by Freya North
She rummaged around her rucksack and laid out a selection of her clothing in various configurations. Really, it was far too early to start dressing. The riders would not be signing on until 10.30. Cat therefore had four hours to decide what to wear and she tried on a number of alternatives. Soon enough she was sitting despondent on her bed, in a mismatched bra and knickers. She took her mobile phone and dialled.
‘Hullo?’ Fen was startled. It was an hour earlier in GMT after all. An early phone call was often a harbinger of death, of doom at the very least.
‘It’s me,’ Cat whispered, fearing the walls might be thin enough to entitle her neighbours access to her revelations.
‘Jesus, what’s up?’ Fen asked.
‘Up?’ Cat replied, concerned at her sister’s tone.
‘It’s so early – are you OK?’ Fen persisted.
‘Oh shit!’ Cat exclaimed, the time difference dawning on her. ‘I’m fine. I just wanted to call. To say hullo.’
‘I see,’ said Fen measuredly.
‘Um,’ Cat faltered, ‘also for some advice.’
‘Advice?’ Fen asked. ‘About—?’
‘What to wear today?’ Cat said meekly, peeping through the curtains and assessing the flat but dry prelude to dawn.
‘What to wear?’ Fen repeated, looking out the window to a rain-dressed pavement. Fen contemplated her sister’s loaded silence and wondered if Cat could sense that, back in Camden, she was grinning. ‘What to wear,’ Fen repeated, this time as a statement. ‘Tell me it’s the doctor and not some oily bike boy,’ Fen whispered with glee.
‘It’s the doctor,’ said Cat, eyes squeezed shut as if a revelation out loud might ultimately jeopardize the actuality of a currently non-existent situation. ‘Do you think that’s OK?’
‘More than OK,’ said Fen, ‘it’s about time.’
‘I thought of my khaki shorts,’ said Cat.
‘What’s his name and age and vital stats?’ Fen asked. ‘Khaki sounds good.’
‘And my little stretchy vest from Gap Kids,’ Cat furthered. ‘Ben York, probably a few years older than us, tall but not too tall – handsome, oh yes, very.’
‘I like your stretchy vest from Gap Kids but what’s the weather like? Perhaps add a white shirt, loosely tied not buttoned,’ said Fen. ‘So where is he from? Does he speak English?’
‘I have that great shirt that Pip gave me,’ said Cat, taking it from the pile on her bed and holding it to her nose. ‘He’s British but lives in America.’
‘That’s no good,’ Fen groaned.
‘The white shirt?’ Cat asked, scouring the pile for an alternative.
‘No – the America bit,’ said Fen, ‘an intense three weeks in France and then what?’
‘I hadn’t thought that far ahead,’ Cat said, ‘it’s nice just to feel those feelings of, well, lust – anticipation. Have we decided on the white shirt?’
‘Yes,’ Fen declared. ‘Is there chemistry?’
‘I think so,’ said Cat cautiously, hoping that she had neither misread nor read too much in to what she believed had been a mutual frisson, ‘it’s been a long time for me. Timberland boots or trainers?’
‘Sweet girl,’ said Fen, ‘I wish you all the luck and lust you’ll have time for once your reports have been filed. But be careful – it’s the Tour de France, you’re not living in real time or a real place. In reality, Cat, you need a fling. You deserve fun and frolics. He sounds perfect. Fling Thing. He sounds,’ said Fen, ‘pretty gorgeous. Timberlands.’
‘His name is Ben York,’ Cat remonstrated, ‘and you’re making him sound like a cheap package holiday. Timberlands it is, then.’
‘He’ll do you the same power of good – a golden tan from the sun equates with the healthy glow of a well-laid woman,’ Fen theorized earnestly.
‘Fen!’ Cat giggled. ‘What are you like? You loose lady, you – you who can’t decide between two – have you chosen yet?’
‘No,’ Fen said sadly after a long reflection. ‘Tell me more about Ben.’
‘He has odd eyes,’ Cat said with a swoon.
‘Odd?’ Fen reacted, imagining one brown, one blue, perhaps cross-eyed or else one lazy and staring.
‘I mean,’ said Cat, ‘strange – they’re the colour of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk and they hold your gaze.’
‘Think about your underwear,’ said Fen. ‘Not that he should be seeing it quite yet but your deportment is directly accountable to the pants you wear.’
‘He has odd hair,’ said Cat. ‘I’ll wear my Calvins.’
