‘I have some money,’ Pip repeated, ‘so let’s go to France this weekend.’
‘Can’t afford it,’ said Fen, pulling the duvet up to her chin and keeping her eyes closed.
‘Bollocks!’ remonstrated Pip. ‘One of your boyfriends is loaded.’
‘But the other one is broke,’ Fen said softly.
‘Yes, but which one have you chosen? Who is it to be?’
‘I still don’t know,’ Fen wailed.
‘Yes, yes. But will you come to France?’
‘Sure,’ said Fen.
Luca lay in bed with an inordinately large grin on his face, his eyes wide open and sparkling, fixated with a particularly uninspiring run of cornice.
‘Come on come on come on!’ he chanted. Didier awoke.
‘Fuck it, man,’ Didier remonstrated, ‘it’s 6.30!’
‘I want to start!’ Luca declared. ‘I want to get going.’
‘Go to sleep,’ Didier mumbled, pulling a pillow over his head.
‘I can’t!’ Luca declared. ‘I haven’t slept a wink.’
‘Not amphetamines again,’ Didier exclaimed, hurling the pillow away and fixing an accusing stare on his room-mate.
‘Don’t be fucking stupid,’ Luca said, quite offended, ‘I’m as clean as they come. I want to win another Stage, goddamn it. Those feelings of euphoria, of adulation, of strength – they’re far more addictive, and much more effective too. I’m raring to go.’
‘Well,’ Didier reasoned, ‘you’re not going to win a Stage on no sleep, for fuck’s sake.’ He turned his back on Luca, mumbled, ‘Sweet dreams’ and then went off to have some of his own – mainly about glory in the mountains and winning a Stage himself.
Cat moaned when Ben woke her, not least because the awakening was rude in the extreme. She cupped her hands around Ben’s head and lifted his face from her pussy.
‘I don’t want to wake up,’ she lamented. Ben crawled up her body and she kissed him, tasting her own salty-sweetness on his mouth. ‘I’m dreading today,’ she confided. ‘How on earth am I going to manage the salle de pressé?’
Ben lay on his back and looked at her sideways. ‘Are you embarrassed?’
‘Embarrassed?’ Cat exclaimed, propping herself up on her side. ‘I’ve never been so humiliated in all my life.’
‘Yes, but are you embarrassed?’ Ben pressed. Cat frowned. ‘About whatever it is that’s going on here – between us.’ Ben was regarding her steadily.
‘God, no,’ Cat said quietly, gazing at him and punctuating her statement with an emphatic kiss to his shoulder.
‘Well then,’ said Ben, ‘you just lie back, close your eyes and figure out who is in the wrong, who has the dignity, who should be embarrassed, while I satiate myself on your gorgeous pussy.’
Rachel didn’t have any time with Vasily on the Rest Day. After his ride, he’d had deep massage from another soigneur, followed by a little ultrasound on an old knee injury. This morning, when she delivered clean gear to the team, she had a few minutes alone with him. She was hoping for quality time. When she gave him his lycra, she kissed his cheek; seductively close to the corner of his mouth, she hoped. She noted how, initially, he looked utterly startled until she saw the cogs of his memory start to turn. When he then kissed her back, on the lips with a tantalizing flick of his tongue, it was enough to put paid to the unease she had fleetingly experienced.
With the Tour over half-way through, Cat had long absolved many in the press corps for their diabolical taste in footwear, their deplorable typing skills and their excessive addiction to nicotine because, for the most part, they were a nice bunch with such passion for cycle sport that Cat could even turn a blind eye (if still-attuned nose) to their diminishing concerns for personal hygiene. There were individuals, however, who were simply not likeable; for smelling just too bad, for not loving cycling enough and for general antisocial behaviour that went far beyond footwear fancy and nicotine predilection.
A small man called Jan Airie was perhaps the most odious of all. He never went to the village, never ventured near the finish, let alone the scrum, never took his chance amongst the team vehicles or hotels; yet he always crept around scrounging quotes from the other journalists, wheedling his way up and down the banks of laptops, invariably clearing his chest or picking his ears. Sometimes, Cat sensed him scavenging from her screen over her shoulder; or rather scented him, for he was prone to belch with the force and regularity of a Tourette’s sufferer, his feet were spectacularly vile and oral hygiene was obviously of no concern. He made her jump. He made her skin crawl. She knew it would have been too much to hope that he hadn’t been in the salle the day before.
I’m too full of adrenalin to be able to digest even a spoonful of humble pie, Cat bemoaned to herself as Josh parked the car near the salle de pressé in Daumier.
‘I’m starving,’ yawned Alex, stretching expansively and clonking Josh on the ear as he did so. ‘You’re very quiet,’ he remarked to Cat who did not reply. Josh glanced at her from the rear-view mirror but she looked away before she could receive his supportive wink. Taking a few deep breaths, with eyes cast down though the serene and elegant town of Daumier well deserved her attention, Cat traipsed behind the boys to the salle de pressé.
‘Wait up,’ she said to Alex and Josh, ‘can you two flank me?’
‘Oughtn’t you be wearing sackcloth,’ Alex teased, ‘not that floaty little sundress – a bag over your head at the very least?’
‘But it’s hot,’ Cat remonstrated.
‘And the press gang’ll be even hotter,’ Alex remarked, eyeing her up and down.
‘I can’t go!’ Cat declared, coming to a standstill.
‘Come on,’ said Josh, linking arms with her. They escorted her in, which was a good job really as she was too busy scrutinizing the ground just millimetres in front of each foot fall to take notice of where she ought to be headed and obstacles to avoid.
Shit. Has everyone gone quiet? Or is my heartbeat just drowning out every other sound? I daren’t look up.
The boys sat her down between them and Cat started typing immediately; furiously and with her head close to the keyboard and masked by the screen.
COPY FOR P. TAVERNER @ GUARDIAN SPORTS DESK FROM CATRIONA McCABE IN DAUMIER
The memory of yesterday’s Repos faded fast (God, I wish it would – I’m going to have to relive it again when next I speak to my sisters) as the Tour de France headed for Provence. The deep massage and physiotherapy the riders would have had yesterday was in retrospect not so much to soothe their limbs from the exertion of 11 days of racing, as to prepare and cajole their bodies for a further 9 days. (Jesus – what’s that? Oh my God, people are clapping.)
Though a slow round of applause intruded on Cat’s concentration, she decided to give everyone the benefit of the doubt that maybe, just maybe, they were merely applauding a breakaway or hot-spot sprint. She was desperate to watch the race, the Repos had been very nice, thank you, but Cat had withdrawal symptoms for cycling. However, she didn’t dare raise her head though her neck was aching and her shoulders stiff. Josh sweetly whispered a running commentary and Alex supportively denounced the clap-happy posse as a bunch of tossers. Neither could do much about warning Cat that Jan Airie was leering behind her because he had slunk up unannounced, as was his wont.
‘Catriona!’ he breathed pungently and invasively close to her ear, forcing her to retreat even further into the questionable space offered by her laptop. ‘I do believe you interviewed