Cold Christmas Lane, Page 3

The Pack

  It never used to be like this James mused as he glanced back at the car leaving the road, listening to the explosion of flame behind. He missed the pleasure these rides used to give him, give all of them, so long ago before cycling became an endless, relentless journey.

  Sometimes it feels like they never stop riding now and he strains to picture a time when they weren't here like like this, hurtling along this twisting, winding path. There was a time, warm days, hurtling downhill, climbing up, there was a time when he enjoyed this.

  The way they used to ride was so different, not like now. These days their group has become a more stretched partnership, a fisherman's net stretched out along the road then gathered in when errant motorists couldn't resist the trap.

  He lived for this now, but doubted this was any way to live, then he wondered about that, trying to capture a thought which appeared only in the periphery, indistinct, which then fled as his mind returned to the hunt, to the prey.

  Tonight's prey was a grey man with red cheeks and tiny angry eyes, hair greased and receding, screaming at them. This was everything now, daring them to pass on dangerous corners, then drawing close about them like a noose round a killer's neck.

  Was there a time when it was like this, James wondered, and then answered himself as he remembered there was something before this, before, the incident.

  Before the incident, before everything changed, they used to ride together as a tight compact group. Interchangeable members of a team as they took to the hills, the strong dragging the weak uphill at a pace, then swapping positions in the pack if you too began to struggle on a climb, your razor sharp front wheel often the merest centimetre from your mate.

  They shared a fierce union and friendship, which James recalled warmly; trust and concentration essential to avoid careering at thirty miles an hour into another cyclist.

  Back then, they rode solely as a tight compact group, seldom separating, but since they began riding in the darkness, they needed be so close, couldn't be, as they plunged forwards into to the black night. After what happened, they rode solely for revenge, which required them to be a looser group.

  What did happen, James grimaced as he tried to remember, the thought slipping away as he swung away from the side of the fragile monster, as the grey man tried to take control which was never his.

  Not all drivers took the bait, most didn't in fact, but they waited on the ones who couldn't resist the temptation, they waited on the one who started all this, who left them for dead.

  They sought them out.

  Then there is was again, memories flooding in, and he remembered it all.

  Everything they had lost, all these rides used to be about.

  James hurtled along the road, each imperfection in the tarmac pressing and testing his gloved hands, straining arms and shoulders equal to it all.

  James missed the days when they used to ride for pleasure, but not nearly as much as he missed his wife, his kids; his life. He longed for that life, longed to remember more of it, but he struggled to recall much of anything lately except that moment, which constantly recurs, which lives at the front of his mind, the moment the driver crashed into them. Smashed into them.

  His old life is just a dream, a flavour, a scent on the wind. The crash is the main course. Ever present.

  The day replayed in his mind: a group of twelve men, aged between twenty and sixty-five, but mostly wearing the middle-aged tag with little grace, refusing to bow to the inevitable, forcing themselves up steep hills, then picking up even more speed as they headed down, the countryside a green blur.

  They rode in a precise union, guiding each other around potholes and hazards, were on that day nearly halfway through a sixty miler, heading for a halfway lunch at a small café near Hatfield, with laughter and cake, and a bubbly waitress who always flirted with young Terence, the youngest of their group, still young enough in fact, to not notice the flirting.

  The food was always sweet and unhealthy, the laughter almost drunken in pitch, a pile of expensive bikes stacked against a nearby dry-stone wall.

  It was a Saturday morning, dry but overcast; perfect cycling weather, and they sped along, the thought of cream buns and black coffee overcoming the strain in the legs, swapping places from time to time to give the front riders some rest.

  You always had to concentrate on these rides, but it was worth it. The team ride was something akin to a football match, closer even, and the camaraderie of the group came as a welcome relief to the collective day jobs, a retreat from bickering office politics or the duties of home and fatherhood.

  "Not far to go", James called from the front, the message then passed back through the group, and the group eased up a touch, beginning to cool down ahead of their break, thinking of scones with jam and fresh whipped cream, not knowing how close they were to the end of their journey.

  James often rode at the head of the peloton. Not quite as fast as Terence, he possessed a stamina which should see him through another thirty years or more of these rides. Or until the knees went. Because the knees had to go eventually.

  James remembered the moment.

  It was there, it was always there, on that same hairpin turn.

  They were always there now it seemed to James, riding towards the corner, or riding away.

