The Accidental Cyclist

by Dennis Rink

  Icarus read these books and others with no particular purpose in mind other than to amuse and enrich his growing mind. He assimilated their cumulative information, salting away random facts and figures, little realising that, quite soon, these books would subconsciously change the direction of his life to a degree that he – and Mrs Smith and the Grey Man – could not anticipate. The books, totally different in nature, were to plant the seeds of an idea into a brain that too long had lain fallow, too long been discouraged from exploiting its own rich potential. The cross-pollination of ideas in these books would germinate, blossom and flourish in a fertile imagination, and enable Icarus to leave the comfort and security of the tiny world he had always lived in, to discover the great beyond. They would, in short, give Icarus the wings to help him to fly.

  20. LAZARUS’S RUN

  A brief four weeks after his accident – and much to the disappointment of Mrs Smith – Icarus J Smith returned to work at the International Cycle Courier Company (Hackney Branch). Helen the Despatcher almost did not recognise Icarus as he wheeled his mended bike into the shop. He had cut his long, wavy locks and now his hair was a knot of tight black curls clinging to his head. He had, in a matter of the few months since he had started work, changed from a boy to a man, she thought. And a nice-looking man too.

  “Welcome back,” she said in a warm voice. She walked around the counter and gave Icarus stifling hug. “We’ve all missed you.”

  Icarus looked around to see who the “we” were that Helen the Despatcher was referring to, because it clearly did not refer to Justin, Jason and co, who were in their usual positions variously propping up the wall or sprawled across the chairs, all radiating intensely studied indifference.

  Icarus had just finished making himself and Helen the Despatcher a cup of tea when the Grey Man arrived and gave him a warm smile. “You here to pinch my rounds?” the Grey Man asked.

  A look of alarm flickered across Icarus’s face before he realised that the Grey Man was teasing him. He did not hear the Grey Man saying to Helen the Despatcher: “Keep an eye on him, won’t you?” Nor did he hear her reply: “I was counting on you to do that.” However they agreed, still out of earshot, that perhaps Icarus should shadow the Grey Man for a few days, to recover his confidence, teach him some new routes and, most importantly, get him out of the office and away from the malignant atmosphere that hovered over the other couriers like a fetid fog.

  As far as Icarus was concerned, he was just as good as any of the couriers at the International Cycle Courier Company (Hackney Branch). The suggestion that he should shadow the Grey Man irked him somewhat, and although he did not say as much, the Grey Man and Helen the Despatcher could tell that he was not happy. They decided to keep him on his mettle.

  “When is Lazarus’s Run?” Helen the Despatcher asked the Grey Man.

  “Oh, it must be soon – this Friday, I think,” the Grey Man replied.

  Icarus was surprised to hear the Grey Man’s real name used at his place of work. He thought that only he and The Leader knew the Grey Man’s real name. “What is Lazarus’s Run?” he couldn’t resist asking.

  Helen the Despatcher smiled broadly at him. “Oh, you’ll find out soon enough,” she said enigmatically. This response irked Icarus even more, but he said nothing.

  The week passed with Icarus and the Grey Man making routine calls between lawyers and their clients, advertising agencies and newspaper offices, financial houses and big banks. Some trips were billed as more urgent than others, but all were accomplished with swift efficiency by the two couriers, which for them still counted for nothing more than a mere canter. The jobs were interspersed with coffee breaks, snatched catnaps and serious street-corner conferences with courier colleagues. The Grey Man also managed to persuade Icarus to spend some of his wages on cycling gear suitable for the coming winter. “Jeans and trainers and t-shirts are fine for the summer, but once the real cold and wet weather hits us, you need to be prepared.”

  Icarus was in the habit of handing over his weekly wages to his mother, who subsequently issued him with the occasional spot of pocket money. The Grey Man persuaded Icarus to open a savings account and put a proportion of his pay packet into the bank each week, before handing his money over to his mother. For a rainy day, he said. Icarus could not think of any reason why he would ever need such savings, and the Grey Man patiently explained to him that at some stage he would need to replace worn-out bike parts, clothes, and so on. “Besides,” the Grey Man said, “maybe you’ll even want to take a holiday some day.” Icarus, who had never in his life taken a holiday, agreed reluctantly, even though he felt that somehow he was cheating his mother of something that was rightfully hers.

