Hot Basque: A French Summer Novel 2

by Laurette Long

  5 EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND. MAY

  Jill stepped out of the cubicle, tugging down her swimsuit, and came face to face with the full length mirror at the end of the ladies changing rooms. She barely repressed a gasp of sympathetic horror. Jesus if that’s what these aquagym folks looked like she was certainly going to get a boost to her ego. She turned round as casually as she could for a closer look at the poor freak behind her.

  The changing room was empty.

  She swung round in the direction of the mirror again, leaned forward, blinked, and leapt back. The freak was herself!

  Surely she hadn’t looked like that when she tried on her swimming kit in the bathroom of her flat a couple of weeks ago? Of course, her mirror wasn’t full length, and it was one of those rather flattering ones, the same sort they had in expensive boutiques, the ones that persuaded you that your derrière had shrunk to Kylie Minogue proportions thanks to that cute little black number you’d just tried on, the one with the four-figure price tag.

  She advanced cautiously, turned to the right, then to the left. She was positively bulging out of her Speedo swimsuit! She really had to cut down on the G and Ts. And the chocolate biscuits. She turned full face again. An alien with the head of a fly had been grafted on top of her shoulders. No wonder she’d had all that trouble in the changing room, pushing and shoving to get her thick mop inside the small slithery rubber cap that kept shooting off one side of her head as soon as she’d managed to tug it down on the other. A bit like one of those old fashioned diaphragm thingies that women used to wear for contraception. She’d actually come across one at the back of her own mother’s drawer, shock horror, all dried up and yellow with age. Well it would be, she supposed it had been a while since Kathleen O’Toole had been needing it. Five strapping boys and finally the hoped-for girl. Her mother had been forty-five when Jill was born and on the point of giving up. She supposed the diaphragm had been chucked into its box as soon as Kathleen had got out of hospital and told Jerry O’Toole that if he didn’t get the snip Kathleen was going home to her mother in Dublin. Forever.

  And now here was Jill, no longer a cute baby but a hefty thirty-something, ready for her first aqua gym class, wearing her mother’s old diaphragm on her head and a swimsuit two sizes too small. She tugged the Speedo up, then down, trying to cover her buttocks and her boobs. It became obvious she’d have to accept that one of those two areas was going to be on display. Better the buttocks, she decided, after all they’d be under water for most of the time whereas if her boobs were popping over the top she’d probably put the men off their stride.

  Men...were there any men in the class? She suddenly realised there was no one else in the changing rooms, that was funny. Maybe there were no women in the class, just her and a group of hairy males all having the same problem trying to get their bits inside their Speedos. Did they have to wear the funny hats too? Perhaps there’d be some prime specimens, all sleek muscles and washboard abs, like that Florent what’s his name, the one in the Olympics with the cute dimples.

  No Jill, enough of that, she told herself sternly. Antoine is waiting for you, in his wetsuit, with his smouldering eyes and sexual techniques known only to the Basque nation.

  In spite of her Nordic hill walking and her sessions at the gym, she had decided that more drastic measures were needed if she was going to be the Belle of Biarritz in June. She needed toning, as well as developing her heart and lungs, which both seemed to be in pretty good shape, especially her lungs, she thought, yanking at her swimsuit again. Apparently aquagym was the answer. Lots of stretching and tightening up those flabby thighs and bingo wings, twirling those funny pink and blue foam thingies that looked like giant noodles. It would be fun! She’d rummaged round until she found her old swimsuit from college and popped into Aquasports R Us to look at swimming caps. The snotty young assistant had said no, the cap with devil’s horns would not go down well at an aquagym class. These young ones, no sense of humour. Miss Snootyface had informed her that what she needed was a slippery scrap of rubber which was the only device tight enough to prevent the least drop of water getting onto her hair and ruining its colour. Did she by any chance want to stop being a red-head and opt for green hair the texture of a horse’s dinner? Of course she didn’t.

  Snootyface had omitted to mention that it needed ten minutes and steel talons to snap the thing in place and that not only did it keep the bloody chlorine out, it also, in a reverse or perverse action that probably had something to do with thermodynamics, was so eye-wateringly tight that it forced every brain cell downwards to the chin area making the wearer resemble Benny Hill.

