After Jenny died, Richard could hardly bear to look at a bicycle.
Out in the shed stood his wife’s old machine from her university days, fit for a country parson with a sprung leather saddle and wicker basket. It was so old now that its style had come back into fashion - vintage. When they had moved in together, there was no room for it in the house. So it had been put outside, along with Richard’s old blue mountain bike, and over time had rusted into just another piece of junk, waiting one day to be E-bayed.
“Cycle in London?” Jenny scolded. “No chance. Too many nutters.”
Fair enough. On his commute, Richard had seen cyclists carved up by vans and taxis, riders screaming curses, slamming fists against windows and bonnets. The friend of a colleague had been killed near Regent’s Park, when a lorry swung open its door in her path. The air ambulance had roared over to take her to hospital, but she was dead by the time it landed. He’d even glanced, on occasion, at the awful YouTube videos recorded on helmet cams, that captured riders being squeezed into the gutter, almost crushed between lines of vehicles. It was enough to put anyone off, he agreed.
Jenny preferred to walk, anyway. She liked to be enclosed in her own private world. On weekend trips to the countryside, Richard sometimes sensed that she resented his attempts at conversation, preferring instead to lose herself in the amniotic drone of the Radio 4. When obliged to take the bus or train, she put in wax ear-plugs before boarding, to block out the inane conversations, the hiss of headphones and chirrup of devices, and so read her book unmolested by sound. Even when walking through the city, she wore her big BOSE headphones – noice-cancelling, military grade – not caring that she looked like a handler on the deck of an aircraft carrier, as she passed through the world, its frequencies blissfully inverted.
Richard had toyed with the idea of getting ‘a proper bike’ the previous summer, after watching the Tour de France on television. He’d been impressed by the lead cyclists pumping away in their phalanx of motorcycle outriders and support vehicles, tendons taut and veins bulging, spectators cheering and waving signs as they rode through pretty alpine villages. He hadn’t ridden his mountain bike for years. Hardly done any exercise at all, for that matter. Over time, the weight had crept up. He’d grown from chubby to hefty, to a point there was now a medical term to describe him: morbidly obese.
Richard presumed that his mountain bike, though good enough for its time, would not longer be up to scratch in the modern era. It would have been superseded by newer, lighter technologies, its heavy steel frame rendered obsolete by sophisticated carbon fibre and metal alloys. To get riding again, he guessed, would probably involve a decent investment. Quite how much turned out to be fairly astonishing, when he ventured into a new bike-shop that had opened by the station that week. Bike shops were springing up all over the place now, just like coffee-shops – it was as if they existed in some mysterious symbiotic relationship, like mycelium and trees. Inside, frames hung from the ceiling like gaudy ornaments. Saddles and handlebars decorated the walls, and glass cabinets housed obscure sprockets and pedals as if they were rare Swiss watches. He glanced, in vain, for price tags on any of the cycles that looked fully assembled.
A painted giant in dungarees stood at an upended bicycle, turning one wheel minutely. Tattoos sleeved the pale skin, and his ginger beard was so thick and long that Richard winced to think of it getting caught in the spokes. Without looking up, the giant asked Richard if he wanted any help. Sheepishly, Richard told him that he was thinking about getting a new bike. He had a figure in his head – around four hundred quid – which he thought should get him something decent.
“What kind of riding do you do mostly do?”
“Mainly just to work and back,” Richard lied. “But I’d like to get out for some longer rides. At the weekends.”
The giant spun the wheel on its axis. He finally deigned to glance at Richard. He gestured to a bike standing on a rack in the corner. It was a bulky grey model with thick, bubbly tyres that looked as if it could survive a tank attack.
“That’s a pretty popular commuter.”
Richard held the handlebars without enthusiasm. He didn’t actually want a ‘commuter’, and felt obscurely patronised by the reference to its popularity. Up on the wall he had seen a bike that looked more like those he’d seen in the Tour de France: bright cherry red with brazen white tape that spiraled around the dropped handlebars.
He pointed. “What’s that one like?”
“That’s a road bike.”
The giant made no further attempt to explain. Richard let go of the commuter’s handlebars and made his way over. It looked as lean and fast as a rocket, and the wheels appeared to have no spokes. He patted the narrow saddle, as if to test its construction.
“How much is this one?”
“That’s a custom build.”
“What’s that, exactly?”
The giant’s nostrils flared.
“We build it from scratch. You choose what parts you like and we price it up from there.“
“How much if it was just like this one?”
“Frame starts at two.”
“Two hundred?”
It was a stupid question, and Richard knew it.
“Thousand.”
“Right. What was the other one, again?”
“The commuter? Nine hundred all in. Unless you want a different set.”
Richard struggled to hide his astonishment. He didn’t even bother asking what a set was.
“Right. Thanks.”
Pedantically, before he left, Richard asked the owner to write down the details of both bikes – he would mull it over when he had more time, he said. After scrawling the figures on a card, the giant went back to the upended bike, spun the wheel into a blur. Outside the shop, Richard checked the map on his phone to find out where the nearest Halford’s was. He was sure he could find a road bike for cheaper, and without paying extra for the attitude.
*
“Oh my God,” Jenny said. “Are you serious?”
“Why not? I need to lose some weight.”
“You’re not that fat.”
“I need to lose three stone. I’m forty years old.”
She groaned.
“I’m not going to end up with a MAMIL for a husband, am I?”
“A mammal?”
“A MAMIL. That’s what they’re called. A ‘middle-aged man in Lycra.’”
“I wouldn’t go as far as that. Spandex maybe.”
