She was prepared mentally for a few scattered houses and bars by the road as Kate had told her they were visiting peasant country but she hadn’t expected them to be so pretty. By the time she arrived on the outskirts of Biarritz she felt like she had travelled through a colourful painting.
As the taxi rolled up to the hotel, Annabel could hear the roar of the Atlantic Ocean beating off the edge of the seashore. The perfectly polished promenade of granite tiles sparkled with reflected light from a recent shower. To their right the bare trees bent over, their branches curled away from the gushes of warm wind rising off the sea. Annabel was almost in a trance at the scene.
“Quinze euro, s’il vous plaît,” the driver said, interrupting her meditation.
She held up the digits on her right hand three times.
“Oui, Madame, fifteen.”
The driver huddled underneath his beige jacket with his curly head tilting backwards to see his passenger. Annabel dug deep in her purse and handed over the exact amount. How convenient it had become to travel to France! No money exchange. Frequent flights. Not like the old days when she travelled every summer as a teenager with Kate.
“Merci,” she said, stepping out of the car.
The driver took her small travel-bag out of the boot and left it in front of the hotel.
Hotel Windsor: the name conjured images of a time gone by when the English upper classes frequented the resort. It was much as she had expected but the smell of the sea and the roar of the waves were more thrilling than she had imagined they would be. This sleepy little French town at the end of winter was an excellent choice for their reunion at this fragile time.
She steadily ascended the stairs to the foyer, pulling her bag along without difficulty.
The receptionist was dressed in a dark suit with equally dark-rimmed glasses framing her eyes. Her black hair was pulled severely into a French knot.
She greeted Annabel with a courteous smile. “Bonjour, Madame.”
Before she got a chance to reply, an excited voice called “Annabel!” from behind her.
She swung around, tossing her long blonde curls away from her face, and saw her friend rise up from her seat, her arms ready to embrace her, those doe-shaped brown eyes that had melted the hearts of so many men over the years glowing. Her hair was dyed of course, because Kate’s hair wasn’t that black even at thirteen. The reddish-pink highlights were a bit of a shock but Kate assured her later that red was the new blonde in French fashion.
The two women rushed to each other like old lovers and held on tightly in a bear hug. Kate’s pink jumper was soft as it brushed against Annabel’s cheek.
“I can’t believe you got here so quickly! I was just settling down to ring a couple of galleries,” Kate said with a beaming smile.
“I can’t believe it either – my flight was fifteen minutes early.”
They stood back from each other, taking stock. They had long been familiar with the lines on each other’s faces, they both looked well.
“I love the hair.”
“Well, you know me, I’ll try anything once,” Kate grinned. “Your mac is gorgeous and I hate you for fitting into those skinny jeans.”
Annabel smiled inwardly. She was finally slimmer and trimmer than Kate
“Do you want to get lunch?”
“Yeah, good idea. Our room won’t be ready for a while.”
They left their bags in the care of the receptionist.
“I need to freshen up first, what about you?” Kate asked.
“Yeah – toilettes this way.”
The two women glided through the small and informal lobby decked with cosy leather armchairs and ubiquitous MDF-trimmed bar. Annabel’s handbag swung over her shoulder and her cream raincoat rested neatly in the crook of her other arm. She observed the multicoloured embroidered mule bag that Kate swung nonchalantly from her arm.
“When did you start to use a handbag?” she asked in amazement. She was always the one weighed down with eye-shadows and hairbrushes and was now startled by the huge appendage carried by Kate.
“I need the make-up to hide the wrinkles. Time’s finally caught up with me as we are here to witness!”
“I’m right behind you, girl!”
The two stood in front of the brightly lit mirrors fixing and tweaking the blemishes on their faces.
“You wouldn’t have a deodorant?” Kate asked.
“Sure!” Annabel said, delving deep into her bag.
There was a familiarity about the question. Even though they hadn’t seen each other in nearly two years, they both appreciated the intimacy they shared. It could only be forged by years of friendship that had started when they had no preconceptions or expectations of how a friend was meant to be. Annabel was the closest Kate had to a sister and, although Annabel had two of her own, she had shared all her landmark moments in life with Kate.
“I feel much better,” Annabel said, wiping her hands clean with the courtesy towel.
The two women strode out of the hotel in search of the wonderful restaurant they felt sure was waiting for them. They passed under a Victorian walkway, beautifully decorated with wrought-iron moulding, as the sun started to peep through the clouds.
“How’s Colin and the kids?”
“I swear, Kate, sometimes I wonder how they manage to function when I’m not around. Then to top it all, Colin’s not talking to me because I went to a fashion show last night – would you credit it? I spent two hours yesterday afternoon making Shepherd’s Pie and lasagne so they wouldn’t starve over the next two days and he’s in a huff because I go out the night before coming away,” Annabel sighed.
“He knows he’d be lost without you. Did the kids mind you going away?”
“Sam is obsessed with his X-box, Taylor is too busy with her horse and I told Rebecca I was getting her an art set that you could only get in France so she let me go with her blessing.”
“So your kids aren’t materialistic then!” Kate smiled. “What was the fashion show like?”
