TWENTY-ONE
IT’S QUITE POSSIBLE THAT life with Dominique did indeed mean that Anquetil had finally found the normality required for him to overcome the traumas of the past 12 years. Unfortunately, while this adoption of a routine recognisable to most may have provided him with psychological and emotional solace, his physical well-being was already beyond repair. On 25 May 1987, Anquetil was diagnosed as suffering from the advanced stages of stomach cancer.
The news was broken to him the day after the christening of his son, Christopher. Anquetil’s school friend Maurice Dieulois was there at the time: ‘I was sitting next to him at the table when he told me he’d been to have some tests during the week and was waiting for the results. He said, “If it’s cancer, I’ve been ill for so long it won’t be long before it gets me.” In fact, the doctor had the results but didn’t want to tell him on the day of the christening, so he came the next day after having rung and said, “I need to see you. I’ll come at midday.” At that point, Jacques knew it must be something serious. And I remember, we were sitting at the table for lunch when the doctor arrived, and Jacques got up and went off into the study on his own with him. When he came back after the doctor had told him he did indeed have stomach cancer, I’ll always remember it, he said “Yes, it’s cancer. But the cancer’s in for a tough ride, as where it is it’s still got its work cut out.” Just like that. Just after he’d learned he had cancer.’ Even now, Dieulois can’t stop himself from chuckling at the memory.
Anquetil’s resilience in the face of such devastating news was also appreciated by another friend, his former teammate André Darrigade, who says Anquetil told him he’d had to make life easier for the doctor: ‘I was watching the doctor’s face when he came with the results of my tests, and he either didn’t want to tell me or he was finding it difficult to start, so I decided to help him. I said, “Don’t worry. You can tell me. I’m not a little boy.”’
Bernard Hinault, who as godfather to Christopher was also there at the time Anquetil learned of his diagnosis, shares this amazement at his friend’s reaction, even if his recollection of how he responded is different: ‘He said to me, “What should I do? I’ve got cancer.” Just like that. “What should I do? Shoot myself in the head or fight?” I said that it could be treated, so he should go and get himself treated. But then he waited. If he’d been treated earlier . . . In June, he had to go and commentate on the Dauphiné, then there was the Tour. Even in August, he was going to criteriums to get a bit of money. Eventually, he went into hospital, but it was too late.’
Dieulois confirms Anquetil’s procrastination: ‘He should normally have been operated on as quickly as possible. In the end, he was operated on in August, and the surgeon said it should have been done sooner. But he was committed to commentating on the Tour on television and answering readers’ questions every day in L’Équipe as well. So, the surgeon said he could start the Tour and go as far as Bordeaux, where he’d do some tests, and then as soon as the Tour had finished he’d operate, maybe around 15 to 20 July. We were there in Bordeaux and spent a couple of hours at least with Jacques after the stage before he went for the tests. To see him, physically, you wouldn’t have known that he was ill. He hadn’t lost weight; he’d even put a bit on, maybe. But because of the tests, he said, “Sorry, Maurice, I can’t even have a drink with you, as I’ve been told to have nothing in my stomach.” So, he didn’t have a drink, whereas normally, of course, he was the first to have a drink with a friend. It was then he decided to finish the Tour.’
In fact, the operation – to remove his stomach – didn’t take place until 11 August, more than two and a half months after receiving confirmation of the diagnosis.
For once, it seems as if Anquetil was fighting shy of the challenge ahead. Eventually, it was his son who was the catalyst for action. ‘One evening, I leaned over Christopher’s cot and kissed him on the cheek, which was as warm as life itself,’ he was reported as saying in Paris Match, just one of the innumerable magazines to carry commemorative articles after his death. ‘I felt his little fingers squeezing mine, trying to keep hold of me, and I decided to have the operation.’
The consequences of this delay should not be underestimated, as his daughter Sophie points out: ‘Rudi Altig also had a stomach cancer. Before they knew anything was wrong, his wife went to see a clairvoyant, who said, “Your husband is very ill. He has a problem with his stomach.” At the time, Rudi felt in fine fettle, but his wife made him go to a doctor. The doctor asked him lots of questions about various things – if he had pain here or pain there – and Rudi said everything was fine, so the doctor said it wasn’t worth any more invasive tests. But Rudi insisted: “Take your thingamajig, knock me out and have a look.” It turns out that he had cancer, was operated on straight away and is still fine now.’
