Stand by Me (42 page)
That was the thing, thought Dominique as she sat in the hotel bar a couple of days after her arrival: Brendan liked being seen as a hugely successful businessman, but the truth was that when he travelled alone, he didn’t splash the cash half as ostentatiously as people might have expected. It was only when they were together that they put on the Dazzling Delahaye display of flashy jewellery and expensive clothes. Brendan liked having money, but she’d always felt that he had, in many respects, remained down to earth. And despite its obvious comforts, this was a down-to-earth sort of hotel.
She looked around her as she sipped a herbal tea. The only people in the bar were businessmen in expensive suits and highly polished shoes speaking in low tones about whatever it was that businessmen talked about. None of them looked like builders, but then Brendan hadn’t looked much like a builder in the last few years, because it had all been about suits and highly polished shoes for him too. It was a long time since he’d sat in the kitchen in a grimy T-shirt and mud-caked boots.
He wasn’t staying in the hotel. She’d asked at reception the day she arrived but the pretty Bulgarian girl had shaken her head and said that there was no one of that name booked in. Dominique had asked if she could check the last time Brendan had been a guest, but the receptionist had refused, saying that she couldn’t give out that information. And when Dominique had shown her a photograph of Brendan and asked if she recognised him, the girl had contacted her supervisor.
Dominique explained that he was her husband and that he was missing, but the supervisor said that she didn’t recognise him and reminded Dominique that they had lots of visitors and it would be difficult to remember them all. Dominique rather thought that the whole idea of staying somewhere quiet and discreet was so that people
would
actually remember you; then she suddenly realised that, despite everything he’d ever told her, it was perfectly possible that Brendan had stayed here with a woman and that the receptionist’s memory lapse was part of the hotel’s service. So she thanked her and walked away, wishing that she didn’t feel like crying again. She was fed up crying over Brendan.
would
actually remember you; then she suddenly realised that, despite everything he’d ever told her, it was perfectly possible that Brendan had stayed here with a woman and that the receptionist’s memory lapse was part of the hotel’s service. So she thanked her and walked away, wishing that she didn’t feel like crying again. She was fed up crying over Brendan.
There was no point in trying to meet any of his business contacts in the city. Barry had been in touch with them since Brendan first disappeared, and nobody had heard from him at all. Dominique didn’t know any of them herself. But she’d walked past their offices on the off chance that she’d see him there anyway. She hadn’t gone in to any of the tall glass buildings, which looked grim and forbidding beneath London’s grey skies. She’d stood outside and imagined him hurrying up the steps to meet people inside. It was a different picture of Brendan to the one she usually had. She wondered whether he’d been nervous going to see people in these imposing buildings. Whether his heart had thudded in his chest as he’d mounted the steps. She wondered if any of them had been involved in the businesses that had gone so terribly wrong. She wanted to ask them, but she didn’t even know the questions to ask. She realised that coming here had been very, very stupid. But she hadn’t really expected to find the answers here. London had been the first place on her list, but the place where she’d had the least hope of finding him. She might have better luck in Biarritz.
The thought had come to her as she’d boarded the flight to London, and came to her again now as she alighted at the airport in Biarritz, that she had never travelled on her own before. It was a shocking reminder of how little she’d done without Brendan. She had, of course, been to lots of different places with him - they’d travelled to Paris and Rome and Madrid together; and they’d gone to New York and Los Angeles, the Maldives and Barbados too. But she’d never gone anywhere on her own. She’d never had to deal with dragging her own luggage off a carousel or looking for a taxi or finding a suitable hotel. All those things had been done for her. Now, if she was being totally honest with herself, Dominique had to admit that she was quite enjoying travelling solo, even though she told herself that it was pathetic to think that a woman of her age was excited about making sure she caught her flight and her connecting train or bus on time. If I’d done the gap year thing, like Kelly, she thought, this would all be a bore. But as it was, she actually found it quite liberating.
Although she knew that she should be feeling miserable and alone, she was shocked to realise that she was beginning to feel a lot better than she had in ages. She thought perhaps that being away from Cork and from the cracks that Brendan’s disappearance had triggered in the Delahaye family was allowing her to relax a little. What surprised her more than anything, though, was that she was happy to be by herself. She’d suddenly realised that over the last twenty years, she had never spent much time on her own. Her life had revolved around Brendan and Kelly and she’d spoken to them or seen them (one of them at least) every single day, checking to see what they were doing, where they were going, when they’d be home and what they needed from her. There had never been a time when she was only responsible for herself, when the twenty-four hours of a day were hers to fill whatever way she desired. Perhaps trekking around Europe looking for her errant husband wasn’t what she would have chosen as a way to occupy herself, but it was something very different. And travelling on her own was sort of fun, even though searching for Brendan wasn’t supposed to be fun. It was a serious thing.
But it was hard to feel serious when you’d just stepped out of the small beachfront hotel in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, the quaint town near Biarritz where Brendan had been involved in the building consortium, and seen the blue water of the Atlantic Ocean tumbling on to the wide crescent of beach. One of the reasons Brendan had chosen to build here was because of the ocean. He liked to think that Cork and Saint-Jean-de-Luz were linked by the same stretch of water. He said that it was more meaningful than being involved in a development on the Mediterranean coast. (Although as it turned out, he’d also had a finger in the pie of a development in Benalmadena, so it wasn’t all about meaningful building; it was about the money too.)
Dominique had chosen her hotel at random. When they’d come before, they’d stayed in the apartments, but of course she couldn’t stay there now, so she’d picked somewhere inexpensive but immaculately clean, and decorated in the slightly mad way that some French hotels had, which meant that both walls and ceilings were covered in a busy floral wallpaper. It was all slightly overwhelming, but different, which only added to her guilty delight at being away on her own.
