Kate heard the creak of someone outside the bedroom door and closed her eyes, willing whoever it was not to knock. Pretending to be unaffected was exhausting; she did not know if she had it in her to continue the make-believe act she had portrayed to her parents since moving back in a little over a week ago. Her mother, who was emotionally subdued and overly apologetic by nature, had done little more than pat Kate rather forlornly on the shoulder and say repeatedly how sorry she was that things hadn’t worked out, while her father – from whom Kate had inherited determined cheerfulness in the face of adversity – relayed joking platitudes about there being ‘plenty more eels in the pond’. Kate appreciated each of their efforts, but neither had offered her much comfort. What she really needed was a plan – a scheme to win back her boyfriend, and therefore her happiness.
‘Nims, are you up?’
Kate opened her eyes. Only one person called her by that abbreviated surname moniker. But he wasn’t even in the country.
The door opened a crack just as she lowered the duvet, and Kate exclaimed in surprised delight when she saw who was standing in the gap.
‘Toby! What are you . . . How are you here?’
‘I don’t know if you heard,’ her brother replied, ‘but there are these things called planes nowadays. Big cylindrical machines with wings and engines that fly people from one country to another.’
‘Funny,’ she retorted, then promptly burst into tears.
Toby sat on the bed and pulled Kate into a hug. It was nice, for a moment, to feel swaddled and protected. But almost as soon as the gratitude came, so did the guilt. She hated that she was behaving in this way; that she was unable to get a handle on her emotions.
‘I’m fine,’ she croaked, pulling gently away from him. ‘Honestly, I’m just tired, that’s all.’
‘You may have fooled Mum and Dad,’ he chided, as Kate wiped sullenly at her cheeks, ‘but I can see what’s really going here, Nims – you don’t have to put on an act for me.’
‘I’m not,’ she argued, although without much insistence. ‘I just don’t want to worry anyone.’
Toby frowned.
‘I’m your big brother, so it kind of comes with the territory.’
‘Yes, but––’
‘But nothing. You let me worry about me being worried about you.’
‘I’m not even sure that makes sense,’ she said, to which he laughed.
‘Almost certainly not, but at least the confusion has stopped you crying.’ Reaching into his jacket pocket, Toby extracted a KitKat. ‘Two fingers each?’
Kate, who had barely eaten a morsel since her birthday, shook her head.
‘Oh, go on,’ he urged, tearing off the wrapper. ‘You don’t even have to eat them – save them so you can give James a two-finger salute the next time you see him.’
‘It’s too soon to make jokes,’ she told him, bringing her knees up to her chin and wrapping her arms around her legs.
The bedroom that had once been her own was now the guest room; her lipstick-marked posters of Take That and McFly long gone from the walls. Kate’s mother, presumably in an attempt to rouse her dejected daughter’s spirits, had dug out a My Little Pony duvet cover of old and brought Kate’s most treasured soft toys down from the attic. Far from comforting her, however, the whole childish ensemble made her stomach knot together with dismay. She was thirty years old; this should not be the way her life had unfolded.
‘I wish I’d been at your party,’ Toby said regretfully. ‘It’s not every day your little sister turns thirty, is it? I should have said to hell with the hostel refurb and flown over. If I had,’ he added, his tone hardening, ‘then maybe that prat would have thought twice before deciding to break up with you on your birthday. Who does that?’
‘It was my fault,’ Kate said glumly. ‘I’m the one who put him on the spot; I’m the one that pressured him into making a decision he might not have made otherwise. If I hadn’t done that, then maybe . . .’ She trailed off, knowing there was no point in continuing with the ‘what ifs’.
