The Day We Disappeared (20 page)

‘Aha!' Lizzy shouted, as I
arrived in the restaurant. ‘She's alive!' I stopped, confused. I
was in Shane's, a tiny little place round the corner from my house, and I was
meant to be meeting Tim for a quick dinner. But with him were Lizzy and
Claudine.

‘Er – is this Le Cloob?'

‘Damn right it's Le
Cloob!' Lizzy said. ‘You've gone and got yourself a boyfriend,
Annie, and you've already disappeared off the face of the earth. Did you
really think we were going to let you and Tim just have a cosy catch-up on your
own?'

I stared at them stupidly. ‘But
we're only allowed to meet in Clapham.'

Tim and Lizzy turned to Claudine.
‘Well, we were wondering …' Tim said.

Claudine stared defiantly back at us
all. And then, to everyone's surprise, she let out a naughty snigger.
‘Oh, my little espadrilles.' She sighed. ‘You are all very
entertaining. Do you really think I refuse to eat anywhere other than French
restaurants?'

‘Um, yes?' Lizzy said
doubtfully.

At this Claudine laughed. ‘Ha-ha!
I could have kept it up for years!' She took a slug of wine. ‘You must
all think
I am some very strange sort of
nationalist French peasant. I am a cosmopolitan woman. I like all food and all
restaurants. I just fancied playing wiz you all.' She was delighted with
herself. ‘Ha-ha!'

‘You,' Tim said, frowning at
Claudine, ‘are a little shit.'

Tim never told Claudine off. Neither did
he ever call anyone a little shit. ‘You are!' he protested. ‘All
those times we've travelled down to Clapham to keep you happy!'

‘I know! You losers!' She
pronounced it ‘losairs'. I loved Claudine.

I sat down and took a long, lovely sip
of the crisp Greek wine – served, of course, in those trendy little beakers – and
smiled. Life felt very good at the moment. It was summer and I was abuzz with wild,
zinging feelings that had barely allowed me to sleep since Stephen and I had first
kissed nearly three weeks ago. I was crazy with it, glued to my phone like a
lovesick teenager when I wasn't with him, and glued to his side when I
was.

‘Well, now,' Claudine said,
once we'd all ordered. She sounded more severe. ‘Well, now, my small
cheese block. You are obviously going to have to tell everything. And perhaps you
can start by explaining why you 'ave not answered your phone in three
weeks.'

Then her face changed.
‘Sorry,' she said. ‘Sorry. I am cross with you, but I should at
least pretend otherwise.'

Lizzy laughed but I was suddenly
silenced. Was Claudine right? Had I really gone to ground?

‘I think you should start at the
beginning,' Lizzy said, fanning herself with the menu. The windows and door
were wide open but it was still boiling. ‘And tell us everything. Except for
sex, I could do without that.'

‘So could
I,' Tim said firmly, and Lizzy shot him one of her
you-are-totally-in-love-with-my-little-sister-and-it-drives-me-mad faces that I
always did my best to ignore.

I told them everything I could think of,
apart from the bit about Stephen and I having sex literally all the time. Even I was
taking a while to get used to that. ‘I wake up every morning feeling like
I'm on speed,' I finished dazedly. My food had arrived and I'd
barely even noticed. ‘I'm smiling, I'm zinging, I say yes to
everything and I don't even get tired. I hardly recognize myself!'

‘We hardly recognize you
either,' Claudine remarked helpfully. She stabbed a piece of purple broccoli
in a fairly violent manner.

I told them about Stephen's
fantasy house in Clapton Square, how it looked like God himself had become an
interior designer and put together a showroom in Hackney. ‘Literally
everything in that house is stunning. And among all the beautiful design he's
still got loads of old books and pictures and stuff. Even his downstairs toilet is a
work of art!'

I didn't mention the loo picture
of a six-year-old Stephen dissecting a frog in his back garden: as yet I'd
failed to make him take it down. (He thought it was hilarious and sweet; I thought
it was depraved.) But I did say that I'd always thought a person's house
to be a reflection of who they really were. And that this house boded very well for
Stephen.

