The Day We Disappeared (32 page)

I called Becca. ‘Morning,
pet,' she said. I could hear her munching her dry Shreddies.
‘How's things?'

‘He found me,' I said.
‘Stephen's found me.'

‘Okay, pet,' Becca said,
without a pause. ‘I'll be over in five.'

‘I have to
get away. Properly. Will you take me to Bristol Airport?'

Becca paused.

‘Please, Becca. I beg
you.'

‘Is that a good idea?' she
asked, less certain. ‘Would it not be easier to call the police?'

‘No. He got out of it in four
hours last time, Becca, and now he's angry.'

‘Okay,' she said
reluctantly. ‘I'll square it with the gaffer and jump in the
car.'

‘Please hurry.'

I sat with my hands circled tightly
round my legs. What wouldn't I give for just two more hours as Kate Brady. Two
more minutes.

When I had discovered on New
Year's Eve ten months ago that my boyfriend was mad and possibly dangerous, I
knew I was going to have to put my long-held emergency plan into action. At that
stage, however, it had not so much as crossed my mind that I should pretend to be
someone else, once I'd snuck back into the UK from Abu Dhabi.

All I'd worked out was that I
would take the first train out of Paddington and head west. I'd stay in a
B&B wherever the train terminated – somewhere buried deep in the Devon or
Cornwall countryside, hopefully – and find myself a job. Some sort of live-in job
where I'd be paid cash; a pub, maybe. I would throw away my phone and get a
new one with a new number, and I'd close down my email, Facebook and Skype
accounts. And everything else Stephen could access.

But once my plane to Abu Dhabi was
airborne I'd begun to panic. My online life no longer existed. My
phone was soon to be dismantled and
thrown away, and once it had gone I would be completely alone. There would be nobody
on earth who knew where I was. It was just me, entirely alone in the world, trying
to start again. How exactly was I going to find this mythical job? How much would
they want to know about me? What if someone recognized me?

I'd found myself in a sort of
terrified stupor. I had reached into my little bag for some Rescue Remedy, but
before my hand had found it, it had found a fat envelope. Kate! Of course, I'd
had a letter from Kate. It had been at the top of the pile on my doormat when Tim
and I had gone to my house and found Stephen in the garden. I opened it, praying
slightly hopelessly that it might cheer me up. Or at least break me out of this
mental paralysis.

And, actually, it had. A little. It was
a wonderful Brady ramble, a rude, hilarious and rather moving account of her six
months on a ‘farm sabbatical' somewhere in Kilkenny.

I've had the time of my LIFE [she'd written]. And now I'm
back in my little box of a flat, squeezing myself on the bus every morning
to get to Google, wondering what the feck I was thinking of, coming home. I
keep whacking myself round the head with one of those trendy copper
saucepans that my mam made me buy, shouting, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?

… It was the best thing I ever did [she wrote later, in a more thoughtful
passage]. Those earthy smells, and the feeling of having done a hard
day's work, and being near those lovely horses. Not having any phone
signal. Annie, do you remember what that felt like? I had to use a phone box
when I wanted to call someone! It was wonderful! Although I did miss
chatting to you all the time.

I'd read
the letter again and again, feeling a little less frightened and alone each
time.

And then:
A farm?

The first train out of Paddington had
taken me only as far as Exeter, which still felt far too close to London, so
I'd taken the next departure and ended up in Barnstaple. I'd checked
into a tired B&B, with a thin strip of a sea view and, after a short, fitful
sleep, had started scouring the internet for jobs on horse yards or farms. If it had
worked for Kate, it could work for me.

After a few weeks a sweet little advert
had appeared on the Yard and Groom website, written by Sandra, for a job only twenty
miles from where I was now. No pay, said the ad, but all meals and accommodation
provided.

Great, I thought. If I wasn't
being paid they wouldn't want National Insurance numbers or bank details. I
doubted Stephen was up to hacking bank systems but I wasn't going to take any
risks. And since he'd hired me I'd been earning stupid money, which I
hadn't spent because he'd paid for everything. I could afford not to
earn for a while, as long as I was being fed and housed. Stephen, ironically, had
funded my escape.

I jotted down the email address – a lady
called Sandra Waverley; Mark's wife perhaps? – and sat down to write a letter
of application.

At first I'd struggled. Should I
pretend to have experience I didn't? Should I spend time researching Mark
Waverley first? And what about horses? Should I try to sound knowledgeable?

