Hot Basque: A French Summer Novel 2 (18 page)

Julian was looking happily bemused.

‘Here Jules, make sure that the ladies’ glasses are topped up while Caro and I clear away and get dessert. No Nadia, you are not allowed in the kitchen. You’ll have some dessert, Jill?’

Jill patted her stomach, rolled her eyes, said sod it she was on holiday.

Nadia said she’d take the baby up, get him settled for the night, then turn in.

Caroline glanced over her shoulder as she followed Edward indoors. Julian and Jill were alone on the terrace. In the waning light the trees and shrubs in the garden were melting into dark amorphous shapes lit here and there by solar lamps. Towards the west, where the sky was brightest, individual branches stood out in silhouette in the purple dusk. There was not a breath of wind; not a leaf stirred, not a needle in the pines.

‘Verdict?’ said Caroline, closing the kitchen door behind her.

‘He’s looking more relaxed, isn’t he? Eating well. Hitting the booze, but that’s understandable.’

‘If we can just get him to take things easy, forget about Annabel for a bit, at least put her to the back of his mind for a few days, get a bit of perspective. I’ve never seen him so wound up. You knew how bad it was, didn’t you?’

‘Mmm. Sorry. Didn’t want to worry you. I think we’ve got to be prepared for the worst. Even if Annabel’s not having an affair, Jules has reached the end of his tether. They have no life together as a couple, it’s all socialising with a mob of other people, they don’t even have the baby to bring them together.’

He shook his head

‘But what’s going to happen to Joshua if they split? It will finish Julian off if she decides to take the baby.’

‘That’s one problem I don’t think he’ll have to face. There’s no way Annabel is going to want to be saddled with a kid. Especially if she’s seeing somebody else.’

‘Oh Edward, it sounds so callous.’

Caroline sat down, shoulders slumped. Edward came up behind her, kissed the top of her head, massaged her neck.

‘She just manages to spoil everything, doesn’t she? When we were here last summer, and now again, even though she’s miles away. I’m so sorry Edward.’

‘Why are you sorry? Your sister is responsible for her own actions. Cheer up darling, we have to make an effort for Jules. And Jill too, don’t want to cast a gloom on her holiday as well.’

‘You’re right. Poor Jill. Well actually...not so poor Jill, don’t you think?’

She twisted in her chair, looked up at him.

Edward raised his eyebrows, looked innocent.

‘Did I miss something?’

‘Come on! I saw how you reacted!’

‘How I reacted?’

Caroline gave him a poke.

‘Stop echoing. And don’t kid a kidder. When she arrived, looking all–you know. You had saliva running down your chin.’

‘Saliva? Must have been the lamb. Did I tell you how delicious it was, my sweet? Succulent, melt in the mouth, mmm...’

‘She had The Glow. You saw it, you drooled.’

Edward grinned.

‘The hot Basque strikes, you think?’

Caroline smiled at him sweetly.

‘Methinks. When I find out the details, I might tell you. Providing you promise to keep your saliva glands under control. I’ll put the thumbscrews on her as soon as I get a chance. Now, where’s that dessert?’

When the two of them stepped out on to the terrace with a bottle of champagne and Caroline’s queen of summer puddings, they came to a standstill. Jill and Julian had their heads together in intense conversation. Then Julian’s laugh rang out, he was nodding and smiling, cares momentarily forgotten. The O’Toole magic was working like a charm; The Glow was lighting up the terrace like a supernova.

***

It was after midnight when Caroline and Edward made their excuses and left Jill and Julian in the middle of a passionate discussion about Monet and his water lilies. Their departure hardly registered. Julian threw a brief ‘
Bonne nuit
!’ over his shoulder and Jill gave a distracted wave as she leaned over to pour the last drops of champagne into Julian’s glass.

‘Well!’ said Caroline as they went upstairs. ‘Old Jules seems tons better. It’s wonderful.’

Her beloved agreed. The change was striking. The haunted look had temporarily disappeared from his face. From time to time his eyes had lit up with genuine pleasure, and his laughter was natural and unforced. It was like getting a glimpse of the Julian of old.

