Page 43

Seb

Overanalysing everything on the morning of my stage, I dressed carefully in the precise order my feverish nerves insisted would be lucky and made sure I took an even number of spoonfuls of oatmeal at breakfast. Spending an age meticulously wiping down my bike in the team area near the start, even though the mechanics had already tuned it, I was a mess of jitters.

When Colin strode up to me with a Sharpie, I stared at it with a gulp.

I hadn’t drawn anything on my arm since the last ‘X’.

I didn’t know what would be appropriate.

Everything I thought of felt juvenile, too earnest or meaningless.

Quite a lot of things had felt meaningless since that Tuesday when I’d tried to shove Lori out of my life.

Nelson and Amir and the others approached, curious to see what I’d choose.

‘Just draw something before I throw the pen at you instead,’ Colin grumbled and I snatched it from him.

Not something to remind me of Lori, which was difficult, when just about everything did.

I thought of her message last night, that had made me laugh and tied me up in knots all at once.

I’d never shared so much with another person that a simple mangling of two different film catchphrases could blow open our entire relationship.

With a deep breath, I drew the first thing that took shape in my mind: a rudimentary female form with balloons attached. Of course it reminded me of Lori, but it wasn’t only about us.

Colin snorted a laugh. ‘The blow-up doll?’

‘Her name’s Matilda,’ I scolded, adding ‘Matilda’ beneath the picture. ‘In honour of my first day on the team.’

Nelson snatched the pen and grabbed my arm, holding it still while he scrawled his autograph onto my skin with a cocky grin, adding ‘May the force be with you’ down my wrist. Amir added some stars.

A few minutes later, I had the names of the whole team down my arm and Colin was approaching with a worrying glint in his eye.

Working earnestly with the tip of his tongue poking out, he sketched something and then capped the pen with a click.

‘You’ll need all the balls you can get today,’ he said, with not quite a straight face, patting me on the cheek and walking away to fetch his own bike. I glanced down to see he’d graffitied my arm with a cock and balls, complete with pubic hair, and shook my head with a groan.

Those Gallaghers…

When we lined up at the start, even though my heart was in my throat, conviction settled over me.

This was a moment to honour my past and define my future.

I might be retiring, but I’d always be the Seb Franck, who’d come second in the Paris-Roubaix and helped Arjan Hoogenboezem win the polka-dot jersey.

Stranger things had happened at the Tour de France than a domestique winning a stage – maybe even things like Top Gun Gallagher falling in love with her fake boyfriend.

Releasing a heavy breath, eyes forward, battle-ready, I pushed into action, rolling out with the bunch to kilometre zero.

By the time the race director’s flag waved, like baiting a whole herd of mechanical bulls, I was positioned well at the edge of the group and picked up speed comfortably.

It was a hilly stage, not flat enough for the sprinters, but not tough enough to be purely the domain of the climbers. I’d studied the route until my vision blurred last night. I was ready to attack, ready to react – ready to make this the race of my career.

Deciding against following the first break, I stayed in the bunch for half the race, the radio in my ear providing regular updates on the position of the breakaway. I would have the element of surprise, because even I hadn’t expected to be preparing to attack with all my strength.

The relentless peloton caught and reabsorbed the first breakaway with one of the other teams driving a blistering pace.

My thoughts seemed to speed up – or life slowed down – as I flew around the curves with the pack, aware of the slightest movements of my competitors as the wind created a tunnel around us. My concentration was trance-like and yet—

Movement over my shoulder was enough for me to realise that another rider was attacking. This time, I went. A burst of power, springing into life, I threw everything into speed, quickly outpacing the peloton.

The radio crackled in my ear, but I zoned it out, aware only of the burn in my legs, narrowing all of my focus to the road ahead, the rider I expected to appear at my side – and never did.

‘Farking hell, Frankie! What was that? I was certain the peloton was just going to swallow you again. I don’t know how you got free!’

I realised with a wince that no one had attacked. I’d been trigger happy – and somehow got away with it for now.

