What He Sent Back

Marten saw the message as he stood by the door with a rubbish bag. He had tied it shut without adding the bathroom rubbish. That wouldn't fit now unless he picked the knot apart. He looked at the screen, put the bag down and sat on the edge of the sofa.

I wanted to show you something stupid today. Then I missed you so much it made me angry. I still don't know how we'd make it work once I leave. But I miss you, not just what we had. I wanted to tell you.

He read it with the bag between his feet. Outside a scooter went past. Someone tipped glass into a container somewhere. He wanted to reply at once that she should come over. He would give her something to eat and hang her coat on the rack, even if it probably fell off again. He wanted her in front of him when she spoke.

He rested the phone on his knee. Last week they had already tried just looking at each other and pretending they didn't know what lay behind it. It hadn't made parting easier. He picked up the rubbish bag and went downstairs.

At the bins he couldn't lift the lid straight away because another bag's handle had caught in it. He pushed and pulled, and finally got his bag in with more force than necessary. The woman bringing her paper over gave him a glance.

'It's stuck,' he said.

She nodded as though that adequately explained a man looking so angry with a bin. He held the lid up for her. She dropped in her paper and thanked him. The entire conversation had taken place in a world where people could help and then go home again.

Upstairs he sat on the sofa again. He wrote: Come over. He held his thumb above the screen and deleted the words. Then he tried something about her training. That wasn't right either. She hadn't asked him for a result.

I miss you too, he finally sent. I'd like to see you. I just don't know what we do with everything we've already said. But I'm glad you sent this.

He watched for a little longer. No reply appeared. He didn't want to explain in a second message how she should read the first. He put his phone away and went to empty the bathroom bin.

The next morning he couldn't find his car keys. He went from the hall to the kitchen, pulled two coats from their hooks and eventually spotted them on the windowsill. He'd put them there himself. Nobody could tell him why.

There was hardly anywhere to park at Koen's shop. Marten left the car a street away and walked back with the rear wheel he'd meant to bring under his arm. It belonged to an everyday bike that for months had mostly been getting in the way. He'd intended to sell it, then decided he might keep it after all. The bike was older than some of the riders he now raced against.

Koen stood at the counter beside a customer holding a pannier. It was still attached to the rack that had been taken off the bike. Both of them were studying it with the concentration of people hoping the other knew what to do next.

'Here's our specialist,' Koen said when he saw Marten.

'In racks?'

'At waiting his turn.'

Marten put his wheel by the wall. At the side of the shop was a small table with a map of the area. The adult groups' routes were marked in different colours. Beside one was a coffee cup to which someone had added an enormous cloud of steam. He traced the road with his finger to a village he often passed through without seeing any of the buildings. He was usually looking at the rider in front.

A woman studying the map asked whether he knew the route. He said there was a stretch halfway round where the headwind could be unpleasant. She looked at the coffee cup.

'Is that before or after it?'

'After. Otherwise there's no point.'

She laughed and studied the map. Mostly she wanted to go somewhere again without spending the whole way back wondering whether she could still manage. Marten told her about the straight stretch after the village and stopped himself before he made it a training session. She asked how far it was. He read the distance from the card. She didn't need his memory when the answer was right there.

When she moved on, Koen came and stood beside him. 'You don't have to tell everyone wind exists. They tend to notice.'

'I'm preparing people.'

'You're making them worry about their Saturday off.'

Koen took the wheel and said when it could be ready. They stayed by the map for a while. Marten asked how the Saturday groups had been going. One person wanted to go too fast, another mainly wanted to tell him what had happened to his dog. Koen could live with either, but not both at once at the start of a narrow path.

'That's what I mean,' he said.

'What?'

'That it's actual work.'

Marten looked at the map. 'I didn't think it all happened by itself.'

'I didn't say you did.' Koen went to the counter to answer the phone. Marten stayed where he was. During the past season he had sometimes looked at ordinary cyclists as though they hadn't understood something. Now he couldn't quite say what that had been. They were here for their own reasons, and they kept coming back.

Before he left, Koen said he wanted to speak to him after the final race weekend. That was still the plan, Marten said. He felt no urgency to add a joke. The wheel stayed at the shop. He walked empty-handed to his car, thinking again of the woman who had mainly wanted to find the coffee stop.

At the velodrome he saw Rik van Os unloading his bike. Rik had a new car and was taking such care with the upholstery that he almost hit himself in the forehead with his handlebars. Marten held the door. Rik wanted to know whether he was coming to watch an acquaintance race on Sunday. Marten shook his head. He was staying home this weekend.

