The McCabe Girls Complete Collection

by Freya North

  Josh wasn’t about to tell her that he was in Rachel’s room, eating cereal, with the Zucca MV soigneur and the Megapac doctor trying to hear both sides of the conversation. ‘I didn’t know you then,’ Cat was continuing, ‘when I, um, fibbed.’

  ‘Fibbed!’ Josh laughs. ‘It was a fucking whopper!’

  ‘I know,’ Cat concedes, trying to lean back against a rock but finding it singularly uncomfortable, ‘I know. But I did it for many reasons, many of them daft but mainly for my own security.’

  ‘I understand,’ says Josh honestly because, after lengthy conversations with both Ben and Rachel, he does.

  ‘I adore you, Josh,’ Cat says from the heart, clutching hers for unseen emphasis, ‘I truly value our friendship and I hope I haven’t hurt you.’

  Josh smiles. He’s glad Ben and Rachel didn’t hear that. He wants to keep it for himself. He’s touched.

  ‘So,’ Cat says, ‘I’m not an immoral slapper.’

  ‘Good God no!’ Josh replies with great affection. ‘You’re just a sex-crazed compulsive liar.’

  To be teased in such a way but with such affection at such a time is a true tonic for Cat and she is further soothed by Josh imploring her to come to the Zucca MV hotel to raid Rachel’s veritable grocery store.

  ‘Have you been with Rachel, then,’ Cat asks, ‘this whole time?’

  ‘Yes,’ says Josh, ‘and Ben’s here too.’

  Cat poked her head around Rachel’s door with her eyes trained firmly on the carpet. She noted Rachel was wearing pretty sandals, Ben was in his lovely Docksiders and Josh was in trainers. Very slowly, she let her gaze travel upwards over three pairs of legs of varying degrees of hirsuteness. Rachel was sitting in a chair, Ben and Josh were on the edge of her bed. Gradually, Cat lifted her head and finally her eyes alighted on the three faces. Rachel was shaking hers slowly, with a wry smile etched across her lips. Josh had tilted his, broadcasting a supportive smile as loudly as he could. Ben was simply looking at her.

  God, you’re gorgeous, Cat.

  ‘Hullo,’ Cat said to all asunder, bashfully.

  ‘Do you want some food?’ Rachel asked, rising and slipping her hand around Cat’s waist, giving her a squeeze.

  ‘Yes, please,’ said Cat, shuffling further into the room.

  ‘Fuck it, Cat, you mad girl,’ Josh said, coming over and enveloping her in a bear hug. He kissed her cheek with a sonorous ‘mmwah!’ and then helped himself to a banana which he munched thoughtfully.

  When Cat had consumed two bowls of cereal and a yoghurt, Ben yawned, stretched and rose. ‘Come on, you,’ he said, going to her and running his fingers through her hair. Cat knew she blushed at the sudden public display of his affection, but up she stood obediently, beamed gratitude at Rachel and said, ‘Come, Josh, let’s go.’

  Josh, Ben and Cat strolled leisurely back to their hotel. Every now and then, Cat glanced gratefully at the moon, checked on Cassiopeia’s whereabouts and observed that the queue of clouds had dispersed. It was going to be a fine day tomorrow.

  The journalists’ hotel was small and the foyer served as an impromptu bar. Alex was there with the buxom woman, ensconced in sagging seats and surrounded by several empty bottles of Seize.

  ‘Cat McCabe!’ he bellowed, unravelling his gangly limbs, extricating himself from the capacious chair and the drape of the woman. He loped over to her, picked her up off the floor, swung her around and then deposited her somewhat cack-handedly. ‘Cat McCabe,’ he said again, with a veritable twinkle in his eye, ‘you little vixen you.’ Then he turned to Ben. ‘You’re a wanker of a bastard,’ he praised the doctor, ‘you’re loathed and envied by the entire salle de pressé right now.’ Ben thanked him courteously for the compliment, Cat kissed Alex goodnight and raised her eyebrow quite saucily in reference to Mary or Margaret or Molly.

  ‘Maria,’ Alex whispered. Cat winked and they left Alex to his questionable yet obviously relatively effective seduction.

  ‘Sweet dreams,’ Cat said to Josh, laying her hand on his arm before hugging him tightly.

  ‘You too,’ Josh grinned. ‘Night, Ben.’

  ‘Goodnight,’ said Ben.

  Cat had the most horrendous headache, slicing right across her brow and searing into the centre of her skull. Ben said that, ironically, the best cure for a headache was sex. Cat was happy to believe him and needed no spoonful of sugar to facilitate such medicine. He was a doctor. She trusted him.

