Two Days in Biarritz (13 page)

“It’s a shame you aren’t staying around for my birthday.” Annabel felt she had to say it, even though part of her was glad that Colin was going away.

“You’ll have a much nicer time with the girls!” he called from the car.

“I’m only having dinner with Melissa!” she said, hostility brewing in her voice.

“Oh, yes, of course,” he replied, stepping back into the hall. He leaned forward and gave her an awkward peck on the cheek.

“Happy Birthday!” he said as he took a package out of his pocket and handed it to her. “I hope you like them.”

Annabel thought he had forgotten
to get her a gift and took it with surprise and relief. She opened the jeweller’s bag that held a small red velvet-covered box. She snapped open the lid and fingered the diamond studs resting on the tiny tray.

“Thanks, Colin, they are really sweet!”

“There’s a carat in each earring, so don’t lose them!” he guffawed.

Annabel wanted to throw them in his face but decided it was best to say nothing. He always ruined gift-giving by informing the recipient of the cost.

“Bye, and be good,” he called, his countenance beaming at her through the tinted glass of the car.

Annabel leaned against the frame of the front door and watched him drive away with a mixture of disgust and relief.

“Will I give the girls a bath?” a voice called from behind.

Annabel turned around.

“Yes, Rosa, that would be good,” she nodded. “I’ll be going out in a couple of hours.”

She had plenty of time to shower and apply her make-up – s
he wanted to look her best. Ella’s was a trendy bistro in the middle of the village and it wasn’t unusual for the cognoscenti of Howth to gather there on a Friday evening.

A while later, Taylor and Rebecca ran into her bedroom smelling of soap and dressed in their pyjamas.

“Are you going out?” Taylor asked.

“Yes, darling, but I won’t be late.”

“How come we didn’t get to sing you “Happy Birthday” and blow out any candles?” Rebecca asked innocently.

“We can do that tomorrow evening if you like.” Annabel knelt down until she was at eye-level with her youngest child. “We can go to Casa Pasta with Gran – you love it there, don’t you?”

“Yummy, Mummy!” Rebecca threw her arms around her mother.

Funny, Annabel thought to herself. She didn’t feel like a Yummy Mummy tonight. Instead she felt every minute of her forty years.

Rosa came into the bedroom, armed with books.

“Would you like a story?” she asked the girls and they followed her out of the room.

Annabel went into her son’s bedroom to bid him goodnight but he was fixed in front of the TV screen playing with his PlayStation.

“Night, Sam!” she called.

“Bye, Mum,” the lad replied, not looking up from his game. “Happy Birthday!”

“Thanks, Sam.” Annabel could see her little boy turning into a teenager before her eyes.

It had been a sombre day and she planned to lower a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon to get through the evening. She grabbed her coat and house keys and set off into the cool evening air. It was exactly a week since the night in Biarritz when she had made a fool of herself and lost her best friend.

She rambled down the hill to the cosy restaurant. As it came into view she noticed more bodies than usual through the foggy glass. The door was made of walnut-coloured wood and glass and she had to lean heavily against it to open it. When she stepped inside the lights went out for a moment, giving her a shock.

“Surprise!” shouted a harmony of voices.

The waiter hit the switch and illuminated the gaily-painted bistro until every face in the restaurant was visible. Each and every person in the bistro was female and associated in some way to Annabel.

Melissa dashed over and hugged Annabel extravagantly. “Happy Birthday! I managed to get everyone here tonight!”

Annabel was gob-smacked. “I don’t know what to say, Melissa!”

“Don’t say anything,” Melissa grinned, handing over a glass of red wine.

