The Day We Disappeared

Chapter One: Kate

Chapter Two: Annie

Chapter Three: Kate

Chapter Four: Kate

Chapter Five: Annie

Chapter Six: Kate

Chapter Seven: Annie

Chapter Eight: Kate

Chapter Nine: Annie

Chapter Ten: Kate

Chapter Eleven: Annie

Chapter Twelve: Kate

Chapter Thirteen: Annie

Chapter Fourteen: Kate

Chapter Fifteen: Kate

Chapter Sixteen: Annie

Chapter Seventeen: Kate

Chapter Eighteen: Annie

Chapter Nineteen: Kate

Chapter Twenty: Annie

Chapter Twenty-one: Annie

Chapter Twenty-two: Kate

Chapter Twenty-three: Annie

Chapter Twenty-four: Kate

Chapter Twenty-five: Annie

Chapter Twenty-six: Annie

Chapter Twenty-seven: Annie

Chapter Twenty-eight: Annie

Chapter Twenty-nine: Kate

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-one

Chapter Thirty-two

Chapter Thirty-three

Follow Penguin

 

A young girl sits at the edge of the field with long fronds of prairie grass
tickling her chin. She can smell the daisies hung in chains around her neck; a
sour, sappy sort of smell that reminds her of gone-off milk and thunder. She
leans back against the dry-stone wall and watches a little bug wander up her
shin. There are many bugs here; bugs and itches and brilliant green slashes of
grass speckled with tiny hairs.

The sun climbs higher in the sky. She wants to go and sit under the ancient
beeches across the field, their swaying green leaves overhead like
kaleidoscopes, those gnarled roots that you can tuck yourself into during hide
and seek.

Her mother is still in the woods. She wants to go and find her, insist that they
resume their game. But she can't. Without fully understanding why, she
knows she must stay by the wall, concealed by the long grass, until her mother
reappears.

They are going to pick apples later and make an apple tart tartan, whatever that
is.

She sniffs her forearm, which smells strange and hot and mallowy, and wonders
how much longer it will be until something happens. She doesn't like this
game.

Out in the centre of the meadow, where the grass is shorter, daisies form a
vivid blanket that shimmers strangely in the unyielding heat of the day. The
girl wishes she'd never suggested hide and seek.

She hears another sound from deep within the woods, a horrible, frightening
sound, and she starts to cry.

I stared in confusion at the hayloft.

It was not a hayloft.

It was a square white room with a single
bed and a sticker on the wardrobe saying, ‘I ♥ PONIES!' Even
more disappointing was an unironic poster of Mark Waverley, my new employer, staring
into the camera with a horse at his side. Perhaps the photographer had told him to
try to look mysterious and a bit smouldery, but it hadn't worked out. He
looked like a twat. Handsome, but still a twat.

The girl who had shown me up the stairs
was watching me with amusement and undeniable pity. She knows, I thought,
embarrassed. She knows I expected this to be a hayloft.

‘Everything okay, pet?' she
asked, in the mother of all Geordie accents. A smile was gathering at the
weather-bruised skin round her eyes.

‘Yes! It's … It's a
lovely room!'

‘Aye,' she agreed
insincerely. ‘Beautifully done.'

I smiled. ‘It's not quite on
a par with the others.'

But it was at the top of the house. A
busy house, at that. It would do.

‘I'm Becca,' she said,
pulling off a big furry headband
she'd
been wearing outside. ‘And I'm sorry you've got the worst room.
The trainee always gets this one, I'm afraid! But at least you're at the
top of the house, so less chance of Joe bursting in naked.'

‘Joe?'

‘He's one of the other
grooms. Randy little bastard.' She saw my face pale. ‘Ah, I'm only
joking, pet. Joe's a filthy old whore but he always asks first.'

‘Ha-ha-ha-ha,' I said
weakly. ‘Always asks first. Grand.'

I clawed together what I thought to be a
bright smile – the kind of smile they'd call
effervescent
in a
magazine – so Becca wouldn't realize I was close to hysteria.

‘So, your first job in an
equestrian yard?' Her eyes drifted down to my brand-new red Hunter
wellies.

‘It is. You can probably tell by
my wellies.'

Becca, who seemed like too decent a
person to laugh at anyone's footwear, just shrugged. She had cropped hair and
a nose ring and a dead roll-up sticking out between tattooed fingers. It looked like
a sickly old snout that had given up and died in her hand.

That was how I was beginning to feel.
Like a sickly old snout who had given up and …
Sweet Jesus, will you stop
it!
I told myself. I was Kate Brady, that chirpy little whatsit from
Dublin! Kate Brady did not wallow around in the Bad Shit! Not now, not ever!

