But could he do it without those who had brought him this far? Could he ride without Hunter? Could he cope with a multi-day Stage Race without Didier as a room-mate? Could he function physically and mentally without his friend, his mentor, his physician Ben? Sleep soothed him for an hour but when the knock on the door awoke him, the pain in his head and in his heart had not abated, and that around his collar bone had intensified.

‘Hey soldier,’ said Ben, taking a seat next to Luca’s bedside, ‘did you sleep?’

Having mostly seen Luca in colourful lycra, out in the fresh air, riding in the sun, it was bizarre to see him now in a hospital gown, stationary in bed in a small little room. His golden curls were in disarray, his cherub-soft cheeks were invaded by bristles, the sparkle from his eyes had gone. His lips looked dry, but most worryingly, his voice was silent. Without the bike, his health, his vitality, this might not have been Luca at all, just someone who looked vaguely like him.

‘Are you hurting?’ Ben asked. Luca gazed at him, experienced enormous pain on trying to shrug and let a fat, solitary tear seep out of his eye to slither forlornly down his nose and evanesce over his lips in reply. Just as at L’Alpe D’Huez, Ben knew instinctively what medical attention he needed to dispense. He knew there was nothing he could administer to take away Luca’s pain, nothing he could say to make him feel remotely better, nothing he could do to expedite healing, the only option (and flimsy tonic though it was) was to sit beside his charge and just be there. He looked at Luca attentively when Luca regarded him. He puckered his brow in unison with Luca. He gazed out of the window when his rider decided to do so, and he sighed the same sigh. And felt the same pain.

When Cat turned up at the hospital an hour later just after breakfast, she found Luca’s door closed with the blind pulled down and entry barred. Cat of course respected this and perched herself on the window-sill, sniffing thoughtfully into the clutch of cornflowers she’d bought for him and wondering whether she’d written too much or said not enough in her card. Nurses bustled about in staunchly starched aprons and extraordinary wimples. Cat felt utterly flimsy, not merely in her insubstantial and rather creased sundress, but in her lack of ability to do anything constructive for Luca. Of course she’d tell him of her profile of him for Pedal Power but, just then, it seemed that the purpose of the piece was more for her own greater glory than it was a testimonial for Luca.

I’ve never been in hospital, she mused, remembering the numerous occasions she’d visited Pip when some acrobatic endeavour had ended in tears and a plaster cast.

Perhaps I have never needed looking after.

That people care about you is you being looked after.