‘They’re pissed!’ she observes, wondering whether Pip is linking arms with Alex purely for stability and, indeed, whether it is for her own stability or his. Cat’s eyes are locked on to Ben’s. She’s delighted to see him.

I have missed him, I really have.

Fen observes how Cat sparkles at the doctor. She regards how her sister practically sings, ‘Hullo!’ to the rest of them before she beams at Ben, focuses on him exclusively and they kiss. The affection between the two of them is pronounced. It simultaneously warms Fen and worries her.

STAGE 15
Vizille-Gilbertville. 204 kilometres

Most courteously, Alex and Josh had taken the room with bunk beds so that the sisters could have the room with the small double and tiny single bed. Pip told her sisters she ought to take the single bed as she feared she was developing a cold. Josh was well aware that Alex presumed him to be asleep when his colleague crept from the room and when he returned in the early hours. Fen and Cat did not hear Pip leave their room but they heard her return. Facing each other in the double bed, they opened their eyes, raised eyebrows, bit back grins and pretended to be fast asleep.

Cat’s mobile phone woke them for real an hour later, at seven in the morning.

‘Cat?’

‘Rachel?’

‘Are you busy?’

‘Er, no.’

‘Are you asleep?’

‘Er, no.’

‘I need some help – can you come? Bring your sisters. It’s women’s work and I need all hands on deck.’

Rachel welcomed them into the Zucca MV team bus. Cat observed her sisters’ open mouths and wide eyes and realized with a certain warmth how initially she too had been staggered at glimpsing such a different, special, self-contained world; but how now all of this had become the norm to her, a plausible, preferable way of life.

It’s my world too, now. Part of my life. I’m happy here. I feel I belong.

‘Now,’ said Rachel, most officiously, ‘down to business.’ From a carrier bag, she laid out a selection of porn magazines.

‘Shit,’ Pip gasped, ‘where did you find those?’

‘Are they banned?’ Fen whispered ingenuously. ‘Did you have to confiscate them? Have you to surrender them to Jean Marie LeBlanc?’

Rachel and Cat laughed, though Cat, aware that porn mags were not a banned substance, was not yet sure of their purpose.

‘The boys had a really tough day yesterday,’ Rachel said, flipping through a magazine leisurely, ‘and today the forecast is very hot.’

‘And today they have five mountains to climb,’ Cat added, peering over Rachel’s shoulder at female limbs in a quite startling configuration.

‘So,’ said Rachel, ‘I thought, to hell with tin foil – I’ll wrap their race food in something far more appetizing. We need a production line. Fen, would you mind going through this pile, Pip you have that.’

‘What do you want?’ Fen asked, deadly serious. ‘Big tits?’

‘Split beavers?’ asked Pip soberly.

‘Perfect,’ said Rachel, ‘only try to find bodies where, if there is a face, it’s a pretty one. Bugger the readers’ wives and fuck the ones with so much silicone that their nipples spread out like a rash. Just go for the bimbos – I really want to treat the boys.’