“That’s that what they all say. Give it six months and you’ll be shaving your legs and getting your chest waxed.”
Richard hesitated, caught by the mental image of his hairless self, all plucked and pink. He’d look like a boiled piglet, he thought, with his clothes off.
“It might be nice to go out at the weekends.”
“We do go out at weekends.”
“But only in the car. It might be good to go out – “
Richard stopped himself. ‘With some other blokes,’ he’d almost said.
There were a few of them in his office, he suspected. A secret fraternity who went off at dawn on Saturdays, rode all day and then drank a few pints before going home to their families in the evening. Monday mornings, he’d see them in the work kitchen, looking fit and cheerful, overhear brief allusions to ‘sportifs’ and jokes about ‘killer climbs’. He didn’t know the men well – Simon, a craggy Yorkshireman who worked in design; a couple of other guys called Paul and Asif in sales and marketing – but he’d been intrigued, vaguely envious.
It wasn’t that Richard missed the company of other men, exactly. He had a couple of male friends from University who still kept in touch, and once or twice a year they went out for curry night. Most weeks, he played Call of Duty after Jenny had gone to bed, headset on to banter with people he’d never actually physically met, shooting and blowing up Germans into the early hours. But Richard had never been a very blokey sort of bloke. Never sought out golf clubs or football teams. He was natrually shy, and lacked the bold social confidence that seemed so to come so naturally to other men. Jenny was enough for him, he insisted. They were like a self-sufficient unit. When their old friends started to drift away, the excuse became easier to uphold. Perhaps if they’d had kids of their own, things might have been different. There would have been NTC groups, birthday parties, mums and dads from nearby schools, the minute comparison of notes on child development standing in as proxy for adult conversation. But they had left it late – too late, as it turned out. After the failure of two, expensive rounds of IVF, they had come to terms, more or less, with the fact that it would only ever be just the two of them.
“You could come along. If you wanted.”
Jenny tutted. “No way. Do you know how many cyclists are killed on the roads every year? Hundreds.”
“You can take quiet roads.”
“Why don’t you join the gym, if you want to lose weight?”
Richard sighed. Because he couldn’t stand the idea of the bloody gym, that was why. He’d seen men like him at gyms before – fat middle-aged men dressed in unsuitable, sweat-stained T-shirts, panting on the treadmill like they were about to keel over. While the beefcakes sat lean and muscled on the benches, staring into walled mirrors as they hoisted weights up and down. It all seemed so lonely – not to mention boring. What if he had heart attack, alone on the treadmill? He imagined himself clawing at his chest, gasping like a dying fish as he was conveyered off the rubber belt and onto the floor . . .
The more he thought about it, the more Richard quite fancied the idea of being a mammal. The uniform – so flamboyant and garish – ironically, seemed to render complete anonymity. Folds of flesh concealed beneath vivid lycra, chubby face hidden behind sunglasses and helmet. Smooth shorts and complicated shoes, wedged into cages like the stirrups of a horse. Flicking through the gears, flying down the hills – joining the peloton, legs pumping as the riders moving as one, like a shimmering shoal of fish . . . He resolved to go to Halford’s that weekend, at least to look at the bikes, whatever Jenny might say. He could get a proper helmet, whatever modern safety gear you needed. But toward the end of that week, summer crashed out in a series of rainstorms, and the idea of going out into the elements felt suddenly grim. Before long, the season was closing in, the clocks went back and darkness fell long before he left the office. In the evening, the cyclists changed into their Lycra and hauled up their bikes from the basement, flashing away like emergency vehicles. Richard watched as they pedaled off into the beetling traffic, water flicking up from their wheels, and he decided he might wait until next year, to get into cycling.
Meanwhile, at the weekends, they drove out to B&Bs and cottages in the countryside, and took long, ponderous walks under disconsolate skies. During the week, Richard took the Tube to work, standing in the cramped carriages, reading the free newspaper, as other passengers frowned in concentration at their devices, as if they were windows through which they might pass into glittering fairy-lands, and inhabit stories far more compelling than their own.
*
Jenny was walking back from work when the cyclist struck her. She had just stepped out into the road when the twenty-two year old hipster came whizzing along at high speed. He had shouted out a warning, so he claimed at the trial, tried to cycle around her. But she had lurched ‘in a weird way,’ and he’d slammed right into her.
Had he even tried to brake, the prosecution asked?
He was way too committed, the hipster complained. It was his right of way. The woman had jumped out in the road, and she was wearing headphones. It was her fault, he insinuated, that his bike had hit her.
“Very sorry for that lady and her family,” the boy had tweeted, ‘but #wakeupcall.’
The judge had noted that.
The boy didn’t even have a front brake, it turned out. He’d taken it off to make the cycle lighter and faster, in the manner of a track bike, customised for unofficial racing. It was this fact that got him a custodial sentence, for the obscure Victorian offense of wanton and furious driving.
Too committed.
Sober and dignified in his navy suit, Richard had listened, bewildered, in the courtroom of the Old Bailey.
I was the one who was committed, he wanted to shout! You fucking little shit – she was my wife!
On the day of sentencing, outside the High Court, Richard felt dazed as the reporters jostled him, cameras flashing. He was dimly aware of his role in their drama – the Grieving Husband – and still stunned by the audacity of the boy’s last-minute apology, shouted at Richard, the moment before he was taken down.
He could picture Jenny walking, headphones on, stepping out into the road. Oblivious to the ferocious force, bearing down upon her with such swift, unspeakable finality. Leaving her with a cerebral hemorrhage and less than an hour to live.
