Читать книгу The McCabe Girls Complete Collection: Cat, Fen, Pip, Home Truths - Freya North - Страница 31

‘Jesus, how are they going to get up this?’ Pip gasped as Cat turned off the flat road and L’Alpe D’Huez soared skywards immediately.

‘Twenty-one hairpin bends?’ Fen asked Cat, hoping there’d been some mistake and the peloton would actually have only half that number to contend with.

‘Yup,’ said Cat, driving around the third, ‘a 14 k climb.’

‘And they’ll have ridden three other big ‘uns first?’ Pip said, holding on tight as the car swept around another bend.

‘Yes,’ Fen answered, holding on to her stomach, ‘including the Galibier – is that right, Cat?’

‘Yup,’ said Cat, gripping the steering-wheel and swinging the car around another bend, then up, always up, interminably up, ‘the Galibier is over 18 k and at 2,646 metres, even higher than L’Alpe D’Huez.’

People were sleeping on the slopes of the mountains, their sleeping bags emerging from the shadows like huge slumbering slugs. Elsewhere, opulent campervans protected their inhabitants from view and dew. Already, people were milling about, ghostly grey in the pre-dawn light, some holding cups of steaming liquid, others draped in the flags of their nation, carrying tins of whitewash, some carrying tins of beer. Cat pulled over three-quarters of the way up the mountain. ‘It’ll be a slog for you to walk the rest after the Stage – but you can spare a thought for the boys who’ve biked it,’ she said.

‘Look!’ Pip marvelled at a posse painting riders’ names across the tarmac. ‘Whenever I see the graffitied roads on the TV coverage, I worry that some riders might have been overlooked. Let’s befriend someone with paint, Fen.’

‘Will you do one for me?’ Cat asked, suddenly wishing that, just then, she could have the freedom of a fan rather than the restrictions of a journaliste.

‘Sure,’ said Pip, ‘who?’

‘Luca, of course,’ said Cat.

‘Give us some names to paint,’ Fen implored.

‘Xavier Caillebotte,’ Cat said, ‘or Didier LeDucq.’

‘Ones we can spell,’ laughed Fen.

‘I’m going to do Ducasse,’ Pip proclaimed.

‘Are you now!’ Cat teased.

‘Who’s the yummy Yankee?’ Fen asked. ‘The dark one?’

‘The postman,’ Pip clarified.

‘George Hincapie,’ Cat said, ‘US Postal.’

‘Him,’ said Fen, ‘I’ll do him.’

‘Lucky George,’ said Pip.

‘Do Marty too,’ Cat said, ‘and Tyler.’

‘Better make a list,’ said Fen, anxious now to be on foot, on the great mountain, painting names and waiting for their holders to pedal past.

‘What time are they due?’ Pip asked Cat.

‘About five-ish,’ Cat said.

‘It’s six-ish now,’ Pip remarked, not at all concerned that eleven hours separated her and the cyclists.

‘He looks friendly,’ Fen nudges Pip, ‘ask him.’

‘Monsieur? Parlez-vous anglais?’ Pip asks the man.

‘Yes,’ the man says, ‘you speak Dutch?’

‘Um,’ says Pip, ‘not terribly well.’

‘OK,’ the man laughs, ‘we stick with English.’

‘Could we have some of your paint?’ Pip asks assertively.

‘Sure,’ says the Dutchman thinking that eleven hours in the company of these two would be most welcome.

Pip paints for Cat.

V A S S I L Y

Pip paints for herself.

‘One “s”, stupid!’ Fen says, midway through F A B I and trying to remember if it’s E N or A N.

‘Must remember Didier,’ Pip says, ‘let’s do his name really huge.’

D I D I E R

‘I haven’t had so much fun in ages,’ Fen says, flicking Pip surreptitiously when her back is turned. ‘Mind you, I’m a bit bloody cold.’

‘Maybe Mr Rembrandt will have something warm for us,’ Pip says prior to collapsing into giggles with her sister before they compose themselves and return to their whitewash duties.

‘Look,’ says Fen, ‘someone’s painted Lance Armstrong’s name!’

‘But he’s not riding this year,’ Pip remarks of the rider who had won the Tour spectacularly having beaten cancer.

