He felt it now, thudding beneath him like a motor, bearing him up as if he were being carried by something that wasn’t part of him.
Keep your eye on the landmarks as you round the bends: St Stephen’s spire, into the back straight; the clock-tower, into the home straight. That’s the trick of it. ‘Not paying attention again Chapman!’ But, didn’t he see, that was precisely what he was doing? Looking at things that were fixed while you moved yourself. That was how you endured.
They came out of the back straight and round the bend towards the third lap. The number three had a good three yards’ lead and had only slackened pace slightly. Holloway followed, shoulders rolling a little. Thompson clung gamely onto Holloway — he had enough perhaps for another lap. Cox had edged forward into fourth place and Peters slipped back; so that in the front running there were three distinct divisions, about nine yards spanning them all. The sun shone again as they entered the home straight and he saw Peters dropping back, red-faced and curly-headed, at his right shoulder, screwing up his eyes exasperatedly.
Past the winning post, round the first bend, the shadows on the grass swivelling round mockingly in front of them. Barely half the race run, but already — you can sense it — they are getting lost in their struggles. A grimness setting in. They don’t notice the wails of the crowd or the encouragement of the figures clustered round the winning post and the judge’s desk — sports masters, house monitors in blazers and flannels, Mr Hill, bending over the track, waving what seems a threatening fist as they approach; the clock-tower, the spire. Don’t they see, the secret is not to think of the race? But they notice only the endless dark circuit of the track. A grimness. The crowd senses it. The cheering changes tone. They like a battle.
Winning post for the third time. He ought to move up now, not let the gap open. Cox was in second place; Holloway struggling; Thompson falling back, spent at last. Peters had pressed ahead again, and he could hear a determined breathing — it was Price perhaps, or Skinner — close behind him. Move up now. It was expected.
‘Chapmaaan …’
He pressed his toes down harder and stretched his pace. The machine adjusts: the power is there. He moved up past Peters and alongside Thompson who turned, as he passed, a haggard, sweaty face, proud of having done his bit, performed his duty, and fell back. Then he settled in behind Holloway.
A surge of noise from the crowd. The back straight. Holloway was a heavy lumberer; stamina, but no finish. Cox would try, and Peters, behind, might have something left. But his eyes were on the black number three, holding its position perhaps four yards ahead.
How brave, how solitary. The eternal athlete, the eternal champion, running into his future.
He picked up the briefcase and walked on slowly past the war memorial.
Into the top bend. The sun was out, tinselling the grass, shining on the straining bodies in front of him. He looked at the black numbers on the white singlets, 3, 4, 8, all careering on, and suddenly felt that he wanted to laugh.
He kicked his legs into another spurt, passed Holloway and moved beside Cox as they entered the home straight. The crowd yelled — the last lap about to begin — wrapping them in a tunnel of fervour. They love this. This is the stuff of which stories are told. He could hear them saying, when the race was over: ‘The way Chapman moved up’, ‘The way Cox fought back’; spreading the legend. And they themselves, the competitors, in the changing room afterwards, flushed with the drama: heroes.
He overtook Cox, who held on, gasping, behind him. Past the jumping pits. Past the trestle table, set back from the track — next to the loud-speaker apparatus and the judge’s desk — on which were laid out the trophies. Cups, shields, glinting in the sun. A glimpse of the prizes to be won. Then the bell, at the finishing line, ferociously clanged; Mr Hill’s bugle of a mouth; a confusion of yelled names. Chapman had poised himself. To be expected. Keep up the performance.
The hawthorn hedge; back of the sight-screens. For the last time. The figure two yards in front had given a back-ward glance as they left the bell behind, and the face, appearing for an instant over the shoulder, was taut with determination. He looked at the tensed torso — the shoulders, still steady, the sleek black hair. How innocent it seemed. A better body than his, the kind of body that would wear well and look good in photographs and always seem in its prime. Whereas his own body (they laughed at him in class) had a sort of unyouthful clownishness about it. The sun went in. He drew closer to the unyielding leader. He winced suddenly. Then he was past. Only the black track ahead: fence, spire of St Stephen’s.
What had he done? Excitement in the crowd. He had passed the leader on the bottom bend with still most of the lap to go — not, as usual, on the last bend. Begun his final spurt early. That was unexpected.
He ran down the back straight. He thought: why was Thomas Cromwell executed?
Round the top bend. Pain in the chest. To be expected. The crowd in uproar. They saw he hadn’t shaken off his rivaclass="underline" the former leader was catching up again. He knew it.
School clock-tower. The minute hand had moved only that little. The race is decided. It’s over as soon as it starts. They think it’s a battle but it’s only a performance. They think it’s action but it’s only a pattern. You move and keep your eyes on what is fixed. And if you win it blinds you. You think, ‘This moment is mine.’ It’s yours, like the silver cup they give you with your name on it (‘Mile Champion, 1931’), but you forget it’s only a performance, and it’s the moment that captures you. Down the straight. The last time. If you win, you lose. The crowd is screaming. There will be the victory ceremony, the trophies, proud smiles, grandiloquent words on the loud-speaker. Virtus et Fortitudo. After the excitement, the crowd will go away, light cigarettes, buy evening papers.
The dark-haired boy was perhaps only a yard behind. Hold him off a little longer. But let him have his moment. Let him think it’s the real thing.
The jumping pits, the trophy stand. For the last time. The tape stretched out ahead. Heads arching in over the finishing line. A photographer for the school magazine, with a boater, squatting on the track beyond the tape.
The dark-haired boy’s name was Harrison. Jack Harrison. He had a younger brother who was captain of cricket. He would be leaving in the summer. His parents were there, amongst the crowd, smartly dressed in tweeds, the father imposing, the mother pale-skinned, chestnut-haired. And she might have been there, the sister, Irene.
They would be shouting now, the mother and father, the father bellowing himself hoarse (would he remember him later — ‘Chapman’?) as they urged their son to take the lead once more. There would be cries of delight as they watched him breast the finishing tape; frenzied clapping and self-important smiles as they watched him walk up to take the 440 Trophy, the Mile Cup, the Victor Ludorum. The father would light a cigar. Honour to the family. Rejoicing in the home that night.
There he was, at his shoulder, in the outer lane. Brow wet, chin jutting. He could force him back, if he wanted to, run faster. The power was there. Thirty yards to go. Neck and neck. Sun in their eyes. Twenty, fifteen.
All right. Now.
35
You were standing in the hallway with the front door open. I had seen the car parked outside as I drove up Leigh Drive. The blue Mini — his Mini; the boot open and already packed with boxes, clothes on hangers, polythene bags, jumble. You didn’t know I was there. You must have been upstairs when I pulled up on the drive. And you weren’t expecting me. It was only five on a sunny evening in May. You didn’t know I had this pain in my chest, attacks of breathlessness, and that that afternoon I’d shut the shop early. Otherwise, you chose your moment well.