Two Days in Biarritz (27 page)

“Annabel,” he called.

She turned around and her swollen eyes met Damien’s.

“Annabel, are you alright?”

“Fine Damien, I’m really sorry for your trouble,” she sobbed. Then the floodgates opened and tears poured from her eyes. “I can’t believe it Damien. I’m so sorry. Please tell Kate I said sorry.”

Damien took her carefully in his arms until her head rested on his shoulder. “There, there Annabel. I’ll talk to Kate. You shouldn’t be this upset. Kate is doing fine. We’ve all had plenty of time to prepare for this.”

“Of course,” Annabel said, pulling away. This wasn’t the time or place to be cleaning out the dirty laundry. “I’m going through some stuff myself. Sorry for making a scene.”

“You certainly are not making a scene.”

“Would you mind if I called you sometime to talk about Kate?”

“Of course I wouldn’t. It would help me to talk to you about her, Annabel.”

Damien’s eyes were open and honest. This was the opportunity that Annabel had been waiting for, for most of her life.

“Can we meet in Tammy’s Friday, about eleven?”

Damien hesitated for a moment. He had just buried his wife. He wasn’t sure where he’d be on Friday. Annabel’s eyes gazed up him and were in such pain that he felt he had to do as she wished.

“It means a lot your being here,”
he said quietly. “I’ll try and be there. If I can’t make it I will call you.”

Annabel nodded. “Thanks Damien. See you then.”

Kate was watching from the corner of her eye. The mourners had clambered around her backing her against the church wall. She stared over at her father as Annabel walked out of the church grounds. He was still looking at her and Kate felt a deep desire to go over and spit in his face.

* * *

Annabel was still shaking as she drove after talking to Damien. She turned off the Howth Road to pick her daughters up from school. She folded down the mirror above her steering wheel to see how blotchy her eyes were. The little ones wouldn’t notice and Sam was going to football training after school so she hoped she would get away with it. Still in a daze and at a loss about what she was going to do, she turned the jeep into the car park outside High Grove Primary School.

Melissa was standing in the middle of the playground with swarms of perfectly polished women cackling around her. The news of Colin and the
au pair
would be around Howth in no time. She couldn’t contemplate what she was going to do next. She certainly wasn’t having Rosa in her house another minute and as for Colin, she wished she never had to see his face again. The image of the two entwined on the bed was imprinted on her brain for good and she felt physically sick at the memory.

The fresh faced children started to dribble from the classrooms around the quadrangle. Taylor and Rebecca rushed up to Annabel’s jeep without her needing to get out – much to her relief.

“Hi, girls,” she smiled. “Did you have a good day?”

“That Tori Jones was pulling my hair in the playground again,” Rebecca moaned.

“I keep telling you to pull her hair back.” Taylor said scornfully to her little sister.

Annabel had to make a plan and quick to ensure the safety of her family. She had to do whatever was best for her children and put her own feelings aside.

“Fancy going to Tammy’s for some lunch girls?” Annabel dreaded the thought of going through the doors of her home and seeing Rosa. She hadn’t worked out what she was going to say to her.

“I want to go home and watch the Den,” Rebecca groaned, putting her thumb into her mouth at the same time.

If Rebecca was tired then she’d have to go home. The last week of school before the summer holidays was a dredge for students, teachers and parents alike.

Rosa
was standing in the driveway when Annabel arrived.

“What’s
Rosa doing with her bags packed?” Taylor asked.

“She’s got to go home,” Annabel said feeling a wave of relief sweep over her at the sight of the packed cases.

“Why?” asked Rebecca.

“Her mummy needs her at home.”

“Will she come back?” Rebecca asked innocently.

“I don’t think so, darling.
Rosa is very busy.”

“That’s ridiculous,”
Taylor complained. “She should have told us beforehand.”

“Believe me, Taylor. It’s for the best.”

Annabel and her daughters piled out of the jeep and the young girls ran to Rosa who held her arms out wide.

“Bye bye, Taylor and Rebecca, be good girls. I have to go back to
Spain.”

“We’ll miss you,” they said together.

Annabel opened the front door and ushered her girls inside.

“I can’t say I feel the same way as my daughters,” Annabel said sarcastically. “Don’t dare try and contact anyone in my family ever again, you slut.”

Rosa smirked at Annabel. She had a cheque for five-thousand euros in her handbag. It wasn’t as much as she had hoped for but it was a good deal better than working in a restaurant for the summer. Annabel was a sad woman living a pathetic life with an even more pathetic husband in Rosa’s eyes. She was glad to be seeing the back of the lot of them. A taxi pulled up to where the two women were standing.

“It’s good of Colin to pay for my flight, and everything else,” she grinned at Annabel as the driver loaded her cases into the boot of his car and she took a seat in the back.

Annabel wasn’t waiting to see her off. She followed her daughters into the house and started to search for Colin. His car was still outside but then she remembered his appointment in the Golf Club. Maybe there never was one and it was all a ploy to be on his own with Rosa. Either way she wanted to speak to him and fast. He wasn’t getting away with this lightly.

She went straight into the kitchen and took out some wraps that she had prepared earlier for the girls.

“Here Taylor, will you bring these into the TV room,” she called to her eldest daughter.

She needed privacy to make this call. She thought about ringing Lily but then remembered she would still be at the funeral. There was no point in telling her anything until she had done something proactive. Lily would just tell her to forgive Colin and carry on as she had been.

