French Revolutions

bike and on to my back. For a moment ZR and I lay there side by
side, my dead eyes trying to focus on the masts and aerials at the summit, a
kilometre and a half up. Then, jarringly, a cheery volley of horn parps,
juvenile shrieks and squeaks and the support vehicle/broom wagon had arrived. I
had failed, and I had failed in front of my family. I had taken that penalty at
Wembley and toe-poked it wanly at the keeper; the Centre Court ballboys were
still sniggering as yet another serve ballooned towards the Royal Box. Such was
the drug cheat’s comeuppance.
    Seeing their taunting smirks wither
into frowns of concern offered some succour. Lain across the front seats I
gazed glassily up at the vanity mirror: raw and crevassed lips crowned by a
nose the colour and consistency of an overripe fig; bridging both temples a
Zorro mask of tears and dust. Unprotected by the helmet my sticky hair had been
blasted by the elements into a viciously backcombed Strewelpeter. As Louison
Bobet, first over the top in the 1955 Tour, said: ‘A son at the summit of Mont
Ventoux is not a sight to show his mother.’
    Wedged obliquely between infants I
was gently chauffeured to the top, but didn’t feel I deserved to admire the
sunset backlighting the vineyards down to Avignon. Birna went out for a quick,
lopsided walk and could hardly heave open the door when she got back.
‘What’s... there,’ I muttered, sounding like Tom Waits on a Domestos bender.
    ‘Wind. A couple of Fifties-ish
barrack things and some police cars. Oh, and an advertising poster saying
“Tampons pour cyclistes”.’
    On the wordless descent all I could think
was how benign the gradient seemed from behind a windscreen, how feebly
undemanding. ‘No mountain too high,’ read one of the rain-smeared epitaphs
beneath Tom’s memorial, a phrase which in the circumstances didn’t seem
entirely appropriate for him but was abysmally inapt for me. Whatever strings
had been attached to my conquest of the col de Saraille, I’d just tripped over
the lot.
    Approaching le Chalet-Reynard I spied
Marty round the next bend, bike in the gutter, hands on hips, remonstrating
with his colleague, but — judging by the latter’s doubled-over stance and
slowly shaking head — wasting his time. My first foggy impulse was to ask Birna
to pull over so I could sneak the bike out of the boot and freewheel breezily
down past him, but brittle fatigue and a humbled sense of unworthiness
prevented me. Or anyway should have.

Eleven

     
    ‘Did you read any of this?’
    Birna was studying the extensive
‘patient information’ leaflet supplied with my packet of Haymine; I was
building up pain tolerance and mental resilience by showing the children how
long I could hold my magma-hot mug of breakfast chocolate in both hands.
    ‘That? No. I didn’t think it was
relevant for my... ow.’
    I blew my ruby palms while she
recited.
    ‘“Take one tablet every twelve
hours.” How many did you have?’
    ‘Two in six hours.’ This sounded
better than four in two. Birna read on.
    ‘ “Ephedrine Hydrochloride will
reduce nasal congestion while counteracting some of the possible drowsiness
that the antihistamine Chlorpheniramine may cause... you may also experience
slight giddiness, rapid heartbeats and some weakness in the muscles.’”
    I looked down at the backs of my
hands, idly picking at the stigmata-like hemispheres of scabby red flesh that
had formed in the gloves’ exposed ventilation area.
    ‘ “Alcohol will make any drowsiness
worse; avoid alcohol when taking Haymine” ’
    Muscle weakness, giddiness, a
half-litre of rosé. The drugs don’t work, they just make it worse. It was
looking as if I might have made a fearful ass of myself.
    ‘Well... I feel all right now.’
    And somehow I did. The flaccid,
doped-up invalid absently hoisting an unsteady thumbs-up out of the rear
passenger window at Avignon’s late-night tarts bore no relation to the following
morning’s chirpy athlete looking forward to a long day in the saddle. I’d
always been astonished at how Tour riders creaked up to death’s door in the
late afternoon, yet just a few hours later freewheeled gaily out of the
starting gate. But here I was, a child on each knee, folding up the map with
eager impatience.
    It was a splendid day. Still
marvelling at my new-found powers of recuperation, I agreed the usual
late-afternoon rendezvous with my support crew and swished out of Avignon’s hot
claustrophobia, away from