‘Nope,’ Fen says, ‘his wife’s just had another baby.’

‘I’m going to do another Vasily,’ says Pip, ‘just with the one “s”.’

‘OK,’ Fen enthuses, ‘I’ll do Svorada – he’s a spunk.’

‘And then we’ll return the paint and ingratiate ourselves to Mr Van Gogh,’ Pip says very earnestly.

‘Absolutely,’ Fen says, finding room for an exclamation mark after A L L E Z M I L L A R. ‘I’m cold, thirsty and hungry already.’

By 11.15 a.m., when the race rolled out of Grenoble, Pip and Fen had painted the names of most of the peloton and made many friends on L’Alpe D’Huez. Consequently, coffee, beer, junk food, transistor radios and expertise had been laid generously at the English girls’ disposal. Mr Van Gogh was called Marc and Pip whispered to Fen that, in daylight, he appeared to be looking more and more like Johnny Depp. Fen decided her sister probably should not have had a beer for breakfast so she told her to pee behind a boulder, which Pip dutifully did.

‘Remarkably like Johnny Depp,’ she said to Fen on her return. ‘I’m covered in whitewash.’

‘What makes a great climber?’ Fen asked Marc, while Pip gave him a fleeting flutter of her eyelashes.

‘Basically, a strong will and a high strength-to-weight ratio,’ Marc explained, ‘though, being light and nimble, they often lose time to the heavier riders when descending.’

‘Have you ever been to England?’ Pip asked Marc.

‘What makes a good descender then?’ Fen interrupted his reply.

‘Confidence,’ Marc said, ‘supreme nerve.’

‘Your English is so good,’ Pip flattered, beer for breakfast increasing her confidence, ‘you must visit London.’

A cheery Belgian called Fritz offered paprika-flavoured potato chips around. ‘Eye reflexes have to be really sharp and honed,’ he told Fen. ‘That’s OK for the first descents but later, when the riders are tired – ppffp!’ He motioned with his hand a rider careering off the road.

‘Also, the change in rhythm,’ a Danish girl called Jette interjected. ‘It’s very pronounced for the riders to go from the big gears and flat roads to small gears and long climbs – they have to spin rather than churn.’

Fen nodded earnestly.

Pip gazed at Marc.

‘Nerves,’ Marc said, gazing at the gradient of the mountain road unfurling in front of them, ‘the belief you can go a step beyond your limit.’

Pip whistled slowly.

‘Massimo Lipari could well take the Stage,’ said Jette, ‘and claim the King of the Mountains jersey.’

‘Today,’ said Marc, thoroughly enjoying the way that Pip hung on his every word and occasionally his arm too, ‘Jawlensky will challenge Ducasse for the maillot jaune.’

Cat did not see her sisters as she drove Alex and Josh to the salle de pressé but, from the look and sound of the clamouring crowd, she was convinced they’d be having a party and she needn’t worry about them. In fact, she did not have time to spare them much thought. Bad weather was forecast. Dramatic action was prophesied. Jersey-switching was predicted. Frantic rewriting of copy was a foregone conclusion. She had driven the route because, as with the Pyrenees, she needed to experience just a snatch of the haul of the mountains the peloton were going to confront. It had been an arduous drive, well over 100 kilometres longer than the itinéraire direct and L’Alpe D’Huez seemed even more severe than it had in the early hours.

The coverage on the salle de pressé TV screens, however, was not good. Driving rain spattered the camera lenses and, combined with the altitude, the transmission was distorted. It was raining in squalls. Wind sucked and blew as if the heavens were hyperventilating. It was cold. Worse, much worse, than the first day in the Pyrenees. But what the journalists were denied in terms of clear pictures, they gained in terms of drama via snatches of grainy footage of riders battling the elements on the Col du Telegraphe. They were drenched. The descent was going to take them straight to the gruesome north face of the Galibier.

