by John Lilley
The tyres of their bikes rumbled as they crossed the metal grid drawbridge on the central section of the canal bridge. The dark green canal water glinted invitingly 20 metres below.
11 AT HOME
Trevor Williams’s life so far had been filled with the engineering of bicycles and his love of the natural world. For Trevor, there was little time for a partner in all that activity, and until recently he had felt little need to make the time for one. The National Health Service (NHS) had not contacted him, and he’d never applied for a suitable match. He’d no idea what was lurking in his junk DNA, and quite frankly, he hadn’t cared, so long as his genes didn’t prevent him from living his life the way he wanted. So his 35th birthday came and went with no great regrets at that time, but he was by no means a selfish-singleton: he had a wide circle of friends, and he enjoyed their children tremendously, especially teaching them to ride their first bike. However, he was also secretly glad to hand them back at the end of the day.
After college Trevor had been torn between joining the Forest Rangers with his then on-and-off girlfriend Julie Bolton or a job at the local cycle repair facility. At the time he was beginning to feel that Julie’s apparent need to organise everything in his life was becoming too much, but despite the arguments between them, it was a close call with the cycling winning in the end. However, they’d kept in close touch ever since and usually saw each other at least once a year.
Trevor’s wiry barrel-chested physique suited the high lung capacity endurance demands of competitive cycling, and he was a regular competitor in the Tour de Périmètre. He belonged to several cycling clubs and most evenings he could be found at the local velodrome. For all of his working life he’d been a bicycle repair man, cycling was Trevor.
Today was a day off, and he was making preparations for his forthcoming trip to the Cleveland forest. He loved it up there, almost as much as the great Welsh forest and this time he was determined to see all the birds he had on his list, in particular, the Golden-fronted Woodpecker (Melanerpes Aurifrons), oh, and of course Julie. The woodpecker had proved elusive to him on all his previous trips. Being part of the species diversity project the bird had absorbed much research expenditure during its captive breeding programme. It had been one of the more successful introductions into the forest, filling its expected ecological niche. However, despite there being twenty breeding pairs on the island, it was a small, shy bird and difficult to spot in the dense woods of Cleveland.
The trip would take Trevor several hours, even on the MT system, but he enjoyed the journey because it took him across some of the most spectacular British countryside. The high-speed dash by train would then be followed by a gentle cruise across the Yorkshire Sea to Cleveland Island and the Rangers Lodge, where he would stay the first night. After stocking up, he would spend the next five nights camping in the forest. The word was that the birds he was looking for were about 20 km from the Lodge. Of course, Julie would be at the Lodge, and this time he found that he was looking forward to seeing her much more than usual. Over the past year he had felt increasingly lonely, especially after several of his long-term single cycling pals had finally paired off.
Anyway, let’s start the day slowly, Trevor thought, no point in rushing.
He sat on the balcony of his fifth-floor dorm, drinking the last of his summer-fruits cordial. He’d been lucky with his latest move and had managed to get a top floor room which had excellent views. All dorms were designed to be south facing so despite the perpetual thick cloud he could still feel the warmth from the sun for most of the day. His dorm block was one of ten that made up standard town number 251, one of the 1,207 towns and located almost 65 km from Britannia City on south-western MT link two. In pre-plan days Trevor would have said that he lived in the Cotswolds. His block was the most south-westerly one of his town, so he had unobstructed views across the fields as far as the low hills on the horizon. The chequer-board pattern of almost uniform one-kilometre square fields stretched out as far as he could see in every direction. The only interruptions in the orderly grid were the distant dorm blocks of the surrounding towns.
One hundred years of severe food rationing had seen the disappearance of cats (Felis Catus), dogs (Canis Lupus Familiaris) and most other pets from citizens’ homes. They had always been banned from the dorms anyway, so technically Trevor was currently breaking the rules by feeding a couple of his “pets”. He’d collected a large bag of thistle seeds on his last country ride. The seeds were now in one of his improvised hoppers made from an old soap dispenser. He had been sat on his balcony for just a few minutes when the two goldfinches (Carduelis Carduelis) were perched on the feeder. These two birds knew Trevor well and had been waiting in nearby trees for him to come out onto the balcony.
