I slipped out of Sandra’s sitting room and left the house, closing the door quietly behind me. Dirk and Woody were asleep in the porch; they thumped their tails lazily on the floor as I stepped over them and escaped to the stable block, checking all around me for trouble. ‘It would be at least four hours until anyone could arrive,’ I reminded myself. ‘Minimum. Probably even longer.’ But there was a trail now. A trail to Kate Brady of Hythe Farm in Somerset.
It was windy and snippy outside; little spots of rain buried themselves in my hair as I ran over to Stumpy’s stable.
He was still up, pulling away at his haynet.
‘Hello,’ I said. My eyes filled with tears as soon as I touched his nose. ‘I’ve come to say goodbye.’
Stumpy dropped a load of hay on my arm. ‘Do you have treats of any sort?’ he wanted to know. ‘Polos? Carrots? Anything at all that I can eat?’
And with that I started sobbing.
Stumpy paused in his crunching for a second, staring at me.
‘I love you, you silly thing,’ I whispered. ‘You saved my life. You and your dad.’ I slid my arms round his neck, pressing my cheek against his warm, sweet-smelling hair. ‘I owe you so much,’ I told him. Stumpy stayed still for a few moments but in the end his stomach won and he moved away to take another mouthful.
But he was back straight away, watching me with those big kind eyes. ‘I’ll miss you for the rest of my life,’ I whispered, tears streaming down my face. ‘You big brave bugger. You lovely person. You funny boy.’
And before I had time to argue with myself, I made myself turn and walk away. No looking back, Brady. Move in a straight line, leave no trace.
‘What are you doing out here?’
I screamed. My voice was snatched up by the wind and hurled across the paddock, where the big oak swayed and swirled chaotically across the surface of the half-moon.
‘Kate? What’s wrong? It’s me!’
Mark, in a hopelessly unfashionable jumper with his sponsor’s name emblazoned across the front. His attempt at ‘dressing up’ for his guests, which had made me feel all smiley and warm when I’d seen it earlier. Before my life was blown wide open again.
‘Sorry, boss,’ I muttered. ‘You took me by surprise, there.’
Mark cocked his head to one side. He smelt of woodsmoke from the sitting-room fire. ‘I brought pork pies,’ he told me. ‘Mum was getting very anxious that you hadn’t eaten one. Plus everyone was staring at me and using words like “bravery” and “hope”.’
I laughed, in spite of my pounding heart. ‘I love your mum.’
‘Same,’ he said. ‘But the pork-pie thing is pushing me over the edge. Look, let’s just get this over with. Shall we?’ He gestured at the paddock gate.
I glanced at the drive, picked out by lamps. Nothing yet.
I went over and leaned on the gate next to Mark and his crutches.
‘Er, cheers,’ he said, bumping his pork pie against mine. He took a large bite of his and I wondered how I would force myself to eat.
You have to go! shouted my head. Now! Get the merry hell out of here!
The problem was, I couldn’t. Almost equal to the fear was this intense, visceral feeling I had standing there with my boss, watching the eyes I’d come to know so well, both of us aware of what he’d said about me on camera. I managed to take a bite.
We stood there in the windy night, eating Sandra’s pork pies.
‘So what’s going on?’ Mark asked, when we’d finished.
‘Oh, er, you know,’ I said, dusting myself down with shaking hands. ‘Things.’
‘I see.’ He smiled. ‘Kate, you’re shivering. Do you want my jumper?’
‘No.’
‘Really? You’re shaking like a leaf.’
I checked the drive. ‘If I take your jumper then you’re cold too,’ I said lamely. ‘I don’t want that.’
He took his crutches and walked off to the tack room. ‘Stay there,’ he instructed.
I stayed. I watched the drive.
Mark came back with a stable rug, which he wrapped around us both. Closer than we had ever been, we stood stock-still and gazed out at the fields. The wind was brutal against my face and the rain still spiky and cold. I felt none of it.
‘So here’s where I am right now,’ Mark said, emboldened now that he wasn’t looking directly at me. ‘I’m going through a divorce, I’m fighting an evil woman for joint custody of my beautiful little girl and I’ve got a skeleton that’s only just beginning to stop feeling like a beanbag. My physio is exhausting and I’m shitting myself that I won’t be able to compete again. And shitting myself that maybe I don’t even want to compete again. And you know what the funny thing is about all of this, Kate? In spite of the above, I actually spend most of my time thinking about something else entirely.’
