Cat

She grips herself hard.

Right, I’ll turn around, pretend I’m looking for a – for a clock – then I’ll shift my gaze and say, ‘Oh hi! Weren’t you on the Tour of Britain?’ Or maybe just regard him like I know I know him but can’t figure out where from, and then snap my fingers and say, ‘Tour of Britain?’ Or maybe—

‘Shall we go on deck?’

No! Wait! I haven’t turned round yet.

‘Yeah, sure – another beer?’

‘Yeah – start as we mean to carry on.’

‘You’re telling me! Come on, let’s split.’

Wait – I’m going to turn around right now and say, ‘Hi, I’m Cat McCabe, I’m reporting for the Guardian – I think I met you at the Tour of Britain.’ See – now!

But it is too late. The backs of two men are all Cat sees and she cannot deduce whether or not she has met one of them.

Tomorrow. I’ll find them tomorrow and I’ll introduce myself then. And if they ask when and how I arrived, I’ll feign surprise that ‘No way! I was on that ferry too!’

Oh God.

Me, myself and I for over three weeks in France.

Wednesday. Hôtel Splendide, Delaunay Le Beau. 2.30 p.m.

Rachel McEwen banged her clenched fist down on the concierge’s counter. Her treacle-coloured hair was loose and rather wild and her eyes were ablaze with fury and indignation.

‘Mademoiselle?’ said the clerk, with a superciliously raised eyebrow that made Rachel clench and reclench her fist as if she was about to aim a blow.

‘Look,’ Rachel said in a cold, courteous voice that served to accentuate her outrage more descriptively than any physical attack, ‘it is not my room I want changing, but room 46. I am not having one of my riders sleeping on a camp bed in a cramped room with crap curtains.’

‘Wait,’ said the clerk witheringly, dropping the one eyebrow and then twitching the other, along with a slight smirk, as he disappeared. He returned with his smirk and also a smartly dressed woman.

‘Good afternoon,’ said Rachel. ‘I was trying to explain to your colleague that I find it unacceptable that there is only one decent bed in room 46. I have two riders sharing and I will not have either one sleeping on a camp bed.’

‘Miss?’ the manageress, as she transpired to be, enquired.

‘Mc–Ewen,’ said Rachel briskly, breaking her name as she only ever did when she was deadly serious and very annoyed. ‘I am soigneur for Zucca MV.’

‘Zucca!’ the lady marvelled quietly, flushing slightly. ‘Miss McEwen, I am terribly sorry. I will of course rectify this problem immediately.’ She rustled through an index file, tapped officiously at a computer and gabbled at the clerk who scurried off, the smirk wiped from his face. She raised an eyebrow in a much more impressive way than her male junior. ‘Room 46 – Massimo Lipari? Ah, and Gianni Fugallo – a good domestique.’

Rachel smiled.

Here’s the link. Here’s the bond. A passion shared is a problem solved.

‘I shall put them in room 40 – I don’t know how this could have happened and I apologize.’

‘Thank you,’ Rachel said, the relief in her voice softening her tone, her hair no longer seeming wild but, rather, merely unkempt through stress and a devotion to priorities in which concerns for coiffure were too petty to feature.

‘Miss McEwen,’ the manager cleared her voice, ‘if it is possible, an autograph? From Massimo? For me – Claudia?’

‘Bien sûr,’ Rachel nodded.

Funny how I know just enough idioms in French, Spanish, Italian – even Portuguese and Flemish – to get by! If we ever raced in Latvia, no doubt I’d learn the lingo for ‘no problem’, or ‘cheers’, or ‘put your hands away I’m not interested in sleeping with you’.

Rachel marched back to the lifts, back to room 46 and told a dejected-looking Gianni not to worry. Then she made two trips to room 40, transferring the riders’ bags and belongings while they sat on the one good bed, resting their legs and feeling the minutes ebb away and the Tour loom ever nearer.

Wednesday. Hôtel Splendide, Delaunay Le Beau. 5.30 p.m.

‘Yes?’ said the manageress to, remarkably, another British girl.