  STAGE 12

  Frontignan La Peyrade-Daumier. 196 kilometres

  Back in London, Pip, who’d hardly slept, phoned Django at 5.30 a.m.

  ‘Can you lend me some money?’ she said.

  ‘Jesus Christ – are you in trouble? Are you in jail?’ Django cried, throwing back the bedcovers, ready to dress in a second and pelt down to London at a moment’s notice even if his eyes were still firmly shut.

  ‘God, I’m fine,’ Pip laughed, ‘only I’m a bit broke this month. So can you?’

  ‘Can I what?’ Django asked, rubbing his eyes and his head and trying to massage his memory into recalling what his niece had phoned for.

  ‘Lend me some money,’ Pip repeated.

  ‘Money?’ said Django. ‘What for? Are you in trouble?’

  ‘God, no,’ said Pip, ‘I want to go to France to visit my sister.’

  ‘You want to go to France to visit your sister,’ Django repeated attempting, at this ungodly hour, to recall which niece was not in England and why.

  ‘Yes,’ said Pip, ‘Cat.’

  ‘Well, why didn’t you say?’ Django exclaimed. ‘Of course you can have some money – if I have some.’

  ‘You have lots,’ Pip prompted, ‘somewhere.’

  ‘Of course I do,’ Django said, as if thanking his niece for reminding him, ‘I’ll send some down.’

  Pip phoned Fen immediately. ‘I have some money,’ she said.

  ‘That’s nice,’ said Fen blearily. ‘Fuck, it’s twenty to six.’

  ‘I have some money,’ Pip repeated, ‘so let’s go to France this weekend.’

  ‘Can’t afford it,’ said Fen, pulling the duvet up to her chin and keeping her eyes closed.

  ‘Bollocks!’ remonstrated Pip. ‘One of your boyfriends is loaded.’

  ‘But the other one is broke,’ Fen said softly.

  ‘Yes, but which one have you chosen? Who is it to be?’

  ‘I still don’t know,’ Fen wailed.

  ‘Yes, yes. But will you come to France?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Fen.

  Luca lay in bed with an inordinately large grin on his face, his eyes wide open and sparkling, fixated with a particularly uninspiring run of cornice.

  ‘Come on come on come on!’ he chanted. Didier awoke.

  ‘Fuck it, man,’ Didier remonstrated, ‘it’s 6.30!’

  ‘I want to start!’ Luca declared. ‘I want to get going.’

  ‘Go to sleep,’ Didier mumbled, pulling a pillow over his head.

  ‘I can’t!’ Luca declared. ‘I haven’t slept a wink.’

  ‘Not amphetamines again,’ Didier exclaimed, hurling the pillow away and fixing an accusing stare on his room-mate.

  ‘Don’t be fucking stupid,’ Luca said, quite offended, ‘I’m as clean as they come. I want to win another Stage, goddamn it. Those feelings of euphoria, of adulation, of strength – they’re far more addictive, and much more effective too. I’m raring to go.’

  ‘Well,’ Didier reasoned, ‘you’re not going to win a Stage on no sleep, for fuck’s sake.’ He turned his back on Luca, mumbled, ‘Sweet dreams’ and then went off to have some of his own – mainly about glory in the mountains and winning a Stage himself.

  Cat moaned when Ben woke her, not least because the awakening was rude in the extreme. She cupped her hands around Ben’s head and lifted his face from her pussy.

  ‘I don’t want to wake up,’ she lamented. Ben crawled up her body and she kissed him, tasting her own salty-sweetness on his mouth. ‘I’m dreading today,’ she confided
. ‘How on earth am I going to manage the salle de pressé?’

  Ben lay on his back and looked at her sideways. ‘Are you embarrassed?’

  ‘Embarrassed?’ Cat exclaimed, propping herself up on her side. ‘I’ve never been so humiliated in all my life.’

  ‘Yes, but are you embarrassed?’ Ben pressed. Cat frowned. ‘About whatever it is that’s going on here – between us.’ Ben was regarding her steadily.

  ‘God, no,’ Cat said quietly, gazing at him and punctuating her statement with an emphatic kiss to his shoulder.

  ‘Well then,’ said Ben, ‘you just lie back, close your eyes and figure out who is in the wrong, who has the dignity, who should be embarrassed, while I satiate myself on your gorgeous pussy.’

  Rachel didn’t have any time with Vasily on the Rest Day. After his ride, he’d had deep massage from another soigneur, followed by a little ultrasound on an old knee injury. This morning, when she delivered clean gear to the team, she had a few minutes alone with him. She was hoping for quality time. When she gave him his lycra, she kissed his cheek; seductively close to the corner of his mouth, she hoped. She noted how, initially, he looked utterly startled until she saw the cogs of his memory start to turn. When he then kissed her back, on the lips with a tantalizing flick of his tongue, it was enough to put paid to the unease she had fleetingly experienced.

