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

enhanced?’

      ‘Doping?’ Cat gasped theatrically. ‘In cycling?’

      ‘Where does medical care end and doping begin?’ Josh said with a serious edge. ‘Low testosterone can cause osteoporosis.’

      ‘Too true,’ Cat replied honestly, ‘let’s not talk about it.’

      ‘You sound like the UCI,’ said Josh accusatorially, referring to an accusation frequently levelled at cycling’s international governing body.

      ‘Doping is cheating,’ Cat defined, ‘but health is another matter altogether. How does the UCI set this arbitrary level? They’re saying that if the cyclists take stuff to boost their levels to within a hair’s breadth of the set line, it’s not doping. But they’re taking stuff – period.’

      ‘There’s the rub,’ Josh said, ‘let’s not talk about it.’

      ‘More banned substances than any other sport,’ Cat continued quietly, looking out of the window at wheatfields winking in the sudden sun after the rain, ‘and more dope controls too. Let’s not talk about it. Not today.’

      ‘Sure,’ Josh said, ‘because there’ll be many occasions when we will.’

      ‘Is it still rife?’ Cat asked.

      ‘Some do, some don’t,’ Josh said, ‘it’s difficult to quantify, what with sophisticated masking agents and the fateful turning of blind eyes – which I would rank as being more criminal than substance abuse itself.’

      ‘Let’s not talk about it,’ Cat said for him.

       Don’t fall from grace, heroes mine. Don’t shatter my admiration. Or that of that lovely old boy by the roadside over there with his grandson, waving. Don’t bring shame on your beautiful sport. Don’t harm yourselves. Ride well. Ride from the heart, but use your heads.

      They drove on, noting banal agricultural details of the route that would nevertheless add essential colour to their reports.

       At least I’ve deflected attention away from my love life.

      ‘Anyway,’ Josh said, ‘before diving off on such an unsavoury tangent, I do believe we were talking about testosterone and your bloke.’

      ‘Who?’

      ‘Your boyfriend.’

       No he’s not. Not any more. I don’t have a boyfriend. I’ve lied and I don’t know why and I don’t know how to get out of it.

      Cat, you should say something. Your silence is too loaded. Josh might read into it; might think he’s in with a chance if that’s what he’s into.

      ‘Does he not mind you being in such a vastly male-dominated world?’

      ‘Oh,’ said Cat, noticing with great interest that the blue tone to the land had changed to lime green over the last few miles, ‘I can look after myself.’

      Get yourself out of it – tell him ‘Actually, we just broke up’. Say ‘Sorry, Josh, I don’t know why I said that because, in truth, my boyfriend left me’.

       Yes, but if I do, he’ll know I’m available. It will be hassle I don’t need and I’ll be judged on my sex first, my journalistic skill second.

      Luckily for Cat, Josh was suddenly far more interested in the race report coming through on Radio Tour. ‘Did you hear that?’ he asked, turning up the volume. ‘Fabian Ducasse and the Viper boys are still at the front – I don’t know why they’re putting on pressure today.’

      ‘It’s probably like an army parading tanks and weaponry,’ said Cat. Josh agreed.

      ‘One six three,’ Josh said, quoting riders’ numbers off the radio, ‘thirty-one, seventy-five.’

      Cat checked her list of riders. ‘Thirty-one is Cipo,’ she said, ‘seventy-five – Tom Steels. Hey! 163! Go Travis!’ she cheered for the victor of the first hot-spot sprint. With the memory still vivid of Hunter Dean’s wink, of her quote from Luca Jones, US Megapac had swiftly become her personal team.

      ‘Stanton’s good,’ Josh nodded, ‘maybe not quite a Stage winner but his riding’s already respected.’

      ‘Look at this road,’ Cat remarked. It ribboned out before them, seemingly for miles, straight and mostly flat.

      ‘Meaning?’ Josh tested.

       Why are you still testing me, Josh?

      Why not ask him?

       No. I’ll just answer him. Obviously I still need to earn my wings.

      ‘Well, a road like this hardly encourages anyone to attack – it would be much ado about nothing. The pack would just watch such a rider peg off. He might manage around 45 kph but the bunch could stream after him at 60. Of course, there was that Stage where—’

      ‘Jesus!’ Josh whispered, his hand on the volume control. Cat concentrated hard.

      ‘Fuck!’ she exclaimed. Josh had been about to say the same.

      ‘Two-thirds of the bunch have gone down,’ he murmured.

      ‘Shit!’ said Cat and Josh in unison.

      Gratitude to God spread through the sixth of the peloton ahead of the crash like a united whisper. Luca Jones, however, thanked Rudyard Kipling. Walt Disney, rather. The Jungle Book was still his favourite film (joint first with The Exorcist, followed closely by 9½ Weeks). He especially loved the scene where Kaa hypnotizes Baloo. He had been riding in the middle of the bunch when the magnetic pull of the nine Système Vipère riders leading the race had lured him through the pack. The Viper boys rode in a long sinewy formation, taking turns at the front to confront the headwind before peeling off to take a rest in the slipstream of the eight team-mates. Judging the wind like migratory birds flying long haul, they chevroned themselves across the road when the wind decreed it. It was textbook team riding. To ride in such formation brings a rhythmic security, even a certain vicarious peace. To observe a team working so adeptly is thrilling – for spectator, seasoned hack or fellow racer. And so it was for Luca Jones. With the ‘Bear Necessities’ song on his mind, his eyes were drawn to the snakes slithering around the lycra torsos of the accomplished team. His directeur would want to know what the fuck he was doing, taking chances at the front, especially after his tumble the previous day. Hunter and Travis would have liked him to have looked over his shoulder to locate them. What if they needed him? But Luca was fixated on Système Vipère. For a few miles, he eschewed his Megapac colours and imagined himself to be a Viper Boy, a member of the highest-ranked team in the world. He did not feel a traitor to Megapac but an honoured young citizen of the peloton. The fantasy not only sustained him on the long, arduous Stage, it kept him out of danger too.

      ‘How on earth does one relate the drama of six hours, twenty-four minutes and sixteen seconds in only 500 words?’ Cat complained, mainly to herself but loud enough to amuse Alex and touch Josh.

      ‘Practice,’ Alex defined.

      ‘Passion,’ Josh added.

       COPY FOR P. TAVERNER @ GUARDIAN SPORTS DESK FROM CATRIONA McCABE IN VUILLARD

       Chris Boardman gladly relinquished his yellow jersey today. On a day when crashes made nightmares of the dreams of a handful of key riders in the Tour de France, Jesper Lomers won the 260 km second Stage from Rouen to Vuillard and took the yellow jersey. ‘He’s welcome to it,’ Boardman said. ‘Sprint mayhem and mass pile-ups? I’d rather make it to Paris in one piece.’ With the long straight roads which dominated the Stage discouraging lone attacks, the peloton surged forward together at a high speed, riders occasionally going for a sortie at the front merely to give their fresh legs a stretch and their sponsors a few metres’ exposure before slipping back to the pack. A touch of brakes can cost a rider up to twenty places,