Biarritz Passion: A French Summer Novel

by Laurette Long

  It was the end of May. They were saying that it was one of the coldest springs on record. Plants were just pushing up in gardens, struggling through the cold earth, battered by the frequent showers of hail that swept in from the coast. The trees were in leaf but everything looked pinched and timid, without the usual burgeoning fullness of an English May.

  She pulled back the curtains. The bushes below her window were drenched; puddles lay in the gravel driveway. Staring out, listening to the relentless dripping, she felt her spirits plummet. Bad dreams and a bad case of the blues that wouldn’t go away. Maybe that thing they called SAD, Seasonal Affective Disorder, caused by a lack of sunlight. She gave herself a mental shake. Come on, MacDonald, brace yourself. You’re not the only one groaning every time the weather forecast comes on. Just get on with it. You could be living in Denmark, like Sarah Lund in ‘The Killing’. Practically every scene seemed to take place in thick fog or pouring rain. Great series though. Would Sarah be back again this year? Now that would be something to look forward to.

  The milkman stopped his float outside the two large posts flanking the entrance to the drive. Caroline watched him wade up the path, head down. Two bottles of milk for the Wests, the young couple on the second floor. One for Mrs Chivers, the widow who lived on the ground floor. One for herself.

  Get a grip, she told herself, summer will be here soon. Hopefully. The weather forecasters were saying it would brighten up in time for the holiday weekend. She took a deep breath, squeezed her eyes shut, tried to conjure up the feel of hot sun on skin, the scent of new-mown grass at Willowdale. But it was no good. Funny how when you were cold you couldn’t imagine ever being hot again, and when you were lying on a beach, baking, the idea of wearing thick sweaters and warm socks was inconceivable.

  As she headed for the bathroom her eye fell on a leaflet that had been pushed through the letter-box. An ad for a Zumba class. She should join. Get some exercise, give way to the exotic music, let the endorphins flow. Meet new people, maybe even make new friends. She sighed as she turned on the shower. She missed Jill more than she would have imagined. She had been the only person Caroline could really talk to. And laugh with. And had proved herself a true friend when Caroline was at her lowest ebb and didn’t know who to turn to. But now she was in Edinburgh. New job, new flat, new city. Standing under the hot water Caroline promised herself she would call and arrange a weekend. There were fast trains to Edinburgh from London, she could be up there in two and a half hours. She had never been to Edinburgh, everyone said what a great city it was. Jill raved about it, saying the bars and clubs and restaurants were heaving, the social life really buzzing. Although of course the weather was even worse than here. They had something called the ‘haar’, wasn’t that it, a sort of clinging drippy sea-mist. Anyway. Never mind the mist. Goal for this evening: ring Jill. Organise a weekend in June. Maybe even longer, perhaps a week later in the summer. She had three weeks holiday coming up in July. For a moment she froze with panic. What was she going to do with herself for three weeks? She hadn’t taken any time off work since last summer, since the awful holiday with Liam. She let the hot water pelt her shoulders, fighting back the feeling of oppression that gripped her when she thought of him. Liam is gone she told herself. Gone forever.

  The shower had warmed her up. She made herself coffee in the small kitchen which led off the sitting room. The flat wasn’t bad really, just a bit gloomy. Maybe she could look for something brighter, when she had a bit more energy. The coffee was running low, she noticed. She must buy some when she went shopping this lunchtime to find a card for Margaret. There was a little shop in the high street that sold hand-made cards for special occasions. And this was a special occasion. And a very special person. Aunt Margaret had a unique place in Caroline’s life, and this weekend she would be eighty years old.

  Choosing the present had been a real headache. The hours she’d spent wandering round the big stores, looking at warm bed jackets and sensible cardigans. Nothing felt right. Then, hurrying home one evening through the crowds of late shoppers, she’d suddenly noticed it, in the window of an antique shop. A writing box, made of rosewood, and inlaid with mother of pearl. It opened out to form a slope, lined with blue velvet, against which the brass edges gleamed. Purest Jane Austen. Purest Aunt Margaret. ‘Pride and Prejudice’ was her favourite book, as both sisters well knew. Many a teenage crisis had been put into perspective thanks to an appropriate quotation from the Queen of Romantic Fiction. Fourteen-year-old Annabel, prostrate on the sofa, weeping and wailing that ‘it was all over’ and ‘she would just die if she couldn’t have him’ was told:

  ‘Last week it was the Mason boy. That was before you decided he had smelly feet. This week it’s the butcher’s son. That was handy, I admit, when I went to order the Sunday roast yesterday. Who, I ask myself, will be the next unfortunate object of your attentions? The Vicar perhaps? Remember my dear, “A lady’s imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony, in a moment.” And you can put matrimony out of your mind young lady and go and help Birdie do the washing up.’

