The Day We Disappeared (14 page)

‘Funny doesn't make a good
groom.'

‘No.' Mark turned to the
lake now. ‘It doesn't. But desperation does, and you had that in
spades.'

I swallowed. ‘What do you
mean?'

‘Kate.' Mark's voice
was kind. Dangerously so. ‘I know what it's like to feel trapped and
desperate, and I wanted to help.'

I thought about Maria, the awful things
I'd heard her say last week when she was on at him not to withdraw Stumpy. She
had called him a coward and a small man; she'd said he was a disappointment to
her father, who'd invested so much money in him; and she'd rounded off
by
telling him he was the laughing stock
of the eventing scene, which was completely untrue.

Yes, he probably knew a thing or two
about trapped and desperate.

‘Well, thank you,' I said
eventually. ‘You're right, I was desperate. Really very desperate
indeed.'

‘Poor you. I heard it was a
burnout, over in Dublin.'

‘Oh. Who told you?'

‘Tiggy.'

I'd supposed it would only be a
matter of time before Mark found out. I knew Becca would have kept it to herself but
then Joe had started asking questions so I'd blurted it out before he'd
started reaching conclusions of his own. And, of course, once Joe knew something, it
was open season.

‘Sorry I lied,' I
muttered.

Mark shook his head. It didn't
matter.

‘And thanks again for giving me
the chance,' I added. ‘I hope you think your risk paid off.'

‘You're shaping up to be a
fantastic groom,' he said. ‘You've given it your everything, like
I knew you would, and because of that you've learned fast.' His cheeks
coloured faintly, and of course mine followed suit. ‘You're great, Kate.
I know I'm not very good at communicating these things – at communicating
anything, really – but I do value you very highly indeed. You're the best
thing that's happened to my yard in a very long time.'

I couldn't stop looking at him. At
those mysterious eyes, which were beginning to give away their secrets.

‘Well, your yard is great
already,' I said weakly. ‘You don't need me to improve it!
It's the dog's bollocks, Mark!'

‘It
scrapes by,' he said, unconvinced.

‘It more than scrapes by!
It's a bloody king among yards!'

‘Oh, Kate! It's nothing of
the sort. It's shabby, it's chaotic, it's poorly laid out and
everything's falling apart. If you saw a proper eventing yard you'd know
what I meant.' He shielded his eyes from the low sun. ‘But as
you've probably heard my father drank all of the family's money away
before, er, drinking himself to death when I was twelve. So there just isn't
any. We do the best we can and we let the world laugh at us for running such a
ramshackle place. And until such time as I get twenty extremely rich owners and
sponsors lining up to throw cash at me, that's just how it's got to
be.'

I stared at him. ‘I didn't
know,' I whispered, horrified. ‘Jesus, Mark, I'm so sorry. I
thought he'd died of cancer or something. That's absolutely
terrible.'

‘By the end it was better for Mum
that he died,' Mark said. ‘He was in a dreadful state, had been for
years. It's appalling, watching someone destroy themselves against their own
will.'

No wonder it's so hard to get near
you, I thought sadly. You poor thing. I imagined a frightened little Mark watching
his father fall apart. It made my chest hurt.

He must have spent every penny he had in
making the grooms' barn nice while living all the time in a house with shonky
electrics and holes in the roof.

‘I can't tell you how sorry
I am, Mark,' I said quietly. ‘But this just proves that your yard – no,
your
career
– is a huge triumph, and you'll not convince me
otherwise.'

Mark looked pleased, in a tired sort of
a way. ‘Thank
you. And sorry, I
don't know why I suddenly told you about Dad.'

‘Because you wanted to talk about
it?'

Mark coloured.

‘Stranger things have
happened,' I said, ‘than human beings wanting to talk to each other
about things that make them sad.' I held my breath. Was that too much? Too
far?

Not quite. Mark smiled. ‘Talk
about my feelings? Me? You're fired.'

We shared an easy silence.

‘Well, if there's anything I
can do for your yard, tell me,' I said. ‘You've helped me more
than you'd know.'

