‘Vile!’ hissed Josh under his breath.
‘Loathsome,’ Cat agreed.
‘Total wanker,’ Alex contributed.
The three of them pulled themselves up primly and settled down to their work, sensibly ignoring Airie exclaiming, ‘Don’t stop! Don’t stop!’ in falsetto under the pretext of urging some Banesto rider’s bid for freedom.
With the high mountain Stages approaching, the main contenders for the yellow jersey will keep their energy expenditure to a minimum. With the Alps looming, the non-specialist riders can relish the chance to make a break and glean some glory before the Alps blow them away. Système Vipère, the team behind the yellow jersey of Fabian Ducasse, need to stay near the head of the bunch, to monitor the pace and control which riders they will tolerate in a breakaway. (Thank God for that, Jan Airie seems to have his imbecilic tendencies under check. Where was I? Oh yes, mountains and breakaways.)
But then Jan Airie started to sigh. And then he added a moan or two. Soon he was delivering a clangorous caricature of the female orgasm, soliciting the attention of the whole of the salle de pressé. Tittering developed into chortling which was soon full-blown laughter.
Cat is starting to feel angry. She feels something else too. Ben’s lips. They touch down first on the back of her neck and then along the stretch of her shoulder. The laughter subsides but Airie’s faked orgasm, which he is delivering with eyes shut, does not.
‘It sounds like you’re sick,’ Ben tells him very loudly.
‘He is sick,’ Alex confirms.
‘I think he needs help,’ Josh adds.
That shut him up! Cat marvels. Kiss me again, Ben.
Ben kisses her again and runs her hair through his hands, scooping it into a pony-tail, tugging it so her face tips back for him to kiss her forehead. Then he chats easily to Josh and Alex, massaging Cat’s shoulders all the while and fixing Jan Airie with a steely stare. And then, job done, he goes; telling Airie, very loudly, that if drugs don’t help a sanatorium might; telling Cat, very loudly, that he’ll see her later.
Darling boy, Cat thinks of Ben, as she gazes at the TV screens, noting that Hunter Dean is in a six-man break. Another darling boy.
The riders are racing in 36 degrees, with the sly winds of the region, the mistral and the tramontane, lurking in the wings as if deciding whether or not to have some sport and wreak havoc with the pack. (Ben York, Ben York – you’ve declared yourself my boyfriend; only how can you be if this is the Tour de France and in ten days’ time you’ll be in Colorado and I’ll be in Camden?)
‘That’s not my primary concern at this precise moment,’ Cat says to herself, eyes glued to the TVs, her concern and affection for the riders manifesting itself as a furrow to her brow and a swell in her heart. ‘Can my heart beat so hard in two places at once?’ she wonders quietly. Obviously it can.
‘It’s fucking hot,’ Luca says to Travis, ‘and the wind’s picked up – it’s north-westerly and it’s a bitch.’
‘I’d say it’s around 50 kph,’ Travis confirms. ‘It’s cool that Hunter’s in the break.’
‘Yeah,’ Luca agrees, ‘my legs feel great – I might go for a little gallop.’
‘Whatever,’ Travis says, ‘I’m happy hanging out with this lot.’
Just after the feed, Luca Jones jumped gear and tore away. Though he accomplished a minute’s lead on the bunch at one point, he made little headway on the 3-minute lead of the six-man break. 10 km later, aware of the TV helicopter hovering close behind him heralding the imminence of the bunch, Luca sat up and returned to the fold with dignity and his infamous grin.
‘Creeps!’ Travis hisses to Luca, referring to four young riders from four different teams taking turns to ride headfirst into the wind at the arrowhead front of the bunch.
‘I’d say they’re shrewd,’ Luca counters.
It was a day for young riders acting alone to take turns at the head of the peloton, hauling the Zucca and Viper boys along, to garner favour in the hope that it might be returned in the mountains. 22 km from the finish, the riders faced the second-category climb of the Col de Murs.
‘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.
<ENDS>
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