The Day We Disappeared

by Lucy Robinson

  I nodded glumly.

  ‘Only first I need to show you how to use the most dangerous machine in Somerset, known as the Tank. It rakes the indoor school, lifts up bales of straw and kills anyone who needs knocking off.’

  ‘I really hate this job,’ I muttered.

  Becca roared with laughter. ‘That’s my girl,’ she shouted. ‘That’s my girl!’

  By lunch I was certain I was dying. I couldn’t feel my fingers at all, my legs chafed where my wellies had pressed the stiff seams of my jeans into my skin, and my lip was bleeding where I’d chewed part of it off. I stank of horse wee and had hundreds of tiny pieces of horse bedding in my hair.

  So far this morning I’d had zero direct contact with horses. I’d raked the indoor school, scrubbed horse poo out of the horse walking machine, picked horse poo from one of the paddocks and spent a stinking hour sculpting horse poo on a giant muck heap. I’d filled endless buckets with icy water from a heavily insulated tap and had removed yet more horse poo from the area where Joe and Mark were saddling and unsaddling an endless procession of horses for exercise.

  It had been me and poo, without rest, all morning.

  During the sculpting of the muck heap, Becca had tried to teach me the different names for horse colours. I had been so useless at remembering them that we’d ended up with the giggles. The serious giggles. We’d stood there on top of the muck heap, which steamed unfragrantly in the bitingly cold air, and howled for quite some time.

  Mark had ridden past and glanced at us, folded over our yard forks, crying with mirth. He hadn’t looked pleased, but I couldn’t stop. I hadn’t laughed like that in weeks.

  I was so desperate for the toilet, by the time lunchtime arrived, that I almost cried when Tiggy strode into the downstairs loo ahead of me. ‘Argh,’ I whispered, hopping from one foot to the other outside the door.

  ‘She’s an evil one,’ whispered Joe, walking past. ‘I’ll fight her for you, if you like.’

  ‘Please don’t be fighting anyone,’ I said carefully, ‘or I’ll end up weeing into my sock, and that would be the end.’

  Joe roared with laughter as he rolled off into the kitchen. ‘I love you, Galway,’ he called. ‘I will love you for ever, my flame-haired Irish princess.’

  I realized I was smiling, which rather took me by surprise. And then I realized I actually felt quite good. Quite happy about how the morning had gone, even though I felt I might be dead. It had been wonderful to lose myself in manual labour, to be involved in a routine and responsible for the welfare of someone beyond myself.

  As the darkness had melted and our surroundings had come into view, I’d been reminded once again of how stunningly beautiful it was around there. The vivid green of the fields, sharpened brilliantly by the brown rugged hills that rose above them, speckled with yellow gorse, flint-grey rocks, white sheep.

  I hadn’t thought about the Bad Shit for nearly six hours! ‘Kate Brady is on fire!’ I told myself, as Tiggy flushed the loo. ‘She’s nailing this!’

  A few seconds later I collapsed my numb, freezing thighs on to the also-freezing porcelain, and for a few moments I allowed myself to drift off on a cloud of hopeful possibility.

  Then: ‘PET,’ Becca yelled through the toilet door. ‘You’ve forgotten your lunch with Mark!’

  I exploded out of that toilet as if it were on fire. I’d not had any direct contact with Mark during my morning’s work but just glimpsing him riding round and round in that indoor school – silent as a shadow, so shut off from all the human beings buzzing around him – had left me cold.

  ‘If he asks anything awkward, just lie,’ Becca advised, as I shoved my frozen feet back into my wellies. Pain roared down my left heel, which had already blistered. ‘And watch Maria. She acts like she hates Mark but she’ll destroy you if she thinks you’re a threat …’

  ‘Ideal,’ I called, running out. ‘I can hardly wait.’

  Who the hell were these people?

  It didn’t matter, I reminded myself. They would have to do.

  I balled my hair into a bun as I sprinted across the old farmyard, which separated our barn from the main house. The sun had slid out doubtfully from behind huge sheets of grey cloud, temporarily brightening the yellow stone of the farmhouse and picking out the woody twists of wisteria that covered the south- and west-facing walls. I drew in a long, cold breath of Somerset air and prayed for clemency.

