Hot Basque: A French Summer Novel 2 (31 page)

Caroline was jumping up and down.

‘You see! What did I tell you! He is
amoureux
! Ring him, immediately!’

‘I never heard it! Why didn’t I hear it? Seven o’clock? I was wide awake.’

‘Never mind that, call him now.’

Jill took a deep breath, stared at Caroline, then pressed the button.

‘Come on, pick up Antoine, pick up, damn it!’

She threw the phone on to the table.

‘Voicemail.’

Caroline checked her watch.

‘He’s probably working in the restaurant. I’ll go and make some coffee, then you try again.’

But Antoine’s phone stubbornly went to voicemail a second, third, fourth time.

‘I can’t stand it! What if he’s seen it’s me, and doesn’t want to pick up?’

‘If he doesn’t want to talk to you, why did he send you the text?’

‘Yes, but he said goodbye. For him it’s over.
Finito
. Curtains.’

‘He said goodbye because he knew you were going back tomorrow. I bet he turns up at the airport. Did you tell him what time your plane was leaving?’

‘No. Maybe. I can’t remember. I’ll never get through today.’

‘Send him a text. Then at least, when he gets it, he’ll know everything is OK.’

With a sudden movement Jill pushed back her chair and stood up.

‘I’m going over. I’m going to the restaurant. I can’t stand it one more minute.’

Caroline didn’t answer immediately. Then she looked at Jill and said:

‘Go.’

Jill raced inside as fast as Nadia. Caroline could hear her thumping up the stairs.

She looked at her watch.

Two minutes, max.

Sure enough Jill stuck her head out of the window on the landing two minutes later.

‘Caro! Costume crisis! I need help.’

Caroline laughed a little hysterically, wiped her eyes and made her way inside.

***

Caroline walked Jill to the gate.

‘You’re sure you don’t want me to come with you? We could put Joshua in his Sweet Pea.’

‘No. I am a woman alone.’

‘Well in any case, he’s going to melt into a little puddle when he sees you. You look great.’

Jill was wearing a deep aqua sundress. Her copper hair fell to her shoulders in lustrous waves.

She gave her friend a hug.

‘Sure you don’t want to take the car?’

‘Too nervous. I’d probably crash it. Anyway, the walk will give me time to rehearse what I’m going to say. What did you say the word for ‘misunderstanding’ was?’

‘
Mesentente.
Give me the list, I’ll write it down. You’re sure there’s nothing else? ‘I’m really missing my surf lessons with benefits?’ That sort of thing?’

‘How about ‘I think I’m going to throw up’?’

Caroline waved her off before heading back indoors. Ouf. Well, that was two happy bunnies. She went into the kitchen to make more coffee. She needed the caffeine, she hadn’t managed a full night since ‘it’ had happened. Apart from everything else that was going on she was missing Edward in her bed at night, missing his sunny presence at the villa every day.

A faint cry interrupted her thoughts; she ran quickly upstairs, quietly opened the door to the nursery.

‘Aga!’

‘Ah little man, I thought I heard you. It’s
Tatie
Caroline. Can you say that? Can you speak a little bit of French?
Tatie.
Auntie. Oh come here you darling boy. Ah. Right. Darling smelly boy. Now, let’s get some air to that bottom...’

***

Jill’s footsteps slowed as she neared Chez Arantxa.

Oh Lord she was all in a lather. She patted her neck and face with a handkerchief, pulled a mirror out of her bag, peered at her hair. She knew it. Those lovely smooth waves she’d left the villa with had shot into corkscrews with the humidity. Her face was red, her hair was orange and her nose was running. Well, this would be a test of real
amourosity
wouldn’t it?

If he jumped over the bar and flung his arms around her she’d know the saying was true. Love is blind.

Three o’clock. The inside of the restaurant was dim. She could make out a couple of tables where people were enjoying a late lunch, Spanish style.

The door stood open.

Marines, forward!

She stepped inside, knees knocking.

‘
Bonjour Madame.’

A waitress came bustling up. Not one of Antoine’s sisters. She couldn’t see either of them, nor his brothers. Nor his mother. No sign of Antoine. Had they all left town? Her heart began to race even harder.

‘Er, er..

The waitress stood, a look of inquiry on her face.

‘
Une personne
? One person? We close soon, but there is still time if you wish to eat?’

‘No thank you, I mean, oh I’m so glad you speak English, er I’m looking for–for Antoine?’

‘Antoine? Ah but...one moment.’