Priceless, Trevor thought as he watched the tame birds’ little red-masked faces dip in and out of the feeder.
In the distance Trevor could see the farm vehicles heading out to the fields, followed by crews of farm-day workers on their bikes. The morning rainstorms had already subsided, and it was going to be a nice day out in the fields. As a student, Trevor always enjoyed his time on the farms, and he had continued with his monthly farm-day for a couple of years after it was no longer compulsory. He’d enjoyed the pigs (Sus Scrofa Britannicus) the best, they were such lovely animals and so intelligent. Although he always liked an eel (Anguilla Anguilla) barbeque down on the beaches, he had not liked his time wading through the cold waters of the pond farms, with the stupid slimy fish pressing against him. As for the chicken (Gallus Gallus Britannicus) ranches, despite one of Trevor’s main interests being ornithology, there was something that was just not right about domesticated birds. They were just so unbelievably stupid, but it went much further than that: their self-centred pecking-order behaviour reminded Trevor of the central message from school history lessons as something to be avoided. Besides which, chicken shit had a corrosive smell which you just couldn’t wash off at the end of the day. He had breathed a sigh of relief when he’d finished his stint at the ranch, but strangely it didn’t prevent him from enjoying a nice piece of chicken, especially in piri-piri sauce. Stupid bloody creatures, they deserved it, he thought.
Trevor finished his cordial, packed his dirty laundry into its bag and headed out of his dorm to the canteen area. Before he’d gone ten paces; his link chimed to remind him to pick up some more soap.
Damn, he thought, I knew I’d forget something.
The door of his dorm re-opened instantly after detection of his embedded id-chip. He retrieved the soap dispenser from the shower cabinet and retraced his steps. The corridor was quite busy, mostly people going for breakfast.
‘Hey, how are you mate?’ he said to Charlie Simmonds, his near neighbour and fellow ornithologist.
‘Can’t complain’ said Charlie as he strolled by. ‘I recommend the bacon-fries. Pav is on canteen duty today.’
‘I can smell them now, see you round mate,’ said Trevor, with a grin.
The corridor widened out into the central atrium where Trevor headed down to the second floor. He wanted to sort out his laundry before breakfast.
No point wandering around with a bag of smelly clothes, he thought.
The queues at the laundry weren’t too bad. Trevor picked what he thought was the quickest one but as usual, he made the wrong choice. The woman at the counter began a long tirade about a hole that she alleged had appeared in one of her garments after their latest wash.
‘Well, how about a new pair?’ the laundry man was saying.
‘Oh yeah, you’d like that wouldn’t you,’ she snapped, ‘I spend hours at sewing classes altering that garment, and now you clumsy oafs have destroyed it.’
‘Well, why not take it back to the sewing class and repair it?’ He said.
‘Oh, great, and walk around in pants with a patch on them?’ She snapped back.
‘Look, you know the rules madam: clothes are free, but they don’t last forever, and we don’t do repairs, sorry,’ he s
aid, sympathetically, but quite hardened to this all too common situation.
‘Well screw you,’ said the woman, snatching up her clothes and heading off at high speed.
‘Charming to the last,’ said the laundry man quietly to her back, then immediately to the next customer: ‘Hello sir, how are you today? Drop off or collection?’
Two more people and it was Trevor’s turn.
‘Drop and collect,’ Trevor said as he waved his hand across the desk scanner.
‘Mr Williams, how’re you today?’ The laundry man said. ‘One moment please,’ as he dropped Trevor’s bag of clothes down the cute and turned to collect his clean clothes from the racks behind him, as directed by the laundry system. He noticed that Trevor’s returns included replacement trousers and jacket in camo colours.
