Two Days in Biarritz (9 page)

“I hope you had a nice stay?” the receptionist beamed.

“Lovely, thanks,” Annabel gave a wry smile in return. “Could you call me a taxi for the airport, please?”

“Of course.”

Annabel waited in the small foyer where only two nights ago she had stood with her best friend and the two surfers. If only she could turn the clock back. She vaguely remembered Nico putting her to bed the night before but wasn’t bothered about him. She was no longer concerned about any guilt she might carry home after her indiscretion. All she cared about was Kate and explaining her story properly – without the influence of alcohol. If Kate realised how much Annabel adored her father maybe she would feel differently. There was nothing sordid about their love affair and they both did what was best for their loved ones in the end. Surely Kate could see it from their point of view?

A taxi driver entered the foyer and the receptionist pointed over in Annabel’s direction.

“Bonjour,”
he said with a nod of his head and took her case with courtesy.

Annabel sat silently in the back of the Mercedes Benz all the way to the airport. She was used to travelling in Mercs – Colin always had one as his company car. She was going back to the life she knew so well. But everything seemed different now. She’d had a brief sample of what she was missing all these years, the other night with Nico. That passion was never there in her relationship with Colin – and now the thought of making love to her husband again
sickened her right through to the pit of her stomach. She would love to have the guts to do something about it but it would mean giving up so much – security, position, comfort. At the moment though, none of those seemed very important. All that really mattered was Kate, and making amends to her.

The car pulled up to the Departures Hall and Annabel paid the driver his dues. The airport was so small and convenient that in only minutes she was passing through the tiny duty-free, after checking her bags in.

“
Madames et Monsieurs, votre vol au Dublin, est près á l’embarquement
,” a voice called over the tanoy.

Annabel joined the small queue. Most of those around her were business people with briefcases in hand. Not many holidaymakers this time of year.

Inside the plane, the cabin crew were allocating passengers to their seats. Annabel stood back – next to the cockpit door. She was in no hurry to be seated, or to return home to Dublin for that matter. The captain squeezed out through the cockpit door before making his final arrangements with the red-cap before take-off.

“Annabel!”

She turned her head and was confronted by Shane Gleeson, looking spruce in his black uniform with four gold bars on his cuffs.

“I don’t believe it,” she said as she threw her arms around his neck and they embraced warmly.

“Well, you’re a sight for sore eyes, Annabel – you look great!”

“The way I feel this morning I don’t think that’s true! But you don’t look too bad yourself, Mr Gleeson,” she grinned. “Who’d have thought all those years ago on
Dollymount Beach that we’d meet this way . . . and hey, I was just with Kate! She lives in France now.”

His eyes lit up on the mention of Kate’s name. “I met her, a couple of years back. I suppose she’s busy with her husband and the boys?” He gave a sombre nod of his head.

“Actually, she recently split up from Stefan,” Annabel said.

“I don’t believe you!” He looked pleased at this news. “God, there’s so much I’d love to talk to you about,” he said with a shake of his head. “If this was pre-nine-eleven I could have you up in the cockpit and we’d have a great old chat but we have to be so careful now with security regulations.”

“That’s fine,” Annabel smiled.

“I have to go – talk later?”

“Sure,” Annabel smiled.

Shane took his paperwork from the
red-cap and went back into his tiny cell-like cockpit.

Annabel took her window seat and started to read her copy of
Hello
magazine. She couldn’t concentrate on anything much as she could hear Shane’s voice over the intercom.

Shane and Kate.
Maybe she could get the two of them in touch again. He seemed very interested when she mentioned that Kate’s relationship with Stefan was over. Meeting Shane was a godsend. She needed a way to break back into her friend’s life.

The Boeing 737 settled into a cruise at thirty-eight thousand feet and Annabel ordered herself a brandy and ginger ale.
So what if it was only eleven-thirty in the morning? She always associated flying with brandy, especially when she was on her own and had a chance to drink it in peace. She crossed her legs and the tattoo on her ankle caught her eye. It was the only physical link between herself and Kate and she was so glad now that she had made her go through with it. They were meant to be friends forever, and the engraving on her ankle was testament to it. She reached down and brushed her fingers over the marks. The Third Eye was very significant to them both – especially at the very beginning of their relationship.

“Is there anybody sitting there?” Annabel asked, standing with her mousy blonde curls and pressed school uniform, before a table for two occupied by a single girl..

The girl
looked up from under her mop of black hair to see who the voice belonged to. She clearly wanted a table to herself so she could spread her books and bags around, but the class was filling up and it looked like she was going to have to share her table.

Without answering, she moved her bag off the chair and stuck her head back into her book.

Annabel didn’t know at the time but Kate was still angry with her parents for leaving their lovely home on the other side of the city. Thirteen was a horrible age to start all over again and make new friends.

“Hi, I’m Annabel, I’m new to H
owth – all the other girls seem to know each other, don’t they?”

She
gestured around the room at the girls sitting on the edge of desks and huddled around each other relaying the news from the summer holidays.

Th
e girl looked up at Annabel once more and grunted.

“I’m Kate,
” she replied.

“I love that drawing on your bag
– is it meant to be the sun?” Annabel asked.

She was delighted to have someone to talk to, no matter how reluctantly.

Kate clicked the roof of her mouth with her tongue. “It’s The Third Eye,” she droned.