‘Work your corporate Google magic
and get us a couple of million pounds, maybe? That'd be helpful.'

‘Ha-ha-ha,' I said, hoping
he didn't mean it. ‘What I will do is work until my back breaks.
I'll work on my days off, if you need me. Just say the word. I want to
help.'

‘You have an interesting approach
to recovering from burnout,' Mark said. He was watching me like I was a
nutter.

‘Ah, well, it was more mental than
physical. I'm happy here. Happiness gives you energy.'

‘Interesting,' he said
thoughtfully. ‘Well, you don't need to break your back. You're
doing fine just as you are. You do us so much good, Kate, all those bad jokes and
that cheeky talk.'

A fly landed on his nose and I wanted to
reach forward and brush it off so that I could touch his face. I sat still.

‘Well,' Mark said,
‘we'd better get on with this course. Thanks,' he said.
‘For, er, you know. Conversational things.'

We stood up.
‘All I'll say,' Mark added, and I could hear both nervousness and
determination in his voice, ‘all I'll say is that I really hope you stay
at the farm, because I want you on my team, Kate Brady. I really do.'

In the lorry I poured myself another
brandy. I needed to sort myself out, urgently.

 

 

The girl's hiding place is good, she knows that, but Mummy should surely
have found her by now, shouldn't she? The stream is loud here, where a
clump of smooth rocks, like the tops of mushrooms, have made a little barrier
against the cold water. She didn't hear Mummy shout, ‘Coming to get
you!' Nor could she see her because of the boulders and bushes
everywhere.

It's been ages now.

Slowly, carefully, she stands up and tries to survey the field where they were
sitting. No sign of Mummy. Perhaps she shouldn't have run so far.

She scratches her clavicle where the daisy chains lie against her skin. Tiny
beads of sweat have appeared on her chest and she swipes at them as she crosses
back over the stream. In her face there is still laughter; the expectation that,
in a few minutes, she and her mother will spot each other, scream at the moment
of discovery. Scream and laugh and probably chase each other around the daisy
meadow.

On the other side of the stream, she has a better view. Still no Mummy.

She looks over her shoulder towards the woods. She has a strong feeling that
Mummy is there, although she cannot imagine why.

She starts walking up towards the wood.

She and Lizzy have a little den a bit further in, made by fallen branches.
They've swept it out so it's all tidy. It's cool and muted
green at the moment, but until recently there were a thousand million bluebells
spread out in a squashy carpet of purple. Mummy had
allowed them to pick enough bluebells to fill one
small vase but no more than that. ‘We're friends of Nature,'
she'd said.

‘I SEE YOU!'

There she is! Mummy! She's quite a long way off, visible only because
she's standing on a path. She's – oh! She's talking to
someone! The little girl squints and recognizes the man they sometimes see in
the village, with the skinny legs. He's holding Mummy's arm and she
seems to be both moving towards him and away at the same time. Are they dancing?
She crinkles her nose. ‘Mummy?' she calls. She doesn't feel so
happy now. She wanted this morning to be just her and her mother, not the man
from the village with the skinny legs.

Her mother doesn't hear her because she's shouting. The girl
doesn't like it when her mother shouts. It happens very rarely so when she
does shout it means someone has done something really bad.

Uh-oh, she thinks. The man must be
being
really
bad. Odd that he's not shouting back, though. Maybe
he knows he's in trouble.

He and Mummy are moving even further away now, Mummy wriggling and shouting and
doing strange, jerky, dance-like moves. The little girl realizes that Mummy
isn't going to join in again with the game any time soon: she's
doing some boring grown-up thing, didn't even look round when she shouted.
She marches back to the daisy meadow to wait.

She is angry with the man with
skinny legs, and angry with Mummy. It's her
birthday.

She decides to start another daisy chain, only for some reason she can't.
She feels upset and restless and she wants a drink. ‘Mummy,' she
calls, but she knows her mother can't hear her.

Without understanding why, she starts crawling fast towards the longer grass by
the old stone wall. She feels as if people are watching her out here in the
daisy meadow and she wants to be invisible.