  When Caroline and Annabel had been younger they had spent hours acting out different scenes from favourite books. Willowdale, the MacDonald family home, was an ideal setting, an old mellow farmhouse in a quiet patch of English countryside that in some ways had scarcely changed since Jane Austen’s day. Aunt Margaret was the producer and prompter, Birdie made the costumes and did the sound effects, including the dreaded coconut shells every time Mr Darcy galloped up. Naturally, cute blond Annabel always got to play the girls’ parts, while Caroline, eight years older, was stuck with Mr Bennet, Mr Bingley and Mr Darcy. But Annabel’s favourite character by far was Lydia, the naughty daughter, causing shock and scandal by running away with the dastardly Wickham. In the scene where Lydia returns, now married to the villain, Annabel would flounce around the lounge in a pair of Aunt Margaret’s shoes, tossing her curls and waggling a large fake diamond on her finger.

  ‘Mama, what do you think of my husband? Is he not a charming man? I am sure my sisters must all envy me. They must go to Brighton. That is the place to get husbands.’

  The memories had come flooding back as Caroline stared at the writing box. And now Annabel had got her husband. Well, husband-to-be. The years had passed.

  It really was a pretty box. The setting enhanced it, of course, the polished table it stood on, the Chinese vase next to it, full of yellow daffodils. She hesitated, telling herself to be reasonable, then found herself pushing open the door. It was much too expensive. She listened as the shop keeper pointed out the fineness of the inlay, and revealed at the touch of a hidden spring, the secret drawer in the bottom. She had shaken her head regretfully and left. Five minutes later she was back, taking out her credit card.

  At home she put the box on her desk under the lamp, admiring its gold and amber depths. She knew exactly where Margaret would put it, on the desk in her bedroom where she enjoyed looking out over the garden. A shadow crossed Caroline’s face. Her aunt was having to spend more and more time in her room, the arthritis and swelling in her legs made walking a painful chore for her nowadays.

  It had all happened so quickly, sometimes Caroline couldn’t really believe it. Margaret was eternal, wasn’t she? She was a legend in the little village community of Ravensfield. ‘Let’s ask Margaret, she’ll know what to do.’ She was the mastermind behind flower shows, fêtes and theatrical productions. She was at the finishing line of charity runs, with a loudhailer and a tartan bonnet. She was the Vicar’s Conscience, the Voice of Reproach that woke him in the early hours with a list of everything he hadn’t done.

  And she was Caroline’s anchor. A weekend at Willowdale was balm for the soul. Caroline would turn in through the stone gateposts, drive up past the stately oaks, and find herself in the pages of an Agatha Christie novel. Doors would be thrown open. Cries of delight uttered by Margaret and Birdie, her faithful companion. The smell of baking scones would come wa
fting through the windows. Even Titus, who was going for the record of oldest Labrador in the county, would manage to waddle out and do a ‘woof’. It was a time warp, a leisurely innocent world where floorboards creaked and clocks ticked and things never changed.

  Caroline sighed. Nowadays Margaret stayed indoors most of the time, Birdie got out of breath climbing the stairs, and Titus had gone from gold to grey. But, she told herself, Margaret still had plenty of mental energy, and the writing slope was the perfect present. Missives would be dashed off about traffic roundabouts, speed humps and litter louts. MPs would be taken to task and hang their heads in shame.

