The Next Column

Marten switched the alarm off before it rang. Fenna lay on her side with one knee on his half of the bed. He now knew she could take up a lot of room without being awake to do it. On her back last night she'd claimed she always stayed neatly on her own side. He hadn't gathered evidence. The evening had been too enjoyable for that.

He stepped over her bag and put his trousers on in the hall. In the kitchen the medal lay on the table beside two empty glasses. She'd meant to put it away and got distracted. Marten tapped it with a finger. The ribbon was twisted. He straightened it, felt embarrassed by the solemnity of the gesture, and moved it aside to make room for his breakfast.

There was a message from Bram on his phone: the time he was expected at their spot in the track centre. No race talk at half past six, just a time. Marten confirmed. He could show something this morning. The recent training had been decent, and yesterday he'd seen how little a good day had to resemble a miracle. Fenna had done what she could. He wanted to do the same.

As he picked up his bag from the hall, she appeared in the bedroom doorway. Her hair was flat on one side and sticking up at an improbable angle on the other.

'I haven't done anything,' he said.

'That's a bold claim for this morning.' She rubbed an eye. 'Are you ready?'

'Nearly.'

She put her arms round his waist and pressed her face against his chest. She hadn't done exactly that before. Wanting nothing from him except for him to stand there a moment. He rested his cheek on her hair.

'I'll come later,' she said. 'After breakfast. Otherwise I'll have to spend the whole morning looking at you, and there goes your concentration.'

'I'll warn the organisers.'

She kissed him. He left with the unreasonable conviction that this meant part of the day was already won.

In the hall more men were clustered round the start list than could read it. Marten knew the sound: cheerful disgust at the early hour, a few results brought up for comparison, one man telling another he didn't expect much while checking who could hear. He greeted Rik van Os, whose bag was resting half on the foot of a chair.

'You were here yesterday too,' said Rik.

'Checking they don't change the laps overnight.'

Rik nodded as if that might be the reason. 'Hear your girlfriend races.'

Marten hadn't used the word himself. Coming from someone else, he liked it. 'Yes. Fenna.'

'Good bronze.'

'Yes.' He heard himself give the same cheerful yes he gave Koen when he asked whether Friday was still on. An answer with more behind it than he wanted to unpack just then. He went over to his own spot.

Bram took him through the plan for the scratch race. The task was familiar, not easy. Marten nodded in the right places until his coach asked what he'd just said. He repeated the last part. Bram looked at him for a moment, then pointed at his bike.

'Get on with your preparation.'

His mind hadn't been on it. That didn't explain what happened next. In the early laps he was alert enough to see the moves. Twenty men, a field stretching out and coming together again, the first attacks looking bolder than they were. He didn't have to answer everything. He'd spent his whole life learning that, and some days he managed it.

At first this was one of those days. He was where he wanted to be, found a wheel he trusted and let someone else do the nervous work. When Rik moved further forward, Marten went with him. It felt good, that simple decision. Not watching until somebody else decided where his race would happen.

Then he let a gap open that he could have prevented. A moment of waiting for the rider ahead, half expecting him to sort it out. The field pulled away. Marten had to work harder than he'd intended to get back on. When he managed it, he was angry with the man in front, although he'd seen what was happening in plenty of time himself.

The next acceleration came while he was still looking for somewhere to recover. He went with it because he didn't want to sit back again. It produced no heroic moment. He got on, lost contact again and slipped back among men he'd just passed. His legs didn't feel empty, merely incapable of doing everything he wanted at once.

He saw Bram beside the track. His coach made a brief gesture. Marten understood the message and still rode for a while as though somebody else had the handlebars. He was busy with what he'd already let happen. How this must look to people who knew him. With Fenna, somewhere he couldn't search for without missing more of the race.

When the bell rang for the final lap, he was too far back to salvage his afternoon. He moved up all the same. Another wheel, another man, the line taking no interest in what he'd meant to do. After the finish there was no sudden release in his body. He was tired in the most unsatisfying way he knew.

Eleventh out of twenty. He studied the result long enough to know that standing there wouldn't change it.

Bram asked for his account first. Marten began with the gap and noticed he was describing the man ahead of him again. His coach let him finish.

'He was riding his own race too,' said Bram.