I read Kate's letter again, in
case there was any useful farm vocabulary I could pinch.

Nothing.

What would Kate say? I found myself
wondering.

And that was how it began, really. As
soon as I started trying to think like Kate Brady might, I began to write. I wrote a
short, funny, honest letter to Sandra – no lies, no bullshit, just a nice email that
probably made me sound decent and hard-working, rather than desperate and
frightened.

My hands hovered above the keyboard
before I signed off. I couldn't imagine how Stephen would ever find me there,
but Annie Mulholland was quite a distinctive name. And it was a name that many
people knew anyway: that poor girl whose mother was raped and murdered up in the
Peak District, back in the eighties. Do you remember? Terrible business.

What if this Sandra recognized my name
and mentioned it to someone else?

Kate Brady, I signed off, just like
that. I gave the K a big long flourish, like Kate probably would, and found myself
smiling. Slightly manically, but a smile all the same.

The next day, to my great surprise, I
received a lovely reply from Sandra inviting me to come to the farm for ‘a cup
of tea and a nice chat'. I'd swung into a hairdresser's and had my
long blonde hair dyed red, then gone and bought a load of clothes; the sort of
clothes that modern people might wear. Normal people. Kate-type people. Toiletries
too; normal people spent money on those. I even bought a bottle of Kate's
perfume.

Why not?

I arrived back at my B&B feeling
happier and more hidden. I was disappearing out of Annabel Mulholland by then,
although I hadn't realized it yet.

On my way to the
‘interview' with Sandra a few days later, I'd got myself into
another terrible panic. What if I wasn't offered the job? What then?

What would Kate do? I interrupted
myself. I took a deep breath. Kate would not be flailing around in the Bad Shit, for
starters. She'd be sitting on this bus, maybe whistling a tune, or chatting to
the mad old guy on the seat behind. Or she might be counting
trees-that-looked-like-goats, which was something she used to do during long-haul
bus journeys when we were travelling.

By the time I'd arrived at Hythe
Farm I'd felt lighter than I had in days. ‘You see?' I muttered to
myself, in Kate's Irish accent, as I walked up the drive. ‘You see how
much better life is when you're not sitting in the Bad Shit?'

I paused. Irish accent? Would I do that,
too?

Of course not. That'd be insane!
Basket-case territory!

Still I paused. Mum was Irish. When
I'd stopped being able to remember her face without looking at a photo,
I'd still been able to hear her voice when I closed my eyes. Soft and musical,
as if someone had filed down all the sharp points of the English accent and left
only its rolling hills and rounded valleys. Lizzy and I had been perfecting our
Irish accents since we were tiny, and as an adult I found it almost as easy to speak
in an Irish accent as I did my native English.

But even so, I thought. That was
mad
.

Then: ‘You'll be
grand,' I heard Kate Brady say. ‘Stop worrying, you great dingbat! Go
for it! It's a brilliant ruse!'

I didn't care if it was mad. I
didn't care about anything, really, other than being untraceable for the next
few months.

So that was
that. I cut off Annabel, because I couldn't cope with her, and I became Kate,
because in her shoes, life was bearable. The monstrous fear of Stephen had not gone
away. Or the mess of my life. But as Kate I'd been able to cope with all of
it. What would Kate do? I'd ask myself, day in, day out. How would Kate react?
What would Kate
think
? And, after a while, I discovered I'd started
to see the world through Kate's eyes without prompting.

As Kate I looked for the humour in
everything; I always had a joke to crack or a story to tell. As Kate I trusted and
liked people; I found a cheekiness and ease of communication I'd never felt in
myself. Above all I felt hope: hope that I would somehow get through all of this Bad
Shit and have a decent life again.

Kate Brady had made me the best possible
version of myself. She had made me a human being that people liked. Fell in love
with, even. She had made me happy.

I yelped as a sudden rap on the door set
off panic like a gun.

‘Kate?' It was Mark.
‘Kate, are you okay?'

‘Grand,' I called. A
terrible sob came out, strangling the word.

‘What's wrong?'

‘I'm grand,' I
repeated. ‘Doing some admin.'

‘Really?' Mark asked.
‘Admin? With screams and sobs?'

‘Yes.'

The floorboards were still creaking:
Mark wasn't going anywhere. For a brief second I had a sense that he was
smiling – that warm, slow, lovely smile that melted my bones.

