make a list,’ said Fen, anxious now to be on foot, on the great mountain, painting names and waiting for their holders to pedal past.
‘What time are they due?’ Pip asked Cat.
‘About five-ish,’ Cat said.
‘It’s six-ish now,’ Pip remarked, not at all concerned that eleven hours separated her and the cyclists.
‘He looks friendly,’ Fen nudges Pip, ‘ask him.’
‘Monsieur? Parlez-vous anglais?’ Pip asks the man.
‘Yes,’ the man says, ‘you speak Dutch?’
‘Um,’ says Pip, ‘not terribly well.’
‘OK,’ the man laughs, ‘we stick with English.’
‘Could we have some of your paint?’ Pip asks assertively.
‘Sure,’ says the Dutchman thinking that eleven hours in the company of these two would be most welcome.
Pip paints for Cat.
V A S S I L Y
Pip paints for herself.
‘One “s”, stupid!’ Fen says, midway through F A B I and trying to remember if it’s E N or A N.
‘Must remember Didier,’ Pip says, ‘let’s do his name really huge.’
D I D I E R
‘I haven’t had so much fun in ages,’ Fen says, flicking Pip surreptitiously when her back is turned. ‘Mind you, I’m a bit bloody cold.’
‘Maybe Mr Rembrandt will have something warm for us,’ Pip says prior to collapsing into giggles with her sister before they compose themselves and return to their whitewash duties.
‘Look,’ says Fen, ‘someone’s painted Lance Armstrong’s name!’
‘But he’s not riding this year,’ Pip remarks of the rider who had won the Tour spectacularly having beaten cancer.
‘Nope,’ Fen says, ‘his wife’s just had another baby.’
‘I’m going to do another Vasily,’ says Pip, ‘just with the one “s”.’
‘OK,’ Fen enthuses, ‘I’ll do Svorada – he’s a spunk.’
‘And then we’ll return the paint and ingratiate ourselves to Mr Van Gogh,’ Pip says very earnestly.
‘Absolutely,’ Fen says, finding room for an exclamation mark after A L L E Z M I L L A R. ‘I’m cold, thirsty and hungry already.’
By 11.15 a.m., when the race rolled out of Grenoble, Pip and Fen had painted the names of most of the peloton and made many friends on L’Alpe D’Huez. Consequently, coffee, beer, junk food, transistor radios and expertise had been laid generously at the English girls’ disposal. Mr Van Gogh was called Marc and Pip whispered to Fen that, in daylight, he appeared to be looking more and more like Johnny Depp. Fen decided her sister probably should not have had a beer for breakfast so she told her to pee behind a boulder, which Pip dutifully did.
‘Remarkably like Johnny Depp,’ she said to Fen on her return. ‘I’m covered in whitewash.’
‘What makes a great climber?’ Fen asked Marc, while Pip gave him a fleeting flutter of her eyelashes.
‘Basically, a strong will and a high strength-to-weight ratio,’ Marc explained, ‘though, being light and nimble, they often lose time to the heavier riders when descending.’
‘Have you ever been to England?’ Pip asked Marc.
‘What makes a good descender then?’ Fen interrupted his reply.
‘Confidence,’ Marc said, ‘supreme nerve.’
‘Your English is so good,’ Pip flattered, beer for breakfast increasing her confidence, ‘you must visit London.’
A cheery Belgian called Fritz offered paprika-flavoured potato chips around. ‘Eye reflexes have to be really sharp and honed,’ he told Fen. ‘That’s OK for the first descents but later, when the riders are tired – ppffp!’ He motioned with his hand a rider careering off the road.
‘Also, the change in rhythm,’ a Danish girl called Jette interjected. ‘It’s very pronounced for the riders to go from the big gears and flat roads to small gears and long climbs – they have to spin rather than churn.’
Fen nodded earnestly.
Pip gazed at Marc.
‘Nerves,’ Marc said, gazing at the gradient of the mountain road unfurling in front of them, ‘the belief you can go a step beyond your limit.’
Pip whistled slowly.
‘Massimo Lipari could well take the Stage,’ said Jette, ‘and claim the King of the Mountains jersey.’
‘Today,’ said Marc, thoroughly enjoying the way that Pip hung on his every word and occasionally his arm too, ‘Jawlensky will challenge Ducasse for the maillot jaune.’
Cat did not see her sisters as she drove Alex and Josh to the salle de pressé but, from the look and sound of the clamouring crowd, she was convinced they’d be having a party and she needn’t worry about them. In fact, she did not have time to spare them much thought. Bad weather was forecast. Dramatic action was prophesied. Jersey-switching was predicted. Frantic rewriting of copy was a foregone conclusion. She had driven the route because, as with the Pyrenees, she needed to experience just a snatch of the haul of the mountains the peloton were going to confront. It had been an arduous drive, well over 100 kilometres longer than the itinéraire direct and L’Alpe D’Huez seemed even more severe than it had in the early hours.
The coverage on the salle de pressé TV screens, however, was not good. Driving rain spattered the camera lenses and, combined with the altitude, the transmission was distorted. It was raining in squalls. Wind sucked and blew as if the heavens were hyperventilating. It was cold. Worse, much worse, than the first day in the Pyrenees. But what the journalists were denied in terms of clear pictures, they gained in terms of drama via snatches of grainy footage of riders battling the elements on the Col du Telegraphe. They were drenched. The descent was going to take them straight to the gruesome north face of the Galibier.
The conditions were appalling. A miserable 12 degrees in the valleys dropped to a little above 3 degrees at the summits. Earlier, drizzle on the hors catégorie Col de La Croix de Fer had deepened to driving rain on the Col du Telegraphe. Massimo Lipari had been first over both peaks and if he could win the Stage, Velasquez’s polka dot jersey would be his. Ensconced as they were in the warmth and