  She became aware of a sudden loud, regular tick. The clock over the door said 12h40. Fast, obviously. The class started at 12h30. But in that case, a small voice inside her head told her, why was the ladies changing room empty except for her?

  She was late for her first class. Sweat broke out. Perhaps she could just sneak in, slide into the pool without anyone seeing? She pushed open the door into the shower room, hurried along to the end.

  Uh oh. She could hear the voice of the instructor going on about ‘drop that head down, feel its weight, now turn slowwwwly to the left, now slowwwwly to the right...’

  They’d started. She’d probably get a belt with a rubber hose or something. She hurried out into the pool area, tottering down the wet steps, careful, don’t want to fall smack on your increasingly exposed buttocks now, do you Jillian Benedicta? There seemed to be rather a lot of people down there in the pool. She got to the bottom of the steps, was making her way as unobtrusively as possible to the water’s edge when a voice rang out:

  ‘Shower!’

  What? Was someone talking to her? The class had come to a standstill in the water, all eyes were on Jill in her Speedo and her diaphragm. The instructor had turned, hands on hips. And what hips! Jill couldn’t help marvelling at those toned slender meercat items dropping down to equally toned slender thighs and going up to, well she didn’t have much in the boob department, but Jill supposed that was what you looked like if you were a sports fanatic.

  Or maybe it was the lycra. Her eyes, fascinated, got stuck on the instructor’s outfit. Pure, poured-on lycra. You could even see, well, she didn’t want to linger on the bit between the instructor’s legs, frankly it left nothing to the imagination, she wondered how anyone could have the nerve–

  ‘Shower!!!’

  ‘Pardon?’

  Jill lifted one side of her diaphragm.

  ‘You obviously haven’t been through the showers. Your swimsuit–’ the instructor gave a little sneer ‘–is bone dry. Didn’t you read the instructions?’

  ‘Oh. Er. Sorry. Sorry. ’

  Jill fled back up the steps, turned on the cold water and gave herself a vigorous soak adding a few loud gasps for authenticity.

  This time when she ventured to the edge of the pool she was able to step delicately down the steps and join her fellow aquagymers.

  They were obviously regulars. The warm-up had finished, they were all leaping up into the air like Icelandic geysers, arms rigid at the sides, pushing down the water with their flattened palms. Jill joined in, jumping as energetically as she could ‘and push that water and push that water...’ She felt a kick in the back of her leg, turned around. A senior citizen in a cap covered in fake roses was glaring at her. Where was her diaphragm? In fact there were quite a few non-diaphragm pieces of headgear, now she looked. She’d have been better in the devil’s horns. Rosebonnet was saying something, over the sound of splashing.

  ‘Forward! Move forward!’ she hissed, in between jumps.

  ‘Oh sorry,’

  Jill realised her energetic leaps had been taking her towards the back of the pool. She waded forward, gave another leap, then realised the exercise had changed, now they were all swinging their upper body from left to right, arms extended. Was that a snigger she heard from Rosebonnet? A knobbly finger gave her a karate chop below the ribs but the woman next to her had already swung r
ound the other way. They were feral, this lot. Jill hopped a bit further to the left, started swinging, feeling her waist muscles give a nice satisfying tug.

  Ten minutes later she was definitely getting the hang of it. It was a bit tougher than she’d thought, she’d asked the girl at reception what sort of level she ought to start with, intermediate or advanced? But the receptionist had smiled sweetly and suggested that maybe she could try ‘Beginners’, she could always move up to Intermediate and Advanced once she saw how she got on.

  Beginners! Jill had capitulated, with bad grace. Now, in the brief moments when they were relaxing and deep-breathing she had time to do a quick recce of her fellow aquagymers. They were all, with one exception, senior citizens. And all, with one exception, female. There was one ancient wheezing grandad at the back, with sagging breasts and a gold necklace. The only other person who looked to be remotely Jill’s age was at the front of the class, under the watchful eye of Lycra-woman, and was heavily pregnant.

  ‘OK, floats!’

  ‘Ouch!’

