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

‘Unbelievable,’ Ben shook his head.

‘As old as my Mama!’ Luca rued. He took the pamphlet from Ben. ‘Ben York, a brilliant young British doctor,’ Luca read very theatrically, ‘whose wisdom we admire, whose care we are so grateful for, whose advice we trust, whose friendship we cherish.’ Luca regarded Ben, clicked his heels and saluted the doctor. ‘Hail, Mighty Medicine Man, my Lord, my Keeper, Great and Godly Giver of Vitamin B12 and Creatine.’

‘You know they’ve printed over 3,000,’ Ben informed him, taking the pamphlet from Luca to fan himself.

Luca nodded. ‘And have you seen the baseball caps and T-shirts? The journalists are getting them too.’

‘Not to mention the cereal bars,’ Ben elaborated. ‘You know they’re emblazoned with the logo and the words “as depended on by our brave team”?’

Luca’s jaw dropped. ‘I never bloody ate one in my life!’

Ben manipulated Luca’s ankles. ‘If you riders don’t impress the media, this treatise and accompanying branded freebies certainly will.’

‘We’re a friggin’ wildcard team,’ Luca exclaimed. ‘It was only confirmed we’d be racing the Tour a month ago.’

‘Megapac are a wildcard team only because they’re not ranked in the UCI top sixteen,’ Ben said, almost sternly. ‘It has nothing to do with the quality of the riders – merely that you’re a relatively new team and therefore have amassed no track record.’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ Luca said, leaning forward so Ben could listen to his chest.

‘Don’t rush your career,’ Ben mused. ‘If you went to Mercatone Uno or Saeco, you’d be a much smaller fish. You can really shine at Megapac – you already have. A Stage win in your first Giro – bloody marvellous. Now, let me listen to your heart,’ Ben said, stethoscope at the ready.

‘My heart,’ Luca proclaimed, with his right hand clasped at it for emphasis, ‘belongs to Megapac. God Bless America.’

Ben and he laughed heartily and then fell silent while Luca’s impressive organ was analysed.

‘Good,’ said Ben, ‘you’re really in good nick. Just take care, young man. Recuperation is the key to success.’

Luca sat up on the side of the examination table and took a couple of deep breaths. ‘Drink tonight?’

‘You can have a beer,’ Ben cautions, ‘and no women. Or vice versa.’

‘Yeah,’ Luca laughed, ‘something like that.’ He sprang down from the bench, slipped into his tracksuit, gave Ben a high five and arranged to meet him later.

Ben smiled as he prepared for the next rider.

For me, Luca personifies the point of the Tour de France – the international flavour and colour that epitomizes the peloton. He’s going to hit his peak during the Tour and do great things for the team. It’s going to be his first Tour de France, coming only a month after his first Giro where he won a Stage in fine style. He’ll go far. With my help. Ambition is in his soul but his body is in my hands. That’s the kick for me.

Ben is sharing beer and banter with Hunter and Travis, the two American stars of Megapac. Hunter Dean and Travis Stanton are as focused and earnest as Luca is cavalier and spirited. Both are all-American boys: Hollywood handsome, open demeanour, and awesomely fit, for whom Commitment is their creed, Dedication their dogma and very much with capital letters. They’re ambassadors – representing Megapac and the United States in general, cycling in particular, their families, their colleges, their home towns specifically. They love their bikes and their moms and dads and kid siblings, their buddies in the teams and their fiancées with dreamy daft names to whom they dedicate race wins, Stage wins, tough days or good rides.

‘Cycling is lucky to have been chosen by you,’ Ben says, eating peanuts, ‘because I suspect you could have turned to any sport you wished and excelled.’

They know more about vitamin supplements than I do. They love sports massage; they love citing their VO

Max and how many kilometres they ride a year. They love knowing what their ideal body fat percentage is and they love training hard and eating the right things to ensure that they maintain it. They love quoting their power output in terms of watts, and mantras which they chant and believe in. They believe in themselves. Belief is both the ultimate and minimum requirement for any cyclist who wishes to survive the Tour de France, let alone do well.

