The Day We Disappeared

by Lucy Robinson

  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.

  Chapter Eleven

  Annie

  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 actuall
y 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 anyone 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.

  I am being very reasonable and sane, I replied to Claudine. And then I marched downstairs in my new silk pyjamas with an old wrap from the north of Argentina that I hadn’t quite been able to resist packing. I could hear pans and chatter and tinny music from the kitchen but otherwise the place was deserted. It couldn’t be much later than six.

  Padding along the uneven stone flags, past the room with the Roland Penrose collage, I grinned. Stephen and I had hundreds of things in common. Who cared if he was a multi-millionaire and my boss?

  I slid through an old terrace door and strode along a little avenue of gently moving limes round to the back terrace where the pool was. He was still there, cutting through the wat
er. A pair of sweet old slippers sat by the side of the pool with his watch, which curled round as if trying to remember the shape of his wrist. I wanted to put it on. Slide my feet into the old slippers. Instead I sat on a marble bench and waited for him to turn and swim towards me.

  ‘BONJOUR!’ he shouted, doing just that. ‘Comment ça va, ma jolie?’

  I grinned. I hadn’t even bothered to look in the mirror, just marched outside in my old wrap, yet he was calling me his jolie. Of course he was. Weren’t all women beautiful when they were in love?

  Steady on, I cautioned myself. No need for the L word.

  ‘I’m well,’ I called. ‘What a stunning morning!’

  ‘It’s a peach, isn’t it?’ He pulled himself out of the pool, water sliding off the strong brown body I was beginning to know so well. I looked away. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t decent. Forgive me, Father, for I have a serious desire to sin …

  ‘Wait for me a second and I’ll show you some more brilliant things. This is my favourite château in the whole of France!’

  I laughed. ‘Oh, to be so familiar with all the châteaux in France.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Twat.’ He looked bashful. ‘Let me at least take you inside for a naughty breakfast.’

  ‘Naughty?’

  ‘Come with me.’ He threw on a stripy cotton shirt and old cargo shorts, which had been hanging on a tree. I’d never seen him in shorts. Naturally, he looked perfect.

  We walked, talking easily. Before long Stephen steered me sideways through a door and I found myself in the main kitchen. It was vast. Many areas were taken over by gleaming metal counter-tops and uninspiring racks of pans, but the end we’d arrived in was as it might have been a hundred years ago, with a foot-pump tap and old grooved wooden worktops dotted with bits of china, half-drunk cups of coffee and trays of croissants ready for the oven. The kitchen staff smiled but carried on making chocolatines and juicing plump golden oranges.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Flint,’ said the woman who seemed to be in charge. ‘I hope you slept well. Can I get you the usual?’