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It wasn’t the first or even the fifth time Hammond had fallen off his bike. He wasn’t often knocked off it by a van though. Agitated as he was, he wasn’t very inclined to be fair to the driver, but technically, the light Hammond was on had turned red as he was crossing it. The car had hit his back wheel and sent him, and the bike flying and skidding into some broken bottles on the street outside a pub that hadn’t yet been cleaned up.
Richard was quick to jump up, his leg and side smarting where he had landed. He was already running late. So he swore loudly and extensively and the shaken and apologetic looking van driver, before checking his bike. It wasn’t in the best shape, and probably wouldn’t ever ride properly again, but it did seem to be working.
Richard didn’t want to risk changing gear, just in case the mechanism was broken, so he cycled the remaining ten minutes to the BBC offices in the same gear. It was harder, but not impossible. He almost didn’t bother locking his bike up, he was so cross at the way it was slightly broken, but he did, and he limped the rest of the way into the building, choosing to take the lift not the stairs for once.
He didn’t recognise the woman who got into the lift with him, from her age she was probably a new hire or an intern, but she stared at him in something like horror, for almost the entire duration of the lift ride.
“Can I help you?” He finally snapped. She looked mortified and shook her head. She mumbled no and got out one floor before him. Then the lift arrived at Top Gear’s floor and Richard made his way towards the office.
He felt sticky, damp and sweaty, more so than usual and thought he might have rolled in something gross when he was knocked off. He tried to stride but it ended up more like a limp as he entered the office.
“Would you believe, that I got knocked off my bike by a bloody van this morning!” He announced, more to the room than to someone in particular. Then he noticed James staring at him in horror.
“What!” Richard asked. “Why is everyone looking at me like that?” He was aware he was getting loud, but he was still a bit pissed off and shaken from being knocked off his bike like that.
“You’re covered in blood.” James said. “Don’t move.” By now they were attracting a small crowd. Richard turned his head to look only to wince in pain. High up at the back of his neck suddenly smarted, and he reached his hand up to feel it. There was something hard and sharp, and he wriggled it a bit. That hurt more. He pulled his hand back around to look at it and his fingers were covered in blood.
Richard suddenly felt really confused, and all the adrenaline that had let him cycle that last ten minutes to work seemed to flood out of him. Jeremy and Andy were here too now, and James was guiding him quite firmly to one of the computer chairs. He realised he was still wearing his cycling helmet, he must have been pretty out of it not to notice that he was still wearing it. So he undid the strap and lifted it off his sweat and blood soaked hair as carefully as possible. Morbid curiosity seized him and he reached back to feel the hard sharp thing again. It was right at the top of his neck, jammed under the edge of his skull. He wriggled it a bit, and it came away in his fingers.
“Hammond you idiot!” That was Jeremy shouting but Richard wasn’t paying attention. Just staring at the curved, inch long shard of glass in his hand. It looked like it came from a wine glass, or a gin bowl or something similar. It was covered in his blood. Then someone was holding his head and something soft and large was being pressed against the back of his neck so hard it hurt.
Andy was on the phone to someone looking worried, and he could no longer see Jeremy.
“Keep him awake, it looks like he’s about to faint.” That was Jeremy, but who was he talking about. Then James was staring at him, in his field of vision, kneeling in front of him. Richard thought about how much it would hurt his knees later.
“Richard, tell me about your noble.” James was saying. Richard frowned.
“Why, you got really cross with me yesterday when I wouldn’t stop talking about it?” Richard asked. He felt like a kid. Out of his depth and confused.
“I want to hear about it now, please, Richard.” James looked scared. That wasn’t right, he didn’t normally look scared, normally he was either composed or laughing. You never saw the negative emotions.
“I’m going to drive it all across Italy, a proper British sports car. It has more horsepower per tonne than either of yours. It’s going to absolutely cream the pair of you.”
“I bet it won’t cream my McLaren.” James was saying back, his heart wasn’t in it and Richard could tell but his friend was trying to goad him into a light-hearted squabble so he would oblige.
“You’re deluded, the McLaren’s twice the weight, and even if it was the better car, you would still lose because you’re Captain Slow.” Richard tried to smirk, but his face felt kind of numb and heavy.
“Hammond! Open your eyes! Hammond!”
Why was James cross all of a sudden? And why had he closed his eyes? He was at work. His eyelids were heavier than he could remember them being.
“Hamster! Wake up! Now!”
That was Jeremy’s voice, and he sounded really cross. Well that made sense if he was sleeping at work. Richard tried again to open his eyes and this time he succeeded. James was really close now. He had a hand on Richard’s cheek, supporting his head so he didn’t have to hold it up. Then there was a bit of commotion as a pair of paramedics rushed in, and started asking him questions he tried to answer but everything seemed so far away.
Jeremy had reacted quickly when Hammond had pulled a shard of glass out of his head. He grabbed someone’s ill-fated cardigan from the back of a chair and pressed it into the cut, which had started bleeding profusely as soon as Richard removed the shard. It was the most basic first aid, to leave an object in a wound and let the professionals handle it. He had one hand pressing the cardigan into the cut and the other bracing Hammond’s head from the other side. All the colour had left Hammond’s face and he looked dazed so he barked at a shell-shocked James May to keep Richard awake and talking.
James responded immediately, kneeling in front of Richard and drawing him into a conversation about the noble he would be driving around Italy for their supercar challenge in a few months.
Jeremy listened in to Andy as he finished the conversation with 999. Andy looked straight back at him and updated Jeremy.
