Читать книгу Ventoux онлайн

19 страница из 86

I didn’t say that three days before our date, I was due to go cycling with André.

-

II

In 1970, Eddy Merckx won his second Tour de France. I was 6, watching TV with my father, and saw Merckx, the cycling marvel. ‘The cannibal,’ said my father. ‘So young and already so good. He’s going to sweep the board. No one can compete with him.’

I reversed the handlebars on my bike and did a circuit through the neighbourhood. I imagined that I was Merckx on the Tourmalet. I looked back: no one! I’d left them all for dead. I stopped outside André’s house.

He was lying on the sofa reading a Billy’s Boots comic.

‘André, let’s be racing cyclists.’

‘Huh?’

‘Let’s be racing cyclists like Eddy Merckx. You know, from the Tour. We’ll reverse your handlebars, too.’

‘My father’s already a racing cyclist. I’m going to be a footballer.’

It was the first time that one of us didn’t immediately jump aboard the other’s fantasy.

‘Shame.’ If André didn’t want to know about cycling, there was no point in my getting involved. ‘Swim?’