The girl disappeared into the kitchen. Jill squeezed her handkerchief, nervously.

‘
Mademoiselle Jill? C’est vous?
’

Madame Arantxa was hurrying towards her, wiping her hands on a towel.

‘
Oui, c’est moi. Bonjour Madame
.’

Jill held out her hand but Madame Arantxa flung her arms round her and gave her two kisses.

‘I am sorry,
l’autre soir...
the night, when you eat, that person!’

Madame’s face was a picture of worry.

‘
Non non,
all OK
maintenant, pas de problème
, please don’t worry Madame Arantxa.’

‘Come, sit, I bring you coffee.’

Without giving Jill time to speak she had raced over to the bar and started piling coffee into the espresso machine, talking over her shoulder all the time in a mixture of English and French.

Jill sat down.

The kitchen door flew open. She looked up, hoping and dreading at the same time.

‘Jill!’

She recognised Marielle, the elder sister.

‘We are happy to see you!’

She got the double kiss from Marielle too.

Well these were all good signs. The family seemed to like her. Now if she could just speak to Antoine...

‘You go back home soon?’

‘Tomorrow. Early, actually. That’s why–I was wondering if Antoine was here? I tried to phone him, but I couldn’t get a reply. I thought maybe he was working this lunchtime–oh, is he at the shop? I hadn’t thought about the shop, I just automatically assumed–’

‘Jill! Antoine is not here. You do not know? I thought he told you.’

A strange feeling started in the pit of Jill’s stomach.

‘Told me?’

‘Yes, he say he will phone you, he did not phone?’

‘He did, well he sent a text, I only just saw it, that’s why I decided to come over, to speak to him...’

Her voice faltered.

‘
Oh Maman
!’ Marielle turned to look at her mother. Her face was tragic. ‘
Elle ne sait pas.’

‘What? What don’t I know?’

‘He is gone, Jill. He took the plane this morning. He is in the South America.’

Margaret MacDonald put down the telephone. She removed her glasses, rubbed her eyes, put her glasses back on again and picked up the notebook where she had carefully written down everything that her old friend Bernard had told her. She then flicked back a few pages to the details of her conversation with Tessa the previous evening, and underlined a couple of phrases. Two good and faithful friends. She leaned back in her chair, stared out of the French windows on to the terrace, where ‘the honeysuckle and the rose entwined’.

‘Birdie? Are you there?’

Her friend stepped in through the French doors holding a pair of secateurs. A couple of leaves nested in her hair. She bore a striking resemblance to Albert Einstein. Although Caroline and Edward had insisted on paying for a full-time gardener at Willowdale, Birdie still liked to get out into the garden, down on her knees, snipping, pruning, poking her head into shrubs and undergrowth, ‘just communing with nature, Margaret, so therapeutic in these stressful modern times’.

‘I seem to have been on that telephone all morning.’

Margaret rubbed her ear.

‘I’ve spoken to the clinic. We have an appointment the day after tomorrow. I’ve also had a word with young Soames, he is going to drive us.’

Birdie gave a little gasp.

‘Will we...are we allowed to see Annabel?’

Margaret shrugged.

‘They very adroitly avoided giving me a direct answer to that question. Be that as it may, why don’t you ring Brenda and see if she can fit you in for a haircut tomorrow?’

‘Oh!’ Birdie’s hand flew to her head, found a leaf, which she removed and looked at with suspicion. ‘Can’t it wait till we get back, Margaret? I was just getting to grips with the irises.’

‘The irises can wait, they’re not going anywhere. Anyway, irises are as tough as old boots.’

‘Well yes, but there are the seedlings to plant out as well, I’ve been putting it off and really–’

‘Birdie. Let me put it another way. If we turn up at the clinic with you looking like that, they’ll think I’m bringing you in for treatment.’

Margaret repressed a smirk at Birdie’s offended expression.

‘A joke, my dear. But we need to keep up appearances, look our best when we meet Dr Novak. First impressions always count. And you really do need a trim. And a shampoo and set, you know how nicely your hair comes up after Brenda has worked her magic. Now put down those secateurs and take a seat. I have something else to tell you. I’ll just get the coffee.’

Birdie watched as her friend walked across the sitting room. The hip operation had transformed Margaret’s life. She still had problems with arthritis in one knee, but a further operation to remedy that was scheduled next year. She also had difficulty grasping things, her thumb just wouldn’t do what she told it to do, but, as she said often remarked, catching Birdie’s anxious look, ‘I’ll just have to ‘suck it up’, won’t I?’

