Hot Basque: A French Summer Novel 2

by Laurette Long

  ‘I take it that’s a ‘yes’?’ said Caroline when she’d got her breath back.

  The summer drew to an end. September arrived and Edward and Caroline fell into a new routine of weekend visits. It was usually Caroline who would get the plane to Toulouse on a Friday night, going to the airport straight from her TEFL classes in London and returning by the early flight on Monday.

  She had found herself enjoying being a student again. The linguistic theory fascinated her scientific side, and after her initial nervousness at stepping into a classroom she discovered she was able to relax into the practical part as well. True to form, she was diligent and hard-working, getting high marks in her essays and preparing her lesson plans with meticulous attention to detail. The months had flown by. And now the moment of truth was looming.

  She frowned. Why had she doodled an exotic flower around the first item on her list? The flower had crept up to the top of the page, turned into a branch and sprouted three pairs of high-heeled shoes. Shoes. Maybe she needed to buy some new shoes, her first job interview was coming up next week, right here in Toulouse. The thought set her nerves jangling. Would it be in English or French? Should she wear a suit, or something more casual, well-cut trousers and a chic jacket with a designer scarf? She’d brought a few things with her, maybe she should try them on, see how they looked? Or maybe she should just hit the shops for something new, this afternoon, before Edward got back?

  Whoa! Concentrate! she told herself. Stop dithering MacDonald and get on with it. The programme for the afternoon was exam revision not shoe-buying. She dragged her wandering thoughts away from the boutique just off the Place Saint-George which sold the most perfect, elegant shoes.

  She got a fresh sheet of paper, drew two columns. In the left-hand one she wrote ‘Topics Prepared’; in the right-hand one ‘Topics to revise’.

  A warm breeze came in through the window and riffled her papers. She lifted her head, gazed longingly at the blue sky showing between the branches. It would be nice to stroll along the river, get a bit of fresh air, maybe go across the bridge, wander through the Prairie des Filtres. She could go as far as St-Cyprien, call in at that nice little shop that did different blends of coffee, pick up a new kind for them to try this weekend.

  Grrr. Was there a quote about procrastination? Aunt Margaret would surely know. The early bird gets the worm. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Yes, and you will be trying again if you don’t get a move on, she told herself sternly. You have an exam to pass. A very difficult exam. She picked up the first of the past papers on Theory, read through the four questions. She reckoned there was one she’d do pretty well on, another two possible and one hopeless.

  She put the clock in front of her. One hour to map out the answers to two of the questions, then two hours to develop her notes into proper essays. Then, hallelujah, she could call it a day and start to think about more exciting things. Like dinner with Edward. And appetisers. Involving French lingerie.

  There was a ping from her laptop. She glanced at the screen. The mailbox showed a little envelope. Do not be distracted, do not be a weak-willed wimp. Pick up that pencil and write some notes. Just one page of notes. Then you can have another cup of coffee and check the mail. She stifled a yawn. She actually needed another cup of coffee, she was a bit sleepy after last night’s cavorting. Maybe she’d have to ration her Man to three nights a week. Yes, and maybe pigs could fly.

  She’d just check and see who was writing to her, then get that coffee, then–head down, no more excuses. She clicked on the mail icon. Jill! News from Edinburgh! Great! Jill’s mails were always a hoot. And maybe a good laugh would give her an endorphin rush, which, added to the caffeine fix should get the ideas shooting round her brain like billiard balls.

  Bonjour chère amie, howyadoin’? Trusting that you’re beavering away and aiming to graduate top of the class! Yeah!

  Caroline winced, but pressed on.

