by Freya North
‘Fantastic tits, Catriona McCabe,’ said Ben York desirously, feeling the objects of his adulation gently and swiftly before Cat could open her eyes in amazement. She grabbed her breasts protectively, glanced around aghast for fear of witnesses, and had no idea how to respond.
‘Cat,’ she corrected, indignantly.
Ben held her face and kissed her lips, flicking his tongue tip over them before standing back and grinning at her broadly.
‘Ready to play?’ Ben asked. Cat shook her head solemnly. Ben regarded his watch and then raised an eyebrow. ‘I’d timetabled you in,’ he said, ‘my only free slot, young girl.’
‘I haven’t finished my work yet,’ Cat apologized, ‘old boy.’
‘Fresh air and a banana,’ Ben proclaimed, ‘brain food – mark my words.’
‘Trust me, I’m a doctor?’ Cat cajoled. Ben acquiesced with a tilt of his head. ‘Well, here’s the fresh air,’ Cat continued, ‘and I’ll grab a banana from the buffet. Promise.’
‘Let’s go and sit somewhere,’ Ben suggested, his hand lightly at the small of Cat’s back, guiding her through the park, down a deserted narrow side-street and to a small tabac on the corner with just two tables outside.
‘How much caffeine have you had today?’ Ben asked. Subconsciously, Cat pulled her bottom lip through her top teeth as she thought. When it sprung out, Ben’s mouth was there. He bit her bottom lip and then sucked it quickly. His eyes open, observing that hers were closed. Cat had to sit down.
‘Five,’ she said at length.
‘Five?’ Ben asked. ‘Out of five? Out of ten – are you grading my osculation?’
‘Coffees,’ Cat explained, licking her lips to lap up the taste of him.
Your kissing is way off any scale I know.
‘You’re on the Tour de France,’ Ben said gravely, ‘you’re over the caffeine limit.’ He ordered two citron pressés. ‘Had a good day?’ he asked.
‘No,’ said Cat forlornly, ‘poor Fabian, poor Bobby.’
‘But you,’ Ben stressed, ‘how’s your day been, journaliste McCabe?’
‘Not so good, Ben, not so good.’ Cat explained to him the uncertainties at Maillot in great detail. ‘I’m brimming with ideas and overflowing with passion.’ Ben raised his eyebrows in delight. ‘Seriously,’ Cat implored, punching him gently, jolting his glass and causing a dribble of citron pressé to course down his chin. She took her forefinger to it, ran it up to his lips and let him suck it. ‘I’d justified following the entire Tour as having supreme purpose: a dream job at the end of it. Now that is uncertain, being here feels like an indulgence. I’m barely covering my costs.’
‘Don’t go home,’ Ben said seriously. Cat’s look of utter distaste at the thought brought the doctor instant relief. ‘There are so many people here,’ he continued, ‘something’ll come up.’
‘Would Luca mind me interviewing him after the Time Trial?’ Cat asked. ‘Even if I can’t guarantee a publication date?’
‘Luca,’ Ben proclaimed, ‘would be delighted. Where are you staying tonight?’
‘I don’t know,’ Cat said. ‘Josh knows all that stuff. I just take my rucksack from his car to a different but basically interchangeable room each night.’
‘Well, I’m staying at the Ibis. Room 324. Finish your work, feed and bathe and revive yourself and then come to me. I’m going to have another pressé,’ said Ben.
‘I’d better have that banana,’ said Cat, feeling a little giddy. She rose and thanked Ben, leaning down to kiss his cheek and then taking her lips to his and giving him a hint of the tongue she intended to use to great effect in room 324 of the Hôtel Ibis later. He gazed after her as she walked away.
She looks quite lovely in shorts. And how I’d love to run my finger tips ever so lightly over the imprint the woven plastic chair has left on the backs of her thighs.
Ben looked at his watch. There was just time to enjoy his pressé before he went in search of Didier LeDucq’s soigneur to discuss the rider’s health.
