Hunter felt his nose. ‘Huh?’
‘Nothing,’ said Ben, ‘I was talking to myself. First sign of madness and all that.’
‘Well, can you kinda like fix my arm before you flip out?’ Hunter said, quite serious.
Ben smiled and drew thread through a needle.
If wanking can make you go blind, a lack of sex can make you go crazy.
‘Tell me about Tayla,’ Ben murmured whilst setting to work on Hunter’s elbow.
‘She’s my girl,’ Hunter sighed, suddenly missing his fiancée terribly, more so when he realized he hadn’t given her a second thought let alone a first one over the past two days.
‘How did you two meet?’ Ben probed.
Hunter, presuming Ben was trying to distract him from the unpleasant sting of the stitching, reminisced gladly. ‘I stole her from Richie Budd, just after the Motorola team disbanded, the season before I turned pro.’
‘Did she come willingly?’ Ben persisted, giving his head a quick shake to dislodge the sound of Cat coming willingly.
‘Sure did,’ Hunter nodded, ‘in fact, she made a play for me. But we’d known each other for a while, living in the same town and all.’
Ben swabbed the wound, dressed it, and sent Hunter on his way. ‘Well ridden,’ Ben said, wondering who had truly initiated whatever it was that was going on between him and Cat.
Is it simply control that I crave and feel I’ve lost?
‘I can smell the top ten!’ Hunter sang, loping out of Ben’s room.
Or, great sex aside, is it Cat herself that I crave and all the more so because she’s not mine?
Luca came in.
‘Yo, Doc!’
‘What’s up?’ Ben asked.
‘I’ve got the squits.’
Ben gave Luca a pill.
‘The Babe was asking for you,’ Luca said.
‘Who?’
‘McCabe!’ Luca elaborated. ‘The Babe. You know – the Babe McCabe. She hates when I call her that. She’s so cute.’
Ben glanced at his watch. It was eight thirty.
I wish I’d never met her.
I want her right now.
This is no good.
This could be brilliant.
What a head fuck.
It is 8.30 and the salle de pressé is chilly. Only a third of the press corps are left. Cat saw Josh briefly but decided Alex’s presence was a good enough excuse not to talk. She hasn’t seen Ben but she does want to talk to him. Cat has written less than a third of her piece. Taverner wants her copy by 11 p.m. at the very latest. She looks at her screen. She’s written but one paragraph. Not very well. She’s somewhat distracted and very tired. She only started work half an hour ago, having literally shadowed Rachel until she was off duty and about to take a shower. She stares at the screen but, instead of seeing the words she’s written, she can suddenly read the pith of her current situation.
Shit. If Ben knows that I have a boyfriend but is still happy and at ease about sleeping with me, what exactly does that say about how he views me?
A Swiss man called Franz is frowning at her, now raising his hands. Cat looks away, realizing she had unwittingly fixed her expression of horror on him.
He must think me an utter tart. What does that tell me about Ben?
‘I’m not!’ she declares, to the bewilderment of two Belgian reporters sitting in front of her.
But it doesn’t seem to bother him.
‘Fuck,’ Cat hisses, her head in her hands. The Belgians presume she’s struggling with how to report on the magic of Massimo Lipari’s triumphant attack on the Plateau de Boudin.
Is that all it is for him? A convenient fuck? He can’t respect me much.
‘I want him to like me,’ she whispers behind her hand clasped to her mouth, ‘I want that to be the driving reason why we’re sleeping together.’
I want him to know me. Obviously he doesn’t.
‘Do I want an embroilment with someone like that?’ Cat asks her keyboard softly. A Spanish journalist nearby regards her but doesn’t understand English.
I want Ben. But who’s who here? I want him to want to sleep with me because he knows me and likes what he knows.
‘But he doesn’t know me at all, then,’ she says ruefully.
‘Who does not?’ a French reporter called Pascal asks.
‘No one,’ Cat rushes, ‘nothing.’
I’m obviously a no one to him, a bit of nothing.
‘Time to back off, Cat,’ she tells herself, going to one of the fridges for a can of Coke. ‘I must look after myself – that’s what Fen would say.’ She returns to her seat. Her lower back nags after eleven days in ergonomically substandard chairs.
In fact, I’d better not tell Josh that the boyfriend doesn’t exist. If I do, and then Ben finds out, I’ll have made a fool of myself in his eyes as much as I’ve currently made a slut of myself.
Her phone rings. She looks at the number displayed. It is Ben. She bites her lip. Her thumb hovers over the answer button.
What should I say? Why is he calling? Because he wants sex? But I so want to sleep with him. Tonight. Again and again. But dignity – I need to leave here tonight, in a fortnight, to return home and to my future with my dignity intact.
She glances around the emptying salle de pressé. Her phone continues to ring. An Italian journalist tuts at her. She switches her phone off. She removes her treasured pass and holds it to her cheek. Catriona McCabe. Journaliste. Le Guardian.
‘This is the Tour de France,’ she almost shouts, ‘I’m here, I am!’ Journalists of many nationalities stare at her, wondering if she’s suffering from writer’s block or too much Coke or not enough caffeine. A French reporter called Jacques, who’s old and friendly, approaches and offers her a glass of the locally produced Fitou.
‘Merci,’ Cat says, downing almost the entire glass. Her body shivers as the alcohol slicks down to her empty stomach and the cold night breeze courses up her spine. She flexes her fingers, blinks hard, deletes most of her work and starts anew.
COPY FOR P. TAVERNER @ GUARDIAN SPORTS DESK FROM CA TRIONA McCABE IN PLATEA U DE BOUDIN
Though on paper not as taxing as yesterday’s Stage, with only one hors catégorie climb, the cyclists on the Tour de France left Luchon already disadvantaged – their limbs sore and stiff from the chill and damp of almost 6 hours’ exposure to terrible weather yesterday. Today, the sun shone unabated with little breeze on the climbs, little warning of the drop to 12 degrees at the summits and the shock of severe cold which lashed the riders on the descents. Such extremes in temperature can play havoc with a rider but the tifosi, the maniac fans, were there in force, handing out sheets of newspaper indiscriminately. This was not for the peloton to catch up on world news, but to use as padding beneath their jerseys to protect against destructive windchill on the descents. On the Col de Portet D’Aspet, the race was neutralized as the riders paid their respects at the stone memorial to Fabio Casertelli,