The conditions were appalling. A miserable 12 degrees in the valleys dropped to a little above 3 degrees at the summits. Earlier, drizzle on the hors catégorie Col de La Croix de Fer had deepened to driving rain on the Col du Telegraphe. Massimo Lipari had been first over both peaks and if he could win the Stage, Velasquez’s polka dot jersey would be his. Ensconced as they were in the warmth and brightness of the Palais des Sports et Congrès near the finish line, the journalists shuddered for the bunch. But no amount of encouraging vibes and heartfelt hopes could reach the riders, out there, in the Alps, contending with the terrible conditions, the terrifying gradients, and their own personal demons taunting them with fatigue, cramp, cold, breakdown.

‘The Galibier towered above on the race, glowering down on the men who had the audacity to scale its heights by bike,’ wrote Cat. ‘For a mountain whose bleak wastes are inhospitable even in sunshine, in the rain today it was grim and desperately dangerous too.’

She was paragraphs into her article though the race was a long way from the finish. Though she was going to exceed her word limit, she needed to recount the awesome magnitude of the day, to do justice to the men who were out there; just let Taverner dare edit!

Luca and Didier were in a small group with the green jersey of Jesper Lomers, way ahead of the toiling gruppetto, but an insurmountable distance behind a breakaway containing Lipari, Velasquez, Ducasse and Jawlensky.

‘Welcome to hell,’ Didier said to Luca when the descent of the Telegraphe had at once become the climb of the Galibier.

‘This isn’t rain,’ Luca remarked, ‘it’s fucking sleet.’

‘We need our rain capes,’ Didier said.

‘Can’t we just keep going?’ Luca suggested, not wanting to slow down, let alone stop, wanting only to be done with the Galibier.

‘We’ll freeze, we’ll never make it,’ Didier insisted.

‘I can hardly see,’ said Luca, ‘and I’m bursting for a piss.’

‘Just piss yourself,’ said Didier, ‘it’ll keep you warm.’

‘God, this is horrible,’ said Luca, not at all comforted by the hot trickle that seeped its way around his shorts. His group tried to work together to combat the headwind, the flurries of sleet but ultimately it was each man for himself. Luca’s legs felt appallingly heavy, his eyes stung, his feet were numb and his fingers felt welded with ice to the handlebars. He was dropping back but knew that if Didier was to survive the Galibier, he must be allowed to do it at his preferred pace and rhythm. Luca was on his own and he was hurting badly across his forehead and the back of his neck. His arms ached supremely, the fronts of his thighs and inside his knees were scorched with pain and felt on the verge of malfunction. His breathing, laboured and painful, filled his ears.

‘Help me,’ he whimpered, ‘oh God!’

A fan ran beside, chanting encouragement and pushing Luca for a few yards. His team car drew alongside and his directeur yelled hard and heartlessly at Luca to fucking keep going. Somehow, Luca clambered and straggled his way to the Galibier’s summit; thirty-five minutes behind Carlos Jesu Velasquez and Massimo Lipari, thirty minutes behind the group with Fabian and Vasily, eighteen minutes behind Didier’s group and fifty-eight minutes in front of the gruppetto. Luca’s limbs froze on the descent and so did the blood in his veins. It was absolutely terrifying. He was dangerously stiff. Visibility was but a few metres. He felt he had little control over his bike or brakes, with fingers frozen, mind numbing and spirit dying.

I don’t want to be here. What the fuck am I doing? I don’t know how the fuck I am going to carry on. I want to be in Italy. I don’t want to be on a bike. Sunshine. Mama.

On L’Alpe D’Huez, Massimo Lipari stood on his pedals and danced away from Carlos Jesu Velasquez, commandeering the invisible motor that should be the advantage of the polka dot jersey wearer. The Spaniard could do nothing but ride his best and he could do nothing about the fact that, today, Massimo Lipari was simply riding better. It was going to be a legendary Stage finish. Système Vipère’s Velasquez had won at altitude in the Pyrenees, now Zucca MV’s Lipari was set to do the same in the Alps. The salle de presse and their editors back home were ecstatic about the copy such a day was generating.

