The Day We Disappeared (3 page)

‘That's great news, Tim,' I said,
smiling at my tall, handsome, preppy friend, who wore nice ironed shirts and had
lemony armpits. ‘Well done, you.'

Lizzy ordered another bottle of wine.
‘Time to celebrate,' she shouted, far too loudly. ‘Our Timmy is
stepping out with a nubile yogi!'

Tim agreed to the bottle of Bordeaux
that Lizzy couldn't afford and winked at me. ‘But Annie has some news
too,' he said.

‘You're not seeing someone,
are you?' Claudine whispered, horrified.

I couldn't help but laugh.
‘No. But if I were, I'd have been very touched by your
reaction.'

‘
Désolée
, my little
Jerusalem artichoke.' She grinned. ‘I am 'orrible. Uneasy in the
happiness of others, no? Tell us your news!'

‘Um, well, I've got a new
job!' I announced, happy again. Of course it would be okay if Tim fell madly
in love. Everything was going to be fine because I had a sparkly new job and a
glorious new boss with whom I could fall in safe, unreciprocated love.

‘You sly dog!' Lizzy was
scandalized. ‘Tell us everything!'

It had all happened quite quickly. My
private practice as a masseuse and reiki healer had dive-bombed during the
recession, because most people had decided – quite sensibly, I had to admit – that
healing was not top priority when they were at risk of losing their home. I'd
been unable to keep my practice in London Fields and had had to start renting rooms
by the hour at a host of complementary health centres across the city, only two of
which were near my house in east London.

I practised in
Balham, Marylebone, Farringdon and Dalston during the week, with fortnightly clinics
in Bethnal Green and Wandsworth. At the weekend I worked in Kent and sometimes even
Surrey. Three years into this punishing cross-town schedule I was exhausted and
almost beaten, more useless than ever at maintaining my supposedly healthy lifestyle
and looking increasingly like a fat old buffalo, as opposed to a sparkling and vital
alternative practitioner.

I desperately missed my private
treatment space, a beautiful old room on the easternmost tip of London Fields, a
five-minute cycle from my house. I'd set up the practice with Claudine, who
was an osteopath, and another girl called Tessa, who was a nutritional therapist.
Our rooms overlooked vast lime trees which spread their rustling fingers far across
the park, and I never had to deal with the tube or the centre of London, both of
which roused anxiety in me that had become harder and harder to contain.

My workplace had been the Garden of
Eden. There had even been a
receptionist
.

Now it was the fiery pit of Hell, a
dismal tangle of tubes, trains and buses, packed with unsettlingly furious people
and limitless opportunities for me to lose Oyster cards and train tickets. I hated
it. It took all I had to force myself on to the tube each day; all of those people I
neither knew nor trusted, all those smells and germs, possible terrorist attacks and
cramped spaces
.

These days, I could barely remember the
steady determination to improve the lives of others that had driven me to train in
the first place. It all just felt like a trauma.

Tim, Lizzy and
Claudine all had other friends, of course; Le Cloob meetings were just a part of
their calendar. And once upon a time I'd been the same. But these days Le
Cloob was the sum total of my social life because I had lost the confidence and
energy to reach further.

There had been discussions about my work
situation. Lizzy counselled me to borrow from the bank and brave it out in private
practice until the recession ended, but she had no real understanding of money. She
had a freak scientific brain – the only one in our family – and spent her days
designing crazily complicated algorithms that somehow translated themselves into
smartphone software. The money was good but she lived as if she were the chief
executive of Apple, rather than a tiny, tiny bite of its operations. Dad and I had
bailed her out more than once.

Claudine usually went quiet when the
subject came up because she'd had no trouble finding a new clinic and was now
making buckets of money. She was excellent at shouty advice but poor at
hand-holding. And Tim was great with suggestions for finding peace amid the madness
but he was a bit stumped on the subject of how to get me a new job.

I'd written a rambly blog for a
while – as if that was going to help anything – but had stopped because I felt
uncomfortable putting myself out there into the world. The world knew too much about
me already.

