Josh disappeared following a disagreement with his sister, yet Angela is reluctant to divulge any details about what was said on that terrible day. Instead, we ask her gently to tell us about the letters she writes.
‘I don’t post them, of course,’ she says, laughing without humour. ‘But I do imagine him reading them one day, when he decides to come home, and I wanted there to be a record of everything that’s happened, all the things he may have missed. Sometimes the letters are nothing more than a list of what I ate that week, while others are a tirade of anger. Being cross is easier than being scared,’ she explains. ‘Anger is a productive emotion; grief is not.’
Asked what she would like to say to her brother exclusively through the pages of Me Time magazine, Angela takes a piece of paper from the pocket of her cardigan and unfolds it.
‘Dear Josh,’ she begins. ‘It has been ten years now since you went missing, and not a single day has passed, from that one to this, when I have not looked for you. I have called every hospital, every hostel and every shelter. I have spoken to the police, to charities, to those living on the streets. I have walked the length of Aberystwyth both day and night and shown your photo to anyone willing to look.
‘But despite all that, I have not found so much as a trace of you.
‘I remember you, every day. I remember the baby with the pudgy arms who used to ball his fist around my hair and pull it into his mouth to chew; the gap-toothed toddler who would slip into my bed after lights out because he was scared of the witch in the wardrobe. I picture the little boy with the matching scuffed knees who rode his bike into the garden pond; the teenager with the acne who pinched the last of my crisps; the sullen youth who forgot what it was to laugh; the gaunt young man with grime under his nails and the haunted eyes of a human being who has seen too much, hurt too much, felt too much. I remember it all.
‘You are still a son, still a friend, still my brother and I still love you, Josh. I do.’
The letter has a powerful effect on the atmosphere in the room, and for a few minutes, the two of us sit in silence, the only sound the clock that we can hear ticking in the kitchen, marking the time, counting all the moments that poor Angela must spend without her brother Josh.
Does she have anything else she wants to say to the readers of Me Time?
Angela nods, her eyes wet with unshed tears.
‘Please, help me to find my brother,’ she says. ‘Help me find Josh.’
Chapter 3
Kate stared at the photo of the missing man as she furiously wiped the tears off her face. It felt almost cathartic to be crying due to the pain another person was going through, as opposed to herself, but this strange relief did nothing to detract from the tragedy of the story. She tried to put herself in Angela’s position, but it was impossible to imagine a world in which her brother would ever choose to run away and never see his family again. Even after he moved to Croatia with his husband Filippo, Toby called or texted daily. He had always been there for her, was here for her again now, down in the kitchen, concocting a plan to cheer her up, and Kate had not even thanked him yet.
That was the problem with family, though – it was easy to take them for granted; to assume they would love and support you unconditionally for as long as they were alive. And not just family. Kate knew that James had taken her for granted – that he most likely still did. And why would he think anything different, when she had spent every day since their break-up begging him to reconsider, telling him how much she loved him and that she would do anything he asked if he would only agree to try again.
Perhaps that was exactly where she was going wrong.
An idea began to nudge its way through her subconscious, elbowing aside the predictable barriers of uncertainty and restraint, hastily erected by the one emotion that had so often let her down in the past: fear. She must not give in to it this time. For this plan to work, Kate was going to need to be both brave and steadfast.
By the time Toby and Robyn returned, three mugs and a plate of orange Club bars on a tray between them, she had read the article through again and was full of conviction.
‘You look as if you’ve been crying again,’ observed Toby with concern.
‘I was,’ Kate admitted, taking a sip of her tea. ‘But not about James this time, you’ll both be glad to hear.’
‘That man has shown his true colours,’ declared Robyn, unsheathing her chocolate biscuit. ‘And they are the same shit brown as this Club.’
Kate smiled but didn’t laugh.
‘I have a proposition for you,’ she said to Toby, who was happily submerging his own half-eaten biscuit in his tea. ‘It’s going to sound a bit out there, but I think it’s got a good shot of working.’