On L’Alpe D’Huez, Fabian Ducasse bonked. In the salle de pressé, fingers went apoplectic over keyboards, but not Cat’s. Though she had been grinning transfixed by Massimo’s great bid for victory, her jaw dropped in awe as she watched Vasily Jawlensky pull away and power up the mountain, sitting calm in his saddle, his shoulders, his eyes, his resolve, rock steady. Incredibly, Vasily hugged the inside of each hairpin, riding the shorter but steeper route as if it were the easier option, the most direct route to the yellow jersey after all. Cat’s mouth remained agape in disbelief to see Fabian unable to counter Vasily’s attack.

On L’Alpe D’Huez both the polka dot and yellow jerseys changed backs, yet excitement amongst the press for the new victors was countered with compassion for the vanquished. It was gut-wrenching to watch Fabian flounder, to watch the yellow jersey himself slip away from his group, the jersey slip from him. No one helped him. Their pace had not changed. His had. Will power is one thing, grim determination is another, but limbs shot away with pain and muscles ravaged by lactic acid is something else entirely. Fabian simply could not turn the pedals with the force and effect that the other riders could. His eyes were swollen, his mouth was agape, his upper body could not pull and his lower body could not propel. Whatever was going through his mind, no matter how deep he dug within his soul, his body was emphatically on strike and he was utterly at its mercy.

On L’Alpe D’Huez Luca Jones dismounted. Now Cat gasped alarmed, having watched in silent horror her rider weaving and wavering before quitting his bike.

‘Get back,’ she murmured, ‘don’t stop. Don’t stop, Luca. Please.’ She closed her eyes, willing him to continue. Opening them, she saw the Megapac team car alongside Luca.

‘Make him get back,’ she implored, stirring the journalists around her but having no effect on Luca, ‘don’t let him stop. Tell him he can do it. Please.’

‘Let me stop,’ Luca sobs.

‘No! I will not have you fail. Get back and move. You are paid to do a job,’ the directeur, merely doing his, barks.

‘I can’t,’ Luca pleads.

‘You ride for Megapac,’ the directeur shouts, ‘you are not sick, you are lazy – ride on.’

‘Please,’ Luca pleads.

‘Last week you were the personification of success, today you are the epitome of failure.’

Luca remounts and slowly, painfully, painfully slowly, pedals onwards. He makes it up and around two further hairpin bends before dismounting again, this time sitting down on the tarmac, his fingers fixed as if still gripping the handlebars. His team car draws alongside. He looks at his directeur through his bloodshot eyes sunken deep into his skull. He is too cold, too desolate, to speak.

‘Luca, you will finish this Stage, you will not let L’Alpe D’Huez do this to you. How dare you even think of doing this to the team!’

‘My hands,’ Luca wails, ‘so cold.’

‘Piss on them,’ his directeur commands. ‘I forbid you to give up. You will not leave the Tour today.’

On L’Alpe D’Huez, Fen and Pip, drenched but warmed by Fritz’s schnapps, watched aghast as Luca Jones all but collapsed off his bike and sat shivering and hunched on the tarmac. They watched dumbfounded as he stood, stooped, rolled down his shorts a little and pissed. They watched stunned as he attempted to direct the flow over his hands. They watched in awe as he remounted. He was pushed along, from fan to fan, until his legs could take him forwards and his bike crept upwards and away. Pip chastized herself. She had been on the verge of moaning to Fen that she was wet, that it wasn’t much fun, that Channel 4 and a cup of tea were far preferable. But, having watched Luca, her triteness and selfishness appalled her. She needed to make amends. She summoned her spirit, found her voice and, with Marc and Fen and all her other new friends, cheered and urged each and every rider who passed her on their passage.

On L’Alpe D’Huez, four riders abandoned the Tour de France, bringing the number of riders retiring on Stage 14 to twelve. Luca Jones was not one of them. It took Massimo Lipari a phenomenal 36 minutes 51 seconds to climb the mountain, win the Stage and claim the polka dot jersey, a true King of the Mountains. It took Luca just under an hour to limp to the line. Ben was waiting in the team bus. When Luca crawled up the steps, Ben thought how his face was like that of a wizened old man, but how his fragility, his comportment, was that of a child. Luca looked to Ben and, just then, all the doctor felt he could do for the rider was to open his arms, into which the young rider collapsed. He sobbed, his body shaking in spasms of cold and fatigue.