  Sandra opened the door, wearing an apron saying ‘SEXY GRANNY!’ She was wide, wobbly and maternal, with an Alice band and glasses that magnified her kind eyes. She smelt of baking and cologne. ‘Ah, Katie,’ she said sweetly. ‘Welcome! How are you, darling?’ She made a feeble attempt to clear a path through the vast pile of wellies and riding boots that almost blocked the front door.

  ‘Kate.’ I smiled. ‘And I’m grand, thanks, Sandra. How are you?’

  ‘Love that accent of yours!’ She giggled, which seemed to be her answer to my question. ‘Come on through. Mark and Maria are having a little disagreement about something but they’ll be thrilled to see you. Dirk?’ she said to a Labrador who was eating a squeaky broccoli in a downstairs loo. ‘Dirk, do you want to go to Wootton with me later? I need some stamps …’

  Dirk squeaked the broccoli and I was waved through to an old-fashioned dining room with large windows overlooking a neglected lawn. The room contained a table and a photo in a shabby frame of Mark show-jumping, but little else, other than faded marks on the wooden walls where vast ancestral portraits might have been. There were only four chairs huddled at the far end of the table and a sense of quiet gloom hung in the air. It made a marked contrast to our bright quarters across the yard.

  In one corner of the room sat a plastic Wendy house, out of which came little yells of ‘WHERE’S THE STEAK? WHERE’S THE FUCKING STEAK, DAVE? I’VE GOT THREE COVERS WAITING, DAVE!’

  ‘Ana Luisa!’ bellowed a dark-haired woman sitting at the table with Mark and a mountain of papers.

  ‘Stop swearing, sweetheart,’ Mark added.

  Maria sounded very exotic. Brazilian, perhaps: her beauty was wild and Amazonian and her hair fell in dramatic waves around her slim shoulders. She was wearing leather trousers with a phenomenally expensive-looking black polo-neck and a Rolex watch. I hadn’t realized that people wore clothes like that outside films.

  Ana Luisa, in the Wendy house, went silent. Then: ‘Do you and Daddy want your fucking steak or what?’

  Mark Waverley’s face moved briefly in the direction of a smile. ‘Oi,’ he began.

  ‘ENOUGH!’ yelled the woman at the table. ‘Go up to your bedroom! Our order is cancelled!’

  A screaming match ensued, during which a small dark girl of around six ejected herself violently from the Wendy house, smashed it with her fist, then stormed out, swearing about her mother.

  ‘Hello,’ Mark said. His hair was squashed from being under a riding hat all morning. ‘My daughter wanted to serve our lunch from the Wendy house today, but it seems that her imaginary sous-chef, Dave, has been a bit slow with the steaks.’ He did that half-smile again, and even though it lasted all of a second I felt a little less nervous. ‘She’s been watching too much Gordon Ramsay,’ Mark added.

  ‘She is out of control,’ muttered Maria. ‘But that’s what happen to neglected children. Maria Waverley,’ she purred, standing up and placing her still hand in mine as if she were the Queen. She was both magnificent and terrifying.

  ‘Kate Brady!’ I beamed. The jolly Dubliner routine was my best and only option. ‘I’m the new trainee yard assistant, great to meet you.’

  Maria looked me up and down, decided I posed no threat to her marriage whatsoever, and sat down again next to Mark. ‘We are having fight,’ she announced. ‘Because my husband he does not understand business. Kate, he has buy a horse lorry that he can only pay for if he wins Badminton and Burghley every year for the next millennium! Ha-ha!’

  ‘Ha-ha?’ I echoed.

  ‘Maria,’ Mark said tiredly. ‘What p
art of “I have a cash sponsor for the first time in years” do you not understand?’

  ‘Which part of “Yes, but your cash sponsor is not paying you anywhere near enough to buy that lorry” do you not understand, darling?’

  Mark swept the papers to one side and gestured for me to sit down. ‘Mum?’ he called. ‘Is there any lunch?’

  ‘Of course, darling,’ Sandra said, arriving with a big pan of soup and a board of bread. I suspected she’d been hiding in the kitchen doorway, waiting to be summoned. This was one of the strangest places I’d ever been.

  The soup smelt like cauliflower cheese in a bowl and was served with a boule of oven-hot bread.

  ‘Well, now, doesn’t that bread smell like God’s bakery itself?’ I brayed, into the silent room. ‘I could eat the lot!’

  Mark stared at me, possibly wondering if I was mentally ill.