'I saw that.'

'You saw that gap opening yourself,' said Bram.

Marten nodded. He wanted another go, immediately, in the same positions with the same men. He also wanted to go home and see nobody. The two wishes sat quite comfortably together.

Fenna had hung her jacket over the back of a chair. She was holding a bottle for him, presumably because she'd seen him arrive with it and didn't know where to put it. An ordinary gesture. In his head he made it bigger, a woman there to comfort him after a bad race, and immediately resented it.

'Do you want this?' she asked.

'No, I was just collecting them.'

She looked at him. He took the bottle. 'Thanks.'

She sat beside him. He could tell she wasn't going to ask how it had gone. Yesterday he'd loved that about her. Now her caution also felt like something he'd done to her. He drank and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

'I'd say you rode well,' she said, 'but then you wouldn't believe another word I said all week.'

It was an opening. A small, kind chance to laugh together. He saw it and missed it.

'You only needed eight women to come third. I had to get past nineteen.'

Fenna stayed as she was. Only her hand left his chair. 'Well, at least there were nine you didn't have ahead of you.'

He gave half a laugh. She didn't.

'All right,' he said.

'No. It isn't.' She stood up and took her jacket. 'I'm going to get something to eat.'

He could have stopped her with a sentence that came quickly enough. He let her walk away because he thought her reply was unfair. Nine men he'd kept behind him: wasn't that exactly what was bothering him? Only once she was out of sight did he hear what he'd done. Set her good day beside his bad one, then point to the box that made hers look smaller.

He stayed in the shower longer than necessary. Not in search of a great insight. Simply a few minutes when nobody had to read anything in his face. Then he dressed, took his things to the car and went back into the hall without his bike.

Fenna was by the window in the foyer, a roll on its paper in front of her. A slice of cucumber had fallen beside it. She looked up as he sat opposite her.

'That was a shitty thing to say,' he said.

'Yes.'

'I was angry. With myself, really.'

'I wasn't confused about who came eleventh.'

He lowered his head. He hadn't earned a funny reply to that. She pulled the paper closer and carried on eating. He waited for her to swallow.

'Yesterday was yours. It was good. I loved watching it too.'

'Until you didn't ride well yourself.'

'After that as well.' He felt how badly he wanted to persuade her. It would be nicer if he could put both their moods right now. 'I just shouldn't have said it.'

She looked past him, outside. 'I don't have to make myself smaller every time you're fed up about something.'

'No.'

He left it there. Outside, someone was pulling a large bike box across the car park. One of its wheels caught in a join in the paving. The man pulled too hard and nearly went with it. Fenna made a small noise through her nose; Marten turned. When he looked back, she wasn't quite controlling the corner of her mouth.

'Don't go and help him,' she said.

'I'm still sitting down.'

'You were already looking like a man with a solution.'

He put his hands on the table. 'I have absolutely no solution for that box.'

She pushed the roll away a little. It wasn't suddenly over. He simply no longer needed every second to prove she wouldn't stay angry. She said she had an early shift tomorrow. He didn't ask whether she was coming over tonight, then. When they stood up, he picked up only his own jacket.

In the car park he was about to turn towards his car when she said his name. He turned round.

'I liked last night,' she said.

'So did I.'

'That's still there as well.' She came over and kissed him on the mouth. More briefly than this morning. It didn't feel like an acquittal, but he was once again someone she wanted to touch.

At home he rang his sister because she'd asked which day at Christmas he was coming to eat. His nephew wanted to know whether he still cycled faster than cars. Marten said he would probably have struggled with a shopping trolley today. His sister laughed and offered him a choice of two days. He chose Boxing Day, then heard himself ask whether Fenna could come too, if she wanted.

'Is that the woman from the helmet?' his sister asked.

'I've been to see her without a helmet since then.'

'I'll put out another plate, then.'

After the call he looked at the table. Fenna had taken the medal. There was a damp ring from a glass where the ribbon had lain. He wiped it away and sent her the invitation, asking whether she'd like to come. Then he put on the pasta he'd bought for himself. The water was already boiling when his phone lit up. Need to check which day I'm seeing my family. But yes, sounds lovely. He read it while the pan boiled over and had to laugh aloud at himself. At least he still had a talent for that today.