On L’Alpe D’Huez, in the salle de pressé, wearing Josh’s fleece and with Alex’s sweatshirt over her knees. Cat wondered how on earth to finish her article. She was thrilled for Massimo to be wearing the polka dot jersey after an epic Stage won in 5 hours 43 minutes and 45 seconds, she was ecstatic that Vasily was now the maillot jaune of the Tour de France, having come home with a hissing, livid Carlos Jesu Velasquez two minutes later. However, her heart bled for Carlos and of course for Fabian, now lying second and nearly four minutes behind Vasily; she felt for the whole of Système Vipère who had relinquished their two prized jerseys on this horrible day. But it was Luca Jones, though, who captured her sympathy and haunted her. With no defining jersey on his back apart from his sodden Megapac strip, he was, in general, just another rider from the peloton who had suffered beyond comprehension today. To Cat, though, he was a champion. Luca had given every ounce of his physical and emotional capacity to finish the Stage for his team, for his directeur, for cycle sport, for the fans and lastly, for himself. For Cat, even those ten riders who abandoned, even the two riders coming home well over the time limit only to be sent home, were victors commanding her respect, her compassion and commensurate columns in her report.

Today, I am not writing sport reportage, my piece is not a commentary on the day’s Stage. It is my deeply personal response, as honest and emotional as a private diary entry.

‘Hey, Cat,’ Rachel’s voice crackled through bad reception on the mobile phone.

‘Rachel,’ Cat said, ‘what a godforsaken day.’

‘I know,’ Rachel agreed.

‘I mean, well done Zucca – but the conditions, Jesus! How are the boys?’

‘Too exhausted,’ Rachel said, ‘absolutely shattered and shot through to the marrow.’

‘You sound low, Rachel,’ Cat detected, ‘it must really take it out of you, too.’

‘It does,’ the soigneur confided. ‘Today Zucca have the yellow and polka dot jerseys – but the team are supremely exhausted, their bodies brutally battered. I have to pick up the pieces and it’s knackering.’

‘Would you like some company?’ Cat asked, seeing it was eight o’clock and wondering when Taverner was going to lambast her for exceeding her word limit by 100 per cent.

‘Please,’ said Rachel, ‘come by the hotel.’

‘Shit,’ said Cat, once she’d hung up, ‘my sisters.’

Cat’s sisters had trudged up L’Alpe D’Huez, very wet and a little drunk. They’d walked the finishing straight, thinking how, amidst the debris and lingering vibe, it was as if a circus had come to town and then gone again. The rain had settled into an eye-squinting mist and it justified more schnapps and a good sit-down somewhere warm.

‘I can’t believe Cat’s pissing off to see some physio friend,’ Pip said petulantly, a hearty glug of liqueur dissolving a mouthful of cake. She was also piqued that Marc had not invited them to thaw out in his campervan, that Fritz had not enquired where they were staying, that Jette had merely said ciao, see you on the Col de la Madeleine tomorrow.

‘Soigneur,’ Fen corrected, ‘Rachel. Zucca MV. Cat’s at work, remember.’

Pip nodded reluctantly, concentrated on her cake and then brightened up. ‘When are we meeting Josh and Alex?’

‘In half an hour,’ Fen said, ‘at the apartment. Another drink?’

‘Let’s raise a glass to Vasily and Massimo – le maillot jaune and le maillot à pois,’ Pip declared, knocking her drink back in one.

‘And here’s to Fabian and Carlos,’ said Fen, doing the same.

‘We’d better have another,’ said Pip sincerely, ‘we must toast those who bowed out.’

‘And Luca,’ said Fen.

‘I wonder if he’s had a shower,’ said Pip, the sorry sight of the rider urinating over his hands indelibly printed on her memory.

‘Can we talk about anything but cycling?’ Rachel asks Cat, welcoming her in to her room.

‘Of course,’ says Cat. ‘You look ghastly.’ The soigneur has dark circles around her eyes, her hair hangs lank and there is a visible slump to her characteristic energy and poise.

‘I should toast the team,’ Rachel remarks, as if it were a requirement of her job, ‘taking two jerseys from Système Vipère in such fine style.’ She stifles a yawn and lies back on her bed. ‘Well done, Vasily and Massimo. Well done team for just making it today.’