Splashed upon the front page of the free newspaper, the case caused general outrage. Pedestrian groups demanded more crossings and the automatic right of way. Motorists frothed that it was reckless, aggressive cyclists who were the real menace of the streets. No one – not even the from cycling lobby – put in a word for the defendant. He was just the kind of fey, self-entitled little wanker who ran red lights and gave them all a bad name.
*
Silence.
It was the silence that got to him most. Empty of Jenny, the house quietly smothered him. He walked in socked feet through empty rooms, feeling like an intruder.
Things that had belonged to her stopped him in his tracks, made somehow more precious and tragic by their banality. He sat on the bed for an hour, crying helplessly as he cradled a half-squeezed tube of her eye-cream. From the wardrobes and drawers, he picked up her clothes, woolen jumpers that held a hint of her perfume; frayed knickers and bras he could not bear to throw away.
Photographs haunted him, made him hyperventilate. He should put them away, or turn them around, but felt like a a traitor when he tried. Numb with grief, crushed by absence, Richard finally went online to seek help. Widower, he typed. The word itself so solemn and forlorn. Support.
Everything he found was strange and bleak. Most of the advice seemed aimed at men much older than himself, from a different generation. Practical tips on how to cook for yourself. How to cope with adult children. Forums were marginally more useful, though relentlessly heartbreaking. A world of people grappling with the death of loved ones, stunned by loss and scared to grasp the fact they were now alone. Older members comforted the recently bereaved, told them to 'feel supported'. It was not just the loss of a cherished companion they faced, they advised. But the devastation of shared plans, the fracturing of the future. They spoke of the stages of grief, mentioned symptoms Richard already recognised. Profound, unexpected reactions to things. Sudden, atypical crying.
Make sure the lights are on when you get home, he read, on an American bereavement website. Have familiar music playing. Turn your sadness into a reminder of what a wonderful person she was. Let her memory light up your house.
Richard tried to heed the advice. He left the radio playing when he left the house, turned on the TV as soon as he got back home. But the background of noise would have only annoyed Jenny, and when he turned up the volume of a record she had once liked, it felt like sacrilege, to play it without her, a betrayal of her memory, and a moments later, he began to shudder with sudden, atypical tears.
*
Richard went back to work after a month of compassionate leave. He hoped it would help to have his mind on something else – to lose himself in spreadsheets and the reconciliation of accounts. He braced himself for the awkward consolation of colleagues.
“Life goes on, doesn’t it?” he told them, as if sharing hard-won wisdom. Always thinking: “Does it?”
He tried to join in the office banter, but would more often than not find himself staring into space. He felt like a ghoul, trapped in a sanctity of mourning that no-one dared disturb. One afternoon, he hesitated as he was about to go into the kitchen, overhearing a conversation between two women from HR, who were making tea.
“Simon’s wife died young too, you know,” one said. “Just before you joined.”
“No. How did she die?”
“Cancer. That’s why Simon does all these big charity bike rides.”
Richard crept away to his desk. He glanced across the office toward the craggy Yorkshireman at his design desk, frowning at his oversized computer screen. Richard hadn’t realised that Simon was a widower too.
He could send him an email, he thought. Ask if he fancied a pint. The forums said it was a good thing to talk to other widowers, even if every path was different. Richard went so far as composing a brief note, but hesitated before pressing send. On re-reading it, he felt awkward. Probably Simon wouldn’t want to talk about his loss. Richard didn't know if he wanted to either, for that matter.
In the end, though, it came up naturally. One Monday morning, Simon was with the two guys from Sales & Marketing came into the kitchen when Richard came in for a coffee. It was clear that they’d been on one of their big rides over the weekend.
“Fuck me,” said Asif, short, and wiry. “I didn’t think I was going to make that last climb.”
“Downhill all the way after that, though,” Simon replied. “Absolutely bloody gorgeous.”
Richard hovered, an interested smile fixed on his face. The conversation now turned to technical matters, to gear ratios and braking systems. He finally plucked up the courage to speak.
“Where did you guys go?”
They looked back at him.
“Yorkshire,” Simon said. “God’s own county.”
“Cycling?” Richard said. “Sounds great.”
Silence fell. Richard noticed Asif glance at Paul, and he grasped that they knew the circumstances of Jenny’s death, and were unsure whether the the subject of bicycles was forbidden. Simon, however, cracked on.
“Ever go cycling yourself, Rich?” Simon asked.
“No. Not much. I meant to get back into it last year, actually.” Richard felt embarrassed of their pained silence. “Sounds fun, anyway.”
Later that day, when most people had left the office, Simon came over to Richard’s desk. He had changed into his cycling gear now: sleek, oily black lycra.
“If you ever did fancy a ride, Rich, do just let us know,” Simon said. “We have a good laugh.”
Richard gazed at him. “I don’t have a proper bike, really.”
“You could borrow one of mine.”
Richard laughed. “How many have you got?”
Simon frowned, counting on his knuckles. “Five.”
“Five!”
Simon gave a crooked grin. “Yeah, I know. You can always use one more. Just have to balance it against your wife divorcing you.”
Richard kept smiling.
Simon frowned. “The wife would only let me have two, when she was alive.”
Richard looked down at his desk.
“So it’s all swings and roundabouts, I suppose.”
Richard stared at Simon, aghast.
The Yorkshireman held up his hands. “Sick joke! Sorry!”
After the moment of shock passed, Richard found that he was laughing.
“Jesus Christ, Simon,” he said, shaking his head. “You can’t say things like that.”
The Yorkshireman grinned ruefully. “Sorry. Bad joke.”
“It’s alright.”
“So. You going to come or what?”