  The week passed slowly and the Grey Man could tell that all was not well with Icarus. The lad seemed to be tagging along behind him like a shadow that was frightened of the dark. On the Thursday evening they cycled back up City Road towards Hackney. The light was fading fast and as they rode along the Grey Man watched their shadows overtake them as they passed under each streetlamp, then flee into the darkness ahead. The process was repeated anew at each streetlamp they passed. Somehow Icarus’s shadow seemed to lag behind his, and it appeared reluctant to flee into the darkness beyond.

  The Grey Man braked sharply and pulled over to the pavement. Icarus stopped just in front of him, and looked back, startled.

  “What’s up?” Icarus asked.

  “That’s exactly what I want to know.”

  Icarus looked at the older man, puzzled.

  “I want to know what’s eating you,” the Grey Man said, moving alongside Icarus. “Ever since you came back to work you’ve been moping about like …” he cast about for the right words, but they weren’t there. He went on after a pause. “What is it? You’ve not been concentrating on your job. You don’t seem conscious of the road, of the dangers. You’ve had absolutely no enthusiasm for anything this past week. You just seem to be drifting about behind me like a bad smell.”

  Icarus shrugged. “I don’t know what it is,” he confessed. “I just haven’t been feeling so good, I suppose.” He was about to set off again, but the Grey Man put a hand on his handlebars and held him back. He wasn’t prepared to allow Icarus to shrug this off.

  “It’s not like you’ve got a cold or a stomach bug,” he said. “There is something far more serious, isn’t there? Something in your head that isn’t right.” He tapped Icarus on the helmet.

  Icarus looked at the Grey Man for a while, his brain racing through several versions of the possible truth, then said: “It’s not in my head. It’s here.” He patted his chest. “It’s a nagging pain that just doesn’t go away. I don’t know why.”

  The Grey Man smiled to himself. He knew what caused that pain, even though it was a long, long time since he had been similarly afflicted. “Who is it?” he asked.

  Icarus felt the pain surge through his chest, his head, his whole body, then slowly subside to its regular dull pulse. “Jo,” he said almost silently, “It’s Jo.”

  The Grey Man shook his head slowly. “She’s a lovely girl, but she’s not available. You know that, don’t you?”

  Icarus looked perplexed. The pain shook his body again, before subsiding.

  “She’s a lot older than you,” said the Grey Man. “And she has a partner. They’ve been together for years.”

  Icarus felt as if the Grey Man was twisting a knife slowly in his chest. “But she was so nice to me, so friendly. She wasn’t friends with Justin or Jason or any of that lot.”

  “That’s because you were no threat to her. That’s why she likes you.”

  “She likes me?” Icarus perked up.

  “Yes, I’m sure she does. But she will never be your girlfriend.”

  “Why not?”

  The Grey Man had hoped to avoid this, but he could not get away from it now. “Like I said, she already has a partner – a girlfriend.”

  “A girlfriend?” Icarus was confounded.

  “Yes,
a girlfriend. She’s gay. So just get over it, okay.”

  Icarus had never known anyone who was gay. He had heard other boys at school talking about gays and queers, but he had never really comprehended what it meant. They had even called him queer, but it had never bothered him, because they called him many other things besides. Never before had Icarus felt physically attracted to anyone, of either gender. Now, as he and the Grey Man cycled the last couple of miles home in the dark, he tried to comprehend what it would be like to be attracted to another man. But he couldn’t. He liked the Grey Man, he might even like The Leader, but certainly there was no attraction there. Not like the attraction he felt for Jo.

  When they reached the flat the Grey Man said: “That hurt in your chest will go away eventually. It’s not a bad pain – it’s quite good, actually, because it shows that you have a heart.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Icarus, “surely everyone has a heart.”

  “Everyone has a muscle in their chest that pumps blood around their bodies. But they are not all like you, because you have a great capacity to love. Not everyone has that capacity. And it is something good, because it means that you are a good person, a good human being, because you have love in your heart. That can only be for the better, can’t it?”

