Carshare II

We took the tram to its terminus and stepped out into sunshine. Etienne pulled up in a black car with two bicycles tethered to the top. Introductions and small talk and we were on our way. A maths teacher from Picardie, returning from a holiday in the Auvergne; his voice was loud, but in a way that I liked. He strayed from the autoroutes and took us through villages, over bridges, past horses in sunlit fields. We chatted in French and English and Franglais, about the state of education, and France, and fruit. The warmth of the sun, refracted from the French countryside, spilled through the windshield and bathed my winter-tired face. We passed through long straight lines of tall plane trees, casting their dappled shade on car roofs. A murder of crows wove through the canopy, visiting neighbours' nests. And all the while I watched the shadow of two bicycles speed along the asphalt at our side, impossibly fast, flying past fields and forests. Le tour de France.