back and see.
Oh. Alex and Josh are sitting by Ben. Eating olives. Drinking Seize. Oh.
‘Hey, Cat,’ Alex says, a little dishevelled in the hair and somewhat wild about the eyes.
‘Finito completo,’ says Josh, who looks utterly exhausted.
‘Hullo, guys,’ says Cat, taking her seat, glancing at Ben and wondering if that really was a glimmer of a remorseful shrug he’s just given her. ‘I’m having croque monsieur,’ she announces as if her fellow press men had been pondering a reason for her presence at the table with Ben and his olives and the strong beer.
‘So are we,’ says Josh.
They eat. They talk. Cat concentrates only on Josh and Alex, studiously avoiding any eye contact, any direct anything, with Ben, though she so wants to. Ben, however, ensures he speaks to Cat directly; he buys her another beer, he even answers on her behalf.
‘No,’ he tells Josh, ‘the guy at Maillot didn’t seem very interested in her ideas for an article on female soigneurs.’
Josh yawned. ‘Shit,’ he said, ‘I forgot to phone home.’
Cat wonders whether this has been said for her benefit and wonders again whether Josh has designs on her. And she wonders if she has designs on Ben and whether it’s presumptuous or OK for her to wonder whether this is reciprocated. And then she thinks what utter nonsense. This is the Tour de France. It’s work. Her livelihood. Absolutely no room for anything else.
‘Beer?’ Alex asks.
Ben yawns. ‘I’d better push some zeds,’ he says.
‘Pardon?’ Cat says.
‘You know,’ Ben explains, with a chuckle at his wit, touching her arm, ‘like a cartoon character asleep with “z”s coming out of their mouth.’
Cat finds this funny. So do Alex and Josh. But Cat laughs longer, and more loudly. In fact, she gives Ben’s knee a quick push and wonders whether that’s OK. It felt OK to do it. More than OK. Was it OK for it to be felt by Ben? Witnessed by the other two?
Can’t we stay a while longer?
Alex stands and stretches and blasphemes whilst yawning. Josh rises too and does the same, without the choice epithets. Ben stands up. He doesn’t yawn but he clasps the back of his neck drawing Cat’s eyes to his elbows before they meet his. Cat is disappointed.
Please stay. I’m enjoying myself. This is what I was hoping for, camaraderie. Colleagues becoming friends. That we’d work hard and earn evenings like this.
Exactly. You’re all here working. So there will be tomorrow. Indeed, just under three weeks of tomorrows.
‘Night all,’ Ben says, heading for the stairs.
‘Later!’ says Josh, as is his wont.
‘See you,’ says Alex through a yawn, pressing for the lift.
‘Night, Ben,’ Cat says, though he has now gone.
‘I think you’ve pulled there,’ Alex goads, leaning against the mirror in the lift, regarding Cat quizzically.
‘Don’t be a wanker,’ says Josh, rubbing his eyes, his bristled chin, ‘she’s got a boyfriend back home.’
STAGE 3
Vuillard-Plumelec. 225 kilometres
I don’t want Josh to fancy me and I don’t want Josh to tell Ben, thought Cat, quite urgently when waking with a start in the early hours. I don’t want Ben to think that I have a boyfriend. Because, of course, I do not. Oh. But that means I actively want Ben to know I’m single. If I fancy Ben, which I do, it must mean that I now feel single. If I’m feeling single, it is the lid on the coffin of my time with Him. To fancy another, to want another, to be with another, would symbolize the ultimate sealing nail in that coffin. How do I feel about all that?
Her meanderings led her to a thick sleep for a couple of hours. She awoke again, still way before dawn.
Fancying Ben might allow me to bury my past relationship, those intrusive memories and my deluded hopes of Him. That would be wise.
Cat slept for an hour more and then rose before six thirty.
Bullshit, Cat. Ben has no purpose, nothing to do with Him back home. The point – and it is indisputable – is that I fancy Ben, full stop. He turns me on. I want him.
She rummaged around her rucksack and laid out a selection of her clothing in various configurations. Really, it was far too early to start dressing. The riders would not be signing on until 10.30. Cat therefore had four hours to decide what to wear and she tried on a number of alternatives. Soon enough she was sitting despondent on her bed, in a mismatched bra and knickers. She took her mobile phone and dialled.
‘Hullo?’ Fen was startled. It was an hour earlier in GMT after all. An early phone call was often a harbinger of death, of doom at the very least.
‘It’s me,’ Cat whispered, fearing the walls might be thin enough to entitle her neighbours access to her revelations.
‘Jesus, what’s up?’ Fen asked.
‘Up?’ Cat replied, concerned at her sister’s tone.
‘It’s so early – are you OK?’ Fen persisted.
‘Oh shit!’ Cat exclaimed, the time difference dawning on her. ‘I’m fine. I just wanted to call. To say hullo.’
‘I see,’ said Fen measuredly.
‘Um,’ Cat faltered, ‘also for some advice.’
‘Advice?’ Fen asked. ‘About—?’
‘What to wear today?’ Cat said meekly, peeping through the curtains and assessing the flat but dry prelude to dawn.
‘What to wear?’ Fen repeated, looking out the window to a rain-dressed pavement. Fen contemplated her sister’s loaded silence and wondered if Cat could sense that, back in Camden, she was grinning. ‘What to wear,’ Fen repeated, this time as a statement. ‘Tell me it’s the doctor and not some oily bike boy,’ Fen whispered with glee.
‘It’s the doctor,’ said Cat, eyes squeezed shut as if a revelation out loud might ultimately jeopardize the actuality of a currently non-existent situation. ‘Do you think that’s OK?’
‘More than OK,’ said Fen, ‘it’s about time.’
‘I thought of my khaki shorts,’ said Cat.
‘What’s his name and age and vital stats?’ Fen asked. ‘Khaki sounds good.’
‘And my little stretchy vest from Gap Kids,’ Cat furthered. ‘Ben York, probably a few years older than