He’d first started to relax during the silly half-hour in the pool involving beach ball bombing and a water-pistol fight. Then he and Edward had watched a DVD of The England Cricket Team’s Finest Moments, nursing bottles of beer and explaining the trickier points of LBW to a fascinated Joshua, lying on the sofa between them and practising throwing his favourite rabbit on the floor.

Dinner had been a great success. Both Julian and Nadia had adored the lamb thank goodness and just when everyone was blinking and yawning and starting to think of bed, along came Supernova O’Toole, and the party got going again.

When Caroline leaned out of the bedroom window to close the shutters, she saw that Jill had her sketch book out, and was showing something to Julian, her feet perched on the rung of his chair, the pair of them with their heads close together. She beckoned Edward to her side, putting a finger to her lips and they both tried not to giggle as they looked down at the intimate little scene on the terrace, illuminated by the soft glow of lamplight.

‘Well, well. Not sure what the Big Bad Basque would think if he saw that,’ Edward remarked.

He was stripping off his clothes and practising basketball shots into the open hamper.

‘Oh that’s just typical Jill. She’s one of those people who can get anyone to open up. She only has to get on a bus or a train, and that’s it. Little old ladies clutch her by the hand and tell her all about their horrible daughter-in-law. City gents in pinstripe suits confess they’re in love with their secretary but agony, dilemma, how could they possibly leave their wife of twenty years and mother to their five adorable children? The stories she’s heard, she could write a book.’

‘You’re right, she does have that kind of effect when you meet her, you get this irresistible urge to confess. Maybe she should have taken holy orders.’

‘Her point exactly.’ Caroline was massaging cream into her neck. ‘She’s always said she should have been a nun. Or a shrink. Says it’s her warm caring honest Irish face and the sympathetic tear in her eye.’

She’d also gone on to tell Caroline that was maybe the problem as far as her love life was concerned.

‘They start off all excited with their tongues hanging out, eyes glued to the old boobs then somehow end up thinking I’m their mother. Somewhere in the middle things start to go wrong. I need to work on my image, change my tactics, stop listening to their sob stories and get my whip out instead.’

Cleaning her teeth in the bathroom Caroline wondered how that was going with Antoine. Had Jill finally got her whip out, was that the reason Antoine was behaving like a lovesick calf? She hadn’t managed to get Jill on her own for a single minute. There were all these mysterious hints, Jill sighing and looking all misty-eyed, promising to ‘tell everything, later’. She was dying to know what exactly she and Antoine had been up to these last couple of days, shooting off on that big sexy bike and not re-appearing till after dark.

Caroline spat out the toothpaste and rinsed. Now, if she could just corner Antoine, get him on his own, that would be a different story. She knew she could make him crack. He’d spill the beans to
la rose
, no doubt about it. The two of them shared a complicity that had started the previous summer. Antoine had confided in her and she had confided in Antoine. And if she hadn’t met her own gorgeous to-die-for fiancé and fallen head over heels, who knew what that complicity might have led to?

It was all so complicated the whole sex/love/relationship business, so mysterious she could hardly believe that, in her case, she had finally got it right. For years she had been with a Controller. That was the term she had come across in the self-help literature she had turned to after her break up with Liam. The moment she’d seen the expression she’d been hit by such instant recognition she wondered why she’d been too stupid to work it out for herself. Never good enough, never up to scratch, in spite of the way she tried, in spite of the changes she made. Because–she now understood this about herself–Caroline was an instinctive ‘pleaser’. Working hard in school, never getting into trouble, always trying to keep the peace. Even at work she had tried to win the approval of her team. Her deadbeat, totally uninterested team.

When it had finally ended with Liam, the blow to her self-esteem had been so damaging that she had almost gone under.

And, she remembered, staring at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, it was thanks to Mother Teresa out there on there on the terrace with Julian that she had finally begun to emerge, finally been able to see a light at the end of the tunnel.

‘I’m feeling very lonely all by myself in this big bed.’

Edward’s plaintive voice cut short her reflections on love, life and the universe. She gave a final tweak to her new nightie, her short, lacy, Red Passion, Cassandra baby doll nightie.