Annabel scanned the room and waved at the various women d
otted around the long U-shaped table that had been specially prepared for her birthday dinner. For a brief moment she thought she saw Kate over in the corner but then realised it was only Meave Jenkins. One by one the guests came over, bearing gifts in expensively decorated packages. Each manicured and pampered woman was as beautiful as the one before. Annabel noticed that a couple of girls she was friendly with were missing – this group had all been handpicked by Melissa and reflected the Who’s Who of Howth rather than the women Annabel really liked. As she sat down at Melissa’s right-hand side with Leslie Godkin (another mother of force at High Grove School) at her other side, she realised that she wasn’t really like any of these women. Maybe she looked like them and dressed like them and she probably did much the same things as them, as she went about her daily business – but that was where the similarities ended. Annabel couldn’t say, hand on her heart, that these women were her friends. They were a collection of trophy wives whose identity was measured by their husband’s income.

Annabel picked at each course in turn and drank copious glasses of red wine. Towards the end of the evening, Meave Jenkins came over and sat down by her side.

“Meave, it’s good of you to come,” Annabel said, sounding like a broken record.

“I wouldn’t have missed this for the world,” Meave grinned. “Melissa was planning tonight for ages.”

“She’s too good,” Annabel agreed, grappling to show sincerity in her voice.

“I was wondering when Kate was going to show.”

“Kate?” Annabel asked, with a glimmer of hope that her night would truly be made special in some way.

“Yes, I bumped into her in Supervalu.”

“When?” Annabel was interested to know every detail.

“I think it was Monday, actually,” Meave replied pensively. “Yes, I was doing the pick-ups from ballet – I presumed she was over for your bash.”

“Did you tell her about this evening?” Annabel asked anxiously.

“Yes,” Meave replied. “But I took it she knew. There aren’t that many of us from the old school still around but we all managed to hear about tonight.”

“Her mother has cancer, Meave,” Annabel informed the surprised woman. “Maybe she  didn’t feel up to it.”

Annabel hoped that explained her absence but deep down realised that Melissa probably never informed her of the party and Kate wouldn’t have come even if she had been told.

“I don’t believe you!” Meave said, aghast. “She never said anything about her mum to me! She told me she was getting divorced though. God, she must be in the horrors!”

“It must be a tough time for her alright,” Annabel agreed. She secretly wanted the ground to open up and swallow her.

“It makes you appreciate how lucky we are when you hear things like that, doesn’t it?” Meave said.

Annabel nodded. “I’d better do some mingling, being the Birthday Girl and all!”

“Of course, off you go!”

Annabel knew the night wouldn’t be complete without Moet and true to form, as she looked around, Melissa was popping the corks. She beamed across at Annabel as a huge pink birthday cake decorated with dozens of sparklers and candles appeared from behind the kitchen doors. Annabel fixed a false smile on her face to the strains of “Happy Birthday” and hoped she could make it through another couple of hours before she escaped to the refuge of her bed.

* * *

Butterflies flitted inside Kate’s stomach as she woke the next morning. She tried to picture Shane’s face and grinned when she caught his image in her mind’s eye. She jumped out of bed and ran into the shower. The warm water was refreshing and massaging against her body. She dried herself off and dressed in a pair of jeans and the top Annabel had bought her in
Biarritz. She knew she looked well in it and her disgust with her friend didn’t extend to Annabel’s powers of colour co-ordination. She threw herself on the bed and picked up the phone to make her first call of the day to her mother.

“Hello,” a bright voice at the other end of the line replied.

“Hi, Mum,” Kate said cheerfully. “How are you feeling today?”

“I am feeling really well. I haven’t a pain or an ache,” she said. “They really are marvellous in this hospital. I’ll be out of here in no time.”

“Yes, Mum.” They were giving her mother morphine in tablet form and it was no surprise that she was feeling so well. “I won’t be in until later tonight. I’m meeting up with Shane Gleason, would you believe!”

“Oh, dear sweet Shane, what a lovely boy!” Betty sighed. “I’ll never forget the day you broke off with him. He was the nicest fellow you ever brought home.”

“I have to say I agree with you, Mum.”

“That will be lovely,” Betty said. “How’s your father coping?”

“Dad’s up on the site in Lusk – he’ll be in to you sometime this afternoon and Philip will be in this morning.”

“You don’t all need to keep visiting, I’ll be home soon,” Betty said.