COPY FOR P. TAVERNER @ GUARDIAN SPORTS DESK FROM CA TRIONA McCABE IN PRADIER
On a day when it seemed at times too hot for even the sunflowers to keep their heads up, the peloton rolled out of Nantes today at 11 a.m. this morning when it was 25 degrees in the shade, travelling south before scooping inland to Pradier. By lunch-time, when the bunch streamed past the feed station at Doré to pluck the cloth musettes filled with victuals held out by their soigneurs, it was over 30 degrees. It was here, at the 100 km mark, that Tyler Hamilton (US Postal) flew off, as if he had suddenly traded his bicycle for a 900 cc motorbike. The bunch were either too engrossed in the contents of their musettes or too sensible to exert themselves in such heat and so early in the race, Hamilton was thus left alone to establish a lead that at one time was just over 7 minutes. He needed to win by 1 minute 15 seconds to claim the yellow jersey. In the last 30 km, the peloton somewhat begrudgingly began to work to close the gap. Hamilton came in with 2 seconds to spare, the maillot jaune was his. Stefano Sassetta, lying a sulky second, is still triumphant in the green jersey two points ahead of arch rival Jesper Lomers. Jesper, however, lies two placings higher than his Italian adversary in the overall standings.
A horrendous crash at 34 km, just after the first sprint point at Courbet, took Bobby Julich not just out of contention but out of the race altogether. Fabian Ducasse was lucky; his was but a taste, albeit unsavoury, of tarmac. If he is sore tonight, racing to Bordeaux tomorrow will ease his joints and restore him for the Time Trial on Saturday when he will throw down the gauntlet to Zucca’s Vasily Jawlensky. Vasily has been as enigmatic as ever; keeping a low profile, riding quietly, steering away from the action, the cameras and Fabian Ducasse. He lies in twelfth place, just 18 seconds behind Fabian.
Tomorrow’s Stage will be the last opportunity for the pure sprinters to display their daredevilry and thrust their stuff at the finishing line before the toil of the Time Trial and the misery of the mountains will send some of them home.
‘I need something,’ Cat wails, ‘can I have a quote?’ she asks Alex.
He rifles through his notepad and shrugs, ‘Can’t help you – I’m having enough trouble making mine fit.’
‘You owe me one,’ Josh says, moving his chair nearer to her. ‘I got Lomers at the media scrum. He said, “Good for Tyler. Strength is a system of will and fitness – he has the maillot jaune because he deserves it.” I’m using it, but you can too – there were quite a few people around him.’
‘Josh,’ said Cat whilst typing in the quote at the end of her report, ‘I love you.’
Josh looked rather pleased with himself. Alex looked somewhat taken aback and, after a surreptitious flick through his notebook, a little deflated too.
I need something, Fabian Ducasse thought to himself. I was down on the ground tasting dirt – that’s no place for me to be.
His body was sore and his psyche felt bruised. Sure, his soigneur could tend to the former, Jules Le Grand the latter, but Fabian knew his requirements better than anyone. He had to feel on top, in control; that he was a man who could dominate anything he wished. He needed to reassert his strength, his supremacy. He regarded himself in the mirror in his hotel bathroom. He needed a shave. More importantly, he needed to rid himself of the hint of unease he alone could detect in his eyes. Easy. It would take one thing. He pulled a baseball cap on low, donned sunglasses and a non-branded sweatshirt. He regarded his reflection again and nodded. He still needed a shave but he liked what he saw. He phoned one of the Système Vipère mechanics and demanded to be driven across Nantes to an insalubrious area he had discovered on a race some years ago, and had subsequently revisited on a few occasions since.
‘Wait around there,’ he ordered, watching until the mechanic was out of sight before opening a front door without knocking. Of course it was open. It was a brothel.
Fabian was out less than quarter of an hour later, the swagger in his step reflected in the burning glow of
his steady eyes. He licked his lips and than spat in the gutter. He felt much better. Restored. And look! Only 8.45 p.m. He’d be asleep in an hour.
Cat was in her hotel room, doing as Ben had requested. She’d finished her work, wolfed down steak frites with Alex and Josh at a small brasserie just near their hotel, she had just had a shower and was contemplating what to wear and quite when to sneak out to the Hôtel Ibis when her mobile phone rang.
‘Darling?’
‘Django!’
‘Cat, my girl,’ Django said, ‘you sound quite awful.’
Cat was taken aback. ‘I feel,’ she told him, ‘fine. More than fine.’
‘Well,’ Django said, ‘you sound lousy. How is it all going? It was fantastically exciting today – all those bodies all over the place – and then that Yankee bloke winning.’
Cat smiled: that her passion for cycling should be so contagious was a delight. ‘I prophesied that – good old Tyler. It was a terrific Stage. Tomorrow should be more of the same – though rain is forecast here. How are Fen and Pip?’