The one that was sure to bring a big smile to the lips of her beloved as she swayed out of the bathroom in a cloud of ‘For Her’. Thank you Eberjey. Thank you Narciso.

The next morning Caroline Jill and Nadia settled in for a leisurely breakfast in the kitchen so that Madame Martin could coo over the baby while she prepared the lunchtime quiche.

‘I’m doing cherry
clafoutis
for dessert,’ she told Caroline privately. ‘Something substantial. And a potato salad with the quiche. Monsieur Julian has lost so much weight, he’s working too hard in my opinion. So, where is Mademoiselle Annabel, did you say?’

Her tone was innocent but Caroline didn’t miss the downturn of the mouth. Although she and Edward had been vague about the reasons for Annabel’s absence, Madame Martin was a shrewd cookie, and there was little that she missed. She’d arrived early that morning to make sure the surfers got a good hot coffee and fresh baguette inside them before heading for the beach. On seeing Julian, she’d just managed to repress a gasp, then recovered herself to give him a beaming smile and a warm embrace.

Although she loved little Claudie, secretly Madame Martin had always had a soft spot for ‘
ses garçons’
, her boys, as she called them: Edward, Jean-Paul and little Antony, galloping through the villa like a herd of buffaloes, leaving trails of sand in the corridors and mummified marine life under the beds, charging into the kitchen to tug at her apron and beg for warm
madeleines, ‘s’il vous plaît Madame Martin, ça sent si bon!’
. Every summer she had filled them up with fresh salads from the garden, tarts made from the cherries and apricots picked from the trees behind the villa, good local lamb and the fishmonger’s best catch. She had watched their cheeks fill out and their skin turn golden. When Edward, a gangly affectionate adolescent, had brought his friend Julian to stay one summer, another
‘garçon’
was added to her little band of favourites and fattened up along with the rest.

And now, much to her delight, there was yet another miniature ‘
garçon
’ perched in his tarted-up 1970s high
chair, dominating the proceedings, and doing body art with the apricot jam.

Jill, in spite of her pleas to give him his morning feed, had slumbered blissfully until 9 o’clock then hurtled down to the kitchen apologising profusely. She was making up for her tardiness by playing ‘catch a toe’ and ‘tickle a knee’, much to Joshua’s delight. All the women had become instant baby groupies, dancing attendance on the young master, talking to him, patting him, agreeing on his general superiority to all other infants in every possible way. Less than twelve hours had passed since Julian and his entourage had arrived at the villa, but the entire household had shifted into ‘baby’ mode. Maybe we’re just at that age, Jill and I, mused Caroline, glancing at her friend. The hormones are telling us to get a move on.

One thing was sure, Jill’s hormones were definitely telling her something. And everyone else as well. There it was again this morning. The Glow, bright as the star over Bethlehem. There was no mistaking its meaning, she might as well have had a cartoon bubble over her head saying ‘Hey folks! I’m sexy and desirable, and I’m getting it!’ When she’d skipped on to the terrace last night in a flurry of perfume, mussed-up hair and plump lips, both Edward and Julian had raised their heads like lions scenting a nice juicy antelope. Yes, even poor old Jules, with all his problems.

An ear-splitting yell broke into her thoughts. Baby Josh seemed to be indicating that he’d had enough of body art and wanted to try some surfing with the big boys.

Caroline had told Edward they’d walk down to the beach during the morning to watch them ride the waves.

‘So, what do you think? Shall we take the little man to see his first Atlantic roller?’

‘Great idea! Give me five minutes to put on my surf-watching outfit!’

Jill shot upstairs.

‘How about you, Nadia? Do you fancy coming with us or would you like some time to yourself?’

Nadia, beaming with pleasure, said she’d very much like to go down to the beach with them. She’d never seen live surfing before.

The thermometer on the terrace showed 32 degrees as they set off, causing Mme Martin to check three times that Joshua was wearing a hat and sunscreen and that the hood on his super-atomic Sweet Pea stroller was in working order. The heat hit them as they left the villa, but as they neared the seafront, they were met with a welcome breeze.

