‘Then he knows more than we do,’ Tony said with a humourless laugh.
Tony and Colin lived in Lourdes, in the foothills of the French Pyrenees, for half of the year and Colin would have trained on these roads day after day for years, but the ascents were extreme and while he was competent in the mountains, he was stronger on the hilly stages.
On the screen, the peloton was tipping over the edge of the Col du Soulor, half-man, half-bike, like cyborg lemmings dropping into the descent. The pace soared, spreading the riders out as the average speed rose over 50 miles per hour, two or three shooting out even faster in a risky attempt to catch the breakaway on the descent.
If Colin had been one of them, I wouldn’t have been able to watch, but he was still caught behind the pesky Maggioli, now isolated from Nellie, Amir and the others. I breathed out again when they managed the right turn safely and reached the end of the long descent. Now was the inexorable rise towards the Tourmalet, the climb that would expose the true condition of every rider in the bunch.
They raced through the final feed zone of the day, groping for musettes and stocking up on bidons, the water bottles that were as much an icon of the Tour de France as they were an environmental challenge.
But the pace picked up as soon as the riders were clear of the feed zone. The teams with a strong contender meant business, thinning out the bunch even on the lower stretches of the climb as the weaker riders were forced to drop back when they couldn’t keep up.
Colin was looking untroubled so far in the few glimpses the coverage gave us. They swept through the quaint ski town of Pierrefitte-Nestalas and then there was only up.
The caw of a bird making dives in the alpine updraughts drew my gaze and I took a deep breath, gathering all of my hopes for Colin to finish well today, and that was the moment it happened.
A swerve; a slip; the slightest touch of wheel on wheel and the diminished peloton toppled like dominoes.
Chapter 34
Colin
Flat on my back staring up at the blue sky, it was impossible not to accept that some things in life were out of my control. If your life was supposed to flash before your eyes a second before death, then a crash was like an entire lifespan passing in the space of a few seconds: disorientation, pain, confusion, more pain, grief – acceptance.
For several throbbing heartbeats, I thought that was it, that was me done for this year. I was a flash in the pan – exactly what I’d always feared I was. The end of Dad’s dreams – and Leesa’s assignment.
I wasn’t dead – there was too much pain for that. But the way my blood was rushing to my head did not feel good. Oh wait, I was upside down. The pure discomfort of my position made me shuffle until gravity felt more normal. Then I closed my eyes…
And snapped them open again a moment later. Something was unfinished. The Tour – yes, of course, the Tour. That wasn’t over until I dragged my arse over the line in Paris – or got whisked away in an ambulance. The thought of abandoning brought a sour taste to my mouth.
But that wasn’t all that was unfinished. I thought of that cardboard sign from September that I’d shoved in the back of my wardrobe at home in Lourdes, my half-hearted and utterly inadequate attempt to show Leesa why I’d always singled her out. I’d done such a poor job of it she still thought I’d been pulling a prank.
I didn’t deserve her grace after everything that I’d done, but I wanted it – I wanted the chance to work for it.
That’s when the jumbled thoughts from the past few days – and weeks – finally coalesced into something I could understand: sports psychology; growing up; Leesa –Leesa. I was aware I didn’t deal well with things I couldn’t control in my life, like a crash in the Pyrenees, my parents’ dysfunctional relationship – or Leesa returning home to the States.
But there were some things Icouldcontrol.
The same wispy white cloud still hovered high above me in the sky. Only a few seconds had passed, but the fire in me had started burning again – maybe even a new flame, brighter and stronger than before.
I would not abandon the race until a doctor told me to – and I would not give up on a relationship with Leesa until I’d made up for my years of shitty pranks and told her exactly how I felt.
But first, somehow, I had to get up.
Leesa
‘A crash! Something’s brought down several riders in the peloton!’ The commentator had little to add to the scene of carnage developing on the screen. I’d watched hundreds of crashes like this in my time – I’d been in a couple and had the knobbly scars on my knees and elbows to prove it – but I’d never had my lungs constrict and my vision fog with panic.
I grasped Wil’s arm and leaned close to the laptop as though that would help me find Colin in the mêlée – help him come away from it unscathed. A crumpled heap of bikes and humans was scattered across the narrow road, a couple had tumbled a few feet down the slope. Unable to stop quickly enough, riders ploughed into the midst and spilled over the top of each other.
‘This coverage is a pile of shit. Show us the fucking riders!’ Tony groped for his phone to call the DS in the team car, his hand shaking. ‘Do we know where everyone is? Can you get to them?’ Mashing the screen with trembling fingers, he put the call on loudspeaker and let the phone clatter to the bench seat of the van.
‘Stand by, Tony,’ came Alan’s steady voice from the team car. ‘We’re not far away, but there’s a lot of traffic.’
The screen showed splashes of colour moving among a mess of metal as riders scrambled to untangle their bikes. I scanned the footage desperately, but I didn’t have a hope of finding that particular orange helmet in the sea of riders.
Some appeared largely unaffected, hefting their bikes to pick their way through the carnage, but it was quickly clear there were so many riders affected that they’d stop and wait, a quirky honour rule of pro cycling that wasn’t written or enforced, but everyone generally respected.
Motorbikes with first aiders were already on the scene and my heart crept higher in my throat with each second that passed not knowing where he was or if he was hurt. There were even a couple of bikes sticking out of the bushes like discarded shopping carts. Riders were on the ground, bodies strewn across a bizarre battlefield.