  ‘I’m sure you could, sweetheart,’ Maria said pleasantly, looking at my waist.

  ‘Do you have your CV?’ Mark asked, ignoring his wife. They seemed to spend a lot of time ignoring each other. ‘And, look, I should probably tell you that I didn’t ask my mother to interview anyone on my behalf. Unfortunately one of our team left while I was in Europe, trying out some youngsters, and Mum took it upon herself to solve the resultant staffing deficit.’

  ‘Your mum and I had a lovely chat,’ I tried. ‘She was so nice!’

  Maria snorted. ‘I imagine Sandra’s interview skills are even worse than yours, darling.’ She gave Mark a tart, citrussy sort of a smile.

  It was like a sitcom! How could they not be embarrassed, carrying on like this? I hated them both. A more miserable pair of bastards I’d never come across. I spooned some hot, cheesy soup into my mouth.

  Mark turned back to me. ‘So, as I was saying –’

  ‘Please email me your CV, darling,’ Maria interrupted crisply. ‘For our files.’

  Mark took in a slow breath. ‘Please email me your CV,’ he said. ‘In the meantime you can tell me about your experience.’

  ‘Well,’ I began. ‘I first sat on a pony at three years old, and since then I’ve –’

  ‘You do not look like a rider!’ Maria smiled, staring pointedly at my large breasts.

  I blushed.

  ‘As you were saying …’ Mark peered at his watch.

  ‘As I was saying, I got on a pony at three years old and went for a gallop along the beach. It was the best moment of my life. I spent my entire childhood riding, and when I moved to Dublin I kept a horse out in Bray.’

  ‘Pony Club?’ Mark asked.

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Did you get your B test?’

  I froze. Did I? B didn’t sound good enough for Mark Waverley’s yard. ‘Actually, I got my A.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah. I, er –’

  ‘FUCK YOU ALL!’ came a little scream from the hallway. Ana Luisa was on her way out of the house with a little rucksack covered in diamanté. More stylish than I would ever be, she had chosen a silk headscarf and large sunglasses for her departure. She was incandescent with rage, a small bomb on two legs. ‘FUCK YOU ALL! I’M LEAVING!’

  ‘Good luck,’ Maria called. Mark went to go after her but Maria grabbed his wrist with a manicured hand, barnacling him to the table and their argument. Ah, go and grab her, I thought sadly. Give that poor sweet girl a cuddle.

  ‘Becca will sort her out,’ Maria said, catching sight of my face. ‘Ana Luisa does this regularly. It is the classic behaviour of a child who is being abandon by workaholic father.’

  Mark turned back to me. His temple was pulsing. ‘Did my mother mention that you’re on a trial?’

  Sandra, eating her soup at the far end of the table, clapped her hands over her mouth. ‘Oh, I forgot to.’

  ‘Which is why I ask that you leave the hiring to me, Mum,’ Mark cut in. Sandra, if she was hurt, did not show it.

  ‘You’re on a month’s trial,’ he told me. ‘But that doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed a month, I’m afraid. I don’t have millions of pounds or a state-of-the-art yard, like everyone else in the World Class squad, which means I have to be doubly fussy about who I hire.’ I made a mental note to find out what this World Class thing was. ‘So there’s no room for error on my yard. Every little mistake can hurt us.’

  He stared at me, directly, for the first time, as if challenging me to wilt and die, which I wanted to very much indeed.

  Instead I smiled. ‘Of course, Captain! You won’t be disappointed.’

  Mark’s navy eyes drifted off, as if he couldn’t stand the sight of me.

  ‘So, Kate,’ Maria purred, ‘why you choose Mark’s yard for work?’

  ‘Well, you see, Maria, horses are my passion,’ I said, verbatim. ‘I left a very successful career at Google Dublin so that I could start out in the eventing world. But the deal I made with myself was that, if I was going to do it, I would only do it with the very best.’ I glanced at Mark. ‘So here I am, with the best event rider in the country!’

  There was a brief silence, which Maria broke with an unpleasant laugh. ‘Jesus.’ She chuckled, in a South American way. Hayzoos. It seemed even more insulting than plain old ‘Jesus’. ‘They are all the same.’ She got up and left the room. I heard her scream her daughter’s name.

  I waited for Mark to apologize, to make good his wife’s behaviour somehow, but he didn’t say a word.

