The Day We Disappeared (8 page)

‘Good boy,' he said softly,
scratching between the horse's ears. ‘There's my good man.'
Stumpy, as if drugged, lolled his head down towards Mark's stomach.
‘Silly thing.' Mark grinned, suddenly human. Smiling beautifully, he
continued to scratch Stumpy's head, fondling the horse's flappy ear with
his other hand.

‘He's my favourite,'
he said to me. I was standing, like a tool, by Stumpy's shoulder, watching
this most unlikely scene with amazement. ‘My weak spot. We bred him here so I
sort of feel like his dad.'

‘He's beautiful,' I
said. ‘Absolutely stunning.'

Mark was clearly pleased. ‘And
what a great name!' I added.

Mark was smiling at his horse as if he
might actually burst with pride. It made my eyes prickle a little bit, that intense
and so wholly unexpected display of love.

‘His show name is Distant
Thunder.'

‘Like a fart.' I grinned.
Mark's eyes, now gunmetal in the fading light, swivelled round to me. His
smile had gone.

‘Right then, silly,' he
muttered, giving Stumpy one last scratch. ‘Time to get sponged
down.'

‘They trust you if you trust
them,' he said, in my direction. ‘And they don't respond kindly to
being towed across the yard. You have to walk alongside them.'

I nodded dumbly,
appalled he'd seen it all.

‘But, of course, you already know
that, with your lifetime spent on the back of a horse.' Suddenly he smiled
again. ‘Watch out. He likes you.'

I turned to find Stumpy's nose at
my elbow. Without even thinking about it, I reached to scratch him between the ears,
like Mark had, and once again his head lolled happily downwards, sending warm jets
of air down my cold legs. ‘I like him too.' I beamed. ‘He's
the most beautiful horse I've ever seen. Hello, Stumpy. Hello, you nice
boy.' Stumpy pushed his head closer into my legs, eyes drooping closed.

Mark tried to stop smiling but
couldn't. ‘I love him,' he said. ‘So much, it's
hopeless.'

Then he did a double-take, as if
astonished to hear the words come out of his mouth. He turned sharply and strode off
towards the back stable block. ‘Get him sponged down,' he called.

I watched him go, until Stumpy nudged me
in the bottom, asking for more of that scratching.

After a long evening of tack-cleaning
with Becca, during which she made me learn what every last piece of leather was
called, I dragged myself up to my bedroom and Skyped my family. I told them a pack
of lies and hated myself.

Before bed, shivering in an unseasonal
vest, I did a routine scan of the yard from the chink between my curtains and was
surprised when my eyes found Mark Waverley standing by Stumpy's door in a big
thick coat, his arms wrapped round the horse's neck. I stared at him, a
solitary figure with a halo of discontent crackling around him,
and felt a tug of curiosity. Stumpy poked Mark with his
muzzle, as if asking for snacks. Mark reached into his pocket and fed something to
the horse, which nosed him for more. Even from this distance I could tell Mark was
laughing.

Ana Luisa came out and stood with her
dad, who slid an arm round her shoulders and held her close. Stumpy stuck his nose
into the little girl's face and even from my room I could hear her shriek with
laughter. I watched them there, a strange little family, and felt tears fill my eyes
as I thought about my own. I'm so sorry, I thought, hoping they might somehow
be able to hear me. I'm so sorry. I love you all so much.

Mark kissed Stumpy's nose, then
glanced up at my window, just as I turned to go.

One month later

The day I arrived at the FlintSpark
offices I decided that this was it: the first day of the rest of my life.

I was shaking with excitement and nerves
as I stood in the vast atrium, swarming in all directions with people who wore
trendy clothes and used words like ‘programmatic' and
‘synergy'.

Holy God
, I texted Kate, as I
waited for Stephen's PA to come down for me.
What have I done?

Kate's WhatsApp showed that she
hadn't been online since mid-March, and it was now 15 April. I made a mental
note to call her tonight. It was perfectly normal for her to ignore emails –
‘I spend my day on the fecking internet,' she'd say.
‘Don't expect me to email in my free time.' But her absence from
phone activity was plain odd.

‘Annie Mulholland!'

I started. I'd been expecting
Stephen's PA, Tash, but here was the man himself, wearing a beautifully fitted
shirt and a glorious suntan he'd not had in March. He was smiling the
million-watt smile that I hadn't quite been able to stop myself Google-imaging
over the last month, only it was more dazzling than could possibly be conveyed by an
internet photo. This man, I thought,
pleasure steaming up my brain, is
utterly gorgeous.

‘Oh! Hi!' I squeaked.

‘Come and heal this company. And
the world.' Stephen beamed, gesturing towards the security gates. ‘Just
like Michael Jackson, only without being weird and dead.' He put his hand on
the small of my back, guiding me through the crowds. People stared at him and those
within his earshot stepped up their use of barmy media words.
‘Platforms' and ‘cut-through' and –
what
?
‘Low-hanging fruits?' I was lost.