‘Off to the jungle sir?’ he enquired.
‘Yeah, next Thursday for seven days in the Cleveland Forest’ Trevor confirmed.
‘Watch out for those bears, they’ll have your arm off,’ the man warned.
‘Will do, cheers’ Trevor said as he picked up the laundry sack and headed off to the canteen.
A large specimen of the British bear (Ursus Britannicus) could weigh in at 600 kg and break a neck of a red deer (Cervus Elaphus) with a single blow. So yes, they could certainly “Have your arm off”. Julie had taught Trevor a few tricks to pull if things got nasty, but the bears could only be found in the Welsh and Central forests, so in the forests of Cleveland Island, they would not be a problem.
After leaving the laundry Trevor was going to fill his soap dispenser, but the bacon-fries kept going through his mind and drew him towards the canteen. Sure enough, the gentle giant Pavitar Singh was serving.
‘Well hello big boy,’ he camped up as Trevor approached.
‘Hi Pav, I’m told you’re doing a very nice bacon-fry today,’ said Trevor.
‘Why yes, but only for gorgeous people like you Trevor.’
‘Lovely, thanks Pav, and some new potatoes and bok choy with them please.’
‘Would you like me to smear margarine all over them sir? I mean the potatoes you naughty boy,’ said Pav, continuing to camp it up.
‘That would be great, thanks Pav. Are you going to the velodrome this evening?’
‘Sure thing mate, I need to put a few miles in before that competition at the weekend,’ said Pav, but this time in his usual manly bass.
‘I think I’ll just do a light session tonight. I don’t want to be too knackered for the rest of this week,’ said Trevor.
‘You lucky sod, say hello to Julie for me,’ said Pav, giving Trevor a knowing wink.
‘Ok see you later mate,’ said Trevor.
He took his usual seat near the window, but instead of looking outside he watched the news on his link while tucking into his breakfast. The main story of the day was that the CO2 level was predicted to fall to 478ppmv by Monday.
He remembered going to the party when it had fallen to 479, about 10 years ago. There must have been at least 200,000 people in Parliament Square to watch the 10 metres high digital display on the south face of Big Ben, as it counted down. The measurement was taken by high altitude drones and was a rolling 12-month British average. It had been stuck on 479.51 for nearly 18 months but then dipped rapidly in the early autumn. More accurate counters to 10 decimal places were located around the square on the day, and there was even one in the centre of the Britannia Eye. It was a bit like the new-year celebration only not quite as predictable. Temporary refreshment stalls had been set up to keep the crowd happy. The fact that the first three alcoholic drinks were free was the main attraction for many and did lead to some rather drunken individuals, but the general goodwill and euphoria resulted in no trouble, just a few bad heads the next day. Trevor was one such reveller: never again, until the next time.
The large display beneath Big Ben gave a computer projection of the time remaining. Just like new-year. At ten seconds to go, everyone started to count down. At five seconds the clock jumped back to six to disappointing groans from the crowd, but then at three seconds it went to straight to zero, Big Ben showed 479, the crowd erupted and the most humongous pyrotechnic display Trevor had ever seen kicked off. By the end of it, Trevor felt he’d been permanently deafened. He’d also used up his reserve of “Ooooohs” for some considerable time. He had enjoyed the whole show but in the back of his mind was Julie’s warning that what he was seeing was a purely local phenomenon, unique to the freak micro-climate of the British Isles. The real global situation was going in the opposite direction, towards run-away total extinction temperatures and within a few years was likely to wipe out the last 100 years of reductions in Britain.
The bacon-fries proved an excellent choice and were well complemented by his choice of vegetables. Trevor washed it all down with a large glass of fresh apple juice. He would have liked to finish off his breakfast with a banana, but they were scarce at that time of year. The most abundant fruit coming from the southern glass farms seemed to be plums, but he didn’t like plums, well not the golden ones anyway.
After returning his tray at the canteen hatch, he headed in the direction of the soap station. At the machines, some teenage girls were in deep discussion as to which perfume to select.
