Chapter 34
Colin
Flat on my back staring up at the blue sky, it was impossible not to accept that some things in life were out of my control.
If your life was supposed to flash before your eyes a second before death, then a crash was like an entire lifespan passing in the space of a few seconds: disorientation, pain, confusion, more pain, grief – acceptance.
For several throbbing heartbeats, I thought that was it, that was me done for this year. I was a flash in the pan – exactly what I’d always feared I was. The end of Dad’s dreams – and Leesa’s assignment.
I wasn’t dead – there was too much pain for that. But the way my blood was rushing to my head did not feel good. Oh wait, I was upside down. The pure discomfort of my position made me shuffle until gravity felt more normal. Then I closed my eyes…
And snapped them open again a moment later. Something was unfinished. The Tour – yes, of course, the Tour. That wasn’t over until I dragged my arse over the line in Paris – or got whisked away in an ambulance. The thought of abandoning brought a sour taste to my mouth.
But that wasn’t all that was unfinished.
I thought of that cardboard sign from September that I’d shoved in the back of my wardrobe at home in Lourdes, my half-hearted and utterly inadequate attempt to show Leesa why I’d always singled her out.
I’d done such a poor job of it she still thought I’d been pulling a prank.
I didn’t deserve her grace after everything that I’d done, but I wanted it – I wanted the chance to work for it.
That’s when the jumbled thoughts from the past few days – and weeks – finally coalesced into something I could understand: sports psychology; growing up; Leesa – Leesa.
I was aware I didn’t deal well with things I couldn’t control in my life, like a crash in the Pyrenees, my parents’ dysfunctional relationship – or Leesa returning home to the States.
But there were some things I could control.
The same wispy white cloud still hovered high above me in the sky. Only a few seconds had passed, but the fire in me had started burning again – maybe even a new flame, brighter and stronger than before.
I would not abandon the race until a doctor told me to – and I would not give up on a relationship with Leesa until I’d made up for my years of shitty pranks and told her exactly how I felt.
But first, somehow, I had to get up.
Leesa
‘A crash! Something’s brought down several riders in the peloton!
’ The commentator had little to add to the scene of carnage developing on the screen.
I’d watched hundreds of crashes like this in my time – I’d been in a couple and had the knobbly scars on my knees and elbows to prove it – but I’d never had my lungs constrict and my vision fog with panic.
I grasped Wil’s arm and leaned close to the laptop as though that would help me find Colin in the mêlée – help him come away from it unscathed.
A crumpled heap of bikes and humans was scattered across the narrow road, a couple had tumbled a few feet down the slope.
Unable to stop quickly enough, riders ploughed into the midst and spilled over the top of each other.
‘This coverage is a pile of shit. Show us the fucking riders!’ Tony groped for his phone to call the DS in the team car, his hand shaking.
‘Do we know where everyone is? Can you get to them?’ Mashing the screen with trembling fingers, he put the call on loudspeaker and let the phone clatter to the bench seat of the van.
‘Stand by, Tony,’ came Alan’s steady voice from the team car. ‘We’re not far away, but there’s a lot of traffic.’
The screen showed splashes of colour moving among a mess of metal as riders scrambled to untangle their bikes. I scanned the footage desperately, but I didn’t have a hope of finding that particular orange helmet in the sea of riders.
Some appeared largely unaffected, hefting their bikes to pick their way through the carnage, but it was quickly clear there were so many riders affected that they’d stop and wait, a quirky honour rule of pro cycling that wasn’t written or enforced, but everyone generally respected.
Motorbikes with first aiders were already on the scene and my heart crept higher in my throat with each second that passed not knowing where he was or if he was hurt.
There were even a couple of bikes sticking out of the bushes like discarded shopping carts.
Riders were on the ground, bodies strewn across a bizarre battlefield.
Then Nellie’s voice sounded over the team radio and made everything worse. ‘The neutral medic’s with Colin, but we need help here!’
My nose stung so sharply I had to shove the ball of my hand to my face and my vision swam again.
Sagging heavily against the passenger seat, I rubbed the raised scar on my knee as though that would help me hear some better news.
I tried to tell myself it wouldn’t be the first time he’d crashed – I’d crashed over and over again during my career.
But I’d rarely needed a medic.
‘Alan!’ Tony yelled into the phone.
‘We’re on our way. It’s bumper-to-bumper.’ Then, over the team radio, ‘Can you give us any more information, Nellie? Any other injuries? Damage?’
It was Amir who answered. ‘We managed to pull him back onto the road and if his language is anything to go by, he’ll live, but he’s in some pain – to say the least. His bike’s a mess.’
The footage picked up a close-up of Colin and I couldn’t contain a yelp. The left side of his face was smeared with blood, a wound above his eyebrow still profuse. He was holding his arm, a powerful grimace on his face. He appeared to be shivering.
I couldn’t breathe for the unexpected pain of seeing him like that, when he was supposed to be the larger-than-life leader who couldn’t keep down his own powerful personality.
‘I think we’re looking at wheel contact for the origin of the crash,’ the commentator explained, but I didn’t care any more how it had started, I only cared about how Colin was feeling.
