by Freya North
‘Gatto,’ Luca wailed, ‘I love Megapac, my heart is there because my friends are there and my friends there are as close as family.’
‘It must be a desperately difficult decision,’ Cat deduced, glancing at Ben’s resolutely turned back, trying to implore him to offer advice, support, to join the conversation at the very least.
‘It’s terrible, Catriona McCabe, believe me,’ Luca implored, ‘terrible.’
Ben turned and looked down on his rider and his girl but he said nothing.
Luca regarded him. ‘I should go,’ he told his doctor, ‘I really should. But I am afraid. Can I ever be as happy for another team as I have been with Megapac?’
Still Ben didn’t speak.
‘Will I regret it more if I leave or if I stay?’
Ben’s facial expression remained unchanged.
‘Can I trust Jules Le Grand? Does he truly rate me highly enough to ride alongside Fabian Ducasse, Jesper Lomers and Carlos Jesu Velasquez?’
Ben had not moved a muscle.
‘Fuck, it gives me a headache,’ Luca moaned, finding temporary relief in Cat stroking his brow tenderly. ‘What would you do?’ he asked her.
‘I want you to be happy and to be the best rider it is possible for you ever to be,’ she said honestly.
‘But what would you do?’ he pleaded. ‘If you were me?’
Cat bit her lip and glared at Ben to help her, to help Luca.
‘What would you do, Ben,’ Luca asked, ‘if you were me?’
Still Ben stood defiantly silent, as still and stony as a statue.
‘What would you have me do, Ben?’ Luca rephrased.
Cat saw Ben swallow and then she detected a just perceptible softening of his brow.
‘I want you to be happy,’ Ben said, finding his voice and discovering it to be rather weak, ‘I want you to realize your true, possibly remarkable, potential as a professional road race cyclist.’
‘So what should I do?’ Luca whispered.
‘I think you should grasp the opportunity and join Système Vipère, ride and train with the best in the business,’ Ben whispered back.
The entourage of the Tour de France had their second Repos to transfer up to Paris, to Euro Disney, in preparation for the next day’s penultimate Stage of this year’s Tour de France, the final Time Trial. A TGV train was laid on for all the teams and any accredited personnel to use. Though Cat would have loved the experience, though she would have loved to have heard the announcement that the maillot jaune was currently driving the train, though she would have loved to listen to Vasily Jawlensky’s incomparably husky, guttural voice announcing over the PA, ‘Hullo, ladies and gentlemen, this is Vasily Jawlensky; I am driving you to Paris at 200 kph and I think I shall turn the corner – now!’; though all of this would have added greatly to Cat’s experience of the Tour de France, provided her with yet another glorious memory, she forsook the event to journey alone with Ben.
Alex and Josh were travelling in their car, squabbling about the best route to take, who would drive which section and when and where they would stop for refreshments. They were both astutely aware that, had Cat been in the car, she’d have chided, ‘Boys! Shut up and behave or you’ll be sent to your rooms without supper.’ As they drove along, they could both practically hear her wax poetic about some feature in the landscape or other. As their journey continued, they acknowledged privately that everything was more fun when Cat was there enlivening the proceedings quite unwittingly. This year’s Tour had been the richer for her presence; consequently, it had passed far more quickly and had also been much more memorable. They’d miss her when they returned home. They hoped she’d be travelling with them next year.
‘Twat!’ Josh hissed. ‘You missed the sodding junction.’
‘Bollocks!’ Alex retorted. ‘I know this area – it’s a short cut.’
‘Short cut, my arse,’ said Josh, with no malice.
‘Oh, fuck off,’ said Alex affectionately.
Rachel and André are not travelling together but they are communicating the whole route long. Rachel behind the wheel of the vast Zucca MV truck and André driving the enormous Système Vipère lorry. They are chatting most affably via indicators and hazard lights. They are taking it in turns to overtake so that they can draw alongside and grin idiotically and stare longingly and voice their desires by looks alone, saying things with their eyes that they’ll fulfil in person later. Rachel couldn’t even speak to Cat on the mobile phone. Not because to do so would be dangerous if not illegal, but because she claimed she was talking to André. Which she was. Not dangerous. Not illegal. Lovely.
