‘The company does,’ he admitted, ‘and I find it embarrassing, but we basically have to have one, with offices in so many places. So I plant more bloody sustainable forests than farmers plant carrots. I’m the ultimate guilty capitalist.’ He smiled at me suddenly, an intense sort of a smile that made me feel like he could see all of me. ‘So much about my life must look ostentatious and gaudy,’ he said, ‘but I reckon that as long as I stay nice underneath, it’s okay.’
‘I reckon so too,’ I said. We were still looking right at each other.
The moment passed. ‘Right, well, I’d better take some money from you,’ I said.
‘What time are you back here tomorrow?’ He handed me some banknotes and I got up to find him a receipt. ‘Will you get a lie-in at all?’
I explained that I worked all over London and was only there two afternoons a week.
‘Crikey. No wonder you’re tired! Well, I hope someone’s going to make you a lovely dinner and give you a nice massage all of your own.’ He pulled on his coat, a wool affair in a grey herringbone.
‘Um, not tonight.’ I was unwilling to tell him that I lived alone.
‘No?’
‘No.’
‘Oh dear! Well, Annie Mulholland, I demand that you get a very expensive takeaway. The sort that arrives with a bottle of Chablis and a bunch of flowers.’
Stephen looked as if he cared about my evening a great deal, possibly more than he cared about his own. And I was impressed that he’d not only remembered my name but been brave enough to call me Annie.
I wished for a second that he would be there when I got home, serving something wholesome in a nice rustic bowl, with that smile and those warm, penetrating eyes. Being all handsome and leaderish.
The reality was that I’d arrive at a lonely, dark house and probably eat two chocolate mousses before passing out.
‘Can’t you just work in one clinic?’ he persisted. ‘So you don’t have to spend your life on the run?’
I explained, as briefly as I could, why my work situation was as it was.
‘You poor thing,’ he said. I handed him a receipt and shrugged.
‘You’re very talented at what you do, Annie. That was the nicest hour I can remember. Although you’re sub-standard at the old admin, I’m afraid. You’ve made this receipt out for September and, unless I’m much mistaken, it’s March the fifteenth.’
‘Oh, God, sorry! I do this sort of thing all the time – it drives me mad!’ I wrote him a new one, thinking that this was probably the longest conversation I’d had in years with a man who wasn’t Tim or my dad.
‘I’ll have my wellbeing people get in touch,’ Stephen said. ‘If you’re interested in becoming a supplier of services to the company, they can arrange direct payment, so you don’t have to deal with physical money next time I come.’
‘Oh! Yes, I’d love to talk to them about that!’
‘Excellent.’
‘Thank you,’ I said suddenly. ‘Thank you for being so concerned. It’s very kind.’
‘We men aren’t all bad,’ Stephen said, as I handed him the new receipt. ‘Some of us are actually quite pleasant.’
I ducked my head, fussing around with the receipt book. If only you knew, I thought.
‘I read a book once,’ he continued, ‘about a man who was stuck. His life had gone so far from the direction he wanted it to that he barely knew himself any more. He was sad, exhausted, and felt completely alone in the world.’
‘Oh, yes?’
‘This man didn’t know what to do, so he began by hugging himself throughout the day. Telling himself that everything would work out fine.’ He paused. ‘It touched me. I tried it, and it was lovely. Maybe you could try it some time.’
After he’d gone I stood in the reception area for several minutes. I hadn’t expected that at all.
I went home, ate two Gü chocolate mousses and passed out after fifteen minutes of a Jeremy Paxman documentary about the Great War. I didn’t hug myself.
I received a call at eight fifteen the next morning.
‘It’s Stephen Flint,’ said a vaguely familiar voice. ‘How are you!’
The blue-eyed boy. He must have been back to my website. To my surprise, I rather liked that idea.
I watched the rammed Overground train pull into Homerton station, people squashed up against the doors like gherkins in a jar. My heart sank. The sky was filthy brown and if I didn’t fight my way on I’d get soaked.
‘Hi, Stephen,’ I said, tensing anxiously as I prepared for the scrum.
‘Would you like to come and work for us in-house?’ Stephen asked, as casually as one might say, ‘Would you like a packet of crisps?’
