STAGE 9

       Pau-Luchon. 196.5 kilometres

      Fen opened the door to her Kentish Town flat to find Pip clutching the Guardian and two cappuccinos in polystyrene cups. Pip had phoned not half an hour before and Fen had told her that she was working from home because she was desperate for no distraction. The fact that Fen was embroiled in a relationship with a colleague, as well as dithering over another man in Derbyshire, was distraction incarnate. Pip, who did not have a conventional job, never mind the choice of one man let alone two, assessed that if her sister was not physically at her place of work, or getting physical with a male, it meant she was at play and available for confabulation. The fact that Fen was visibly flummoxed, surrounded by papers and fluorescent Post-its, was of no relevance to Pip. She bustled in, removed the plastic lids from the coffee and licked each one clean. Fen, exasperated, motioned to her papers and files.

      ‘Very nice,’ said Pip, handing her sister a coffee, turning straight to Cat’s report on the procession down to Pau the previous day. ‘She’s very good, our baby sis,’ Pip murmured as Cat’s passion for the Tour filtered through the newsprint and infused the reader.

      ‘I’m dying to know what’s happening,’ Fen said, now enjoying the cappuccino and grateful for her sister’s intrusion.

      ‘Me too,’ Pip enthused. ‘Both Cat and that nice Paul Sherwen chap from Channel 4 say that the race starts in earnest now, in the mountains, that the challenge for the yellow jersey will be at its most intense and consequential.’

      Fen stared at Pip. ‘All that – yes,’ she said, ‘and Fabian Ducasse is a spunk and a half, but I was referring to Cat – and the doc. Where do you think they’re at?’

      ‘Oh blimey, of course,’ Pip said, sitting cross-legged at her sister’s feet, ‘brawny Ben.’

      ‘Shall we phone her?’ Fen suggested, already dialling. Pip grabbed the phone from her, scooping cappuccino froth from the side of the cup with her index finger while waiting for Cat to answer.

      ‘Hullo?’ said Cat, sounding like she was just around the corner, sounding like she had just woken up.

      ‘Have you shagged him yet?’ Pip all but squealed.

      Though she really shouldn’t have been startled by her sister’s trademark bluntness, Cat found herself answering with an affirmative giggle. While she listened to her sisters shrieking with delight in the background, Cat considered that, though she had indeed shagged Ben, that they had quite categorically fucked each other’s brains out, gorged on each other to satisfy a very base hunger, there had been an edge to it all. Right from the start. Sexual desire, yes, but something else, something more too. Merely confirming that she had shagged the man did both him and herself something of a disservice. It had been more than just sex, but what, exactly? Surely the sex could not have been so good without this enhancing extra layer of something or other? Physical attraction is one thing on but one level; to be mutually attracted to each other is something else and multi-faceted. And somewhat perplexing.

      ‘He’s lovely,’ Cat said to Pip’s ‘Come on come on come on!’

      ‘What was it like?’ Fen asked excitedly. ‘Was he good?’

      ‘It was great,’ Cat replied.

      ‘Where did you do it?’ Pip butted in. ‘When? How many times?’

      ‘I like him,’ Cat reiterated, thinking, deluded, that she was being discreetly noncommittal, ‘it was great.’

      And then Cat changed the subject. ‘The weather is absolutely appalling here today – it’s cold and very wet. It’s going to be torture for the boys. Promise you’ll watch? Promise you’ll pray for them? You’re going to meet a host of new characters today – all those powerful sprinters so familiar last week will now be gone from sight. They’ve passed the baton to the grimpeurs – lithe, wiry, crazy, brave boys. Watch what the mountains do to them. Watch what they do to the mountains.’

      ‘The fact that she changed the subject in a way she thought was so subtle—’ Fen starts, replacing the handset, finishing the coffee and reordering her piles of papers.

      ‘Means one of two things,’ Pip completes.

      ‘Either the sex was a bit disappointing and reality has let her daydream down,’ Fen theorizes.

      ‘Or,’ Pip continues for her, ‘Cat’s gone and fallen for him.’

      ‘In some ways,’ says Fen, very slowly, ‘I rather hope she hasn’t.’

      ‘I know,’ says Pip, ‘I do too. She’d be safer.’

      ‘But I rather think it’s the latter,’ Fen clarifies, ‘and I don’t want her to be hurt.’

      ‘I mean, he’s probably a really lovely guy with honourable intentions,’ Pip says, ‘and has massive desire for Cat, which is great for her – but if she is falling for more than his ability to bring her to orgasm, she is somewhat vulnerable.’

      ‘And I don’t want her to hurt,’ Fen states, ‘she’s had enough of that.’

      Pip was staring at Fen’s calendar from the Musée Rodin.

      ‘The Eternal Idol, 1899,’ Fen whispers rather hoarsely. ‘Isn’t that clit-quiveringly wonderful?’

      ‘Huh? Oh yes!’ Pip says, changing her focus to observe the photo of the sculpture. ‘But I was thinking – fancy a weekend in the Alps?’

      Fabian Ducasse has spent the least accumulative time in the saddle which is why he is wearing the yellow jersey. He’s been racing for eight days and has covered over 1,570 kilometres in 41½ hours riding. He has over 2,000 kilometres to go, twelve further days in the saddle with two rest days during which he’ll be on his bike, of course. Fabian Ducasse, twenty-nine years old, will climb five mammoth Pyrenean passes today. Tomorrow, another five. All in all, there are seven days in which mountains are to be tackled. By our boys. On their bicycles.

      As Cat told her sisters, we have new characters to meet who have spent the last week wisely sheltering safe in the air bubble at the centre of the bunch, conserving their energy for the mountains. The pure sprinters have now had their apportionment of fame. Their current concerns are merely to survive the next week if they are going to make it to Paris at all. Last week, they surged and pumped hard at the front of the peloton in front of the world, now they’ll gladly join the grupetto, the bus of riders that forms the back of the bunch, just keeping together, keeping going, living to ride another day, riding for a living though it nearly kills them. Jesper Lomers and Stefano Sassetta will continue to duel for the green jersey to prove who is the Tour’s most consistent daily finisher; one who can cope with the mountains in the second week, as much as he shone at sprinting in the first. Jesper’s wife Anya has not yet made an appearance. Jesper is doing battle with himself to keep his professional and personal lives separate. And he is at war with Stefano. A handful of points separate them.

      We met the two major contenders for the polka dot King of the Mountains jersey before the race but we’ve hardly seen them since. Donna magazine’s ‘Sexiest Man on Two Wheels’, Zucca MV’s dashing Massimo