‘OK,’ he agreed, somewhat warily. ‘When you say working, do you mean––?’
‘Getting James to see sense, yes.’
‘But I thou––’ began Robyn, falling silent as Kate gave her a pleading stare.
‘How would you feel about me coming to stay for a while?’ she asked her brother.
‘What – you mean in Croatia?’
‘Well, I know you and Filippo are due to open the hostel this summer, but I also know that the place is nowhere near ready. Mum told me,’ she added, as Toby grimaced in reluctant agreement. ‘According to her, it will be a miracle if you open in time to make any revenue this year. I thought that if I came to stay for a bit, I could help you out. I did mine and James’s place up on my own, so I know my way around a paint roller.’
Toby glanced at Robyn, who started to laugh.
‘What?’ demanded Kate. ‘What aren’t you telling me?’
‘I’m not laughing at you,’ Robyn assured her. ‘It’s just funny that you’ve gone and done one better on us. I was all for whisking you away on a spa break or something, and instead you’ve come up with this far better idea all by yourself. Some distance from James and all this nonsense with the video is exactly what you need – I’m proud of you for realising as much. Out of sight will hopefully become out of mind where he is concerned and––’
‘That’s not why I want to go,’ Kate interrupted. Picking up the magazine, she tossed it across the bed so Robyn could see the article she had been reading.
‘What – you’re planning to run away?’ she asked, clearly confused.
‘Well, yes. But not in the way that man did. I just thought that maybe if I wasn’t so, you know, available, that James might miss me. For the whole time we were together, he has known exactly where I am, who I’m with, what I’m doing – and I figured that if I took all those things away for a while, it might help him realise that he does still love me after all.’
There was a silence as Robyn and Toby considered this, each of their brows furrowed by a blend of concern and disappointment.
‘Don’t you think it would be better to try and get over him?’ Toby said at last.
‘My thoughts exactly.’ Robyn screwed up her Club wrapper and lobbed it in the direction of the bin. ‘Every day for the past eight years, you’ve been at that man’s beck and call, tending to his every bloody whim. It’s about time he had a taste of life with no adoring girlfriend in it – see how he likes them apples.’
Kate got up from the desk to pick the wrapper up off the floor.
‘I don’t want to do it as some sort of big revenge, though,’ she tempered. ‘I just want him to miss me for a little while. I know what I want,’ she went on, as Robyn relinquished a sigh of frustration.
‘I hope you don’t mean that all you want is James. This could be an opportunity for you to work out what you want for yourself, not for him.’
Kate thought about saying that they amounted to the same thing, but she didn’t dare.
‘It would be great to have some help,’ put in Toby diplomatically. ‘You know me and Filippo have basic aesthetic blindness. We’re at the stage now where we’re choosing paint colours and furniture for the dorms – I bet you love all that pernickety stuff. Remember that dolls’ house you ha
d when we were kids? You decorated every room differently – there was an aquarium room, a farmyard room, even a SuperTed room, if I recall rightly?’
‘It’s honestly a brilliant idea to get away, even if I don’t wholeheartedly agree with your motives for doing so,’ said Robyn, who had started flicking through the stack of magazines again. ‘I guess the alternative is that you sit here festering in your childhood bedroom all summer, feeling sorry for yourself and clicking the refresh button on Twitter.’
‘I’m not festering, I’m hiding from widespread public ridicule.’
Toby gave her a sympathetic smile as he fished his phone out of his jeans pocket.
‘I’ll just call Filippo and let him know then, shall I? I’m sure there will be a free seat on my flight next week. It’s still early in the season.’
‘This is so exciting!’ Robyn clapped her hands. ‘I’m so going to come over and visit too, just as soon as I can get some time off bloody work.’