“We miss you, that’s all.” Kate was choking as she spoke.

“You have a lovely day, and if you don’t get in to see me don’t worry,” Betty said firmly.

“Okay, Mum, bye!”

“Bye, love!” Betty smiled to herself as she hung up the phone. There was little would give her more pleasure than to see her daughter with Shane Gleason. Hindsight is twenty-twenty vision and it was unfortunate that her daughter didn’t realise all those years ago how suited she was to the tall gangly youth.

Kate went down to the kitchen and fixed some toast and a cup of coffee. Her father had left a copy of
The Irish Times
on the kitchen table for her. He was being considerate but Kate still felt awkward around him as she continued to get flashes of him with Annabel.

She checked her watch and it was a few minutes past ten – Shane would be here soon!

* * *

Annabel’s head ached as she opened her eyes. The bottle and a half of red wine followed by copious glasses of Moet had helped her get through the night but she would have to get through today with the consequences. The company she had kept the night before had left her feeling depressed. She had been living in a cocoon for years and it took two days in
Biarritz with Kate to show the gaps that needed to be cracked open. From the outside her life seemed fulfilling and complete but deep inside she realised that she had been selling herself short for years. She was capable of much more.

She jumped out of the bed and threw on her pink silk dressing-gown.

“Rosa!” she called.

“
Si!
” Rosa replied. She was already downstairs in the kitchen feeding Rebecca.

“I have to do some research on the internet this morning – could you mind the kids for an extra couple of hours?”

“Of course!” Rosa called, stepping out of the kitchen.

Annabel pulled a cream fitted jumper over her head and her skinny jeans over her legs. She zipped her knee-high boots up and went straight for the study.

She hit the Google website as Rosa came in with a cup of tea.

“Do you work, Annabel?” she asked.

“After I get myself educated, Rosa,” Annabel replied.

The young Spanish woman looked at her curiously as she left the cup down on the desk.

“Thanks, Rosa,” Annabel smiled.

She felt genuinely good for the first time since leaving
Biarritz.

Chapter 8

Kate looked up at the clock on the wall. Ten minutes past eleven. She was feeling restless when the doorbell rang. She jumped to her feet and rubbed the palm of her hands along her thighs. She straightened her back and walked anxiously to the hall-door, then opened  it briskly.

“Hi, Kate,” he said nervously.

He looked gorgeous.

“Hi, Shane, come on in.” Kate stood back into the hallway.

He hovered for a moment, unsure whether he should kiss her or not. Kate made the decision for him and opened her arms ready for an embrace. Shane leaned forward and kissed her gently on the cheek. His hands rested carefully on her shoulders as if she were too fragile to get any closer. She got a strong whiff of his pheromones and breathed them in deeply.

“Do you want a cup of tea or would you like to go out?” Kate asked.

“Let’s go into town – fancy going to Bewleys like we used to?” 

Pink blushes appeared on Kate’s cheeks. She always thought of Bewleys as their place. In the eighties there was nowhere else in the city to get a good cup of coffee.

“That’s a great idea,” she grinned. “Just let me get my coat.”

Shane waited in the hallway, studying the new wallpaper and finely polished wooden floorboards.

“Betty keeps this place well,” he commented on Kate’s return. “Still as house proud as ever?”

“Absolutely,” Kate sighed. “But in all these years she has never wanted to move – despite numerous attempts by Dad. He built that lovely new development overlooking
Howth Beach –”

“The Oak
s?” Shane interrupted.

“That’s the one,” Kate nodded. “But Betty wouldn’t move. She’s very sentimental about this house.”

“I can understand that,” grinned Shane. “I’m sentimental about it myself!”

Without answering, Kate gave him a knowing glance. They had spent many a summer’s day fumbling and groping each other’s bodies in every corner of it.

Kate picked up her keys. “I’m ready,” she declared.

He opened the door and they stepped outside. She slammed the front-door shut and followed him to a sporty black BMW convertible that was parked outside the driveway.