‘I
don't think you're doing admin,' he said. ‘Let me
in.'

‘I will,' I called.
‘But later. I need some time to, er …'

‘To do your admin?'

‘Yes.'

‘You're being weird and
mysterious.' Mark's voice was gentle. ‘What was it?
Nescio et
mirum
?'

My heart was breaking. I had to get this
precious man away from the mess of my life and I had to do it now. Where was Becca?
‘I'll catch up with you later,' I called. ‘Okay?'

‘Now look here …' he lowered
his voice ‘… look here, you. I've just hauled my crappy legs up two
flights of stairs and I'd quite like a little kiss and a cuddle before I go
back down. Can I at least have that?'

‘Not right now,' I called,
and another terrible sob came out.

‘Okay, you fruitcake. But
I'm reserving you for some kissing and cuddling later, Kate Brady, and
that's that. I think you're the very best.'

And I couldn't answer because I
was crying so hard. I'm not Kate Brady, I wanted to shout. I'm just a
messed-up freak-show of a woman who's about to leave you without saying
goodbye. And my heart is completely broken.

I cried silently into my hands, and
eventually I heard him go.

I'm outside
, Becca texted
a little while later.
Parked behind the barn. Mark's teaching some Pony
Club kids and Joe's out on one of the horses. Coast's
clear.

I slid my phone into my pocket, and
grabbed my things. As I did, it beeped again.

Hello, Pumpkin.

My phone didn't know the number,
but I did.

My chest felt no more substantial than
air. ‘Oh, God,' I whimpered, running down the stairs. ‘Oh God, oh
God, oh God.'

‘I didn't say goodbye to
Stumpy,' I muttered, slamming the car door and locking myself in.

‘No, pet, you didn't,'
Becca replied, starting the car. ‘But neither did you say goodbye to Mark, and
you've been sleeping with him.' She put a steadying hand on my shoulder.
‘I know this feels like the end of your world, pet, but it's not. You
will see Stumpy again. And Mark. It'll be all right.'

‘Do you really think so?'
Becca inched the car forward slowly, leaning forward to check that the coast was
clear.

‘I do. Can you see Joe
anywhere?'

‘No.'

‘Okay, then. Let's
go.'

‘Please.'

Becca set off. ‘It's bloody
weird hearing you speak in an English accent, pet. Are you sure you're not
Irish?'

‘Certain. Just mad.'

‘You're not mad. I ran off
to the farm too, remember?'

‘Yes, but not while pretending to
be in Thailand. And not nicking your friend's identity.'

‘True.' We swung out into
the driveway. I still couldn't see Mark.

‘I've lied to my family all
this time,' I said sadly. ‘It's killed me, Becca. The
guilt's nearly driven me insane. And yet I've carried right on
lying.'

‘You did
it to protect them and protect yourself,' she said softly. ‘Stop beating
yourself up.'

She turned briefly towards me and I saw
her face, softened to white at the sides by the low, bright sun. ‘You look so
lovely, Becca,' I said, then began to cry. ‘I don't want to leave
you. You, Mark, Stumpy, Joe, Sandra. I don't want to go back to my shit
life.'

Becca stopped the car down the side of
the indoor school and held my hand while I cried.

‘I can't stand the thought
of being Annie Mulholland again. I loved being Kate.'

Becca handed me a dirty old bobbly
glove, just like she had on the day we'd met. ‘Blow your nose on this
filthy thing,' she said soothingly. ‘And listen, pet. You were always
Annie Mulholland.'

I looked hopelessly at her.

‘I know you think you'd sort
of “become” your friend Kate, sweetheart, but I'm afraid
that's a load of shite. I've not met the girl but I'm pretty
damned sure that all you did was to approach life with more of her positivity. You
were still you. Still Annie.'

If only! ‘No … Kate Brady is,
like, this funny, mad, beautiful Irishwoman. She's sparkly and hilarious and
everyone loves her. Whereas I'm just a depressed, washed-up, frightened old
mess. Trust me, Becca, I've lived in this skin for a long time. Mark would
never have fallen for the real me. It was Kate he fell for. I should introduce them
some time,' I said, and cried even harder.

Becca seemed to be smiling. What was
wrong with her? ‘Pet,' she said gently. ‘As I said, you're
talking shite. You never stopped being yourself. You just decided to
be happier and more confident. More in
control of your feelings, rather than letting them control you, as my mam might
say.'