  The previous year Caroline had bought her aunt a laptop, thinking this would make writing easier for her, but during the one afternoon she tried to initiate Margaret into its mysteries, words had passed her aunt’s lips that made her niece’s eyes pop.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by the voice of the radio announcer informing listeners that it was twenty-two minutes before eight on Wednesday the 26th of May and that the temperature in London was a chilly 12 degrees Celsius. Racing into the bedroom, Caroline flung open the wardrobe doors. It would have to be a thick woollen skirt yet again. Or warm trousers. She was fed up with winter clothes, but the powers that be had turned the heating off at work in mid-May. Her eye fell on a piece of wallpaper which was beginning to peel away above the wardrobe. That was the problem with old houses, they had plenty of character but they always needed work. If Liam had still been around…

  Stop it, she told herself, stop it right away. She would not think of Liam. She shuddered, told herself to get going. Navy skirt, white blouse, navy jacket. She looked like a 1950s air hostess. Plus it was the same outfit she’d worn yesterday, but what did it matter, no one would notice anyway, her colleagues were wrapped up in their own lives and problems. At the last moment she exchanged the navy jacket for a thick-ribbed grey cardigan, no point in catching a cold. Pulling it on, she caught sight of herself in the mirror. The 1950s air hostess had been replaced by a dowdy spinster. The expression sprang into her mind. It was one you never heard nowadays, very non pc. Now they were all ‘singles’. Perusing the back pages of the Sunday papers she read about all those ‘singles’, usually ‘thirty-something’, usually looking for ‘a special soul mate’. Was that what she had thought she had with Liam? A special soul mate? On Bank Holiday weekend last year it had been scorching hot. They had gone down to Brighton, stayed in a hotel on the sea front, eaten fish and chips and ice-cream, paddled in the sea. In the afternoons they had made love the way he liked.

  She closed her eyes, clenched her hands into fists until the nails dug in. Deep breaths. Eight times. She opened her eyes. A ghost looked back at her from the mirror. Pale face, dark smudges under her eyes, straggly hair in need of a cut. Her skirt hung on her, the cardigan had sprouted little balls down the insides of the sleeves. She just wanted to crawl back under the duvet.

  Off with the cardigan, on with the air hostess jacket again. Now a good layer of Chanel Rouge Allure lipstick. She stood back. Bride of Frankenstein, freshly risen from the coffin. She groaned, grabbed her coat and bag and slammed the door as she rushed out of the flat.

  The traffic as usual was heavy as she turned out of the side road. Sitting in her Mini, wipers sweeping to and fro, she glanced at the postcard lying on the passenger seat. It had been with the mail as she left the house. Flat-topped buildings of dazzling white against an azure sky, palm trees fringing the beach. Scribbled words on the back told of a ‘super hotel’ and ‘marvellous weather’. It started ‘Dear Sis’ and ended ‘love Annabel’. It must have taken at least ten days to arrive, her sister had been back from Greece since the middle of May. Caroline pushed down a feeling of illogical jealousy. She too could go to Greece, or Turkey, or the Canaries. It was just the idea of going on her own. Maybe Jill would be up for it? She’d love some sun, really hot sun, the kind that pinned you to your beach towel and eased away the knots and tensions.

  The driver behind gave an angry hoot, making her jump. She realised the traffic light had changed to green and glanced in her rear view mirror. Power mother in SUV, anxious to get her brat to school on time. Caroline put her foot down and shot forward, overtaking the car ahead of her and narrowly missing a lorry coming in the other direction. Well done MacDonald. Monza next stop. Pedestrians hurried past, umbrellas pitched against the driving rain. The weatherman had surely got it wrong again with his beguiling promises of a warm front moving in from the west. Bad weather meant they would all be cooped up indoors at Willowdale. Not that she minded being cooped up with her aunt and Birdie. But stuck indoors with her sister…

  As soon as she acknowledged the thought, Caroline felt guilty. Little Annabel. She reminded herself for the millionth time that her sister had every excuse. Her childhood had been unhappy and bewildering. She had been lonely and insecure, a little girl with no Mummy and Daddy. Even today, at 22, with all her dazzling beauty, her apparent self-confidence and the crowd of fashionable friends she surrounded herself with, Annabel sometimes looked like that lost little girl. And then Caroline’s heart would melt. But more and more often she found herself thinking that Little Annabel had grown up into a Big Pain. And it was an unfortunate fact that since she’d become engaged, she was turning into an Even Bigger Pain. Julian, her fiancé, was such a nice man, attentive, courteous, a good listener. Caroline had immediately taken to him, breathing a sigh of relief that her sister had found a genuine sweetheart. But it was like the old saying ‘there is always one who loves and one who turns the cheek’. Julian was the one who loved, to the point of being besotted with Annabel, allowing her to twist him round her little finger in a way that set Caroline’s teeth on edge. Take the holiday in Greece. They had all been at Willowdale when Annabel had brought up the subject.