‘MissMcCabe,’ Cat strung in a rushed whisper, looking around the foyer, her heart still racing from the excitement of spying the cars of three different teams in the hotel car park, emblazoned with logos and crowned with the bike racks.

Cofidis! Banesto! Zucca MV!

‘Ah, Miss McCabe, your room is on the fifth floor. Number 50.’

When Cat arrived at the lifts she grinned, for there, as in all races, regardless of prestige, a list of the teams and their rooms was pinned unceremoniously.

Jesus – what a perfect, God-given sandwich I have become!

Temporarily flabbergasted, Cat scanned the list over and again, pinching herself that what she saw was correct.

It says so! Massimo Lipari and Gianni Fugallo directly below, Jose Maria Jimenez directly above. If Jimenez and Lipari want to vie for pin-up of the peloton, they can always meet half-way at room 50 and let me be the judge!

The fact that room 50 turned out to be rather small, with the teak veneer fittings and meagre chewing-gum-grey towels typical of a sub-2-star hotel, was of no consequence to Cat.

I’m here in France surrounded by the boys!

Wednesday. Hôtel Splendide, Delaunay Le Beau. 11.29 p.m.

Stefano Sassetta is delighted. Thanks to Rachel, his soigneur, he does not have to share a room. He had a great training ride this morning and is confident he will attain peak form during this first week, be invincible in the sprints and start hoovering up bonuses for the points in the green jersey competition. His thighs feel good and, after Rachel’s incomparable massage and Stefano’s lengthy scrutiny in the bathroom mirror, they look sublime to him. Stefano has been zapping through the television channels. His French is poor so he continues to flick the remote control, stopping awhile at MTV, enjoying a few minutes of boxing on Eurosport before it becomes tractor racing or dominoes, or some commensurately poor excuse for a sport. On he zaps. He is tired. He should sleep. But he is too psyched. If his manager came in and suggested a night ride, he’d be on his bike in a flash. He feels powerful and proud. And now he is delighted, for, two channels on from Eurosport, a porn movie is in its throes. Now he’ll be able to sleep. Masturbation is a great idea. Masturbation is better than sex – no energy wasted, as an ejaculation uses only sixty calories. No energy thrown away on pleasuring anyone but himself.

Thursday. Delaunay Le Beau. 10 a.m.

In the timescale of the Tour de France, Thursday is the dawn of two days of medicals for the riders, accreditation for the journalists and press conferences for both.

The previous evening, though Cat had tried valiantly to stay awake and recline demurely on her bed reading, neither Jose Maria Jimenez or Massimo Lipari had come to see her. She had woken in the early hours, dejected and still clothed.

As if they would have come to my bloody room.

Feeling a little foolish, she had crawled under the bedcovers, still clothed, for a few more hours of exhausted sleep.

Now, showered, changed twice, breakfasted and disappointed that there were no riders in sight, Cat left the hotel; the whirlwind of butterflies in her stomach at odds with the balmy climate outside. The trees, lampposts and road signs in the town of Delaunay Le Beau, which was hosting the Prologue and housing the Tour entourage, were bedecked with arrows pointing the colour-coded way for anyone who had anything to do with the Tour de France. For Cat, to follow the green pressé arrows was like being led on a treasure hunt.

Somewhat circuitously (the prerogative of the town’s chambre de commerce), the route took her past picturesque squares, the main shopping area, the university and the hospital – anyone who was anything to do with the Tour de France was to be subliminally persuaded that Delaunay Le Beau was a pretty town with excellent facilities. For Delaunay Le Beau, paying to play host, the Tour meant Tourism. Eventually, she arrived at the Permanence, an ironic title for the eternally temporary headquarters of the Société du Tour de France. In Delaunay Le Beau, it was housed in the grandiose town hall.

Cat McCabe had no idea what to expect – from Thursday, from the Permanence, from anything at all. For Ben York, however, an anxious female chewing her lip while her eyes darted as if on a pinball course was certainly not what he expected to see when he escorted his Megapac riders to the Permanence for their physical assessments. His groin gave an appreciative stir and his lips a flit of a smile at the sight of her. He felt almost privileged, as if spying the first swallow of summer before anyone else.