by Freya North
‘It’s a fucker of a descent,’ Travis warns Luca as they approach the mountain.
‘Too right,’ Luca agrees, ‘you can’t see where the hell you’re going.’
‘Careful!’ Travis calls to Luca who’s gone ahead again. ‘The publicity caravan leave slicks of rubber and diesel and crap – it can be pretty dangerous.’
With the mountains of the region being densely tree-clad, descents are fast and dangerous as it is difficult for the riders to judge the lay of the land, the severity of the hairpins, which way the mountain slips away around the corners. Travis Stanton was flung from his bike having hit a skid of diesel half-way down.
‘Nice road rash!’ Luca teases Travis once the road has levelled out into a wide lush valley of breathtaking beauty. Travis glances at his grazed, glistening forearm, his scraped, red raw knee. He pours water over his wounds and shrugs the sting off. ‘Where’s the break?’ he asks Luca who doesn’t know.
‘Where’s the break?’ Luca asks David Millar.
‘Still three minutes plus,’ the Cofidis rider replies. ‘You’ve got Hunter there, right?’
‘Yup,’ says Luca with pride, ‘he’s our main man and if I continue to send him my Stage-winning vibes, he’s gonna do it. Yo, Hunter!’
‘You’re a jerk, Luca,’ Millar laughs, riding ahead.
The breakaway streamed into the elegant town of Daumier where huge crowds had been chanting and singing all afternoon. The tight corners and barriers of a civic finish, plus the sudden change from unabated sunshine to tree-dappled light, enforcing the riders to steady their pace. With no true sprinter amongst them, psychology was going to decide the victor of the Stage. Though Hunter Dean hung back to judge when to go and who to take, all six riders stormed the last few metres abreast and fellow countryman Marty Jemison (US Postal) took the Stage by a rim, 2 minutes 32 seconds ahead of the main field. Fabian Ducasse takes his sixth yellow jersey but Vasily Jawlensky plays psychological warfare, still a mere 53 seconds off Ducasse’s lead. The peloton head for Grenoble tomorrow. Tonight they rest under the imposing presence of the Giant of Provence; the mighty, fearsome Mount Ventoux where Tom Simpson, English rider and yellow jersey wearer, lost his life in 1967.
Pip and Fen watched the Tour coverage on Channel 4 television with their hearts in their mouths, their passports in their laps, their bags packed and a cab ordered. As soon as the programme finished, they charged to Waterloo, took the Eurostar to Paris, changed stations and boarded a train headed for Grenoble.
‘Should we have phoned Cat, do you think?’ Pip asked.
‘I wonder,’ mused Fen. ‘No, there’s nothing like a surprise.’
‘How will we find her?’ Pip asked.
Fen shrugged. ‘We’ll track her down,’ she said, wondering for the first time how on earth they would, ‘she said she’s one of only a dozen women there, after all. How difficult could it be?’
‘Where are we going to stay?’ Pip asked.
‘We’ll find somewhere,’ Fen assured her. ‘How difficult can that be in the land of gîtes?’
‘And pommes frites – I’m starving,’ said Pip.
‘Did you know,’ said Fen, looking up from her Channel 4 guide to the Tour de France, ‘the first ever yellow jersey was actually given in Grenoble?’
Pip shook her head and looked fascinated. ‘Oh yes,’ Fen continued earnestly, ‘in 1919. I don’t even know why it’s yellow.’
‘It is yellow,’ Pip discoursed, pulling her eyes away from her copy of Procycling, ‘because the race was sponsored by L’Auto, a newspaper whose pages were yellow.’
‘How interesting,’ said Fen, flipping through Cycle Sport, ‘and Eddy Merckx collected ninety-six yellow jerseys in his career.’
‘Listen to this,’ Pip said, consulting Maillot, ‘scandal and skulduggery! In the second ever Tour, the maillot jaune, Maurice Garin, was disqualified when it transpired he’d done one of the Stages by train!’
‘I think that was the Tour when the other top three riders were eliminated for having set up barricades and scattering nails on the roads!’ Fen contributed. She looked out of the window. Whilst hurtling through such peaceful countryside, it was hard to believe the huge, hermetic world of the Tour de France was just hours away. What was it going to be like? ‘I’m sure we’ll find Cat,’ Fen said, ‘and Fabian Ducasse.’
‘Of course we will, I hope we will,’ said Pip, referring first to her sister and second to the French rider. It was dawning on them that they hadn’t made the journey so much to spend time with their sister, but to see the boys on bikes in the flesh, to experience the Tour de France first hand.