  A pink noodle hit her on the head, then a blue one, good job they were made of foam but still she’d sensed a certain hostility in the way they had been hurled in her direction by a wizened old prune of ninety.

  ‘Everyone on their backs, legs together, flex those feet, now to the count of eight, scissor those legs, keep your back straight, tummy up, feel those tummy muscles working.’

  Oh they were working alright. By the time she’d done two sets of eight Jill was puffing and panting like a steam engine. Around her the grannies carried on, scissoring fit to cut a rug, flashing their false teeth at Lycra-woman.

  ‘That’s wonderful Gladys! Keep going! Excellent Phyllis, those legs are really straight.’

  But if she’d thought the scissors thing was bad, by the time they got to the abdo curls Jill was sure she was going to die. Not only that, either she kept drifting into other people’s ‘space’ or they kept drifting into hers, causing a lot of collisions and submersions and hissed insults.

  As the lesson finally drew to a close Jill watched them emerge slowly from the buoyant water, totter up the steps like newborns, arms and legs like sticks, and putter off to the showers like arthritic tortoises. She could scarcely believe this bunch of pathetic creatures were the same lot of beasts she’d spent the last forty minutes with, exchanging sly kicks and punches under the water. She was going to be black and blue tomorrow. And her stomach muscles were on fire.

  ‘Ouch!’

  She was hauling herself out of the water and up the steps when she felt a pinch on her bottom. A decided, deliberate, old-fashioned, good-handful-of-flesh pinch. She turned round, outraged, ready to sock this fighting gran right out of her rose-covered bonnet.

  Grandad was grinning up at her, gap-toothed, gold chain glinting in his grey chest hairs.

  ‘Welcome to wor class, lassie. Fair got a wee stiffie on me just watching yer do them jumps!’

  He gave a leer and a wink as she shot up the final steps and made for the showers. What could she do, report him for sexual harassment? He must be at least a hundred and four. He’d never make it to the police station.

  6 WILLOWDALE, ENGLAND. MAY

  ‘OK darling. See you soon. Drive carefully, je t’aime.’

  Caroline put down the phone in her aunt’s living room.

  Edward had caught the early flight from Toulouse, all had gone smoothly, he’d picked up the car from the rental agency and was on his way.

  This weekend they were celebrating Margaret’s birthday. One year ago, Caroline had come down to Willowdale for her aunt’s eightieth. And there, she had met Edward.

  For a moment she stood immobile, staring out of the window, caught up in a rush of memories.

  The sound of Birdie clattering in the kitchen brought her back to reality. She gave herself a mental shake, and headed off to help with the lunch preparations.

  ‘I know it’s very traditional, Caroline. Shrimp cocktail, Beef Wellington with Madeira sauce. But they’re Margaret’s favourites and it is her day after all.’

  Caroline had agreed. She had picked up the fillet of beef on her way down to Willowdale yesterday, specially prepared by the Ravensfield butcher to strict specifications from Birdie. ‘I do not want any old inferior bit of cow, Mr Hodges. This is for Margaret’s birthday.’

  Mr Hodges had been trained over the years like Pavlov’s dog. The words ‘for Margaret’ had him racing into the inner sanctum where the best cuts were kept. The word ‘birthday’ had him gift-wrapping the choice morsel and adding a nice discount ‘just a little token of my esteem for our dear Miss MacDonald’.

  The pastry was chilling in the fridge. The shrimp were sitting in elegant stemmed glass bowls on a bed of chopped lettuce. Caroline had rebelled at the last minute and abandoned the traditional Marie Rose dressing for a home-made mayonnaise verte, with chopped chives, parsley and spring onions. Wafer-thin slices of melba toast stood ready for a final five minutes in the oven just before serving.

  Also ready for a final warm up were Birdie’s carrots, glazed in butter with a touch of orange juice.

  ‘I always think that dash of bright orange just throws into relief the rich dark colour of the Madeira sauce, don’t you dear?’

  Caroline did. She loved glazed carrots. And Madeira sauce. And Beef Wellington.

  ‘I know it’s not strictly ‘on’,’ Birdie continued, ‘serving a starchy veg with the pastry crust, I mean, but Margaret does love my roast potatoes, and it is her birthday.’

