With his hair gelled and tweaked, his goatee beard clipped to perfection, his jet-black eyes hidden from view behind Oakley sunglasses despite it being dusk, Massimo Lipari cuts a dashing figure, slicing into the fantasies of the women he passes on his way to the restaurant with much the same force as when he slices through the pack on a mountain climb.

Rachel is wearing a skirt, not that anyone has noticed and not that she’s noticed that it’s gone unnoticed. It is pale blue linen, straight, and to the mid-calf. She has teamed it with a white linen shirt and white lace-up pumps. It suits her. Her hair is down but scooped away at the sides. She is wearing perfume but no make-up, her fresh complexion giving a radiance to her already pretty features.

It’s the last bloody time for over three weeks that I’ll be able to wear light colours and not smell of embrocation. The Tour de France, and the perils of being a soigneur, mean dark plain clothes are not just practical but a necessity. Anyway, I still haven’t had the chance to do my own laundry. Poor Paolo has had a very bad stomach which he is playing down because this will be his first Tour and he doesn’t want to miss it. However, his shorts have really taken the brunt. Terrible mess. It’s taken me most of the afternoon. Poor boy.

Rachel, you’re a saint.

Bollocks. I’m a soigneur. It’s my job.

She looks around the table at the team and realizes she is on tenterhooks on their behalf.

Look at you all, seemingly so relaxed. My God, when I think what’s in store for you.

And for you, Rachel. It’s your first Tour de France.

Me? Oh, I’ll be fine. The Tour, the Giro, the Vuelta – surely just the scenery is different. But the boys have the Col du Galibier, the Madeleine, L’Alpe D’Huez – not to mention the fucking Pyrenees beforehand. Shit, I must remember cashmere socks.

‘I must remember cashmere socks,’ Rachel all but shouts. The table falls silent, pieces of pizza halt half-way to mouths; spaghetti unravels itself from motionless forks.

‘Huh?’ says Massimo shooting glances to his team-mates.

‘In case it becomes cold, in case you develop sore throats. If Benylin is a banned substance, a cashmere sock worn round the neck at night surely is not.’

‘Rachel,’ said Stefano very seriously, stretching his arm across the table and laying his hand on her wrist for emphasis, ‘we finished work for the day. Shut the fuck up, relax, eat. Please.’

The team cheered and raised their glasses in support. Rachel twitched her lip and then raised her glass too.

‘Here’s to you lot,’ she said with immense feeling. ‘Have a good race.’

Rachel knows that she is to be one of only two female soigneurs on the Tour de France and the thought doesn’t worry her in the least. Cat has no idea that, in the salle de pressé of 1,000 journalists, she will be one of only twelve women.