Look at you all, seemingly so relaxed. My God, when I think what’s in store for you.
And for you, Rachel. It’s your first Tour de France.
Me? Oh, I’ll be fine. The Tour, the Giro, the Vuelta – surely just the scenery is different. But the boys have the Col du Galibier, the Madeleine, L’Alpe D’Huez – not to mention the fucking Pyrenees beforehand. Shit, I must remember cashmere socks.
‘I must remember cashmere socks,’ Rachel all but shouts. The table falls silent, pieces of pizza halt half-way to mouths; spaghetti unravels itself from motionless forks.
‘Huh?’ says Massimo shooting glances to his team-mates.
‘In case it becomes cold, in case you develop sore throats. If Benylin is a banned substance, a cashmere sock worn round the neck at night surely is not.’
‘Rachel,’ said Stefano very seriously, stretching his arm across the table and laying his hand on her wrist for emphasis, ‘we finished work for the day. Shut the fuck up, relax, eat. Please.’
The team cheered and raised their glasses in support. Rachel twitched her lip and then raised her glass too.
‘Here’s to you lot,’ she said with immense feeling. ‘Have a good race.’
Rachel knows that she is to be one of only two female soigneurs on the Tour de France and the thought doesn’t worry her in the least. Cat has no idea that, in the salle de pressé of 1,000 journalists, she will be one of only twelve women.
If I were to meet Vasily Jawlensky, Cat muses, coming home from the Guardian office, what on earth would I say to him? Ought I to bow? Curtsey? In his presence, surely major genuflection is highly appropriate. I wish I could speak bloody Russian.
I can’t wait to meet Massimo Lipari, he always kisses everyone three times, regardless of their sex or relationship to him. Remember how last year, Phil Liggett from Channel 4 was given the Lipari smackers live on TV after Massimo won at L’Alpe D’Huez? Liggett looked lovestruck and told the viewers he’d never wash his face again. I’d like some Massimo kisses. But how would I go about getting them? What exactly would I ask him?
I’d love to set Stefano Sassetta off against the inimitable Mario Cipollini. They’re both the most extravagant, over-the-top personalities in the peloton. Stefano tall, dark and handsome; Cipo with blond highlights, a pony-tail and a great line in outrageous one-liners. There’s Stefano banging on about the aesthetic excellence of his thighs, and there’s Cipo saying if he wasn’t a cyclist he’d like to be a porn star. Italian stallions, both.
But.
I suppose it’s not so much what I’d say to them, but whether or not they’d talk to me.
Oh.
BEN YORK AND TEAM MEGAPAC
Ben York, born thirty years ago in Hampshire, studied medicine at Guy’s Hospital, London. It was perfectly reasonable for his mother, his father, his friends and his then-girlfriend Amelia, to assume he’d take the position offered to him by Guy’s, further his career, become as brilliant as everyone had always anticipated, marry Amelia (as she anticipated), afford a very lovely place in Notting Hill and take up golf.
Ben York, however, hates golf.
Ben turned down the job at Guy’s, let down Amelia, appalled her parents and stunned his parents when he announced he was going to downtown Chicago to live and work.
‘Chicago, Ben?’ his father had protested. ‘When you have so much going for you here, why move to America of all places? What about the lovely Amelia? And Guy’s? Have you really thought this through?’
I’ve thought of little else. Upsetting women is what I seem to do effortlessly if wholly unintentionally. This isn’t about the Ben you all want me to be, but about the one I know I am. I’m not a Guy’s man, and I can’t be Amelia’s man because, lovely as indeed she is, she isn’t Ben’s woman.
‘But sweetie,’ Amelia sobbed, ‘what about our life in London? Notting Hill, for heaven’s sake. Marriage and babies? And a brilliant career at Guy’s? How could you do this to me?’
I’m not doing this ‘to’ you, I’m doing this for us – because of me. I don’t want a place with you in Notting Hill – I don’t even like Notting Hill. Marriage and babies? Maybe one day. With you? No. We’re young. You’re staggeringly beautiful. You’ll be OK.
That was five years ago. Amelia married Charlie three years ago and has just given birth to baby James. The nursery at their place in Notting Hill is exquisite. She’s idyllically happy. Ben spent three years in Chicago, another in Denver and was then head-hunted by Team US Megapac who made it worth his while to embark on a new and unusual career based in Boulder, Colorado.
And I bloody love it. Not so much the US specifically, but the job itself. This is medicine, the fact that I am needed to oversee the health of these riders, that I must observe how their bodies work, how they need to heal and what I can do to help them win and what I must do to keep them healthy too. Many of my riders have wives, girlfriends – and it is for them that I keep their men safe.
And you, Ben?
I love watching a body function – and pro cycling often means that the body is at its absolute peak but also its ultimate limit. I have to keep those bodies continually at the summit of the climb – I cannot let them hurtle downhill. It’s my job.
Interesting, but I was referring to the ‘wives and girlfriends’ bit. Do you only live for your job? Who is Ben when he isn’t assessing tendons or administering balancing doses of B12 and electrolytes?
I don’t understand the question. This is my life.
It’s your job.
Exactly.
Exactly. Who are you when you’re off duty?
What the fuck does that mean?
I said ‘off duty’, not off your guard. Ben York, you’re a doctor, but you’re also thirty, brawny, caring (and don’t just say that’s your job) and something of a catch yourself. It is an undisputed fact that doctors are fantasy men for many women. Especially one with an English accent out in America. That you should also be aesthetically charming on the eye – by that I mean six foot, fit and handsome – well, you’re the cake, the icing and the cherry on top that most women would want to consume in its entirety.
Most women are too calorie conscious.
Oh, very droll. Come on, Ben, post-Amelia details?
In the States they call it dating. If dating goes well, one proceeds to going steady.
How’s the dating going?
Fine.
That sounds final.
I date. But then I steady up.
Why?
As I say to my riders when they ask, sex is very good for mind and body.
And love nourishes the soul.
And can be utterly exhausting. These chaps need to be focused to race.
I wasn’t referring to your riders.
Ben York isn’t the only one in Team Megapac whose accent gains him much attention. Luca Jones was born to an Italian mother and English father and his resultant Anglo-Italianisms are inimitable and do strange things to women. He lives partly in Italy, partly in America. Currently, he