My hands were still trembling, even though my body felt oddly calm. ‘I can relate to that.’
‘You can?’
‘The last few years are like this big war zone in my head,’ I said carefully. ‘All these unexploded mines everywhere and yet all of that’s sort of gone into soft focus. There’s this other thing. This other … person.’ My voice wobbled and bowled off in the wind.
I could feel Mark’s warmth through my jumper now. God, the miracle of life. This man could have been dead by now. Could have died at Badminton, or in the helicopter. Instead he was here: vital, alive, the loveliest man on earth at this moment.
‘Good to hear it’s not just me,’ he said slowly. ‘You know. Feeling preoccupied.’
‘Yes.’
There was a long pause. Fallen leaves skittered across the yard behind us and I smelt the wet earth and the woodsmoke. My home.
(For how much longer? An hour?)
‘I think someone should say something,’ Mark said. ‘I think we should both say something brave.’
‘I don’t,’ I said quickly. ‘I think we should both be great big stinking cowards.’
‘But I don’t want to. I want to be brave, Kate.’
‘You’ve been brave! You were brave as, I don’t know, a bear in that hospital! A big bear, you know, that can pull down trees and fight lions and stuff …’
The delightful rumble of Mark’s laughter filtered through his jumper into mine. ‘I don’t think bears and lions live in the same place,’ he said. ‘But I like being a bear.’
He took a deep breath. ‘Kate …’ His voice was ragged with nerves but I heard the determination. Don’t let him say it, I thought, starting to panic. You’ve ruined enough lives as it is. Don’t ruin his too! Get out!
I felt a warm tear drop down my cheek. ‘I can’t have this conversation,’ I said. ‘I’m so sorry, Mark, but this isn’t the time. I have to go.’
‘What – to an empty barn? With all your team next door? And me trying to say –’
‘I’ve a stomach ache,’ I said hopelessly.
Mark turned to me. ‘I don’t know what’s going on here,’ he said softly. ‘But I have proper words to say. Words that should never go unsaid. And I want to say them. Will you let me?’
I shook my head as tears filled my eyes yet again. ‘I have words too, Mark. But we can’t have this conversation. You’ll have to trust me.’
Mark watched my face. To think I’d once imagined that there was coldness in these eyes. To think I’d been so blinkered that I saw meanness and cruelty where there was warmth and generosity, masked only by shyness. ‘Kate,’ he said quietly. ‘Look, Kate, I thought you’d had a burnout. I don’t understand why that means you’re not allowed to … to like someone.’
‘I know,’ I said, trying pointlessly to wipe my face with my hand. ‘But I really can’t. Especially the someone we’re talking about here. Even though that someone is in my mind all of the time, and even though that someone makes me feel all strong and happy.’ A huge sob burst out of me. I couldn’t stand it.
‘But what if the person likes you back, Kate? What if they lie awake listening to the mice in the ro
of and wonder what it would be like to hold you while you slept?’
Strands of Mark’s hair blew against the side of my face. ‘I care about them far too much to let them do that,’ I whispered. ‘If I thought that was the case I’d leave. Because it couldn’t work out well for that lovely person listening to the mice.’
‘But that person has suffered just about every harm going,’ Mark persisted. ‘And he’s survived. Part of the reason he’s survived is that you’ve given him hope. He’s full of you, all day and all night. What could you have up your sleeve that could possibly hurt him?’
‘A lot,’ I cried. ‘An awful lot. Mark, please don’t do this. I’m in trouble. A lot of trouble.’
Mark went silent for a while. Then his eyes, dark as the sky, swivelled back to mine. ‘I just checked with the man who’s mad about you,’ he said, and I saw the corners of his mouth turn up in a beautiful smile. ‘And he said he’s fine with whatever you’ve got.’
Mark’s arm had somehow slid around my waist. ‘Your broken rib,’ I said.
‘Shut up.’
‘I smell of pork pies,’ I added, and once again felt the soft rumble of laughter through his jumper.