And Ben York and Cat McCabe are travelling north together. They haven’t said much. Ben is somewhat shellshocked by Luca’s news and Cat is just plain exhausted. And if they were to speak, and the conversation was not focused on what it is that exists between the two of them, it would be instead only idle chatter. And a glaring effort not to broach sensitive issues that really ought to be confronted. I could suggest to them that they throw caution to the wind, bite the bullet and launch right in, but they wouldn’t listen. I could yell at them to confide how they feel, but they wouldn’t hear me. All I can do is eavesdrop. And wince that Cat has said ‘glorious landscape’ for the third time in an hour.
They fill the car with fuel, sit a while and have coffee that is absurdly good for a motorway service station. Ben mentions the weather. Cat hopes it will stay dry for tomorrow’s Time Trial. Every time she looks at him, she has to glance away, for she surges with desire and finds herself wanting to grin inanely. To her, he is most handsome and his seemly exterior speaks volumes of the personality she has grown to know and adore. Love, Cat?
Ssh. Don’t spoil the moment.
Why on earth would love spoil a thing?
Stop it. I just want to absorb everything of the present.
Ben buys a packet of Petite Beurre biscuits for the journey and suggests to Cat that they motor on. Cat, who has let the straps of her sundress hang down and who is turning her face to the sun, nods. She appears merely to be soaking up warmth, developing a nice colour to her cheeks and shoulders. Actually, her mind is in overdrive with thoughts bombarding her and sentences, some complete, some unstructured, all unspoken, racketing around. She wants to stay firmly in the here and now. If she opens her eyes, she will have to follow Ben to the car and they will restart their journey and the minutes and the kilometres will be swallowed up, taking her closer and closer to going home.
Why can’t the Tour de France last for ever?
What a daft thing to say, Catriona McCabe. You’re the journaliste, you know the pressures on body and mind of a Stage Race three weeks long as it is.
‘Um,’ says Ben, displaying a vulnerability in voice and choosing vocabulary that surprises Cat. He is fidgeting; tapping the steering-wheel, checking his blind spot an inordinate number of times though he has not yet switched on the engine. Cat, bizarrely, feels suddenly empowered and calm. She takes her hand to his wrist and strokes him.
‘What?’ she asks quietly. Her voice, so soothing, so familiar, relaxes Ben and he turns to her.
‘I have something for you,’ he says, twisting and leaning to the back seat, the sight of his torso delineated beneath fabric making Cat swoon and reach for him. He is rummaging in his jacket pocket and presents her with something concealed in a wad of crumpled tissue paper. As soon as she has it in her hands, he starts the engine and drives off somewhat aggressively.
Cat unwraps. It is a watch. An extremely plain, second-hand watch with bold roman numerals and hands telling the wrong time. The strap is pale tan and very supple, very worn. Cat, who has only ever had plastic Swatches, thinks it quite the most gorgeous timepiece she has ever seen and she stares at him, staggered.
‘Beautiful,’ she whispers and it is audible to Ben above the din of the engine. He glances in the rear-view mirror, in the side mirror, cranes his sight well ahead, looks to one side. Just not at Cat. And nods nonchalantly.
<
br /> ‘It’s from La Chaux de Fonds – the centre of the watch-making industry. Sorry it’s not a Rolex,’ he muttered, the whole business of pampering a loved one being rather strange to him. ‘I saw it and thought it very you.’
‘It’s so me,’ Cat declares in a whisper, the business of being pampered by a loved one being rather new to her too. She snatches off her blue plastic watch and sets the new one on her wrist. ‘I love it.’
‘You need to wind it up and set it to the right time,’ Ben states the obvious ingenuously whilst doing lots of mirror-checking again. Cat does just that. The symbolism begins to dawn on her just as soon as Ben finds his mouth opening and words spilling out unchecked, uncensored.
‘I’ll be counting the hours, Cat,’ he says, ‘counting them. Wishing them away. Till I can have you again. Promise me you’ll have work for the Vuelta?’