STAGE 13
Valadon-Grenoble. 186.5 kilometres
COPY FOR P. TAVERNER @ GUARDIAN SPORTS DESK FROM CATRIONA McCABE IN DAUMIER
Against the shimmer of lavender fields and the stab of Cyprus trees, amidst the rustic stone buildings tiled in terracotta, under the gaze of the inky mountains of the Vaucluse, the Tour de France found itself in the midst of a Cézanne painting. However, in 40 degree heat, with only a simpering south-westerly hardly easing the humidity, the peloton’s interest in art history was negligible as they laboured towards the Alps and to the promise of cooler climes, if torturous climbs.
Today was a medium mountain Stage, hard but tolerable, with the race traversing the Vercors Alps south to north. The final climb, 50 km from the finish, was the second-category Col de Rousset; the pink flesh of the mountain from where the hairpin bends were gouged contrasting with the dense indigo shrubbery crowning it. Though the gradient is not severe, it is a long slog panning out at the summit to a taxing plateau continually undulating for almost 60 km. A seven-man breakaway stayed clear of the field by 10 minutes, but posed no threat to the leaders. As the ugly outskirts of Grenoble gave way to the elegant boulevards of the city centre, the small group played cat and mouse to the delight of the phenomenal crowds. No one wanted to start the sprint but nor would they tolerate a lone bid for glory. Ultimately, David Millar sneaked away at great speed to take the Stage in 4 hours 31 minutes and 40 seconds, leaving the other six to sprint to a photofinish for second place. Massimo Lipari, Zucca MV’s pin-up climber and last year’s King of the Mountains, scooped more points today to bring him within a hair’s breadth of the polka dot jersey currently with Système Vipère’s Carlos Jesu Velasquez, the diminutive but charismatic Spaniard. Similarly, though the green jersey is with fellow Viper Boy Jesper Lomers, Zucca MV’s Stefano ‘Thunder Thighs’ Sassetta could well claim it by Paris. Fabian, still in the maillot jaune, completes the jersey trilogy for Système Vipère but Vasily’s designs on the hallowed maillot are both realistic and imminent. This year, the three jerseys are not merely the ultimate accolades of the Tour de France, but the trophies of a duel being fought exclusively between Système Vipère and Zucca MV.
‘And I really don’t know who I’d most like to win,’ Cat smiled, returning to her chair having transmitted her report to London.
‘It’s for you,’ Josh said, handing Cat his mobile phone, ‘it’s Taverner – he says he can’t get through on yours.’ Cat checked her phone and saw there was no signal. She took Josh’s and immediately pleaded, ‘I know you said 350 words but I’m only 26 over!’
‘I let you have “dark duke Sassetta” last week,’ Taverner said, ‘but I’m drawing the line at Stefano “Thunder Thighs” Sassetta.’
‘Why?’ Cat probed. ‘He’d bloody revel in it.’
‘And,’ Taverner continued, ‘will you stop calling the guys by their Christian names? Are you shagging them or something? Luca this, Fabian that, Vasily the other.’
‘But they’re individuals,’ Cat tried to justify, ‘not anonymous pedal turners.’
‘And finally,’ Taverner persisted, ‘enough of the arty-farty bullshit waffle. Cézanne’s one thing, but “pink flesh of a mountain”?’
‘I just get carried away,’ Cat tried to justify.
‘Change it, pl
ease,’ Taverner ordered, hanging up.
‘I like pink flesh,’ Cat said somewhat petulantly and inadvertently loudly. A number of press men glanced round at her and enjoyed a little snigger. Though Cat revised her article and spelt names out in full, she defiantly left the Thunder Thighs exactly where she felt they should be.
Fen and Pip sat in a daze at a café.
‘We have nowhere to stay, we can’t reach Cat and we caught just a glimpse, just a flash, of cycling.’
‘And only by standing on our tiptoes, standing on other people’s toes and elbowing complete strangers,’ Pip interjected.
Fen twitched her mouth, frowned and looked at her sister. ‘We get to see more on Channel 4,’ she said extremely quietly.
‘How are we going to get from Grenoble to L’Alpe D’Huez tomorrow?’ Pip asked. ‘I doubt whether we can hop on a bus or cadge a lift.’
Fen shrugged and contemplated her kir. ‘If we do make it there, where are we going to stay? Under the stars?’