She called it ‘bloody work’, but Kate knew her friend was passionate about her job. She always had been, right since the age of fifteen, when she’d decided occupational therapy was what she wanted to do. At the time, Kate had pretended that she had a similar yearning to become a primary school teacher, but that could not have been further from the truth. And even if she had wanted to follow that career path, her grades had never been good enough. Where was the incentive to study if you didn’t care about the outcome? It was easier to do the minimum and hope for the best, which she did, although she’d come to accept that her best was always distinctly average.
Still, it had been good enough for James, so it had been good enough for Kate.
Until it wasn’t.
The truth was Kate did not want to go to Croatia simply as a ploy to win James back. There was another, deeper reason – one that she could not admit to her brother, or her best friend, or even to herself. The urge to run away, to flee the debilitating pain that had haunted her for far longer than this recent heartbreak, had been building for some time. There were too many reminders of it here, too many emotional landmines liable to blow, and Kate could not face any of it. Not yet.
Perhaps not ever.
Chapter 4
Six days later . . .
Kate and Toby landed in Split late on a Sunday afternoon, the high tepid sun above the airport not the only warm welcome they received. Filippo was waiting for them in the arrivals lounge, a home-made sign bearing a large red heart clutched in his hands; he hurried forward the moment they emerged, pulling them both into an enthusiastic embrace.
‘I miei amori,’ he gushed, covering Kate’s face with kisses before turning to his husband.
‘Soppy gits,’ Kate remarked, as the two men rubbed noses affectionately. ‘Remind me what the Italian for “get a room” is again?’
‘This one.’ Filippo looped a long slim arm through Kate’s, almost toppling her gigantic suitcase in the process. ‘Still funny.’
‘She’s putting on a brave face,’ Toby told him. ‘Don’t be fooled. What she needs from us is TLC – and lots of it.’
‘Oh, povera bambina,’ Filippo crooned. ‘Toby told me all about what happened. James is an idiota.’
‘At least that’s one I don’t need translating.’
‘Come along.’ Filippo was drawing Kate away now. ‘We will make everything better. Wait until you see the new place, it will make doves flutter inside your heart.’
‘My husband is nothing if not poetic,’ drawled Toby, who was following them with both sets of luggage.
‘Tobe showed me some pictures on the flight,’ Kate began, but Filippo was shaking his smooth, dark head.
‘Pictures,’ he repeated disdainfully, flicking his hand dismissively as he weaved them through a sea of tourists, airport staff and waiting taxi drivers. ‘This is your first time in Croatia, sì?’
Kate nodded.
‘Then very soon, you will have a new love in your life. All thoughts of James will be forgotten when you see the clear waters, feel the sun on your face, hear the birds singing in the morning as the church bells ring out across the harbour.’
With each proclamation, he tossed a flamboyant hand out to the side, narrowly missing anyone foolish enough to get too close. They were nearing the exit now, and Kate could see palm fronds set against a sky of the deepest blue. Toby had described Croatia as being ‘the best of Italy, Greece, Spain and Eastern Europe all rolled into one’, but until she had looked at a map a few weeks ago, Kate had not even been sure exactly where the country was located. She’d never paid much attention in geography lessons at school.
Filippo’s rhapsodic praise of the place continued as they walked across the car park, and he barely paused for breath when they reached the jeep and loaded up their bags. After finally letting go of Kate so she could clamber into the passenger seat, he declared her to be ‘minuscola’ and switched the subject to dinner instead.
‘I hope you like fish,’ he said, leaning on the horn as two bewildered-looking old ladies wandered across the road in front of them. Toby, who was laughing in the back seat, chided his husband for being so impatient.
‘This is how Italians drive,’ he explained to Kate, as Filippo took the second corner so fast that she was flung sideways over the gearstick. ‘The first time I ever got in a car with him, I thought it was the end of me.’
Filippo tutted good-naturedly. ‘You British are too polite,’ he said, mounting a kerb in order to overtake two taxis. ‘If you want something in life, push to the front of the queue to get it; if you want to get somewhere quickly, put your foot on the gas.’