I had managed to lever myself into the train but my worn Burmese bag was trapped between a pregnant belly and a briefcase. I tried to coax it out without squashing the belly.
‘Hello?’ Stephen sounded as if he’d just walked into a coffee bar. ‘Double espresso, please,’ he said, in the other direction. ‘Can you hear me, Annie? I was asking if you’d like to come and work for us. That massage was top rate, and if I brought someone like you into the offices our wellbeing coaches would die happy. You don’t want to carry on schlepping around London, do you? We could give you the treatment room of your dreams here. Soft lighting. Oxygenating plants. A man with pan pipes.’
The carriage, stuffed with people, was completely silent. I was shoved up against an old man with a bobble hat who smelt of death. He had done nothing at all other than smell bad but already my heart was thumping anxiously at his proximity.
‘Erm?’ I said. Was Stephen Flint seriously offering me a job? I arched my back to keep as far away from the bobble-hat man as possible.
‘I could even try to get a little health-food shop installed.’ I could hear him grinning. ‘Hemp bars and beetroot juice and, er, other disgusting things.’
I wanted to laugh but I was scared someone on the train might actually kill me. The atmosphere was silently furious.
‘Come in and see how we work,’ Stephen invited. ‘Our building will knock you out. We’ve got pool rooms, a gym with classes and a yoga studio, music spaces, kitchens run by some of the world’s best chefs and even a little spa. Famous musicians come and gig here. There’s three concierges, and two lovely office dogs that come in to de-stress anyone who’s having a bad day. We’re determined to wrestle Employer of the Year off Google this year.’
Kate Brady worked for Google in Dublin. The day we’d met, in one of the few travellers’ bars in Bangladesh, she’d had my jaw on the floor with her tales of the offices there. We’d pondered our respective jobs one hot night while getting drunk on Bangladeshi rice beer and, even though I’d only ever wanted to practise alternative therapies, I’d felt strangely jealous. I’d found myself longing to work somewhere like Kate’s office, where I’d have a routine and someone else organizing my day. Somewhere nice and safe where I could just sort of disappear among hundreds of other employees.
Now someone I’d met twelve hours ago was on the phone offering me just that, at a place I could cycle to in twenty-five minutes. It’s a blast, working in that office, I remembered Kate saying. It’s nicer than my house, Annie! I’d live there if I could!
‘You gave me the best massage I’ve ever had,’ Stephen was saying. ‘If everyone on my team had access to one of those each fortnight they’d fly. We’ll pay you very handsomely indeed and you’ll get all the employee benefits. At least come in for a visit.’ He hesitated. ‘I really hope you don’t mind me saying this, but you did rather strike me as someone who could do with a break.’
‘CAN YOU MOVE YOUR FUCKING BAG, PLEASE?’ shouted the owner of the pregnant belly. ‘I’M PREGNANT.’
‘Fat bitch,’ muttered a man on the other side of me.
‘Eat me,’ whispered the old man with the bobble hat.
I could almost hear Kate Brady. Are you MAD, woman? Go for it!
‘Yes,’ I said, to the voice on the phone. ‘I can come in t
omorrow morning.’
‘And he just hired you?’ Lizzy breathed. ‘Like, this morning?’ She was pink with excitement.
‘Yes. And for once I was actually capable of making a decision! I said yes on the spot!’
Lizzy screamed.
‘It sounds like he is trying to get into your knickers,’ Claudine muttered. ‘He cannot just ’ire you like that! He knows nothing of you!’
‘It’s just insane, isn’t it?’ I beamed, ignoring Claudine. ‘And get this, he offered me nearly TWENTY GRAND more than I make now! CAN YOU ACTUALLY BELIEVE IT? Then he showed me this incredible area on the top floor, where you can see all the way across London to the countryside, and he said they’d convert it into a bespoke Annie Kingdom. That was what really swung it. I mean, you couldn’t have designed a better place for a treatment room. Spectacular views and yet total privacy, it’s stunning!’
‘He called it this?’ Claudine asked. ‘A bespoke Annie Kingdom?’
‘Yes. Isn’t that nice?’
‘It is.’ Claudine smiled reluctantly. ‘It is very nice indeed. But I still do not think I like the sound of him. This is not the behaviour of a good businessman!’
