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

I want to impress? Cat wonders.

      Of course you do. Sip Seize sexily, Cat. Ben does so quite inadvertently.

       He does. He keeps his eyes on me while he swigs, they narrow slightly. They open when he licks his top lip.

      Ben York is interested in Cat. He asks her many questions. The beer is cool and fizzy and, for Cat, on an empty stomach, pleasantly tongue-freeing. She answers him happily and slips in questions of her own. First about Megapac. Then about Luca. Soon enough about Ben. Momentarily, she is disappointed that it was not a love of cycling that saw him search out such a job, but she is impressed that his reputation as a physician saw Megapac approach him. Anyway, he speaks with enthusiasm and in depth about the sport and he is a kindred spirit for sure. Ben is friendly and attentive and she wonders whether he is flirting with her. She tells herself she must be imagining it, that it must be the beer. Certainly, it’s something of a novelty for her. It’s refreshing for Cat, having been the brunt of constant criticism and no praise for such a long time.

      I’m in France. On the Tour. Away from home. Away for the summer. Away from Him. I’m glad I came. I’m pleased I didn’t go back to my room.

      ‘Croque monsieur, mademoiselle?’ Ben asks, raising an eyebrow which seems to insist his lips part.

      ‘Only if you have one too,’ Cat says, really quite coyly. They allow a look between them to linger before Ben grins and Cat grins back. He goes to the bar to order and her eyes follow him before she glances around the room as if to see who has observed. There are quite a few people but none seem remotely aware of or interested in her presence or the chemistry she feels she and Ben surely must have been exuding like a visible glow. He returns.

      ‘Do you like olives?’ he asks.

      ‘I love olives,’ Cat enthuses.

      Ben leans towards her with a dish of olives; black, green, stuffed, glistening with oil, permeated with garlic, enhanced with rosemary.

      ‘Excuse me,’ says Cat, her thumb and forefinger hovering before selecting a particularly plump specimen.

      ‘What for?’ says Ben.

      ‘No,’ says Cat, still chewing, standing up, ‘I mean, excuse me but I’m going to the toilet.’

      She takes a stone from her mouth and plinks it daintily in the ashtray. Off she goes, trying to walk slowly, trying not to wiggle, or wondering if she does indeed wiggle and whether it’s becoming. She sits in the cubicle and regards left hand and right hand like Fen tends to – but she has no dilemma on her hands, she is not searching for advice or answers. She just wants to collect herself, calm down and return to the bar, to Ben’s restorative and compelling company. When she washes her hands, she catches sight of herself in the mirror. She gives herself a little shrug, a little smile.

       It’s OK. This. It’s good. I’m having a great evening. I think he really is flirting with me. I’m not sure. It’s been a while. Is he?

      Go 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.