More serious than the delayed reaction to the diagnosis, however, was his delayed acceptance that anything was wrong. He’d been suffering serious stomach pains for at least four years before his cancer was confirmed – Dominique recalls him being plagued by them from the very beginning of their relationship, which started in 1983. His daughter Sophie acknowledges that he’d ignored the symptoms for longer than he should. ‘He just left it,’ she says. ‘He was very resistant to pain, and when his cancer started he resisted, resisted, resisted, and by the time the pains were really intolerable it was already too late.’
Dieulois agrees: ‘He was hardened to suffering. He tried to treat himself with clay masks on the stomach. He thought he’d be able to help himself with that, but to start with he wasn’t really being looked after in a medical sense. He was a bit slow before getting himself treated efficiently.’
It would be reasonable to assume that the impact of this delay was exaggerated by his lifestyle. His body had already begun to show signs that the excesses to which it had been subjected were taking their toll. In 1978, he had been diagnosed with cardiac arrhythmia, a complaint that according to some commentators meant he should never have become a competitive sportsman. His daughter, Sophie, is not so sure, suggesting instead that whereas he used to have a heart that could be compared to a Ferrari, it was now more akin to a 2CV.
Then there was his history of amphetamine consumption during his cycling career (and don’t forget the caffeine and strychnine injections). Regular and quite possibly excessive amphetamine consumption has been suggested as a contributory factor in the early death of several cyclists of the time, such as Louison Bobet and particularly Gastone Nencini, not to mention Anquetil himself. There appears to be little scientific evidence to support this link, however, and Anquetil certainly didn’t give it much credence. ‘I stopped riding nearly 20 years ago,’ he reminded a local newspaper in Colmar after he was admitted to hospital there. ‘If my illness was linked to what I’d done as a sportsman, you’d have to think it had been gestating for an eternity. I really don’t think that’s the cause.’
Jeanine agrees, and offers an alternative explanation. ‘I would have thought if he was going to die young that he’d have died of a heart attack or a lung problem,’ she says. ‘I never thought of cancer. It’s such a cruel illness. But there’s no link between the amphetamines and the cancer – it was the stress of his family life. Absolutely. When my daughter left, and then when my son left, Jacques found himself wanting to stick the family back together. He started to get stressed, to get worked up. It was then it started. He was a very nervous character.’
Perhaps this description of Anquetil provides the missing link. There may be little scientific proof of a direct connection between amphetamine consumption and cancer, but there is a clear link between amphetamine consumption and a nervous disposition. Regular amphetamine users are frequently described as being hyperactive, irritable, aggressive, nervous and insomniac – all characteristics displayed by Anquetil during his retirement. (If irritable and aggressive seem at odds with the picture of him as a cool, calculating cyclist and also as the kind of ‘gentleman’ for whom Vin Denson was happy to act as valet, Richard Marillier assures me he wasn’t a man you wanted to cross: ‘He was very kind, but you shouldn’t wind him up because watch out . . . I’ve seen things I’d better not talk about, but you had to watch out.’)
In turn, these traits went a long way to fuelling a lifestyle in which excess continued to be the norm rather than the exception. Indeed, his taste for the high life during his cycling career had already earned him the nickname the James Bond of cycling. He did little to suggest this description wasn’t equally valid after his retirement.
Take Marillier’s description of his frequent visits to stay with Anquetil at Les Elfes: ‘I saw him do things, and I said, “Look, it’s none of my business, but you shouldn’t carry on like that. You can’t carry on like that. It’s not possible.” For example, we’d eat dinner at the house, and we’d have plenty to drink. Afterwards, we’d go and have a drink at a night club in Rouen called La Bohème – but for him a drink wasn’t a glass of whisky but a bottle of whisky, and not cheap whisky, either. We’d get back about 3 a.m., all a bit worse for wear, and we’d go to bed – but he didn’t. He’d have a shower – hot, then cold, then hot again – put on his overalls, and go out and start working with the tractor. We wouldn’t see him again until 1 p.m. He was a force of nature. I told him he was playing games with his health and he’d end up paying for it.’