  “I suppose so,” said Icarus, although he wasn’t really that sure.

  “Another thing,” the Grey Man continued. “If you really like Jo, and you accept her as she is, you will probably find that she will always be your friend. That’s not something that would necessarily happen if she was your girlfriend.”

  Icarus frowned. He did not understand this logic.

  “You see,” the Grey Man explained, “physical relationships can get in the way of friendship. Any two people can be friends, and friendship can go on for ever. But relationships – especially physical relationships – often don’t last as long. Once a physical relationship is over, it is very, very hard to hold on to friendship.”

  Icarus nodded slowly as he walked his bicycle down to the basement of the flat. He was sure that the Grey Man meant well, but his words just did not seem to make him feel any better. And the pain in his chest felt sharper than ever.

  It was about lunchtime on Friday when the call came through. “This is it,” said the Grey Man. Icarus looked at him blankly. He had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.

  “Lazarus’s run,” the Grey Man prompted.

  “Oh, that,” said Icarus. He had forgotten about the exchange earlier that week, and of Lazarus’s run’s supposed challenge.

  “Are you sure you’re up to this?” the Grey Man asked.

  “Of course, why do you ask?”

  “You still just don’t seem to be all with it. You’ve got to be totally alert for this. And fit. I can’t be waiting around for you if you’re not completely up to it.”

  “I’m fine. Don’t you worry about me, I’ll be right behind you.”

  But still the Grey Man was worried, although he tried not to show it. They were cycling down Cannon Street when they had received the call. They crossed Tower Bridge and turned down Tooley Street, where the Grey Man pulled over and said to Icarus: “Here, hold my bike while I go inside. I’ll just be a couple of minutes, and after that we’ll be off full tilt.” He disappeared down the canyon formed by the series of office blocks. Icarus waited, chilled by the cold wind that blew up the Thames and was funnelled between these buildings. Office workers were blown along the concrete chasm like autumn leaves, scurrying along to their Friday lunches. The Grey Man reappeared at a run after the promised few minutes, carrying a white box that was about two feet square and four inches deep.

  “Okay,” he said, “this is urgent – we have to have it at the Law Courts on The Strand in five minutes, or there will be trouble.”

  The Grey Man set off at a pace that Icarus found hard to match. His legs had become cold during the wait, and he was struggling to keep up. Along Tooley Street they rode, then back across Tower Bridge. On the bridges’ pavements, behind the pale blue railings, the tourist hordes strained their necks to peer up at the towers, and down to the murky waters below, while huddling together to pose for photographs. Traffic on the bridge was at a standstill, so the Grey Man and Icarus carved a path down the middle of the road. The gusting wind that blew along the river tugged at them, knocking them this way and that as they passed between buses and lorries.

  At the Tower Hill intersection they ignored the red light and turned left, immediately crossing the slow-moving traffic as it entered the city-centre congestion zone. Icarus was warming to the ride, and tracked the Grey Man’s back wheel like a pursuit rider hunting down his rival. They turned right at Great Tower Street, using the pedestrian crossing to get around the bus barrier that barred the way. Down Eastcheap they pedalled, and into Cannon Street, where they picked their way through the gridlock before accelerating down the hill and past the station, braking sharply to avoid a black cab that had paused halfway through a u-turn, undecided which way it wanted to go.

  Up Cannon Street they went, to the one-way around the obscurely named Friday Street. Icarus felt his legs pumping hard past St Paul’s Cathedral, dodging tourists that milled around the crossing to take pictures of that famous dome, the red double-decker London buses, black cabs, and anything else that happened to take their fancy.

  Down Ludgate Hill a number 58 bus passed the riders, then cut in sharply to pick up a passenger. Icarus and the Grey Man braked and, cursing the driver, weaved around the red hulk and were brought to a halt by the lights at the Farringdon Road junction. The road was too busy to jump the lights, much to Icarus’s relief, so they waited, chests heaving, sweat beading their brows.