‘Hooked!’ Django proclaimed. ‘We speak just before the programme starts, catch up briefly during the adverts and then have a full post-Stage analysis straight after. Are you eating? You do sound terrible.’
‘I’m fine,’ Cat pleads, ‘I just had steak and chips.’
‘I made pizza tonight,’ Django says proudly. ‘I had some bread that was going a bit off so I tore it up, added a little oil and beaten egg and a drop of ketchup, formed it into a base and baked the bugger.’
‘And?’ Cat asked, somewhat horrified.
‘Fantastic,’ Django swooned. ‘I added a topping of sardines, chicken liver, a little more ketchup and some Stilton.’
‘And?’ ventured Cat, clutching her stomach.
‘If I say so myself,’ Django proclaimed, ‘absolutely delicious. I’ll make it for you girls when you’re next here all together,’ he continued, ‘perhaps garnish it with a few pickled walnuts.’
‘Can’t wait,’ said Cat sincerely, about the visit more than the meal.
‘Darling girl,’ her uncle was saying, bringing her back from her family in Matlock to the bedroom in the hotel, ‘you really don’t sound good.’
‘I’m fine,’ Cat said, feeling her forehead and poking out her tongue at the mirror for good measure.
‘Well,’ said Django, ‘I rather think you should go and see the doctor.’
Cat and Django were quiet. As Cat watched herself break into a smile, she heard her uncle’s triumphant sniggers.
‘That is precisely what I’m about to do,’ she said.
‘Can I tell your sisters?’ Django asked.
‘If you can name the maillot jaune,’ Cat demanded.
‘Tyler Hamilton,’ Django replied, as if she was dim, ‘fellow US Postman Jonathan Vaughters is in polka dot and Stefano Sassetta in green. Must go, I have two phone calls to make.’
‘And I have a doctor’s appointment to keep,’ Cat said.
Cat needed to be incognito. Though she would have loved to have worn her floaty short bias-cut skirt and clingy little top, she opted for cream jeans and a denim shirt. She remembered Fen’s advice and chose underwear that gave her walk a wiggle and her eyes a sparkle. She took the fire escape stairs, ducked out into the night and walked very quickly down a number of streets just to put some distance between her and anyone who might know her. When she found a quiet bar and asked the whereabouts of the Hôtel Ibis, she discovered she had charged off in completely the wrong direction. Her composure remained intact and she enjoyed the walk to Ben’s hotel.
In the car park, she noted that the Cofidis team was staying there too and wondered if many journalists would be loitering for news on Bobby Julich. She could see the foyer clearly and that a number of people were milling about. She circumnavigated the building, found a side door, said a quick prayer that the entrance would not be alarmed and gave a pull. She was inside. She scaled the stairs. When she came to what she deduced to be the third floor, she stopped. She pressed herself against the wall, turning her cheeks one at a time against the cool concrete.
My heart is going fifty to the dozen. Am I about to have sex? It’s been so long – since I’ve had sex with a man other than Him, since I’ve had sex full stop. Shit, I don’t have any condoms – I’ll be telling Ben ‘if it’s not On, it’s not In’. Oh God, is this a good idea, a bad idea or a crazy idea? Is crazy good or bad? It’s ten past nine. Fuck, I’m excited. Deep breaths. Ready. Off I go. Wish me luck. And fun.
Cat is in the third-floor corridor of the Hôtel Ibis in Pradier. The carpet is new and makes the hallway smell vaguely like an aeroplane. She passes doors that are closed though sounds of life can be heard within: showers, television sets, animated conversation, singing. Then she passes doors that are shut but with the Megapac riders’ names tacked to them. There is nothing but silence emanating from these rooms. 329. Sweet dreams, Luca. 327. Other side, Cat. 328. How are you feeling, Didier? 326.
Oh God oh God oh God.
The door of room 324 is opening. A woman steps out into the corridor. She is laughing over her shoulder. She is out of the room. She turns back towards the door and waves; smiling, gorgeous. It’s the podium girl. The same one. The same fucking gorgeous, leggy, luscious woman. She’s laughing. She’s been in Ben’s room and now she’s leaving it, laughing. Not a hair out of place. Lips licked with lipstick, requisite almond eyes enhanced with a lash of mascara. She’s wearing a skirt shorter than that of her uniform. No daft hat to detract from her silken tresses. She’s been in Ben’s room, this vamp has. Number 324 at the Hôtel Ibis in Pradier. What is Cat meant to do? How is she meant to feel?
