venture. Forlornly, Cat cancelled the call. Less than a minute later, her phone rang.
‘No recipe,’ Django boomed, ‘no matter how intricate the instruction – regardless of milk curdling, sauce clogging or egg whites misbehaving – no recipe takes precedence over any of my nieces.’
‘Hullo, Django,’ Cat said.
‘What’s up, pretty girl?’ Django asked, slipping a wooden spoon, sticky with something resembling wallpaper paste, into the back pocket of his jeans.
Cat smiled small.
How can he tell?
‘I did something last night,’ she explained, with no shame, no embarrassment, but quietly.
‘With whom?’ Django asked, taking the spoon from his pocket and seeing whether it would stick to the glass pane in the kitchen door. It did.
‘With the doctor,’ Cat confided.
‘How lovely,’ Django enthused, because his other two nieces had provided enough details for him to deduce that the doctor was a very good idea indeed.
‘I know,’ Cat said, her voice faltering beyond her control, ‘I know.’
‘Why the tears?’ Django asked while all around him the sauce separated, egg whites collapsed and bananas went brown.
‘Because it means He’s gone,’ Cat said, ‘I’ve made Him go.’
‘Don’t capitalize that scoundrel,’ Django all but barked before softening his tone. ‘I know, darling. But you’ve let go because you could. Well done you.’
‘Haven’t I gone and scuppered any future chance?’ Cat asked, knowing the answer full well.
‘Catriona,’ Django said gravely, ‘that man deserved neither your future nor your sparkle. That he dared to try and strip you of the one means most certainly that he was never entitled to the other.’ Cat nodded. Django could sense it. ‘It’s good,’ Django continued, ‘believe me. Those who love you are so excited for your life – great things come to those who deserve them. Dr Who is one of them. Good for you.’
‘Think so?’ marvelled Cat on the verge of amazement.
‘Know so,’ Django declared.
Half an hour later, Cat all but skipped to the Zucca MV team hotel, forsaking forays into foyers in search of riders, for swift circumnavigation of the grounds to locate the Zucca team bus and soigneur. She found Rachel sitting on its steps, face up and eyes closed into the morning sun.
‘Rachel,’ Cat greeted.
Rachel opened her eyes and blinked, continuing to squint at Cat even when she could see her clearly. ‘Hey,’ Rachel said, ‘you look very chirpy.’
Cat smiled. ‘You wouldn’t have a spare pair of Oakley sunnies I could borrow?’
Rachel disappeared into the bus and came out with a pair of sunglasses. ‘They’re Vasily’s spares – I gift them to you for an hour!’
‘Thanks,’ said Cat, greatly honoured, putting the glasses on and seeing from her reflection in Rachel’s that she looked quite good in them.
‘So?’ Rachel probed, suddenly realizing how relieved she was for the excuse not to talk herself.
Cat tipped her head to one side. ‘It’s funny, isn’t it? The more you’re surrounded by men, the more you crave and value female company.’
Rachel frowned and cast her eyes down, suddenly realizing she’d love the excuse to talk, to confide her antics for constructive analysis.
‘Are you OK?’ Cat asked, suddenly sensing Rachel’s introspection. Rachel wiped her hands on her jeans and said she was fine and would Cat like to help mix the dextrose powder into the bidons? They performed their duty in affable silence until monotony made Cat’s mind meander.
‘Hey Rachel,’ she said, alighting on a fine topic, ‘pick up where you left off yesterday. You were talking about Vasily.’
Rachel was silent for a second too long.
‘Vasily?’ she replied in a way simply not noncommittal enough.
‘In the bar,’ Cat said in what she hoped was a tempting way, ‘in the loos?’
‘Vasily,’ Rachel declared, ‘nothing to say. Yesterday was the Time Trial. He wasn’t himself.’ Cat said nothing because Rachel needed to say nothing more. Cat knew that intonation, those kinds of sentences. She turned to Rachel, screwing on the lid of a drink bottle and giving it a good shake. ‘Tell me,’ she suggested, Rachel’s lack of eye contact confirming Cat’s hunch.
‘It’s nothing,’ Rachel said, fiddling with things that needed no attention, ‘it was nothing.’
‘What was nothing?’ asked Ben, suddenly at the foot of the bus.
‘Ben!’ Cat exclaimed with joy without checking.
‘Hullo, Ben,’ said Rachel, the briefest glance at Cat’s illuminated face telling her all she needed to know without recourse to the glint in Cat’s eyes which the Oakleys were hiding from view anyway.
‘Cat,’ said Ben quite formally, ‘here’s your dictaphone.’
‘Thanks!’ Cat said effusively.
‘Do you women want breakfast?’ Ben asked.
‘We’ve had,’ said Rachel, speaking for both, though Cat would have been quite content with a second sitting. Cat looked at Rachel. Slowly, she removed the loaned sunglasses and handed them to the soigneur. The girls conversed expertly by glances.
You’ve slept with Ben Bloody York, haven’t you!
I know! What do you think?
Go for it.
‘Wait up, Ben,’ Cat called after him but only once she’d been granted Rachel’s nod. Ben stopped a few yards off, the morning sunlight catching his features so aesthetically that Cat had to catch her breath.
‘Tell me,’ Rachel said connivingly, ‘why does he have your dictaphone?’
‘I must have left it in his bedroom,’ Cat said.
‘Oh,’ said Rachel, nodding sagely, ‘couldn’t he just have used his finger then, like a normal bloke?’
It took a while for Rachel’s jest to filter through Cat. When it did, she roared with laughter, nudged her friend, all but leapt from the bus and approached Ben most jauntily. As they walked away, Cat turned. Rachel was standing in the doorway of the bus, cleaning the Oakley sunglasses she had lent Cat, on the rim of her T-shirt.
Shit! Cat faltered, looking over her shoulder at the bus, Vasily! What were you going to say, Rachel?
It can wait, Cat – don’t worry about it – it can wait. It was nothing.
When Cat and Ben had disappeared from sight and the bidons were all done, Rachel cleaned the Oakleys once more.
‘Vasily, Vasily,’ she said under her breath, ‘what am I meant to think, let alone do?’
A little later, Rachel did something she had never done. She went to her rider. Two of the team had come to her room for a leg rub, another had come for fresh socks but she hadn’t seen Vasily. Vasily probably didn’t need clothing or massage or to be disturbed, but still Rachel went to his room.
‘Hey,’ she said.
‘Hullo, Rachel,’ he replied.
‘Can I come in?’ Rachel asked.
‘Please,’ he said, holding the door and welcoming her. She was deflated that he left it ajar.
‘Can