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

café au lait. No, Cat, have the citron pressé that you really want. Add some sugar. Have a sip. Nice?

       Lovely.

      As nice as in Pradier? Nostalgic? If a day’s grace can amount to the past? OK, don’t answer, just enjoy.

       Ben York.

      How do you feel?

       If I’m truthful, I feel disappointed. If I’m completely honest, I feel insecure. You see, I don’t really know Ben at all, do I? And yet there’s something there – physical attraction is uppermost at the moment and it’s exhilarating to feel this frisson. But I really quite like him too. If I didn’t, if I just wanted a fuck, I’d go get it from him – regardless of podium girls or Josh’s opinion of me.

      You’re trailing off.

      I’d like another pressé.

      There. Continue?

       I didn’t have the chemistry wrong, I’m sure of it. I don’t know what I want from Ben, or what I can expect, or to what I’m entitled. I’m cross with myself for having revelled in being the centre of his attention – and yet, I was obviously foisting on him an attachment that in reality isn’t actually there.

      Podium Princess?

       Yes. I know exactly what Fen would say to me. I’d be calling him a bastard and my sister would calmly theorize that I’m mad at him because of my own indignance that his interest is not exclusively focused on me. That’s a distorted view of myself, isn’t it? Ben is Ben – Ben is who he is. But, and here’s the rub, my consternation, my dejection – OK, my petulance – doesn’t really stem from Ben at all. I wanted him to want me, you see. That he doesn’t, or at least not in the capacity I’d ascribed to him, makes me hurt, makes me doubt myself, makes me feel insecure. Oh, the ignominy of it all.

      You’re rambling there. You mean, outwardly you’re doing the ‘men – pah! – bastards!’ and within you’re whimpering for what you perceive as inadequacy, as rejection?

       I suppose. Yes.

      But the crux is that it hasn’t actually dampened your ardour. Ben continues to make you swoon. You’d like to go to bed with him, become tangled, embroiled, involved.

       Yes.

      So, perversely, you’re on your high horse with your nose in the air, primly principled when still you’re craving to have sex with him?

       Yes.

      It’s called self-protection, Cat.

      I’m in Bordeaux. I’d better go. I need to speak to Taverner. To Andy at Maillot. I need to find Josh and see where we’re staying for the next two nights. I’m working. I’m a member of the press corps of the Tour de France. I haven’t got time for sex or romance or any of that fluff.

      So you’re going to ride your high horse all the way back to the salle de pressé?

      Sorry, she’s decided not to answer.

      Half an hour later and Cat suddenly loved Podium Princess, felt immensely strong and wanted Ben York’s blood. As she and Josh left the salle de pressé they passed by a bench on which sat two podium girls. There was a Crédit Lyonnais girl, dressed of course in the yellow of the bank’s sponsored maillot, the other was Cat’s podium girl, or Ben’s, or Coca-Cola’s actually. The Crédit Lyonnais girl was talking quietly but in audibly soothing tones to Miss Coca-Cola whose eyes were very red, swollen and watery. Cat felt vindicated.

      So all men are bastards.

      She felt sudden sympathy for the girl.

       He’s not worth crying over.

      She felt relief.

       Thank God it’s not me weeping.

      ‘What are you grinning at?’ Josh asked Cat as he unlocked the car, threw her the keys and slumped into the passenger seat, rubbing his eyes and flexing his keyboard-weary fingers.

      ‘Oh,’ Cat breezed, turning on the engine and giving it a good roar, ‘women’s things.’ Josh nodded sagely, rather keen to pry but far too nice to do so.

      Auberge Claudette was a breath of fresh air. Two star, of course, but a welcome change from the recent nondescript hotel chains. Cat loved her bedroom, furnished with an old iron bed once painted white, a Lloyd Loom style chair a little threadbare, a clothes rail behind a swathe of calico and a rickety chest of drawers lined with the same Toiles de Jouy wallpaper which decorated the walls in a lovely time-faded hue. The tiny en-suite bathroom had a small but deep sitting tub, an incongruously vast porcelain basin and a very low toilet. Best of all, it had a window and Cat realized how, prior to this, she’d been tolerating neon strips and no natural light. There were long windows in the bedroom with shutters inside and out. Cat leant out of the window and smiled into the first signs of sunset. She wasn’t so much on the Tour de France as in a Louis Malle film and, to her delight, she could string out the fantasy for more than just a night. With the next two Stages starting so close to Bordeaux, Auberge Claudette was home for the time being.

      What better way to settle than to unpack, to hide her rucksack under the bed and to run the tub and luxuriate. Who had tied the pale lilac ribbon into a bow on one of the bedposts? A previous guest? The patronne? Was there any significance? Could Cat please have it? She pulled at it gently and then utilized it to fix her hair into a high pony-tail while she had a bath. With the tips of her hair and the ends of the ribbon tickling the nape of her neck, she closed her eyes and momentarily traded her Louis Malle role for that of bathing belle in a bubble bath advertisement. She giggled, opened her eyes and cleared her mind. She sat a while longer in the warm water, grinning at the walls, humming the soundtrack of Betty Blue and planned to forsake the hotel breakfast the next day for a circuitous trip to her boulangerie so she could complete her picture by strolling the streets with a baguette tucked under her arm.

      It was still very warm, even the breeze that whispered in to the bedroom, so Cat let her body air dry. She lounged naked on her bed, reading (Rose Tremain and not La Route, Les Etapes), running her fingertips along her thigh and now forsaking an imaginary part in a Jean-Jacques Beineix movie for that in a Degas pastel. She felt soothed and contented and was enjoying her own company immensely until a gentle rap at her door disrupted her peace.

      Bugger, must be the patronne – I asked for an extra pillow.

      ‘Un instant, s’il vous plaît,’ she called, grabbing a little floral sundress and slipping it over her nakedness. Barefoot, she crossed the floorboards lightly, the lilac ribbon starting to work its way loose from the hasty pony-tail she had tied.

      ‘I’m coming,’ she said, her hand already opening the door.

      Ben York pushed into her room, shut the door more strongly than was necessary, scooped Cat against him so tightly that she was momentarily lifted off the floor, and plunged his tongue deep into her mouth (which was so startled that it was conveniently open anyway).

       Don’t let him kiss you. Don’t! Pull away. Don’t bloody kiss him back. Don’t fling your arms around his neck – take them away! Don’t drop your hold to his biceps. Why are you grabbing his shirt? Stop it! Pull back.

      ‘Don’t pull back,’ Ben murmured, standing still while Cat all but leaped backwards. She was speechless.

       Say something!

      ‘Say something,’ Ben said, hands on hips and forearms distractingly on display. ‘What’s with you?’

       Say something – what should I say to him?

      Ben advanced towards her more quickly than she could retreat. He pushed her on to her bed and fell on top of her, his lips at her neck, his hand at her thigh. Get the dress up. His