‘Isn't it just wonderful
that he lives there, and not in a ten-million-pound house in Kensington?
Doesn't that just show you what a great bloke he is? He is just amazing!
Amazing, I tell you!'

Rein it in, I
told myself. This is nauseating! But I couldn't. I felt like I'd won the
lottery. Years and years of loneliness, nothingness, a painful inability to engage
with men on almost any level and now
this
? Even I barely believed it.

‘I'm smitten,' I
admitted. ‘Completely in love. It's hopeless.'

‘
Love?
' Claudine
barked. She put down her cutlery. ‘Did you just say love?'

I nodded guiltily. ‘I know what
you're thinking, but you're wrong. We're not being mad and
impetuous, we
are
in love. Madly in love. It happens all the time, so stop
looking at me like that! It happened to you, Claudie, you were married within five
weeks of meeting Sylvester!'

Claudine, who could not argue with this,
was silenced, although not for long. ‘You are totally out of control,'
she said. ‘My darling, you have been together two and a half weeks! Look at
you! You 'ave moved
far
too fast!'

‘Claudie …'

‘No! You do not know this man! You
are being ridiculous!'

‘Oh, Claudie!' Lizzy began.
‘Don't be mean. What about love at first sight?'

She would defend me to the hilt, Lizzy,
but she looked rather worried, too. They demanded that Tim expound some wisdom on
the possibility of love at first sight and I zoned out, suddenly anxious.

What if Claudine was right? What if I
was just caught up in some mad blaze of hormones? What if the pure, racing joy of
the last seventeen days had had more to do with madness than it had with love?

I'd let no
man near me for years. I'd agreed to go on the odd date, often under extreme
duress, but the tiny handful of men I hadn't panic-cancelled at the last
minute had – in spite of being mostly very nice – touched deep icy memories that I
wanted nothing to do with. Gradually, in the same way that Lizzy and I had stopped
trying to do something about Dad's agoraphobia, Le Cloob had stopped trying to
set me up with men.

My unexpected willingness to place my
trust in Stephen – to let myself fall for him – had felt to me like a landmark
victory. A miracle! I couldn't bear it if it wasn't real. If it was just
me being crazy.

‘Hey.' Tim had reached
across to tap me on the arm. ‘Are you OK, Pumpkin?'

I shrugged miserably
.

‘Right, will you two please be
quiet?' Tim said, and Lizzy and Claudine stopped. They turned to him, then to
me. ‘Annie's doing her best here,' he said. ‘It would
probably help her if you weren't arguing over whether or not she's sane.
Right under her nose.'

‘Oh, darling, sorry,' Lizzy
said. ‘I was defending you! But of course Timmy's right.
Sorry.'

Claudine poured us all some more wine.
‘I am sorry too,' she said. ‘But please understand that my
intentions are always good.'

‘I know.' Of course I knew.
‘But I wish you'd trust me more, Claudie. I wish you'd allow me
the possibility of being genuinely happy, of having made a really good, brave
decision, rather than just assuming I've gone mad again.' I knocked back
some wine. ‘Trust me, Claudie. Trust me,
all
of you. I'm
constantly on the lookout for
cracks in
my mental health. Yes, it concerns me that I feel this strongly after such a short
time. And, yes, I know it all seems too good to be true. But could you please give
me a chance? Look for the best possible explanation, rather than the
worst?'

Claudine paused before answering. I knew
what she was thinking. I knew she still held in her memory the fragile
nineteen-year-old I'd been when we'd first met at a nutrition seminar in
London. I knew how protective she was of that girl; how she'd fight for her
with her bare hands, if need be.

‘Okay,' she said.
‘Okay, Annie, my small apple. I am sorry. If you tell me that you think it is
good between you and Stephen then I am 'appy.' She reached over and
touched my hand. ‘Really, I am sorry.'