So, the dent of unhappiness and
frustration in me had deepened, and with that had come a low-level rumbling of fear.
I had by no means forgotten what I was capable of when I was really low.

Then the day before yesterday the end of
the tunnel
had appeared, seemingly out of
nowhere. An angel called Stephen Flint had walked into my Farringdon clinic and
everything had changed, for ever.

As my penultimate massage had come to an
end I'd been dimly aware of some sort of rumpus in the reception area. It had
taken me quite a while to calm myself – I had initially decided we were being
robbed, of course – but eventually I made it out to Reception where my next client,
who appeared to be at the centre of the commotion – was waiting. Somehow he had
reduced Dorota, our usually mute and evasive receptionist, to shrieking giggles.

Amazed, I turned back to look at him. He
was a typical City client – moneyed, extremely well dressed, attractive. But the
almost-palpable charm of the man, the powerful electrical field around him, was not
so typical. Dorota was as shiny as a bauble.

‘Oh dear.' He smiled.
‘We've distracted you. It was her fault,' he said, in
Dorota's direction.

Dorota screamed.

I took in the client's long legs
in expensive tapered trousers and his pale, piercing blue eyes. Sandy hair styled
neatly, and a cardboard espresso cup, even though it was nearly eight p.m. I wished
I could go home now, rather than having to massage a caffeinated businessman who
flirted with Slovakian receptionists while his wife was probably putting the kids to
bed.

In time I would remember that moment.
The moment before Stephen Flint meant anything to me. I was barefoot, my hair in a
raggedy plait. I was wearing a long skirt I'd bought in India and I smelt of
geranium oil. I was still
Annie
Mulholland. I was still in the driving seat of my own life.

‘Sorry,' he said, with a
subversive grin. ‘Best behaviour now.'

‘No problem. Stephen Flint, yes?
Come on through.'

‘Thanks.' He was up already
– surprisingly tall – and shaking my hand. ‘And you must be Annabel. How are
you?' He asked it as if he'd known me for years.

‘Er, take a seat. Can I get you a
glass of water?'

‘Oh, go on, then. If I
must.' He sat down, grinning at me with ice-bright eyes as I handed him the
water and closed the door. It was lucky, I thought, that I could so comfortably
welcome male clients into a treatment room when I hated being alone with men in any
other situation. A little reminder that I really did love my job, in spite of all
the trouble that was attached to it these days.

‘So, is this your first time
having massage therapy?' I began, noticing a hangnail on my thumb. The room
smelt of massage oils and tiredness; I was relieved to be going home in an hour.

‘It is,' Stephen said.
‘I was ordered to get some massages by one of the wellbeing coaches we have at
work. Fearsome woman. I can't say no to her, even though I pay her.'

I started to take notes. Stephen Flint
was a founding director of FlintSpark, a massive global media agency. Whatever that
was. As he rocketed on I remembered that one of their employees had visited me for
some massages last year, a sweet Australian girl who'd been so distressed
about her line manager that she'd ended up going back Down Under.

Stephen Flint
looked like the sort of man who'd be devastated to learn that something like
that had gone on in his company. ‘The happiness of my workforce is an
embarrassing obsession,' he explained eagerly. He had supplemented his
award-winning workspace with every imaginable employee benefit, including – more
recently – a wellbeing team. ‘Everyone has to see a wellbeing coach once a
month, whether they want to or not. If someone's not happy, the coach will
find out. They'll send them for counselling, business coaching, a
nutritionist, whatever, and we pay the first six sessions. All totally confidential,
we never know who's been referred where. You're my coach's latest
attempt at reducing my stress levels.' He giggled like a naughty schoolboy.
‘She says my body is in peril. She wants me to eat kale, get massages and
start yoga. Yoga!'

Stephen had founded FlintSpark in 2001
and now his company was one of the most successful in the industry, with offices
popping up around the world. He worked a crazy schedule, under a great deal of
pressure (‘Entirely self-imposed,' he said cheerfully. ‘But God
never takes a day off so neither do I. I'm the Leader of the People, you
see.') Nonetheless he had agreed to an occasional massage, given that this
clinic was only a few doors down from his company's state-of-the-art glass
headquarters in Farringdon.