‘Odd?’ Fen asked, imagining a ginger bonce of unruly curls not dissimilar to the wig Pip wore when she became Martha the Clown.
‘Short,’ said Cat, ‘dark but not really – heavily flecked through with light.’
‘You mean,’ Fen deduced, ‘he’s going grey prematurely. Well, George Bloody Clooney watch your back! Calvins – definitely.’
‘I think he likes me,’ Cat said. ‘I won’t bother with a bra – my Gap Kids vest is supportive enough. And clingy.’
‘Go girl!’ Fen marvelled. ‘Of course he bloody likes you – why on earth wouldn’t he? Can I tell Pip?’
‘Isn’t that tempting Fate?’
‘Bollocks, Cat,’ Fen laughed, ‘have a little confidence.’
‘I lost it a while back.’
‘No!’ Fen said sternly. ‘It was stolen from you. You’re entitled to its return. Can I tell Pip?’
‘OK!’ Cat laughed. ‘Tell her about his eyes – and that he’s a doctor and all.’
‘Can I tell Django?’
‘Wouldn’t that be bad karma?’ Cat asked. Fen, who felt more for karma than she did for fate, pondered this quietly. ‘Tell you what,’ Cat said, ‘if Sassetta wins the Stage today, you can tell Django.’
‘Better make that the maillot vert, Cat,’ Fen said very seriously. ‘If he scoops up the intermediary sprints and finishes higher than Cipollini, he needn’t win the Stage to claim the jersey.’
Cat smiled. Her sister had caught the bug. There was no cure. It was in her blood. She would never be rid of it.
Where’s Ben? Dr York – ou es tu? And can I ‘tu’ you or ought I to ‘vous’ you? You’re not with the Megapac entourage.
Cat was milling about the teams enclosure with hundreds of other journalists, Tour and team personal.
Oh, there’s Mario Cipollini.
‘Mario! Ça va?’
‘Buon giorno!’ said Cipollini whilst wondering who this girl was who greeted him with such warmth and familiarity. How charming. ‘I’m well – today SuperMario to be LionKing again – compris?’
‘Oh, compris very well, Cipo,’ said Cat, not giving the abbreviation a second’s thought. ‘Bonne chance.’
‘Merci, grazie,’ said the flamboyant Italian before brandishing his best English, ‘thank you so very much, signorina.’
Cat brazenly waved her hand as if to say heck, Mario, don’t mention it. Off she went in search of Dr York, smiling directly at Laurent Dufaux on her way. Jan Svorada, Jose Maria Jimenez, Jacky Durand all raised a hand at a girl they had never met, who was wearing a pair of shorts as flattering as her smile and who gave them salutations of great feeling as she strode past.
Where are you, Dr York? Might you be in the village? I’ll go and check. Bugger off, Alex, I’m on a mission. I’m thirsty. Ah, the Maison du Café stand. I’ll have an espresso, please. Merci beaucoup. Good God – Eddie Merckx – good God himself.
‘Bonjour, Monsieur Merckx.’
‘Eh? Ah oui – bonjour, mademoiselle.’
‘Café?’
‘Pour moi? Merci.’
Don’t mention it. It’s on tap. I can get another. Where are you, Ben? I’ll circumnavigate once. Well, if that’s Luca, his doctor surely must be close to hand.
‘Hey, Luca,’ Cat beamed, ‘how are you? Bloody good ride yesterday.’
‘Thanks, babe,’ said Luca, delighted to see her but wracking his brains for her name and squinting behind his Oak
leys to try and read it from her pass.
‘Any thoughts on today?’ Cat asked.
Any idea where your doctor is?
‘Well, Catriona,’ said Luca, most pleased with himself, ‘it’s a weird finish – you hit Plumelec and then have to do a 12 k circuit before an uphill home stretch. Not really sprinter’s domain – but if anyone wants to win it more than Delongue, whose birthday it is, it’ll be Sassetta – he’s out to kill, man, out to kill. You know what I mean, Catriona?’
‘Luca,’ Cat reprimanded the rider lightly, ‘you really can call me Cat. You take care today.’
And tell your bloody doctor I’m looking for him.
Luca tipped his head. ‘Thanks,’ he said. Cat’s ‘Take care’ was so much more humane than the perfunctory ‘Good luck’ from most journalists. ‘Come find me at the finish – I’ll give you the scoop of the day!’
‘That, Luca, would be an honour,’ said Cat. ‘Promise?’
Make sure your bloody doctor’s there.
