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

Rachel enquired, wondering if Cat had chucked him that evening.

      ‘Since a few months ago,’ Cat defined quietly.

      Rachel regarded Cat. ‘Why did you tell Josh that you did,’ she asked quite reasonably, ‘if he no longer exists?’

      ‘I regret telling Josh that I did,’ Cat said, ‘but I told him very early on because – well, because it felt like protection. I didn’t know if he was trying to come on to me. I didn’t know there’d be Ben.’

      Rachel nodded slowly. ‘Did Josh come on to you?’

      Cat smiled and shook her head. ‘He’s a lovely married guy,’ she said, ‘but I didn’t know until after I’d spun my yarn.’

      ‘Well, you’ve created some tangle. You should put him straight. He Who No Longer Exists – as I think I’ll call him – has a stature he obviously doesn’t deserve.’

      ‘I know,’ Cat sighed, ‘I know. There hasn’t been the right time.’

      ‘Och, bollocks,’ said Rachel with fine Scots directness, ‘there’s never a wrong time – not when it concerns people of whom you are fond and who care about you.’

      ‘I know,’ Cat nodded, ‘I know.’

      ‘Have you cleared things with Ben?’

      ‘Not yet,’ Cat said, ‘but not from want of trying.’

      ‘Bloody boys,’ Rachel said, somewhat connivingly. ‘Was he bloody? Your ex?’

      ‘Yes,’ Cat admitted, ‘he was.’ She would have been pleased to elaborate, to tell Rachel all about Him and all about Ben had there not been a rap at the door. Vasily entered wearing only a towel – a skimpy one – around his waist. Cat’s eyes bulged and she flitted an impressed glance over to Rachel whose gaze was exclusively focused on the rider.

      ‘Rachel,’ Vasily said in his gloriously Slavic way, ‘you said you had something for me.’

      Cat bit her lip.

      ‘Of course,’ Rachel exclaimed, smacking her forehead, ‘I suggested a bath.’ She looked over to Cat. ‘Epsom salts and vinegar – soigneurs of yore swore by them. If it soothes, it’s good, I say.’

      ‘I’d better go,’ said Cat.

      ‘Yeah,’ Rachel said, sternly but kindly, ‘you have work to do.’

      ‘Great ride,’ Cat beamed at Vasily, who was used to such praise but always accepted it graciously. ‘You might do it tomorrow, hey? You need only put a minute into Fabian.’

      ‘Shadow me tomorrow, Cat,’ Rachel said. ‘I’m doing the feed. You’ll get a great view – you’ll get my view – there may be an article in it.’

      ‘Too right,’ said Cat, adding a call to Andy at Maillot slightly higher on her mental list than transcribing Luca’s interview.

      Cat left the hotel, omitting to ponder on the Vasily-Rachel situation about which she was faintly curious. She was much more concerned with returning to her hotel room, for Ben to come to her. She didn’t wonder whether or not Rachel would slip into the bath with Vasily. She did not consider how recuperative a bath of Epsom salts and vinegar might be. Nor did she ponder the effect of 5 hours, 49 minutes and 40 seconds at an average speed of 32 kph on Vasily’s libido.

      There is a rap at Cat’s door. It has gone midnight but she knows the code of Ben’s knocking. She does not put the light on. She answers the door and Ben pushes her back into the room.

      ‘Ben,’ she whispers, ‘I need to—’

      He clasps his hand over her mouth. It turns her on. He pushes her roughly on to the bed.

      ‘But I want to—’

      This time he hisses at her to shut up. His forcefulness is thrilling. She lies there and lets herself be taken. He places his arms under her waist and thrusts his cock into her with absolutely no preamble. He hasn’t kissed her yet. Hasn’t touched her at all really. Once he’s inside her, humping her vigorously, he finds her mouth and tongues her voraciously. Her hands are enmeshed in his hair, their mouths are fused together, their limbs are intertwined, their bodies moving in frantic unison. He comes very quickly. She hasn’t climaxed but the sex lacks nothing for her. Suddenly he’s away from her. She can hear him fiddling with the condom.

      ‘Cheers,’ he says, into the dark.

      He’s left the bed.

      ‘Ben?’ she calls after him. ‘There’s something I—’

      ‘Not now, Cat,’ he says. He leaves the room. Cat is simultaneously exhilarated and yet unnerved.

      ‘Ben,’ she says quietly, though she knows he is gone, ‘there’s no one back home. You can have my undivided attention.’

       And my affection, I rather think.

      Say that out loud.

       God no. Far too risky.

      STAGE 10

      Luchon-Plateau de Boudin. 170 kilometres

      If she was to shadow Rachel intently, it meant following in her footsteps from the moment she woke. As Cat left for the Zucca hotel, Josh and Alex were still fast asleep, Ben was tossing and turning. Though Cat was eager to talk to both Josh and Ben, she was also looking forward to the refreshing and welcome opportunity of a whole day in female company. She’d never seen so many men en masse. Though she was increasingly fond of those with whom she travelled, worked and ate, though she was admittedly smitten by him with whom she slept, if she was brutally honest she was starting to crave quality time with her own sex. Chatting with her sisters had highlighted this; as had the lengthy periods spent with Alex and Josh. The very presence of Rachel, that work commitments and the pressure of the race made extensive exchanges rare, underlined it. Josh and Alex were touchingly protective towards her – Josh to an extreme (he’d raid the press buffet for her even if she wasn’t remotely hungry and had, on occasion, insisted on swapping hotel rooms on some pretext or other – towel quality, hanging space, number of mirrors), but Cat was starting to feel swamped by the unremitting prevalence of males. Even the timbre of their voices, whatever their language; the gait of their walk, whatever their footwear, could make her feel somewhat isolated.

      Rachel drove Cat along the route, through the stunning Haute-Garonne and on to the Ariege region, with the luxury of a classical music channel rather than Radio Tour providing a rousing score to the scenery. The land was quite staggeringly verdant and lush, the villages gorgeous, all being blessed with unabated sunshine and no remnant of the cloud cover which had scourged the race the day before. The mountains looked woolly with their cloaks of vegetation and seemed to encircle the valleys in an amicable embrace. Whereas yesterday’s foul weather had made the mountains all the more menacing, this morning, in 27 degrees, they seemed almost benign. For those experiencing them on anything other than a bicycle, that is.

      When the girls had set up at the feed station some 95 kilometres along the route, they indulged in sunshine and time on a grassy bank, tanning their legs with eyes closed and ears tuned gratefully to the novelty of hush, the gift of shared solitude. The riders, however, had three mountains and a sprint point to contend with before they could fly past and snatch their lunch musettes. Yesterday, the peloton had been hammered by rain. Today, they would be drained by the heat. Tomorrow, their bodies would pay. The pace of climbing, at about a third of a rider’s normal speed, provides only minimal draught. In this heat, Cat hoped they’d be taking it sensibly, for their own sakes primarily, but also to permit her and her friend the luxury of let-up.

      ‘This is the life!’ Rachel proclaimed as if she was on holiday, stroking the downy grass as if it were Caribbean sand.

      ‘This is the life!’ Cat echoed and meant it. With eyes closed, her sense