The Day We Disappeared (26 page)

He was still up, pulling away at his
haynet.

‘Hello,' I said. My eyes
filled with tears as soon as I touched his nose. ‘I've come to say
goodbye.'

Stumpy dropped a load of hay on my arm.
‘Do you have treats of any sort?' he wanted to know. ‘Polos?
Carrots? Anything at all that I can eat?'

And with that I started sobbing.

Stumpy paused in his crunching for a
second, staring at me.

‘I love you, you silly
thing,' I whispered. ‘You saved my life. You and your dad.' I slid
my arms round his neck, pressing my cheek against his warm, sweet-smelling hair.
‘I owe you so much,' I told him. Stumpy stayed still for a few moments
but in the end his stomach won and he moved away to take another mouthful.

But he was back straight away, watching
me with those big kind eyes. ‘I'll miss you for the rest of my
life,'
I whispered, tears
streaming down my face. ‘You big brave bugger. You lovely person. You funny
boy.'

And before I had time to argue with
myself, I made myself turn and walk away. No looking back, Brady. Move in a straight
line, leave no trace.

‘What are you doing out
here?'

I screamed. My voice was snatched up by
the wind and hurled across the paddock, where the big oak swayed and swirled
chaotically across the surface of the half-moon.

‘
Kate?
What's
wrong? It's me!'

Mark, in a hopelessly unfashionable
jumper with his sponsor's name emblazoned across the front. His attempt at
‘dressing up' for his guests, which had made me feel all smiley and warm
when I'd seen it earlier. Before my life was blown wide open again.

‘Sorry, boss,' I muttered.
‘You took me by surprise, there.'

Mark cocked his head to one side. He
smelt of woodsmoke from the sitting-room fire. ‘I brought pork pies,' he
told me. ‘Mum was getting very anxious that you hadn't eaten one. Plus
everyone was staring at me and using words like “bravery” and
“hope”.'

I laughed, in spite of my pounding
heart. ‘I love your mum.'

‘Same,' he said. ‘But
the pork-pie thing is pushing me over the edge. Look, let's just get this over
with. Shall we?' He gestured at the paddock gate.

I glanced at the drive, picked out by
lamps. Nothing yet.

I went over and leaned on the gate next
to Mark and his crutches.

‘Er,
cheers,' he said, bumping his pork pie against mine. He took a large bite of
his and I wondered how I would force myself to eat.

You have to go!
shouted my
head.
Now! Get the merry hell out of here!

The problem was, I couldn't.
Almost equal to the fear was this intense, visceral feeling I had standing there
with my boss, watching the eyes I'd come to know so well, both of us aware of
what he'd said about me on camera. I managed to take a bite.

We stood there in the windy night,
eating Sandra's pork pies.

‘So what's going on?'
Mark asked, when we'd finished.

‘Oh, er, you know,' I said,
dusting myself down with shaking hands. ‘Things.'

‘I see.' He smiled.
‘Kate, you're shivering. Do you want my jumper?'

‘No.'

‘Really? You're shaking like
a leaf.'

I checked the drive. ‘If I take
your jumper then you're cold too,' I said lamely. ‘I don't
want that.'

He took his crutches and walked off to
the tack room. ‘Stay there,' he instructed.

I stayed. I watched the drive.

Mark came back with a stable rug, which
he wrapped around us both. Closer than we had ever been, we stood stock-still and
gazed out at the fields. The wind was brutal against my face and the rain still
spiky and cold. I felt none of it.

‘So here's where I am right
now,' Mark said, emboldened now that he wasn't looking directly at me.
‘I'm going
through a
divorce, I'm fighting an evil woman for joint custody of my beautiful little
girl and I've got a skeleton that's only just beginning to stop feeling
like a beanbag. My physio is exhausting and I'm shitting myself that I
won't be able to compete again. And shitting myself that maybe I don't
even
want
to compete again. And you know what the funny thing is about all
of this, Kate? In spite of the above, I actually spend most of my time thinking
about something else entirely.'

My hands were still trembling, even
though my body felt oddly calm. ‘I can relate to that.'

‘You can?'

