Two Days in Biarritz Read Online Free Page B

to him talk about her though. I mean, the hypocrisy of it! I had a husband and two strapping boys at home and I was so jealous of this woman who I’d never met.”
    “ So tell me, what did you do?” Annabel asked.
    “ We had the most wonderful lunch . . . then I gave him a blow job!”
    “You didn’t?” Annabel’s mouth dropped open.
    “Of course I didn’t,” Kate grinned. “But the thought did strike me! It was three bliss- filled hours spent recalling the old days. We sat in a cosy brassérie drinking coffees and staring into each other’s eyes like we were sixteen again. I even drove him back to the airport for his flight test. He said he comes down to Airbus at least once a year for his annual line-check.”
    “Did he contact you after that?” Annabel was engrossed.
    “He texted me the next day when he got home to Dublin, then I rang him about a week later and we must have been on the phone for a good hour. There was a gap after that, then he texted. I returned a message but then no more replies. I did text him later on that year to wish him a Happy Christmas but he didn’t answer.”
    “It was probably a bit too much for him,” Annabel suggested.
    “It was probably a bit much for both of us. I couldn’t concentrate on my work or anything for that matter for a good six months.”
    “Why didn’t you tell me this before?” Annabel was shaking her head slowly in disbelief.
    “I guess I was having mixed emotions after seeing him again,” said Kate. “The only way I was going to cope was to try and forget him.”
    “Did it work?” Annabel asked in anticipation.
    “ What do you think?” Kate said as she let out a sigh. “Hey, it’s a pity we didn’t have a bit of a snog though!”
    Annabel grinned. She hadn’t heard that term in a long time. “I thought you might have – I mean you’ve been a bit of a slapper in the past!”
    Annabel was the only person in the world that Kate would take this kind of jest from.
    “You know, I’ve been faithful to Stefan since the day I took my wedding vows. And look where it got me! Mind you, I had a bit of a problem on the run-up to the wedding day, didn’t I?”
    Annabel knew what she meant .
    “You put me through hell,” she recalled. “There was I starving myself for months, preparing to be the perfect bridesmaid, and then you go and tell me about that gallery owner and your passionate fling over a pile of canvases in his studio!”
    “Christophe was some mover. My one and only older man. Boy, am I glad I copped on though! He would have just turned sixty this year. The thought of that!” Kate scrunched her face until it contorted, in disgust at her own behaviour.
    “But you were happy with Stefan when you met Shane, weren’t you?” Annabel said, anxious to change the subject and concerned at what her friend might say next.
    “I was always content with Stefan and he paid the bills which gave me the freedom to paint. He supported my sons as if they were his own. But if I were to do it all again I sometimes wonder . . .”
    Lost in her thoughts, Kate walked across the stone bridge leaving Annabel standing at the wall and gazing at the turquoise ocean crowned with rolling white-horse waves.
    “They were never like this on Dollymount beach,” Annabel said out loud, but she was the only one to hear it.
    Her mind was transported to the June of 1983 . Everything was different that summer. She could clearly picture Kate and Shane on the silver sand, her in a little cerise bikini looking like “The Girl from Ipanema” and him in his T-shirt and Levi 501 jeans . . .
     
    * * *
     
    Annabel didn’t mind being on the sideline. She liked Shane’s friend Josh and since the boys were best mates the foursome fell into place nicely. Josh was easy company and put no pressure on Annabel although it was plainly obvious that he fancied her. Annabel had a passion of her own for a man who was unobtainable so she happily passed away the idle summer days with the