Cat can’t answer because she’s staring hard out of the window, at the landscape fleeing backwards, at the knowledge of the Alps, the Golfe du Lion, at everywhere she’s been over the past three weeks, now so far behind but still on this very lump of land. She glances at her watch and has the crazy notion of turning the hands themselves backwards. Nobody before has spoken so beautifully, so emotively to her. He Who No Longer Exists would chastize her for being late, holler, ‘Can’t you tell the bloody time?’ or else curse her for being petty should she ever dare to be upset that he hadn’t come home at all.
Now here is a man who wishes away the hours that will keep us apart. And has given me a watch so I can count down the minutes till we’re together. Oh fuck, am I going to be able not to cry?
‘I wish I’d bloody never met you,’ Cat says in an extremely strangled voice.
‘I wish I’d never met you too,’ Ben agrees quietly.
‘Cat McCabe,’ Ben says, pulling over to the hard shoulder and switching off the engine, ‘I am in love with you.’
Blimey, Ben!
It was easy to say. Now I’m exhausted. If my adrenal glands weren’t in overdrive, I’d gladly fall asleep.
‘I really do,’ Ben emphasizes, most wide awake.
Cat can’t speak, she can only nod. But the depth of her gaze and the sincerity of a tear which trickles cautiously down her face, speaks volumes to Ben.
They don’t say much, just talk in clichés that don’t seem hackneyed in the least. They agree that where there’s a will there’s a way, they reason that absence can only make their hearts beat stronger, they define that everything happens for a reason, they say that what will be will be, they theorize that one isn’t given a dream without also being given the power to realize it. They grin and kiss and Cat sobs and Ben tastes her tears and reveals a few of his own, for the first time ever, to another person. This Cat McCabe, journaliste, whom he met less than a month ago, whom surely he has known all his life, whom he cannot condone spending time without, whom he craves and desires and loves and feels all his emotions reciprocated.
And then the police move them on. And they continue their journey towards Paris and two days concluding the Tour de France.
STAGE 19
Disneyland Paris, Individual Time Trial: 63 kilometres
‘Alex, we can’t,’ Josh whispered, giggling behind his hand like a schoolboy.
‘We bloody can,’ said Alex, quite the playground bully.
‘Poor Cat,’ Josh laughed, ‘she’ll die.’
‘She’ll die if she doesn’t,’ Alex chortled at his Catch 22.
‘It isn’t fair,’ Josh repeated with a certain glee, ‘we really can’t!’
‘Can’t what?’ said Ben, suddenly appearing from Cat’s room outside which Alex and Josh had been hovering furtively, sniggering, for the best part of ten minutes.
‘We can’t expect Cat to wear this,’ said Josh, holding up a Minnie Mouse outfit, ‘she’ll die.’
Ben regarded the outfit and the two costumiers with an expression of horror which lasted but five seconds before transforming itself into one of wicked delight.
‘You absolutely can,’ Ben said, holding open the door to Cat’s room and ushering in her two colleagues.
Cat was dressed extremely nicely in navy shorts and a navy and cream top. She was packing her bags and checking that her phone had recharged when she turned to see her two colleagues and Ben standing silently abreast. Alex was in the middle, holding a polka dot frilly dress by the shoulders; to either side of him, Ben and Josh each held an edge of the skirt. All were regarding her most gravely.
‘Oh no,’ she said, shaking her head vehemently, ‘no no. Not in a million. No way. Absolutely not.’
The three men nodded very solemnly.
‘Oh, but yes,’ Ben said.
‘Yes way,’ said Josh.
‘Abso-fucking-lutely,’ said Alex.
When Cat attempted to back herself into a corner, the three men and the dress advanced on her.
‘You’re wearing it, Catriona McCabe,’ Ben ordered.
‘I am not, Benjamin York,’ Cat wailed.
‘You are,’ said Josh.
‘Full stop,’ said Alex.
‘I think it’s ridiculous,’ Cat fumed, ‘this pathetic Americanization of the Tour de France. This is a serious sporting event and I think it profane that it should be held at a fun factory.’
‘Oh, get off your high horse and in to your Minnie Mouse costume,’ Ben retorted.
‘It’s all way too commercialized,’ Cat bemoaned, ‘it’s all about profit at the expense of national character. All this Coca-Cola and Disney and Nike swooshes all over the place.’
‘Cat,’ said Josh in a gentle voice so patronizing that Cat gaped at him in horror, ‘lest we forget that the very reason for the birth of the Tour de France in 1903 was for purely commercial ends.’