The Yorkshireman was looking at him with sympathetic green eyes. Richard felt a swirling in his guts.
“I don't know.”
“Might be good for you,” Simon said. “If you know what I mean.”
“Can I think about it?”
“Sure.”
“Thanks.”
The Yorkshireman turned and hobbled off toward the door in his complicated shoes.
On the bus home that evening, Richard watched the ragged flocks of cyclists floating along the roads. Flashing, weaving in and out of traffic, hovering at the crossings, waiting for the lights to change. He saw one cyclist bolt through a red light, swerve recklessly around a crossing pedestrian.
He felt a lurch of panic. It was a trigger, he realised. As he tried to take deep breaths, he thought about what Simon had said.
He didn’t know if he could do it. Wasn’t sure if he should even try.
*
It was a cool, crisp autumn morning, and the sun was rising over the Yorkshire Dales. Bronze light spilled over the sweeping green valleys as the men took down the bikes from Simon’s SUV and began to change into their cycling gear in the car-park. All around, puffing clouds of vapour, other men were doing the same, squeezing into Lycra, laughing as waxed chests and legs were exposed to the cold air.
The men had set off hours before dawn. Simon picked Richard up from his house, and they drove up the M1, pausing only to get coffees from a service station. The motorway had been almost empty, and as the sky began to lighten, Richard gazed out the window with a novel feeling – the secret, selfish joy of the early riser. Now, in the car-park, the scene evoked the morn of a battle, as the men – they were almost all men – strapped on helmets, fiddled with shoe-clips, went for steaming last minute pees in the bushes. Clad in Lycra of all colours, many-hued and motley, uniforms blazed with logos so that the riders resembled Formula One racing cars. Their mounts too, were extraordinary, though as with horses, Richard did not yet have the eye to judge them. Fluorescent paint and sleek metal alloy, tuned wheels and spokes, hi-tech gadgets mounted on the handlebars.
As the starting time drew close, the riders began to stretch and hug themselves, checking their steeds one last time, before pushing them by the saddle toward the starting pens. In the midst of these gaudy chevaliers, Richard felt shamefully underdressed. He hadn’t had time to kit himself out yet, and felt awkward and self-conscious in his gym shorts and T-shirt. His colleagues were clearly seasoned pros. He’d been astonished and impressed to see how quickly they had transformed from ordinary blokes in the office, into these sleek pilots, honed to the task.
Was it this, Richard wondered, that underlay the appeal of road-cycling? Donning the garb - like putting on armour, the logos a heraldic device of one’s own design. Sunglasses slipped on, as in a tournament of modern knights, pulled down like visors as they entered the lists.
“Hold on, Rich.”
Simon leaned forward and clipped the buckle of Richard’s helmet under his chin.
“Don’t forget that.”
Richard nodded, feeling pleasantly as if he had just been attended to by a squire. His heart was pumping now as he took his place, surrounded by the crowd of men, vapour rising in the morning air. The sun was shining in a clear blue sky, and as the horde of riders walked forward, he felt a sudden quickening, heard shouts of encouragement and challenge, rippling laughter. Now, he realised, men were mounting up, clipping toes onto pedals, pressing the screens of their gadgets. Unsteadily, Richard clambered onto his bicycle, felt the painfully hard saddle against his buttocks, the brutal angle of the handlebars. He gripped tight and prepared to move.
“Alright, Rich?”
From up ahead, Simon was holding his thumb in the air. Richard flashed a quick hand in reply.
Now the marshal was calling over the loudspeaker. A shot fired, and the horde of riders began to move forward. Richard slipped his feet into their cages, flicked the gear down. And now they were underway, men leaning over, pedalling along the open road in a riotous pageant of colour, flashing on every side, as the MAMILS began to race.
*
“How was that, then, mate?”
Simon and the other lads were standing outside the SUV in the car park as Richard winced toward them. He had crossed the line with the last stragglers, the support vehicles already sweeping the road behind them. But he had made it, half-crippled, arse-aching. He held up a gloved fist in triumph.
His colleagues laughed, nodding in approval. Paul put a hand on his shoulder.
“Well done, mate.”
“That was bloody hard,” Richard said. He couldn’t stop grinning.
Most of the cyclists had passed him in the first mile. He had felt completely out of his depth. But after the first wretched climb, there was a pleasant downhill, and as he clutched the brakes to slow his descent, he saw the pack ahead of him, gliding along the road in a carnival of colour, and felt a sudden, exhilirating delight in the rush of wind against his face. Green valleys plunged in the distance, patches of orange and red woodland burnished the hills. In the whirring of the wheels, he felt a curious tranquility, almost a mechanical unity with the landscape and the bicycle.
Until the next hill, which almost killed him, and sorely tempted him to get off and walk. But he persevered, and as he panted away, sweat streaming from his forehead, he felt a stubborn determination to persist. For the next few miles, he tried to enjoy the ride, not consider how far behind he was. But after the next ten kilometres, the road got harder, the hills steeper, descents shorter, and aching fatigue crept over him, until, at the last stretch, every sinew cried out to him to walk. T-shirt soaked in sweat, back rigid with agony, his muscles felt barely able to push down on the pedals. Then, at last, he’d crested the final hill, and saw the finish line up ahead, and he put on a last burst, cruising through the final yards and across the finish line, feeling like he was going to have a heart attack.
“Get one of these down you.”
Simon handed him a bottle of ale. Asif and Paul were drinking lager. Richard raised the blessedly cold bottle and toasted them. He drank, eyes closed, swallowing the ale down, feeling the bead of alcohol like sudden gold in his bloodstream. He let out a moan of satisfaction.