Margaret had picked up all sorts of unsuitable expressions from the TV shows they watched of an evening. Since their ‘windfall’ on the Lottery the previous year they had both spent many happy hours in front of an enormous, state of the art television that Caroline had helped them to choose and whose Dolby surround-sound was a wonderful remedy for their deafness. Both of them had become fascinated with what Margaret referred to as ‘oh goody another American cop series’. They were now experts on the finer points of American law, plea bargaining and the role of the DA. They could predict the results of blood spatter patterns before the CSI team had even packed their bags to set off for the crime scene.

Blood spatter...Birdie sat down heavily in the nearest chair, suddenly feeling faint. She could smell the coffee percolating in the kitchen, and badly needed a cup. Hopefully Margaret had made it extra strong.

When Edward had told them what had gone on in London, they had been shocked into silence. They had listened with growing dismay as he explained about Claudio, given them the real story behind the dreadful photograph in the newspaper. When it came to the scene in Julian’s flat, the struggle in the kitchen and the rush to the hospital, neither of them had been capable of uttering a word.

‘You really mustn’t worry, she’s fine, honestly. Well, not fine, obviously, but out of danger, stabilised, and Julian’s arranging for treatment.’

Edward had sighed, blue eyes troubled.

‘We wanted to spare you the truth. But the more I thought about it, driving down here, the more I became convinced that honesty was the only way. The truth has a way of coming out, sooner or later.’

He omitted to say that the truth they were hearing had been heavily sanitised and gift-wrapped.

Margaret had come out of her trance, nodding slowly.

‘‘The truth will out’. The Merchant of Venice. ‘It is a wise father who knows his own child.’ Or, in this case, a wise aunt.’

Edward had glanced sharply at Margaret, who had lapsed into silence again.

‘Caroline wanted to be the one to break the news,’ he continued, ‘but we finally decided it was better if she stayed in Biarritz to look after Joshua.’

The mention of Joshua had roused both women.

Edward had given a sigh of relief seeing Birdie get up and go to fetch The Macallan. The worst was over. They knew. The scotch hit his empty stomach with a welcome jolt. The three of them began to discuss what might or might not happen next. Especially as far as the baby was concerned.

Just before six he’d stood up to take his leave, declining the offer of another drink, saying he had to get to his parents, break the news to them.

‘You poor boy. Stuck with the role of messenger. How much do they know?’

‘Not a thing. Fortunately they’re so wrapped up in the renovations, you know they’re building a ‘baby-wing’ at the side of the house? No pressure on Caro and me.’ He smiled. ‘They’ll probably want to come over and see you.’

‘Of course.’

Standing at the door, Margaret had taken his hand in both of hers.

‘Thank you Edward. For looking after things. For looking after Caroline. For thinking of us.’

He’d hugged both of them, promised to ring every day.

After Edward’s departure, Birdie had gone into the kitchen and embarked on a mammoth session of jam-making. The perfume of strawberries and raspberries bubbling in sugar had permeated even the remotest corners of the house.

Margaret had taken out her address book and telephoned New York. After a long conversation with her old friend, Tessa, she hung up, then tried a London number, where she left a message on the answering machine. Something rather urgent had come up, she told Bernard’s machine, but he was not to worry. She would call back the following day.

But it had been Bernard who had called back, at eight o’clock this morning, sounding concerned and asking what he could do. Thank heavens for true and trusted friends. Friends you could rely on, no matter how far away they were. She and Bernard had talked at length, then she had phoned the Clinic and made the appointment.

Now, she thought, carrying the tray of coffee through into the sitting room, it was time to put Birdie in the picture.

She poured two cups and handed one to Birdie, along with the cream and sugar.

‘Thank you Margaret. That smells heavenly. You always make a better cup than I do.’

‘Well, given the fact you’re the one who does all the cooking, it would be a pity if I couldn’t at least plug in a machine. Now, enough of culinary matters. Bernard called this morning, as you know.’

She picked up her notebook, put on her reading glasses and scrutinised her notes.

‘The first thing to say is that both of them, Tessa and Bernard, know this Dr Novak. Know of him I mean. And approve. In fact, they spoke of him most highly.’