Marillier wasn’t the only one to notice his penchant for whisky. One of the journalists Anquetil invited to visit Les Elfes shortly after he retired records being offered an aperitif before lunch: ‘What would you like? Whisky? Neat? On the rocks? With water? I always take my first neat . . .’ Then two minutes later: ‘Would you like another? I’ll have this one with water, as I’m thirsty . . .’
Of course, Anquetil is not unique in this consumption pattern. Anyone who’s had the good fortune to live in France will be aware of the tradition – not to say compulsion – to consume a considerable volume of aperitifs. What’s more, French peasants have for generations used alcohol throughout the day to ease the rigours of working hard on the land. Even as fewer and fewer people remain directly involved in agriculture, the tradition has been adopted by a wider society keen to keep in touch with its roots. It’s still possible to see cognac and foie gras being consumed by locals at bars at 9 a.m., locals who now only have a tenuous link to the peasantry. The point is, though, that the often abbreviated life expectancy of these locals reflects the extent of this consumption. For once, Anquetil proved no exception.
His former teammate Guy Ignolin is convinced that it was his whisky drinking that led to his cancer. ‘He used to come to events I was involved in to help with their profile, and as he was a kind of guest of honour there’d always be a reception with plenty of drink flowing,’ he told me. ‘After a couple of drinks, Jacques would have eyed somebody up and decided to out-drink him: “You see that guy there? I’m going to bury him.” And then they were off – whisky, whisky, whisky.’
Even when those close to him suggested a degree of moderation, Anquetil once again responded as if challenged to consume more. ‘We’d say to him to stop drinking so much whisky, that it would make him sick, give him cancer, whatever, but he’d drink a bottle of whisky and say, “Look, there’s nothing wrong,”’ says Marillier. ‘Then someone else would say the same about champagne, so he’d drink three or four bottles of champagne and say, “No problem.” It was always a challenge – he challenged himself. He pushed the limits, in everything, everything, everything.’ (In 1986, he still let himself be persuaded to participate in the Paris–Dakar rally, losing nearly a stone in weight before eventually being constrained to abandon due to gearbox failure.)
Yet even Anquetil seems to have begun to tire of living up to his own reputation. The more Jeanine organised parties and surrounded him with people, the more he would take himself off into his woods to seek out wild boar or to watch the stars (even if Dieulois says he was always happy for company – or maybe just his company – on these nocturnal sorties). Indeed, he had become a passionate amateur astronomer. ‘I remember him following stages of the Tour with me, and he’d get this big book out,’ recalls Marillier. ‘At first, I wondered what he was going to talk about – gear ratios or something. Not at all. It was his records of the stars. He was crazy about stars. He had a telescope. He was obsessed with them. He’d say Uranus is doing this at the moment or Saturn doing that. I’d say, “What are you bothering me with that for in the middle of the race?” He’d just say it was very interesting. Ah, ce Jacques.’
By the time of his relationship with Dominique, the parties may have reduced significantly but not his passion for the outdoors and the night. ‘His life was very straightforward,’ she insists. ‘He liked being outside. He was a man of nature. A lot of cyclists are like that, by the way. When you look at them, they all need to be outside. Look at Bernard Hinault. He likes being outside, and there are lots of others.’
Anquetil himself painted a similar picture when asked by Lui magazine on the eve of his retirement how he anticipated growing old: ‘In peace and quiet like everyone else, I suppose. Another Anquetil will be born, an Anquetil who will ride 50 kilometres on the bike each week just to prove to himself that he can still do it. An Anquetil who will be able to fulfil his desire for peace and his love of the outdoors. I’ve always wanted a farm in Normandy. Now I have more land than I ever imagined. I am a man fulfilled.’
