by Freya North
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! Wh
at 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.
STAGE 15
Vizille-Gilbertville. 204 kilometres
Most courteously, Alex and Josh had taken the room with bunk beds so that the sisters could have the room with the small double and tiny single bed. Pip told her sisters she ought to take the single bed as she feared she was developing a cold. Josh was well aware that Alex presumed him to be asleep when his colleague crept from the room and when he returned in the early hours. Fen and Cat did not hear Pip leave their room but they heard her return. Facing each other in the double bed, they opened their eyes, raised eyebrows, bit back grins and pretended to be fast asleep.
Cat’s mobile phone woke them for real an hour later, at seven in the morning.
‘Cat?’
‘Rachel?’
‘Are you busy?’
‘Er, no.’
‘Are you asleep?’
‘Er, no.’
‘I need some help – can you come? Bring your sisters. It’s women’s work and I need all hands on deck.’
Rachel welcomed them into the Zucca MV team bus. Cat observed her sisters’ open mouths and wide eyes and realized with a certain warmth how initially she too had been staggered at glimpsing such a different, special, self-contained world; but how now all of this had become the norm to her, a plausible, preferable way of life.
It’s my world too, now. Part of my life. I’m happy here. I feel I belong.
‘Now,’ said Rachel, most officiously, ‘down to bus
iness.’ From a carrier bag, she laid out a selection of porn magazines.
‘Shit,’ Pip gasped, ‘where did you find those?’
‘Are they banned?’ Fen whispered ingenuously. ‘Did you have to confiscate them? Have you to surrender them to Jean Marie LeBlanc?’
Rachel and Cat laughed, though Cat, aware that porn mags were not a banned substance, was not yet sure of their purpose.
‘The boys had a really tough day yesterday,’ Rachel said, flipping through a magazine leisurely, ‘and today the forecast is very hot.’
‘And today they have five mountains to climb,’ Cat added, peering over Rachel’s shoulder at female limbs in a quite startling configuration.
‘So,’ said Rachel, ‘I thought, to hell with tin foil – I’ll wrap their race food in something far more appetizing. We need a production line. Fen, would you mind going through this pile, Pip you have that.’
‘What do you want?’ Fen asked, deadly serious. ‘Big tits?’
‘Split beavers?’ asked Pip soberly.
‘Perfect,’ said Rachel, ‘only try to find bodies where, if there is a face, it’s a pretty one. Bugger the readers’ wives and fuck the ones with so much silicone that their nipples spread out like a rash. Just go for the bimbos – I really want to treat the boys.’
In the front seat of the Système Vipère team car, Fabian Ducasse is pugnaciously silent and aggressively focused. Jules Le Grand is driving him down L’Alpe D’Huez, down the very mountain which the day before Fabian had ascended in his own funeral cortège. He stares straight ahead, not looking at the road, the gradient, the debris from yesterday. His eyes, today the colour of graphite and as seemingly insensate as the rock of the fearsome Alp itself, give nothing away. Fabian’s aquiline features are as sharp as the boulders. A scar scores through his soul in much the same way as the road slices into the mountain. Behind closed lips, his teeth are clenched. However, the external manifestation of his inner turmoil is one of brooding steady focus; he resolutely refuses to allow any hint of emotional turbulence to be visible. It’s strategy. The media must not know. Nor must any rider in the peloton. Nor, he thinks somewhat deludedly, must his directeur.
