Читать книгу Freya North 3-Book Collection: Cat, Fen, Pip - Freya North - Страница 24

If she was to shadow Rachel intently, it meant following in her footsteps from the moment she woke. As Cat left for the Zucca hotel, Josh and Alex were still fast asleep, Ben was tossing and turning. Though Cat was eager to talk to both Josh and Ben, she was also looking forward to the refreshing and welcome opportunity of a whole day in female company. She’d never seen so many men en masse. Though she was increasingly fond of those with whom she travelled, worked and ate, though she was admittedly smitten by him with whom she slept, if she was brutally honest she was starting to crave quality time with her own sex. Chatting with her sisters had highlighted this; as had the lengthy periods spent with Alex and Josh. The very presence of Rachel, that work commitments and the pressure of the race made extensive exchanges rare, underlined it. Josh and Alex were touchingly protective towards her – Josh to an extreme (he’d raid the press buffet for her even if she wasn’t remotely hungry and had, on occasion, insisted on swapping hotel rooms on some pretext or other – towel quality, hanging space, number of mirrors), but Cat was starting to feel swamped by the unremitting prevalence of males. Even the timbre of their voices, whatever their language; the gait of their walk, whatever their footwear, could make her feel somewhat isolated.

Rachel drove Cat along the route, through the stunning Haute-Garonne and on to the Ariege region, with the luxury of a classical music channel rather than Radio Tour providing a rousing score to the scenery. The land was quite staggeringly verdant and lush, the villages gorgeous, all being blessed with unabated sunshine and no remnant of the cloud cover which had scourged the race the day before. The mountains looked woolly with their cloaks of vegetation and seemed to encircle the valleys in an amicable embrace. Whereas yesterday’s foul weather had made the mountains all the more menacing, this morning, in 27 degrees, they seemed almost benign. For those experiencing them on anything other than a bicycle, that is.

When the girls had set up at the feed station some 95 kilometres along the route, they indulged in sunshine and time on a grassy bank, tanning their legs with eyes closed and ears tuned gratefully to the novelty of hush, the gift of shared solitude. The riders, however, had three mountains and a sprint point to contend with before they could fly past and snatch their lunch musettes. Yesterday, the peloton had been hammered by rain. Today, they would be drained by the heat. Tomorrow, their bodies would pay. The pace of climbing, at about a third of a rider’s normal speed, provides only minimal draught. In this heat, Cat hoped they’d be taking it sensibly, for their own sakes primarily, but also to permit her and her friend the luxury of let-up.

‘This is the life!’ Rachel proclaimed as if she was on holiday, stroking the downy grass as if it were Caribbean sand.

‘This is the life!’ Cat echoed and meant it. With eyes closed, her sense of scent was highly attuned. France. Definitely not England. Specifically, midway between Biarritz and Perpignan, close to Spain, far from Camden Town. Behind closed eyes, she replayed her coupling with Ben and projected imagery of future liaisons with him. She turned on her side, propped herself on an elbow and regarded Rachel. The soigneur looked at her, but was obviously seeing something quite else. Cat knew that look.

‘Vasily,’ Cat prompted, with what she hoped was a conspiratorial tone of camaraderie.

Rachel said nothing but nodded very slowly, rolled on to her back and remarked that the publicity caravan of floats and music preceding the race by an hour would soon be approaching.

I’ll let it lie, Cat decided thoughtfully. There’s a time and a place – it isn’t here but hopefully she might let me take her there sometime soon. She lay on her back and her mind streamed off to the tangents that sky-gazing generates.

‘We,’ said Rachel breezily, before closing her eyes to forestall the tongue-loosening effects of the troposphere, ‘oh. Nothing. I was. I was just.’

Cat knew very well what incomplete sentences were all about. She also knew that silence was not the best medium for revelation. The gaiety of the caravan, however, could well provide the perfect ambience. She awaited the raucous, garish publicity snake; daydreaming and sky-gazing until she could detect the distant toots of the approaching carnival.

‘Tell me,’ she prompted gently while the floats came upon them in a wave of colour, lousy music and grinning personnel scattering freebies like modern-day winnowers. Bolstered by a panini, Rachel spoke. Sustained by a ham roll, Cat listened attentively.