‘It's really lovely to have
you here,' he continued, ignoring them all.

‘It's lovely to be here.
Thanks so much for coming to get me. I was expecting Tash.'

‘She's my PA, not my
servant. And anyway, I wanted to welcome you myself. You got here okay?' He
swiped me through the glass gates.

‘I did, and I'm very excited
about starting,' I told him. ‘Although I feel like I need to ask what a
“low-hanging fruit” is. And what “programmatic” means. And
several other words besides. Should I have learned all the vocab before
starting?'

Stephen laughed, and I felt a rush of
exhilaration. ‘Absolutely not. In fact, I ban you from using that or any other
industry terminology. I've hired you to be a real person, not another
guff-recycler.'

I grinned, thinking how extraordinary it
was that a man in Stephen's position should be so personable. That he was
willing to welcome me himself when I must be one of the lowliest people on his
payroll.

Stephen Flint – as
I'd discovered in the course of my, ahem, late-night online research sessions
– was a very big cheese. The kind of man whose PA you'd be lucky to be allowed
to contact, let alone the boss himself. He was one of the most written-about
businessmen and innovators in the country, the head of a huge empire, the template
for every young person wanting to Make It.

I couldn't understand why someone
like him would want to hire a scruffy, shy, dithering hippie like me, rather than
some sleek blonde who ran a Power Spa in Chelsea.

Stop it, you great big tit
, I
imagined Kate saying.
Have some faith in yourself, woman!

‘I'm very flattered to have
the Big Cheese come to meet me,' I said, as we waited for the lift. Then I had
a mild panic. ‘Oh, just to clarify, I meant Big Cheese as in Big Boss, not
that I think you're cheesy.'

‘Oh, I'm cheesy
enough.' He gestured me towards an opening lift door. ‘I'm
worryingly cheesy. I own some dreadful music and still make Valentine cards for my
granny, and I totally believe in flowers and mix tapes and boxes of Milk Tray. I
mean, who even buys Milk Tray, these days? I'm a dead loss!'

I hated lifts, but I couldn't let
Stephen know. I tried not to imagine the doors jamming closed and, of course,
imagined just that.

‘There's nothing naff about
flowers and mix tapes and Milk Tray,' I said, imagining us trapped in there
and running out of oxygen. ‘I used to long for someone to give me that sort of
stuff!'

‘But you stopped?' We zoomed
upwards.

‘No, I just …' What?
I've been single my whole life because
I'm scared of men?
I blushed. The lift
came to a rapid halt and the doors slid noiselessly open. Phew.

Stephen was smiling at me. ‘Well,
if it's a mix tape you want, you only have to ask,' he said. ‘But
please keep this
grand fromagery
to yourself. I'm running a
multi-billion-pound business here.' We turned to walk along a dazzling
corridor, into which lights hung on invisible strings at different heights. London
lazed around below us, a docile animal napping in the spring sun.

Stephen took me into the Annie Kingdom
and I gasped. Everything I'd asked for was there and more besides: the special
heated table with extra-soft cushioning; the top-end waxes and oils I'd hardly
dared request. Flowers and plants, a state-of-the-art music system and a sleek,
shiny Mac in my little office next door. Plus a MacBook Air, just in case I found
myself needing two computers at once. I certainly hadn't asked for those. To
top it off there was a big cake with my name on it and ‘WELCOME' in
slightly wobbly letters.

‘I made it myself,' Stephen
said. ‘So it's quite bad. But it's the thought that counts,
hmm?'

I stared and stared at him. The CEO of a
company had
made me a cake
. Short of receiving a veg box from the prime
minister, it couldn't have been more surprising. ‘You –
you
made me a cake?'

‘Didn't I tell you I care
about my employees?' He grinned. He should have sounded naff, but he
didn't. Probably because he actually meant it. ‘It's wheat-,
sugar- and dairy-free, and because of that it tastes disgusting, but never mind.
I've called a little welcome party for you at five p.m. so I'm sure
you'll persuade someone to eat it.'

‘How did you
know?' I felt I might cry. No man had ever been so nice to me. ‘How did
you know I didn't eat wheat or dairy or sugar?'

‘Because you're a massage
therapist and reiki practitioner and you smell of essential oils.' He looked
out of the window, smiling at some private thought, and I noticed the delicate skin
by his eye, little veins, like rivers on a distant map. ‘And you wear tie-dye
skirts. Of course you don't eat wheat or dairy or sugar, Annie
Mulholland.'

Someone at FlintSpark had booked in my
first two weeks of clients, and had very kindly given me the morning to
‘create my space'. I put out some towels, then went off to get my
security pass, my ‘space' duly created. Over the years I'd come to
understand that feng shui was a bonus, nothing more. What really mattered was me and
the client: my ability to sense the energy and rhythm of their body, and theirs to
turn off the ceaseless noise in their heads. I'd had my best massage ever in a
sweltering room off a stinking alleyway in Beijing, where only the hot domes of my
eyelids had prevented me seeing cockroaches scuttling across the floor underneath
me.