“They’re about three minutes away. I’m going to meet them in the lobby. Keep him awake and talking and I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Then Andy was gone and all Jeremy had to focus on was Richard. Richard whose eyes were closing. Richard who was white as a ghost and looked dead. Unpleasant images flooded back unbidden from seeing Richard in hospital after the dragster crash. James was pleading with Richard now, his hand on Richard’s cheek, asking him to open his eyes. Jeremy felt panicked and ended up shouting.
“Hamster! Wake up! Now!”
It seemed to work, Richard was trying to bring himself around, but he looked so confused. James was at a loss of what to say, wanting to prompt Richard into conversation to keep him awake. Thankfully, Andy and the paramedics arrived, and took over, leaving Jeremy standing a little further back as the paramedics, asked Richard questions he didn’t seem to be able to answer. They bandaged the back of his neck, attached an IV and got him situated in a stair-chair.
Then they were off, and Jeremy was squeezed into the uncomfortable back of the ambulance on the phone to Mindy.
“I don’t know exactly what happened… I don’t think he knew he’d been hurt at first, he came in and started ranting about some van that had hit him the same way I would rant about bad traffic… We’re going to Queen Charlotte’s Hospital… yes I’ll let you know as soon as I know more.”
Then Richard was being pushed on a gurney into the bowels of the hospital, and Jeremy was directed to a slightly private waiting area out of deference for his celebrity status.
Luckily he didn’t have long to wait.
“Mr Hammond’s awake, and can see you now.” A harried nurse informed him, bringing him almost all the way to Hammond’s room, with directions to cover the last bit.
When Jeremy entered Richard was lying on the bed, still in the clothes he had arrived at the office in. Thankfully, he was now awake and looking a lot more alert, with a bag of blood being diffused into his arm.
“So, what’s the verdict?” Jeremy asked, being as bright and cheerful as he could manage.
“I didn’t hit anything vital, but I lost quite a lot of blood, so they want me to finish this transfusion, and possibly another, and keep me overnight just in case. I should be fine for filming tomorrow afternoon.”
“Good, have you spoken to Mindy?”
“Yes, thank you for ringing her in the ambulance by the way. I was a bit out of it. She’s coming to the taping tomorrow and is going to drive me home. What happened in the office, by which I mean, how embarrassed should I be?” Richard’s voice went a bit high at the end and Jeremy grinned. Clearly his friend would be okay.
“Only you could walk in, literally covered in blood like an extra from a horror film, and not know why everyone was staring. I think you gave James the fright of his life, he’s going to go even more grey now.” Jeremy laughed.
“Good.” Hammond replied, sounding like it was anything but.
“Did you say something about being hit by a van?” Jeremy asked, wanting to know what had actually happened, and Richard started to regale Jeremy of the whole incident.
The next day during taping, they had reached the news. They discussed a couple of cars before Jeremy found his opening to announce.
“Now, this week I have been presented with irrefutable proof that cycling in London should be banned." Jeremy announced.
“What?” Richard demanded.
“Show the ladies and gentlemen your hair.” Jeremy said, smugly.
“Jeremy!”
“Show them your hair!” Jeremy insisted, and then James was turning Richard around to show the camera the small bandage and odd rectangle of hair that had been shaved away to allow it at the top of his neck.
“This is ridiculous!” Richard said as he was manhandled.
“Now, long time viewers will be familiar with some of my views on cyclists, but what you won’t know is that yesterday morning, Hammond was late to work. Not by much, by about ten minutes. Would anyone like to see some of the security footage of Hammond taking the lift up to our office at the BBC building?”
The audience responded positively, and then there was footage from the lift. Richard cringed in anticipation of the embarrassment, the others hadn’t mentioned anything about including this in the show. The young woman who wouldn’t stop staring at him was already there. Then the doors opened and Richard walked in. He had watched himself on screen hundreds of times to check his work and record voiceover but this was weirder somehow. The Richard on screen walked in and turned around to face the doors, revealing that he was indeed covered in blood. The blood had dripped down from his neck and coloured the entire back of his otherwise pale coloured t-shirt. The girl in the lift did a sort of double take and then stared. Thankfully the tape cut there.
“And would you like to know, what Richard Hammond said when he walked, or rather, limped into the office.” James had taken over and was now asking their studio audience, who would probably have been a lot more concerned if Richard hadn’t been sitting in front of them looking perfectly healthy. The audience roared their approval.
“He said, you’ll never believe this, I’ve just been knocked off my bike by a van. And then he asked why everyone was staring at him.”
“In my defence-“ Hammond started.
“What defence? You looked like an extra in a slasher film.” Jeremy asked. He then pulled out a bloodied inch of glass. “This fell out of your neck, you must be the most oblivious man in the world not to notice that in there. If I’d been stabbed with a bit of a wine glass, I’d notice.”
“In my defence, I didn’t know I was bleeding. If I’d realised I was actually hurt, I would have gone to a hospital, and not just kept cycling to work” Richard said, feeling on the defensive but still laughing at his mates antics.
“Cycling to work was what got you in this mess Hammond. No, cyclists are clearly a menace to the streets of London and the practice should be banned entirely.”
“Who was I a menace too? I was the one hurt? The van driver only stopped for less than a minute” Richard cried.
“Do you know that, did you check in with the van driver, exchange insurance details?” Jeremy asked, pointedly.
“Well, no but--“
“Exactly, and as we all now know, delivery drivers have very pressured jobs, you delaying him by a minute with your bicycle could have cost him his livelihood for all you know.” Jeremy continued smugness.
“I’m alright, thanks for asking.” Richard changed tack.
“You’re alright because you had a couple of pints of strangers’ blood put into you, pulling on the already stretched resources of the NHS.” James said.
“The moral of the story is, don’t ride your bike.” Jeremy finished.
“That really isn’t. Cycling’s still the quickest way to get around London.”
“Moving on.” Jeremy announced, and segued into introducing the next film.