The Accidental Cyclist (12 page)

“Maybe he was just scared,” said
Icarus.

“Oh, he was certainly scared –
of commitment. So was I. I was only 19 then, and I was scared of
commitment. I was even more scared of the thought of losing him.
But most of all, I think, I was scared of being left alone.”

The fish stew in front of Icarus
and his mother had gone cold and congealed. Icarus pushed his plate
away and moved his chair around the table so that he was sitting
next to his mother. He took her hand and held it in his. “You
haven’t held my hand in years,” his mother said, looking up at him.
“I suppose no one has held my hand, not for many, many years.”

They sat in silence for a while,
then Mrs Smith said: “Why don’t you go over the road to the park
for a while. I’m sure you will find something to do there. It’s
such a lovely day out.”

“That’s okay, Mother,” said
Icarus. “I’m happy to sit here with you.”

“That’s very sweet of you, but I
think you’ll find your friend is there. I’m sure that he’s also
quite concerned about you, especially after all that fuss I made
down there in the basement. You might even find that he has
something for you.”

Icarus kissed his mother on the
forehead, then went to the front room and looked out of the window.
There, on the same park bench, his back to the flat, sat the Grey
Man, his legs stretched in front of him as he soaked up the sun.
Next to him was a shining blue racing bike that Icarus had not seen
before.

The lessons of riding a bicycle
are the hardest to teach, and the easiest to learn. There is no
right way of learning to ride, and no wrong way. There is no time
of life when it is right to learn, and no time when it is wrong.
When it comes to the process of learning to ride a bike, only two
elements are essential: the learner, and the bike. All the other
elements – environment, training wheels, cycling instructor, daddy
running along and hanging on to the saddle – are peripheral, of
minor importance. If the student truly desires to master this most
basic means of locomotion, he (or she, of course) will find a way
of doing so. You’ve probably never noticed it, but no one ever says
they’re going to teach someone to ride a bike, because riding a
bike is not really something that can be taught. The accomplishment
of riding that bike can be learnt, but not taught. In these
circumstances, having a teacher can often be more of a hindrance
that a help, because the teacher cannot participate actively. They
can only stand by, passively, hands on hips, and watch as the
subject in question learns to master the art of cycling.

As Icarus ran across the road
from his flat to the park he carried none of these thoughts in his
head. At the park gate he stopped short, held back for a moment by
his fears. His first ride across the park, but a few weeks ago, now
seemed like another lifetime, another world that he had dreamt of,
nothing more. That ride, as exhilarating as it had been, was no
more than an accident, a fluke. Now he faced the reality of
climbing on the saddle, setting off under his own steam, balancing,
turning, stopping. Yes, stopping before he rode into the
rhododendrons. Icarus realised he was taking on a great
responsibility – he had set himself this task and had no idea
whether he could succeed. He was not afraid of falling. He was
afraid only of failing. He could turn back, before the Grey Man saw
him, go back to his flat and his mother and the certainty of a life
unchanging, and pretend all of this excitement had never
happened.

Fate, as we know, is a cruel
god. Often she leaves us hanging in the wind, tormented by our own
indecision, unable to decide which course to follow. Today she
intervened before Icarus stumbled to his own indecision, and she
turned the Grey Man’s head, so he saw Icarus standing at the gate
before he had time to turn and run.

“Ah, there you are,” he said to
Icarus. “Don’t just stand there gawping at it. Come on and give it
a go.”

“You knew I was coming?” asked
Icarus.

“I was pretty sure of it.”

“Well, I’m glad that you were so
sure, because I wasn’t.”

Icarus stood beside the bench
and admired the gleaming machine. He ran his fingers lightly over
the drop handlebars, the classic steel racing frame. “It’s hard to
believe that just a couple of days ago all this was just a heap of
junk,” said Icarus.

“Junk doesn’t mean that it’s
rubbish or useless,” the Grey Man said, “it just means that it’s
been discarded, and is no longer wanted by one person. But it can
always be of use to someone else.”