‘Me too.’
I could feel his breath on my forehead. I was blind with confusion and desire and panic. I was meant to be Kate Brady, the chirpy little whatsit from Dublin, yet I barely knew my own name at that moment, let alone what I should do.
‘You could go,’ he said, and our faces somehow angled round towards each other. ‘Or you could just try it for five minutes. Saying some words. Or even not saying some words.’
Our noses were brushing now. I’m falling in love with you, I thought. This is a nightmare. The most perfect, beautiful nightmare.
Another tear fell down my cheek. ‘I don’t dare,’ I whispered.
‘I do,’ he said.
And then he kissed me, and everything slowed down. Mark slid his hands gently into my hair, and for the first time in my life I caught a glimpse of love. Not love from films or poems, or the illusion of love created by a lonely and desperate mind, but real love, bigger than all of its many problems.
I had to leave tonight.
Yet I couldn’t, and I wouldn’t.
Chapter Twenty-three
Annie
Lizzy and I sat cross-legged in front of a new fire in our pyjamas, opening the sprinkling of Christmas presents that Dad had got us. He never went mad but each gift was always perfect. This year he’d bought me an antique silver watch, because mine had broken, and a waterproof cover for my rucksack so that my stuff wouldn’t get ruined if I did go to Tibet for the massage training.
‘What did Stephen get you?’ Lizzy was asking. She had been given an antique necklace and a pair of very cool sunglasses that Dad had been recommended ‘by Janet off Facebook’. His burgeoning presence on social media was insane. Every time I saw him pop up on Facebook he’d made another friend, or joined another group, and (to my great embarrassment) had made a photo album of me and Lizzy as chubby little girls.
‘He’s giving me my presents in Paris,’ I said. ‘I’m so excited – I can’t believe I’ve never been!’
Stephen hadn’t called me yet, which I was completely fine about. No, really, completely fine. It was his family’s first Christmas without their mum and it would be monstrously selfish of me to get upset about his radio silence. He was taking me to Paris for a week on the day after Boxing Day – was that not enough?
New Year’s Eve was always the province of Le Cloob but this year we’d not made any arrangements, so I didn’t feel particularly guilty about the trip. Since our disastrous meeting in October we hadn’t met as a group. I was still very upset with Claudine, and although I suspected Lizzy agreed with quite a lot of what Claudine said, her loyalty would always be to me. And then, of course, there was Tim.
Tim.
Howling it out in therapy had helped, a little, and the longer we went without contact, the calmer I felt. On good days I wondered if perhaps I’d made it up, or at the very least overreacted. But the fact that Tim had not been in contact for two months spoke volumes.
Sometimes the guilt at just abandoning him was unbearable, but the fear was bigger. I could not have a man in my life, even one I’d known and trusted for years, who was thinking about me.
Trying to prevent Lizzy from realizing that Tim and I weren’t talking had been rather difficult, as had going back into therapy while I was dealing with a man who was at the end of his tether through work stress. I was far from fixed and Stephen had had to have serious words with me when I asked him if he’d put an extra lock on his front door.
It had been a slog. But it felt like change was in the air. Stephen and I were off to Paris for the New Year and when we got back I was moving in with him officially.
‘I definitely think we should get Dad drunk and cross-question him about this possible girlfriend,’ Lizzy said, leaning forward to blow at the fire with Dad’s ancient leather bellows.
‘Agreed. He’s a sly dog, our daddy.’
‘Oh, really? How so?’ Dad walked in with Mum’s wonky old tray, laden with stunning canapés. ‘A little something to tide us over until lunch,’ he said, smiling at our astonished faces.
‘DAD! How the hell did you do these?’
‘I saw them on Pinterest,’ he explained earnestly. Lizzy and I bellowed with laughter. ‘And then I cooked them last week. I did get a bit of help,’ he added, blushing slightly. ‘I froze them. Didn’t want to spend all of Christmas Day in the kitchen.’
We fell on them like savages.
‘These are bloody delicious!’ Lizzy shouted, through a mouthful of spiced lamb cutlet. ‘You clever thing!’
Dad, nibbling something wrapped in delicate pastry, positively glowed.