“Fantastic. Just fantastic.”
“How was the bike?”
Simon was looking at him in question.
“Oh, it was great. Arse hurts a bit.”
“Coming next time, then?”
Richard noticed that the men were grinning at him like jackals.
This was it, he realised. He was about to go official.
“Too right. That was bloody marvellous.”
Simon nodded, gripped him softly by the shoulder.
“Good lad,” he said, mildly. “We should probably think about getting you a proper bike, then.”
*
It was the single most expensive thing Richard had ever bought, except for the house. More than the car, more than Jenny’s engagement ring. In the shop, the tattooed giant had looked at him askance, and started to deliver a lecture on the bike's technical details, but Richard had abruptly silenced the man.
“Fine. I’ll just take it as it is.”
“Do you want to take it for a ride first?”
“No need.”
He pulled out his credit card.
It stood in the hallway now, bright cherry red against the white paint. It almost surprised him to see it standing there. He could not quite believe it was his. Quite unexpected, that flamboyant colour – like something a child would have chosen. Not him, at all. Richard’s car was silver. His laptop was silver. So was his phone. By comparison, this was a startling burst of exuberance. A very, very expensive burst of exuberance.
It’s an investment, he told himself, standing up to admire it again. I’ll get plenty of miles out of it.
He loved it, he realised. As he had never loved an object before. He loved it.
*
Over the weeks that followed, Richard’s life began to slowly change shape, to assume a novel form. Paul, who lived not far away, went out every morning, part of a group that rode earlty circuits of the park. Richard now rose with the dawn, showered, changed into his cycling clothes, checked the bike’s tyres and brakes. Rode to the park in the silver-grey light, before the world was properly awake – roads empty, air full of birdsong: he felt a smug kind of cheerfulness, cursed himself that he’d been so lazy in the past. It was a strange compensation for living alone – to be able to get up as early as you liked.
Club-wise, the men were a more serious bunch than Richard would have liked. Ready to go by the time they met at the café, holding road-bikes, calves bulging, bodies wiry from years of serious riding. Time was tight before the men had to get to work, and there was little chat or banter as they mounted up and set off quickly under the notional command of a man in his fifties called Peter, who ran a finance firm in the city.
“Five kids,” Paul told him, with a shudder. “All daughters.”
To ride in a group was a serious pursuit. No time to enjoy the glories of nature. Under Peter’s orders, they rode off at a sharp pace, leaning into the curves, keeping close, in a tight unit. On the first day, after ten minutes, Richard’s calves were burning and he was struggling to keep up. He was aghast to hear Peter’s booming voice from the front, as if he had eyes in the back of his helmet: “Try to keep up, Richard!”
He redoubled his efforts, panting as he pushed on the pedals. He flicked through his many gears, hoping they might make a difference, but before long, was left hopelessly behind. Up ahead, the other riders were wiggling away as they sped through the last lap. Richard finally came in five minutes later, completely exhausted. At the café, the rest of the group were already grabbing coffees and croissants, packing up for work.
Peter came over, nodded curtly.
“Look, Richard. I’m afraid you’re going to have to try a bit harder than that,” he said.
“Sorry.”
“We ride far better as a cohesive group.”
“Sorry. I’m a bit out of practice.”
Peter looked him up and down, nostrils flaring.
“Do you have any proper gear?”
Richard’s grey T-shirt was soaked with sweat. “Not yet?”
“Everything makes a difference, you know, Richard. You need to at least look as if you’re taking the thing seriously.”
With that, Peter drained his espresso, threw the paper cup in the bin and strode away.
Richard took his bike, prodding the tyres, pretended to scrutinise the chain. He felt chastened and guilty.
Clearly, to not take things seriously was a deadly sin in the eyes of some men.
*
Later that week, Richard stood in front of the racks of Lycra jerseys, trying to identify something that might fit him. All of the tops looked impossibly tight, even the XL sizes, and he felt dismayed to picture what he’d look like wearing one. Finally, he picked out a few different items, one in plain ivy green, the other a sporty yellow and black, like a bumble bee. With faint dread, he took them to the changing room.
Inside, he took off his shirt and looked at himself in the mirror. He felt ashamed and disgusted when he tried on clothes. Today was no different. His body was gross, corpulent folds of flab around his midriff, pectorals dangerously swollen. He flexed his shoulders, to little avail other than to look constipated.
He despaired of every losing the weight. It was such a mountain to climb. Mountains of fat. Butter mountains . . .
Richard struggled to pull the yellow and black jersey over his torso. It was incredibly constricting; he could barely get it over his chest. When he saw his reflection, moobs squashed together like some fat, gaudy harlequin, he scrabbled desperately to peel it off.
The green jersey was more forgiving. It went on smoothly enough, and the darker shade somehow marginally disguised the flabby contours of his body. In fact, it looked almost okay. It was not so much that it flattered him, so much as that it was so obviously the uniform of a male cyclist of a certain age as to render him anonymous. He was not transformed so much as subsumed into an easily disregarded type. He would not be noticed, much less scrutinised. Despite the colour, he looked unremarkable, hidden in plain sight. It would be enough, at least, to fit in at the club.
He paid for two of the green jerseys, with a secret mental commentary: There’s goes Richard Price. Always wears his signature green.
He picked up a cycling magazine before he left the shop. Back at the house, he put on some music and sat on the sofa, looking at the pictures of bikes, reading about exhilarating European routes, reviews of high-tech gear. It was some time before he looked up. It was dark outside. A photo of Jenny was facing him from the mantlepiece. With a faint, puzzled guilt, he realised that it had been at least a fortnight since he had cried.
