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

‘And I’ll be in Colorado,’ said Ben, amazed that Grenoble had crept up on them so quickly.

‘Exactly,’ said Fen.

‘Exactly, indeed,’ said Ben.

‘I wish you weren’t nice,’ Fen rued, ‘I wish you and my sister had never met.’

‘Charming,’ said Ben with equanimity.

‘Ben,’ Fen sighed, ‘I am warning you – I really am.’

‘Fen,’ said Ben gravely, regarding her, ‘thank you. You don’t have to.’

‘I won’t have her hurt,’ Fen whispered, not wanting to look at Ben, taking her wrist away from his proffered hand, ‘but that’s inescapable.’

Ben was driving very slowly.

And me. I will too. Hurt. Miss her. Like I’ve never experienced.

Tell Fen. Just say it out loud.

No. Not until I’ve told Cat.

Ben is back at his hotel by eleven o’clock. Cat is asleep in his bed. He slips between the sheets quietly and spends a few minutes observing her; moonlight sifting into the room through ill-fitting curtains and whispering silver highlights over her body. Gently, he hovers his hand over her bare shoulder and then lets it rest lightly on her skin. She makes a small noise in her throat and it makes him smile. He strokes her arm with his fingertips and brings his body close to hers. He breathes deeply into the top of her head.

I know that smell. It’s not shampoo. It’s Cat McCabe. She says she knows my hands. Well, I know her scent off by heart.

STAGE 16

Gilbertville-Aix-les-Bains. 149 kilometres

The Tour de France lasts for six more days. In that time, loose ends need to be tied and those currently knotted need to be unravelled. The race is now about loss and gain. Both on the bike. And off. The riders of the peloton have each now lost an average four pounds in muscle which their bodies have resorted to pillaging for energy. Luca lost his nerve but found it again. Fabian has lost his yellow jersey but has designs on gaining it back. Vasily wears the yellow jersey and has no intention of losing it. Jesper Lomers wonders whether his marriage is lost. He leads Stefano Sassetta by just a few points. However, though Jesper defended his jersey ruthlessly in the mountains, Stefano rode strategically. Consequently, the Rotterdam Rocket Viper Boy is tastily clad in green lycra, but Dark Duke Thunder Thighs has ridden without the pressure of defending a jersey and has thus conserved crucial energy. Vasily Jawlensky leads the race with a 2 minute 33 second lead over Fabian Ducasse. Of the 161 riders remaining, the Lantern Rouge of the Tour de France is the twenty-year-old Portuguese rider, José Ribero. He is 3 hours 5 minutes and 18 seconds behind the maillot jaune.

When Jules Le Grand dressed this morning, he dressed for business. He chose a lightweight navy suit, a silk shirt in sky blue and fine leather loafers which he wore sockless. Though he would be driving the team car along the route and his clothing would become creased and crumpled, he has enough suits in pristine condition to last until Paris. During the first two weeks of the Tour, Jules’s presence in the village each morning had a public relations function for Système Vipère; he had made himself readily available and consistently charming to journalists, officials and VIPs alike. This final week, Jules will go to the village as directeur sportif to the world’s number-one professional road racing team. He has no interest in journalists, officials and VIPs; in fact, he is all but blind to their presence, even contemptuous of their overtures. His sole mission, the raison d’être for his presence, is to seduce riders, to lure them into his fold. Other directeur sportifs will see him at work, stalking, talking, schmoozing, perusing. Short of keeping their entire teams tethered, they will be unable to prevent Le Grand’s inveiglement. They might avert their riders defecting providing they outdo Jules in the wage packets and flattery stakes. Jules is well aware that other directeurs will approach his Viper Boys, but he is confident that his team will remain loyal; apart from one domestique whose contract he has not renewed, and Jesper Lomers whose contract still needs signing.

Luca Jones visited the barber’s stall in the village for a haircut. Pleased with the result and buoyed by the glances from many a bella signorina (and signora too), he went to the Maison du Café stand for a cup of sweet coffee.

‘Allow me,’ said Jules Le Grand, suddenly at Luca’s side, fanning three sachets of sugar, adding the contents to the rider’s plastic cup without relinquishing eye contact or saying anything else. ‘I know what you like,’ Jules continued once he was stirring the cup which Luca held, ‘coffee with three sugars – right?’

‘Yes,’ said Luca, off his guard and self-kickingly dumbstruck.

‘Come,’ said Jules, walking well ahead, knowing, without turning, that the young rider would follow. They walked past the giant omelette stand, past the Coeur de Lion cheese extravaganza, to a small, open marquee to one side where there was a table with two chairs free towards the back, the others having been taken by local dignitaries and VIPs. Jules held back a chair for Luca and sat down himself once the rider was seated.

‘Yesterday,’ Jules started, ‘I witnessed something extraordinary. Something which once again filled my heart with passion for this great sport of cycling.’

Luca nodded earnestly. ‘Fabian,’ the rider interjected, ‘is an awesome rider. To suffer so much, to lose the maillot jaune and then to come back the very next day and win the Stage – incredible.’