‘Sure,’ Luca shrugged. He tipped his Oakleys on to his forehead, flashed excellent teeth, held out his hand and kissed Cat’s when she took it.
If I feel this floaty from Luca’s kiss to my hand, how am I going to feel when Ben takes my mouth?
With Stefano Sassetta, he of the spectacular thighs, on the war path for a Stage win, or the green jersey, potentially both, Cat and her fellow journalists took the itinéraire direct to the salle de presse in Plumelec to scrutinize the race from the bank of televisions there. On the way, they pooled notes about the buildings changing in colour from grey to beige, that the small town of Josselin with its stunning river-hugging château and sharp right-hand bend over a narrow bridge was worthy of mention, that rosebay willowherb and other meadow flowers were abundant and that the villages became increasingly bedecked with bunting and Breton flags.
In the salle de pressé, one of the technicians tested the microphone with a lengthy impression of an orgasm. While most of the 1,000 press men shared a titter, the dozen female journalistes bonded immediately by locating each other to share eyebrows raised in exasperation. Having grabbed and then bolted down baguette and pâté from the buffet, Cat sat and allowed the live pictures of the peloton to seduce her, to mesmerize her. Had Ben York appeared, bollock naked with a rose between his teeth, Cat would have given him but a cursory glance and requested that he return later.
The bravery of a breakaway, the beauty of the bunch streaming along to bring them back. I love watching the Tour aerially – a flock of geese, a shoal offish, a single arrow – the comparisons are poetic. When seen from above, the pack moves as one, surging along harmonious and unified. See them approach that roundabout?
Cat’s lips parted as she watched the bunch split and streak around either side of a flower-encrusted roundabout before fusing together again and streaming ahead. Like mercury.
And yet, an aerial view of the Tour, aesthetically moving as it is, is somewhat misleading. Looking down on the peloton from on high, it is easy to forget that this apparently single mass is in fact 189 riders – oh, down to 184 – jockeying for position, shouting and swearing, psyching each other out.
Cat contemplated the fact that this beautiful streak of colour, skating along the tarmac, slicking around corners, enhancing the Breton countryside and the lives of the native spectators, was made up of each man turning his pedals, watching his line, monitoring his pulse, pacing himself, performing his job for his team, his sponsors, making it a day closer to Paris, surviving to ride another day, period. Twenty-one teams. 184 individuals at present. The peloton of the Tour de France. A river of bright energy when seen from above. Down there, in the bunch, in reality: war.
With over 100 kilometres to go, Megapac’s Hunter Dean and Travis Stanton grouped together with three other riders and shot away from the peloton.
‘Fuck, it’s humid, man,’ said Travis.
‘Wind’s behind,’ Hunter replied encouragingly, taking the front. The five-man break kept their heads down and pedalled with conviction.
Back in the bunch, Stefano Sassetta summonsed his team car. ‘Who’s gone?’ he asked his directeur. ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘No one for you to worry about,’ his directeur answered him, ‘let them have the last sprint point. They’ll tire soon enough. They’re nothing. Some Americanos – let them fly their flag a while.’ Sassetta made his way back through the bunch, catching sight of the yellow-clad back of Jesper Lomers. He felt his blood chill and then immediately boil. He pedalled until they were shoulder to shoulder. The Dutchman was looking studiously ahead. Apart from gesture, English was the only language in which these two riders could communicate.
‘Enjoy your shirt,’ Sassetta hissed, ‘you no have it long time. Green suit me only anyway. Bad with your hair colour.’
Jesper regarded Stefano briefly and then returned his concentration directly ahead. Jesper had no intention of reacting. It was not his style. He was a sportsman. For him, manners were integral to his vocation. And his mind was on Anya, who was never at home.
With just over 25 kilometres to go, Travis and another rider dropped back, eased off and returned to the peloton. Hunter and the other two soon hit Plumelec, knowing there were a further 12 kilometres to race. Looking briefly over his shoulder, Hunter knew that the bunch would be on them soon enough but the Stage might, with a miracle, be his. Just. Was it worth riding himself out today? What would be the consequence for his legs tomorrow? There were two Stages later in the race he had earmarked for himself. But the opportunity was here.
‘6 k to go – I’m out of here,’ he said to himself, summoning up reserves to surge away from the other two. Hunter was riding at 46 kph. With 3 kilometres to go, Hunter’s lead was eleven seconds and he was charging along on adrenalin and desire. With just 1 kilometre left, he swept perfectly around the right-hand bend and narrow bridge, stood on his pedals and honked towards the finishing climb.