'Sensible,' Rik said. 'I've already said yes.'

'You can change your mind, of course.'

'You say that as though people would still like me.'

They took their kit inside. Bram hadn't made the preparation longer just because a final race was approaching. Marten had expected a longer programme, and it annoyed him that he asked anyway. His coach looked at the sheet in his hand, then at him.

'If you want to know whether I've forgotten something: no.'

'You know me too well.'

'Not really. You just ask the same questions every winter.'

Marten got changed. His fingers were still cold from unloading. As he fastened his shoes, he noticed how ordinary the action felt. He could go on doing it without anyone building a new season around it. The thought brought none of the sudden lightness he'd hoped for. It still made him sad.

He joined the group on the track. He did what they were asked to do, his attention wandering at first, then staying with the riding for longer. Ahead was a rider whose shoulder movement announced what he was about to do. Marten knew before the man himself seemed to know he'd decided. He enjoyed that. It didn't immediately have to lead anywhere.

When they finished, Bram spoke to him about next week's scratch race. Twenty men, forty laps. A proper race in which he didn't need to put his whole winter into the first move. Marten said he could hardly just wait for the last lap.

'I'm not saying that. I want you to watch who's doing what.'

'I do.'

'And what you do then.'

Marten nodded. He knew what Bram meant. In the previous race he'd tried to make up for an off day by reacting to too many moves. Mostly it had tired him out. He wanted to do better now. Even if there was no promise of a team place afterwards, he didn't want to spend an afternoon looking at his race number and wondering what had happened to him.

Back by their kit, Rik took out his phone. Someone had sent him a photograph from the previous race meeting, he said. Marten was half hidden behind another rider, his mouth open and his eyes so wide he looked as though someone had asked him for a tax return in the middle of the race.

'I'll use this one when I'm looking for a team,' Marten said.

'You should put it on your Christmas card.'

'You're a month late.'

'Ready for next time, then.'

Marten looked at the picture again. He knew which lap it was. He could tell from the other men's positions what he'd tried next and how little it had gained him. The photograph also showed something he hadn't felt that day: how close they'd ridden, how quickly the colour of the advertising had blurred behind them. He really had been there, even in a race he'd wanted to put behind him as quickly as possible.

'Send it over,' he said.

Rik looked up. 'Really?'

'Yes. I need something where I'm younger.'

The picture arrived as Marten zipped up his bag. He didn't forward it to Fenna. He missed doing that, but it was no reason to put it away again at once. He enlarged it, pointed out Rik's own face at the edge and laughed so much that the rider beside them asked to have a look. Three of them stood round a phone, all thoroughly pleased with something none of them had found funny at the time.

After they'd changed, Rik asked whether he fancied riding together on the road when the weather improved. Marten automatically wanted to say he didn't yet know what his programme would be. He noticed his own hesitation, which could have no particular meaning for Rik.

'Yes,' he said. 'Let's do that.'

'Not tomorrow. I said better weather.'

'I understood.'

'You say that, but you've got some odd ideas about a morning off.'

They walked to the car park together. Marten told him about the woman at the shop who had been more interested in the coffee stop than the route. Rik asked whether that wasn't actually very sensible. They made plans that didn't yet fit a particular day, and parted without setting each other a performance target.

At home he saw Fenna had replied. I'm glad you replied too. Nothing followed it. No suggestion, no joke to make the rest easier. He held the phone for a while. They weren't back together. It had made a difference that they'd both said something.

He put it on the table and unpacked his bag. There was a wet towel at the bottom that he was about to throw over a chair back. He carried it on to the bathroom. A dry one was hanging there. He swapped them and came back to tidy the rest.

Beneath a shirt he found the timetable for the final weekend. Preparation on Saturday, his scratch race on Sunday; Fenna's sprint tournament ran across both days. He couldn't possibly avoid her without changing his own race plans. He didn't want to avoid her either. He laid the sheet open on the table.

He would race on Sunday, and do his usual preparation with Bram beforehand. He would try to win. He hadn't given that up. What he no longer wanted was to keep waiting for someone to work out his life after the finish for him.

His phone lit up. Rik had sent a picture of the route on Koen's map, which he'd apparently found somewhere online. Beside the coffee cup he'd written: I suggest we make this our big goal.

Marten replied that first he needed to know what cake they had. Then he put a pan on and began chopping an onion. He could ask tomorrow how much longer the wheel would take. He didn't need it for anything tonight.