‘Don’t be a wanker,’ says Josh, rubbing his eyes, his bristled chin, ‘she’s got a boyfriend back home.’

STAGE 3
Vuillard-Plumelec. 225 kilometres

I don’t want Josh to fancy me and I don’t want Josh to tell Ben, thought Cat, quite urgently when waking with a start in the early hours. I don’t want Ben to think that I have a boyfriend. Because, of course, I do not. Oh. But that means I actively want Ben to know I’m single. If I fancy Ben, which I do, it must mean that I now feel single. If I’m feeling single, it is the lid on the coffin of my time with Him. To fancy another, to want another, to be with another, would symbolize the ultimate sealing nail in that coffin. How do I feel about all that?

Her meanderings led her to a thick sleep for a couple of hours. She awoke again, still way before dawn.

Fancying Ben might allow me to bury my past relationship, those intrusive memories and my deluded hopes of Him. That would be wise.

Cat slept for an hour more and then rose before six thirty.

Bullshit, Cat. Ben has no purpose, nothing to do with Him back home. The point – and it is indisputable – is that I fancy Ben, full stop. He turns me on. I want him.

She rummaged around her rucksack and laid out a selection of her clothing in various configurations. Really, it was far too early to start dressing. The riders would not be signing on until 10.30. Cat therefore had four hours to decide what to wear and she tried on a number of alternatives. Soon enough she was sitting despondent on her bed, in a mismatched bra and knickers. She took her mobile phone and dialled.

‘Hullo?’ Fen was startled. It was an hour earlier in GMT after all. An early phone call was often a harbinger of death, of doom at the very least.

‘It’s me,’ Cat whispered, fearing the walls might be thin enough to entitle her neighbours access to her revelations.

‘Jesus, what’s up?’ Fen asked.

‘Up?’ Cat replied, concerned at her sister’s tone.

‘It’s so early – are you OK?’ Fen persisted.

‘Oh shit!’ Cat exclaimed, the time difference dawning on her. ‘I’m fine. I just wanted to call. To say hullo.’

‘I see,’ said Fen measuredly.

‘Um,’ Cat faltered, ‘also for some advice.’

‘Advice?’ Fen asked. ‘About—?’

‘What to wear today?’ Cat said meekly, peeping through the curtains and assessing the flat but dry prelude to dawn.

‘What to wear?’ Fen repeated, looking out the window to a rain-dressed pavement. Fen contemplated her sister’s loaded silence and wondered if Cat could sense that, back in Camden, she was grinning. ‘What to wear,’ Fen repeated, this time as a statement. ‘Tell me it’s the doctor and not some oily bike boy,’ Fen whispered with glee.

‘It’s the doctor,’ said Cat, eyes squeezed shut as if a revelation out loud might ultimately jeopardize the actuality of a currently non-existent situation. ‘Do you think that’s OK?’