  But that afternoon as they approached, they heard the sound before they saw it, the low angry, growl of a car refusing to wait. The riders at the rear anxiously checking behind them in a chin to shoulder motion, as the growl became a roar, the driver veered round them on the corner, only to find a black Mercedes coming the other way, then smashing into them to avoid the collision, crushing them.

  Ending them.

  He recalled standing there by the side of the road, a shadow bike standing beside him. His bike and body both lay twisted and broken at his feet, a pool of bloody spreading out and running into the dusty earth at the side of the road. He watched the driver race away, escaping the harm he'd caused, screaming at him, vowing revenge.

  James assumed some of the peloton must have survived that day, as their group was now reduced from twelve to seven. He hoped the others survived, although there was only one who still cycled on Cold Christmas Lane.

  Barry Wilson, a retired policeman who used to like to make jokes with puns in them which made them all groan, but still made them laugh as well.

  He was the only they saw, the only one they knew for certain had escaped, poor old Barry, who'd spent the last twenty years of his career as a desk sergeant, checking in low level Tottenham criminals and Friday night drunk.

  Barry, who had always struggled at the tail of the Pack, but who they dragged along on their slipstream nonetheless. Urged to stay with them.

  Part of the gang.

  Barry the lone rider, these days. James hoped the others avoided this road because of the bad memories it stirred in them, rather than because of wheel chairs or missing limbs.

  On Barrys straining leg a long white-grey scar now streaked up into purple lycra. They saw their old friend, crawling up hills alone, face straining with the effort, so whenever they saw him they dropped into place in front and pulled him along in their slipstream, towing him up the hill.

  Whenever he reached that corner, he always said hello to them, where it happened, so they wondered if maybe he really did sense them, even if he couldn't see them.

  "Alright lads," he call out, breathing heavily, "I'm still here boys, riding for you - see you next week."

  ***

  Lately, James had begun to long for the ride to stop, wondering whether they would ever catch him, the man in the silver grey Mercedes who escaped the scene of devastation he'd caused without mercy, blazing away and over the hill.

  He longed to escape this life.

  Then he dropped down a gear, beginning a steep climb and he wondered if the ghosts of riders and drivers now lined up along the lane like tombstones would ever be enough to allow them to reach the end
of their journey.

  Note on the story.

  Declaration of interest here.

  I'm a cyclist. A fairly keen cyclist. Not, I hope, one of those shouty militant cyclists, although like any road user, I have my moments. I'm not one of those car driving cyclists who wear t-shirts informing you of their positive road tax status (because I've never driven a car in my life ;0)). I'm not a club rider, zooming up and down the hills in a peloton, in a pack like James and his friends, although when I see them zooming past I do understand the appeal.

  I’m just a bloke on a bike in black and orange lycra, an orange so bright it might damage your retinas, but if you do crash into me, not seeing me cannot be your excuse.

  Generally , I find equal irritation with a small number of cyclists and car drivers alike.

  Both tribes have their morons, but thankfully the numbers of idiots are relatively low in each camp (although I'll admit us cyclists are winning on YouTube in the smug git stakes - although without the smug gits we'd have missed out on that video of the fat bloke chasing the cyclist and falling over).

  So, although I write this story with a very slight bias towards the cyclist, I'm generally of the opinion we should all make more of an effort to be considerate to each other on the road (drivers: don't overtake if there isn't room; cyclists try to move over when safe to let the cars backing up behind you pass and for Christ's sake learn to look behind you before you pull out), then maybe we could all get home safely.

  Thanks:

  For the use of the image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/soozed/9733390653/in/photolist-fQ7aWe-irQmUM-pwkmrX-rDyzH-7ys6F7-sdPEc-sWD8-77xbrc-6wr46-93BoL2-5geXsj-7WQPgx-4nHQFp-5xKNzN-dhCQ1A-8bspVr-AnAyuP-9frNmC-77x7Da-77ASDu-coSymm-cpPfWd-pwngr7-coRF8d-9maz2y-pL8uvz-yHK4V1-69Ehx2-x8TQr5-5Y5f2Y-6nEFg8-cLhd-jT5QGf-cpPino-8CtHtv-dauf5b-cuxqv9-Hivus-bqC5iA-4SsyaJ-nzb5z-ofvGf-coQK7A-coSWk1-coSStG-coSDPN-coSdMU-6yB6ZF-apbXSz-bRViyR