The McCabe Girls Complete Collection: Cat, Fen, Pip, Home Truths. Freya North

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      STAGE 10

      Luchon-Plateau de Boudin. 170 kilometres

      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, СКАЧАТЬ