‘We’ve come down from London,’ said Fiona.
‘I see. Getting away from it all. And why not. Couldn’t face a day of screaming children and Granny hurting her teeth on the walnuts.’
‘Something like that.’
‘Can’t say I blame you. Madness it is, round at our place this morning.’ He pulled his ample stomach in a few inches and fastened his belt. ‘Mind you, it’s the wife I feel sorry for. Turkey, roast potatoes, stuffing and two veg for fourteen people. That’s a lot to expect of any woman, isn’t it?’
Fiona asked if he could recommend somewhere for us to have lunch, and he mentioned the name of a pub. ‘It’ll be full up, mind, but the landlord’s a friend of mine, so if you just mention my name they might find you a corner. Tell them Norman sent you. I shouldn’t waste much time about it, either, if I was you. Come on and I’ll point you in the right direction.’
We thanked him and, once he had finished dressing and had repacked the towel carefully in his knapsack, followed him up to the road.
‘Crikey, what a lovely bike,’ said Fiona, as soon as she saw it at close quarters. ‘Cannondale, isn’t it?’
‘D’you like it? This is its maiden voyage. It was a present from my eldest: they sprang it on me this morning. I do know a thing or two about bikes – been riding them all my life, you see – and I reckon this one ought to be a beauty. Only weighs about half as much as my old Raleigh: here, look at this, I can lift it up with one hand.’
‘How does it feel on the road?’
‘Well, not as nifty as I was expecting, funnily enough. I’ve come from a little way out of town and it’s a bit of a climb. I was finding it quite hard going.’
‘That’s odd.’ Fiona knelt down and started to examine the back wheel. I looked on, bemused.
‘You’d think with seven gears I wouldn’t have any problem at all, wouldn’t you?’
She peered even more intently at a cluster of very intimidating-looking cogs and ratchets at the centre of the wheel. ‘You know, you might have the wrong sort of cassette on here,’ she said. ‘If this is designed for racing then the ratios may be too high for you. It’s all to do with the cadence. This’ll be designed for about ninety r.p.m. and you’re probably doing nearer seventy-five.’
Norman looked worried. ‘Is that serious, then?’
‘Not really. You’re in luck, because you’ve got individually replaceable sprockets. You’ll need a chain whip and a lockring remover, and then you can do it yourself.’ She stood up. ‘Well, it’s just a hunch.’
‘You can have a ride if you like,’ said Norman. ‘See what you think.’
‘Can I? Gosh, that would be a treat.’ She turned the bike round and swung herself into the saddle. ‘I’ll just go up to the roundabout and back, shall I?’
‘Whatever you like.’
We both watched as she pedalled off down the road, uncertainly at first, then gathering speed and confidence. She receded from view until the only distinct feature was her windswept trail of copper hair.
‘Getting a good bit of speed up, there,’ said Norman.
‘She’s an old hand,’ I said, surprised at the pride I took in being able to tell him this. ‘Did a forty-mile sponsored ride a couple of months ago.’
‘Well’ – he winked at me in a manly, confidential sort of way – ‘you’re a lucky bugger, that’s all I can say. No wonder you don’t want to share her with anybody else on a day like this. She’s a cracker.’
‘That’s not really why we’re here.’
‘Oh?’
‘No. We came down for … well, for health reasons, I suppose you’d call it.’ The urge to confide in someone was suddenly strong. ‘I’m so worried, I couldn’t begin to tell you. We’ve been trying to get some sense out of the doctors, but it’s been going on for months: fevers, night sweats, dreadful sore throats. I just thought a change of scene might do some good – you know, sea air, and all that sort of thing. She’d never say anything about it, but it’s been tearing us both apart; and if it turns out to be something serious, I don’t know how I’d cope, I really don’t.’
‘Aye, well.’ Norman sighed, looking away, and shuffled his feet in embarrassment. ‘I didn’t like to say anything, but now you’ve mentioned it, you do look bloody terrible.’ And just before Fiona cruised back into earshot, he added: ‘Let’s hope she doesn’t wear you out, eh?’
∗
We tried our luck at the pub he’d recommended. The dining area was very hot, very full, and very stuffy, but when we mentioned Norman’s name the landlord did indeed manage to find us a table in the corner, boxed in by a family party of eight, all of them highly boisterous except for a lanky teenager with a streaming cold. He could never quite get to his handkerchief in time, and whenever he sneezed I could see the fine droplets of saliva flying in our direction. We passed on the first course and went straight on to the turkey, which was dry, thinly sliced to the point of transparency, and served with a small mountain of waterlogged vegetables.
‘How come you know all that stuff about bicycles, then?’ I asked Fiona, as she made her first brave inroads into this daunting confection. ‘You were coming across like a real expert.’
She had her mouth full of sprout and turkey, and was unable to answer at first.
‘I did an abstract of some articles about new gear systems just a couple of weeks ago,’ she said, and then embarked upon some serious chewing. ‘I’ve got a good memory for that sort of thing: don’t ask me why.’
‘I wouldn’t have thought it fell within your brief.’
‘We have a very wide brief. It’s not just specialist journals: we cover lots of different subjects. Cycling, cybernetics, sexually transmitted diseases, space travel …’
‘Space travel?’
She noticed my sudden interest.
‘Why, is this another little obsession that you’ve been keeping quiet about?’
‘Well, it used to be, I suppose. When I was little I wanted to be an astronaut when I grew up. I know probably every other boy of my age felt the same way but those enthusiasms never really leave you, do they?’
‘Strange,’ she said. ‘I never really thought of you as the macho type.’
‘Macho?’
‘Well, the symbolism of all those rockets isn’t exactly hard to fathom, is it? I’m sure that’s the appeal for the average male: thrusting your way into the unknown regions …’
‘No, that wasn’t how I felt at all. Perhaps this sounds strange, but it was the’ – I cast around for the word, failed to find it, and had to settle for – ‘the lyricism of it, I suppose, that attracted me.’ Fiona seemed unconvinced. ‘Yuri Gagarin was my real hero. Did you ever read his description of what he could see from the rocket while it was in orbit? It’s almost like a poem.’
She laughed incredulously. ‘You’re going to recite it to me now, aren’t you?’
‘Hang on.’ I closed my eyes. It was years since I’d last tried to remember these words. ‘ “The day side of the earth was clearly visible,’ ” I began, and then repeated slowly: ‘ “The coasts of continents, islands, big rivers, big surfaces of water … During the flight I saw for the first time with my own eyes the earth’s spherical shape. You can see its curvature when looking to the horizon. The view of the horizon is unique and very beautiful. You can see the remarkable change in colour from the light surface of the earth to the completely black sky in which you can see the stars. This dividing line is very thin, just like a belt of film surrounding the earth’s sphere. It’s a delicate blue, and this transition from the blue to the black is very gradual and lovely.” ’
Fiona laid down her knife and fork while I was saying this, and listened with her chin cradled in her hands.