The McCabe Girls Complete Collection: Cat, Fen, Pip, Home Truths. Freya NorthЧитать онлайн книгу.
well be fantastic. You have the makings of a true champion. Système Vipère would be honoured to have you as a team member.’
Luca Jones almost pissed his shorts and his coffee very nearly fountained out of his mouth. But he crossed his legs and swallowed hard so he could murmur, ‘Fucking hell!’ instead. Jules was standing. ‘Think about it, Luca,’ he said. ‘I would of course say “name your price” but once I tell you of what I have in mind – the salary, the apartment, the bikes, the Système Vipère super micro hi-fi – I don’t think you will need to negotiate.’ He laid his hand on Luca’s shoulder, bent to his ear and spoke a figure that was roughly double Luca’s Megapac wage. And then Jules was gone. And Luca sat immobile, murmuring, ‘Fucking hell!’ desperate to phone Mama, to find Ben, to piss, to absorb caffeine, to run around the village yelling. ‘I have the makings of a true champion! I have enormous talent as long as it’s nourished and nurtured!’ Of course he did none of these. He sat alone, utterly speechless apart from ‘Fucking hell!’ whispered to himself at regular intervals.
There’s a Viper Boy, Luca remarked to himself as he was leaving the village. I could be riding with Jesper Fucking Lomers.
‘Ciao, Jesper!’ he greeted, making a detour, presuming, for some reason, that the whole team must have colluded on the potential acquisition of Luca Jones.
‘Luca,’ Jesper acknowledged, a little baffled at the magnitude of the young rider’s smile but pleased to respond to this likeable newcomer to the peloton. Briefly, Jesper watched Luca go on his way, before making his own way to Maison du Café. He took his coffee and went to sit with a posse of Dutch riders from various teams who liked to gather at one of the marquees each morning to sit in affable silence or chat quietly and usually, for some reason, in English. Today, Jesper chose silence but his was more reflective than sociable and the others sensed this and steered tactfully away from intrusion. Jesper looked around the village.
This is my world. It is all I have ever dreamed of, wanted, worked to have.
Metres away, he watched as a young woman was approached and embraced by a man.
Or is my world with my wife? Where is that world? Who am I within it? Where is Anya?
Suddenly, Jesper longed for a woman, for feminine tenderness and attention.
Just what is it that defines me? What is it that makes me feel whole? My bike? My woman?
He reflected on the irony that, as second in command in Système Vipère, he had privileges not afforded to the lesser riders. His own room. The company of his woman if he really required it.
And yet the domestiques sneak in pussy to their shared rooms and my wife has not made one appearance.
En route to the village for a quick cup of coffee, Ben was concerned to spy Didier LeDucq engrossed in furtive conversation behind a generator. Didier was in bad company. Jan van Loth wa a Flemish rider with a flagrant lack of respect for clean riding and a notorious ability to keep a step ahead of the dope controls.
Van Loth saw Ben before Didier and stealthed away in an instant. When Didier saw his doctor, he smiled and raised his hand in an atypical display of affection and hastily employed innocence. As Didier approached, Ben racked his conscience for how best to handle the situation. His job was to oversee the riders’ health and well being, his duty was to maintain their confidence and trust.
It is an exceptionally delicate balance and I’m holding fragile scales in hands which are unsteady.
But the only way for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
‘Bonjour, Ben,’ said Didier, all smiles, standing tall, the picture of innocence and a curse upon anyone who would dare think anything else of him.
‘Hullo, Didier,’ said Ben breezily instead, ‘lovely morning for it.’
Ask him what the fuck he thinks he’s doing. What is he thinking of taking. And when.
‘A lovely morning,’ said Didier, still smiling easily, ‘indeed. I saw Luca being talked to by Jules Le Grand.’ He raised an eyebrow, a gesture which Ben returned.
And I saw you talking to Jan van Loth.
‘Didier,’ Ben said, ‘there are just five days of racing left now.’
The rider shrugged and nodded and retied his pony-tail.
‘My elbow’s sore,’ he told his doctor.
‘I can fix most things, Didier,’ Ben said, manipulating the rider’s elbow, ‘it is my job. Your health is in my hands.’
‘Merci,’ said Didier.
He watched the rider lope away and kicked himself for feeling so impotent. And then he caught sight of Rachel and knew at once how he could help Didier. She was leaning against a tree and, visible from some distance, was the sparkle she was bestowing on a man. Ben was amazed. Zucca MV and Système Vipère were all but entwined. It was so public. So scandalous. Key figures in the support staff of two rival teams flirting in full view. Should he leave them to it? She was his friend after all. He stopped and looked around him. No sign of Cat. Nor of Luca – what was it that Didier had said? Where is Didier? It was scandal overload on the morning of Stage 16 of the Tour de France and Ben felt enormously tired.
Oh, for the life of a regular doctor. With a surgery in a suburb. And a receptionist. And a legion of elderly people with gout and hypochondria. Perhaps a Well Woman clinic every Tuesday. Prostate awareness once a fortnight. Flu jabs. And a desk. With a photo of my wife and two kids. And my spaniel. I could have a Saab parked outside in a reserved space.
‘Hey, Ben,’ said Rachel, bringing him back to the balmy present of picturesque Gilbertville, to the sounds, the scents, the sense of excitement of the Tour de France. Ben closed his eyes and took a deep breath, acknowledging how, though fleeting, his daydream was not just deluded but utterly suffocating and essentially undesirable. There was only one place he wanted to be, and only one way he could possibly practise medicine.
‘Have you met André Ferrette?’ Rachel continued, eager that Ben should. The men shook hands.
‘I need your help,’ Ben said, prophesying that Rachel might well need his when the respective directeurs discovered that their staff were mingling.
‘Sure,’ said Rachel, sensing instantly that he required her capacity as friend.
‘I’ll see you later,’ André said, taking her hand. Rachel beamed and Ben noticed how she now radiated femininity and allure, having kept such qualities invisible until she saw fit to unleash them on the man of her choice. So very Rachel. Strong. Sussed. Independent. Nobody’s fool. Her own boss.
‘What’s up, Yorkie?’ she said, reverting to the demeanour and look of Ben’s friend, the Zucca MV soigneur.
‘It’s Didier,’ said Ben gravely, ‘and Jan van Loth.’
‘You need Vasily,’ Rachel said astutely, ‘he rates Didier. I’ll see what I can do.’
Ben felt easier but was still apprehensive. Though Rachel understood the urgency and gravity, he longed for Cat. His job was highly stressful. He wanted to talk through, to unwind, to offload, to be soothed. But it was 11 a.m. and, dependent on developments in the Stage, Cat would not be off duty until the evening.
‘What’s the time?’ Cat asks Josh.
‘Almost nine,’ he replies. ‘Are you through?’
‘Yup.’
What happened in the Tour today, Cat?
It was utterly bizarre. Vasily lost a whole bloody minute. He didn’t so much lose it but threw it away. No one knows why – there was no press conference. It must be strategy – but certainly not as we know it. Fabian and Carlos