‘The last few years are like this
big war zone in my head,' I said carefully. ‘All these unexploded mines
everywhere and yet all of that's sort of gone into soft focus. There's
this other thing. This other … person.' My voice wobbled and bowled off in the
wind.

I could feel Mark's warmth through
my jumper now. God, the miracle of life. This man could have been dead by now. Could
have died at Badminton, or in the helicopter. Instead he was here: vital, alive, the
loveliest man on earth at this moment.

‘Good to hear it's not just
me,' he said slowly. ‘You know. Feeling preoccupied.'

‘Yes.'

There was a long pause. Fallen leaves
skittered across the yard behind us and I smelt the wet earth and the woodsmoke. My
home.

(For how much longer? An hour?)

‘I think someone should say
something,' Mark said. ‘I think we should both say something
brave.'

‘I
don't,' I said quickly. ‘I think we should both be great big
stinking cowards.'

‘But I don't want to. I want
to be brave, Kate.'

‘You've been brave! You were
brave as, I don't know, a
bear
in that hospital! A big bear, you
know, that can pull down trees and fight lions and stuff …'

The delightful rumble of Mark's
laughter filtered through his jumper into mine. ‘I don't think bears and
lions live in the same place,' he said. ‘But I like being a
bear.'

He took a deep breath. ‘Kate
…' His voice was ragged with nerves but I heard the determination. Don't
let him say it, I thought, starting to panic. You've ruined enough lives as it
is. Don't ruin his too!
Get out!

I felt a warm tear drop down my cheek.
‘I can't have this conversation,' I said. ‘I'm so
sorry, Mark, but this isn't the time. I have to go.'

‘What – to an empty barn? With all
your team next door? And me trying to say –'

‘I've a stomach ache,'
I said hopelessly.

Mark turned to me. ‘I don't
know what's going on here,' he said softly. ‘But I have proper
words to say. Words that should never go unsaid. And I want to say them. Will you
let me?'

I shook my head as tears filled my eyes
yet again. ‘I have words too, Mark. But we can't have this conversation.
You'll have to trust me.'

Mark watched my face. To think I'd
once imagined that there was coldness in these eyes. To think I'd been so
blinkered that I saw meanness and cruelty where there was warmth and generosity,
masked only by shyness.
‘Kate,' he said quietly. ‘Look, Kate,
I thought you'd had a burnout. I don't understand why that means
you're not allowed to … to like someone.'

‘I know,' I said, trying
pointlessly to wipe my face with my hand. ‘But I really can't.
Especially the someone we're talking about here. Even though that someone is
in my mind all of the time, and even though that someone makes me feel all strong
and happy.' A huge sob burst out of me. I couldn't stand it.

‘But what if the person likes you
back, Kate? What if they lie awake listening to the mice in the roof and wonder what
it would be like to hold you while you slept?'

Strands of Mark's hair blew
against the side of my face. ‘I care about them far too much to let them do
that,' I whispered. ‘If I thought that was the case I'd leave.
Because it couldn't work out well for that lovely person listening to the
mice.'

‘But that person has suffered just
about every harm going,' Mark persisted. ‘And he's survived. Part
of the reason he's survived is that you've given him hope. He's
full of you, all day and all night. What could you have up your sleeve that could
possibly hurt him?'

‘A lot,' I cried. ‘An
awful lot. Mark, please don't do this. I'm in trouble. A lot of
trouble.'

Mark went silent for a while. Then his
eyes, dark as the sky, swivelled back to mine. ‘I just checked with the man
who's mad about you,' he said, and I saw the corners of his mouth turn
up in a beautiful smile. ‘And he said he's fine with whatever
you've got.'

Mark's arm had somehow slid around
my waist. ‘Your broken rib,' I said.

‘Shut
up.'

‘I smell of pork pies,' I
added, and once again felt the soft rumble of laughter through his jumper.

‘Me too.'

I could feel his breath on my forehead.
I was blind with confusion and desire and panic. I was meant to be Kate Brady, the
chirpy little whatsit from Dublin, yet I barely knew my own name at that moment, let
alone what I should do.