I sighed. This sort of thing was not unusual with Claudine. ‘Claudie, I’m a massage therapist, not a hedge-fund manager. I showed him I’m great at massage, and he wanted to hire me because he’s expanding his wellbeing service. Did you want him to interview me for five hours, or something?’
‘Yes.’ She humphed.
‘Oh, Claudie, get over yourself, darling,’ Lizzy told her affectionately, and Claudine couldn’t help but laugh.
‘Sorry,’ she said, smiling apologetically at me. ‘I am the worst.’
I loved my friends. When my therapist challenged me to socialize with more people, I often pointed out that Le Cloob contained the best people in the world, so why would I bother? She would say I was missing the point. I would pretend not to hear her.
‘So, what are the offices like?’ Lizzy asked. ‘I’ve heard they’re legendary.’
‘They are. And, most importantly, the food is ALL FREE! Stephen took me for breakfast with organic eggs and mangoes and stuff, and I got so excited I stole a Danish pastry. Plus just as I was leaving I bumped into Stephen’s wellbeing coach, who turned out to be Jamilla from next door to our old Hackney practice, Claudie. Remember her? It all seemed too good to be true. But maybe I’ve gone mad. I mean, it’s a massive corporate company.’
‘You mean, there’ll be people there who have proper jobs?’ Lizzy smiled. ‘Darling, you’ll have nothing to do with all that. You’ll just shuffle around in your own private practice, like the strange old lady you are, only this time you’ll have a stream of guaranteed clients.’ She threw more wine at my glass. ‘You’ll be rich! You can buy some proper clothes!’
‘Never.’ I smiled.
‘I insist that you buy proper clothes, my little mushroom,’ Claudine said. ‘I cannot have you working at a media consultancy in batik.’
‘You really deserve this, Pumpkin,’ Tim chipped in. ‘You’ve not enjoyed the last few years.’
Thrilled to have the support of Le Cloob, I allowed myself to feel truly excited. I’d worried that a vague, forgetful, incense-burning recluse like me, who sometimes wore actual clogs, might never fit into a company like that, but they were right: I didn’t need to. I would be up there in my lovely peaceful Annie Kingdom, a little oasis of healing and goodness far from the corporate crowd.
‘Well, there you have it,’ I muttered dazedly. ‘This little hippie has got herself a big job in Posh London.’
‘That’s it?’ Lizzy asked. ‘That’s all you have to say? You’re not going to talk to us about – oh, I don’t know – your fit new boss?’
I felt my face turn tomato-red. ‘He’s just my boss, Lizzy. Nothing to say.’
Stephen’s hand had brushed mine as we’d stepped into the lift earlier, and I’d nearly had one of those spontaneous orgasms that you read about in magazines about weird people. It hadn’t escaped my notice that I’d experienced none of my usual panic about male intimacy with Stephen. It hadn’t escaped my notice either that I’d actually enjoyed, rather than felt stressed-out by, his company.
‘Is he married? Girlfriended? Mentally sound?’
‘I’m sure he’ll be married. Probably has a family in Surrey. Or maybe one of the trendy bits of Essex. Where was that Essex village they had in the Guardian’s Let’s Move to … article last Saturday? With the Michelin-starred pub? That’d be the sort of place he’d live. With his wife, and his …’ I trailed off.
‘I can see you haven’t been thinking about him much,’ Lizzy remarked.
‘Of course I’ve thought about him. He’s been absolutely lovely. Like a knight in shining armour. But that doesn’t mean I fancy him.’
Of course it meant I fancied him. Stephen had taken me out for lunch today to offer me the package personally. Rather than somewhere formal and starchy-tableclothed, where I would have been desperately uncomfortable, we had gone to a funny little wholefoods café where we had chatted about India, boy-bands and dogs.
He’d ordered us organic wine, which was a novelty, and I’d got a fraction drunk. When he offered me the most appealing working arrangement I’d ever heard of I’d been horrified to see two embarrassing tears of joy plopping into my glass.
‘Ah, you see?’ Stephen had grinned broadly. ‘This is why I wanted to make the offer to you myself!’
‘So you could watch me cry?’
