by Freya North
‘Big Mac,’ Cat whispered, eyes still closed, ‘large fries,’ she continued though an excess of saliva made her voice a little odd, ‘and a vanilla milk shake.’
‘Now and only now,’ said Josh, squeezing her shoulder, ‘are you a true press man of the Tour de France. Congratulations.’
And so, over supper at MacDonalds, while Alex, Josh, Cat and Ben indulged in their fantasy meals in appreciative silence, Fen and Pip told Cat all about their journey, their arrival, their day and what on earth and where on earth would their night take them.
‘They could have your room,’ Ben said, removing a glob of Special Sauce from Cat’s chin. Everyone nodded, especially Alex, who, resuscitated by the splendour of such a meal, suddenly had designs on both sisters and enormous self-belief that he could have the one, the other, or both, whenever he so chose.
‘Tomorrow,’ Alex said, ‘we’re staying in an apartment at the ski station – so you two can crash with us there.’
‘Please,’ Pip said, thinking Alex quite handsome actually, ‘where’s best to watch the race? We hardly saw a thing today.’
‘L’Alpe D’Huez,’ Cat said, ‘but there will be at least a quarter of a million people on the mountain – many of whom have been there for days, literally.’
‘Oh,’ said Fen, dejected.
‘Oh,’ said Pip, disappointed.
‘I could drive you there at the crack of dawn,’ Cat said, immensely touched that her sisters had come to find her, but moved to the extreme that they had come to see the Tour de France.
‘Ben?’ says Cat, as they lie on their backs, post orgasm, with their heart rates thundering, their bodies gratifyingly sweaty and their erogenous zones well satiated.
‘Yes, Cat?’ Ben says woozily.
‘I think I’d like to go back to my hotel, if that’s OK?’
Ben rolls over, takes Cat’s hands above her head and regards her in the half-light. Everything about her is glossy; her eyes, her hair, her skin. She smells fantastic, she had tasted wonderful. ‘Is that OK?’ Cat says again.
‘Of course it is,’ Ben whispers.
‘’Sme,’ says Cat, knocking at her hotel room door. The sisters snuggle against each other, as often they have, in a rather small double bed. They stroke faces and hold hands and natter well into the night, as often they have. They settle into a very short sleep before waking at an ungodly hour to make the pilgrimage to cycling’s mecca, L’Alpe D’Huez.
STAGE 14
Grenoble-L’Alpe D’Huez. 189 kilometres
‘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 stron
g 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 mus
cles 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.’