Nadia was pushing the baby who was gurgling and waving, enjoying the fresh air, the new and unfamiliar sights and sounds. It was a glorious day for a walk. They passed by the rocky outcrop that formed the southern boundary of the
Grande Plage
, stopping to watch the waves dash against the side of the rocks, sending plumes of spangled spray high in the air, catching the sunlight in sparkling droplets. Joshua’s eyes were wide as he watched the show and listened attentively to the strange hollow boom of the water pouring through the holes.

Continuing along the coastal path they reached the cluster of small coves and inlets that formed the old fishing ports of Biarritz. Back in the 12
th
century the Basque whalers brought their catch in here;
le port des pêcheurs,
the newest of the two, had rows of boats moored in the harbour but other than that there was little sign of its former activity. The cobbled square was now full of cafes and restaurants, tables and chairs set near the water’s edge to catch the breeze, customers protected from the sun by jaunty blue and white striped awnings.

Both Nadia and Jill begged so hard to stop for a coffee that Caroline finally gave in.

‘But not too long, otherwise we’ll miss the Men in Rubber.’

‘Look at those little houses, they’re so...is the word quaint?’

‘Yes, good word Nadia. They were the old fishermen’s cottages, the locals call them
crampottes.
Go take a look. You too Jill. I’ll order, is it coffee for everyone?’

The one-storey white houses were huddled close under the sheltering cliff whose flanks were covered in stunted pines and evergreens. They were beautifully maintained, some with bright blue shutters, others preferring the more traditional ox-blood red of the Basque country.

Caroline settled Josh next to her chair where he could gaze out over the harbour, whose quiet waters shone a translucent jade near the edge, darkening to deep emerald further out. The sound of the waves breaking at the harbour mouth, the mewing of the gulls wheeling high overhead and the pungent smell of seaweed engulfed Caroline in a sudden rush of childhood memories.

Cornwall, it must have been one of the last holidays with her parents. She’d have been nine then, Annabel not much older than baby Josh in his stroller. Another world.

A couple with another baby buggy stopped at an adjacent table. Caroline looked up, exchanged smiles and nods. The parents after some thought, parked their buggy near to that of Josh and the two babies came face to face. After a rather solemn staring match they broke into smiles and gurgles and were soon engaged in a private conversation involving lusty shrieks, giggles and arm-waving.

‘What, don’t tell me you’re matchmaking again’ said Jill, dropping to a chair and un-slinging her camera from round her neck. She smiled at the couple, said ‘
Bonjour
’ and instantly found out that they were from Lille and the little girl’s name was Céline.

‘Like Celine Dion? I love her. Every time I hear the theme song from ‘Titanic’ I break out in shivers.’

Caroline sat back and smiled as she watched her friend go to work. Give her fifteen minutes and she’d know what colour their bedroom was painted.

But time was pressing, and after a Romeo and Juliet farewell between Joshua and Céline, the four of them left the port and headed for the
Rocher de la Vierge
and its stupendous views.

The white statue of the Virgin, on the highest point of the rock, looked out towards the ocean. It had been placed there in 1854 to commemorate the miraculous rescue of a whaling boat, trapped off the coast in the middle of a terrible storm. Convinced their final hour had come, the sailors were suddenly dazzled by a bright light, which guided them back to land and the safety of the harbour.

The rock stood out at sea and was reached by a metal walkway.

‘Oh wow.’

Jill had been snapping photos nonstop. She was going to use some of them as inspirations for her pastels when she got back to Edinburgh. Now she put down her camera and stared around her.

‘The colours. I can’t believe the colours. They’re so bright, you can almost feel them.’

To their right was the graceful curve of the
Grande Plage
, stretching as far as the
Cap Martin
, the promontory which formed the northern boundary of the bay and on top of which stood the 47-metre-high lighthouse of Biarritz. To their left, the
Côte des Basques
, the magnificent sweep of beach known to surfers around the globe, and beyond that, in the distance, the dark purple summit of
la Rhune
marking the mountain frontier between France and Spain, the Pyrenees.