  ‘I meant it,’ I tried desperately. ‘It really is an honour to be working for you. The very best of the bunch, you know? Ha-ha?’

  ‘Kate. It is Kate, isn’t it?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Kate. Most eventers enjoy having smoke blown up their arses. The industry is rife with heavy-drinking, horse-doping egotistical maniacs, who cover themselves with expensive kit and make-up and get themselves photographed in the champagne tent every time they go to a competition. They’ll respond gladly to flattery.’

  I withered. I could feel Sandra to my right, begging silently for her son to show me some mercy. ‘They sound like a bunch of silly articles,’ I tried lamely.

  ‘I’m not one of them, Kate. I’m running a very tight ship here. I have no time for posing at parties, letting people tell me how great I am. If you’re looking for that sort of thing, you’re best off working for Caroline Lexington-Morley. What I’m looking for – and please be clear on this – are the most observant, meticulous, tireless grooms in the business. Because without people like that I have no hope of winning.’

  ‘Of course, of course.’ I smiled, my face bland and reassuring. I didn’t like people who wanted to win.

  ‘My staff must love my horses more than they love me, because they’re the most important people here. I want them to be respected, adored, fussed over but never petted. You get out of bed at six a.m. for them, not me.’

  ‘Understood.’ I liked that he called his horses people. Beyond that, I didn’t like anything I’d just heard. ‘So the horses first, you second and me last. I think I can work with that.’

  Mark didn’t laugh.

  ‘So, love, tell us about your ponies,’ Sandra said kindly, tucking her grey bob behind an ear. Sandra and the dogs were the only nice thing about this lunch. Dirk the Labrador sat on one side of her and an enormous grey Irish wolfhound on the other.

  ‘I had a pony called, um, Frog?’ I experimented.

  Sandra’s eyes lit up. ‘Oh, what a name!’ she cried. ‘Frog! Imagine that, Mark! It’s almost as good as Stumpy!’

  Mark, who was shrugging on a fleece laced with horse hairs, didn’t react.

  ‘And how old were you when you got Frog?’ Sandra asked.

  ‘I was four.’ I tried to remember what Becca had said about horse heights. ‘He was, er, fifteen two.’

  Mark’s eyes had swivelled back to me. There was something going on in there that I couldn’t put my finger on. ‘Time to get back,’ he said. ‘You were late, so this conversation will have to continue later. Please make sure you’re on time in future.’

&
nbsp; Silently, sadly, I said goodbye to my soup.

  ‘Off to shovel some more shite then!’ I beamed. I was Kate Brady. I would not be beaten.

  Mark stopped in the doorway. ‘Email me your CV,’ he said. And, just at the moment I decided he was one of the more unpleasant people I’d met, he smiled.

  His daughter galloped in and threw herself at him, telling him how much she hated her mother. Mark picked her up and carried her out to the yard on his back. And, unless I was very much mistaken, he told her he completely agreed.

  Sandra looked at me, and I looked at her. I felt there were many things that we both wanted to say, but none were said. She tidied up the bowls, mumbling genially about needing to pop into town, and wandered out with the dogs padding after her. ‘That’s Woody,’ she said, pointing to the Irish wolfhound.

  Then it was just me. I closed my eyes for a second, trying, through all this uncomfortable newness, to remind myself that this was par for the course. The odd employers; the strange atmosphere: it was never going to feel right straight away.

  It’s okay, I told myself. It really is okay. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other and before you know it it’ll be dinner time. You’re doing brilliantly!

  I wasn’t sure I believed myself, but I stood up anyway, pulling Becca’s spare bobbly gloves on to my already blistering hands. ‘Once more unto the breach,’ I said to the empty room. ‘Once more unto the bloody breach. Oh, God.’

  Chapter Four

  Kate

  ‘What the hell is Mark and Maria’s relationship about?’ I asked Becca. We were reaching the end of my first day on the yard and dusk was stretching its long, cold fingers over the farm. Our breath, which had straggled out of our mouths like damp little clouds all day, now plumed richly like smoke. Becca was showing me how much haylage to give each horse. It was a sweet-smelling, slightly damp version of hay, the point of which Becca had explained to me and I had promptly forgotten.

  ‘Ah, pet, don’t ask me about Mark and Maria!’ she muttered, loading a pile of haylage into a wheelbarrow. ‘Pair of fuckin’ nutters. Were they shouting at each other?’