‘You could go,' he said, and
our faces somehow angled round towards each other. ‘Or you could just try it
for five minutes. Saying some words. Or even not saying some words.'

Our noses were brushing now. I'm
falling in love with you, I thought. This is a nightmare. The most perfect,
beautiful nightmare.

Another tear fell down my cheek.
‘I don't dare,' I whispered.

‘I do,' he said.

And then he kissed me, and everything
slowed down. Mark slid his hands gently into my hair, and for the first time in my
life I caught a glimpse of love. Not love from films or poems, or the illusion of
love created by a lonely and desperate mind, but real love, bigger than all of its
many problems.

I had to leave tonight.

Yet I couldn't, and I
wouldn't.

Lizzy and I sat cross-legged in front of
a new fire in our pyjamas, opening the sprinkling of Christmas presents that Dad had
got us. He never went mad but each gift was always perfect. This year he'd
bought me an antique silver watch, because mine had broken, and a waterproof cover
for my rucksack so that my stuff wouldn't get ruined if I did go to Tibet for
the massage training.

‘What did Stephen get you?'
Lizzy was asking. She had been given an antique necklace and a pair of very cool
sunglasses that Dad had been recommended ‘by Janet off Facebook'. His
burgeoning presence on social media was insane. Every time I saw him pop up on
Facebook he'd made another friend, or joined another group, and (to my great
embarrassment) had made a photo album of me and Lizzy as chubby little girls.

‘He's giving me my presents
in Paris,' I said. ‘I'm so excited – I can't believe
I've never been!'

Stephen hadn't called me yet,
which I was completely fine about. No, really,
completely
fine. It was his
family's first Christmas without their mum and it would be monstrously selfish
of me to get upset about his radio silence. He was taking me to Paris for a week on
the day after Boxing Day – was that not enough?

New Year's
Eve was always the province of Le Cloob but this year we'd not made any
arrangements, so I didn't feel particularly guilty about the trip. Since our
disastrous meeting in October we hadn't met as a group. I was still very upset
with Claudine, and although I suspected Lizzy agreed with quite a lot of what
Claudine said, her loyalty would always be to me. And then, of course, there was
Tim.

Tim.

Howling it out in therapy had helped, a
little, and the longer we went without contact, the calmer I felt. On good days I
wondered if perhaps I'd made it up, or at the very least overreacted. But the
fact that Tim had not been in contact for two months spoke volumes.

Sometimes the guilt at just abandoning
him was unbearable, but the fear was bigger. I could not have a man in my life, even
one I'd known and trusted for years, who was
thinking
about me.

Trying to prevent Lizzy from realizing
that Tim and I weren't talking had been rather difficult, as had going back
into therapy while I was dealing with a man who was at the end of his tether through
work stress. I was far from fixed and Stephen had had to have serious words with me
when I asked him if he'd put an extra lock on his front door.

It had been a slog. But it felt like
change was in the air. Stephen and I were off to Paris for the New Year and when we
got back I was moving in with him officially.

‘I definitely think we should get
Dad drunk and cross-question him about this possible girlfriend,' Lizzy said,
leaning forward to blow at the fire with Dad's ancient leather bellows.

‘Agreed.
He's a sly dog, our daddy.'

‘Oh, really? How so?' Dad
walked in with Mum's wonky old tray, laden with stunning canapés. ‘A
little something to tide us over until lunch,' he said, smiling at our
astonished faces.

‘DAD! How the hell did you do
these?'

‘I saw them on Pinterest,'
he explained earnestly. Lizzy and I bellowed with laughter. ‘And then I cooked
them last week. I did get a bit of help,' he added, blushing slightly.
‘I froze them. Didn't want to spend all of Christmas Day in the
kitchen.'

We fell on them like savages.

‘These are bloody
delicious!' Lizzy shouted, through a mouthful of spiced lamb cutlet.
‘You clever thing!'

Dad, nibbling something wrapped in
delicate pastry, positively glowed.

‘Right.' Lizzy poured him a
glass of sherry. ‘Daddy, we've had enough. You're going to have to
tell us about your ladyfriend immediately. Who is she? What's the deal? Is she
off the internet? Is she fit?'