‘If you want to not be punched on the nose or end up in a ditch, ignore Filippo,’ intoned Toby, to a cry of bemused outrage from his husband.
Kate had always admired the dynamic of their relationship, with its teasing and playful banter. Toby was more subdued than his spirited other half, but it was precisely this difference that balanced the two of them out so well. Filippo adored her brother, while Toby loved him back with a fierce passion that felt to Kate all the more powerful because of how rarely she glimpsed it. There was nothing showy about their feelings; they were both secure and mutually besotted, so there was no need to prove anything to the world. Kate had thought she had the same thing with James, that when he told her how much he loved her, he had meant it. Could she really have got it so wrong?
They were hurtling towards the port now, where they would catch a ferry over to Hvar, but Kate barely registered the scenery that was flashing past. Taking out her phone, she switched on her roaming and opened Facebook. Seventy-five people had liked her ‘check-in’ at Gatwick Airport, sixteen of whom had left comments asking where she was off to and how long she would be away. Kate scanned them all, her pulse accelerating as she searched for James’s name. But there was no sign. Either he hadn’t seen her update, or he did not care enough to comment. Kate felt the disappointment run like a lance through her chest. She had been convinced her plan would work and that he would be unable to resist getting in touch to find out where she’d gone.
To be sure, she checked all her other messenger apps and platforms, but there was nothing from James. Tears began to threaten, and Kate blinked them furiously away, angry with herself for being so weak, only to veer from that to sudden hope as a text message arrived.
It was from a local mobile network, welcoming her to Croatia.
‘Bloody hell!’ she grumbled, coinciding her curse words with a particularly hair-raising example of overtaking by Filippo.
‘That is the spirit!’ he replied happily, tooting the horn with appreciation.
Kate was vaguely aware that her brother was providing an ongoing commentary from the back seat of the jeep, telling her about Split’s Roman harbour and the ancient emperor’s palace that provided the old town with its intriguing layout of covered lanes and narrow courtyards. It was interesting, but Kate could not work up the required enthusiasm to listen properly. Her mind was solely on James, on the absence
of any message, of the big gaping hole that had opened up inside her.
They weren’t far from the ferry port now, and Toby had switched from the subject of medieval architecture to calcium carbonate, which he was now earnestly explaining was the elemental magic they had to thank for Croatia’s famously blue-green waters.
‘You’ll see what I mean once we’re on the boat,’ he went on, pointing through the windscreen. ‘Not far now.’
It wasn’t until they had driven aboard, parked up, and were standing side by side along the vast car ferry’s outer railings that Kate’s frantically beating heart began to slow. She had felt trapped inside the jeep, her anxiety filling the small space to such a suffocating degree that she had eventually sat on her hands, unable to trust herself not to fling open the door and leap out onto the tarmac. As the ferry’s vast engine shook the boards beneath their feet and salty spray found its way from the sea into the air around them, Kate gazed back towards the city they had just left behind and took it in properly for the first time.
A scatter of white-stone buildings decorated a shoreline dressed up by tall palms, the red rooftops above a punchy hit of colour against the cobalt sweep of the sky. Low-lying clouds were tossed like torn cotton wool across the horizon, while mountains lay further still, as silent and imposing as sleeping lions.
It would be so easy to slip away into one of those labyrinthine streets and lose herself; or set sail and moor up on a distant island – one uninhabited by people or industry; a place where nobody would come looking, where there was nothing on which to snag her fragile emotions. But then, just as rapidly, thoughts of the life she had left behind overtook her.
She must not allow herself to forget the reason why she had come here. The summer stretched out in front of her like an enormous chessboard, and by flying to Croatia, she had moved her first pawn into position. No matter how James responded, or how many strategic moves he made, Kate had to believe that she was capable of taking back her king.
The Getaway: A holiday romance for 2021 - perfect summer escapism! Page 3