Toby had yet to mention the video, but he must know about it. Kate suspected there was barely a human being in the UK who hadn’t seen it. She glanced across at her laptop, which was on the desk where she’d left it, the lid half-closed and the red standby light flickering on and off. She had spent most of the previous evening on Twitter, watching in horror as the retweet number below the #WannabeWife #NorthLondonLoser #ProposalFail #LeftOnTheShelf post steadily increased until it was nudging the 500,000 mark. The replies varied from the sympathetic to the openly hostile, while Kate’s direct message inbox – before she’d had time to remove the tag and block unsolicited attention – had received no less than 600 messages from men offering her their own hand in marriage. Kate would have been cheered by these if the majority hadn’t also attached a photograph of the part of their anatomy they would like her to kiss by way of a thank you. The most hurtful responses had been the retweets with the word ‘cringe’ added as explanation – those were the ones that told her what the majority of people really thought. Would a video of someone publicly proposing have made such a splash if it had been a man up on that chair in the pub, she wondered? Of course it wouldn’t.
Toby must have followed her gaze, because when she looked away, he said, ‘I still can’t believe someone did that to you. What kind of person creates click bait from someone else’s heartbreak?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘Your friends would never do something so vile, so it must have been someone James knows,’ he added. ‘And as far as I’m concerned, that means it’s up to him to find out who it was and make them take it down.’
Kate emitted a whimper of protest.
‘Well, he should, Nims. I’ve a good mind to drive over there and tell him so – give him a piece of my mind while I’m at it.’
‘No.’ Kate looked up in alarm. ‘Please don’t – you might scare him away for good. There’s no point anyway,’ she hastened. ‘The original post has been shared so many times now that it wouldn’t make any difference.’
They both fell silent as the front doorbell chimed, followed by voices and the sound of feet on the stairs. Robyn had visited every single day since Kate had moved home, dedicating each of her lunch hours to checking up on her friend and trying her best to chivvy her back out into the world. When she burst into the room now, a carrier bag dangling from one hand and her car keys clutched in the other, the sight of Toby made her shriek with pleasure.
‘Oh my god, Tobes – how are you? How is Croatia? You’re so tanned, like a lovely boiled egg! How is married life? How long are you here? You look so well.’
Kate watched them, her best friend and her older brother, trying not to envy the easy way they slipped into an exchange of gossip and banter. This had been her just a few weeks ago, so full of optimism despite everything, so prepared to seize upon every thread of happiness – yet now her heart felt as wizened and dry as a raisin.
Her phone lit up with a message. James.
Please stop calling. You’re making this harder than it needs to be.
Kate stared hard at the words, her blood turning to ice in her veins. She was now only vaguely aware of the conversation that was still ongoing between Robyn and Toby.
‘She’s been getting steadily worse over the past few days,’ she heard her friend whisper. ‘Ever since that bloody video went viral. Before that, she still seemed hopeful, you know. But now, it’s as if she’s been punctured and all that makes her Kate has seeped out of her.’
There was a low hissing sound as Toby drew in a long breath.
The screen of Kate’s phone faded and went black.
She had become a burden, an embarrassment – and she wanted it to stop. Ever since the video of her proposing to James had blown up all over the Internet, Kate had felt unable to leave the house. She was convinced that everyone would know; that they would point and laugh at her with scorn. And who could blame them?
‘I know you c
an’t see it now,’ Toby said, ‘but one day you’ll realise that James isn’t worth any of your tears. The way he’s just given up on you – it’s unforgivable. Who does that to a person they claim to love?’
‘He doesn’t love me,’ Kate mumbled. ‘Not anymore. And why would he?’ she added mutinously. ‘I’m a joke of a human, a failure in every possible way. I can’t even hold down a minimum-wage office job. Is it really any surprise that I’ve ended up alone? James has just worked out what everyone else has known for years – that I am a nobody who will amount to nothing other than apparently being a national laughing stock.’
‘Stop it!’ Robyn held up a hand. ‘You are not a joke or a failure.’
‘Erm, I beg to differ,’ Kate retorted, sitting up a fraction straighter. ‘Let’s go through and tick off everything I have tried and failed to do, shall we? Let’s see, oh yeah, there’s my seven GCSEs in grades D and lower, my barely scraped single A level in English, which has got me, oh, precisely nowhere. After a resounding reply of “thanks, but no thanks” from pretty much every university in England, Scotland and Wales – no, let me finish – I then went on to work as the following: burger flipper, checkout cashier, waitress and lollipop lady, none of which lasted more than a few months each. Then I was a dog groomer for about ten minutes, got sacked from my delivery driving job after reversing into a telegraph pole on my second day, didn’t even make it through one shift as a kitchen porter and was let go from that receptionist job I took in the City because I dared to ask for Christmas Eve off.’