Dad stared at Lizzy and then, to our
absolute horror, his eyes filled with tears.

‘Daddy, no,' Lizzy
whispered, appalled. She ran off to get some tissues and I abandoned my crostini to
comfort him. Dad batted at the tears, which were leaking silently out of his
eyes.

‘Here,' Lizzy said, shoving
a big pile of balled-up toilet roll into his face.

Dad mopped at his cheeks and, slowly,
pulled himself together. ‘Sorry about that,' he said. ‘Just got a
bit sad. A bit guilty. I know Georgie would've wanted me to meet
someone, but seeing you two here I felt
like I'd betrayed her. You know.'

We nodded understandingly, privately
thinking that Mum was probably furious with him for having waited nearly thirty
years.

‘I have met someone,' he
said bravely. ‘Linda, although I call her Linnie. She lives in Bakewell. Has a
teenage boy called Rob who hates my guts. She's a physics teacher, would you
believe?' He did a little swoony smile and I felt my stomach lurch happily. A
physics teacher! Perfect! Bakewell! Perfect!

‘DADDY!' Lizzy jumped on
him, somehow landing neatly and curling up on his lap, like she used to when he made
up stories for us.

‘She's lovely,' Dad
said, from underneath Lizzy. ‘An absolute treasure. She runs the Bakewell
women's choir and she's been wonderful about my, er,
cautiousness.'

We all giggled. ‘It only took you
the best part of three decades,' I said. ‘You definitely don't
want to rush that one.'

Dad told us about ‘Linnie',
and how great she'd been at helping him get over his guilt and sadness at
having finally met someone. ‘She didn't bat an eyelid the first time I
cried about Georgie,' Dad added. ‘Not a whiff of jealousy, or
insecurity, or any of that nonsense. In fact, she encouraged me to write a diary
about all the happy things that have happened since Georgie died. Seeing my little
girls grow up, transforming the garden, working with all of those fantastic authors
… It wasn't all sad, was it, my darlings?'

‘Absolutely not,' Lizzy
said.

‘No, it
wasn't. I thought it was very clever of Linnie to help me see that.'

I felt like my heart would burst.

‘I decided to do an online diary
instead of a handwritten one,' Dad continued, ‘one of those blog things,
so that if I got to a point where I was ready to stop writing it, it'd always
be there.'

‘Lovely,' I said.

Dad looked proud. ‘I designed an
extremely cool page, you know.'

Lizzy and I roared with laughter
again.

‘But I think I've done with
it now,' he said. ‘I'm going to use my blog-writing time to get
going on my novel. I've been sitting on it for more than a quarter of a
century now, I think it might be time …'

After quite a lot of persuasion and a
couple of glasses of brandy, Dad showed us his blog. Lizzy and I divided our time
between reading his posts and making Christmas lunch. Because Mum had been vegan
we'd always had hippie food at Christmas, but this year Dad had gone
completely mad and bought a turkey. Nobody had any idea what to do with it. We
flicked between Delia's website and Dad's blog, laughing and sometimes
crying as we viewed all those lovely photos of us as children – frightened, sad,
bereaved little babies – but, as Dad wrote, ‘Strong, stubborn little
beasts.'

‘I really, really love it,
Dad,' I said, wrestling with a big bag of sprouts. The kitchen was full of
steam and chaos, which Lizzy was making worse by playing a badly recorded CD of a
mariachi
band who'd been busking at St Pancras. It
had been a long, long time since
I'd seen the kitchen so full of life.

Dad was shyly pleased. ‘The local
newspaper rather likes it too,' he admitted. ‘They put it up for some
award! Loads of people have read it and got in touch! Whatever next?'

‘It's beautiful,' I
told him. ‘Our whole lives are there – everything!'

‘How's Tim?' Dad
asked, looking at a very old picture of the two of us together.

‘Fine,' Lizzy said. I
exhaled, relieved. She still didn't know. ‘Le Cloob is slightly on
strike because Claudine was horrible to Annie about Stephen, but I'm sure
we'll all meet up soon.'