‘You should try 429,’ one of them said ‘It said in Top Tunes that Denise Taylor uses it, it’s like well cool.’
Inserting his old dispenser bottle in the slot, Trevor selected his regular 240.
Screw Denise Taylor, he thought. This always smells good to me, and that’s all that matters.
He watched as his dispenser bottle filled with the turquoise liquid. He liked the satisfying thud as the two-litre bottle dropped into the collection bin at the base of the machine.
Wow, a red top, I've not had one of those for a few years now, he thought, then: What a sad git I’m becoming? Well, nothing lasts forever I suppose. Perhaps I’d got too used to the old green top. If only the machine had given me some warning. Oh dear, I'm getting too wound-up, I do need that bloody holiday.
Despite having to carry his laundry and soap, he decided to have a quick walk in the park before returning to his dorm. The air outside had already warmed up significantly after the last shower. Many people from the dorm had also had the same idea, and most of the nearby benches were occupied. Trevor was quite well known in the dorm village community and solicited a few knowing hellos as he passed by. The half kilometre wide park around every dorm contained recreational facilities to suit most. The cricketers hadn’t got started yet, but there were already a couple of impromptu football games going on and the skateboard park was always well attended. Trevor had only walked 100 metres when he heard the familiar shout of ‘Uncle Trevor, Uncle Trevor. Can you fix my bike for me?’
Trevor smiled as he turned towards the callers. Across the grass a couple of small boys came running, each pushing their bikes.
‘Uncle Trevor, the seat has dropped down,’ gasped the first boy excitedly.
‘And my handlebars are bent,’ added the second.
‘Well, well what have we here?’ said Trevor as he stopped and put down his bag. The boys watched intensely as he removed a small all-in-one toolset from his back pocket, that experience had told him not to leave home without. Trevor motioned to the first boy to hand over his bike, and both boys watched as Trevor made the adjustments. As always he explained every step of the process and got each boy to help him. The beaming smiles of the boys as they took possession of their fixed bikes were reward enough for Trevor. They both squeaked in unison: ‘Thanks Uncle Trevor,’ as they sped off across the park.
Another ten minutes of walking and Trevor had reached the edge of the park. The cycle track between Trevor’s dorm and the next one was already quite busy. The hedge around the nearest field skirted the edge of the park and ran alongside the perimeter track where Trevor was now walking. He looked intensely into the thick hedge, and while his trained eye picked out numerous insects and birds, he began to think about his im
pending Cleveland trip with renewed excitement. As he walked the sound of the wheels on the fine gravel of the cycleway grew louder. When he reached the track, he turned onto its companion footway that led back towards his dorm. He made no attempt to stop himself from watching the bikes as they sped past. He knew that he couldn't resist observing the subtle differences of design. To everyone else, the bikes appeared pretty much alike, but to Trevor, they were a kaleidoscope of design decisions, many of which he'd had a hand in. He knew intimately every fitting, joint, nut, bolt, chain and washer on all the bikes that were passing him now. Occasionally a particular bike would catch his eye, usually, an older model that he’d not seen for some time. He sometimes thought that if he’d lived in the days of steam, that he would have been one of those anorak-clad social-outcast boys who stood at the end of each platform and catalogued the trains. Trevor’s mind switched from the cycles and Cleveland back to work: he had quite a few things to get sorted out before his holiday.
Once back in his dorm he flopped down on the sofa and commanded the dorm’s systems into life. The screen-wall presented a window containing the latest newscast alongside Trevor’s appointments diary. Nothing in the diary was flashing for attention, so Trevor said: ‘Just the news please’.
The latest news spread across the screen, and he watched the item on the CO2 levels again.
‘Anything on cycling?’ he asked.
The screen instantly broke up into eight smaller pictures. Each one showed cycling-related news details. Some were of forthcoming events, including the competition that Pav had mentioned earlier, but one screen took Trevor’s interest.