‘We kissed,’ Rachel began, with the hint of a grin she then saw wise to curtail. ‘I don’t know why,’ she shrugged, ‘but we kissed. Just before the Time Trial. I mean, really kissed.’

Cat’s jaw dropped.

You and Vasily – wow! Hearts will be breaking amongst the female fans world-wide.

Cat regarded Rachel. ‘Lucky you, I’d say. Just the once?’

Rachel shook her head. Then she shrugged. She did not look as ecstatic as Cat felt that someone kissed regularly by Vasily Jawlensky really ought.

‘Well,’ Rachel declared, standing, ‘it was probably nothing. Anyway, they’ll be along soon – come on, Shadow Girl, action stations.’

‘You liked it?’ Cat encouraged, following Rachel to the trunk of the car, thrilled to be given a Zucca MV jacket to wear to assist the riders looking for their lunch. ‘Or you didn’t? You want more – or you don’t?’ Cat observed a blush, barely perceptible but emphatically there, bloom across Rachel’s cheek.

Isn’t it funny what a man can do even to the most seemingly sussed and self-contained, self-content woman. Strong, sassy Rachel who keeps Zucca MV in order, shipshape, is here beside me churned up by a kiss.

‘It’s odd,’ Rachel elaborated, handing Cat a clutch of musettes like a bunch of balloons upside-down, ‘in all the time I’ve been involved in pro cycling, I’ve never even had to keep my professional and private lives separate – the one has never infringed on the other. I’ve not really been tempted. To be honest, apart from a wee dalliance last year with a journalist – a Dutch one, in case you’re wondering – I haven’t really had a private life at all and it’s not something I’ve minded. I’m a soigneur – I’m at the beck and call of the team. I don’t resent it.’

‘And now there’s a spanner in the works?’ Cat broached.

‘Yes,’ Rachel agreed, ‘I don’t know how to deal with it. I can’t really figure out what the fuck happened.’

‘Did you see Vasily this morning?’ Cat asked.

‘I’m his soigneur,’ Rachel said simply. ‘Of course I saw him, I massaged him.’

‘And?’

‘I had a job to do, massaging my rider,’ Rachel shrugged. ‘He likes silence.’

‘Well,’ said Cat in a businesslike way, ‘have you ascertained what you want?’

‘I’m trying not to,’ Rachel said, ‘for fear of it not coinciding with what he may want. As I say, I’m at his beck and call.’

‘You can pander to the needs of your riders,’ Cat said emphatically, ‘that’s your job. But your own needs are paramount within the grander scheme of things.’

Rachel considered this. ‘I don’t know what I want. I was so damned tempted to get in to that salt and vinegar bath yesterday. But I didn’t. Because he didn’t ask.’

‘And you would have?’ Cat asked. ‘If he had?’

Rachel shrugged.

‘I can’t think why Vasily wouldn’t,’ Cat said supportively. ‘We just have to figure a way to verify his desire without disrupting his ride.’

‘Maybe snogging helps his ride,’ Rachel said wryly.

‘Thank God it’s you who’s his soigneur – not your portly, bearded colleague!’ Cat returned.

‘Vasily is such a dark horse,’ Rachel continued quietly, ‘you rarely know how he feels let alone what he’s thinking.’ She regarded Cat and winked. ‘But if he kisses like Casanova, even speculating on his bed skills sends me spinning.’

Cat laughed. And then she thought of Ben.

How can I miss him?

‘But,’ Rachel said with a touch of resignation, ‘it’s probably a terrible, crazy idea.’

‘Say he doesn’t think so?’ Cat posed, it suddenly dawning on her that, if she actively missed Ben, it meant she herself had become embroiled. With a lurch, she was at once aware of the merits and dangers therein. ‘What you need,’ Cat continued, keen to concentrate on her friend’s situation instead, ‘is clarification – on how he feels, what he wants and where you stand.’

‘You never know with Vasily,’ Rachel mused, ‘you just don’t know what’s in his head or if his heart races for anything other than cycling.’

‘Providing a leg rub is one thing,’ Cat said, ‘sexual therapy is something quite else.’

‘Well,’ Rachel replied, ‘it’s certainly not on my job spec!’