‘Does he need an ambulance?’ Tony’s voice was approaching a shriek.
If he hadn’t had the health and fitness of an ox, I might have been worried about him having a heart attack, the veins in his temples were bulging so severely.
‘Where’s Angie?’ Tony barked into the phone, asking about the team doctor, who was in the car with the DS. ‘I want Angie to check him!’
Alan’s voice came over the radio again. ‘Colin, Angie’s on her way. Hang in there.’
Tony muttered something under his breath about a concussion that made my hair stand on end. He looked a thousand years old, rather than his usual weathered hundred.
I had the unexpected urge to go and stand next to him for comfort, bump shoulders. Tony wasn’t perfect; he’d probably been a rotten father at times. But I could see the genuine fear, the worry in him and I knew what that felt like.
I suspected I knew exactly what it felt like to love Colin Gallagher: frustrating and intense.
Tony swallowed audibly and turned halfway to me. ‘Do you want to talk to him? We could patch through the radio. I think he’d respond well to that. He’s always responded well to you.’
Except when I’d told him I was leaving and he’d pushed me away – and I’d been stupid enough to let him do it.
His words from that evening in Guérande came back to me with a stab of remorse: It’s gonna kill me.
I wanted to get on a bike and race to him, grab his face in my hands and tell him he meant so much to me, he’d scrambled all of my priorities.
It was clear that was the last thing that would help him right now, but only my hands clamped to the edge of my seat in the van kept me where I was.
‘I’m not sure he’d respond well to me right now,’ I said weakly.
Tony’s grumble came from deep in his chest.
‘I’m sorry. I should never have let any of this happen.’
‘No, you shouldn’t have,’ Tony agreed flatly. ‘Neither of you. But the damage is done now.’
‘The peloton’s getting going again,’ Edgar interrupted warily, pointing at the screen.
Tony’s attention was off me in an instant. ‘Like hell they are! Someone put a stop to that! The boy’s still on the ground!’
As though turning its nose up at Tony, the coverage showed Colin bending his legs tentatively and then wobbling to his feet. Swiping something out of his eyes – blood and sweat, I imagined – he bent his head to allow the neutral medic to dab at the wound on his face.
‘Well, he’s up and walking, but the question is: where to? Back on a bike or into an ambulance. With the looks of those abrasions, I wouldn’t like to guess which. What a huge disappointment for Harper-Stacked – and Gallagher himself. Such a big rider, great to watch.’
My stomach twisted with a lurch of disappointment for him, but seeing him flash a smile at the neutral medic also flooded me with relief. I had wanted him to do well, but mostly I just wanted to be able to wrap my arms around him again soon.
My gaze was glued to the screen, curious about the way he was holding himself, surprised he didn’t look angry and frustrated. His hand rose to his chest and the radio crackled on.
‘Tell Dad not to have a heart attack. Nothing’s broken.’
Colin’s voice always got under my skin, but in that moment, it dug right to my heart, his deep, slow drawl with a hint of humour so Colin Gallagher that I could have cried. Wait, I was crying. Wil’s soothing hand on my back was a tiny bit embarrassing.
‘Just let me get patched up— Argh, fuck, that hurts!’
The footage moved back to the peloton, slowly accelerating away from the scene of the crash, leaving Tony bouncing in his seat. ‘He’s not going to get back on a bike, is he? Someone tell me what’s going on!’
My breath left my lungs one more time when the coverage switched back to Colin, swinging his leg over a bike saddle and clicking his helmet back on.
‘Bloomin’ ’eck! The devil fucking take that boy. What is he doing?’
Apparently, this wasn’t over yet. The Tour. That’s what wasn’t over. But as I stared at his image on the screen, his head up, shoulders back in that cocky Colin Gallagher pose he’d developed some time around his 21st birthday, I couldn’t help thinking this meant my time with him wasn’t over either.
‘Bensa?d has handed his bike over to Gallagher. He’s not too far behind the bunch but, with those injuries, I don’t fancy his chances of making the time cut. This is the Tourmalet and he’s still a long way from the finish line, but wow – he’s going to attempt it.’
He looked a little wobbly as he took off, blood smeared down his arm below the hastily applied dressing.
As the footage followed his tentative first few metres, I noticed – along with the rest of the world – that his jersey had split down the back.
Valerio the dragon was eyeballing the camera, apologising for nothing, daring the world to underestimate him.
And further down, where the rip reached nearly to the top of his thigh, was the number 91.
‘Would you look at that? Gallagher seems to have lost one of his numbers in the crash, but he has a spare,’ the commentator said with a chuckle.
‘Is that a tattoo?’ Tony’s voice was high. ‘When did he get that? Farking hell. That boy can’t help making headlines for all the weirdest reasons.’
Whether it was on purpose or not, Tony glanced at me with those words and heat rushed up my chest. I should keep quiet, stare at my shoes, not rock the boat.
I was a woman in sports, always having to prove I belonged.
But looking at Colin and remembering the day we’d got those tattoos made me unexpectedly stubborn. And proud.
‘He’s your son, Tony,’ I said lightly. ‘What did you expect?’
He regarded me, his expression drawing in. ‘That’s what I’m worried about, child.’