X - The Ting of the Bell

We were in Annecy, the South of France. We'd been together for two
years, we celebrated our anniversary over there. Danielle loves
cycling, she used to race. I watched her win competitions throughout
Europe and when everyone in the aerodrome would stand up and clap her
on her lap of honour, Union Jack in her hands, I joined in in the same
way and while everyone watched her being interviewed on the big screen
I knew that later I'd be hearing those things in person over a cup of
tea while I rubbed her peddle-tired feet. I loved being a part of it,
helping her train, driving her to the right places, washing her bike
after the race, she never wanted to do it but being on my hands and
knees in the garden of our rented chalet with a sponge and a bucket of
water was as happy as I've ever been in my life.

It took us eighteen months to build the tandem. She'd tired of
tournaments, the soreness of the saddle and the roar of the crowd
didn't have the same effect on her as it used to, especially as more
and more they were cheering for somebody else crossing the finishing
line first with her two or three places behind. We combined her
knowledge of bicycle chains and inner tubes with my ability to hit
things hard with a hammer and we set to work on our new project. We
complimented each other well, her intimate knowledge of the physics of
bicycles and my boyhood obsession with taking things apart and putting
them together again trumped with the fact that we both wanted it to be
yellow meant we worked perfectly together. We worked in tandem.

Because of our jobs we only managed time at the weekends and during the
Summer we would spend long evenings in the backgarden applying anti
rust lotion, shaping the handlebars, rewiring the brake lights and
making sure the bell went 'ting.'

As we did it we would sip rum and coke, she would always smoke menthol
cigarettes and we would talk for hours. She'd tell me stories of being
on her bike in Tokyo, Sydney and Nairobi. I'd tell her of the times I
was on my bike on my paper round after school. But most of all we'd
talk of going to the South of France, to Annecy. She'd holidayed there
as a little girl with her parents, they would stay in their caravan for
four weeks every Summer, waking up as soon as the sun rose and the
three of them would cycle around the many lakes. When finished two,
three, four hours later they would get rid of the exhaustion and ease
their sweat covered bodies in the lake. Refreshed, they would get back
on their bikes and journey into the village where they would spend the
rest of the afternoon in one of the local restaurants.

We planned to do exactly the same. We were to start off in Annecy and
travel the length of France with the help of trains when I couldn't
keep up with her until we got to Calais when we would take a ferry home
to England and our adventure would be over.

A red Peugout 205 clipped the back of our tandem five weeks into our
holiday. We were on a country road at night time. Danielle was on the
front saddle and was hurled over the handlebars. I was flung to the
floor but had no more than a bang on the shoulder and bleeding knees.
The driver of the car, Xavier, helped me carry her onto the back seat
of the Peugout and he drove us to the hospital. I thanked him and said
it wasn't necessary for him to wait with us, but he did do. He was full
of remorse, his eyes tears stained just as mine and he tried persuading
me and himself that he may be useful, that although his English was
limited it could be of some help to me. I let him stay on the condition
that he stopped apologising for the accident and saying how sorry he
was. I had told Danielle in our back garden that we needed to put more
reflectors on the back of the saddle. In the whole eighteen months it
was the only thing we disagreed on. It's the one argument I've had with
her I really did not enjoy winning.

The doctor told me, through Xavier, to worry, she may be dead soon. I
think that some of the carefully worded, well rehearsed sensitivity
that doctors and nurses specialise in for moments like this was lost in
Xavier's blunt translation. I booked into a Bed and Breakfast and when
he insisted on financing it for me I was in no position to refuse. I
met him a few times wandering the corridors of the hospital. He rarely
said anything to me, at least not with his voice.

The first thing she asked when she regained consciousness was where our
bike was. The doctors were amazed at the recovery she made and how much
she had battled back against all improbabilities. If they'd been at
Barcelona Aerodrome the day she came first place in 1989 they would
have understood. When I started crying and told her I had thought she
had been going to die she laughed at me and said 'You daft bugger.' It
was both of us who were crying when Xavier, a face I hadn't seen for
three weeks and Danielle hadn't seen at all came in shortly before she
was discharged. He asked the nurse permission to take the two of us
outside, where he presented us with the bike. The tandem we had spent
eighteen months working on together was once again in our hands. Xavier
smiled and waved as he drove off in his red Peugeot 205. Whenever we
have been on holiday since then we have taken the tandem with us.

And when we are at home, when I come home from work I occasionally go
into the garage and unwrap the covers from it. I look at it and think
of Danielle. Think of Xavier. And listen to the bell go 'ting.'