  Hoping you’re not letting yourself get too distracted by DropDead Ed. Scrub that–hoping you are indeed letting yourself get distracted by His Gorgeousness. Let me dream! Am in dire need of a few fantasies after my latest Desperate Encounter. Last weekend dear Annie and Ian set me up with a bloke called Kenneth. Yes, another bloke, number four to be exact. But...très promising, this one. Good-looking, a Porsche and…a plane! Well, not his own plane, but he can fly it. We had a nice titillating evening, he wiggled his eyebrows and promised me a sky high experience. He eyed me up, I eyed him up, there was a naughty moment under the dining table when he recovered the serviette I’d dropped (no, I didn’t do it on purpose, it genuinely slid off my silk-clad thigh) This is it, I thought, the cactus blooms again! We actually made it back to my place and I slipped into the bathroom to check the O’Toole body was primed and ready for action. I can tell you I was so excited I nearly had an orgasm brushing my teeth. Anyway I finally prepared to make my entrance into the Bedchamber, boobs high. But suddenly I heard these awful sounds, honestly my hair stood on end, it sounded like Jack Nicholson was in there hacking Kenneth to pieces with an axe! I just wanted to run out of the flat screaming but some dormant Sir Lancelot gene took over my body and propelled me into attack mode. (I did arm myself with that dik dik thing our Tommy brought me back from his gap year, not that it would have done much good against an axe-wielding Nicholson) And guess what? Shock horror! The bugger was asleep! Out for the count, comatose, snoring and groaning and gurgling fit to raise the roof. I poked him with the dik dik, did a fandango in my stilettos and uttered a bloodcurdling scream. No dice. The Flying Scotsman was beyond help. I had to spend the night on the sofa, with earplugs. In my own flat! And when I woke up next day, he’d sneaked off! He’d been so anxious to make a quick getaway he forgot his underpants. I suppose I can always hang them from my bedpost.

  Anyway enough of my woes. I can now do fifty bench press-ups and swim fifteen miles. Very handy when I finally apply to join the Foreign Legion.

  Tell me all your exciting news.

  Kisses

  Jill

  Caroline was giggling so much she knew that work was out of the question for the afternoon. She wanted to get straight back to Jill, her old friend in times of trouble, her rock through the dark days with Liam the ex. She had been bereft when Jill decided to move to Edinburgh, knowing how much she’d miss her scandalous sense of humour, her ‘I-can-do-it-you-can-do-it’ attitude. She’d even been on the point of trying to get a job in Edinburgh herself, and then she’d met Edward.

  Jill and Edward had met for the first time for Caroline’s birthday party last October. The two of them had their heads together in minutes, laughing like hyenas about some doubtless smutty anecdote. Caroline had thought ‘ouf’ and the tension had gone out of her shoulders. It would have been too much if her Man and her best friend had taken a dislike to each other. But they got on famously. Jill immediately christened him DropDead Ed. Edward, who had an eye for the pretty ladies, was obviously taken with Jill’s striking looks, her wild red Irish hair and creamy skin. And they made each other laugh.

  Watching them together Caroline had wished that her friend could meet a good man, a really good man, someone who wouldn’t be put off by Jill’s quick tongue and her ‘I can take on the world’ attitude, someone who could see below the surface to the other Jill, soft-centred, caring, nurturing. The Jill who dreamed of marrying George Clooney and having five children.

  But Mr C was taken. And time was running out for the five children.

  Caroline wandered into the kitchen, poured another cup of coffee. She took a thoughtful sip, then put the cup down, leaned back against the counter and stared at the opposite wall.

  What if...

  Dear Jill

  As usual you had me falling about over your woes. Sorry sorry. Let’s face it though, you sound to have had a narrow escape with this Kenneth chap. If he didn’t even have the decency to face you the next morning he must be a bit of a wimp. Anyway, forget the Foreign Legion and turn your mind to o
ther foreign affairs. I have had, my dear a thought. Edward and I are planning an escape to the coast in June, after my exams are over and done with and I am hopefully a fully-fledged TEFL teacher. Apparently no-one will be using the villa, the family are going down there later in the summer. Now chère amie you’ve seen the photos. You’ve done the gasps. Villa Julia! High on the cliff, looking out over the ocean! Its shimmering blue pool! Its elegant gardens! And...you’ve seen what I came back with last summer. So–how are you fixed for holiday time? Any chance of you joining us in June?? Stop! I can hear your objections already, playing gooseberry, what if the family changes their minds, and omigod I’ve got nothing to wear at the pool!!!! Forget all that. 1.The villa is so big that The Man and I can have as much privacy as we want for any rumpy-pumpy, you won’t hear a thing. 2.No-one in the family is going to change their mind, they all have other engagements 3.I know a great little boutique in Biarritz that sells bikinis to die for AND 4–this is the clincher–Edward has a friend. Well more than one friend, but I’m thinking about someone in particular. An unk, as Claudie would say. A very ansome unk. A sexy, hot, Basque by the name of Antoine, with jet black hair and flashing eyes and Hollywood teeth. (Yes, teeth) And his body, ah, those–sorry, modesty forbids me to go further.

