, which lay on the basement floor. “That front wheel’s going to need some love and attention. It might be worth getting a specialist to look at it.”
“I’m going to fix it,” said The Leader defensively. “I’ll get a new rim, a few spokes, perhaps change the bearings.”
“I know you’re keen to help,” said the Grey Man. “No offence, but I think there are times when you need someone who really knows what they’re doing. And I think that would be best in this case.”
The Leader harrumphed again, and sat down heavily on the sofa. “If you say so,” he said.
19. A SPELL OF R&R
It is always the physical wounds that heal quickest. Long after the outward bruises are gone and the scars have faded, the hidden injuries continue to bleed and weep. Mrs Smith knew this, because the wounds she had suffered 17 years ago when Dedalus left her had never healed. Now she hoped to turn this knowledge to her advantage: she would use it to exploit Icarus’s vulnerable state and undermine his desire to return to his life on a bicycle. Surely, she thought, he must be having a crisis of faith, an uncertainty about cycling. He had, after all, first-hand experience of the damage that it could cause. She was resolute. She would use his enforced confinement to convert him once and for all.
The Grey Man, on the other hand, surmised that Mrs Smith was in possession of such knowledge, and he was determined to do all within his power to counter her actions. Now that Icarus had discovered himself, he c
ould not be allowed to relapse just because of one small setback. He must be discouraged from falling back under the malignant influence of his mother. The Grey Man would have to be subtle as he countered her every move, so that Mrs Smith would never realised that it was he who was sabotaging her objective.
Throughout his recuperation Icarus was unaware of the continual fight for his soul. The battle raged between two contestants, who would drop in on him at unusual moments, bring him little gifts, drop hints about his welfare and well-being, steer conversations towards their way of thinking. Both were totally unable to see that their battle was all in vain. Icarus, you see, had never once wavered from his belief that when he was well again – and when his bicycle was mended – he would once again mount said machine and venture out along the highways and byways, travelling wherever the road of life would take him.
Instead of responding to the cold war that was raging around him, Icarus used his convalescence to broaden his knowledge. He read avidly, no longer his mother’s Encyclopaedia Britannica and the purloined bicycle magazines, but books borrowed from the The Leader’s library in the basement, books whose provenance was so unclear that even their current owner could not remember where they had come from. There were borrowed books, unreturned library books, bargain-basement books, second-hand books, discarded books – no matter where they came from, all found a welcome home on The Leader’s bookshelves. And of all the books that Icarus so avidly consumed, a handful had a profound influence on him. Icarus tackled the volumes in no particular order. He started by rereading Tommy Simpson’s autobiography, Cycling is My Life, and thought he should follow that by another autobiography, so he picked up Lance Armstrong’s book, It’s Not About the Bike. Disillusioned by fiction, he switched to something more sedate, and closer to home, and at a canter he paged through The Beautiful Machine, by Graeme Fife. For a bit of lighter relief he turned to French Revolutions, by Tim Moore, although he didn’t really get the bit about the drugs and Mont Ventoux until he had finished William Fotheringham’s Put Me Back on my Bike, which presented the other side of the story about Tommy Simpson.