treasure, weâre going to make a cruise on a liner â go and buy yourself some clothes.â It was something heâd always wanted.
The room was a large oblong sitting-room with glass all along one side, looking out to sea. Even at this height, this far back from the beach, the window was constantly obscured by salt, which made the glass smeary and expensive to keep clean, besides corroding the metal window frames. When the wind blew, which it did seven days in ten throughout the year, one could not open these windows without vases of flowers getting knocked over.
The room had big armchairs and sofas upholstered in black leather, and white polar-bear rugs. The coffee-table was square, very large and massive: black Japanese lacquer with red and gold, covered in glass and the usual patterns of water-lilies and flamingos and spiky curved-roof pavilions. On the walls were several modern paintings, the kind one bought in St Paul de Vence. But most of the long wall, opposite the window, had been excavated into shallow curved alcoves with concealed lighting that could be adjusted with a rheostat. Here on shelves was presentation silver (or pewter, or electroplate) in every conceivable pattern from curliest rococo to bleakest Swedish â but mostly silver, for Rob was the best bicycle champion Holland had had in thirty years, since Long-legged Jan Mossup, or since ever, said some, for he was not only a sprinter.
He wasnât so vain as to allow pictures of himself in here, though Jannie (he wasnât allowed to call her Jannie, but he still thought of her as Jannie) had four silver-mounted cabinet photographs in the guest bedroom. But the café, downstairs, had the walls totally filled with photo-montages of Rob Zwemmer, world champion on the road, in the barred leather headdress of a track racer, in thepeaked linen cap of a road runner, bareheaded, his hair swept boyishly back by the speed of his passage â¦
No no, he wasnât vain. He had been cute enough never to make a serious challenge to the French in the long-distance races in stages. Only once had he tried the Tour de France, and he had reached the Pyrenees in a heatwave, and dropped out on the terrible Col du Tourmalet. So had forty others, but his had been the most remarked casualty. It wasnât a disgrace â the same thing had happened to Louison Bobet, who won three Tours â the same thing happened to Anquetil, who won five â¦
Nor could he challenge the emperor of Belgium, Ricky van Looy, who had two world championships, and a record in one-day classics over the wicked cobblestoned Flanders streets that nobody would beat. Nor could he match the fantastic total of winter wins in six-day events, on the covered city tracks, of the other Rik, the wonderful old Van Steenbergen (Rik One and Rik Two they were called, in the bicycle world).
But he was a complete runner. Who else with his record on indoor tracks (the brass band blaring in the smell of beer, the technique of sleeping in an unsoundproofed cabin while his partner took his stint of round and round, up and down, whizzing to the top of the banked steep track and accelerating down in a wicked diagonal sweep, and as suddenly idling down to cruise tempo, with the Oy-Oy-Oy of the music in the strapped padded ears â the smell was meat and the noise drink; never would he get them out of his grain and fibre), who else with that record had won a Tour of Flanders, a Liège-Bastogne-Liège, a Walen Arrow, and, greatest of all, a Paris-Roubaix in the teeth of them all, thanks to his punch. For he was a good track racer and a good road runner, an excellent sprinter and for a Northerner a remarkable climber, but above all he was a puncher, able to excel himself at a given moment. It was his punch that had won him a Midi Libre over the thirst-dried causses of Languedoc: it was his punch that had won him victory over the terrible Spanish climbers among the saw-edged rocks of the
The room was a large oblong sitting-room with glass all along one side, looking out to sea. Even at this height, this far back from the beach, the window was constantly obscured by salt, which made the glass smeary and expensive to keep clean, besides corroding the metal window frames. When the wind blew, which it did seven days in ten throughout the year, one could not open these windows without vases of flowers getting knocked over.
The room had big armchairs and sofas upholstered in black leather, and white polar-bear rugs. The coffee-table was square, very large and massive: black Japanese lacquer with red and gold, covered in glass and the usual patterns of water-lilies and flamingos and spiky curved-roof pavilions. On the walls were several modern paintings, the kind one bought in St Paul de Vence. But most of the long wall, opposite the window, had been excavated into shallow curved alcoves with concealed lighting that could be adjusted with a rheostat. Here on shelves was presentation silver (or pewter, or electroplate) in every conceivable pattern from curliest rococo to bleakest Swedish â but mostly silver, for Rob was the best bicycle champion Holland had had in thirty years, since Long-legged Jan Mossup, or since ever, said some, for he was not only a sprinter.
He wasnât so vain as to allow pictures of himself in here, though Jannie (he wasnât allowed to call her Jannie, but he still thought of her as Jannie) had four silver-mounted cabinet photographs in the guest bedroom. But the café, downstairs, had the walls totally filled with photo-montages of Rob Zwemmer, world champion on the road, in the barred leather headdress of a track racer, in thepeaked linen cap of a road runner, bareheaded, his hair swept boyishly back by the speed of his passage â¦
No no, he wasnât vain. He had been cute enough never to make a serious challenge to the French in the long-distance races in stages. Only once had he tried the Tour de France, and he had reached the Pyrenees in a heatwave, and dropped out on the terrible Col du Tourmalet. So had forty others, but his had been the most remarked casualty. It wasnât a disgrace â the same thing had happened to Louison Bobet, who won three Tours â the same thing happened to Anquetil, who won five â¦
Nor could he challenge the emperor of Belgium, Ricky van Looy, who had two world championships, and a record in one-day classics over the wicked cobblestoned Flanders streets that nobody would beat. Nor could he match the fantastic total of winter wins in six-day events, on the covered city tracks, of the other Rik, the wonderful old Van Steenbergen (Rik One and Rik Two they were called, in the bicycle world).
But he was a complete runner. Who else with his record on indoor tracks (the brass band blaring in the smell of beer, the technique of sleeping in an unsoundproofed cabin while his partner took his stint of round and round, up and down, whizzing to the top of the banked steep track and accelerating down in a wicked diagonal sweep, and as suddenly idling down to cruise tempo, with the Oy-Oy-Oy of the music in the strapped padded ears â the smell was meat and the noise drink; never would he get them out of his grain and fibre), who else with that record had won a Tour of Flanders, a Liège-Bastogne-Liège, a Walen Arrow, and, greatest of all, a Paris-Roubaix in the teeth of them all, thanks to his punch. For he was a good track racer and a good road runner, an excellent sprinter and for a Northerner a remarkable climber, but above all he was a puncher, able to excel himself at a given moment. It was his punch that had won him a Midi Libre over the thirst-dried causses of Languedoc: it was his punch that had won him victory over the terrible Spanish climbers among the saw-edged rocks of the
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