‘I’ll nip down to the bar and bring a couple of drinks up,’ Cat offers sweetly. ‘Beer?’

‘Make it whisky,’ says Rachel, ‘and if it isn’t Scotch, bugger it, I’ll have vodka instead.’

To Rachel’s delight. Cat brings her a large tot of Glenfiddich.

‘When were you last home?’ Cat enquires.

Rachel scrunches her eyes. ‘Far too long ago – I miss it and yet when I return it doesn’t really feel like home. I soon miss the camaraderie, the familiarity of life with the peloton. Anyway,’ she says, taking a hearty glug, her eyes watering at the severity of the liquor, ‘enough about work. Let’s talk about boys.’ Though her eyes are slightly bloodshot, a sly twinkle courses its way through. ‘Let’s get He Who No Longer Exists out of the way first.’

Am I ready for this? Cat wonders.

Yes, you are.

Rachel was so proud of Cat’s level-headed analysis of her failed love that she delved into a bedside cabinet and retrieved an immense block of Cadbury’s chocolate as a reward.

‘Bliss,’ said Cat, filling her mouth and closing her eyes.

‘The One Who Is No More,’ Rachel toasted, ‘well done.’

‘Any developments with Vasily?’ Cat asked.

‘The maillot jaune is the development,’ Rachel defined quietly. ‘Until the race is over, I would think the only thing he’ll desire next to his skin is yellow lycra.’

‘Are you frustrated?’ Cat asked. ‘Hurt?’

Rachel considered this. ‘Frustrated?’ she mused. ‘No. Hurt? No. Confused – very.’

‘Why?’

‘I adore Vasily,’ Rachel defined, ‘but you know something? I don’t think I feel any true chemistry – I think I’ve been searching for it because when a man like Vasily wants to kiss you, you sit up and take notice.’

‘Because he’s such an enigma?’ Cat clarified.

‘Exactly,’ Rachel nodded, ‘no one knows of any woman Vasily has had. And yet it seemed he wanted me. That fact in itself was enough to turn me on. It was so flattering – I kept thinking, wow! What is it that I have that’s seeped through his armour?’ Rachel paused, cleared her throat and continued in a whisper, ‘I don’t actually fancy Vasily Jawlensky.’

‘That’s tantamount to blasphemy!’ Cat cajoled.

Rachel shrugged. ‘It’s a fact.’ She munched on some chocolate. ‘I adore him, he’s a bloody good kisser, but I don’t burn for him. You won’t believe this – it’s taken me a couple of days myself – actually I quite fancy someone else.’

‘Who?’ Cat exclaimed, intrigued. ‘You slapper!’

Rachel poked Cat. ‘André.’ She bit her lip.

‘André?’ Cat contemplated, not knowing anyone of that name in the peloton, let alone Zucca MV.

‘André Ferrette,’ Rachel said, beckoning Cat close for disclosure, ‘is the Système Vipère mechanic.’

‘Fucking hell!’ Cat declared, about to take a lump of chocolate. ‘A Viper boy? For a Zucca girl? We’re talking Montagues and Capulets here.’

Rachel winced. ‘Don’t I know it – our respective directeurs are not going to be best pleased. I bet you we’ll have accusations of sabotage and espionage thrown our way before long.’

‘So what’s happened?’ Cat implored, curling up on the bed as Rachel had. ‘I can’t think when you’ve had time to form a new union, let alone theorize so lucidly on Vasily.’

‘Aye, that’s what’s weird,’ Rachel stated. ‘I haven’t even come close to kissing André, yet my lust for him is, um, fairly pronounced and something of a distraction!’

‘I rather think you hadn’t been kissed for way too long,’ Cat mused, ‘and perhaps you believed you fancied Vasily on account of all the oscular activity.’

‘In English, do you mean I was desperate for a snog?’

‘Something like that,’ Cat laughed.

Gianni Fugallo knocked and entered, eyed the chocolate longingly, eyed the two women supine on the bed hopefully, but made do with a banana and a copy of Marie Claire.

‘Now let’s talk about Ben,’ Rachel said, her revelation having quite exhausted her. ‘I’ve heard quite enough about your Other One and anyway He Is No More.’

