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

given in Grenoble?’

      Pip shook her head and looked fascinated. ‘Oh yes,’ Fen continued earnestly, ‘in 1919. I don’t even know why it’s yellow.’

      ‘It is yellow,’ Pip discoursed, pulling her eyes away from her copy of Procycling, ‘because the race was sponsored by L’Auto, a newspaper whose pages were yellow.’

      ‘How interesting,’ said Fen, flipping through Cycle Sport, ‘and Eddy Merckx collected ninety-six yellow jerseys in his career.’

      ‘Listen to this,’ Pip said, consulting Maillot, ‘scandal and skulduggery! In the second ever Tour, the maillot jaune, Maurice Garin, was disqualified when it transpired he’d done one of the Stages by train!’

      ‘I think that was the Tour when the other top three riders were eliminated for having set up barricades and scattering nails on the roads!’ Fen contributed. She looked out of the window. Whilst hurtling through such peaceful countryside, it was hard to believe the huge, hermetic world of the Tour de France was just hours away. What was it going to be like? ‘I’m sure we’ll find Cat,’ Fen said, ‘and Fabian Ducasse.’

      ‘Of course we will, I hope we will,’ said Pip, referring first to her sister and second to the French rider. It was dawning on them that they hadn’t made the journey so much to spend time with their sister, but to see the boys on bikes in the flesh, to experience the Tour de France first hand.

      STAGE 13

      Valadon-Grenoble. 186.5 kilometres

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

       Against the shimmer of lavender fields and the stab of Cyprus trees, amidst the rustic stone buildings tiled in terracotta, under the gaze of the inky mountains of the Vaucluse, the Tour de France found itself in the midst of a Cézanne painting. However, in 40 degree heat, with only a simpering south-westerly hardly easing the humidity, the peloton’s interest in art history was negligible as they laboured towards the Alps and to the promise of cooler climes, if torturous climbs.

      Today was a medium mountain Stage, hard but tolerable, with the race traversing the Vercors Alps south to north. The final climb, 50 km from the finish, was the second-category Col de Rousset; the pink flesh of the mountain from where the hairpin bends were gouged contrasting with the dense indigo shrubbery crowning it. Though the gradient is not severe, it is a long slog panning out at the summit to a taxing plateau continually undulating for almost 60 km. A seven-man breakaway stayed clear of the field by 10 minutes, but posed no threat to the leaders. As the ugly outskirts of Grenoble gave way to the elegant boulevards of the city centre, the small group played cat and mouse to the delight of the phenomenal crowds. No one wanted to start the sprint but nor would they tolerate a lone bid for glory. Ultimately, David Millar sneaked away at great speed to take the Stage in 4 hours 31 minutes and 40 seconds, leaving the other six to sprint to a photofinish for second place. Massimo Lipari, Zucca MV’s pin-up climber and last year’s King of the Mountains, scooped more points today to bring him within a hair’s breadth of the polka dot jersey currently with Système Vipère’s Carlos Jesu Velasquez, the diminutive but charismatic Spaniard. Similarly, though the green jersey is with fellow Viper Boy Jesper Lomers, Zucca MV’s Stefano ‘Thunder Thighs’ Sassetta could well claim it by Paris. Fabian, still in the maillot jaune, completes the jersey trilogy for Système Vipère but Vasily’s designs on the hallowed maillot are both realistic and imminent. This year, the three jerseys are not merely the ultimate accolades of the Tour de France, but the trophies of a duel being fought exclusively between Système Vipère and Zucca MV.

       <ENDS>

      ‘And I really don’t know who I’d most like to win,’ Cat smiled, returning to her chair having transmitted her report to London.

      ‘It’s for you,’ Josh said, handing Cat his mobile phone, ‘it’s Taverner – he says he can’t get through on yours.’ Cat checked her phone and saw there was no signal. She took Josh’s and immediately pleaded, ‘I know you said 350 words but I’m only 26 over!’

      ‘I let you have “dark duke Sassetta” last week,’ Taverner said, ‘but I’m drawing the line at Stefano “Thunder Thighs” Sassetta.’

      ‘Why?’ Cat probed. ‘He’d bloody revel in it.’

      ‘And,’ Taverner continued, ‘will you stop calling the guys by their Christian names? Are you shagging them or something? Luca this, Fabian that, Vasily the other.’

      ‘But they’re individuals,’ Cat tried to justify, ‘not anonymous pedal turners.’

      ‘And finally,’ Taverner persisted, ‘enough of the arty-farty bullshit waffle. Cézanne’s one thing, but “pink flesh of a mountain”?’

      ‘I just get carried away,’ Cat tried to justify.

      ‘Change it, please,’ Taverner ordered, hanging up.

      ‘I like pink flesh,’ Cat said somewhat petulantly and inadvertently loudly. A number of press men glanced round at her and enjoyed a little snigger. Though Cat revised her article and spelt names out in full, she defiantly left the Thunder Thighs exactly where she felt they should be.

      Fen and Pip sat in a daze at a café.

      ‘We have nowhere to stay, we can’t reach Cat and we caught just a glimpse, just a flash, of cycling.’

      ‘And only by standing on our tiptoes, standing on other people’s toes and elbowing complete strangers,’ Pip interjected.

      Fen twitched her mouth, frowned and looked at her sister. ‘We get to see more on Channel 4,’ she said extremely quietly.

      ‘How are we going to get from Grenoble to L’Alpe D’Huez tomorrow?’ Pip asked. ‘I doubt whether we can hop on a bus or cadge a lift.’

      Fen shrugged and contemplated her kir. ‘If we do make it there, where are we going to stay? Under the stars?’

      ‘Where are we going to stay tonight, more to the point,’ Pip pointed out.

      ‘Come on,’ said Fen, ‘let’s find Cat. Let’s go back to the salle de presse.’

      ‘But we hovered for ages,’ Pip bemoaned, ‘with no luck in any language.’

      ‘Come on,’ Fen said, boosted a little by the sight of a team car with its roof-load of bikes.

      On their way, they passed Ben York but it meant nothing, of course, to any of them. Though Ben is head-turningly handsome, Pip was too engrossed in a map and Fen’s head was already cramped with two men jostling for attention. Ben glanced at the women but his priority was half an hour with Cat before he dispensed electrolytes and glucose.

      The salle de pressé in Grenoble was housed in the Palais des Sports, built for the Winter Olympics. Every entrance was guarded by officials refusing to understand English or establish eye contact with anyone not wearing a pass. Which was a shame as both Fen and Pip were excellent in the art of doleful eyelash-batting. It was most unfortunate therefore, that the first journalist they accosted happened to be Jan Airie.

      ‘Ex you sum wah,’ Pip enunciated in plummy English, hoping that the journalist might be American and his heart might soften at her accent alone.

      ‘Huh?’ Jan said, puffing halitosis liberally.

      ‘Cat McCabe?’ Fen suggested, rather nasally.

      ‘Catriona?’ Pip added. ‘Journaliste, le Guardian?’

      The man sniggered. ‘Whore!’ He waddled away, laughing to himself.

      ‘What a charming chap,’ Pip muttered. They took it in turns to approach other journalists leaving the salle but their English, their poor French and their pigeon Italian