Anna
bel didn’t want to ask what The Third Eye was, but she made it her business to find out when she got home, that evening.

“What date is your birthday?” she said instead. “I’m an Aries, 24
th
March.”

Kate looked sick and Annabel wondered why. She didn’t know that this didn’t suit Kate’s plans at all. She wanted to be the interesting girl at the back of the class that nobody would talk to because they were afraid of her – but this mousy-looking girl seemed intent on changing that. Was this perky girl going to get the hint or not? To make matters worse they had something in common – Kate was an Aries too.

“Cabin crew, your seats for landing, please,” Shane’s voice called over the intercom.

An air stewardess scurried over to Annabel shortly before the tall ESB towers in Dublin Bay came into view.

“The captain would like to know if you’re able to meet him for coffee after we arrive in
Dublin airport?” she said, with a bat of her long curly eyelashes and pursed-pink lips.

“Tell him I’d love to!” Annabel replied.

Chapter 5

The wrought-iron gate seemed heavier to open now than ever before. The gravel pathway crunched under her feet as she drew near the turquoise front door. God, I love this place, she thought. The mountains hung like a velvet drape behind her charming
gîtes
and she let out a sigh of relief now that she was finally home. The larks sang an accolade in the cypress trees on her return.

“Let me help you,” Fabian urged, taking the key out of her hand and putting it into the lock for her.

“Thanks,” Kate replied. “It was great to see you at the station.”

“Serendipity,
ma cherie
,” Fabian grinned. “And we are blessed with more than our fair share living in this beautiful place. Are you not exhausted from your trip to the ocean?”

“I grew up by the sea, don’t forget!”

“
Mon dieu,
but of course, so tell Fabian everything,” he said with a flick of his wrist to his fringe. “How was your friend?”

“I need a coffee and cigarette first,” Kate said with a shake of her head.

“But, Kate, you don’t smoke any more!”

“I’m taking it up again, Fabian,” Kate replied mysteriously. “I swear, you think you know someone and then . . .”

“Say no more until we are sitting down and you are able to tell everything.” Fabian developed a spring in his step as they entered the cosy interior with rich burgundy tones on the walls and shiny black tiles on the floor.

The tall Frenchman opened the weighty pine-door that led into the kitchen. Kate followed anxiously, in a rush to put the percolator on and accelerate the telling of her tale.

“So, is Annabel still as delicious as that photograph you showed me?” Fabian asked, again brushing back his long black fringe with his fingers and making his nose appear even more prominent than when it draped down over his face.

“Don’t pretend you fancy her, Fabian!” Kate said scornfully. “We don’t have any secrets and maybe it’s time you told the rest of our friends that you’re gay – most of them suspect it anyway.”

Fabian was taken aback at Kate’s matter-of-fact tone

“
Cherie
,” he said with a shake of his head. “I can still appreciate a good-looking woman, can’t I?”

Kate
wiped her brow and her right eye with her hand. It was a habit she had carried with her through life since she was a small child. Her brother Philip had fired a stone at her from his slingshot, missing her right eye by millimetres but cutting the skin under her brow – she resorted to soothing it whenever she was stressed.

“Fabian, I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. You are truly one of my dearest friends – if not the dearest at this very moment in time!”

“So what is it that has you in such a state? Tell Fabian!” He tapped the table with his fingernails as he sat down on one of the solid pinewood chairs.

“You know when you think you know someone, and then they go and do something that’s completely out of character?”

“It happens all the time,” Fabian said remorsefully, sucking in the cheeks on his already skinny face.

“Exactly, but not with someone you’ve known for most of your life!”

“Ah, but that is just it,” Fabian said with a sigh. “My own parents went off on a whim around the world and left me with my grandmother – I was only eleven.”

Kate stopped still for a moment in bemusement. “You never told me that! I always thought your mother was ill and that was why your grandmother brought you up!”

“
Cherie,
I am not one to dwell in self-pity,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders. “Please, Kate, continue.”

“Well, we both had a bit of a fling with these two surfing guys –”

“Would I have liked them?” Fabian asked mischievously.

“Definitely!” Kate continued. “I was straight up about my interest in Brett –”

“Nice name,” Fabian interrupted.

“Please, Fabian,” she said, finding it difficult not to smile. “It turns out, while Brett and I were
dancing in the moonlight
, Annabel and his pal were at it in his room.”

“And what is wrong with that?” Fabian smiled.

“Absolutely nothing – apart from the fact that she didn’t tell me! We ran into her guy the next day in Bayonne and she never said a thing until later that night – after a few drinks she blurts it out . . .” Kate had to compose herself before divulging any more. “And then . . .”

“Yes?”

“And then . . . then she said that she slept with my father years ago . . . and had the audacity to say that she loved him!”

Fabian still wasn’t fazed. “I slept with my friend’s father too when I was only
seventeen!” Fabian informed her, not quite seeing Kate’s view on the situation.

This was information she really didn’t need to know. She reached up and scratched her head vigorously with both of her hands.

“Don’t you see my point?”
she almost screamed as tears started to fill her eyes.

“Of course I do,” Fabian said in a more serious tone. “But it was a long time ago, and is it really worth losing a friend over one little, how you say – discrepancy?”

“That’s just it,” Kate sighed. “I’m not sure how long it went on for, or what exactly the relationship was about. And, I mean, did . . . did she seduce him . . . or did he seduce her?”