‘First job it is,' I said,
more stoutly. ‘But I'm not a total stranger to a horse.'

‘I'd hope not,
pet!'

Christ. I wasn't far off.

Becca hugged my radiator for warmth; it
wasn't balmy in there. ‘We had a little posh kid in on work
experience last week,' she told me.
‘Eighteen, straight out of ag college … One of those kids who leans on the
broom rather than sweeping, you know?'

‘I do so,' I tutted, taking
note.

‘And you know what she said on her
first day, the silly beggar?'

‘What?'

‘She said, “So this place is
like those Jilly Cooper novels, right? I can't
wait
to meet Mark –
he's gorgeous!” I thought, Kill me now.'

‘No!' I made myself titter.
‘She thought it was going to be all champagne and humping your man
there?'

‘Exactly.' Becca shook her
head. ‘She was here lookin' for Rupert Campbell-Black, the silly
girl.'

‘Rupert Campbell-Black!' I
crowed. ‘Oh, sweet Jesus!' I'd have said all of that.

Becca ran her hands through her hair,
which was very tired and dirty. Although all of her was, really. Bits of hay stuck
to the top of her long socks and her fleece was full of holes. She had tattoos
poking out of every piece of clothing she wore, and muted trance music was playing
from her room, across the landing from mine.

Becca was the antithesis of anyone
I'd read about in a Jilly Cooper novel, although I liked her already. There
was humour lurking in her features and she'd looked after me with a touching
warmth since I'd slid into the communal kitchen half an hour ago, all shaking
hands and wild eyes.

I hope she'll become my friend, I
thought. I was in desperate need of an ally.

‘Sex and parties and
whatnot.' Becca was looking wistful. ‘This must be the only eventing
yard where that
doesn't happen. If she
wanted rock 'n' roll she should've have gone and worked down the
road at Caroline's, eh?'

‘Caroline?'

‘Caroline
Lexington-Morley!'

‘Of
course
,' I
murmured.

Becca seemed not to notice that I had no
idea who she was talking about. ‘Caroline and her grooms are always first at
the bar the night before a competition opens, while we're stuck in
Mark's lorry polishing his boots. A charmless arsehole, pet, and he's
not even good-looking. Jilly Cooper'd never write a character like
that.' She massaged her heel, scowling comically at Mark's poster.
‘Someone did an article in
Elle
recently, about him being Team
GBR's heart-throb. Mark bloody Waverley? She must have been on the
'shrooms! He's a toad!'

I turned back to the poster in surprise.
In spite of the scowl, the man was unequivocally good-looking: tall, dark-haired,
classically handsome. Quite similar to Colin Firth, I thought, but without the
softness of his eyes. There was nothing toadish going on there. Then again, Becca
didn't look like she was very interested in men. And the coldness in
Mark's face – that slight sense of unmined anger – did not sit well with me
either.

I'd seen Mark Waverley at the
London Olympics in 2012 and had greatly admired his bottom and the calm, unflinching
way he'd ridden that monstrous cross-country course. But I'd been a
different person then. All I'd needed to worry about were matters like rain
ponchos or the length of the burger queue. Had anyone told me that within a couple
of years I'd have quit my life and started working for him deep in the West
Country of
England I'd have laughed,
then cried, then probably just ended it all.

‘Well,' I said eventually,
‘he doesn't look very comfortable in his own skin.'

Becca roared with laughter. ‘Mark
Waverley is more comfortable in his own skin than any other man I've met!
Perhaps if he was a little less comfortable he wouldn't be such an arsehole,
pet. You noticed that in your interview, I'd imagine?'

I frowned. ‘Well, actually
–'

Becca carried on: ‘If I
didn't get to look after such beautiful horses I'd have left years ago.
He's not right in the head – this place is like an equestrian labour camp at
times.'

I started to wilt, in spite of my fierce
intention to remain perky. Had I managed to walk into a nightmare as big as the one
I'd just exited? Was this, like everything else I'd done in recent
memory, just another huge error of judgement?

You're grand, Kate Brady, I told
myself determinedly. The Jilly Cooper thing was just a passing thought! You're
not shallow, just a little bit mad at the moment. And if this place is going to
involve hard work then so much the better, quite frankly. You need something else to
think about.

‘Well, your man didn't
interview me,' I said. ‘I only met Sandra, so I suppose I have the
pleasure of Mark to come.'

Becca stopped massaging her heel.
‘Sandra?
Sandra
hired you?' She began to grin.

‘Yes. Is that unusual?'

‘I'd fuckin' well say,
pet!'