She walked from the hotel past a little terrace of pretty whitewashed holiday houses, each with a different-coloured door, and reached the bustling seafront, where the sun glittered off the blue water and children played happily on the white sand. She strolled along the promenade, checking out the people who were sitting outside the cafés as she walked. Brendan wasn’t really a beach person - she remembered him on their honeymoon in Majorca, burned to a crisp after just a few minutes in the sun, banished to the shade of the bar while she acquired a tan for the first time. He’d been so good about that too, she remembered. He’d never complained that he was bored, waiting for her to toast herself brown. (Something she never did these days, of course.) He’d been good about so many damn things. But everything was overshadowed now by his disappearance.
She eventually sat down in one of the promenade cafés herself and ordered a
citron pressé
, which she sipped slowly as she continued to scan passers-by. She hadn’t yet decided what she’d say to Brendan if she saw him. Sometimes she thought that she’d lose her temper completely. Other times she imagined herself throwing her arms around him and telling him that everything would be OK. In London, losing her temper had seemed the more likely outcome. Here, in the warmth of the sun, she couldn’t bear the thought of a confrontation. It was easier to imagine him apologising to her and telling her how sorry he was, easier to imagine forgiving him and telling him that she still loved him.
citron pressé
, which she sipped slowly as she continued to scan passers-by. She hadn’t yet decided what she’d say to Brendan if she saw him. Sometimes she thought that she’d lose her temper completely. Other times she imagined herself throwing her arms around him and telling him that everything would be OK. In London, losing her temper had seemed the more likely outcome. Here, in the warmth of the sun, she couldn’t bear the thought of a confrontation. It was easier to imagine him apologising to her and telling her how sorry he was, easier to imagine forgiving him and telling him that she still loved him.
But did she? That question had nagged at her ever since Kelly had asked it. She had always thought that she did. Sometimes she thought that she’d loved him too much, that he mattered more to her than she mattered to him. She certainly used to love him. But now, after all this, did she still?
Her heart missed a beat as she spotted the man climbing the stone steps from the beach to the promenade. He was wearing navy blue shorts and a navy blue Nike baseball cap pulled low over his eyes. His bare shoulders were smothered in sun cream. He carried a white polo shirt. He stood at the top of the steps and she held her breath. Then he took off the baseball cap and swept his hand over an almost bald head. It still took a moment for her to realise that he wasn’t Brendan. A moment to realise that she didn’t have to make up her mind just yet about whether she still loved him or not. She ordered another glass of lemon. She was getting to like its bittersweet taste.
Later that night, sitting on the terrace of the hotel, she was chatted up by a fellow guest. She didn’t realise what was happening at first (it was, she reminded herself, a long, long time since anyone had even attempted to chat her up), so she was dismissive of the attractive tanned man who sat at the adjoining table and asked her if he might borrow the newspaper that lay beside her but which she wasn’t reading. She figured out what he was saying because he’d gestured at the paper, not because she understood his rapid French. She’d done quite well at French in school, but she’d hardly spoken it since, even though she realised she still recognised many of the words when she saw them in print. She nodded to the man and he thanked her and asked her something else, but she shrugged, whereupon he switched to perfect English and asked her if she was staying in the town.
‘Only for a few days,’ she replied.
‘Perhaps you would like to join me for dinner tomorrow evening?’ He smiled at her.
Dominique was stunned. In her whole life nobody had ever asked her on a dinner date before. Which, she thought, was rather pathetic. (When she’d gone out to eat with Brendan while they’d been dating, it was always to places like American Burger, or inexpensive Chinese restaurants, never to places with starched linen tablecloths, silver cutlery and napkins. She’d only started eating at places like that with him when they’d been out with clients or partners.) Still, flattering though it was to be asked, she didn’t intend to be picked up by a perfect stranger. Besides, what if she saw Brendan while she was in the restaurant? What would she do then?
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m busy.’
‘Well then, can I buy you a drink now?’ he asked.
She was going to say no, and then she thought, what the hell, and said yes. She stayed chatting to him for nearly two hours, while he talked about the fact that he was in town on business and that he lived in Paris and that he travelled around France a lot and that he was divorced with two little girls whom he adored.
‘Do you miss them?’ she asked.
‘Of course. But I have a good relationship with my ex-wife and I see them a lot so it is not so bad. Worse, I think, if I was still there and everyone was unhappy.’
She nodded.
‘I’ve talked a lot about me,’ he said. ‘But you have said very little about you.’
She had no intention of telling him anything at all. So all she did was smile and say that she had nothing interesting to talk about but that it had been lovely to listen to him. Then she said that it was getting late and she should be going to bed, and he said, ‘All alone?’ in a way that made her realise that she didn’t have to be all alone.
What would it be like? she wondered. A one-night stand (or maybe even a two-night stand; she planned to stay in Saint-Jean-de-Luz for a couple of days) with a man she hardly knew. Casual sex. And maybe he’d stay in touch by text afterwards.
‘All alone,’ she said, even as he looked at her enquiringly.
And then she drained her wine glass and went to bed.
Her luggage went missing on the flight to Malaga but she didn’t really care; she bought herself some toiletries and some inexpensive summer clothes at a beachside shop and spent two days around the pool before being reunited with her stuff again. She wasn’t really expecting to find Brendan on the Costa del Sol - he’d only come here once before, to check out the Benalmadena development, and she knew it wasn’t a place he’d choose to visit again - but there was still a sense that people with something to hide, people on the run, often fetched up on the sun-soaked coast. And as much as she really and truly didn’t want to think of her husband as a criminal, and much as she knew he preferred cooler temperatures, she felt that she had to check it out.
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