‘Where are we going to stay tonight, more to the point,’ Pip pointed out.
‘Come on,’ said Fen, ‘let’s find Cat. Let’s go back to the salle de presse.’
‘But we hovered for ages,’ Pip bemoaned, ‘with no luck in any language.’
‘Come on,’ Fen said, boosted a little by the sight of a team car with its roof-load of bikes.
On their way, they passed Ben York but it meant nothing, of course, to any of them. Though Ben is head-turningly handsome, Pip was too engrossed in a map and Fen’s head was already cramped with two men jostling for attention. Ben glanced at the women but his priority was half an hour with Cat before he dispensed electrolytes and glucose.
The salle de pressé in Grenoble was housed in the Palais des Sports, built for the Winter Olympics. Every entrance was guarded by officials refusing to understand English or establish eye contact with anyone not wearing a pass. Which was a shame as both Fen and Pip were excellent in the art of doleful eyelash-batting. It was most unfortunate therefore, that the first journalist they accosted happened to be Jan Airie.
‘Ex you sum wah,’ Pip enunciated in plummy English, hoping that the journalist might be American and his heart might soften at her accent alone.
‘Huh?’ Jan said, puffing halitosis liberally.
‘Cat McCabe?’ Fen suggested, rather nasally.
‘Catriona?’ Pip added. ‘Journaliste, le Guardian?’
The man sniggered. ‘Whore!’ He waddled away, laughing to himself.
‘What a charming chap,’ Pip muttered. They took it in turns to approach other journalists leaving the salle but their English, their poor French and their pigeon Italian met with apologetic shrugs.
‘Everyone looks shattered,’ Fen remarked, ‘bags under the eyes, crumpled clothes.’
‘Some look like they need a good scrub,’ Pip added, ‘and a haircut, and a cutthroat shave. There – that bloke looks friendly – your go, Fen. Try him.’
‘Monsieur?’ Fen asked Josh.
‘Oui?’ Josh replied, thinking she looked familiar but, seeing no pass, not dwelling on it.
‘Cat McCabe?’ Fen asked.
‘Journaliste, le Guardian?’ Pip interjected.
‘What about her?’ Josh said.
‘Oh good, you’re English, we’re looking for her,’ Pip replied.
‘Who are you?’ Josh asked.
‘Who are you?’ Pip retorted, wondering why everyone was so accusatory.
Josh looked down at his pass and twisted it the right way round. ‘I’m Josh Piper, as it goes,’ he said, ‘and let me guess – you’re her bloody sisters, aren’t you?’
‘We are her bloody sisters!’ Fen exclaimed delighted.
‘I can’t believe you’re Josh,’ Pip cried, leaping into the air and having to exercise enormous restraint not to do a line of cartwheels, ‘I can’t believe it!’
‘Why?’ Josh exclaimed. ‘How did she describe me?’
‘No,’ Fen laughed, ‘she means that we found you – we asked one vile man who referred to Cat as a whore and then – bingo! – here you are.’
‘That’ll be Jan Airie,’ Josh said, ‘fuck him.’
‘My sister’s not a whore,’ Pip said defensively.
‘Of course she isn’t,’ said Josh.
‘Do you know Ben, then?’ Pip probed. ‘Ouch!’ she said as Fen dug her in the ribs.
‘Of course I know Ben, then,’ Josh said, contemplating Fen’s caution.
‘She doesn’t have a boyfriend, you know,’ Fen explained, just in case Josh still thought she did.
‘I know,’ said Josh, ‘though she has Ben – mind you, what you’d call him, given that she’s landed him whilst on the Tour de France, I don’t know.’
‘Where is Cat?’ Pip asked, as if suddenly remembering their mission to the salle de presse in Grenoble.
‘She’s finished for the day,’ Josh said, ‘so has Alex. I’m the last of the lot. Jesus! Where are you staying? Does Cat know? Bloody hell! When did you arrive? When are you leaving? What are you even doing here, for fuck’s sake?’
‘We’ve come to watch the Tour de France,’ Fen said as if Josh was dense.
‘We don’t have anywhere to stay,’ Pip said, as if it really wasn’t a problem.
So where is Cat?
She’s with Luca.
Where?
Round the back of his team hotel, sitting under a tree in the still-considerable heat of late afternoon.
What’s she doing? What’s the purpose? Does she have that dictaphone with her again?
They’re having a chat.
‘Luca,’ says Cat, who feels they’ve analysed the Stage for long enough, ‘I have something to tell you.’