*
Peloton.
The word had mystique. The principle was simple science. Richard had looked it up online. In a tight huddle, cyclists were subject to less wind resistance, and so moved more smoothly as a unit. For those in the slip-stream at the back, drag would drop, and they would be drawn along imperceptibly by the others.
As the club raced around the park in tight, wiggling formation, Richard began to comprehend the principle. He felt able to keep up now, noticed his legs getting chunkier – in a good way. His calves had taken on some of that taut, bulbous shape he’d noticed as a sign of a regular rider. He’d even managed to lose a stone, returning him to a weight he’d not seen for half a decade. You could hardly not burn up the calories, cycling circuits for an hour, three times a week.
He found a new compulsion in those morning sessions, as the men mounted up at Peter’s sharp command. It felt, strongly, that they were engaged in a communal male ritual, that had been otherwise lost to modern life. Like they were soldiers, brothers-in-arms, guarding each other as their platoon advanced through the jungle. Or sailors, pulling hard at the oars as their ship plunged upon a thrashing sea. As they swooped into the curves, their captain called out orders to slow down, speed up. Spokes whirred, gears meshed, as the men hunched over their frames, moving as one, like a murmuration of birds in the morning sunlight.
Richard went on solo rides at the weekends now, too. He took the Tube to its terminus and rode through countryside familiar from trips in the car with Jenny. One Saturday, he found that he was close to a B&B they had once stayed in, a kind of gastropub with rooms. As the road stretched out, he recognised the beech woods, the steep, open valley on one side, and felt a tautness in his stomach.
He slowed as he came closer, wondering if he should stop. In the courtyard, Range Rovers and luxury SUVs were parked. Against the wall of a pub leaned a couple of road-bikes. Richard braked and dismounted.
As he walked his bike over, he recalled their visit. Could it be four years ago, already? Up in the eaves, beneath the thatched roof, he saw a diamond-paned window, and recalled, with a jolt this was the attic room where they had stayed. Jenny, in fact, had been annoyed that it faced the car-park, and not the garden, as the booking website had showed. Worse, a wedding reception had been taking place in a marquee outside, the DJ blaring disco classics until midnight, drunk and braying guests stumbling along the creaking corridors until the early hours.
“You thought they might have said,” she exclaimed. “Warned us not to expect any sleep!”
Propping his bicycle near the others, Richard pushed the heavy oak door. Once inside, the trip flooded back to him. He recognised the low wooden beams, the horse-brasses above the fireplace, the threadbare carpet on the staircase that led up to the guest bedrooms. Families were seated in the restaurant, eating lunch. The cyclists, a couple in white, still wore their helmets and sunglasses as they sipped pints. When he had ordered his drink, a pint of lime and soda, Richard stood to one side, lost in contemplation.
Later that night, Richard had slept soundly. By morning, Jenny too had finally got some rest. At dawn, she woke him, suddenly amorous. Clambered astride him, panting as the antique bed creaked loudly beneath them. He saw the roseate flush between her breasts, the silent creasing of her face; the feeling of her hair upon his chest as she fell over him, gasping.
The memory felt so real that Richard thought he was going to faint. He stood up and hurried through the garden, past the tables of smokers, hoping that nobody noticed him. He sat on a bench by the pond, and began to cry, hiding his face with his hand. After a time, his pulse slowed. He wiped his eyes and sighed. He felt sublimely ridiculous in his cycling clothes: a fat man in Lycra, crying by a pond.
It had been a mistake to come in, he thought. He wasn’t ready, yet.
He glanced at his watch. He should push on. He still had a fair way to go.
*
In October, another sportif took place, up in the Peak District. Richard and the guys took the train this time, and at Manchester, after storing their bikes, they found their seat reservations, a table of four, and sat down, broaching cans of lager and bottles of ale from M&S, tore open packets of crisps and nuts.
Richard noticed needling glances from the few other passengers in the carriage. He realised, with faint panic, that this was the ‘Quiet’ coach, where phone usage was prohibited and conversation frowned upon. Behind them, an elderly man glared at them in suspicion.
How many times had Jenny complained about non-compliance in the Quiet coach? The suits who thought the train an extension of their office, phoned clients for hours on end. Women who thought any journey a chance for a nice long natter with extended family, droning away interminably for stop after station stop. As for groups of middle-aged men with M&S carrier bags full of snacks and booze – he could just imagine the smoke coming out of her ears.
With an anxious glance around the carriage, he murmured that they should probably keep their voices down. But as the train pulled away from the station, Paul took out his phone, and started playing a video.
“Here. Check this out.”
Ingeniously, he had wirelessly connected his phone to his helmet cam, and captured the whole race in HD. A sound of wind sputtered from the phone speaker, along with Paul, swearing. Behind him, Richard saw the elderly gent rise in his seat.
Richard suddenly stood up.
“You know what,” he said. “We should find another table. I think this is the Quiet coach.”
He felt the silent applause of the other passengers.
Paul looked defiant. “We’re hardly making any noise.”
“Come on,” Richard said, firmly. “Let’s go down.”
Grudgingly, they packed away their provisions and hauled down their bags. Richard noticed that Simon was smiling.
In the unreserved section of the train, they cleared a load of takeaway debris from a free table and settled in again. Here, by contrast to the Quiet coach, pretty much anything seemed to go. It was hot and noisy. People shouted into their phones, watched action movies on tablets, infants playing loud video games. As the train pulled out of Manchester, the men watched the video on Paul’s phone, propped up on the table, laughing and joking at cursing caught on the audio. In flashes of colour, the race spooled out, as the train tilted and sped across England. After his second cider, Richard felt pleasantly groggy. Outside, the landscape was drifting into early dusk. The trees were in their autumn colours, the fields shorn and flooded. It wasn't long before he fell asleep, and he did not wake up until they reached London.