They continued on past the
plage du port vieux
, a horseshoe-shaped inlet where families were scattered on the sand keeping a careful eye on small children dashing in and out of the sea, and exploring the rocks at the edge of the cove to find the mysterious green pools, home of crabs and waving sea anemones.

‘This is the most sheltered beach,’ Caroline explained. ‘It’s protected from the big waves and the winds. That’s why you see so many children.’

‘Could we bring Joshua one day do you think?’ asked Nadia, gazing down at the shining sand and turquoise sea as if she couldn’t believe her eyes.

‘We can. We will,’ said Caroline. ‘It’s a bit tricky, there’s lots of steps to get down to it but we’ll enlist the men. Drag them away from the surf and
pelota
and
pastis
and get them building sandcastles. What do you think of that Josh?’

Josh showed his gums.

‘Right. Time to see if we can find Daddy. And Uncle Eddie. And
Tonton
Antoine.’

Surfing had been introduced to Biarritz in the 1950s, when it was a popular resort for international glitterati and Hollywood stars. As they rounded the headland the breath-taking panorama spread below and beyond, a vista of golden sand and endless rolling breakers. The sun was beating down, a fresh breeze came in from the sea, and the sound of the surf filled their ears.

There were plenty of surfers in the water, some far out, others in the shallows, boards at the ready, looking back over their shoulders for the Big One.

‘Did you say that Antoine was going to bring you down here tomorrow?’

Jill, eyes wide, gulped and nodded.

‘Look! Isn’t that Edward?’

There were quite a few blond heads down there, Californians, Scandinavians, along with the darker French and Spanish crowd, but Caroline’s eye homed in on her sweetie with unerring accuracy. A little further out she spotted Julian, and Dominique, who she hadn’t seen in a while.

Suddenly Jill was jumping up and down and waving madly. She’d seen Antoine.

They found a bench to sit and watch the fun. It wasn’t worth going all the way down, the men would be finishing up any time, coming back up the beach to change and stow their gear in the cars. Then, following the time-honoured ritual, they’d go for a pre-lunch aperitif before heading back to the villa, Madame Martin’s quiche, and a lazy afternoon of siestas and swimming.

Caroline leaned back and smiled. Things were turning out pretty well, really.

She thought of her sister in London and felt a twinge of malicious satisfaction at the idea of Annabel racing round stuffy old London, squashed in the Tube or stuck in a taxi, coping with temperamental chefs and dressmakers while her husband and son relaxed in the fragrant garden of Villa Julia.

And Claudio, the mystery man. Where was he?

***

‘Right, O’Toole. Spill.’

At last Jill and Caroline were alone, stretched out on sun beds. Edward and Julian had just left to watch Dominique training for his next
cesta punta
match. Antoine was working at the shop, but was meeting them for dinner later on.

Caroline rolled on to her stomach, preparing to give her friend the third degree, when Nadia arrived, bringing Joshua down to the pool after his afternoon nap.

They settled him in the shade of a parasol. Jill, with a sly grin at her friend, mouthed ‘later’ and shot into Auntie mode, rubbing sun-cream into the baby’s ‘ickle tummy-wummy’.

Nadia asked if it was alright if she went in the pool.

‘Of course Nadia, good heavens you don’t have to ask,’ said Caroline.

Nadia had enjoyed herself yesterday evening during the water pistol fight, and Caroline had noticed her looking longingly at the sea and the surfers this morning. She slipped out of her shorts, doused herself under the solar shower, and walked to the edge.

‘Careful’, Caroline called, ‘that’s the deep end.’

Nadia smiled and nodded. She was wearing a strict navy blue swimsuit. Her body was neat, streamlined, boyish. She stood at the edge of the pool, feet together, arms by her side. Then in a movement that was both swift and graceful she swung her arms above her head and dived into the water with scarcely a splash. She swam the length of the pool underwater, surfacing at the shallow end, near Jill and Caroline and the baby. She paused long enough to take a breath, then launched into a stylish crawl. She did twenty lengths without stopping, completing the turns in a fluid movement that brought her back on course without a ripple.