‘I am not talking of Fabian Ducasse,’ Jules said surprisingly derisively, ‘I am talking of a young rider on his first Tour de France who suffered to the depths of his being on the heights of L’Alpe D’Huez.’

‘Oh,’ said Luca, thinking he should sip his coffee and make use of the caffeine, but wondering when he might need to speak again.

‘I am referring,’ Jules continued, ‘to a rider who shows more than promise. Indeed, this rider has the promise of sheer brilliance. He recovered supremely yesterday – his morale was high and his legs were strong. He rode sensibly and scaled the General Classification by eight positions.’ Luca nodded and thought he really ought to drink the coffee if he was to manage to pee and then absorb two more doses of caffeine.

‘Please,’ said Jules, ‘drink – I know what you need, what you like. Coffee with three sugars.’

Luca drank; a little faster than he’d like, but with Jules now silent and staring intently at him, relaxing over coffee was not a possibility.

‘This rider of whom I speak,’ said Jules rather theatrically, looking to the middle distance as if seeing a vision of his subject there, ‘has enormous talent. But it must be nurtured, it must be nourished, loved. It must be developed and honed. True potential must never be wasted.’ He paused till he knew he had Luca’s gaze. ‘Sometimes true talent can remain untapped.’ He paused again. ‘Travesty!’ he spat. Luca nodded earnestly, now needing to pee rather urgently. ‘This rider I speak of,’ said Jules, ‘is you, Luca Jones. You are a good rouleur but you could well be fantastic. You have the makings of a true champion. Système Vipère would be honoured to have you as a team member.’

Luca Jones almost pissed his shorts and his coffee very nearly fountained out of his mouth. But he crossed his legs and swallowed hard so he could murmur, ‘Fucking hell!’ instead. Jules was standing. ‘Think about it, Luca,’ he said. ‘I would of course say “name your price” but once I tell you of what I have in mind – the salary, the apartment, the bikes, the Système Vipère super micro hi-fi – I don’t think you will need to negotiate.’ He laid his hand on Luca’s shoulder, bent to his ear and spoke a figure that was roughly double Luca’s Megapac wage. And then Jules was gone. And Luca sat immobile, murmuring, ‘Fucking hell!’ desperate to phone Mama, to find Ben, to piss, to absorb caffeine, to run around the village yelling. ‘I have the makings of a true champion! I have enormous talent as long as it’s nourished and nurtured!’ Of course he did none of these. He sat alone, utterly speechless apart from ‘Fucking hell!’ whispered to himself at regular intervals.

There’s a Viper Boy, Luca remarked to himself as he was leaving the village. I could be riding with Jesper Fucking Lomers.

‘Ciao, Jesper!’ he greeted, making a detour, presuming, for some reason, that the whole team must have colluded on the potential acquisition of Luca Jones.

‘Luca,’ Jesper acknowledged, a little baffled at the magnitude of the young rider’s smile but pleased to respond to this likeable newcomer to the peloton. Briefly, Jesper watched Luca go on his way, before making his own way to Maison du Café. He took his coffee and went to sit with a posse of Dutch riders from various teams who liked to gather at one of the marquees each morning to sit in affable silence or chat quietly and usually, for some reason, in English. Today, Jesper chose silence but his was more reflective than sociable and the others sensed this and steered tactfully away from intrusion. Jesper looked around the village.

This is my world. It is all I have ever dreamed of, wanted, worked to have.

Metres away, he watched as a young woman was approached and embraced by a man.

Or is my world with my wife? Where is that world? Who am I within it? Where is Anya?

Suddenly, Jesper longed for a woman, for feminine tenderness and attention.

Just what is it that defines me? What is it that makes me feel whole? My bike? My woman?

He reflected on the irony that, as second in command in Système Vipère, he had privileges not afforded to the lesser riders. His own room. The company of his woman if he really required it.

And yet the domestiques sneak in pussy to their shared rooms and my wife has not made one appearance.

En route to the village for a quick cup of coffee, Ben was concerned to spy Didier LeDucq engrossed in furtive conversation behind a generator. Didier was in bad company. Jan van Loth wa a Flemish rider with a flagrant lack of respect for clean riding and a notorious ability to keep a step ahead of the dope controls.

Van Loth saw Ben before Didier and stealthed away in an instant. When Didier saw his doctor, he smiled and raised his hand in an atypical display of affection and hastily employed innocence. As Didier approached, Ben racked his conscience for how best to handle the situation. His job was to oversee the riders’ health and well being, his duty was to maintain their confidence and trust.

It is an exceptionally delicate balance and I’m holding fragile scales in hands which are unsteady.

But the only way for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

‘Bonjour, Ben,’ said Didier, all smiles, standing tall, the picture of innocence and a curse upon anyone who would dare think anything else of him.

‘Hullo, Didier,’ said Ben breezily instead, ‘lovely morning for it.’

Ask him what the fuck he thinks he’s doing. What is he thinking of taking. And when.

‘A lovely morning,’ said Didier, still smiling easily, ‘indeed. I saw Luca being talked to by Jules Le Grand.’ He raised an eyebrow, a gesture which Ben returned.

And I saw you talking to Jan van Loth.