The pistol was raised, and fired. A plume of blue-white smoke followed by a sound more pop than bang. The shot woke the pigeons from the dome of St Paul’s and they rose in a chattering congregation, their worship interrupted.
Joel was off to a good start. Clean, neat and fast.
The crowd began to call his name immediately, their voices at his back, at his side, a gale of loving enthusiasm.
Cameron watched the first two dozen yards, as the field jockeyed for a running order. Loyer was at the front of the pack, though Cameron wasn’t sure whether he’d got there by choice or chance. Joel was behind McCloud, who was behind Loyer. No hurry, boy, said Cameron, and slipped away from the starting line. His bicycle was chained up in Paternoster Row, a minute’s walk from the square. He’d always hated cars: godless things, crippling, inhuman, unchristian things. With a bike you were your own master. Wasn’t that all a man could ask?
“— And it’s a superb start here, to what looks like a potentially marvellous race. They’re already across the square and the crowd’s going wild here: it really is more like the European Games than a Charity Race. What does it look like to you, Jim?”
“Well Mike, I can see crowds lining the route all the way along Fleet Street: and I’ve been asked by the police to tell people please not to try and drive down to see the race, because of course all these roads have been cleared for the event, and if you try and drive, really you’ll get nowhere.”
“Who’s got the lead at the moment?”
“Well, Nick Loyer is really setting the pace at this stage in the game, though of course as we know there’s going to be a lot of tactical running over this kind of distance. It’s more than a middle-distance, and it’s less than a marathon, but these men are all tacticians, and they”ll each be trying to let the other make the running in the early stages.”
Cameron always said: let the others be heroes.
That was a hard lesson to learn, Joel had found. When the pistol was fired it was difficult not to go for broke, unwind suddenly like a tight spring. All gone in the first two hundred yards and nothing left in reserve.
It’s easy to be a hero, Cameron used to say. It’s not clever, It’s not clever at all. Don’t waste your time showing off, just let the Supermen have their moment. Hang on to the pack, but hold back a little. Better to be cheered at the post because you won than have them call you a good-hearted loser.
Win. Win. Win.
At all costs. At almost all costs.
Win.
The man who doesn’t want to win is no friend of mine, he’d say. If you want to do it for the love of it, for the sport of it, do it with somebody else. Only public schoolboys believe that crap about the joy of playing the game. There’s no joy for losers, boy. What did I say?
There’s no joy for losers.
Be barbaric. Play the rules, but play them to the limit. As far as you can push, push. Let no other sonofabitch tell you differently. You’re here to win. What did I say?
Win.
In Paternoster Row the cheering was muted, and the shadows of the buildings blocked the sun. It was almost cold. The pigeons still passed over, unable to settle now they’d been roused from their roost. They were the only occupants of the back streets. The rest of the living world, it seemed, was watching this race.
Cameron unlocked his bicycle, pocketed the chain and pad-locks, and hopped on. Pretty healthy for a fifty year old he thought, despite the addiction to cheap cigars. He switched on the radio. Reception was bad, walled in by the buildings; all crackle. He stood astride his bike and tried to improve the tuning. It did a little good.
“— and Nick Loyer is falling behind already —”
That was quick. Mind you, Loyer was past his prime by two or three years. Time to throw in the spikes and let the younger men take over. He’d had to do it, though my God it had been painful. Cameron remembered acutely how he’d felt at thirty-three, when he realized that his best running years were over. It was like having one foot buried in the grave, a salutary reminder of how quickly the body blooms and begins to wither.