She tucked my hair behind my ear.
‘The girl who brightened up our yard was
you
. And the girl Mark fell
for was you. Annie Mulholland.' Then: ‘Fuckin' hell, that's
weird.' She grinned. ‘Annie Mulholland!'

‘That's my name.' I
dabbed Becca's dirty and now snotty glove at my eyes.

Becca watched me kindly. ‘Are you
sure?' she asked. ‘Sure you don't want to say goodbye to
everyone?'

I wavered. One last sight of Mark, one
final chance to inventory every detail of him. One last hug with Stumpy, his warm
breath and round ears and his fail-safe ability to lift my mood. And Joe, and
Sandra, and those lovely dogs.

‘No,' I said softly.
‘Mark's been through too much already. I'll call him tonight once
he's back in the house and he's got his mum there.'

Becca seemed unconvinced. ‘Right.
I'm sure that'll make him feel loads better.'

My phone beeped loudly and I jumped,
fear pinching at my stomach. I pulled it out of my pocket and passed it to Becca
with shaking hands. ‘Is it him? I can't bear to look.'

Becca's face fell.
‘'Fraid so, pet,' she said quietly. ‘The fucking twat.
Soon I'll be waking up with you in my bed, Pumpkin. What a thought.
It'll take me a while to forgive you everything but I know I'll get
there. S xx PS Isn't the Somerset countryside glorious?

‘Fucker,' she muttered.
‘Fucking fucker. Pet, can we
please
call the police? I don't
know the first thing about the law but this sounds like stalking to me. I mean, how
did he even get this number?'

My eyes were
fixed on the drive. ‘We need to go. Now.'

Becca sighed, turned her key in the
ignition, and it started slipping away from me. The hedgerow along the drive, the
barns, the outdoor school, round which trotted some excitable girls who were no
doubt as much in love with Mark as I was. The back of Joe, driving the Tank round
the side of the muck heap with four bales of straw wobbling precariously on the
front. My life, my happy place. I forced my eyes straight ahead.

As soon as I saw a silver car turn into
the drive ahead of us I knew it was going to happen again. My breath shortened
almost to nothing and I felt a terrible weight on my chest. As my muscles drained of
energy I tried to yell, ‘Reverse! Get out of here!' but all I could hear
were the gasping noises coming from my own mouth.

The car. Nose to nose with ours. My
heart racing, screeching, and Becca's voice coming in slow waves.

Then another voice: ‘Annie, oh, my
God …'

A hand coming through the window. A
bright flash of blonde hair, a strong waft of perfume. Somehow I was out of the car
and in my sister's arms, and she was crying – crying and laughing and telling
me how much she loved me and how much she'd missed me.

‘I think she just had some sort of
a heart attack,' Becca was saying, and then a man's voice – Tim's!
– saying, ‘It's probably a panic attack,' and then a familiar pair
of arms sitting me carefully on the drive.

I stared woozily at Lizzy. Was it really
her? My big sister? Beside her a long pair of legs folded down and Tim came into my
vision. Tim Furniss, in a navy coat that made him look all handsome and doctorish.
Someone
was right behind me, supporting
my weight. Becca. She was telling them what had just happened. ‘Knew we
shouldn't go to the airport,' she was saying.

‘Quite right,' said another
voice, a French voice, full of concern and edged with brutality.

‘Claudie,' I whispered.

‘Yes,' she said.
‘There will be no further running off, my darling. Do you understand?'
And then she, too, appeared in my line of vision, and she had tears in her eyes.
‘You mad little elf,' she murmured, hugging me. ‘You mad little
elf with this dyed red hair, pretending to be in Thailand all this time. We have
missed you so much.'

After a while I felt well enough to sit
up properly. Everyone sat down with me and, sick with shame, I tried to explain the
last few months.

‘I'm so sorry I lied to
you,' I muttered, when it was done. ‘I'm so, so sorry.'

‘It's okay,' Lizzy
said. ‘Please stop apologizing. I'm sure I'd have done exactly the
same if it were me. Really, darling, it was an amazing plan! Like a film or
something! And at least we got to see you on Skype.'

‘Every day I looked up at this
drive,' I cried. ‘Every single day, panicking that the police would turn
up, telling me Stephen had harmed you … Or that he'd turn up himself and
simply throw me into his car …'

‘Oh, Annie!'

