The Day We Disappeared (12 page)

She paused. ‘I loved that child.
She was so fucking sad, Kate. So lost and frightened and confused. Once Mark
regained the power of speech he went the other way, wouldn't stop talking. He
was on at me day and night about his
feelings
, their relationship, even his
relationship with his dad. I mean, for fuck's sake.'

I listened, deeply moved.

‘He was so shocked that Maria had
actually gone, and so scared about the effect it would have on the little one. And
he wouldn't admit it but he was sick with fear that she'd take away her
horses. He cried, Kate, he cried every day.'

A tear dropped out of Becca's eye.
She rubbed her chapped hands fiercely across her face, but the tears kept welling up
and sliding out. ‘And stupid old me, who'd never really been close to a
man before, got all confused, and thought it meant something. And my stupid old
heart decided that I loved him. And that maybe he felt the same way.'

I threaded my arm round her tattooed
shoulders.

‘But
obviously, pet, he didn't. After two weeks of gabbling at me he stopped,
because Maria had decided to come home and he was back in his miserable, shit,
trapped life again. He hates it, pet, but it keeps him so busy he doesn't have
to think about it. He's got the horses, the trophy wife, the batty kid and his
mam warbling around, pretending everything's fine.'

Becca was sobbing now. ‘He just
took her back as soon as she decided he was too useful for her to lose. As if his
happiness didn't matter.' Her shoulders shook. ‘I still
can't believe what a fuckin' idiot I've been, pet. I'm so
sorry I got the hump this morning. I was just jealous that he wanted to take you to
Badminton, and throw you a drinks party when he's never even made me a cup of
tea. I was jealous that he actually managed to say more than one sentence to you. I
convinced myself that he liked you. And that you liked him back.'

And with that she curled her head into
my shoulder and howled.

I hugged her, rocking backwards and
forwards. I hummed a song that my mum used to sing when I'd fallen over and
hurt myself until, eventually, she stopped crying.

‘Becca,' I said, when it was
all over. ‘Becca, listen to me. I don't fancy Mark. And he doesn't
fancy me. I just kissed Joe, remember? There's nothing between Mark and me. No
spark, no nothing. There never has been, and there never will be. Do you believe
me?'

Becca's eyes were all red and
blurry. She wanted to believe me. She wanted to believe what I'd said almost
as much as I did.

And I knew in that moment that what
I'd just said
would have to be
true. There never had been a thing, and there never would be. And that was that. I
relaxed a little. I was a bloody expert at blocking out the Bad Shit, these days.
I'd simply add my messy feelings about Mark to the ever-growing Access Denied
Department of my head and get on with my job.

‘Thanks, pet,' Becca said
eventually. Her voice was trembling but I could feel that stoic strength building
slowly back in her. ‘I do believe you. Thank you, Kate.'

In the week following my unexpected
Hackney encounter with Stephen, I noticed that I was somehow sneaking on lipstick
when my back was turned, and managing more than once to go and get my hair blowdried
into something tumbly and voluminous. It was duplicitous behaviour of which I did
not approve. One day Claudine met me for lunch at work. As soon as she saw me, she
scowled. ‘I knew it!' she hissed. ‘You fancy your boss! Annie, you
are deluded. Men like Stephen are
bad
.'

The next day I waited for Stephen to
turn up for his massage, ready to compile a list of reasons why she was wrong.

But Stephen did not come that week, or
the next. In fact, it was nearly three weeks before I saw him again. Tash told me he
was in Hong Kong. ‘Having far too much fun,' she said, rolling her eyes.
I rolled mine too and felt desperate.

I checked my phone constantly in case he
sent one of those lovely text messages again, which he did not. I spent an evening
eating stinky Comté cheese from the deli on Chatsworth Road, stalking him furtively
through newspaper articles and Facebook. I began to curse myself. Could I not – just
for one week, one day even – form an appropriate crush on an appropriate man?

When I found an
interview with him in the
Spectator
, in which the interviewer himself had
quite clearly fallen in love with Stephen, I ate even more cheese and finally
admitted to my (sadly indifferent) sitting room that I was smitten with Stephen
Flint.

On the seventh evening of
Stephen's absence my phone rang at just gone ten o'clock from a withheld
number. I threw myself at the phone like it was the last on earth.

Then I waited. ‘Er, hi?'
I'd never sounded so casual.

‘Annie, you old tinker,'
shouted Kate Brady. ‘How're ye, darling?'

‘Kate …' I closed my eyes,
full of warmth at the sound of her voice. ‘Kate, I thought I'd never
hear from you again. Where've you
been
?'

Kate sniggered. ‘I know, darling,
sorry. I was after running off to the countryside.'