Icarus took the bike and pushed
it back and forth in front of him, listening to the distinctive
click-click-click of the freewheel. On the down tube the shining
derailleur gear changers appeared to be of burnished gold, matching
the cranks and big chain ring. The bright yellow saddle appeared to
contradict the subtle, classic tone of the rest of the bike. The
Grey Man seemed to read Icarus’s thoughts: “It was the best saddle
of the bunch.”

“It looks … just wonderful,”
said Icarus. “I’m just sorry that I couldn’t help you to put it all
together.”

“That’s okay,” said the Grey
Man. “Your friend was really helpful. I think he’s got a knack for
this type of thing.”

“My friend?”

“Yes, short, squat, stocky
little fellow – got a bit of a temper on him. Helped us out in the
basement of your flat.”

“I know who you mean, it’s just
that I never thought of him as a friend. He’s the one that landed
me in jail.”

“Perhaps it was a twist of
fate,” said the Grey Man. “But he did help us out, didn’t he?”

“Right enough. So I suppose he
is a sort of friend then. I don’t think I’ve ever really had any
friends before.”

“Well, they’re a rare and
precious commodity, and you don’t come across them every day. When
you find one, take care of him, because some day you may need him
as much as he needs you.”

Icarus heard the Grey Man’s last
statement without formulating its meaning, so the seed of its
import lay dormant at the back of his mind as he turned his
attention back to the bicycle. The two of them, man and almost-man,
inspected the gears, the brakes, the wheels, the yellow saddle.
Around them in the Sunday-afternoon park were adults and children
on all size and shape of bicycle – mothers pedalling sedately,
fathers encouraging their little ones to ride – little ones who
whizzed about so quickly, darting this way and that, and never
falling, that it looked as if they had been born in the saddle. It
all looked so easy, so natural, as if, to all intents and purposes,
it was what humankind had been born to do.

“Well then,” said the Grey Man,
“aren’t you going to take it for a ride?”

This was the moment that Icarus
had so desired and so dreaded. He had to tell the Grey Man that,
after all his efforts of building this bicycle, he did not know how
to ride.

“It won’t bite you,” the Grey
Man said.

“Actually,” said Icarus, a
little nervously, “I don’t really know how to ride a bike.”

“Of course you do,” the Grey Man
retorted. “Everyone knows how to ride a bike. It’s just that you
haven’t had the opportunity to put it into practice.”

Icarus looked at the Grey Man,
at his grey eyes, his grey hair. He realised what a gentle person
he was beneath that hard, steely exterior. He was so gentle, and so
wise. And at this moment it was as if all the wisdom in the world
was being filtered through him, and he knew everything that Icarus
needed to know.

“Here,” the Grey Man said,
holding the bike, “just stand over the crossbar, hands on the
handlebars.”

Icarus hesitated.

“Just trust me,” said the Grey
Man.

And, trusting him, Icarus did as
he was told. It was just like the incident with the Condor Paris
Galibier a few weeks before. He looked down and saw that there were
no toeclips on the pedals, so that his feet would not be strapped
to the machine.

“I thought it would be too soon
for toeclips,” the Grey Man said in response. He made Icarus use
the brakes, and get the feel for them. He adjusted the height of
the saddle so that Icarus could sit on the bike with his feet just
touching the ground.

“Now,” he said when he thought
Icarus was ready, “scoot along with your feet still just touching
the ground.” Icarus did so.

“Now brake.” Icarus braked.

“Let go the brakes, and just
glide … lift your feet a bit off the ground … a bit more … now lean
into the turn, don’t use the handlebars, just lean …”

Icarus could feel the rising
sense of exhilaration that had filled him before, and in just a few
minutes he was gliding along with enough confidence to put his feet
on the pedals. As the bike slowed down he turned the pedals, one
revolution, then another, then several more. Self-propelled, he was
moving across the grass, weaving between the scattered picnickers.
The smile on his face grew. He did not want to stop in case he
could not get going again.