“It was the only place to be in Howth last night. June Stokes did MC, Image magazine were there and all the major glossies. I couldn’t have missed it. Besides the proceeds were in aid of the school so I just had to go, didn’t I?”
“Of course you had to support the school,” Kate grinned and nodded her head.
It was so like Annabel to be found mingling mid-week with the local cognoscenti. Annabel had nothing to prove to anyone but was always trying to prove something to herself. She feared so much the loss of her Yummy Mummy status.
They leisurely came to the end of the walkway. Annabel was first to spot some locals behind a restaurant window serving themselves couscous from a hand-painted bowl.
“This place looks nice,” Kate said and Annabel nodded in agreement.
The women sitting on the other side of the glass were startled by the two Irishwomen gaping in at them.
“It’s couscous – have you had it?” Kate asked.
“Please give me some credit – even Patrick Guilbaud’s have been known to have couscous in some shape or form. To say nothing of my local SuperValu!”
“Patrick who’s?”
“You’ve been away from Ireland a long time, haven’t you?” Annabel grinned.
“Too long by the sounds of it.”
A waitress welcomed the women in and placed them at a table for two at the window. The red and white gingham tablecloths gave the restaurant a cheerful ambiance and the walls were painted a bright chalky blue that was set off by navy mosaic tiles. Orange lampshades shaped like tulip heads hung over each table.
“This place is perfect. Red or white?” Kate asked.
“White or rosé.”
“Une carafe de vin rosé, s’il vous plaît.”
“Your accent is perfect! Do they think you’re local now?” Annabel applauded her friend.
“You must be joking. I’m always spotted as a foreigner. The bloody gallery owners in Paris pretend they can’t under
stand a word I say . . . ten years in the country and they look at me sometimes as if I’m speaking Greek!”
“How’s the painting going?” Annabel asked.
“I have an exhibition coming up in November and I have a few galleries that keep me ticking over in between. I’m proud to say I am making a living out of my work which is one major goal achieved before reaching forty.”
“I think you’re fabulous. I wish I were creative.”
“But you are! What about all those parents’ association things you do? See, I do read your emails.” Kate’s brown eyes twinkled as she spoke.
“Thanks, but to be honest they’re more of an excuse for housewives to get out mid-week and drink too much wine.”
“What about going back to college and finishing your degree – you always said you would?”
“I wouldn’t have the time, Kate. There is so much to do in my week. Then of course my main job as chauffeur takes up every afternoon.”
Kate looked at Annabel with a bemused expression, while the waitress poured wine from a ceramic jug into their glasses.
“You like to order?” she asked.
“We’ll have two of those, s’il vous plaît!” Annabel said, pointing over at the plates of juicy chicken and couscous in front of the women at the table next to them.
“Ah, Couscous Royale,” the waitress exclaimed and took off.
“Yes, Kate, while you are off painting your mountains in Haute-Pyrenée I am driving from ballet to tap-dancing and rugby to piano lessons. Most of the women in Howth spend half their time in the car or jeep.”
Kate couldn’t hold the laughter back. “You’ve turned into Mrs Webb!”
Annabel was slightly peeved at the remark but after a few moments saw the funny side. As teenagers the two girls would stand at the main road waiting for the Number 86 bus to Howth and when Mrs Webb and her daughter Trudy flashed by in a shiny new BMW Estate they always felt like paupers. Trudy’s dad owned a string of chainstores and everyone knew that they were the richest family in the town.
“Jesus, Kate, I never thought of it that way. The only difference now is that Howth is teeming with Mrs Webbs and nobody uses the bus any more.”
“You’re joking.”
“No, I’m deadly serious.”
“Not even the teenagers?” Kate was aghast.
“Once they’re old enough they drive.”
“Flipping heck, I’m glad I live in France – most kids can’t afford it over here.”
“How are the boys getting on?” Annabel asked.
“Do you mean in school or coping with the fact that their father has gone and impregnated his personal assistant?”
Annabel felt an “ouch moment” coming on. She had hoped their conversation about the separation would have come a bit later but Kate was frank and open unlike Annabel’s other friends in Howth – with them she had become too accustomed to skirting around the edges of delicate matters.
“Oh Kate, I’ve been so worried about you!”
“Me? Annabel, I will be fine and in the words of my good friend Ivana: ‘Don’t get mad, get everything!’”
“Kate, I’m so glad to hear you’re taking it this way. When you called me that time I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t know how I was going to find you. Little did we know, when organising this trip last year, that things could change so quickly.”
“Only they don’t really happen that quickly. To be honest, I could see it coming for a while.”
“What do you mean?” Annabel tilted her head, surprised at the revelation.
“I mean Stefan was showing all the classic signs – away with work for longer periods than usual and not so interested in sex. Washing the pots after dinner and leaving funny receipts from places he couldn’t have been all over the house.”
“You poor pet!” Annabel’s eyes clouded over. The thought of losing her secure position on the arm of her Colin left her feeling shook.
“It’s not that bad,” Kate went on. “I’m trying to create something positive out of it all and my paintings are shit-hot at the moment, even though I say so myself. What is it about creativity and crisis that go so well together?”