  ‘Darling Juju,’ she had begun.

  And Caroline had winced. She couldn’t help it. She knew what was coming. First the pout. It was one of those Hollywood pouts, that managed to look adorable instead of plain sulky. And the eyes. She marvelled at the size of those blue eyes, wide, imploring and filled with...celestial dew. She watched as her sister slid on to Julian’s knee and twined a strand of his hair round her fingers.

  ‘I really don’t know why you’re being so stubborn. We both need a little break, Juju, it’s only for one week!’

  Julian, obviously embarrassed to be discussing the subject in front of Annabel’s family, had gently removed his fiancée from his knee. But kept hold of her hand. And looked at her with earnest love.

  ‘I’ve already told you, Bella my darling, it’s our busiest time at work. I simply can’t justify taking a holiday when everyone else is working full stretch. Please sweetheart, we’ve had this discussion several times.’

  ‘But you’re the boss!’ The big head honcho! You can take off whatever time you want, surely! Just a little teeny week, that’s all I’m asking. I’ve been working soooo hard! And I could really, really do with some sun!’

  Annabel stretched out one slender arm, her face a picture of misery.

  ‘Look how pale I am. And the winter’s been sooo long and sooo horrid.’

  Caroline wanted to jump up, clap her hands over her ears and scream. She couldn’t stand her sister’s little girl voice, the one she put on when she was trying to cajole people into doing what she wanted. And, foolishly, she had intervened.

  ‘Annabel, if Julian says he’s busy, then he’s busy,’ she said, meaning to sound like Reasonable Level-Headed Big Sister. Instead she ended up sounding waspish. ‘You can always go somewhere later in the year.’

  Her sister’s look was mutinous.

  ‘That’s typical of you Caroline. Take anyone’s part except mine. And how could you possibly understand, you’re married to your boring old job! But me, you all think just because I’m a junior I spend all my time filing my nails and chatting to friends on the phone. I work jolly hard, let me tell you, and I’m exhausted and I need a break. I’d just like to get out of boring
old London for a measly six days! It’s not as though I’m asking you to take me for a month to the Bahamas, Julian!’

  ‘For goodness sake, Annabel!’

  This time it was Aunt Margaret.

  ‘Sometimes you act like a child. Nobody is criticising your job! You’ve done very well to find a position on such a glamorous magazine. But the way you talk, I sometimes I wonder if you spare a thought for anyone other than yourself. Julian has made it quite clear. He can’t suddenly abandon ship for a week and leave everyone in the lurch. A leader should always set an example to his troops.’

  Caroline saw a flash of pure fury in her sister’s eyes, then just as suddenly her lip trembled, the tears brimmed over. She rushed over to Margaret and clasped her in an impulsive embrace.

  ‘Oh Auntie M, I know, I’m so selfish. You’re quite right to tell me off.’

  She turned to Julian.

  ‘Darling, forget about Greece. I should never have brought it up. Sometimes I wonder how you put up with me. I’m so stupid. I don’t deserve you.’

  I’ve changed, thought Caroline, become old and cynical. She watched her sister dab at her eyes with Julian’s handkerchief. There was a time she would have reacted differently, cuddles and reassurances for her little sister. But now she knew how it would end.

  Which, of course, was that Annabel and Julian went off to Greece for a week.

  She glanced at the postcard again, then leaned forward and rubbed irritably at the steamed up windscreen. What had got into her this morning? Turning into Drivezilla, cringing at the thought of a weekend with her own sister…An image flashed into her mind. Annabel, a little girl, holding out a drawing for her to look at, giggling infectiously, looking up at her with such trusting blue eyes. ‘Baby’, that’s what they’d all called her. Baby Annabel.

  Caroline had been ten years old when her parents died, Annabel scarcely more than two. Their deaths had been so traumatic that for a long time Caroline could only conjure up fragmented memories of their life together, isolated flashbacks. A holiday at the seaside, building sandcastles with her father, the sound of waves and children’s laughter mingling with the salty air. Sitting in front of the fire on Sunday afternoons, logs crackling, her mother talking on the telephone, the sound of Chopin coming from the stereo.