  Now, tell me you are able to resist? I think not. Check your remaining holidays and I’ll get dates fixed with Edward.

  Big hugs

  Cxxxx

  PS A matchmaker, moi? Jamais!

  ***

  Edward was sitting in a traffic jam on the Rocade, the mad bad ring road of Toulouse. On the car stereo Caravan Palace was swinging with Jolie Coquine.

  ‘How to do, where to go, what to do without you,’ he sang tunelessly, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel along with the rhythm.

  ‘You’re my Pole star!’ he belted out in no discernible key, eliciting a funny look from the driver stuck in the adjoining lane. Edward gave him a wink and a thumbs up.

  Sweet Caroline was his Pole star, and she had a mole just above her left nipple.

  He was thinking what he would do that mole, and to that nipple in...he checked his watch and groaned. Typical Friday night mayhem. Drivers zooming on and off the ring road like maniacs, cutting in front with centimetres to spare. Lanes changing from two to three to two again, forcing motorists to brake, to squeeze in. People banging on their horns, making furious gestures, let me in, let me out, get out of my way connard.

  It was the only thing about his adopted city that drove him crazy. What had his father said on his first visit?

  ‘These toulousains Edward. It’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Meet them at a dinner table, they’re charmers. Put them in a car, their teeth grow and their foreheads start to bulge.’

  Now when Adam and Julie came to stay, they preferred to spend their time in the city, exploring the sights on foot. It was easy to do, Toulouse was, at heart, a village. A village that had been forced to swell and expand, to overflow into new neighbourhoods, to sprawling suburbs. In the early 1970s when Airbus Industrie had been born, the population was around half a million; now it was twice that.

  It would be more logical for him to live outside town, closer to Blagnac where he worked. But he couldn’t face the thought of giving up his flat. Perched amid the jostling pink-tiled rooftops, high above the river, its west-facing windows catching the full splendour of the sunset over the golden dome of the 17th century Hôpital de La Grave, it was a refuge, an eyrie. And Caroline, bless her, had fallen in love with it as soon as she set eyes on it. She had a thing, his chérie, about places and vibrations. Luckily his flat had passed the vibration test.

  So what if there was noise from the street below, so what if the entrance to his garage was usually blocked by some idiot’s car, so what if the tiny ancient lift shuddered its way to the top floor wheezing like a dying animal, occasionally giving up the ghost altogether, leaving its passengers jammed nose to nose till help arrived. These were minor irritations. As soon as he turned the key in the heavy wooden door and heard the first creak of the parquet as he stepped into the hall, he was home. And since last September, when Caroline had started her weekend visits, home had become heaven.

  Next week she’d have her first job interview. He hoped with all his heart that she was successful. If not for this first interview, then for another. Not, as he had told her on several occasions, because they needed the money. As dear cousine Claudie was wont to say ‘you roll on ze gold, why don’t you buy your girlfriend here a rock for her finger? Pearls for her ears? Emerald bracelets?’

  Then she’d look at him, look at Caroline and say ‘OK, it’s Caroline, I get it.’ He would have showered her with jewels, filled her wardrobe with designer clothes, he longed to spoil her. She didn’t need a job, she could be a kept woman. His kept woman, locked up in a chastity belt behind a drawbridge. Claudie was right, money was no problem thanks to his grandfather’s inheritance, and his own investment portfolio. But his jolie coquine was independent, fiercely so, stubborn, amazingly so, and with a strong sense of pride. And he loved her for it.

  It was that steely core, so much at odds with the soft, compliant, trusting, vulnerable Caroline he held in his arms at night, that made her a creature of contradictions, that charmed and obsessed him. He had had to learn to keep a rein on his instinct to protect her, to shield her from all harm, make all the decisions. He had had to learn to stand back and respect her independent spirit, allow her to grow, to blossom, to become that happy, sensual life-loving creature he had glimpsed beneath the shell of reserve when they had first met. The only thing he couldn’t control was his urge to jump on her the moment he got through the door. Fortunately, Caroline was as passionate and eager as he was, another thing which had surprised him when she had arrived at the Villa Julia last summer.