Suddenly, the police outriders were visible in the distance. Rachel and Cat took their action stations. Megapac’s Travis Stanton streamed towards them and swished past them in a blink.

‘Ready?’ Rachel yelled, not looking at Cat but at a small bunch pelting through the heat haze towards them. With her heart in her mouth, Cat held out her arm, proffering the musettes which were swiped away, whipped from her hand almost instantly. It stopped her heart and then sent it into overdrive. The hiss of wheels, the zip of colour, tension tangible, adrenalin a taste. Then they were away. Gone. Flashed past. And yet their impact lingered. Massimo Lipari. Gianni Fugallo. Speechless, grinning, transfixed, Cat had her gaze pulled after them until they were a blur and then out of sight. Suddenly, her attention was magnetized back to face the second rush, slightly larger, just coming in to view. The noise of the boys, shouting, whistling, swearing. The pace. The energy.

Luca! Fabian – oh my God – not with Vasily’s group.

Gone and distant more quickly than they’d approached; heading for the Col de Port, not particularly high but a 1-in-20 climb lasting 12 kilometres. Onwards to the Plateau de Boudin, the final climb and altitude finish; hors catégorie, viciously steep at the outset and almost 1,800 metres high. Best known as a cross-country ski station. Claim it by bike? Racing? After 154 kilometres in which there were four other mountains and two hot-spot sprints? Why? A touch of insanity? Or the pursuit of glory? What?

I’m going to have to confront her.

Ben York assessed the gash on Hunter’s elbow and decided three stitches would suffice.

But if I do, and she backs off, then I risk losing her altogether.

‘Cutting off my nose to spite my face, I suppose,’ Ben said out loud.

Why on earth do I even give a damn?

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, the 1992 Olympic champion who was killed, aged 22, after a horrendous crash there in the 1995 Tour.

Fabian Ducasse, the current yellow jersey, punctured at the base of the penultimate climb, the Col de Port. Three Système Vipère domestiques dropped back to assist. The Viper boys had practically to ride a Time Trial up the mountain to minimize time loss. Using his domestiques’ slipstreams until they were spent, Ducasse had ultimately to make much of the passage by himself. His main contender, Vasily Jawlensky, observed peloton etiquette and did not launch an attack until Ducasse’s had rejoined the lead group. The Russian then motored away, flanked by his team’s superclimber Massimo Lipari. With no Viper boys in Ducasse’s group, if the yellow jersey wanted to catch Jawlensky he would have to do all the work. That’s the law of the race and four other riders just sat on his wheel as Fabian pursued his Russian adversary.

On the Plateau de Boudin, Jawlensky’s team-mate Massimo Lipari, defender of two consecutive King of the Mountains triumphs, launched his trademark attack. Riding out of the saddle, he found perfect rhythm and swallowed up the seconds, the gravelly tarmac, and soon enough two stunned riders who thought they were well clear. Ultimately, he had enough time to zip up his jersey and approach the summit finish, clapping, waving and blowing kisses to the fans and to the heavens. His rival, Carlos Jesu Velasquez, victor of yesterday’s Stage, still wears polka dot but Lipari is only a few points behind. With three days of a flatter profile, the battle for the King of the Mountains in this year’s Tour de France will resume in the Alps.

<ENDS>

Rubbing her eyes, Cat packs up from the table and goes to transmit her work down the line to London. She arrives at the hotel nearing 11.30.

Too late to talk to Josh.

She goes to her room and slumps into a chair.

Is it really too late to talk to Josh?

She goes and hovers outside his door, pressing her ear against it. There is no sound. She won’t disturb him. It can wait. Tomorrow. Definitely.

Back in her room, curled on the bed, she dials Ben’s mobile phone and stares at the number. Her phone beeps at her. Call? She leaves the phone on the bed and goes to the window. There’s a draught. She’s chilly. The phone beeps again. Call? Cat rummages around her rucksack and retrieves a sweatshirt. She hasn’t yet worn it. It smells of the fabric conditioner she always uses, of being tumble-dried in her local launderette. She inhales, closing her eyes. She can smell home. Now there’s a place! A beep from her phone brings her back to reality. Call? Cat goes to the bathroom and glances briefly at herself in the mirror.

That’s me. I know who I am.

She returns to the bedroom and stares at her phone. It beeps again. Call?

No.