Perhaps the most crucial element of this description is the prospect of the birth of a new Anquetil and the implied discontent with elements of his existence to date that this suggests. This sense of dissatisfaction seems to have been exacerbated rather than mitigated by events after he retired, as L’Équipe’s Philippe Brunel explains: ‘I was in a restaurant with Anquetil and Pierre Chany, and Chany asked Anquetil what would he most like to be if he wasn’t who he was. Straight away he said a transvestite: “I’d like to dress up and be someone else, someone who nobody knows, so I could be somebody else.” It was quite remarkable. I think by saying that, he wasn’t just saying he wanted to be someone else, he was saying how much he wanted to be himself.’
Brunel attributes this desire to the adverse consequences of being so well known: ‘His stature and his popularity meant he couldn’t be himself. That’s why he ended up with this longing to become someone else, wanting to dress up as a transvestite or wanting to go off into the woods and hide himself away. Just to want to be someone else from time to time, to have all the things that we take for granted through being anonymous, the pleasure of being somewhere and not being recognised. That’s the true cost of fame. Eddy Merckx tells you the same thing today. You imagine Merckx in Belgium. He can’t go anywhere without people coming up to him and saying, “Hello, Eddy.” If he goes to the shops, it’s in the papers – his wife, his kids, know everything. Anquetil had to live with that too.’
For want of being able to regain his anonymity, Anquetil appears to have succumbed to the stresses and strains created by trying to reconcile two distinct lifestyles – the one dictated by his reputation, a reputation he was too proud not to live up to, and the one dictated by his own desires. For some people, this inability to choose between the two was tantamount to ensuring that his prediction of his own early death, made after his father died, became a self-fulfilling prophecy. ‘Yes, maybe,’ accepts Marillier. ‘He knew he was taking risks. But he was also like the others, like Serge Gainsbourg . . . those who say it’s better to live intensely for a few years rather than just hang around. He certainly knew the symptoms. He’d say, “I’ve got a bad stomach.” We’d say, “Of course, it’s the whisky.” He’d say, “What do you mean?” Then he was off again. There was always this spirit of challenge, of defiance. He defied the bike, he defied death, he defied cancer, he defied everybody – that’s Anquetil.’
Dieulois agrees: ‘He had certainly been a bit negligent with his health, and, what’s more, it was in a domestic context that was a bit difficult and that had affected his morale at the time. It didn’t facilitate his determination to look after himself.’
Nevertheless, and perhaps not surprisingly in the light of her being his partner at the time of his death and to some extent a reason for him to want to keep living, Dominique suggests otherwise: ‘It’s not that he didn’t look after himself, at least that’s what I think. My understanding is that Jacques was stressed by his life as a cyclist, which was so wearing, so hard. Then, later, he was also worn out by his family life, and when you put yourself under such stress, that’s the death of the body. There’s only so much a body can take, and when it’s been under strain for a whole lifetime . . .’
Dominique even perceives the delay in seeking a diagnosis as normal: ‘Of course, he would say he was tired, and he couldn’t understand why he was tired, but it was just everyday ailments. It wasn’t anything more. He was 50, after all, and with all that he still did in a day, on the farm, with the animals, rushing here and there. I’m also worn out by the end of the day. And you know how it is: you have a bad stomach, then it goes, then you think about something else, life moves on . . . After a while, maybe you say, “Yes, I’ll go to the doctor,” but then you realise you’ve things to do, so you say you’ll do it next week, and then the same happens the following week. Time passes – one year, two years. That’s how it happens. And that’s how it happened.’
After his operation to have his stomach removed, Anquetil was initially given the all-clear; at least, the operation itself was deemed a success, even if he did have to be given extra doses of anaesthetic to knock him out. This apparent success was all the excuse Anquetil needed to once again ignore medical advice: ‘The day after my operation, the nurse told me I mustn’t get out of bed. How on earth could I do that? As soon her back was turned, I went off for a wander.’
According to Darrigade, who went to visit him while he was in hospital, his menu was somewhat modified, however: lemon tea with biscuits when he woke up; porridge and an egg at 10 a.m.; a sole at lunchtime; an artichoke at 4 p.m.; and a saveloy for dinner. Yet only nine days later, he was once again fulfilling his role as directeur sportif for the French national team at the world championships in Villach in Austria. ‘He was drinking beer and eating his meals with us. He behaved as if nothing had happened,’ said one of the riders.