  ‘True,’ said Caroline. ‘And you know who else loves your roast potatoes, don’t you? I hope you’ve done twice as many as usual.’

  Birdie tutted.

  ‘He’ll probably be starving by the time he arrives poor lamb. I’ll make him a nice ham sandwich to tide him over.’

  Both Birdie and Margaret adored the ‘poor lamb’. Adored was the wrong word. They idolised him.

  ‘Would Edward like this, do you think we could do that when Edward comes, do make sure Edward’s not working too hard Caroline, and that he’s eating enough and getting enough sleep and and and and...’

  If she hadn’t been besotted with him herself she’d have felt quite jealous.

  ‘How are the pears getting on?’

  They were doing pears poached in red wine for dessert, served with homemade vanilla ice-cream. Caroline opened the freezer, dipped her finger into the egg and cream mixture. It was thickening nicely and the cinnamon stick in the poaching liquid was filling the kitchen with its spicy scent. She popped a left-over piece of pear in her mouth, hoisted herself onto the kitchen counter and chewed happily. She loved being in the kitchen with Birdie. It was as much fun as cooking with Claudie and she got to catch up with all the latest village gossip. She glanced at her watch.

  ‘You know I think everything’s under control, Birdie, brilliant organisation as usual. The nibbles are chilling, the champagne’s chilling, we can’t put the beef on until everyone arrives, so if you want to pop upstairs and change, I’ll keep an eye on things down here.’

  ‘Are you sure, dear? I won’t be long. The Rayburns are due at one. I was planning to wear my blue two-piece from John Lewis, what do you think? Margaret’s decided on her cream dress, we’ll look like a piece of Wedgewood!’

  Birdie trotted briskly out of the kitchen chortling at her own joke.

  The Rayburns. Edward’s mother and father, Julie and Adam.

  Caroline had met them for the first time last summer. When Edward had announced they were invited for dinner at The Limes, she’d turned into a quivering mass of jelly. What if they didn’t like her? What if they thought she wasn’t a good enough catch for their handsome, brilliant elder son? What if–

  Watching her change outfits for the fifth time, Edward had finally turned her to face him, put a finger under her chin and looked into her panic-filled eyes.

  She’d confessed.

  His eyebrows had shot up, he’d thrown back his head and roared with laughter.<
br />
  Caroline had been so furious she almost refused to go. But he’d pulled her on his lap, covered her bare shoulders with kisses and told her with supreme confidence:

  ‘Wait till you meet them.’

  He was right. The minute that Caroline set eyes on Edward’s mother the words burst from her lips.

  ‘Oh–you look just like Claudie!’

  Julie laughed and leaned forward to kiss her cheek.

  ‘Thank you my dear. There is a rather large age difference. I’m very flattered.’

  She turned to her son inquiringly.

  ‘You never told Caroline that Claudie’s mother and I were twins?’

  ‘I didn’t want to frighten her off,’ Edward replied, slinging an arm affectionately round his mother. He winked at Caroline. ‘They run in the family. Twins.’

  ‘We managed to escape, Julie and I.’ Adam bent to give Caroline a kiss and a warm hug. ‘Hello Caroline. Lovely to meet you. We’ve heard all about you. Claudie was on the phone from Paris an hour ago, actually. Yes, as I was saying, Julie and I spaced our two out, gave ourselves a breather, but poor old Anouk and Gerard ended up with the Terrible Twosome all in one basket.’

  He threw back his head and gave a roar of laughter. The same roar of laughter as his son. Caroline noticed other similarities: the tall athletic build, the blonde hair now turning to gray.

  Edward’s father had started as a barrister. He’d taken silk, then at the age of fifty-five, had been offered a judgeship. Now, in his sixties, he was semi-retired, enjoying life in the English countryside with his French wife. Their younger son, Antony, was in Brazil.

  ‘Oh you are exaggerating as usual.’ Julie gave her husband a fond look. ‘You know you love Jean-Paul, and from the minute she could talk, Claudie, she is always wanting to be with Tonton Adam. At least Anouk got a girl. Me too I always wanted a little girl but I never got one.’