Colin’s Blackberry rang out. It went to voicemail and she contemplated leaving a message. She didn’t know what to say so hung up. The only other person she could think of ringing was Moira. Moira Dunne was a family solicitor and personal friend of her mothers. She wasn’t in the league or style of Colin’s moronic friends but she was a formidable spinster who had wreaked havoc around the courts of Dublin putting divorce settlements together. She had to see her and fast. She flicked through the phone book and dialled her number with great speed.

Her call was answered by a receptionist at the other end of the line.

“Ms Dunne is with a client, can I get her to call you back?”

“Yes please, it is urgent,” Annabel said. She gave the receptionist her details then waited. She looked down at her hands and felt an urge to bite her nails. She would love to speak to Kate now more than anyone but what sympathy could she give. Annabel was on the verge of losing her husband but Kate had already lost two and her mother. Annabel couldn’t compete with that.

Chapter 16

A few days after the funeral, when the mourners had offered their condolences and eaten all that was left from the buffet at Contarf Castle, Kate was left with the unenviable job of going through her mother’s clothes and personal belongings. It was undoubtedly the job of the daughter of the house but one that Kate would have happily passed on. But she had promised her mother in her final days that she, and only she, would keep the more personal of Betty’s treasures for herself. This had seemed to calm her mother and lessen her anxiety towards the end.

Kate longed to get back to the Pyrènèes and some sort of normality but she wasn’t sure what that was anymore. Her ticket was booked for the day after tomorrow but she knew that she couldn’t possibly have everything done by then. She took a cloth to the drawer of the almost empty tallboy when Damien came into the room.

“I’m meeting Annabel for a cup of coffee,” he said casually.

“It didn’t take her long to make her move,” Kate sniped. “Mum’s not even ready to be picked up from the crematorium.”

“What are you talking about Kate, she’s miserable because you guys aren’t friends and I’m going to try and sort it out.”

“Don’t you think you’ve done enough Dad?” she asked sarcastically. “I mean there aren’t many fathers go to the trouble of bedding their daughter’s best friend.”

Damien was frozen to the spot.

“Yes I know,” she went on bitterly. “But I couldn’t say anything until Mum had died.”

“So that’s what the rift is about,” Damien said with a nod of his head. He should have known. “I’m not going to deny what happened, Kate, but it was a long time ago and Annabel’s a married woman now. There’s nothing like that going on.”

“I bet you still fancy her though, and Mum’s only dead a few days.”

Damien gulped. He didn’t want to admit that his daughter was right. When he saw Annabel at the funeral his initial instinct was to run over and hold her. But Betty was still more than a memory and Kate was being harsh. His intentions were honourable.

“When did she tell you about it?”

“Only a couple of months ago – when I met her in Biarritz. She had kept it a secret for all these years.”

Damien was stunned. If Annabel was going to tell Kate he was surprised that she left it until now. But why tell her at all? Surely Annabel knew Kate would react in this way.

“You have to remember that I love you Kate, and what happened with me and Annabel had nothing to do with you.”

“That’s not the way I see it. I’m sick of both of you. Just get out of my sight.”

Since telling Shane to stay away she hadn’t felt the sense of peace that she had hoped. She wanted to be left alone.

Damien turned and walked away. He didn’t know what he was going to say to Annabel but now that he knew what the rift was about, the reason behind a lot of Kate’s behaviour became clearer.

Kate opened the bottom drawer of the tallboy with a new zeal. She pulled out an array of scarves and shawls that her mother had kept tucked away since the seventies. She remembered one particular stripy scarf that her mother used to wrap around her head when she was trying to look Bohemian. At the back of the drawer was an old chocolate box. It even had a picture of the man in the corner with his arms folded after delivering the chocolates –
and all because the lady loves
Milk Tray.
Kate hesitated for a moment, it felt strange to be routing through her mother’s personal belongings – an invasion of privacy. Nothing could have prepared her for what she found inside the box. Bundles of letters all tightly bound with ribbon. The handwriting was neat and scripted but most definitely belonged to a man. She opened the ribbon from the first bundle and flicked through at least twenty envelopes. The postmarks were Australian and dated from nineteen-eighty to nineteen-eighty-nine.

Kate didn’t remember her mother ever mentioning friends or family in
Australia. Whoever sent these letters was obviously important in her life to have written so often. She opened the first letter nervously and cautiously.

Dear Beth

I’m so glad we’re back in touch. Your letters cheer me up no end. The working day in long over here but at least I see the reward in my pay cheque at the end of t
he week. Business is booming, Damien would love the work. It means a lot that you have forgiven me. I don’t think I deserve it but thanks….

Kate skipped down to the signature,
All my love Liam
. She opened the next one and it had the same signature…

Dear Beth

It was great to hear your voice last night. You sound exactly the same. Carrie has a strong
Queensland accent. You two would get on like a house on fire…..

Kate flicked through the bundle until she came to a later dated letter.

Dear Beth

I’m still missing you. I can’t believe it’s only two weeks since we shared that special day in
Dun Laoghaire. I can still clearly imagine the boats and the harbour through our hotel window. Four hours wasn’t enough but it was the best four hours I have spent in twenty years…

Kate looked at the date on the envelope September 7
th
1986. The thought of her mother leading a double life with a man from Australia didn’t add up with the image of the shy homemaker that Kate carried around. Every letter was signed in exactly the same way.
All my love Liam.

Kate couldn’t bring herself to read anymore. Not only had her father had an affair but her mother had been carrying out a long distance romance for a good deal of her married life. Kate looked at the last bundle. The final letter was dated 1996 and it included a letter from her mother with
‘Return to Sender’
stamped all over the front.