‘As I said in my mission statement,’ says Hunter, touching a peanut and then forsaking it, ‘When I was a kid, I had a dream and my dream was to represent a great national team, to represent my country. I’m living my dream, man, living my dream.’ He sighs and nods gravely at Ben. ‘My statement continued: They say that racing takes it out of you, but by racing, I believe I’m giving something back. I ride because I love it but I race for all of you. That’s me, Ben, that’s how it is for me.’

Ben sips his beer thoughtfully.

I don’t know whether to kiss the bloke or piss myself laughing.

‘Your mission statement,’ Ben says instead, ‘did you write it? Were you interviewed?’

‘Interviewed? Was I fuck,’ says Hunter. ‘Sure I wrote it.’

‘And you, Travis?’ Ben asks.

‘It’s a mission statement,’ Travis exclaims, as if Ben is mentally deficient, ‘of course you write it yourself. Or it ain’t yours. What would that make the mission? Fucking bogus.’

‘Do, er, you know yours off by heart?’ Ben enquires, grateful that Luca is out of earshot or keeping his straight face would be a physical impossibility and mental torture.

Travis balks, as if Ben has asked a most ridiculous question. ‘It starts off: They say you never forget how to ride a bike and I guess that’s true. Racing professionally enables me to make my living out of a pastime that is a pleasure for so many people.’ He pauses and shrugs. ‘And it goes on, you know?’

Ben is saved a rendition of the entire statement by a rumpus at the other end of the bar. It is Luca, surrounding himself with an impressive, hungry female entourage. ‘What is it about Luca?’ Hunter shakes his head. ‘Huh, Ben?’

‘A blend of sound and vision,’ Ben shrugs, raising a bottle of beer on catching Luca’s eye.

‘Huh?’

‘The aural senses send nerve impulses to woman’s carnal core,’ Ben expostulates, knowing it’s bullshit but that Hunter would never think so. ‘At least, that’s my theory.’

‘Huh?’ Hunter repeats, wondering whether it is a finer point of medicine, Ben’s grammar or the effect of the rare beer that is making comprehension a little difficult.

‘Ears, right?’ Travis clarifies.

‘The accent,’ Ben specifies. ‘Luca’s curious blend of Italian and Carnaby Street peppered with Americanisms causes an involuntary chemical reaction in womenfolk.’

Hunter laughs and chinks bottles with Ben and Travis. ‘Way to go, Luca!’

‘You can kissa my ass ’cos I’m not going up that fuckin’ ’ill,’ Ben imitates Luca perfectly.

‘Fucking Al!’ Hunter proclaims, chinking bottles again and taking a good swig.

‘Plus,’ Ben continues in all seriousness, ‘it comes out of the mouth of a perfectly formed, aesthetically pleasing twenty-four-year-old.’

They observe the younger rider, in his element, flirting for England, or Italy, or America. Wherever. Perfect white teeth surrounded by pillowy lips, set into a boyish face atop a beautifully athletic physique.

‘Look at those women,’ Ben remarks objectively, motioning to the throng with his beer bottle, ‘they are utterly bewildered. They are caught in an extreme dilemma.’

‘They are?’ Travis probes, inquisitiveness keeping him in the bar though he’s glanced at his watch and thinks that, at half past nine and after half a bottle of beer, he really should be leaving so he can get eight hours’ sleep. ‘What’s the problem?’

‘Well,’ says Ben contemplatively, ‘they don’t know what they want more – to mother him or fuck him.’

‘Je-sus!’ Hunter exclaims. ‘He’s a fucking bike rider.’

‘Exactly,’ says Ben, ‘they can’t decide whether they’d rather run their fingers through those soft, Botticelli curls or grab hold of his buttocks and drive their nails right in.’

‘Go, Luca!’ Travis jockeys, ordering another beer and thinking what the hell.