Then he heard it; it was all he could hear. Not his heart. Not his breathing. Not the yelling crowd. What he could hear he could sense too. He wanted to go forward yet sensed he was being sucked backwards. As his legs and arms felt the drag of the finishing incline, Hunter took a fateful glance over his shoulder. The motion cost him seconds yet he knew the sight he would see was of the deafening, deflating sound that was filling his ears. The peloton of the Tour de France was surging towards him, a swarm in a heat haze with no affection for him, no malice either, but certainly no consideration for the stamina he had exhibited for over 100 kilometres. With dignity intact, Hunter sat up. He was caught. He was back in the bunch. He was anonymous once more.
COPY FOR P. TAVERNER @ GUARDIAN SPORTS DESK FROM CATRIONA McCABE IN PLUMELEC
Mario Cipollini conceded the green jersey to fellow Italian Stefano Sassetta in Stage 3 of the Tour de France. In an uphill finish not conducive to sprints, the powerful Zucca MV rider pumped away from the bunch. As he crossed the line he punched the air, perhaps not so much in ecstasy of the victory as in the sweetness of revenge. He won the Stage; tomorrow he will ride in the green points jersey. Jesper Lomers is in yellow for another day but soon he will relinquish the jersey when the true all-rounders come to the fore. Lomers will no doubt do this with grace and equanimity. He will then focus his efforts on the maillot vert. To claim it will require more than excellent riding – it will demand a certain stoicism to disregard the crowd-pulling arrogance Sassetta displays when flaunting his power in the maillot vert. There will be as much a fight for the green jersey as there will be for the yellow. The Tour de France this year is a duel between Système Vipère and Zucca MV.
Against the verdant verges of cycling’s heartland, speckled with rosebay willowherb and throbbing with Breton aficionados, a five-man breakaway led the race in the last 100 km, at one time achieving a 3-minute lead over the pack. A bid for freedom by the US Megapac star Hunter Dean, with 6 km to go and the bunch hot on his heels, was more heart-rending than it was realistic. However, success in the Tou
r de France can often be achieved with the spirit stronger than the body. If Dean’s passion can be maintained, even if the mountains mangle his muscles, he might well shine in one of the final Stages of la grande boucle.
Tomorrow, the 184 riders of the Tour de France will race 248 km from Plouay to Chardin. With wide, flat roads, the winds could well be strong and potentially disruptive. The peloton should devour the tarmac and rebuff the wind with textbook team riding – a pleasure for the spectators to observe but in truth the only way the riders are going to get from A to B as unscathed as possible.
‘Because of the bloody cricket, Taverner gave me only 350 words today,’ Cat says petulantly to Josh. ‘I chose to slip in the rosebay willowherb, rather than to mention that Millar gave the polka dot jersey to US Postal’s Jonathan Vaughters.’
‘Alan Titchmarsh will be pleased, but you’ve probably blown your chance of a ride in the US Postal team car,’ Josh said before returning his focus away from horticulture and chit-chat, back to his laptop.
‘I’m going out for quotes,’ said Cat, leaving.
To try and find Luca. For his promised soundbite. And his doctor. Oh – there’s my friend Rachel.
‘Hey, Rachel,’ said Cat, standing by smiling, watching Rachel wipe down the legs of the team’s super-domestique, Gianni Fugallo, with a wet flannel.
‘Not a good time,’ Rachel said, barely looking up. Though momentarily taken aback, Cat quickly reminded herself where she was and why she was there and thus held her hands up in affable surrender, telling Rachel she’d give her a call.
‘Cheers,’ said Rachel, who was hot and tired, ‘that’d be great.’
There’s the Megapac lot. Where’s Luca? There’s Hunter.
‘Hullo, Hunter,’ says Cat, ‘great ride.’
‘Hey, thanks,’ says Hunter, vaguely recognizing her.
‘Yo, Catriono!’
Luca!
‘It’s Cat,’ she says, delighted none the less. ‘How are you?’
‘I’m good,’ he says, looking very tired, his eyes a little bloodshot, their sparkle somewhat dulled, his blond curls slightly lank, ‘thanks. Cat.’ He approaches her, his hard shoes giving his walk a Chaplinesque gait, and at once she wants to gently put her arms around him, to lead him to a chair, sit him down and put his brave legs up. She notices a fleck of dried spittle on the corner of his mouth, grime on his calves; the paradox of the impressive musculature of his legs against the fragility of his gait which six hours of racing have caused.
