A Boy and a Bike (2008)

 The brightly polished sixteen-inch wheels on my shiny
silver Raleigh cycle raced round and round and round as I neatly dodged into the narrow side road and avoided their bicycle barricade, it was a near thing, I could see them move as they realised they had left an exit for me and I didn’t have to ride straight into their trap. I put one foot down, like I’d seen the motorbike scramblers do, and skidded round the corner into the road, with gravel and dust flying I raced past the old Jewish house, its high fence, dirtying white statues and Cyprus trees immediately shielding me from my enemy’s gaze as they must have sought to ride after me. But I was quick, practically standing on the pedals I rode for my life’s worth up that road, pounding my bike, swinging it from one side to the other as I pushed hard on the pedals then changing into the highest gear when I could, and then I was flying along the country lane, hedges, strawberry fields, apple orchards all rushing past me as I raced on as if the devil himself was after me. I must have had a good start on them, their country brains being slow and all, for when I dared to look they were nowhere in sight. They were older village boys and I was a newcomer to their village, an outsider, interloper so I deserved to be beaten, spat at, called names and made fun of whenever it suited them. I was there to be chased like a hare, disturbed like a pheasant, hunted like a fox, it was my sole reason to live – for their very sport. So in my after school evenings I could chose to stay at home, or risk being hounded and hunted by the village boys, essentially my choice, some choice, but I was forever grateful that my brother had given me his discarded old bike, without that I would have been in serious trouble. The twisted front wheel had been replaced, the ten derailleur gears re-aligned and mended, the leather seat lowered to suit my growing legs and then the bike was mine. My older brother, in his late teen haste, had wrapped the bike comfortably around an apple tree in the orchard, abandoned it and bought himself a BSA Bantam 173cc motorbike to impress his girlfriend. My parents, no doubt as embarrassed as I was by my riding the old, black, women’s bike, replete with front basket, seemed eager for me to have the Raleigh even though I was only about ten at the time. This situation wasn’t their fault. My parents had to move where the jobs were. It was the early 1960s, Dad had little qualifications apart from those garnered from twenty years as a soldier, and he had to go where the work was, so we moved, and then we moved again and again and again. By the time I was eleven I had been to five primary schools and lived in four different villages, each time having to try to fit in and each time being rejected as an outsider, though this last time was unquestionably the worse. When I was challenged by the primary school bully in my first week at the new school I gave as good as I got, I fought him, punched him and kicked him, and won. I wasn’t aware of any code, unwritten rules, decorum that needed addressing – I was attacked I fought back. But I had apparently transcended some school law and humiliated him, damaged his ten year old ego, so off he went to complain to his elder brother, and it was he and mates who were after me now. These Neanderthals seemed determined to settle what they considered to be the score, some debt of honour, and as duelling at sunrise was out I cycled as fast as I could. Being an outsider had distinct advantages. Having no one to play with I spent a lot of time on my own, with my shiny silver bike, cycling this lane and that road until I knew every road in the area, every which way to return home from anywhere within a ten mile radius. I even knew the bridal paths and the footpaths from village to village, which track would take me to the back of the eerie old church and which one skirted the abandoned dairy. So on this day I knew I could cycle down this road, take a right, cycle for about ten minutes, take another right and end up on the road from another village heading towards the T –junction and eventually my house. From the T-junction I would be able to see if the road was clear of those boys, and cycle into the back entrance next to the Rose and Crown public house. The evening light was fading as I made the turn to the T-junction, I could barely make out the road ahead. I didn’t want to connect my dynamo light as 1) it would slow the bike down, and 2) I didn’t want that gang to see the light and know it was me. I still had an uneasy feeling that these hunters would dare to picket the outside of my house, lurk and lounge until I turned up then, view halloo off we would go again me playing fox in their re-enactment of a local hunt. Heart pounding as fast as my legs, nervous sweat breaking on my young brow, I raced up that last stretch to home, thankful as I skidded on the loose gravel of the pub car park, I’d made it intact, I let out the breath I had been holding for the last few seconds then edged to the corner of the red brick wall of the end house, peered round and saw – nothing. There was no one there, no fresh barricade, no new hunt, I was game no more. I punched the air in triumph, bent over and caught my breath. That battle over for today now all I had to face was another four days at school, today being Monday, the journey home and any time I wanted to leave the house for more than a few yards. Yes I learned, I learned that winning has its consequences as much as losing does, and that sometimes to fit in one has to fight ones instincts and one’s better nature, but more than that – I learned that sometimes it’s better to be a loner than to fit in with the wrong crowd.