She sits in the shadow of the wall with long fronds of prairie grass
tickling her chin. She watches the
woods, ears straining for any sound of her mother.

Mummy has told Lizzy off for laughing at the man from the village with skinny
legs. She's said to Lizzy that he is ill and that he deserves kindness and
respect. Maybe she'll change her mind now, the girl thinks. The man
didn't look very kind just now.

Suddenly she reaches for her throat and rips off her daisy chains.

She continues to hide, to wait, until a sound from the wood snaps her head up.
It's screaming. Loud, frightened screaming, which is suddenly cut
off.

She huddles closer to the wall and starts to cry.

I arrived at the château just as a large
Chinese-lantern sun bled its final pools of orange on to the terrace where Stephen
and his team were drinking champagne. The air was heavy with the scent of jasmine,
and the clink of glasses muffled by lazy birdsong. Tash was waving from the doorway,
reassuring and orderly in a crisp linen vest. Above her rose the wisteria- and
jasmine-covered house, grooved and pockmarked like an old hand.

I paused before getting out of the
airport car. Suddenly, in this gentle bowl of a valley, at the end of a long drive
over which
platane
trees arched like a leafy roof, it began. Stephen was
drinking wine just there and it was not impossible that he liked me. Enough, even,
to do something.

Claudine had been disgusted to hear that
he'd invited me. ‘You 'ave been there two
months
!'
she'd hissed. ‘'E cannot just invite you on a work jolly after
that time! It is something that you are offered if your service is consistent in a
long-term fashion! 'E is a slimeball! 'E just wants to seduce
you!'

I'd smiled because, being
Claudine, she'd actually said ‘consistent in a long-term fashion'.
She was such a funny thing. But my smile had incensed her further, and in the end
I'd just changed the subject. Kate Brady, who had no
known weirdnesses when it came to men, had fully
condoned the plan, and I was going with her judgement.

‘
Et voilà
,' said
the driver, for the second time.

‘Sorry.
Pardonnez-moi
.' I got out and dragged my new trolley suitcase across
the gravel towards Tash. What stupid things they were, trolley suitcases! I should
have brought my rucksack.

‘Hey!'

‘Hey, Tash! This is
amazing!'

She grinned, taking my bag.
‘Isn't it? They're all very happy. I don't think
they'll cause us any trouble this weekend.'

‘Well, now, Miss
Mulholland.' My stomach jolted pleasurably. There he was, striding over from
the terrace, a long evening shadow trailing elegantly at his heels.

He kissed me on both cheeks and I was
spellbound. His face was on mine, just for a second. Warm, slightly abrasive,
lightly scented.

‘I'll get her sorted,'
Stephen said to Tash. ‘You should put your feet up – you've been working
far too hard today.'

‘I haven't!' Tash
protested. ‘I only set up the conference call and made sure the –'

‘Oi,' Stephen said.
‘Don't you answer me back. Go and have a nice swim and some of that
beautiful stinky Époisses and I'll take Annie into the house.'

Tash gave in gratefully.

Outside it was still very hot but the
interior of the château was as cool as a monastery. A smiling woman in the long,
stylish kitchen took my bag away and handed me a glass of champagne, and Stephen and
I wandered round the ground floor. His arm brushed against mine as we
stood in the doorway of a
bibliothèque
and I felt every atom in me buzz.

‘The owner of the château is a
diehard fan of the surrealists,' he was saying, ‘which is extremely
convenient because I am too. There's some beautiful first-edition biographies
in here, everyone from Le Corbusier to Éluard to Picasso.'

He turned to look at me. ‘Hmm.
Pretentious?'

‘No!' I said. ‘I love
them too! I think Penrose is my favourite, though. I went to see his house in Sussex
recently. It was wonderful.'

Stephen grinned. ‘Penrose, eh?
Right. Well, please step this way, madam.' He took me along an uneven corridor
and on into a smaller room with long, low sofas and a slightly bizarre collection of
paintings from every era. Late sun bobbed and swayed through the leaves of the trees
outside.

Stephen waved at the fireplace, above
which hung a wildly fantastic collage that could only have been made by Roland
Penrose. I gasped. ‘No way. No effing
way
!'