She feels sick. She turns on her heel and walks away, retracing every step that brought her here.
STAGE 6
Pradier-Bordeaux. 215 kilometres
‘Are you OK, Cat?’ Josh asked, handing her a can of Minute Maid orange juice at the Pradier village. ‘You look shagged.’
Cat couldn’t even be bothered to muse upon the irony to herself. ‘I didn’t sleep well,’ she told Josh.
‘Are you homesick?’ Josh asked gently.
‘Homesick?’ Cat retorted, banishing an intrusive image of her sisters from her mind. ‘No way. Not at all.’
Go away, Django. Derbyshire, be gone!
‘I am,’ said Josh, ‘I miss my wife and my dog.’
Oh Josh, why don’t I just tell you that again I feel I shouldn’t be here, that I feel a little fragile, that it’s exhausting to feel I’m constantly swinging from new confidence back down to plain old inconsequential.
Cat had no need to tell Josh any of this. He saw a tear smudge across her right eye and decided not to pry in case she broke down right then and there, in the middle of the village, twenty minutes before Stage 6 began, twenty yards away from five times Tour winner Bernard Hinault. But he did lay a hand on her arm and give it a conciliatory squeeze which made both of them feel a little better.
‘Let’s try and get behind a breakaway today,’ Josh suggested. ‘I’ll put money on some loopy Italian fucker going for broke.’
‘Look! There’s Vasily,’ Cat cooed, welcoming the all-encompassing distraction of the tall Russian tottering his bike through the throng of VIPs and media. They watched him ride to the barber’s booth where two other racers were having their hair cut.
‘Have you met Jawlensky?’ Josh asked her. Cat shook her head. ‘Come on, I’ll introduce you, he’s lovely.’ Cat looked at Josh and beamed. ‘Were you too tired to put your top on the right way round?’ Josh continued with a grin. Cat was horrified. Not only was her top inside out, it was back to front too. ‘Go and change,’ Josh said. ‘I assume you want to make an impression on Jawlensky – and the information that you’re a small, Dorothy Perkins, wash separately, no tumble dry, kind of girl might detract from your journalistic credentials.’
Cat went hastily to the women’s portaloo, smiling to herself that a Banesto rider came out of it with not so much
as a shrug of apology, let alone a glimmer of embarrassment. If the men’s loos were engaged, why shouldn’t a rider have priority for any cubicle currently vacant?
Pro cyclists really do have the most uncouth urinary proclivities, Cat mused to herself as she took off her top, hitting her elbow against the formica partition and crying ‘merde!’ It’s a perverse reworking of Pavlov’s theory. Prior to the final départ bell, riders naturally use the conventional facilities – regardless of the gender ascribed to a cubicle. As soon as the bell has sounded, even if they’ve just emptied their bladders, the boys piss everywhere and in full view. Maybe Maillot would like a wry little piece about that? I’ll call them later.
Cat righted her top, cleared her throat, tucked her hair behind her ears and wondered if the Tour barbers could trim her fringe. She gave herself a supportive smile. She was going to be introduced to Vasily Jawlensky and she was more than ready to meet him.
She was not ready, however, to bump into Ben. But there he was, talking to Emma O’Reilly and Rachel, the two soigneurs and the doctor right in Cat’s path. It was impossible to pretend she hadn’t seen them, especially with Rachel calling to her. Cat waved swiftly and tapped at her watch and her brow to justify what she hoped was a plausible exit. At the entrance to the village a few metres later, a hand caught her by the shoulder.
‘Cat?’
Ben, of course.
‘Oh,’ Cat said, not establishing eye contact, ‘I can’t talk, I’m expected elsewhere.’
‘Where were you?’ Ben asked with a hint of rejection which made Cat want to hit him.
‘Where were you?’ she countered, brandishing her pass at the sentries on watch at the village entrance. Ben, of course, had a pass too.
‘I was waiting for you,’ Ben said, following her through, ‘I thought we had a date?’
Cat stopped, turned, and regarded him directly, wishing he wasn’t so handsome, nor that she should so crave a kiss right there and then. ‘You,’ she declared, ‘can have too much of a good thing.’ It irritated her that he should stare back and look perplexed.