‘To promote the newspaper L’Auto,’ Alex reminded her sternly.
‘The colour of whose pages became the colour of the leader’s jersey,’ Ben added for good measure.
‘Why me?’ Cat wailed, wondering quietly if the dress would fit and what on earth it would look like and when exactly was the last time she had dressed up. ‘How come you lot get off scot-free?’
In solemn response, the dress was laid carefully on the bed and all three men suddenly stood before her brandishing new ears. Alex became Dumbo, Josh became the Lion King and Ben, predictably, became Mickey Mouse.
‘Change,’ Ben, looking at his watch, commanded Cat.
‘Quickly,’ said Alex, proffering her the dress.
‘We’re running late,’ said Josh, checking his reflection in the mirror.
Suffice it to say, Cat looked ravishing in her polka dot dress with its frou-frou skirt. She felt rather good too and it infused her step with a jaunty spring. She even wore mouse ears. And a smile. And used a length of red cord from her rucksack as laces in her white plimsolls. She gave the boys a twirl. Right there in the foyer of the motel, and was awarded a round of applause and many a wolf whistle.
Every rider in Système Vipère, the only team left in the Tour de France with all nine riders, wore some gimmicky accoutrement or other. Even Fabian Ducasse, ever brooding and aloof, went to sign on wearing a Pinocchio nose, though its comic potential, whilst delighting the crowds, left his sultry demeanour unaltered. The diminutive Carlos Jesu Velasquez, though resplendent in his polka dot jersey, was somewhat swamped by his Goofy baseball cap and whilst the domestiques came as six of the seven dwarves, Jesper Lomers opted merely for Mickey Mouse ears, quite sober in comparison. There was absolutely no way that Jules Le Grand was going to spoil the line or the cloth of his Armani suit with even a badge and his hair was far too perfectly coiffed to permit the presence of plastic ears or a baseball cap. He had made one huge concession to the atmosphere of the day, though nobody would realize. He was wearing socks with his suit. Emblazoned with Pocahontas. Not that anyone knew. It did, however, enliven his comportment and lighten his mien. And when he saw Anya Lomers, walking around the village looking thoroughly out of place so late on in the race, he greeted
her warmly and gave her a pair of Mickey Mouse ears.
We have not met Anya yet; all we know is that she has caused Jules a headache and Jesper a heartache. She’s handsome; tall and milk-blonde and we’d like to dislike her. But she looks lost, displaced; dressed so tidily in shirt and skirt and shoes all cream. Moreover, she feels lost. She has always felt out of place, here on Planet Tour, but she has never craved anything different. Her marriage has been as tough for her as it has for Jesper. The man she loves undoubtedly loves her but their requirements and commitments differ fundamentally. She wants children and a return to Holland. She is lonely and feels barren in her current situation, in France, with a husband she sees so sporadically. Jesper knows that he defines himself primarily by his ability to race a bike. He has to live in France. He races for the greatest team in the world. Anya is a woman turning thirty in a no-win situation. And she’s wearing stupid Mickey Mouse ears when she’s feeling deeply emotional on a morning she knows is to be hugely significant.
Stefano Sassetta had no need for fancy dress. Colourful enough in his regular Zucca MV gear, he was positively dazzling strutting around in his maillot vert with a self-satisfied smirk on his lips, thighs glistening with embrocation. The carry of his head, the brace of his shoulders, the draw of his chest, the meticulous arrangement of the bulges in his shorts, all proclaimed overflowing pride in his triumph. The ensemble delighted the crowds, amused the journalists and was an absolute treat for the photographers. The pictures taken of Stefano that day would soon adorn the walls of most Italian homes; from teenage cycling fans, to rampant women of all ages, to the entire gay population.
Sassetta wanted to be a living legend, and had carefully and successfully honed his image for posterity. The very look of him both excused and justified his sometimes questionable behaviour. In the village that morning, he ensured that he swaggered past Jesper Lomers at opportune times when the sun broke through the clouds and caught his jersey at its most resplendently verdant. Such a highly visible and antagonistic gesture brought him fame and notoriety and it was irrelevant that in fact he looked far more ridiculous than Jesper did in Mickey Mouse ears.