  With the Tour over half-way through, Cat had long absolved many in the press corps for their diabolical taste in footwear, their deplorable typing skills and their excessive addiction to nicotine because, for the most part, they were a nice bunch with such passion for cycle sport that Cat could even turn a blind eye (if still-attuned nose) to their diminishing concerns for personal hygiene. There were individuals, however, who were simply not likeable; for smelling just too bad, for not loving cycling enough and for general antisocial behaviour that went far beyond footwear fancy and nicotine predilection.

  A small man called Jan Airie was perhaps the most odious of all. He never went to the village, never ventured near the finish, let alone the scrum, never took his chance amongst the team vehicles or hotels; yet he always crept around scrounging quotes from the other journalists, wheedling his way up and down the banks of laptops, invariably clearing his chest or picking his ears. Sometimes, Cat sensed him scavenging from her screen over her shoulder; or rather scented him, for he was prone to belch with the force and regularity of a Tourette’s sufferer, his feet were spectacularly vile and oral hygiene was obviously of no concern. He made her jump. He made her skin crawl. She knew it would have been too much to hope that he hadn’t been in the salle the day before.

  I’m too full of adrenalin to be able to digest even a spoonful of humble pie, Cat bemoaned to herself as Josh parked the car near the salle de pressé in Daumier.

  ‘I’m starving,’ yawned Alex, stretching expansively and clonking Josh on the ear as he did so. ‘You’re very quiet,’ he remarked to Cat who did not reply. Josh glanced at her from the rear-view mirror but she looked away before she could receive his supportive wink. Taking a few deep breaths, with eyes cast down though the serene and elegant town of Daumier well deserved her attention, Cat traipsed behind the boys to the salle de pressé.

  ‘Wait up,’ she said to Alex and Josh, ‘can you two flank me?’

  ‘Oughtn’t you be wearing sackcloth,’ Alex teased, ‘not that floaty little sundress – a bag over your head at the very least?’

  ‘But it’s hot,’ Cat remonstrated.

  ‘And the press gang’ll be even hotter,’ Alex remarked, eyeing her up and down.

  ‘I can’t go!’ Cat declared, coming to a standstill.

  ‘Come on,’ said Josh, linking arms with her. They escorted her in, which was a good job really as she was too busy scrutinizing the ground just millimetres in front of each foot fall to take notice of where she ought to be headed and obstacles to avoid.

  Shit. Has everyone gone quiet? Or is my heartbeat just drowning out every other sound? I daren’t look up.

  The boys sat her down between them and Cat started typing immediately; furiously and with her head close to the keyboard and masked by the screen.

  COPY FOR P. TAVERNER @ GUARDIAN SPORTS DESK FROM CATRIONA McCABE IN DAUMIER

  The memory of yesterday’s Repos faded fast (God, I wish it would – I’m going to have to relive it again when next I speak to my sisters) as the Tour de France headed for Provence. The deep massage and physiotherapy the riders would have had yesterday was in retrospect not so much to soothe their limbs from the exertion of 11 days of racing, as to prepare and cajole their bodies for a further 9 days. (Jesus – what’s that? Oh my God, people are clapping.)

  Though a slow round of applause intruded on Cat’s concentration, she decided to give everyone the benefit of the doubt that maybe, just maybe, they were merely applauding a breakaway or hot-spot sprint. She was desperate to watch the race, the Repos had been very nice, thank you, but Cat had withdrawal symptoms for cycling. However, she didn’t dare raise her head though her neck was aching and her shoulders stiff. Josh sweetly whispered a running commentary and Alex supportively denounced the clap-happy posse as a bunch of tossers. Neither could do much about warning Cat that Jan Airie was leering behind her because he had slunk up unannounced, as was his wont.

  ‘Catriona!’ he breathed pungently and invasively close to her ear, forcing her to retreat even further into the questionable space offered by her laptop. ‘I do believe you interviewed young Luca Jones – I’d love to hear your tape – I’m sure it is very interesting.’ Then, though his humour stank and his laughter reeked, he wheezed himself silly at what he perceived to be his great wit. Cat wanted to throw up or hit him, but as the former would mess up her keyboard and the latter would entail face-to-face propinquity, she sat stock still. Airie, proud of himself, skulked off, taking a seat directly in front of Alex and taking a good look at the computer screens of his immediate neighbours. He helped himself to a cigarette from one and stole a swig of Coke from the other.

  ‘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.