It was late by the time the train reached Euston. Paul and Asif wheeled their bikes away across the concourse toward McDonalds, leaving Richard and Simon alone.
“So then, Rich,” Simon said in a mild voice. “I had something I wanted to say to you, but I didn’t get the chance.”
Richard, still hazy, guessed it was something to do with cycling, a technical note, or a point of techinque.
“What’s that, Simon?”
“There’s this girl I thought you might like to meet.”
Richard felt a jolt of panic. He had read about this moment on the widower forums, the sense of confusion and vertigo, but had not expected to feel it so viscerally.
“Right. Who’s that?”
“She’s a friend of my girlfriend. Divorced. Got a little one.”
To his shame, Richard realised he had not even known that Simon had a girlfriend, despite all their trips out this year. He wondered how he’d had the courage to start.
“She is nice. Quite pretty, actually. I think you might like her.”
Richard let out a long sigh. “I don’t know Simon. I’m not sure.”
Simon shrugged – what can you do?
“I still think it’s too soon.”
“You don’t have to marry her. Just go out on a date.”
“I don’t know if I’m ready.”
“Just go out for a coffee then.”
Simon made it sound so easy. Perhaps it was. Richard hesitated a moment longer. He felt suddenly reckless from the cider on the train, after the adrenaline and fatigue of the long day.
“Alright. Go on then. Will you introduce us?”
“Sure. I’ll give you her number.”
“Email’s fine.”
“I’ll give you both.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
“Look, Richard,” Simon went on. “This is alright, you know. You are allowed to do this.”
Richard nodded. “I know.”
“You’re just going out for a coffee.”
*
In the end, Annie asked if they could meet in the pub. Richard readily agreed. decided to meet in the pub. They joked that they both might need a drink.
When he arrived, Richard glanced around the bar. It was quiet, but for a huddle of office workers, and he could only see one woman alone at a table, tapping at her phone, a large glass of white wine in front of her. His heart sank a little, and he felt ashamed straight away. He had promised himself he would not compare the woman to Jenny, that he must take her on her own terms. But this lady – there was no way to avoid it – was simply not as good-looking as Jenny had been. She was a bit boring looking, in a plain suit and blouse, oblong glasses, slightly overweight. He paused at the bar, trying to get the courage to go over. Then, to his relief, another man in a suit took a pint of lager over to her table. The woman put her phone down as they began talking.
“Richard?”
He turned. A short, delicate woman was gazing at him in question. In her late-thirties, he guessed, with reddish hair. A bit crumpled and untidy. But she was pretty, with wide grey eyes set in pale freckled skin.
“Annie?”
She nodded and smiled; nice lips glossy with dark-red lipstick. “That’s me.”
He smiled. “Hi. I’m Richard. Pleased to meet you.”
Briefly, they hugged, cheeks touching. She wore perfume, and Richard felt an instant relief that it wasn’t the scent that Jenny had used. His heart was pounding. He felt as shy as a schoolboy.
“Do you want a drink?” he stammered.
“Please. Gin and tonic. Sorry I’m late.”
After Richard had bought the drinks, they took a table. Covered off the facts, the vital statistics, their mutual connection with Simon. He learned that she was divorced – “Don't ask” – and had a four-year old girl named Gracie.
So far, so good.
It was surreal, thought Richard. To be sitting there, just as if they were a normal couple out on a date. To be in a situation of romantic intent with a woman who was not his wife - an intense feeling of freedom, combined with guilt. He could not help but notice her difference to Jenny, the distinct mannerisms, the way she waved her hand when she talked, the cheerful relish to which she agreed a second, a third drink. “Oh, go on then.” He found he felt warm and comfortable in her presence. Any initial awkwardness had already drifted away.
When he went to the toilet, he was troubled by a swelling erection. He tried to smother the thought going through his head. What would life be like, if instead of marrying Jenny, he had met this woman first?
Back in the bar, he watched as she sat at the table, rubbing a finger around the rim of her glass. What would it be like to be a couple, he thought? Him cooking up a storm in the kitchen while she drank a glass of wine and told him about her day, the little girl watching C-Beebies on the sofa?
Annie looked up, and for a moment, their eyes met. He realised he was gazing at her. For a moment, they held a long glance, both scrying for intent, for potential.
“So,” Annie said, as he sat down. “What do you like to do at weekends, then?”
Richard laughed.
“Same as most men my age, I suppose.”
“Not golf?” she groaned.
He shuddered theatrically. “God no. Don’t worry. Cycling mainly. That’s how I know Simon, really.”
“Oh, right," she said, tilting her head.
“Do you ride a bike, ever?”
She smiled brightly. Somehow Richard knew the answer.
“Oh yeah,” she said. “I ride absolutely everywhere.”
*
Darkness had fallen the following evening, as Richard cycled home from work in the drizzle. The season was closing in. Bronze leaves stamped the black tarmac; a brooding poignancy hung in the air.
Richard and Annie had stayed in the pub until last orders, before walking to the Tube together. Outside, Annie had slipped her arm through his. Richard felt a flagrant boldness, to be walking so blatantly in public with a woman. Could it really be as simple as this, he wondered? For the mawkish routine of a few drinks to perform its old magic? Before leaving for their separate platforms, they hugged, and Richard kissed Annie, half on the lips. He felt an erotic surge. They laughed, shyly, before waving each other away.