However, normal life only returned for a short period. On 10 October, during a trip to Colmar in eastern France, Anquetil was once more admitted to hospital. Eight days later, he was flown back to the Saint Hilaire Clinic in Rouen. Apart from the occasional afternoon spent at home, he never left the hospital again. He died, with Sophie and Dominique by his side, at 7 a.m. on 18 November 1987. According to France Dimanche, Dominique asked him if he needed anything: ‘He looked at her, took her hand and didn’t respond. His final moments were free from suffering.’
The extent of his suffering prior to that should not be understated, however. He confessed to not being able to tolerate radiotherapy, and in the last month spent in hospital he was covered in bruises, which made even the slightest movement painful. He was frequently given morphine to dull his pain, if not to send him to sleep completely. ‘She wants to knock me out,’ he told one reporter when a nurse was about to give him his next shot. ‘Otherwise it’s just too painful all over. I’m convinced it’s transferred to the collarbone and to my spinal column as well. I can tell because it hurts to touch them. Tomorrow, I’m having a scan to see if it hasn’t also made it to my liver.’
Yet he refused to let this parlous state dampen his spirits. After learning from one of the 3,500 letters he received after his diagnosis that the record for someone to live without a stomach was 42 years, he said, ‘If I can keep going that long, I’ll have nothing to complain about.’ Darrigade also recalls his remarkable strength of character when his son Christopher had to be admitted to hospital following an asthma attack. ‘Dominique didn’t know where to go, to me or her son, both of us sick but in different rooms,’ Anquetil told Darrigade. ‘In fact, we lead parallel lives at the moment, Christopher and I. Both of us have a siesta in the afternoon, and we eat our mashed up food from little pots. This can cause problems. When I take one of his, he gets angry and comes and eats half of mine, out of principle.’
In fact, the reserve and distance for which he’d been so chastised as a cyclist had now become a dignity in the face of death that would inspire a whole legion of new admirers. Even in his reduced state, he still managed to be a source of inspiration to others: ‘I had 80 calls yesterday, but one that touched me profoundly was from a 60-year-old lady with cancer who said it made her feel better to hear me talk about having cancer – it made her feel as though it wasn’t a disease to be ashamed of.’
Anquetil may not have been ashamed, but he certainly had no intention of letting his suffering show. Once again, he was inspired in this by his son: ‘I went back to the house, and Christopher came and gave me a big cuddle. He asked why I was sad, and I said it was simply that I was tired, but I vowed that he would never again see me downcast. Mustn’t let standards slip!’
Richard Marillier went with Bernard Hinault to see Anquetil for the last time a week before he died. Even at that late stage, he was intent on putting on a brave face. ‘I’d called Dominique to say we’d like to see Jacques,’ Marillier recalls. ‘We could see it was the end. She said, “Yes, but he’s in hospital not at the house.” We said we’d go to the clinic, but she said he wouldn’t have that and that we should go to the chateau anyway. We got there and sat in the living room, from where you could see the steps leading to the front door. Dominique said to wait there and that an ambulance would be bringing him soon. The ambulance came and stopped by the steps. Two guys brought him out and literally had to carry him up the steps. He hadn’t seen that we could see him being carried, so he opened the double doors into the living room himself and came in as if he’d seen us just the day before. “Hello, fellas. It’s great to see you. Thanks for coming . . .” he said, as if nothing had happened. I’ll remember that for the rest of my life. He sat down between us on a settee, and there was a rugby match on TV. He said, “Let’s watch that. That’ll be great.” He had a pain-killing tube going into his arm, but he said, “I’m fine. I’ve got three cancers, but it’ll take more than that to get me. I’ll show them. You know me . . .” But you could see he was wearing himself out. Before the end of the first half, he said, “I’ve got to go, because they’re waiting for me back at the clinic. It’s been great to see you.” And off he went. Eight days later, he was dead.’