‘A police car came here a month or
so ago and I thought I was going to faint. All I could think was, Oh, God,
they're looking for me because Lizzy's in hospital or something
…'

Lizzy looked at Tim, as if to say,
‘How bad is this?'

Somewhere amid
the chaos I registered surprise. It was a very familiar sort of a look.
‘You're not going to commit me or anything, are you, Tim?' I tried
to blot my tears with my sleeve.

Tim smiled. ‘No.'

‘Really? Even though I dyed my
hair red and spent months speaking in an Irish accent?'

In my peripheral vision I could see
Claudine smiling. ‘Mad little badger,' she murmured.

‘Annie,' Tim said kindly,
‘do you not think it's understandable that you look at a police car and
fear the worst? After everything you've gone through?'

‘I have no idea what's
understandable any more.'

‘I know. But please listen to me,
because I do. Getting into a relationship with Stephen is just about the worst thing
that could have happened to someone with your history – of
course
you
reacted badly. And you needn't blame yourself, either. Like any sociopath he
was irresistible at the start. He fooled us all!'

‘He did not fool me,'
Claudine said primly, but Tim told her to shut it.

‘None of us could have predicted
what he'd do,' he said. ‘It was awful and completely unexpected,
and I am most certainly not going to handcuff you to Becca's steering wheel
for taking matters into your own hands. You won't be the first woman to do
something like this.'

I was not. I'd read about women
starting again on the other side of the world, some without even saying goodbye to
their families. Many had changed their names; one had even had plastic surgery. Some
had been protected by the police; others felt they could only trust
themselves with their own safety so had decided to go it
alone.

All those lives cancelled. All those
women, just gone, suddenly. Disappeared.

‘You felt you had nowhere to go
because that was exactly how he
wanted
you to feel,' Tim was saying.
‘He spent months whittling you down, cutting you off from your family and
friends so that you were entirely dependent on him. That's what they do,
Annie. So, no, I don't think you're “mad”.'

‘All of what he said,' Lizzy
said admiringly, squeezing Tim's hand. He squeezed hers back.

They moved apart, but not until
they'd exchanged a look.

Eh?
I thought. Lizzy was still
smiling at Tim as he pushed his hair out of his face.

He caught her looking at him and blushed
slightly. And then
she
blushed.

Hang on
, I thought.
Hang on
a minute …

‘You are right,' Claudine
suddenly stage-whispered. ‘Your suspicions are correct. It is 'orrible,
Annie. They are like teenagers.'

I turned to her slowly.

‘They are lovers,' she said,
less forcefully. She looked guiltily at Tim and Lizzy, who had both gone red.
‘Sorry. I just … It is so disgusting I 'ad to share it with
someone.'

They both smiled, and Lizzy slid her
hand into Tim's. ‘This isn't the time,' she muttered, with
the widest grin I'd ever seen.

‘
What?
' I stared at
them stupidly. ‘How long? How …'

‘Six months,' they said
simultaneously.

‘Although,
really, it's been going on for seventeen years,' Tim added. ‘But
neither of us had the nerve to do anything about it.' He looked mad with pride
and Lizzy looked mad with love. I felt mad with shock.

‘I … Oh, my
God
.'

Claudine nodded furiously.
‘Agreed, Annabel. I vomit frequently in protest.'

I giggled. Lizzy and Tim. Tim and Lizzy,
secretly in love with each other for years. How had I not known? The number of times
Lizzy had got drunk and told me she thought Tim was in love with me! And the pain in
her face as she'd said it, too! All that time, all those boyfriends, she was
thinking about Tim! And he about her. I shook my head, as if to make my brain catch
up. Lizzy and Tim. Tim and Lizzy.

The sound of a vehicle in the lane
chainsawed through my thoughts and I scrabbled frantically to get into Becca's
car. ‘Stephen! Oh, my God, it's Stephen, help, I …'

Becca and Tim sat me back on the
driveway as the car swished past and on towards the moor.

‘Sorry,' I said, slumping
back against Becca. ‘Sorry.'

‘It's fine,' Lizzy
said. She took my hand. ‘Look, darling, we saw you on telly the other day, and
it took us a few days to work out what the hell was going on. We, er, obviously
thought you were in Thailand.'

‘I know. Apologies …'

‘Don't start that again,
sweetheart. You were very clever, all those Skypes with you wearing vest tops,
talking about swimming and mountain-hiking and stuff – you should write spy movies
or something! You're so devious!'