Dad looked sharply at me. ‘She
decided he wasn't right for me,' I told him. ‘But it was based on
nothing. Everything's fine, Dad. Stephen's still fantastic and I'm
still happy.'

‘Sure?'

I could feel Lizzy watching me too.

‘I've never been so
sure,' I said. ‘The only thing that's wrong with my relationship
is that everyone seems to question it. It's depressing.'

And then, as we all stood there in
awkward silence, my phone rang, and it was Stephen. At last.

‘Hi, Pumpkin,' he said.
‘Happy Christmas!'

Lizzy went back to her gravy.

Stephen was not having quite as nice a
day as we were. ‘I've had to go for a walk,' he said, wind
crackling down the line. ‘Else I'll end up punching my dad. He's
being a nightmare. I should have come to Bakewell with you.' I could hear the
strain in his voice.

‘Can't your brother look after him for a bit?
Or Petra? You can't look after him all the time …'

‘Oh, they're all at my
sister-in-law's parents. It's just me and Dad.'

‘Well, he'd be on his own
otherwise. You're doing a good thing.'

‘I suppose so. But seriously!
He's playing
computer games
!'

‘Your dad? Really?'

Stephen laughed drily. ‘My dad is
not who you might imagine him to be.'

‘Tell me about your day,' I
said. I didn't like it when Stephen sounded terse: it was so unlike the
twinkly-eyed man I loved so much. ‘Tell me about your walk. What can you
see?'

‘Nothing special,' Stephen
said. ‘Presently, a family of fat people letting their bull terrier shit on
the pavement. Ho-ho-bloody-ho.'

‘That's not how I imagined
the village to be!'

Stephen's dad lived in a village
called Wisborough Green, which I'd done a Google image on at the beginning of
our relationship just because … Well, there was no good reason for that, beyond
nosiness. It was a chocolate-box place with village greens and duck ponds and
beautiful old pubs, nice-looking men walking spaniels amid flowers and carefully
pruned trees. Not the kind of place where bull terriers did poos on the pavement in
front of their indifferent families.

Stephen humphed. ‘Okay, okay.
It's not a fat family and it's not a bull terrier. Just an old lady and
a poodle. I'm being moody, trying to paint a dark picture, you know. We men
aren't good at sulking.'

I couldn't
help but laugh. I could almost hear him sticking out his lower lip.

‘Want Annie,' he said
sulkily. ‘Oh, are you near your rucksack?'

‘It's upstairs.'

I could hear him smile. ‘Well,
then go up and check the top pocket. The tiny one.'

I ran upstairs. Stephen was so lovely
with his little surprises.

A jewellery box had been stuffed into
it. A blue velvety one, the sort of box I'd never held in my hand before. My
jewellery tended to be of the wooden bead variety.

For a second, my heart slowed down.
Surely not … I sat down suddenly on my bed, staring at the jungle mural on the wall
that Mum had painted when I was small.

My life flashed before me, my hopes, my
fears, those years of agony tucked away in the past.

‘Are you alive?' Stephen
asked.

‘Yes.'

‘Well?'

‘Hang on.'

I took a deep breath and opened the box.
It was not a ring. Inside was a little silver pendant on a chain, with the letter
P.

‘Er …'

I pulled it out, just to check that my
eyes weren't playing tricks. ‘Er, it's a P.'

My mind tried to work out what was going
on here, but came up with nothing.

‘For Pumpkin!' Stephen said.
He sounded delighted. ‘Oh, shit, would you have preferred an A?'

‘No!' I felt suddenly weak. What the hell was
going on with me? Would I
ever
be able to trust a man? ‘No, a P is
perfect. I'm your Pumpkin, after all. And it's beautiful.' It was.
It wasn't something I'd ever have chosen myself – and Stephen was
normally very good at fitting in with my off-piste tastes – but it was, actually,
stunning. So small and simple and pretty. I stared at it, sitting quietly in my
hand, shining tiny spokes of light on to my fingers.

Stephen laughed. ‘You
are
my Pumpkin. My sandalwood-scented girl. I love you, Annie.' I heard a door
close behind him as he walked back into his dad's house.

‘I love you too,' I
whispered.