The Accidental Cyclist

by Dennis Rink

  Then he looks up, higher, and sees another, bigger bird that seems to hang in the air like a kite, its wings unmoving, effortlessly rising and drifting in the thermals. It is bigger than the seagulls, more majestic, more serene. It is a bird that seems to have appeared in his magic carpet, but passed by, almost unnoticed. It must be some kind of eagle, Icarus wonders. Now, if I was a bird, if I was to be a creature that flies, that is the creature that I would be – an eagle or a condor, although you don’t get condors in Britain, do you? He allows his eye to follow the bird as it circles slowly in the sky, rising on the warming morning air, until it becomes no more than a speck in the sky.

  Icarus turns his gaze to the ground, to his present situation. Something is amiss, but it takes a moment to realise what it is: the Grey Man is gone, and so is his bike. The beauty of the sun rising over the sea fails to penetrate the mists that fall over Icarus. Our pilgrimage is over before it has truly begun, he thinks. He sees that the Grey Man’s sleeping bag is lying empty alongside The Leader, who is still dozing quietly. The panic inside Icarus subsides, but still he feels anxious. To calm himself he tries to find the eagle high in the sky, but it, too, had disappeared. Icarus flops back onto his sleeping bag and lies there, waiting for The Leader to waken.

  But before The Leader is awake, a head appears across the hilltop, gliding smoothly along the horizon. As it crests the brow towards Icarus the shoulders, chest and body of the Grey Man appear. His is riding with one hand on the handlebars, his other clutches a paper bag. He has not yet reached them when The Leader jerks upright, awake. “Bacon rolls and coffee,” he comments, nostrils flared. The Grey Man appears to be in good spirits compared with last night. “Breakfast,” he smiles broadly.

  The three tuck into their bacon rolls.

  “Did you see the fish eagle?” the Grey Man asks between mouthfuls.

  “I saw a bird that must have been some kind of eagle,” says Icarus. “It flew without moving its wings.”

  The Leader seems not to have heard them. His eyes remain fixed on his fast-disappearing bacon roll. When he has finished his breakfast the Grey Man stands up and says: “I have an announcement,” as if he is about to give an after-dinner speech.

  Icarus looks at him. The Leader keeps his attention strictly on his food. Icarus nudges The Leader with his foot and says: “I think he wants you to pay attention.”

  “I have decided,” the Grey Man continues when they are both looking at him, “after some difficult deliberations, that I must go to Deal, to see my wife and children.”

  Icarus stops chewing. His jaw drops, revealing a gobbet of half-chewed bacon. “You’re not coming to France with me?” he asks, although it is more a statement than a question.

  The Grey Man shakes his head sadly and says: “I’m sorry, Icarus. I know that your heart is set on going. But this is really something that I’ve been putting off for years. And if I don’t do it now, I know that I’ll never do it. But I do have to thank you two for bringing me to this point where I feel confident enough to go and see my family. I really do need to know what has happened to them, find out where they are and how they are doing. So it’s now or never.”

  Icarus thinks that he is going to cry. “But I can’t go on my own,” he says.

  “Of course you can,” says the Grey Man.

  “But you don’t have to go on your own.”

  Icarus and the Grey Man turn to look at The Leader, for it is indeed he who utters these last words. The last crumbs of his bacon roll are still sticking to his lips. He licks them off, the reaches into a pocket and pulls out a tattered red booklet. “Look, my passport,” he says.

  “You’ve got a passport?” asks Icarus.

  “Hell, yes. It’s from when my mom took me to Ibiza some years ago.”

  “You’ve been to Ibiza?” asks the Grey Man. “What was it like?”

  “Hot, is all I remember.”

  “What did you do? Go to the beaches? Go to restaurants?”

  “Nope, I spent the whole time in our hotel room playing video games.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, my mom just locked me in the room all the time so that she could go out partying. All I did was play games, eat pizza and watch lots of Spanish telly.”

