‘Mon-o-prix.’
‘Lin-ger-ie.’
Stefano tittered.
Rachel escorted her precious load to the conference room, swinging the car keys around her fingers. She smiled at Vasily. She smiled at Massimo. She even smiled at Stefano. When he took her hand to kiss, she stared at him very coldly, kept her hand to herself and marched away.
‘Where were you?’ Vasily asked Stefano as they took the stage in the conference room.
‘In the bar,’ Stefano shrugged, ‘coffee. With a nice girl.’
‘What are Vasily Jawlensky and Stefano Sassetta saying? Can you lipread?’ Cat urges Josh, who sits beside her. He shakes his head forlornly. ‘Can Alex?’ Cat implores, looking past Josh to the other journalist.
‘Only if the language is foul enough,’ Josh whispers, ‘or the topic suitably scandalous.’
Alex leans across them and giggles. ‘What a cunt!’ he exclaims; the fact that, being so tall has indeed brought his face about in line with Cat’s nether regions is momentarily alarming for the young journaliste who has known him for less than twenty-four hours. But Alex talks quickly and Cat, to her relief, discovers his foul fulmination is in fact peculiar praise for Stefano Sassetta. ‘He just said to Vasily that he was in a bar all night surrounded by women.’ Chinese whispers on this year’s Tour de France have begun.
Alex can speak Russian, Italian and French; his German is good, he can get by in Spanish and understands Portuguese. Zucca MV have no French riders and though they are predominantly an Italian team, the presence of their leader Vasily Jawlensky, last year’s yellow jersey, ensures that English is their chosen language when in any country other than Italy. Alex, however, giving Josh a nudge which, from its severity, is passed through his body and on to Cat, decides that familiarity will win him friends. And friends in the peloton will be an enviable commodity. So, in Russian, he asks Vasily probing questions about whether his new Pinarello bike for the Prologue Time Trial will reward him with the yellow jersey; then, in Italian, he asks Stefano Sassetta directly about his rivalry with Jesper Lomers.
Cat has been building up her nerve to ask Massimo’s opinions on the climbs of this year’s Tour but Alex’s bravado, his confident language-hopping, intimidates her and the confidence and acceptance she sensed from her facts-and-figures discourse over coffee evaporates. She is not consoled by the fact that Josh has just called Alex a show-off wanker, which, perversely, he has taken as a compliment. She wants to return to the salle de presse and make an inroad into her first article. Deadline is five hours away. She ought to start.
Stay put, Cat, the rest of the room is. Megapac are about to come in for their press conference.
Friday. Megapac press conference. 12.45 p.m.
Alex leans across Josh to Cat and racks his body into a brief silent laugh. Cat wonders which term for the female genitalia can possibly come out of his mouth next, most having done so already this morning. Alex surprises her.
‘Hey, Cat,’ he whispers, while the Megapac boys, a vision in burgundy and forest-green lycra, take their seats and tap their microphones and Josh regards Alex’s body sprawled again over his knees with exasperation, ‘what would you bid for Luca Jones?’ Alex winks suggestively. Cat regards him full on, glances at Luca and then back to Alex.
‘Why,’ she says with a very straight face, ‘everything I own and my soul to boot.’ This delights Alex. Cat and Josh share a flicker of a raised eyebrow and all three look at Luca, sandwiched between Hunter and Travis as if it is team strategy that some of their upright morals might just rub off on the young Lothario. Neither Josh nor Alex seem particularly interested in Megapac’s presence in the Tour de France but for Cat, there is a certain resonance for they, like her, are new to the show. On show. On trial. In France with dreams in their hearts and hope in their legs. Accordingly, fresh-faced earnestness replaces the showmanship exhibited by players in more established teams. Cat salutes Megapac.
The sight and sound of Hunter Dean, twice in twenty-four hours, lulls her into a false sense of familiarity and friendship.
He gave me a wink, remember.
Of course. Keep grinning and gazing at him as you are, you may even be awarded another.
Alex and Josh are comparing mobile phones like errant schoolboys might electronic pocket games during morning assembly. Somebody has asked the directeur sportif about sponsorship and the directeur is coming to the close of an informative but monotone soliloquy. For Cat, her surroundings have suddenly become dark, the sounds around her muffled. She feels detached and yet focused. She clears her throat, swallows once, carefully sets her pad and dictaphone to one side and then stands up.
‘Hunter?’
God, that was my voice. What the fuck was my question?
Cat’s voice seems to her too loud, too detached even to be her own. Its very femaleness has created a hush around her. Alex’s and Josh’s jaws have dropped.
‘Hi there,’ says Hunter, tipping his head and granting Cat his undivided attention. The other members of Megapac, racers and managers alike, are regarding her too. She daren’t look. She stares fixedly at Hunter.
Oh Jesus, Hunter Dean has just said hullo to me.
So, say hullo back.
‘Hullo. Um,’ Cat coughs a little, ‘what’s the strategy and is it personal or team?’
Hunter licks his lips and Cat, to her horror, realizes she has inadvertently licked hers in reply. ‘Huh?’ he responds.
‘Are you – singular – after a Stage win for yourself,’ Cat enunciates, involuntarily loudly, terrified she might fart or lose her voice with nerves, ‘or are you – plural – pursuing a complete team finish in Paris? Which is the greater glory?’
That sounded good! Very professional. Very salle de presse. Cat McCabe – journaliste.
‘Man,’ Hunter responds in his North Carolina drawl, ‘who says we can’t have both? The team’s strong – hey, y’all? I’m real strong. Mental confidence and physical strength feed each other, you know?’
Cat nods earnestly, hoping Josh has all this in shorthand or on tape. Luca leans forward to the mike, nods at Cat and then bestows upon her a dazzling smile that she is too stunned to reply likewise to.
‘You know,’ Luca says, keeping eye contact direct, ‘I would say each and every Megapac guy has a Stage win in his legs plus – plus – the desire for us to arrive together in Paris in his heart. We’re a team – you know?’
Now Hunter is nodding alongside Luca and Cat wonders if the three of them shouldn’t just quit the room and go and have a coffee somewhere. Which is pretty much what Luca is thinking, observing the pretty girl all serious and attentive – although he would of course drop Hunter from the equation.
‘The Tour de France,’ says Hunter, ‘is about team effort, team spirit, personal triumph plus – plus – pain. We’ll all be suffering, but hey, you’re not given a dream without the power to realize it!’
‘We are nine great riders racing under the Megapac flag,’ Luca proclaims in his gorgeous accent which today he sees fit to infuse with a twang of American. ‘You watch us go.’
‘I will!’ Cat enthuses. ‘Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome,’ says Hunter, who’s never been thanked in a press conference before.
‘It’s a pleasure,’ Luca smiles, thinking that a one-on-one interview with this girl would be a dictionary definition of pleasure.
‘You’re well in there,’ Alex growls under his breath, most impressed as Cat takes her seat, stares at her lap and wonders