  Last summer. He blew out a breath of frustration.

  Julian had been on the phone again this afternoon. His friend had sounded utterly exhausted. The job in Frankfurt was going well, extremely well, but the hours were punishing. And, since Christmas, Julian had a new role to fulfil, that of father to Baby Joshua. Both Edward and Caroline had marvelled at the way that Julian, big strong controlled CEO Julian, with his silk cravats and diamond-patterned socks, had become a helplessly doting father.

  ‘He’s just so kissable!’ he kept repeating in wonder, nuzzling the little face. ‘It’s true!’ he protested, as Edward and Caroline fell into another fit of laughter.

  The baby was gorgeous. Everyone said so. Well, almost everyone. Mother Annabel simply posed by the cot in Oscar de la Renta, immaculately coiffed, smiling regally as the family cooed and tickled and made faces, firing off shots on the smartphones, adjusting the zoom on the Olympus. Annabel was not maternal by nature. She had resented everything about her pregnancy, the weight gain, the swollen ankles, the restrictions on drinking and smoking.

  ‘And the birth, darling, the actual...delivery,’ she had said, shuddering, reaching for a cigarette.

  No-one on the planet had suffered like Annabel.

  ‘Just don’t except me to go through that again,’ were her first words to Julian after The Ordeal.

  And of course Joshua had been put on the bottle immediately.

  ‘Sagging boobs, no thank you.’

  Julian had recounted all this to Edward over a drink one night. The two of them had been in London for business and were enjoying a quiet get-together in a pub off the Strand. Apparently there had been a slight improvement when Annabel and Joshua got back from the clinic. Annabel had enjoyed furnishing and decorating the nursery, she liked to dress Joshua in the different designer outfits that filled the drawers of the chest in his room. But the minute he started to get restless or tetchy she would hand him over to Nadia, the Polish au pair who had moved into the Frankfurt flat with them. When Julian wasn’t around, it was Nadia who changed his nappies, Nadia who gave him his bath. Annabel would step in to say goodnight, maybe even give him a quick peck on his freshly bathed cheek before going out
to dinner or to a concert.

  That was another reason for Julian’s exhaustion. Work, the baby, but also the unremitting social life that Annabel insisted on.

  ‘Does she realise what she’s doing to you? The toll it’s taking on you? Christ Jules, you had me worried for a minute there when I saw you come into the pub. No offense mate but you look like Dracula. Have you tried sitting down and talking about it with her?’

  Even as Edward said the words he knew they were futile. Julian shrugged, took a long pull at his beer.

  ‘It’s always the same answer. ‘You brought me here, you were the one who wanted to live in Germany, you were the one who made me give up my job with the magazine, you promised I could have everything I wanted!’’

  He gave a mirthless laugh.

  ‘And the bugger of it is, she’s right Eddie. She tells me ‘What am I supposed to do, sit at home alone all day and then watch TV in the evening with you snoring your head off on the sofa?’ So...we go out.’

  They were best friends, had shored each other up through many a crisis, but Edward knew as far as Julian was concerned, Annabel was his blind spot. She had been able to wrap him round her little finger from the word ‘go’. Had treated him abominably. And yet Julian persisted in trying. Although, Edward had thought that night in the pub, eyeing his friend over the rim of his glass, there was maybe, just maybe, the beginnings of a change. Julian was becoming less of a besotted lover, more of a doting father. Maybe the day would come when Annabel was in for a big and unpleasant surprise.

  And his suspicions had grown today during the phone call from Julian when he’d switched from shop talk to home talk. Baby Joshua this, Baby Joshua that. Scarcely a word about Annabel. He’d been strangely evasive come to think of it. Something was going on, Edward was sure. He’d ring him back next week, try to get him to open up.

  A horn blasted behind him, interrupting his reverie. A gesticulating madman appeared in his rear-view mirror. Resisting an impulse to leap out of the car and cram the madman’s tie up his nose, Edward waggled his fingers amiably and crawled forward at the speed of a tortoise. Ten more minutes, then he’d be off the Rocade, heading home to his honey and Friday night.