‘You’ve got fifteen seconds, Frankie . ’ That was a good enough start. It was now a familiar test: mind against body. Only time would tell if I could keep my lead.

Fatigue tugged at my thoughts as the kilometres disappeared beneath my lonely wheels, the stone villages rushing by in a blur while the road filled my vision.

I knew my body, recognised the point where my thighs threatened to cramp.

I was certain they wouldn’t. Pushing on and ignoring the twinge, I proved myself right.

I was out in front, extending my lead, chewing up the distance to the finish line. I was good at this – a solo breakaway, my signature move.

Of course, the moment I thought that, everything went haywire.

There was a smudge of colour on the road ahead and then, in a mess of braking and swerving, I narrowly avoided taking out whatever it was, but I skidded and clattered to the ground with an ‘Oof’.

Dazed, I turned my head and jumped in surprise to see a pair of beady black eyes staring back at me.

A stout woman wearing a Cochonou checked bucket hat rushed onto the road to collect the ball of fluff.

It was a long-haired chihuahua. At first, I thought I was imagining it, but no, the little dog was actually wearing a tiny yellow jersey.

The familiar crunch and whir heralding the approach of the peloton had me scrambling to my feet and fumbling for my bike.

A spectator ran out to give me a push to get going.

At any second, I’d be absorbed back into the bunch.

But it didn’t happen. My blood was rushing in my ears and it was many long moments until I could actually hear the DS over the radio, praising the rest of the team, and I realised they must have taken control and slowed everyone down to give me a chance to get going again.

My chest heaving and swelling and my heart pounding all over the place, I was touched by my teammates’ actions – and flummoxed and more than a little amused by the chihuahua mishap that had almost stolen my lead. It appeared I had my own bad luck back.

As I passed through a little town of charming, run-down cottages with coloured shutters and geraniums exploding out of every pot, spectators lined the narrow road thickly, waving French flags and hand-painted signs.

I spotted one that said ‘582km to Paris’ which was less than encouraging a moment later on the next lonely climb, when my muscles were on fire and my lungs could explode at any minute.

At the top of the climb a cheer went up, which raised my spirits until someone said, loudly enough that I heard it, ‘It’s that Dutch rider. What’s his name again? Frank somebody?’

There wasn’t enough of a descent to recover and I ploughed on towards the next hill.

A cluster of people up ahead put me on alert because I couldn’t tell what they were holding.

It was too narrow to be cardboard signs.

I was worried I was about to be buffeted with blow-up hammers or something, but it turned out to be worse.

As I approached, coming into focus in front of me was a little platoon of Napoleonic soldiers in salute formation. But instead of swords, they held baguettes.

‘I’m going to take a loaf to the face,’ I muttered, the French expression for being punched more apt than any other time I’d used it in my life.

I didn’t slow down, even as I hurtled towards the bread-swords, hoping I wasn’t meeting my Waterloo.

A man dressed as Napoleon himself standing on an upturned bucket barked an order and the ‘soldiers’ raised their weapons one by one to allow me through.

Of course, there was one clumsy hero who didn’t quite get there in time and I took some crust to the helmet, but I was through.

After a chihuahua in the yellow jersey and a bread salute from a Napoleonic guard, it almost didn’t surprise me when an inflatable neon pink unicorn stepped out from behind a tree and took a run-up in my direction.

Past a gingerbread man sprinting along the road with me, a guy in a mankini who made me want to poke my eyes out, and at least two pairs of spectators dressed as Astérix and Obélix, I swerved and struggled and kept my eyes ahead, no matter what.

This stage had picked the wrong guy to mess with.

I’d competed in cyclocross and a few obstacles were nothing but extra fun.

Just as I was beginning to think of taking the pace down a notch to rest on the flat, my radio crackled to life, informing me that a rider was putting in a chase, and I groaned, the sound emerging more like a grunt of pain. I didn’t know if I could maintain speed to head them off.

