animatedly, Rachel did not comment. The directeur had already forewarned her that Stefano would be coming for his massage after a strict pep talk; consequently, the rider would be either deeply despondent or darkly defensive. It would be Rachel’s job to massage his psyche into fit shape for the next day’s Stage.
When she had finished Pietro, she asked Massimo if he had had enough to eat and pinged back the earphones on Gianni’s Walkman to ask him if he needed anything. Massimo had eaten sufficient but took another banana, slipping it down his tracksuit bottoms so it poked out like an erection. The first time Rachel had seen this, she hadn’t known where to look. The second time, she hadn’t known how to react. The third time, she’d laughed heartily. Now (and Massimo was in to double figures) she just ignored him. As did the other riders. Massimo still found himself thoroughly amusing. Gianni asked Rachel if he could borrow the Cosmopolitan,
‘What’s mine is yours, Gianni,’ Rachel said magnanimously, ‘you know that.’
Massimo grabbed the magazine, flipped through it with much exaggerated ogling, fingered his goatee lasciviously, performed some lewd pelvic thrusting until the banana slipped down his tracksuit and poked out at the side of his leg like some gruesomely broken bone.
With the three riders gone, the room seemed temporarily vast until Stefano entered without knocking and filled it entirely with the thunder that was swept about him like a cloak. In fact, it was a voluminous, somewhat incongruous peach towelling robe but his blazing eyes and the muscles in his cheeks twitching furiously deflected attention from it.
‘Never do I be speaked to as that!’ he spat, his command of English suffering in the clasp of his indignation.
‘Never have I been spoken to like that,’ Rachel placated, smoothing a fresh towel on the massage bench. Stefano stripped and stood before Rachel in his naked glory though she had ceased to see it long ago. She handed him a towel, which he slipped between his legs nappy-style once he’d climbed aboard the table.
‘Lomers!’ Stefano growled like an expletive directed at the vigour of Rachel’s massage. Rachel took her hands away from his body, wiped them and put them on her hips.
‘Stefano,’ she said, ‘shut up. It’s Lomers who should be spitting your name.’
‘It was my line,’ Stefano protested, sitting up and regarding Rachel squarely, ‘I rode it correctly. I did not flick him.’
‘On the life of your mother?’ Rachel challenged him. Predictably, Stefano, ever the dutiful Italian son, fell silent.
‘Take risks by all means,’ Rachel said, gently pushing the rider’s shoulder so he lay back down. She looked down on him, her hands on her hips again, ‘but don’t ride dangerously. You will either get hurt or disqualified. Then Lomers will wear the green jersey and you will be watching him from the TV in your apartment. And your mother will weep.’
‘Still, no one speaks to Stefano Sassetta like that,’ Stefano said petulantly, referring back to the directeur’s rebuke.
‘They will if you deserve it,’ Rachel said. She massaged him hard. He stared unflinchingly at the ceiling. ‘Beware,’ she said as she sent him on his way, down to supper, ‘rain is forecast for tomorrow. The roads could be hell.’
Cat sits in her hotel room, ruminating on her day.
Three elements have made her Stage I not such a good one. Disappointment. Bewilderment. Trepidation. She had not considered having to confront such emotions, not on the Tour de France. She’d only anticipated tiredness, stress and irritability at some point surely much later in the race.
I need to consider these new three before I’m allowed to go to sleep.
Start with Disappointment.
I did not see one wheel turn of cycling today – not live. We drove directly to Rouen, missing the route altogether. The itinéraire direct was 46 k. We did it in forty-five minutes. The boys did 195 k in just over four and a half hours.
Couldn’t you have suggested to Josh that you drove the route ahead of the race?
I did. He frowned and laughed. It was embarrassing.
Number two, Bewilderment?
I miss the ice rink. I miss little Delaunay Le Beau. I knew it well – five days there. The salle de pressé in Rouen is this 1950s clump of glass and concrete – civic and austere. Josh and Alex.
That’s not a sentence.
Didn’t save me a place.
Oh. But on purpose?
I mean – I only nipped to the loo. This hefty German journo pushed by me. He dumped his stuff by Alex.
So they had saved a place for you.
But they didn’t defend it. They just shrugged. I had to set up in the smaller press room. The only cycling I saw was one step removed, via the press TVs.
Cat, can you hear yourself?
I know. I’m feeble. In the finish-line scrum, I was just plain flimsy.
Is that number three, Trepidation?
Absolutely. An all English-speaking result – not only did I not get a word in or out, I didn’t even manage to get close to any of them. I stood on tiptoes near the swarm around Hincapie but learnt my lesson when some Bavarian brute sent me flying. Then I tried for O’Grady, but a wall of men was formed around him, not even a chink to wriggle my arm and dictaphone through. Alex had just left the Jay Sweet mêlée and looked straight through me. Seeing Josh having to barge for a soundbite from Travis Stanton decided me not to even attempt to approach. So then I wandered off and came across the lacerated Luca.
How can you be glum about that?
Because I was pretty shaken and didn’t come across as I wished I had. As I’d envisaged I’d be.
Good quote, though.
I suppose.
And a smile from Luca and his doctor.
I suppose. He’s strange, that bloke, Ben. I find him a bit unnerving.
Because he’s good-looking and direct?
OK, don’t answer.
Sleep well.
STAGE 2
Rouen-Vuillard. 260 kilometres
The next morning, the whole of Rouen awoke to the incessant thrumming of rain. Rachel was pleased – Stefano would be forced to be more vigilant. On the whole, the riders from the lowlands didn’t mind such weather, but those from southern Europe mostly hated it. For physiques attuned to long hot summers, the cold or the damp could infiltrate their bodies swiftly and disrupt the pursuit of prime form. Stefano Sassetta was only too aware that he was of the latter persuasion but that his arch rival