Stephen exploded with laughter.
‘Did you just say “effing”, Annie?'

I was too awed by the painting to be
embarrassed. ‘Yes. Look! Look at it! Is that Notre-Dame poking out behind the
… Oh, my God. It is. I can't believe I'm seeing this!'

Stephen put an arm round my shoulders
for a beautiful moment. ‘You're even cooler than I thought,' he
said, then wandered off to take a closer look at the painting. ‘None of the
guys got excited about it.' Dizzy with it all, I followed him, walking in the
warm slipstream of his body. A bell rang somewhere deep inside the house. It
was all so swimmingly perfect that it
bordered on the absurd.

We stood and stared at the collage, and
I wondered how I would bear it if I'd got it all wrong and Stephen just liked
me in the same way he liked Tash. I imagined me jumping on him – in some moment of
total madness, clearly – and him gently but firmly pushing me away, and me getting
sacked and having to start over again and –

Then I turned and saw him looking at me
and my anxious thoughts abruptly stopped. It was not the same as with Tash. I had no
experience with men and chemistry and signals but I knew, nonetheless, that this
look Meant Something.
Holy Mother of God
, I thought, weak with shock.
I
might actually kiss a man.

After a long pause, Stephen opened his
mouth to say something, just as one of the staff walked in and told us that
cocktails were being served on the terrace.

Stephen sighed, breaking eye
contact.

‘Come on, then, my
surrealism-loving masseuse,' he said. ‘Let's go and have some
cocktails.' He didn't move. Then, very slowly, very deliberately, he
reached over and took my plait, which had swished over my shoulder, and laid it back
on my spine, running his hand down it to straighten it. ‘This plait is such a
lovely thing,' he said. ‘It's my favourite.'

I clenched my fists, as if that would
help me focus. ‘Are you sure you want me out there?' I asked weakly.
‘Shouldn't I be … er, hanging out with the rest of the support
staff?'

For a moment Stephen looked confused.
Then he chuckled. ‘You're here as a guest,' he told me.
‘
My
guest. Of course I want you to come and have cocktails. And
there's only Tash. We can all
survive without our PAs, you know. I cook for myself and clean my own toilet. No, I
don't. That's a lie. But I totally could if I wanted to.'

‘Flint?' called a voice from
the corridor. ‘Flint? Where are you?' Rory Adamson's large belly
arrived through the door, followed by Rory himself. He was sunburned, very merry
and, for some reason, rather adorable out of his suit.

‘Oh, hello, Anna,' he said
pleasantly. ‘Pleased you've come to indulge us! Flint, we need to talk
to Chicago about this acquisition before we get too drunk. And then we need to get
too drunk.' Rory was Stephen's right-hand man. They'd been to a
posh school together: they hadn't got on famously, Stephen had admitted, but
they'd liked each other well enough for Stephen to be able to poach Rory from
his job nine months ago.

‘Rory Adamson, you fat
twat,' Stephen said. ‘Her name is Annie.'

‘Of course!' Rory was
genuinely contrite. ‘Sorry, Annie. They keep giving us this wonderful
grand cru
from St Émilion and we're all wasted. As if
any
one
could forget the name of our massage queen.'

I grinned. ‘Forgiven. I'm
coming to join you for a drink, if that's okay.'

Just for a second, a tiny hairline crack
of a second, Rory glanced sharply at Stephen.
Really?
Stephen, unflinching,
held Rory's gaze.

He guided me out of the room and I
shivered, remembering that, however human, however funny and self-deprecating he
was, Stephen Flint was a monumentally powerful man. And however much I liked him it
would take real guts to let go and
trust him completely. But I was ready to try.

Dinner was served when the last violet
smudges of light were swept clean from the sky. We ate under a beautiful canopy of
fairy lights strung between fruit trees; a perfect dinner table with starched
tablecloths, gleaming cutlery and wild flowers in vases. And, of course, serious
quantities of wine that probably cost per bottle more than my monthly rent.