‘Ah!’ Birdie took a sip. Yes, good and strong. Relief flooded through her. Maybe it was going to be alright, if Tessa and Bernard approved. Neither of them practised any longer, but in their day they had been eminent in their field. She and Margaret often used to stay with Tessa on their trips to New York. Tessa in fact, had been a friend of Robbie and Alexandra, Caroline and Annabel’s parents. Shortly after their deaths she had given up her London psychotherapy practice and moved to New York. Bernard they both knew from their days in the Diplomatic Corps. He had been involved in ground-breaking research into what later became known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

‘So did you ask them what they thought? About Annabel’s...’

‘Suicide attempt. Yes. I told them the whole story, the events leading up to it, the wretched Acapulco charade, her affair, her discovery that this Claudio person was cheating on her, getting her photo splashed across the front page of the papers, the lot. And in any case, Tessa has been a family friend for years, she knows what Annabel’s like. Bernard, on the other hand, hardly knows her. But what’s interesting is that they both said more or less the same thing.’

She paused, took another sip of coffee.

‘They think it’s likely that Annabel is suffering what they called–’ she consulted her notes ‘–an ‘emotional collapse’. Well Tessa said ‘collapse’ and Bernard said ‘breakdown’. She’s been living a double life, a life of secrets and lies, and suddenly all of that was exposed to the public eye in a very dramatic way. They think she would have been overwhelmed by feelings of guilt and shame, and when Edward confronted her, all this escalated into a sensation of being trapped and powerless, hounded even. And the result, as we know, was to implode in a very dramatic way. To disintegrate.’

Birdie had been listening carefully.

‘A double life. Yes. All that deception, those lies she had to tell about what she was doing, who she was with. It would have been bad enough without the wedding. But she’s been going around making arrangements as though everything’s perfectly normal. What must she have been thinking? Even Annabel, our Annabel, must have known that it was impossible to go through with the ceremony with Julian while she was carrying on a torrid affair with that–that gigolo! Something was bound to give.’

‘Yes, Tessa talked about ‘an inner conflict’, how that can result in irrational behaviour and reckless actions. I can’t imagine how she kept it all straight.’

Birdie banged down her cup with unusual force.

‘That poor baby. Where does he fit in? Heavens know how long his mother has been neglecting him to carry on with another man. She must have known it was wrong.’ She leaped to her feet. ‘Honestly Margaret I could shake her until her teeth rattled!’

Margaret blinked. Birdie sat down again abruptly.

‘I shouldn’t have said that. Sorry. She’s paying for it all, now.’

Was she though? The cynical little thought popped into Margaret’s head unbidden. Impossible Annabel. Charming, infuriating and immoral.

‘Do you know Birdie, I think I might have a glass of sherry. Will you join me?’

She went to the decanter sitting on the sideboard and poured two healthy doses.

‘Chin chin.’

‘Do you think it’s all to do with love?’

‘What do you mean Birdie?’

‘Well I was just thinking the other day, when we were watching ‘Poirot’. About the Agatha Christie business. About the things people do when they’re in love.’

As light relief from the blood, bullets and pounding music of their fascinating American series, Margaret and Birdie enjoyed exercising their little grey cells in the gentler ambience of English country manor houses, along with Agatha’s famous Belgian sleuth. They were both huge fans of David Suchet. And Birdie had read every one of Agatha Christie’s eighty detective novels.

For Christmas, a couple of years previously, Margaret had bought her a biography of the famous writer. It was by Andrew Norman, a former doctor, and one of the most interesting aspects of the book had been his interpretation of what had happened on the night of December 3rd, 1926. At that time, Agatha was married to Archibald Christie, but the couple were having problems and Archie wanted a divorce so that he could marry his mistress, Nancy Neele. There was a quarrel, and that same evening Agatha drove off alone in her car. She did not return and the car was later found abandoned near a lake. Her disappearance provoked a nationwide manhunt. She was eventually found, eleven days later, staying at the Old Swan Hotel in Harrogate, hundreds of miles away, registered as Mrs Teresa Neele.

Many theories were put forward as to what had really happened. Agatha herself remained vague about the incident.

Birdie sat up straight and looked across at her friend.

‘Mr Norman’s conclusion, as a medical man, you know, was that it was a ‘fugue state’. I remember the exact term. Brought on by depression and stress. Her mother had died, but if you ask me, it was mainly to do with Archie’s affair. She was in love with him and she couldn’t bear the idea of him running off with Mrs Neele. So she did this amazingly reckless and irrational thing and simply disappeared.’

‘Leaving everyone to wonder if she’d killed herself, thanks to the abandoned car and everything.’

‘Yes. Can you imagine what it must have been like for her family? And her poor daughter?’

‘And all in the name of love. I think I shall call you Professor Bird, from now on.’