Sandra had been absolutely delightful: a
cup of hot
chocolate in human form,
who'd chatted happily with me about how nice horses smelt and about how
desperately proud she was of her son. ‘To have come from almost nowhere and
end up in the World Class squad in just six years!' she'd said mistily,
as if I knew the significance of this. ‘Mark is a very special man; I'm
sure you'll love working for him. If you'd like the job,
dear?'

I'd said yes, absolutely, and
suddenly we were shaking hands and she was telling me I could join the team as a
live-in trainee yard assistant starting next week, if that was okay?

‘That's perfect,'
I'd whispered, cradling my first tiny scrap of hope in a very long time. This
could be it. The one-way ticket out of my life that I'd so longed for, while
never really believing such a thing could exist. It didn't matter that I
wasn't getting paid. I'd have somewhere to live, food on the table and a
lot of miles between me and trouble. I'd be safe here, folded into the Exmoor
hills, surrounded by people yet screened off from the world.

Becca was still looking perplexed.
‘Sandra interviewed you, eh? Well, Mark'd only have let his mam do it if
he was already dead certain about you.'

Something wasn't right here.
‘Really?'

‘Sandra's away with the
fairies, that's all, pet, and I've never known her to do the interviews.
But Mark'll have gone through your CV with a fine-tooth comb. It'll all
be groovy.'

‘I told you so,' said the
Bad Shit. ‘Didn't I say it was all a bit too easy? Didn't
I?'

I'd marvelled, upon finishing my
interview, at how simple it had been just to waltz in and get a job at one of the
most prestigious eventing yards in the
country. I knew next to nothing about horses and even less about eventing but I was
perfectly clear about who Mark Waverley was: he was about as good as it got, not
just in Britain but in the world. How extraordinary that he'd been happy to
have a total novice crashing round his yard! How lucky that all I'd had to do
was agree with Sandra that her son was a great rider! It was all too good to be
true!

From the sound of things, it was exactly
that.
Please, no
, begged a frightened little voice inside me.
I need
this job to work out.

I sat down suddenly on the edge of my
bed and the Bad Shit cackled. It had me back in its sights.

The Bad Shit referred to any and all
things that made life less than splendid. ‘Kate Brady's so good at being
happy, isn't she now?' people always said. ‘Look how chirpy she
is!'

The trouble was that lately the Bad Shit
had got out of hand. I had never been less chirpy.
Come on, Brady
, I
pleaded.
Fight.

‘So … What sort of thing would
Mark have been looking for on my CV?' I asked pathetically. Hot, hopeless
tears built in my eyes, ready for the humiliation of her reply. I hadn't an
ounce of fight in me.

Becca shrugged. ‘Ah, you know, the
usual stuff. Years hanging round horses, good stable management, decent riding
skills – although you won't get on a horse any time soon. Just mad enthusiasm,
you know!'

‘And, erm, just to be clear, it
is
a trainee's job, right? Even though you'd still need to
be really experienced to do it?'

‘Jesus, yes!
Can you imagine putting a complete novice in here? Under Mark?'

I tried everything to stop the tears
falling. I tipped my head back and breathed hard, but there was no stopping them. A
big bobble of shame and despair rolled fatly out of one eye, followed by another.
And then they fell like pouring water, down my exhausted face and on to my crispy
new Gore-tex coat.

This job was not the solution. It was
not the solution at all. I would be sent packing in the morning. And then? Fear
moved in my stomach, black and fast.

Becca came over. ‘Is there a
problem, pet?' she asked cheerfully. Then: ‘Obviously there's a
fuckin' problem. Tell Auntie Becca. We'll sort you right out.'

I cried until I had nothing left.

Becca dug around in her pockets and
found a damp, balled-up tissue and a weird navy glove with pimples on it. ‘You
could blow your nose on one of these,' she offered. ‘Although if I were
you I'd use that nice new sleeve of yours.'

Slowly, sadly, I wiped my nose on my
nice new sleeve. ‘I'm going to be sacked,' I said eventually.

‘Ah, we all think that. Especially
when Hitler over there has a go at us,' she said, gesturing at Mark
Waverley's poster. ‘But you'll be just fine, my little duck.
You're only shovelling shit after all.'

I wiped my hands on my jeans and smiled
flatly. ‘No, I really will get sacked. I don't know the first thing
about horses,' I told her. ‘I've never been in an equestrian yard
in my life. Let alone one like this.'

Becca cocked her head to one side. It
was not even comprehensible to her that I might be telling the truth.

I took a deep
breath. ‘Sandra and me basically had a big gossip about Mark and how nice he
is, and she offered me the job on the spot.'