‘Sure, Babe,’ he says. He regards her. Though she looks uncomfortable, this is strongly contradicted by the veritable glow enveloping her. Her mouth might twitch but her eyes sparkle. She shrugs and smiles simultaneously.
‘Ben,’ she says, ‘and me.’
Luca considers this and then he nudges her. ‘If I was a doctor instead of a cyclist – would you love me instead?’
‘Don’t you dare even muse upon being anything other than a cyclist,’ she chastizes him, nudging him back. ‘The world would be a poorer, duller place.’
‘I knew of course, I knew all along,’ says Luca, holding Cat’s hand in his and tapping at his thigh gently, ‘back in Delaunay Le Beau, all those years ago, before the Tour had even started.’
‘At the medical?’ Cat reminisced. ‘That’s when I first saw both of you. Sitting together on a bench.’
‘Yup,’ Luca says, now tapping his handful of hand on Cat’s thigh, ‘that’s when my main man Ben went skippy.’
‘What’s skippy?’ Cat laughs.
‘It’s a word, no?’ Luca says earnestly. ‘I say it to mean that’s when Ben – well – went.’ Cat’s eyebrows twitched. ‘OK, in sensible English, I tell you that’s when Ben got the horn.’ They both laugh heartily.
‘Did he tell you?’ Cat probes.
‘Ben York?’ Luca exclaims. ‘Bastard didn’t have to. You know why?’
Cat shakes her head.
‘Usually, if I joke about women – you know my style – yeah, she’s a fit chicky, or maybe I say yo! tasty honey-babe,’ Luca says, all excited, suddenly finding a hearty gossip most reviving, ‘well, that boy Ben would normally join in, pass comment – you know?’ Cat nods. ‘Whenever I talked about you,’ Luca says, raising a finger to emphasize significance, ‘if I talked about Gatto, or the Babe, you know what?’
Cat realizes she has to say, ‘No – what?’ for Luca to continue.
‘I’ll tell you,’ Luca says, ‘Ben doesn’t say a fucking thing. So then I knew. I had fun.’
Luca releases her hand from his, Cat stands and pulls Luca to his feet.
‘I have to go,’ Cat says.
‘Gatto!’ he calls after her. Cat turns. ‘I can still call you the Babe McCabe, right?’
‘I don’t think I could an
swer to anything else,’ Cat assures him.
Cat returned to her hotel which, though clean and bright, smelt of mothballs and the type of disinfectant used liberally in schools when someone’s thrown up. A note had been slipped under her door from Josh, informing her that they were in a bar around the corner. Her chat with Luca, talking in the open about Ben, had infused her with extreme happiness, the likes of which she had not felt for some too long time. She floated off to find the bar and, from a way off, saw that joining Alex and Josh were Ben and two women she thought she knew. From a distance, out of context, far from home, on the Tour de Bloody France, there was no way she was going to recognize them instantly as her sisters. As she neared, she squinted, then she grinned, then squinted again and tried to grin at the same time but it was not possible.
‘Fen?’ she shrieked. ‘Pip? Josh! Ben! Alex!’
‘Cat!’ Pip squeaked.
‘Pip!’ Cat declared. ‘Josh? Alex! Ben? Fen!’
‘Cat!’ Fen cried.
‘Fen!’ Cat responded. ‘Pip!’
The sisters stood and bounced and hugged and repeated each other’s names ad nauseam until Alex said for fuck’s sake, settle down and have a drink.
‘You look shattered,’ Pip told her sister, ‘you need a haircut and your clothes are all crumpled.’
‘If I’d known you were coming, I’d have asked you to bring knickers and hair conditioner,’ Cat assured her.
‘You look thin too,’ Fen said sternly.
‘I’ve put on about half a stone,’ Alex bemoaned.
‘Fuck that. Do you know what I’m thinking?’ Josh said, looking at Alex. ‘I am thinking that it’s been a long time since Bordeaux.’ Alex regarded him and then punched the air, hissing, ‘Yes!’ under his breath.
‘What would you kill for?’ Josh asked Cat, shaking his head when she said she’d kill for a ride in the Système Vipère team car.
‘Try closing your eyes,’ Alex said, noting how his command was obeyed by all three sisters, ‘now recall how much frigging baguette, stinky cheese and jambon you’ve had or spurned day after day.’ He was amused how Pip and Fen could nod and frown so sincerely alongside Cat. ‘Now tell me what you’d kill for.’