‘Yup,’ Cat smiled, ‘he’s firmly in the past.’

See, no capital ‘h’.

While Cat continued to gorge on chocolate and girlie gossip, her sisters, her colleagues and Ben ate liver, tongue and various indefinable parts of cow and pig at a hearty, rustic mountain-top restaurant. It was joyous and noisy, with yelling coming from the kitchen and animated chatter from the diners who were mainly presse apart from a hirsute group of men Pip decided were goat-herders, a comment which Alex reacted to with excessive chortling. Red wine flowed, as did the conversation. Especially, Josh noted, between Pip and Alex. Fen also noticed, but her attention was given to Ben.

‘Where do you live, Ben?’ Fen asked.

‘Boulder,’ said Ben.

‘In the New Forest?’ Fen exclaimed, heartened. ‘Near Lymington?’

‘Er, Colorado,’ said Ben, almost apologetically.

What’ll happen to my sister when the Tour de France finishes? What is she to you, Ben? A French fling? Might you have another lined up for the Vuelta? Was there someone during the Giro?

‘I’ve invited Cat to visit,’ Ben was saying. ‘She told me about your mother running off with a cowboy from Denver – we thought we might track her down.’

‘What, on Cat’s paltry freelance pay?’ Fen derided, unnerved that Ben was so au fait with her family history.

When has Cat ever wanted to track our mother down?

Fen wondered why she wanted to dislike Ben; especially as, having now spent time with him, she could not dispute that his seemly exterior complemented a strong, likeable character.

Nourished and rejuvenated by the wholesome food, lubricated by the wine, Ben regarded Fen quizzically.

I know I don’t have her seal of approval and the bizarre thing is, it matters to me and I rather want it.

‘I don’t mind saying I was gutted when I thought Cat was involved with someone back home,’ he said frankly. continuing while Fen was still wondering what sort of reply a statement like that necessitated. ‘But I felt,’ Ben paused, ‘I felt not just relieved but pretty damn delighted when she told me he was just an ex from months ago.’

Just An Ex? Fen thought to herself. Why hasn’t she told Ben much? Why has she played down the impact it all had on her? Her past is defining her present and will shape her future. Why, and what, does she not want Ben to know? She’s either protecting herself – or she is not being herself at all.

‘More wine, Fen?’ Ben asked, raising an eyebrow at Josh with a glance in the direction of Alex and Pip who were sporting matching flushed cheeks and looking particularly cosy.

‘Thanks,’ said Fen, who sipped and smiled politely and tried unsuccessfully to catch her sister’s eye. ‘Ben,’ she started, her conscience warning her to bite her tongue but the wine letting it loose, ‘I love my sister. She’s extremely precious,’ Fen persisted, with more than a hint of warning to her voice.

‘Fen,’ said Ben, tilting his head and regarding her.

‘I love Cat very very much,’ Fen interrupted again.

‘I know you do,’ he said, nodding again.

And I do too. But I’m not going to say it out loud. Not because I know I’m drunk, but because I’m certainly not going to tell you unless I’ve told Cat herself.

‘To Cat,’ he said instead, raising glasses that he’d refilled once more.

‘To Pip and Alex,’ Josh murmured, suddenly missing his wife desperately.

As Cat walks down from the Zucca MV hotel, she contemplates how she hasn’t seen Ben at all today. They haven’t even spoken. Not since yesterday.

And I’ve missed him. Shit.

The notion simultaneously warms Cat and worries her.

She approaches the apartment block at the same time but from the opposite direction to her sisters, her colleagues and Ben, whose status she has great difficulty in defining.

‘They’re pissed!’ she observes, wondering whether Pip is linking arms with Alex purely for stability and, indeed, whether it is for her own stability or his. Cat’s eyes are locked on to Ben’s. She’s delighted to see him.

I have missed him, I really have.

Fen observes how Cat sparkles at the doctor. She regards how her sister practically sings, ‘Hullo!’ to the rest of them before she beams at Ben, focuses on him exclusively and they kiss. The affection between the two of them is pronounced. It simultaneously warms Fen and worries her.