Eventually he noticed the Grey
Man back at their bench, gesticulating for him to come back.
Alongside the Grey Man was Icarus’s mother, anxiously biting her
apron’s hem. Reluctantly Icarus steered back towards them, braking
slowly as he neared them, and carefully coming to a halt right in
front of them. Slowly, in a seemingly deliberate movement, he
keeled over sideways and fell flat onto the grass.

“Oh, Icky, are you alright?” his
mother shrieked, bending down and trying to lift the boy. Icarus
lay quite still on the ground. His body shuddered once, then again,
then he rolled over and the Grey Man and Mrs Smith saw that he was
convulsed with laughter. Quickly the two older people became
infected with his laughter, and were holding their sides as they
rocked, laughing as if they had never laughed before. Mrs Smith
could not remember when last she had felt such unbounded happiness,
such joy, and all because of a bicycle. She found it hard to
believe.

When finally they were able to
speak again, the Grey Man said: “Oh, that’s something I forgot to
tell you. When you stop, you have to remember to put your foot
down.”

“I don’t think I’ll forget next
time,” said Icarus.

Over the week that followed
Icarus practised riding in the park, weaving between benches and
trees, across the grass and up and down the pathways, much to the
annoyance of the park-keeper. His confidence grew along with his
skill, and the Grey Man had to warn him continually that once he
began to ride on the city’s streets he would have to start learning
anew to understand the strict discipline that he would need to cope
with the traffic.

The Grey Man decided that the
following Sunday morning would be a good day for Icarus’s maiden
voyage on the road. The traffic was usually quiet on Sundays, and
Icarus needed to get used to riding on the roads because in a
week’s time he would begin work at the International Cycle Courier
Company (Hackney Branch).

The Sunday morning in question
found Icarus and the Grey Man sitting on the steps of the flat,
opposite the park, drinking tea, their bikes propped up against the
railings.

“Now, before we set off,” said
the Grey Man solemnly, as if he were giving a sermon, “I have to
tell you a few things.”

Icarus was itching to get going.
“I’ll be fine,” he said. “You can tell me while we are riding.”

“No,” said the Grey Man,
standing up. “We will do this now.” He wanted to add the words “…
because your life may depend on it,” but decided it might frighten
the boy.

For a few moments he stood
still, gathering his thoughts, then began, addressing the top of
Icarus’s head, as if a multitude of Icaruses were gathered on the
steps and all the way up into the building: “There is one road, but
there are many travellers. As you move along, the road will change
constantly. It will change direction, it will change gradient, it
will change in its busy-ness. The weather conditions will change
from sunshine to rain, the light will change from day to dusk, to
night, to dawn. And all the time, your fellow travellers will be
changing.

“And remember, you must always
think of them as fellow travellers. That way, they will keep your
respect, and you theirs. But among all this movement, all this
change, all this flux, there is always one constant, and that is
you.”

The Grey Man paused, looked at
down Icarus to make sure he was listening, then looked back into
the middle distance. Icarus nodded sagely, trying hard not to break
the solemn mood. He realised the Grey Man was in serious mode, and
Icarus was determined not to spoil that.

“The constant is you,” the Grey
Man repeated, “and it is also the only thing that you have complete
control over. So always, always know exactly what you are doing,
and where you are going, and what you are capable of.”

Icarus squirmed on the stone
steps, listening, willing the Grey Man to get on with it, so that
they could get on their bikes and ride. Behind the Grey Man a small
peloton of early morning cyclists pedalled past in tight formation,
all dressed in identical team colours, clothing so tight that it
looked as if it had been painted onto their bodies. Icarus followed
them with his eyes, enviously.

“Always know where you are going
…” said the Grey Man – the repetition really sounded like a sermon,
Icarus thought – “… and know what is going on around you. Be aware
of your surroundings, and your fellow travellers..” The Grey Man
paused for a moment, as if he had lost his place. He looked up,
waiting for the god of cycling to give him the right words, then
continued. “Ah, yes. And now we come to the Golden Rule. What do
you think the Golden Rule might be?”