‘Right.’ Lizzy poured him a glass of sherry. ‘Daddy, we’ve had enough. You’re going to have to tell us about your ladyfriend immediately. Who is she? What’s the deal? Is she off the internet? Is she fit?’
Dad stared at Lizzy and then, to our absolute horror, his eyes filled with tears.
‘Daddy, no,’ Lizzy whispered, appalled. She ran off to get some tissues and I abandoned my crostini to comfort him. Dad batted at the tears, which were leaking silently out of his eyes.
‘Here,’ Lizzy said, shoving a big pile of balled-up toilet roll into his face.
Dad mopped at his cheeks and, slowly, pulled himself together. ‘Sorry about that,’ he said. ‘Just got a bit sad. A bit guilty. I know Georgie would’ve wanted me to meet someone, but seeing you two here I felt like I’d betrayed her. You know.’
We nodded understandingly, privately thinking that Mum was probably furious with him for having waited nearly thirty years.
‘I have met someone,’ he said bravely. ‘Linda, although I call her Linnie. She lives in Bakewell. Has a teenage boy called Rob who hates my guts. She’s a physics teacher, would you believe?’ He did a little swoony smile and I felt my stomach lurch happily. A physics teacher! Perfect! Bakewell! Perfect!
‘DADDY!’ Lizzy jumped on him, somehow landing neatly and curling up on his lap, like she used to when he made up stories for us.
‘She’s lovely,’ Dad said, from underneath Lizzy. ‘An absolute treasure. She runs the Bakewell women’s choir and she’s been wonderful about my, er, cautiousness.’
We all giggled. ‘It only took you the best part of three decades,’ I said. ‘You definitely don’t want to rush that one.’
Dad told us about ‘Linnie’, and how great she’d been at helping him get over his guilt and sadness at having finally met someone. ‘She didn’t bat an eyelid the first time I cried about Georgie,’ Dad added. ‘Not a whiff of jealousy, or insecurity, or any of that nonsense. In fact, she encouraged me to write a diary about all the happy things that have happened since Georgie died. Seeing my little girls grow up, transforming the garden, working with all of those fantastic authors … It wasn’t all sad, was it, my darlings?’
‘Absolu
tely not,’ Lizzy said.
‘No, it wasn’t. I thought it was very clever of Linnie to help me see that.’
I felt like my heart would burst.
‘I decided to do an online diary instead of a handwritten one,’ Dad continued, ‘one of those blog things, so that if I got to a point where I was ready to stop writing it, it’d always be there.’
‘Lovely,’ I said.
Dad looked proud. ‘I designed an extremely cool page, you know.’
Lizzy and I roared with laughter again.
‘But I think I’ve done with it now,’ he said. ‘I’m going to use my blog-writing time to get going on my novel. I’ve been sitting on it for more than a quarter of a century now, I think it might be time …’
After quite a lot of persuasion and a couple of glasses of brandy, Dad showed us his blog. Lizzy and I divided our time between reading his posts and making Christmas lunch. Because Mum had been vegan we’d always had hippie food at Christmas, but this year Dad had gone completely mad and bought a turkey. Nobody had any idea what to do with it. We flicked between Delia’s website and Dad’s blog, laughing and sometimes crying as we viewed all those lovely photos of us as children – frightened, sad, bereaved little babies – but, as Dad wrote, ‘Strong, stubborn little beasts.’
‘I really, really love it, Dad,’ I said, wrestling with a big bag of sprouts. The kitchen was full of steam and chaos, which Lizzy was making worse by playing a badly recorded CD of a mariachi band who’d been busking at St Pancras. It had been a long, long time since I’d seen the kitchen so full of life.
Dad was shyly pleased. ‘The local newspaper rather likes it too,’ he admitted. ‘They put it up for some award! Loads of people have read it and got in touch! Whatever next?’
‘It’s beautiful,’ I told him. ‘Our whole lives are there – everything!’
‘How’s Tim?’ Dad asked, looking at a very old picture of the two of us together.
‘Fine,’ Lizzy said. I exhaled, relieved. She still didn’t know. ‘Le Cloob is slightly on strike because Claudine was horrible to Annie about Stephen, but I’m sure we’ll all meet up soon.’
The Day We Disappeared Page 25