Page 25 of Head Over Wheels

Legs pumping, she glanced quickly behind her to judge how much breathing space she had and flew through the wide turn with 3 km to go – and suddenly jerked to the side, her bike sliding out from under her.

‘Something’s happened to Gallagher,’ the commentator said unhelpfully. ‘A mechanical? You’ve got to hope for her sake it’s not a puncture.’

She swerved again, ducking her head, one hand clutching her helmet. The camera closed in on her flummoxed expression as she glanced up, her mouth hanging open. And then it happened again, the camera this time catching a flash of black-and-white and Lori’s frantic hand in front of her face as she ducked.

‘I don’t believe this,’ the commentator continued, her voice high. ‘She’s being swooped by a magpie. In January. That has got to be the unluckiest thing I have ever seen.’

The internet watched as she swivelled to eyeball the bird and yell, ‘Fuck off!’ clearly enough to be lip-read. Unfortunately, that only further enraged the creature.

She tried to keep riding, but the innocuous-looking bird flew at her helmet and her bike tipped, forcing her to unclip her shoe and put a foot down and that was that: the peloton roared by, whipping past on either side of her – and apparently scaring off the magpie.

I could feel the burn of disappointment in my chest as she pushed off, frantically pumping the pedals to keep up with the others, but she was still dropped, falling behind before she could find her rhythm. I didn’t need the camera on her to taste the bitterness in my own mouth.

Because she was Lori Gallagher, it wasn’t long until she caught up, careening down those curves again at speed and slipping into the peloton. But it wasn’t enough. When the final sprint stretched before her, she weaved to the front, but she couldn’t maintain enough power to contest the sprint, and she flew over the line in fifth, her head hanging and her chest heaving, looking as though she wanted to throw something.

‘Godverdomme!’ I said, because there was nothing else I could do except swear in Flemish, as Walloons did in extreme situations where French would not do. ‘Fuck that!’

‘Sebi?’

I whirled around to find my grandma, standing in the door without her glasses on, peering at me. A quick glance at my laptop revealed it was past two o’clock in the morning.

I leaped to my feet and took her arm. ‘Mamie, go back to sleep. I’m sorry to wake you.’

‘What are you upset about, mon chou? I haven’t heardsuch language since Denise was in labour.’ She shuffled towards the bed in her felt slippers and squinted at the screen.

‘I was watching my teammates,’ I said weakly. ‘These are professional cyclists I was watching… professionally.’

‘I can see that, but I also know you don’t usually watch women’s cycling.’ She didn’t say it, but I could see the words, ‘In the middle of the night,’ in her expression.

‘They’re just as exciting as the men.’

‘I’m sure that’s true,’ Mamie said sagely, ‘but I’m not letting you off so easily. I knew there was something different about you since you came home at Christmas. Which one is your girlfriend?’

The hairs on the back of my neck lifted. ‘There’s nothing different. I don’t have a girlfriend.’

She studied me, which, without her glasses, felt as though she was probing my mind with telepathic powers. ‘I see,’ she said gravely.

In the quiet pause after her words, I heard the commentator say, ‘Poor Lori Gallagher. Today was not her day for gold. I’ve never seen an out-of-season magpie attack in the Nationals in my entire career and it had to be her, it had to be today. Wow, you can see the disappointment on those shoulders. I’d be crying too, Lori.’

Stricken, I rushed back to the laptop to see her, chest heaving, swiping roughly at her eyes as tears made trails in the sweat and grime on her face and the enormity of her disappointment was broadcast to the entire world. I couldn’t look away, but I also wished the camera would move off her, give her a chance to grieve in private.

‘Her?’ Mamie asked me, her brow low.

‘She’s a friend. A good friend,’ I added when my grandma kept looking at me.

Grasping my arm, she said, ‘Looks like she needs a hug.’

All I could do was stare at the image of Lori on the screen and wholeheartedly agree. I snatched up my phone to text her but, as soon as I opened our chat, I remembered my deleted message and my stomach dropped.

Ouch. She couldn’t have seen it before I deleted it. I’d realised too late that it was the middle of the night in Australia when I sent it and she probably wouldn’t want my poorly worded best wishes for the race – which was why I’d deleted them. Now I was mortified.

The commentator’s words looped in my mind:the unluckiest thing I have ever seen. I was such an idiot. She’d wanted to focus. I wasn’t supposed to be in her head and she’d told me straight up I wasn’t allowed to text her except to congratulate her on winning. I should never have sent it.

Chapter 11

Lori

After the magpie incident at Nationals, my season went downhill – and not downhill in a fun way. The first race on the World Tour calendar, the three-day Tour Down Under, was a rain-soaked disaster, where we all slipped and slid our way through the stages, collecting cuts and bruises. After a big crash before the final sprint on the second day, I was out of the running for the general classification victory.

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