‘What? Running off? With
who?'

‘With myself, Annie. Myself and a
load of horses. I'm having a blast, although I look like a fecking muck heap
most of the time.' And with that she was off, explaining – as if this was the
kind of thing people did all the time – that she'd got fed up with Dublin and
decided to take a countryside sabbatical.

‘I love it,' she said.
‘It's a bloody dream, Annie. The mornings are so beautiful and the
weather's been lovely … I could do this for ever.'

We spoke for a while about her life on
the farm. It sounded like a wonderful way to live but – although I couldn't
quite put my finger on why – I couldn't help thinking there was something she
wasn't telling me. I let her be. A lifetime of being mentally prodded and
poked
by psychologists and doctors had
taught me to back off when people didn't want to share information.

‘So what're you up
to?' Kate asked. ‘How's things?'

‘I'm standing naked in front
of the mirror in my bedroom,' I admitted.

‘Oh, right. Grand.'

When she'd called I'd been
staring at myself, wondering what Stephen would think if he were ever to see me
naked. A man with film-star good looks and a wardrobe to suit, removing the worn
Indian cottons of a deathly white, slightly baggy girl with what I believed to be a
fairly average appearance, aside from her lovely long blonde hair. I'd look
like an old white plastic bag next to Stephen and that toned brown skin. And what
was I even doing, wondering what he'd think of me naked? He'd been
surprisingly welcoming, which was probably standard practice for him, and he'd
sent me a couple of late texts – probably from his desk, knowing his schedule – and
now he was away, not thinking about me. There couldn't have been less of a
story.

I'd been feeling quite lonely with
my crush. Claudine had made clear that she didn't like the sound of Stephen,
so talking to her wasn't an option, and Lizzy, for all her initial excitement,
had cautioned me against getting involved with my boss when I admitted to my little
crush. Even Tim had been a bit off when I'd tried to talk to him.

So I told Kate. I told her about every
last text message, the hand on the small of my back, and the strange sensation I had
that I was coming alive after years in hibernation, and how I was positive that this
had everything to do with Stephen.

‘Oh, sure, give him a ride,'
Kate said, when I finished.
‘If
he's not flirting with you, Annie, I'll eat my hat. Remember,
you're twenty times prettier than you think you are. You know all my boys in
Dublin are mad about you.'

I smiled shyly. One of them had asked me
out for a drink when he'd come to London recently. I'd made myself say
yes but had cancelled three hours before when I'd realized I was having mild
palpitations and couldn't eat. ‘Claudine doesn't like
him.'

‘Oh, Annie, she doesn't like
anyone.
Anyone other than that big farty husband of hers. Sweetheart,
just go for it. If he asks you out, say yes. What's the worst that can
happen?'

Then, one morning, he was there.

It was eleven o'clock and I was
preparing to massage Jamilla. Instead, in wandered Stephen, grey and exhausted.
‘Annie!' he croaked. ‘Thank God! I've just spent fourteen
hours on a plane. I'm dying. Only you can heal me.' He slumped into the
armchair in the corner, looking far more like a lovely tired boy in a rumpled suit
than a multi-millionaire.

‘Hiya,' I said casually.
‘Good trip? Did you oust Jamilla from her massage slot? I'm meant to be
seeing her next.' I pretended to do something with my massage oils because my
hands were shaking.

‘No.' Stephen slipped behind
the silk screen to change, leaving me slightly wrong-footed. Normally I waited next
door while my clients got changed, but the thought of him there, separated from me
only by a length of silk … ‘No. Jamilla's left, actually.'
Whump.
His clothes started to hit the floor.

‘Really? Why?'

‘Oh, we
had to let her go.'

‘
What?
'

‘She was trying to do us over.
Well, she was helping a competitor try to do us over.'

Whump.

I stared at the silk screen. ‘No!
No way!'

Stephen's head poked over the top.
‘I'm afraid so. She'd been a little erratic for a few weeks, but I
just thought she had some stuff going on at home. Then I had some auditing done on a
department that has absolutely nothing to do with her … Only it turns out it does.
She – Actually, Annie, I shouldn't be talking about this. Not until the facts
are established.'

I couldn't believe it. ‘Okay
… But
what
? How? I just don't get it.'

‘Mike and I have a lovely
afternoon ahead with the auditors and probably the Fraud Squad working it all
out,' Stephen sighed. ‘Which is not what I need.'

He emerged in a dressing gown. ‘I
thought she was great,' he told me. ‘I'm desperately upset about
this. All that wellbeing advice she gave me, as if she cared.'

‘But how? How could she have
commited fraud? She was a
wellness coach
!'