‘I'm only here to get the
coach off my back,' he admitted. ‘And that's no slight on you and
your work – but, let's be honest, people like me are a total waste of your
talents. I arrived with a double espresso, for starters.'

In spite of myself, I smiled. I felt
little connection with
men like Stephen
Flint but at least he was honest. ‘Massage is wasted on nobody,' I said.
‘Even if your investment in self-care only extends to one massage a week,
it's a start. There's all sorts of research papers about the benefits of
just thirty minutes.'

‘Really?' Stephen rested his
chin on his hands, watching me intently. He wore a fashionable narrow tie. ‘Do
you agree with that? Do you think massage really makes a difference?'

‘Of course! I wouldn't do
this job otherwise. Helping people feel good … relax … find a bit of peace …
it's …' I blushed for no reason. ‘It's everything to
me,' I said, surprised by my honesty. It
was
everything to me. If I
couldn't help myself find peace, I could at least help others.

‘So.' Stephen seemed
fascinated. ‘This is your job simply because you want to help
people?'

‘Yes.'

He broke into a brilliant smile.
‘How refreshing,' he said, after a long pause. ‘How very
refreshing to hear something like that. We need generous people like you in the
world. I knew as soon as I found you that you'd be right.'

My face was red. I didn't know
why. ‘Well, I'm metres away from your office,' I mumbled.

‘There is that too.' He
chuckled. ‘Well, Annabel, do your best. Feel free to crack out a mallet when
you get to the knotty bits.'

Stephen was full of knots, of course.
Which was a shame because he had a beautifully put-together body, smooth and brown
and perfectly proportioned. He fell
asleep
quite soon into the massage, like so many men of his type, and at the end was like a
swaddled baby, encased in towels, all drooping eyelids and soft edges. ‘Oh, my
God,' he groaned. ‘Oh, my God, that was incredible! Annabel, I
can't thank you enough.' He closed his eyes again, grinning sleepily.
‘You're amazing …'

I went outside while he got back into
his clothes. Rather embarrassingly, I heard my phone go off in my bag, which was
still in the treatment room. I had to get better at remembering to turn it off.
I'd have looked awful if it had gone off during his session – he could have
reported me to the Association of Complementary Therapists, who might strike me off
the register. And if I couldn't practise as a masseuse what else could I do? I
had no other skills, I –

Sssh,
I told myself.
Relax,
Annie. You'll be home soon.

Sometimes I could beat the Bad Shit, as
Kate Brady would say. Mostly, though, I could not. I made a mental note to Skype her
soon; it had been ages.

Dorota had gone home, leaving a soft
lamp on in Reception. I was stunningly exhausted after a full morning in Marylebone,
a full afternoon in Farringdon and a rushed lunch eaten on the Circle Line between
the two. I popped my feet up on the sofa next to me, rubbing them gently with my
still-oily hands, and closed my eyes.

‘I'm afraid I'm going
to have to wake you,' a voice said quietly. I panicked. A man was staring at
me in the semi-darkness of a room I didn't know.

‘I couldn't quite bring
myself to sneak off without paying.' He smiled.

His eyes were sky-bright, even in the
low light. Oh, God. Stephen. Client. Sleep. Silly, silly me. ‘I'm so
sorry,' I
began, my face and neck
staining red. ‘I must have drifted off while you got dressed.' I hauled
myself up to a sitting position, my heart still racing. Stephen sat down next to me.
‘No, no, take a rest,' he said, as I tried to get up. My legs were still
limp with shock so I did as I was told.

‘Really, no need to
apologize.' Stephen folded some crisp banknotes in his hand, watching me. His
face was kindly, amused, almost tender, still marked by the massage table's
face hole. ‘You looked very sweet and peaceful there. Not to mention
completely shattered.'

‘I am shattered.' I
didn't have the energy to lie.

‘Long day?'

I nodded. He sounded so sympathetic that
I somehow forgot about my normal client boundaries. ‘Very long day. It's
lovely work, but it's very physical.'