Biarritz Passion: A French Summer Novel (3 page)

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 Ju
ju,’ 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 brea
k, 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.

And then there was the day of the accident. The day that everything changed. Later she overheard details, whispered conversations when the grownups thought she wasn’t listening. On the night itself, she had a clear memory of her parents coming to say goodbye before they left, she even fancied she could still smell her mother’s perfume as she bent over to kiss her cheek. She was in a red cocktail dress, her blond hair swept back off her face and held with a diamond clip. They were going to a Christmas party. She gazed at her mother, speechless with admiration, thinking she looked just like Grace Kelly in the old movie they had watched the previous afternoon.
‘High Society’. ‘You’re sensational!’ That was the song that Frank Sinatra had sung, and even today Caroline couldn’t hear it without tears coming to her eyes.

‘You’re sensational Mummy!’

Her mother had laughed and kissed her.

‘Sensational? What about me? Am I sensational too?’ her father had asked teasingly, standing back to
show off his dinner jacket and black tie.

‘Not as nice as Mummy!’

‘What??’

He had pretended to jump on her with a lion’s roar, tickling her and ruffling her hair so that it stood up in all directions and she had screamed and giggled and said ‘Daddy! Don’t!’ as she always did.

Ice on the road, she heard the adults whisper, a sudden skid, a van coming too quickly in the opposite direction, a head-on crash.

Afterwards there had been two years living
at Willowdale, with the grandparents, Grandfather and Grandmother MacDonald. Caroline had never been able to call them ‘Grandma and Grandpa’. They were in their eighties, impossibly ancient to ten-year-old Caroline. There was a succession of nannies to look after the two girls, but none of them stayed long. The farmhouse was old and badly-heated, the younger child, Annabel, a tiny screaming despot who held the rest of the household in thrall.

Caroline’s father,
Robbie, had been the youngest of three children. His elder brother, Angus, had been born with spina bifida, and had died at the age of fifteen. Now, with the death of her second son, Grandmother Macdonald’s health declined steadily. There was another child, a girl, much older than Robbie, who was rarely seen. She’d left England in her twenties to make a career for herself in the Civil Service Overseas.

Caroline would never forget the day a bright red sports car, gleaming with chrome, drew up outside Willowdale and a small woman in her early sixties sprang out from behind the wheel. She was wearing a brilliant blue scarf the exact colour of her eyes. She stood for a moment, hands on hips, then marched towards the front door. Margaret MacDonald had come home. In a matter of hours she had transformed the household, arranged a nurse for Grandmother MacDonald, taken charge of the bewildered Grandfather, hired a firm of builders to sort out the leaky roof and the ancient heating system and magically charmed the
mutinous Annabel.

When Grandmother MacDonald died the following month, followed shortly by her husband, Margaret came to a decision. She had never married, was staunchly independent, and had a manner that was politely described as ‘forthright’. It was rumoured that there were many in the little circle of ex-pats at her final posting who heaved a sigh of relief at the news that she would not be returning. But whatever she lacked in social graces, Margaret MacDonald had the courage and generosity to give up the life she had built in order to take on the problems of her aging parents, and
, after their deaths, to assume entire responsibility for her two nieces, one an adolescent, the other a child of four. Caroline could not think of many people who would have done, or indeed could have done, the same. At the end of her first year at Willowdale, Margaret was joined by an equally indomitable lady, Birdie, a lifelong friend, and together the two women threw themselves into the task of bringing up a couple of strange children and trying to patch up the rambling old house in Wiltshire which had been in the MacDonald family for almost a century.

For Caroline, the arrival of Aunt Margaret had marked a new era. In the lonely years following the death of her parents, she had stood on the threshold between two worlds, the dim, muffled existence of her grandparents, and the strange and turbulent fantasy world of her little sister. Maturity had come early as she tried to cope with the different demands on her attention. Her grandparents, broken by family tragedy, were exhausted at having a lively little girl in the house who
spent her time running in and out of rooms, turning up the sound on the television, and frightening the cat. Annabel was affectionate and petulant in turns, wanting to sit on Grandma’s knee and cuddle, or stamping her feet in rage when she couldn’t have what she wanted. The nannies came and went, with long gaps in between. When Margaret MacDonald arrived, she found the household was being held together thanks to the efforts of a small fair-haired girl with dark solemn eyes and an attitude of stoic acceptance. Caroline remembered the new sensation growing in her chest, the utter relief as realisation dawned that from now on, things would be alright, and that she didn’t have to cope with everything on her own. Aunt Margaret was there.

The three of them, Caroline, Margaret and Birdie had turned all their attention on Annabel. ‘No more Nannies,’ said Margaret. ‘We are her family. We shall bring up
the child ourselves.’ A praiseworthy intention, but none of them had known where to draw the line until it was far too late. Annabel had grown up as the darling child, the delightful pet with the infectious giggle. Surrounded by two adoring women and a devoted elder sister, she grew from a small tyrant into a big one. A charming tyrant, admittedly, except when she was thwarted. Then the charmer locked herself in her room, screamed and shouted and drummed her heels on the floor. Margaret had invented a new name for her. Storm MacDonald.

Caroline had often wondered what Julian thought of this side of his fiancée’s character. He was still something of an unknown quantity, visiting the house in Wiltshire with Annabel but staying discreetly in the background while Annabel occupied her usual position centre stage. Physically he was good-looking, tall, with
dark curly hair and impeccable manners. Caroline knew that he came from a wealthy background and earned a lot of money in the City. He treated Annabel like an antique dealer who has suddenly acquired a rare piece of fragile porcelain. Unfailingly courteous, he seemed to know what she wanted almost before she did. Annabel basked and glowed, delighted at so much pampering. But it was not just that her sister was pleased with her good catch, there was also something else, a flash of something triumphant in the expression of those wonderful blue eyes as she smiled at Caroline, a look which seemed to say ‘See what I’ve ended up with, whereas poor old you…’

It was a look that Caroline found both hurtful and infuriating. Still, they had all been relieved that things had worked out so well for Annabel. Caroline had been a model child, a model student. But her sister...Margaret was constantly being summoned to school to try to deal with her niece’s latest
escapade; she and Birdie had spent many anxious hours driving round the little market town nearby looking for Annabel in cafes and amusement arcades when she was supposed to be in class. With the help of some expensive private tutoring she had managed to scrape a couple of passes in her final exams, then, just when they were all wondering how she would ever be able to support herself she had astonished them by landing a job at a fashionable magazine in London. Oh she’d had help from an old school friend, Gloria Winchfield, who knew somebody who knew somebody who knew the editor. But still. Though fairly low down on the ladder, it was a good start, a much better start than any of them had hoped.