All the way home, Richard felt breathless. When he stepped through ther door, trying not to think, he went straight to the bathroom and masturbated into a wad of tissue paper. Afterward, he stood trembling over the sink.
He slept badly that night, tortured by dreams of Jenny. Awoke in the morning, hopelessly aroused.
He thought of Annie’s face as he cycled along, the bike lane marked by a thin painted line on the road. Her eyes were wide and candid, the cut of her mouth quite beautiful. It was the little things, he decided, that added up to make her attractive. Things that you might learn to love -
Richard didn’t even see the Asian woman as she walked out into the road. Looking down at her phone, she stepped right into his path. He slammed on the brakes, already knowing it was too late. Felt the slew of the wheels, the pressure forcing his body over the handlebars as he collided with the woman, crashed into a tangled heap on the wet tarmac.
He lay for a moment, twisted and panting. His head had struck the road, and he thanked God for his helmet. He turned to see the dark heap of the woman, her phone glowing by the curb. Headlights shone, he heard the clunk of a car door as someone ran over.
“Are you alright? Are you OK?”
It was a young man in a shirt and tie.
Sobbing came from the heap. Richard felt an intense relief.
“Come on. Let’s get you up.”
As the young man helped the woman to her feet, Richard tried to escape from the frame of his bike. He clambered to his feet, hurting all over, and pulled his bike over to the pavement. The woman was making tight, short sobs as looked down at her smashed phone. As he limped over to her, he felt a sudden wave of anger.
“You bloody idiot!” he said. “You could have killed me!”
She stared at him, eyes wide with shock.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”
He realised she was terrified and felt suddenly guilty to picture himself – a middle-aged ogre in Lycra.
Horns blared from the cars backed up in the road. The young man touched Richard’s arm.
“And you’re alright?”
“I’ll survive. Thanks, mate.”
The man briefly waved and jumped back in his car. The line of traffic moved forward.
Richard turned back to the woman.
“Are you hurt?
She shook her head. “Don’t think so,” she whispered.
“Please be more careful,” Richard said. “Promise me you’ll be more careful.”
She nodded.
“Can you get home alright?”
She nodded again.
“Alright. Take care.”
Clumsily, Richard picked up his bike. The handlebars were bent and the saddle askew. He stood the bike straight, pulled things back into position before mounting.
As he pedalled away, he congratulated himself on how calmly he was behaving.
*
By the time he got home, his legs were wobbling. He fumbled the key, dragged the bike into the hallway. He went into the living room, and collapsed on the sofa, breathing heavily. Big patches of skin on his legs and arms had been sheared off by the tarmac.
“Jesus Christ,” he said out loud. “Jesus Christ.”
He stood up and poured himself a drink, sipped it as he paced around the room. On the mantle-piece stood the framed photograph of him and Jenny, taken by a studio photographer not long after their wedding. She stood gazing out with a look of confident calm on her face, as he stood behind her, clasping her waist.
It was then that he crumpled. As he took down the photo as a sob rose from his stomach. He snorted and whimpered, overwhelmed with grief. Tears dripped onto the glass, and he wiped them into smears, apologising.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”
He screwed his eyes shut. He felt a deep pressure in his chest, as if he would burst open.
Very slowly, it all passed. His pulse began to soften. He put the photo back on the ledge, wiped his tears away and blew his nose.
He felt suddenly ravenous. There was food in the fridge, the remains of a pizza. He went to the kitchen, pulled out the box and began to eat gluttonously. He had devoured two slices, and was about to start on the third when his phone rang.
Annie.
He stared at the screen for a long moment before answering.
“Hello?”
He hoped his voice sounded calm.
“Hello!” she said. “It’s me.”
“Hi? How are you?”
“Are you alright?”
Her voice held a note of concern.
“Fine,” he said. “Bit of a long day.”
“Listen,” she said, suddenly.
He felt a sudden fear that she was going to end it all now. Nip things in the bud. Instead, she went on.
“Listen – Mum and Dad can take Gracie on Saturday night. I was wondering if you fancied going out for a drink or something? Maybe – stay over.”
He held the phone in silence.
“Richard? Are you still there?”
“Yes,” he said. “I’m still here.”
“So what do you think?”
*
That Saturday, Richard got up early and took the first train out to the country.
Autumn was turning now, and frail leaves of russet and bruised yellow carpeted the beech woods by the side of the road. Before he left, Richard had tried to remove his wedding ring. It had wedged on his finger, and he had to use olive oil to slip it over the knuckle. It had left a thick white band in his flesh. Solemnly, he placed it in a small china pot on the mantelpiece, softly kissed his wedding portrait, and put it away in the drawer.
Now, as he cycled, he remembered the familiar landmarks – the sweep of open farmland, swathed with lingering mist. He thought about trust, how he trusted Annie, how perhaps trust was the first stage of love, the foundation upon which they could build everything else. She had asked if, on Sunday, he might like to meet Gracie. He had agreed. Things were happening fast. Simon had messaged that morning too, floating the idea of a gourmet cycle ride around Europe that spring.
Richard wondered if it were possible to love someone as he had once loved his wife. He marveled at the sheer time and energy involved. Who else, in one lifetime, could ever know him as much as Jenny had? How could he ever cherish someone else as much?
As he came along the lane toward the pub, Richard slowed to a halt by the side of the road and dismounted. He waited for several minutes, wondering whether to go in.
Finally, he mounted the saddle again, and clipped his feet to the pedals. He pushed away and started to ride. The day was brightening now. Sunlight shone through the trees, dappling the tarmac with patches of light.
Ahead, the road was open.