“At least you have your work,” Annabel nodded. “It must be lonely with the boys in boarding school.”
“The funny thing is the house has never been busier. I have a mish-mash of interesting friends and artisans living all around and we do a rota of sorts eating in each other’s houses. There’s Julian – he’s a writer and his wife Eva grows organic vegetables for the market. Fabian who does my garden and everyone else’s around – he’s gay as Christmas but has never said it straight out to any of the rest of them except me, so we don’t comment on his sexuality. Joy and Simon run a holistic centre and hold yoga retreats at different times during the year. They get some array of characters staying with them! Then I have a selection of teacher friends from my dabbling with the young French minds in the local lycée.”
“Don’t you miss the buzz of Paris?”
“I still get up there a couple of times a month and then I have a whole crew who whisk me away to the Bastille and Montparnasse to remind me of what civilised, or rather not so civilised, society is like, especially at three and four o’clock in the mornings!”
“You are making me jealous. Your life is so . . .”
“French?”
“I was going to say well rounded and balanced. I really wasn’t expecting you to be so together when I got here. I’m not quite sure how I expected you to be but this wasn’t it.”
“Honestly. Stefan and I have been coming to the end of our time together for a while.”
“You make it sound like a contract.”
“Well, that’s what it is, a contract of sorts,” Kate said in a matter-of-fact tone.
Annabel was horrified and her mouth started to drop as the waitress placed the plat du jour down in front of her. She picked up her glass of rosé to disguise the expression on her face but Kate remained unphased.
“Tuck in,” she said. “This couscous looks even better from this side of the glass.”
* * *
After lunch Annabel still couldn’t get the word ‘contract’ out of her head. The two women walked along the breathtaking cliffs that swept along the coast. Could Kate really feel that way about her marital vows after all of this time? If the shoe were on the other foot she could imagine feeling very differently. She was defined by her status as Mrs Annabel Hamilton and she wished to remain that way until she died. She had her kids to think about and her mother while she was still alive. They would be distraught if her marriage failed. Annabel had a lot of other people to think about in every aspect of her life and she couldn’t be as flippant as Kate. But it had always been that way. Annabel watched from the sidelines as Kate went ahead and did everything she wanted to do.
“I think in life, there are two types of people,” she blurted out. “Those who know what they want and go out and get it and those who don’t know what they want so they go around doing what everyone else expects of them!”
“Where did that come from?” Kate asked. “I was busy taking in the spectacular view and dodging the twenty-foot spray!”
Annabel paused. She had hardly noticed the rugged rocks in hues of yellow ochre and burnt umber jutting out of the sea. Kate was standing at the footbridge that led to a viewing point and was considering crossing.
She beckoned to Annabel. “Will we?”
“You see what I mean. I don’t know if I want to go over there and get battered by the waves but you just do it.”
“Are you Okay?”
“I’m deeply troubled by the way you called your marriage a contract actually.” Annabel’s voice was a pitch higher than usual.
“I think you were the one who came up with that word. Anyway life’s full of change and that’s the time I was allocated to spend with Stefan, that’s all.”
“How can you be so matter of fact?”
“Annabel, I was married
before, remember? It might only have been for a few months but when Harry died I dealt with it and I had two babies waiting to be born inside me.”
Annabel felt naïve and inadequate next to her friend who had experienced so many different facets of human life.
Kate sighed. “Have you ever known me to be without a man . . . well, apart from now.”
“Apart from now? No, actually.”
“There you go, there’s someone better out there just waiting for me. I did love Stefan, I was with him long enough, but to be honest he wasn’t the love of my life and you know that.”
Annabel knew exactly what Kate was saying. More than that, she understood exactly how that felt, but unlike her friend she couldn’t admit it to anyone, much less herself.
“I saw him in Toulouse, you know, about three years ago,” Kate said in a calm voice. “He was doing a refresher course on the Airbus. He’s a captain now for AirJet.”
“You mean Shane?” Annabel asked quietly.
Kate didn’t flinch but stared out at the rolling waves.
“I heard he moved to the south side,” Annabel continued. “His wife’s from Dalkey. I haven’t seen him in years.”
“He told me all about his wife. He was only just married and still fiddling around with the thin gold band on his wedding finger. It didn’t sit comfortably, he said. Do you know it had been ten years since I’d seen him? He hadn’t changed a bit. He still rocked me.”
“I can only imagine. What did you do?”
“I was visiting a small gallery that Fabian told me about. His brother’s friend’s or someone like that. It was a Saturday and I was meant to bring the kids with me but as luck would have it one of the neighbours took them. I had just parked the car and was walking along when I saw him, in a T-shirt and jeans like he used to always wear. Only I think the T-shirt was Lacoste.”
“He wouldn’t have been seen dead in that in the old days.” Annabel was wondering how she didn’t hear this story from Kate before now.
“He walked straight towards me as if we’d arranged to meet. It was so bizarre. He had three hours until the flight simulator was free and he was looking for something to bring back to Natasha.”
Two Days in Biarritz Page 2