Besides, the space was already stunning
and didn't need any help from me and my ‘design' ideas. (Claudine
said that my house was one of the greatest recorded crimes against good taste.)

I used the rest of my morning to roam
the extraordinary array of lounges, libraries, restaurants and games rooms at the
FlintSpark ‘offices'. How did anyone get any work done? It was like
being at a festival! There were thick jungly carpets, ornate Chinese tables,
beautiful industrial
light fittings. The
gym – or, at least, the tiny corner of it that I could see from the door – had been
kitted out to look like it was in outer space. If I wanted to, I could bench-press
underneath Jupiter or do some stretching on the mats beside a troop of naughty
aliens.

The aliens made me smile because I
somehow knew that Stephen had chosen them. I imagined those eyes twinkling
mischievously as he explained his idea to a baffled designer and felt a little
scrunch of pleasure in my stomach.

Of course, it was the restaurants that
excited me most. Free food! Unlimited free food! I got some granola and yogurt and a
crisp fresh pastry, then felt so guilty about Stephen's free-from cake that I
took them back and got a smoothie with spirulina in it instead, trying not to mind
too much.

‘I think it's more about
brand storytelling,' a man with round glasses and a beard was saying at the
other side of my table. He was talking to another man with round glasses and a
beard.

Beard Man II forked a piece of crayfish
into his mouth and had a think. ‘Agreed. But until we've run a deep dive
on it, I think we should be cautious.'

Jesus Christ.

Much to my delight, when I left the
restaurant I bumped into Jamilla. Jamilla had worked in the building next door to
Claudine and me when we'd set up our practice. She was now FlintSpark's
chief wellbeing adviser and the reason why Stephen had booked a massage in the first
place. ‘Hey!' I hissed. I didn't feel important enough to raise my
voice in a place like this. ‘Jamilla!'

‘Oh, hi,' she said, wearing
a glazed, distracted sort of
look. I asked
her how she was but received only the vaguest indication that she was well.

I frowned. This was not how I remembered
her. Did she not want me working here? Had she gone off me? ‘Look, let's
catch up later,' she said, noticing my face. ‘Sorry, I'm just, er
…'

I let her be. Wellness coaches were
allowed bad days. I spent fifteen minutes trying to find the Annie Kingdom again,
before realizing that I was on the wrong floor.

When I finally found it a workman was
just finishing up after hanging a large sign above the door saying ‘Inner
Peace' with a big retro arrow pointing downwards. It was surrounded by
Hollywood bulbs and it made me disproportionately happy, as did a huge bunch of
flowers with my name on it, then some lovely welcoming emails from HR and other
people whose job titles I didn't understand. The sky had rolled itself into
great pillows of grey and my rooms, which seemed almost to hover in this humid
cloudscape, were like a cheerful mezzanine-level entrance to heaven. I pressed my
nose against the cool plate glass and wondered what the Annie Mulholland of ten
years ago would have made of this.

Probably not much. But
twenty-two-year-old Annie, for all her hippie leanings and rejection of Western
values, had spent a lot of her time in therapy because she was unhappy about most
things. Right now – here in this moment, with my breath forming hot discs of
condensation on the window – I felt I might be about to get a stab at feeling
normal.

My first appointment was at one thirty,
and I'd been promised that a list of names would be left in my little
office by midday. Thus far, nothing had
appeared and it was one twenty-five.

‘We left it on the desk,'
said the girl whose number I'd been given as a contact. ‘Next to your
computer?'

‘Oh, God. I'm so sorry. I
threw away one of the computer manuals because there were two identical ones … I
must have binned the client list too. Goodness, what a bad start …'

I scrabbled around in my bin for the
schedule but found nothing. One of those efficient ninja cleaners had been in
already.

I was crouching over the empty bin when
Stephen Flint walked in.

‘Oh. Do you normally wait for
clients under your desk?'

I stuck my head out. My hair had already
started to come out of its plait and was falling all over my face. ‘Actually,
I do. It's an ancient shamanic ritual.' Instantly, I blushed. I'd
just made a joke! At a man!

Stephen laughed. ‘Everything
OK?'

‘Yes, fine. I threw out my client
list for the afternoon. But the cleaner's taken it already. I'm sorry,
Stephen, I'm not normally such a shambles.'

Barefaced lie. I had to get better at
this stuff. I
had
to.

Stephen was unfazed. He offered a warm
hand to help me out from under the desk. ‘Well, you needn't worry too
much. Your first client is me. I called shotgun.'

‘Oh!'

Suddenly – shockingly – the thought of
running my hands along Stephen's back had become thrilling.

Boundaries
, I told myself
sharply. ‘Good for you,' I
said, jogging off to the treatment room so he
wouldn't notice the red in my cheeks. ‘I'm sure Jamilla'll
be very happy with you.'