‘Ha-ha. Yes.’ He rested his chin on his hands and looked straight at me. ‘Obviously this is what my HR team are there for but – ah, I dunno. Don’t tell anyone I said this but it means more to me than you can possibly imagine to see someone so happy at being invited to join this firm. My firm. Something I made. It makes it all worth while.’ He glanced around furtively. ‘Seriously, if you ever tell anyone I said that, I’ll have to kill you. I’m meant to be a ball-breaker.’
Another two plops into the fruity Rioja below me. He was right. I was happy.
‘Pull yourself together,’ I said to myself. No man, other than my dad and Tim, had ever seen me cry: this was terrible! And yet there was something so normal about Stephen Flint, so safe. Warm and sexy and – ‘STOP IT,’ I hissed.
‘Yes, stop it right now,’ Stephen said sternly.
Briefly, shockingly, he touched my arm. ‘From the conversation we had the other night, it sounds like you’ve had a rough time of it in recent years.’
I didn’t trust myself to speak.
‘And although it’s completely unprofessional of me to tell you, Annie, I’ve had quite a rough time in my own life lately. It’s left me quite wobbly. So I’m very happy to be able to help you.’
I was surprised. Men like him didn’t have rough times. ‘Men like me don’t have rough times?’ he asked, as if reading my mind. ‘Everyone in the company would agree with you. They think I’m a corporate machine, the Big Strong Leader. I’m still a human being, though.’ He smiled. ‘Still not immune to bad times. I like a good cry into a glass of red wine as much as the next person.’
I wanted to ask him more, find out what could possibly go wrong for a man as gorgeous and successful as him, but I was tongue-tied. I was having lunch with a man! And although for most people a low-key lunch would be no big bananas – nothing was happening, after all, save some vague bonding over unspecified crappy times – it was an enormous step for me.
‘How did you start FlintSpark?’ I asked. ‘You’re very young to be a CEO.’
‘How old do you think I am?’
I blushed hotly. ‘I don’t know. Please don’t make me guess.’
‘I’m thirty-eight. And it all happened quite easily, really. That’s the thing about business. If you’re a natural, it doesn’t need to take half a lifetime to get to the top.’
I drank some more naughty lunchtime wine. The drunker I got the easier it felt to be here, doing this … this thing. I kept waiting for the usual
thoughts to kick off – he’s trying to trap me; he’s probably going to write a hideous contract I’ll never escape from; he’s going to find out I’m a total waste of space and sack me – but none of them came. I just felt good.
‘I started out on a graduate programme like everyone else,’ Stephen explained, ‘and I was sacked after six months for being “too good”. That’s what they told me and, by the way, I’m not being big-headed. I worked at a couple of other places but similar things happened – people felt threatened by me. I got fed up with it all and decided to set up on my own. Clients wanted to come with me, because they knew they were in good hands, and I persuaded a load of stinking-rich venture capitalists to invest. And boom. Here we are.’
‘Wow.’ Imagine being able to do that! ‘How did you get the investors to give you so much money?’
‘Oh, mostly I lied,’ Stephen said airily. Then, catching sight of my face, he added, ‘They expect you to lie, Annie – and they lie right back. As long as everyone makes money, everyone’s happy. Those guys are laughing all the way to the bank now.’
I hated the sound of business.
‘It’s ugly,’ Stephen admitted, ‘very ugly at times, but it’s what I was born to do. And I send literally millions of pounds to charities. We’ve built five schools in rural Cambodia and we’ve set up literacy projects across the world. We’ve dug wells, provided doctors and funded infrastructure in some of the very poorest countries. I go out and meet every single community we help. It’s not all bad, you know. And, as I said, I’m still a fairly nice bloke. An average bloke who’s never really got used to daytime drinking and who is currently a bit squiffy. Oops. Can we order lots of desserts, please?’
I looked at Stephen and had a thought that excited and terrified me: I wonder what it would be like to kiss you. That was when I stopped drinking.
Le Cloob were still looking as dazed as I felt.
‘I need to see a picture of him,’ Lizzy decided. Embarrassingly, there was already a Google image search on when I got my phone out. ‘Ha! You’ve been stalking him!’ She giggled as she took my phone. ‘Oh, blimey,’ she muttered. ‘Kiddo, he is hot.’
The Day We Disappeared Page 4