All around me, Stephen's team were
throwing big chunks of juicy steak into their mouths like club-wielding cavemen. And
I could barely eat a mouthful. The trees rustled lazily above us, cutlery clinked on
china and the conversation buzzed around me, but all I could hear was
Stephen's voice.

This
was the intravenous drip
Tim had told me about. Its power astonished me. Patrick, the chief finance officer,
was on my right, slurring on about how he loved the way I used so much of my own
weight to press and squash his tight muscles. Everyone was talking to me about
massage. Presumably they didn't imagine I had anything else to talk about. It
didn't matter. I wasn't listening.

Stephen was talking to Janique, the
senior counsel, and all I could hear was his voice.

My phone buzzed in the pocket of my long
skirt.

I COMMAND YOU TO COME HOME
,
Claudine wrote.
We need to talk. You are making a big mistake, trying to sleep
with your boss. It will come to no good, I am sure of it.

I deleted the message and slipped my
phone back into my pocket. Enough. I'd tried to be understanding, to
appreciate that this was just
Claudine's way of protecting me against potential trouble – but it was
my
potential trouble, not hers. I was tired of feeling patronized. Of
being the small person. Hadn't I spent enough time being small? Hiding?

She had even arranged to take me for an
emergency afternoon tea last weekend, so she could try for a final time to talk me
out of going to France or having any involvement with Stephen. ‘'E is
not right for you at all,' she had told me, in a most uncompromising tone,
never actually having met or talked to him. ‘I counsel against sexual
intercourse, Annie. In fact, I forbid it.'

For the first time ever – largely
because I seemed to have no choice over my feelings for Stephen – I had directly
disobeyed her. ‘I hear what you're saying, Claudie, and you may well be
right … But I'm afraid you can't stop me. Not even
I
can stop
me.'

‘Women do not sleep with their
bosses in this day and age!'

‘Oh, for God's sake,
Claudie! Of course they do! And why not? We're both humans. Who cares if he
pays my wages? Don't try to turn this into a feminist concern when it's
not. It's about two human beings, who appear to like each other. And
that's that, you cynical old git!'

Claudine had gasped. For a moment she
stared murderously at me and then, quite deliberately, she had stabbed her knife
into my scone. ‘I forbid it,' she said. ‘You need to approach
potential relationships in a balanced and cautious fashion. Nothing about the
situation with that slimeball man is balanced or cautious. I forbid it – you
understand? I forbid it!'

I stared right
back at her. Enough of her mad talk about relationships. Enough of her thinking she
could somehow save me from my past with careful management. And enough of her
talking about Stephen as if he were just some stereotypical corporate arsehole with
a penchant for the ladies when, in fact, he was turning out to be the absolute
opposite. ‘Tough, Claudie. I'm going to France. And if sex is on offer,
I'll be taking it.'

And I'd reached out and stolen her
scone.

Stephen was watching me. He carried on
talking to Janique, and I resumed my conversation with Patrick, but all the while he
held my eye.

I didn't know what I was doing. I
drank too much Bordeaux and took off my shoes so I could feel the grass between my
toes. Stay connected to the earth, I reminded myself. Feel the earth.

It calmed me down a bit. But not
much.

I woke early, hungover but full of
restless energy. Dawn was poking needles of light through the ancient shutters on my
bedroom window and the luxury quilt I'd pulled over myself last night was now
stifling. I got out of bed, grateful for the coolness of the stone floor under my
feet, and opened my shutters. Below my bedroom there was a clear blue oblong of
water through which a man was swimming. He cut across it like a knife through
butter: straight, precise and unimpeded. The water barely rippled around him. Nearby
a cock crowed half-heartedly, perhaps stupefied by the coming heat.

The man reached the end of the pool and
tumble-turned perfectly.

Stephen.
Swimming at daybreak, even though he had been up until at least three a.m. I watched
the ripple and surge of his back muscles, those lean, powerful arms. I wasn't
being crazy in the slightest. The man in the pool below me was, hands down, the
best-looking man on earth and he was making all the signs of being interested in me.
I had every right to be feeling like a woman who should be in a secure facility.