Stephen smiled thinly. ‘A wellness
coach with access to everyone and everything. We have you guys on a fairly loose
rein, security-wise, but I'm afraid that might have to change.'

I was dumbstruck. Jamilla had always
seemed so lovely.

Mildly panicked by this news, I wondered
what would happen if they knew I'd been looking Stephen up on the internet.
Would
that
count as snooping? Would I be
sacked? Would they be allowed to search my phone and my
computer at home? My heart began to race. I had to be careful. Stop being so
mad.

‘So now I have no wellbeing coach,
until we've replaced her,' Stephen was saying. ‘You, Annie
Mulholland, must fix the Leader of the People. Bad luck.' He chuckled.
‘Very bad luck. I've been really naughty and my body's all messed
up.'

‘Naughty? In what way?' I
wasn't sure I wanted to know.

‘As in working too hard and not
sleeping enough,' Stephen replied, sitting on the edge of the massage table.
He looked wrecked, the poor thing.

Thank God.

And:
Get a bloody grip,
Annie.

‘God, you're good.'
He yawned as I finished. ‘I got off the plane this morning dying of tiredness,
then found out about Jamilla and felt really depressed. But now I feel as strong as
a … a LION!' He gave a sleepy little roar.

‘I'm glad you're
getting so much from these massages,' I said. ‘That makes me
happy.'

‘It's one of the lovely
things about you,' said Stephen the Lion. His mane was all messed up and I
didn't remember having fancied anyone so much in my life. ‘You really
want
to make other people happy. You're very nice, you
know.'

I forced myself next door into my office
so he could change. It wasn't the first time he'd told me I was a nice
person. Was he actually right?

Then there was a snort of laughter.
‘Um, Annie.'

‘Yes?'

‘Come
here, please.'

I went through to the massage room.
Stephen was holding his phone. ‘I just picked this up from the side because I
thought it was mine. Only it must be yours because a picture of me popped up when I
pressed the home button.'

Oh, God. Oh, no. I prayed it
wouldn't be the picture I'd Googled that morning before he'd
arrived.

It was the picture of Stephen I'd
Googled that morning before he'd arrived.

‘Care to explain? Do I have a
little stalker on my hands?'

And there was nothing –
nothing
– I could say.

‘My friend wanted to know who you
were,' I said hopelessly. ‘She works in media, thought she might have
come across you …'

I had never been so utterly mortified.
Not once in my whole life. How could I have left the phone there? And what was I
doing
, Google-imaging my boss?

Oh, for sudden death.

‘It's fine.' He
grinned. Then he peered at me. ‘Seriously, Annie, it's fine. I
don't really think you're stalking me. Please don't be
embarrassed!' A pause. ‘Please.'

Outside the sun had just punched through
some clouds and someone had started playing a piano in the music lounge next door.
Stephen sang along under his breath as he read something on his phone. He's
already forgotten about it, I told myself. You're okay. Just stop stalking
him.

‘Right,' Stephen said,
putting his phone away. ‘I've just decided I'm going to take
myself out for a coffee before going back to the coalface. Would you care to
accompany me?'

‘Um,
I've got clients until midday,' I began, but Stephen interrupted.
‘I'll have Tash sort it. I have a proposition I'd like to discuss
with you, Annie Mulholland.'

‘Okay!' I heard myself say.
‘Sounds lovely.'

Stephen took me to a cool little coffee
place round the corner, a little cubbyhole with old wooden benches and
workmen's lights. Heads turned as we came through the door and I glowed, like
a stupid great Belisha beacon. Stephen must surely be the best-looking man in
London, and I was here in this café with him. Although the fact that I was in a café
with any man was quite impressive.

‘Oh dear,' he said, as we
approached the counter. ‘I bet you don't do caffeine …'

‘I need a coffee after
that.'

The police had arrived just as
we'd left the building. ‘Fraud Squad,' Stephen had said grimly.
He'd wavered, knowing he would probably be needed, then shrugged.
‘Bugger it,' he said. ‘Mike's the best corporate lawyer in
the world. If he can't deal with it I'm sacking him.

‘Annie, I'm joking,'
he'd said, catching sight of my face.

So off we'd gone, me wondering
what on earth must have gone so badly wrong in Jamilla's life that she'd
felt the need to do whatever it was she'd done. I'd felt sick at the
thought of her held in a room with policemen and lawyers. It was almost
inconceivable.

We sat and waited on a bench inside a
big open window, watching sunny Clerkenwell flitting around us. ‘You're
quite right,' I told him. ‘I don't drink coffee, except I totally
do. I did some reiki training in Melbourne once, about ten years ago, and had my
first ever proper flat white there.'

Stephen smiled.
‘I bet it was a revelation.'