Vasily had, for some reason, made it.
‘OK,’ said Rachel, hovering, wondering if he’d forgotten, remembered or merely dismissed the day before. ‘About yesterday,’ she started.
Vasily raised a hand. ‘Please,’ he said kindly, ‘do not worry.’
Rachel regarded her feet.
I’m not worried. I just want to know if there might be more from whence it came.
‘Don’t worry,’ she echoed, her fixed smile contradicting the darting of her eyes.
‘Oh,’ said Vasily dismissively, ‘I won’t. I forgot it already.’ He wondered why Rachel had suddenly cast her gaze away. ‘Rachel,’ he said softly, advancing towards her, ‘it was not meant to be. If I am OK with it, I expect you – my soigneur – to be so too.’
Rachel looked up at him, he was close and lovely and she wanted to touch his lips with her fingertips. She nodded, not able to wrest a forlorn edge from her gesture.
‘You look sad,’ Vasily said.
‘I’m fine,’ Rachel said a little too loudly.
‘It won’t last,’ he continued.
‘You’re right,’ Rachel confirmed.
‘It won’t last, I will have it again,’ Vasily continued, his apparent contradiction distracting Rachel momentarily from the fact that he was fingering the buttons on her denim shirt.
‘I don’t think so,’ Rachel said, quite crossly.
Who does he think I am? Some fucking groupie willing to dispense sex when he so demands?
‘Rachel!’ Vasily remonstrated.
‘What?’ Rachel objected.
‘I say it won’t last, I will have it again,’ Vasily said, ‘and you tell me no, that I won’t?’
‘You bloody won’t,’ said Rachel.
‘I don’t need bloody shit like this,’ said Vasily.
‘And nor,’ Rachel declared, ‘do I.’
She brushed past him and made to go. Vasily caught her arm. ‘You think it’s not possible?’ he implored. Rachel looked at him coldly, her jaw locked with indignation and hurt. She snatched her arm away and stomped towards the door. ‘It won’t last,’ Vasily declared. ‘I will have it again.’
‘Fuck off, Jawlensky,’ Rachel hissed.
‘Yesterday meant nothing. You will see,’ Vasily proclaimed to her back, ‘I will take the maillot jaune in the mountains.’
Rachel stopped stock still, closed her eyes and grimaced.
You stupid, idiot girl. He’s a fucking cyclist. He was talking about a piece of bloody yellow lycra all along. Not you. Not kissing you.
Rachel turned.
And now he looks hurt and confused. And why wouldn’t he be? His faithful soigneur has just doubted his pedal prowess.
Rachel went back to her rider and laid the palm of her hand gently at his cheek. ‘Oh shit,’ she whispered, ‘I didn’t realize. I thought you. I meant about.’
Vasily tipped his head to one side and regarded her. ‘Please,’ he said, ‘you speak better for Vasily so he can understand.’
‘Understand this,’ said Rachel, standing on tiptoes and planting a small, apologetic but emphatic kiss on his mouth. Suddenly he was kissing her back, his tongue leaping around her mouth on a mission of its own.
‘Rachel,’ he murmured, wonderfully gravelly. He took her hand and placed it against his groin. She could feel him, rock hard. Rachel took his hand and placed it over her breast. Then she guided it under her shirt to her bare flesh, her nipple enticingly at the centre of his palm.
‘What do you want?’ she whispered, dabbing her tongue tip on the dimple in his chin. He encircled her with his arms, pressed his groin against her and moved his body gently.
‘I want to stay out of trouble,’ Vasily murmured into the top of her head. ‘I need to ride near the front today but not too hard. Tomorrow, the Pyrenees. Tomorrow, I am at war with Ducasse.’
Cat’s job was not just easy to do that day, it was a true pleasure. On a glorious sunny afternoon refreshingly punctuated by a gentle breeze, the race headed out from Sauternes and through lines of the famous lime-green vines striping the land like corduroy. The route headed due south, down through Gascony to the Beam region and its capital, Pau; gateway to the Pyrenees, harbinger of the first mountain trials of the Tour de France but also a lovely old university town crowned with a picture-perfect fourteenth-century château. Cat was excited to be there; not even a nondescript modern motorlodge could dampen her delight.
It was an easy Stage to report and she whacked out 500 words effortlessly. It was easy to work diligently when a certain euphoria tided you along, when the person responsible for that euphoria was willing you to finish your work because he was waiting for you. The route had been raced fast with an exciting photo-finish between three riders, a paragraph-worthy mass pile-up near Brocas-les-Forges, no change in the general classification nor the jersey wearers and no abandonments. Tomorrow, out of the original 189 starters, 180 would be heading towards their nemeses at altitude.
‘Finito!’ Cat exclaimed.
‘Are you on a mission or something?’ Alex probed.
‘Yup, Rachel and I are having a drink before dinner,’ Cat said, her eyes glinting, ‘so I’d better shoot. I’ll see you later, boys.’
Josh watched Cat all but skip out of the salle de pressé. He thought her to be ridiculously excited over a pre-dinner drink with a girl she’d had breakfast with that morning.
‘Rachel and Cat,’ Alex guffawed, nudging a bemused Josh for good measure, ‘kinky!’
‘You’re a prat, Fletcher,’ said Josh. ‘I’m going out for some air.’
And there was Rachel. And there was Ben.
‘Hey, Josh,’ Rachel called.
Josh approached them. ‘Cat’s just left,’ he said to Rachel, knowing instantly why Rachel looked momentarily puzzled. ‘You’re meeting for a drink?’ he said, as if reminding her kindly though he analysed her response. He glanced at Ben as if to say, my! aren’t girls dippy.
‘Oh yes,’ Rachel said, tapping her temples, ‘I’m losing my mind.’ She returned Ben’s shot glance in what she hoped was a legibly conspiratorial way.
‘I think she’s gone to phone her boyfriend first,’ Josh heard himself say before he allowed himself to check his words and consider his point. He was looking steadily at Rachel but he could feel Ben regard him abruptly. ‘Didn’t Cat say something about him coming out for some of the mountain Stages?’ Josh continued to Rachel.
‘Um,’ Rachel faltered as if pondering Josh’s query rather than wracking her brains for any clue that Cat had given her of a boyfriend back home.
‘Anyway,’ Josh said lightly, ‘that’s where she’s gone – her daily indulgence of long-distance sweet nothings.’
‘That’s nice,’ Rachel said distractedly.
‘I’d better shoot,’ said Ben, turning and walking away.
‘Me too,’ said Rachel, doing the same.
‘Yes,’ said Josh, ‘and me.’ He returned slowly to the salle de pressé hating himself but not kicking himself. What had he just done? Was he trying to protect Cat? From Ben? For her boyfriend back home? She so sparkled in the doctor’s company. Was he trying to keep Cat chaste? And if so, for whom? The boyfriend? Or