I squeezed her hand. ‘Well,
I'm sorry too. I didn't know I'd gone all crap at answering the
phone. I'll get a grip, I promise, and I won't let Le Cloob
suffer.'

‘Group hug,' Lizzy said
thickly, prompting a very awkward clasping of shoulders around the table. ‘End
of group hug,' she announced. ‘Far too bloody hot. Plus I've got
BO.' She flapped at her armpits and Tim chuckled, appalled but amused.

‘Talking of relationships,'
I said, keen to deflect the attention from my own, ‘how's Mel,
Tim?'

A shadow crossed Tim's face as he
filled his wineglass to the brim. ‘Erm,' he began, then petered out.

‘Everything okay, Timmy?'
Lizzy asked. She was very sweet with Tim sometimes. Like he was her puppy.

Tim cracked his knuckles, as he always
did when he was nervous. ‘Er, Mel and I split up.'

We all gaped at
him.

‘What?'

‘Eh?'

‘
Quoi?
'

He wriggled uncomfortably. ‘Yeah.
We split up. I'd probably rather not talk about it, if you don't mind.
I'm a bit raw. Still processing it.'

‘But –'

‘Of course,' I interrupted
Lizzy. ‘We're here when you need us.'

Claudine showed less respect. ‘Who
dumped whom?' she demanded.

Tim flinched. ‘It was my
decision.'

‘
Vraiment?
'
Claudine asked. ‘But why?'

‘Let's leave him
alone,' I said sharply, and Tim gave my knee a grateful bump. God, poor Tim.
It had been just two and a half weeks but I knew already that I wouldn't be
able to function if things between Stephen and me went wrong. Even if we went for
two hours without at least a text message I felt a terrible hole opening in my
heart. I'd die without him. I would literally die.

‘Let's talk about something
else,' Tim said. ‘I mean it,' he added, as Claudine opened her
mouth to fire another question his way.

Lizzy started telling us about one of
her boyfriends who was up for an innovation award, whatever that might mean, and I
drifted off, dreaming of maybe living in Stephen's house with him one day.
Imagining having a kitchen that size, and beautiful great big folding doors into the
garden.

And then I frowned.

Stephen. Stephen
was at a table a few metres away with a girl. A little wispy Hackneyite wearing what
looked like a vintage nightdress and bright orange lipstick, her hair in a topknot.
She looked like an art student, perhaps, couldn't have been any older than
eighteen. I hadn't noticed him because he'd had his back to me but now
he was turning sideways to talk to the waiter. And it was him. Stephen. It was my
man.

In spite of everything that had passed
between us in the last two and a half weeks my heart ground to a halt. Who the hell
was the girl?

Tim, seeing my face, glanced at the
table. ‘Oh,' he said, as Stephen cut off a bit of his steak and put it
on the girl's plate, chatting away comfortably as if they'd known each
other all their lives.

My head tried to rationalize. She was
too young, for starters. A child. He couldn't surely … Not in my little local
restaurant either. We were within ten metres of my front door!

And our beautiful shiny new
relationship, the whole explosive energy of the last few weeks! There was no
way
that wasn't real! There must be an explanation.

Perhaps sensing our gaze, Stephen looked
over his shoulder and suddenly saw me. And, to my heartfelt relief, I saw not so
much as an atom of panic in his face. He just looked delighted. He beckoned me over,
explaining to the girl who I was.

‘Er, hang on a sec,' I said
vaguely to Le Cloob. I floated over to their table, holding on to an unsuspecting
diner's chair for support.

‘What a lovely surprise!'
Stephen said, standing up and
kissing me
softly on the cheek. The feeling of his face against mine sent me reeling.
‘Annie, this is my niece Petra,' he said. ‘Petra, this is
Annie.'

Petra smiled limply. ‘Hiya,'
she said.

Thank God. Thank God.

I shook my head, as if to dislodge the
awful thoughts I'd been having, and smiled at Petra. I could tell straight
away that she was a brat. She was sullen and resentful and didn't say a word
in the conversation that followed.