  The red light gave the offending number 58 bus time to catch up with them. As the lights turned green the bus jerked forward, but the Grey Man, with Icarus straining every sinew to stay with him, accelerated ahead, so that they had the racing line as they entered the chicane at the start of Fleet Street, leaving the annoyed bus driver hooting angrily at them. The Grey Man emitted a choice selection of invective, all of which the driver could not hear – and which Icarus certainly had never heard before – and then stood on the pedals for the grind up the hill for the final half mile. Behind him Icarus was feeling the pace. A band of steel seemed to be forcing all the air out of his lungs, his thighs were screaming and refusing to pump any longer, and as his head thumped a red mist appeared before his eyes. He knew their destination was near, but he could no longer hold on to the Grey Man’s rear wheel. Icarus was forced to give up the race, but he did not stop until he reached the Law Courts.

  He was only seconds behind the Grey Man, and he cut across the traffic on The Strand, forcing his way between pedestrians and onto the pavement outside the court buildings. The Grey Man and his parcel had disappeared inside the building, his bike abandoned in the forecourt, its front wheel still spinning. Icarus flung his bike down next to the Grey Man’s and sat on the court steps, gasping for air. His legs had suddenly gone numb, and his head was throbbing, as if it was ready to burst. The band around his chest was slowly loosening, and as he drew oxygen deep into his lungs his head began to clear.

  Five minutes later – longer than it had taken them to complete their ride, the Grey Man reappeared and sat down next to Icarus. He too was breathing too heavily to speak. Instead, he put one hand on Icarus’s shoulder and held it there, a kind of congratulation, a gesture of solidarity. And of comfort.

  Icarus tried to speak, but could not. Three times he started before finally finding the breath to stammer: “What … what was that … that it was so urgent? A stay of execution, or something?”

  The Grey Man burst out laughing, which was rather difficult, not having sufficient air in his lungs. Finally he managed to make a strangled sound that sounded to Icarus like “pshaaaa.”

  “What?” Icarus asked, more with his eyes than his mouth.

  The Grey Man was laughing so much that Icarus thought he might be about to expi
re. Finally, when he was able to speak, he spluttered: “You’ve been watching too many American movies. It was pizza. Every Friday afternoon a couple of lawyers there order pizza for lunch – and they’re really fussy. They insist that they get their pizza while it’s hot.”

  21. SUMMER DREAMING

  You have surely heard the old adage: you can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family. Well, that’s not strictly true. First, in this age of fickleness, it has become almost natural to choose to reject family. Just look at our three protagonists sitting in the basement of Mrs Smith’s flat – one has rejected his family, the other two have been rejected by one of their parents. Statistically that might not be a representative breakdown of familial life in England right now, but anecdotally it does have a bearing on the way we live today.

  Second, let us look at the bit about choosing our friends. For some bright modern social butterflies that flit from one beautiful clique to another, touching the lives of so many and affecting none, that might well be true. But that is not the norm. Let us go back to the three disparate characters who spend their evenings together in the basement of Icarus’s flat. What do we have?

  1. The only child whose single mother has over-protected him, hidden him from the world and never allowed him to have friends.

  2. A middle-aged man who has rejected his wife and children, run away from his problems, dropped out of life and spent time on the road. He hits the bottle each time he is faced with responsibility.

  3. A tearaway boy who has been thrown out by his selfish mother, a boy who spurns all authority and steals so that he will be accepted by his reprobate peers.

  Look at them. How could three such disparate characters, so unalike, so unsociable, choose to become friends? The answer is: they don’t choose. They became friends because, like so many others in this world, they have no one else to turn to, no one to cling to. They became friends because they find a common bond, a common need. That is not choice, it is necessity. You see, necessity, apart from being the mother of invention, is also the progenitor of fellowship, which is what these three characters found in that basement. They found one common interest – bicycles – and around that interest, that credo, they wrapped their beliefs. At the altar of the velocipede they laid their wishes and hopes and dreams, and by means of a common language and belief they opened their hearts and minds to one another, sometimes out loud but often, as men are wont to do, simply through their shared silence. Thus a brotherhood was born, even if they did not realise it.