I decided to let the rider catch up. We could cooperate to conserve energy and I would lose him at the last moment. But then I recognised the rider from my previous team – from the youth development squad of my previous team. The kid was 21 if he was a day.

‘Salut, mon vieux!’ the cheeky kid called out, calling me ‘old man’ as he hopped onto my wheel. ‘Are we going to work together?’

‘Why, do you need my help?’ I called back.

But we were both caught out a moment later, when another rider shot ahead of us with an astonishing burst of power, his taut body dancing over the frame of the bike.

‘Farking hell,’ I muttered.

My stomach sank even further when the team sponsor logos and red, white and green stripes of the Italian champion’s jersey revealed exactly who had caught up to me. Well, shit .

This race was cursed.

The bizarre obstructions hadn’t stopped me, but now I was confronting my two personal demons as we hurtled into the hills near Tours: my age and my inferiority. Defeat seeped up into my throat – or was that just stomach acid? I was so close to my limit I could reach out and touch it.

There were too many kilometres still to go. I’d fought hard, but this was my stop. I’d never keep up.

Then Maggioli called out to me and the kid, ‘One of you take the front or we’re all dead!

’ That was when I noticed the lines of strain in his back, the way his sides were heaving.

The kid was puffing too. If I could settle them, drop the pace for a rest, I might be able to open things up again once we got through the vine-covered hills.

I recognised my previous thoughts for what they were: giving up – too early. I was running away from success. What did I even have to lose? I’d already lost the one thing that had given me any sort of inspiration over the past year: my relationship with Lori, in all its forms.

Yes, I was 34 years old, would be 35 in another two months, but ‘older’ wasn’t my only attribute, as an athlete or as a person.

I might not have been a national champion and a household name, but Lori had said she could fall in love with me and Gaetano Maggioli with his Italy-coloured stripes and ego the size of the Colosseum was all out of luck.

If I was doing this, riding this stage for me and my pride, I had to get past those two little demons. And maybe… Maybe I needed to tell Lori I wanted to be with her – be hers – screw the consequences.

I eyeballed Gaetano, risking a long moment to get his attention. ‘All right,’ I said, my voice low. ‘But you know apparently, my cock is bigger.’ I stayed a moment to enjoy his flustered outrage and then took my turn at the front of our little row with a wild grin.

My thoughts went fuzzy as adrenaline shunted me into battle mode, my reflexes on high alert, the vineyards dotting the hills little more than a blur. We hurtled down to the Loire river, the spires of the city of Tours beckoning from the other side, the finish line just one bridge away.

In silent agreement, the speed ratcheted up as we pushed each other, a game of chicken to see who would be first to crack.

It was the kid. He broke too early, when we were still on the historic stone bridge. I had a moment of doubt, but didn’t chase him and neither did Maggioli. Half a minute later, the kid panting and huffing as he blew up, we caught him again and then dropped him.

Maggioli glanced at me and, even though I couldn’t see his eyes behind his reflective glasses, I sensed his uncertainty. He didn’t know how tired I was. Hell, I didn’t know how close I was to hitting the wall. All I knew was that it was too late to worry about it.

I needed nerves and I needed power for as long as I could maintain both.

Navigating corners at speed, jostling for position, I got on his wheel and he tried to shake me. My vision tunnelled, my whole body in flames, and I had the fleeting thought that there might not be much of me left to lie at Lori’s feet and tell her how sorry I was that I’d screwed everything up.

God, I missed her. With everything stripped down to the pound of my heart, the clench-and-release of my muscles and the rush of my blood, she was still there, not a dream or a reason or a talisman for luck, but as part of who I was – who I’d become over the past year.

Yes, I was scared – terrified she’d leave one day. And maybe she would. But she was with me now, nestled deep among the things I loved.

Admitting that to myself, letting out the feelings that had eaten away at me for months, was like opening a door to a future where I was allowed to want something for myself – to be proud and maybe a bit arrogant.

I was allowed to win. I could retire, if that’s what the next stage was – no guilt, only thoughts of making the future work.

And getting over the fucking finish line.