  The Grey Man takes the document from The Leader and leafs through the pages. He stops at one and bursts out laughing. “Is that really you?” he asks.

  “It was eight years ago,” The Leader says, defensively. “I was only nine at the time.”

  The Grey Man keeps smiling. “Thomas Partridge,” he says. “So that’s your real name.”

  “What’s so funny about that?” The Leader feels his hackles rising.

  “Do you know of the myth of Icarus?” asks the Grey Man.

  “Yes,” says Icarus. “No,” says The Leader.

  The Grey Man briefly recaps the story. “But I knew all that,” says Icarus.

  “Yes,” says the Grey Man, “but there is more to it. Dedalus had a nephew who was as clever, as inventive as he was. He was jealous that the nephew would be more successful than he was, so one day he pushed the nephew out of a window of the high tower where they lived. The Greek gods took pity on the boy, and before he was dashed on to the rocks below, they turned him into a partridge, saving his life.”

  The Grey Man and The Leader laugh. “What’s so funny about that?” asks Icarus.

  “Well, that’s me,” says The Leader, hand outstretched towards Icarus. “The name’s Partridge. Thomas Partridge.”

  And so it is decided that The Leader, aka Thomas Partridge, will travel to France with Icarus. It is he, after all, who has planned the route to Mont Ventoux and worked out every last detail of the itinerary. The Grey Man’s last action, before embracing them both awkwardly, is to remove his yellow cycling jersey, with its scallop embroidered by Mrs Smith, and hand it to The Leader. “This should be yours,” he says.

  The Leader pulls the jersey over his head. There are tears in his eyes. “It’s a bit tight on me,” he says, to deflect any comments.

  “Don’t worry,” says the Grey Man. “By the time you finish your long ride, I’m sure that it will fit you perfectly.”

  And with a smile and a wave, the Grey Man pedals off to find the road to Deal.

  Icarus and The Leader find themselves alone on a cliff top overlooking Dover. The morning mists are clearing to reveal a golden sea below them, inviting them onwards. The Leader points across the water to a smudge on the horizon. “That’s France,” he says.

  Icarus squints into the sunlight before he can make out the faint outline of land. The early morning sun reflects across the shining water, forming a bridge of light between them and the distant shore, a solid shaft that beckons them to a golden future. Icarus looks at it, as if he can ride onto it, cycle across the void. “Do you think,” he muses, “do you think that if we came down the hill really fast, we could make it across to the other side?”

  The Leader considers this for a moment, then shakes his head: “I saw them try something like that in a movie once, in a car, but I don’t think it ended happily.”

  Icarus smiles. “Okay, we’ll just take the ferry then. Shall we go?”

  “Whenever you want. After all, you’re the leader.”

  Icarus stops abruptly. “Me? The leader?”

  “Yes, of course. Why, who else did you think was the leader here?”

  “That’s funny, because I’ve always thought of you as The Leader. It’s the only name I’ve had for you, until now.”

  “Why? I’ve never been the leader of anyone or anything.”

  “Well, maybe it just seemed that way to me, from the day we first met in the park. To me you seemed to be the leader of that group of boys.” And Icarus realises that they, an unusual couple of disparate characters, might just be becoming friends.

  “I was never their leader, I was just a bit bigger and louder than the rest of them. Anyhow, you’re the leader now,” said his friend. “Where you go, I will follow.
I’ll be Sancho Panza to your Don Quixote.”

  “You’ll be what to my what?”

  “Haven’t you ever read any proper books?” Icarus shakes his head. “Never mind,” says Thomas Partridge, “I’ll explain it all to you one day, when I finish reading the book. I haven’t got further than the first chapter yet.”

  And so we watch as Icarus Smith and Thomas Partridge, our two intrepid travellers, our pedalling pilgrims, our quixotic questers, mount their bicycles and freewheel down the coastal path into Dover, to take the ferry to Calais, where they will start their big adventure.

  THE BEGINNING

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