What a head fuck.

It is 8.30 and the salle de pressé is chilly. Only a third of the press corps are left. Cat saw Josh briefly but decided Alex’s presence was a good enough excuse not to talk. She hasn’t seen Ben but she does want to talk to him. Cat has written less than a third of her piece. Taverner wants her copy by 11 p.m. at the very latest. She looks at her screen. She’s written but one paragraph. Not very well. She’s somewhat distracted and very tired. She only started work half an hour ago, having literally shadowed Rachel until she was off duty and about to take a shower. She stares at the screen but, instead of seeing the words she’s written, she can suddenly read the pith of her current situation.

Shit. If Ben knows that I have a boyfriend but is still happy and at ease about sleeping with me, what exactly does that say about how he views me?

A Swiss man called Franz is frowning at her, now raising his hands. Cat looks away, realizing she had unwittingly fixed her expression of horror on him.

He must think me an utter tart. What does that tell me about Ben?

‘I’m not!’ she declares, to the bewilderment of two Belgian reporters sitting in front of her.

But it doesn’t seem to bother him.

‘Fuck,’ Cat hisses, her head in her hands. The Belgians presume she’s struggling with how to report on the magic of Massimo Lipari’s triumphant attack on the Plateau de Boudin.

Is that all it is for him? A convenient fuck? He can’t respect me much.

‘I want him to like me,’ she whispers behind her hand clasped to her mouth, ‘I want that to be the driving reason why we’re sleeping together.’

I want him to know me. Obviously he doesn’t.

‘Do I want an embroilment with someone like that?’ Cat asks her keyboard softly. A Spanish journalist nearby regards her but doesn’t understand English.

I want Ben. But who’s who here? I want him to want to sleep with me because he knows me and likes what he knows.

‘But he doesn’t know me at all, then,’ she says ruefully.

‘Who does not?’ a French reporter called Pascal asks.

‘No one,’ Cat rushes, ‘nothing.’

I’m obviously a no one to him, a bit of nothing.

‘Time to back off, Cat,’ she tells herself, going to one of the fridges for a can of Coke. ‘I must look after myself – that’s what Fen would say.’ She returns to her seat. Her lower back nags after eleven days in ergonomically substandard chairs.

In fact, I’d better not tell Josh that the boyfriend doesn’t exist. If I do, and then Ben finds out, I’ll have made a fool of myself in his eyes as much as I’ve currently made a slut of myself.

Her phone rings. She looks at the number displayed. It is Ben. She bites her lip. Her thumb hovers over the answer button.