‘But none of those jobs were right for you,’ Robyn insisted. ‘And at least you kept trying.’
‘Trying and failing,’ Kate replied, putting extra emphasis on the last word. ‘The only thing I’ve ever been any good at is looking after James and now I’ve been sacked from that job too – and everyone on Twitter has watched it happen.’
Toby was shaking his head.
‘Why don’t you do what I do?’ Robyn suggested brightly. ‘Occupational therapy is all about caring for people – you’d be great at it.’
‘She’s right, you would,’ put in Toby. He was smiling with encouragement, but Kate could see doubt in his eyes. Like hers, they were pale green with flecks of gold, but while her red hair was long and curly, he had shaved his back to the merest fuzz.
If only she had some skills she could trade on. James had handled all the official stuff while they were together, and Kate had accepted her comparative ineptitude in the same way everyone around her always had – by laughing at herself and shrugging it off. James would roll his eyes at her, sure, but he had always done so with affection. He didn’t mind what she chose to do for work, because soon enough she would quit to be at home with their children. She knew that many would denounce this attitude as outdated or sexist, but Kate had never let it worry her. It was what she wanted and, if anything, she had felt lucky to be with a man who was eager to take on the more traditional role of provider while she completely embraced full-time mother-and-wifehood. Not once over the past eight years had she considered the possibility that James would change his mind; that he would leave her when the momentum of their relationship did not adhere to his self-imposed timeline.
‘I think it might be time for a tea,’ Toby, said, getting to his feet. ‘Give me a hand, would you, Robyn?’
Kate looked up just in time to catch the two of them exchanging a knowing look. They would now go downstairs to her parents’ kitchen and talk about her; discuss the best way to winch her free from the hole of misery she had dug herself into.
‘Sure,’ said Robyn. ‘Oh, and these are for you,’ she added to Kate, lowering the carrier bag. ‘An entertaining reminder that no matter how bad your life may seem, there is always someone in a far worse situation than you.’
Kate tutted with amused disapproval as a slew of real-life magazines slithered out across the bed.
‘See!’ said Robyn with enthusiasm, pointing to a headline. ‘My husband left me . . . for my mother’s ghost. And what about this poor fella? He bought what he thought was a kitten for his girlfriend for Christmas only to realise later that it was bat.’
Toby visibly shuddered.
‘That is horrific. Please stop,’ he said, as Robyn flicked a second magazine open with her finger. ‘Let’s leave my poor sister here to wallow in the misery and misguidedness of others while we make a brew. You can fill me in on your latest dating shenanigans.’
Robyn groaned. ‘That won’t take long.’
Kate waited until they’d gone before snatching up her phone, reading again the curt message James had sent asking her not to call. He had been patient to begin with, willing to talk and to explain, but now it felt as if she was losing him more with each day that passed. She could not think of a single thing to write to him in reply, and that in itself scared her, the notion that two people who had been so intricately linked could suddenly become strangers. She did not want James to become someone she had once known; she wanted him to remain the person she knew best.
Irritated at herself and the situation, Kate pulled the closest magazine towards her and glanced at the cover, her eyes widening as she read the bizarre headlines. She began to leaf through the publications in a listless trance, scanning but not properly reading the articles and features within.
She must find a way to win James back – but how? How could she make him see reason if he was refusing to meet or even speak to her? Kate wanted to respect his request to leave him alone, but she also wanted him to realise how stupid it was to simply throw away everything they had built together. Telling him was not going to work – she needed to show him the error he had made, make him realise how much better his life was with her in it; teach him to miss her somehow.
Kate reached for a second magazine and opened it at random, expecting to be confronted by another story about a cheating spouse or an unusual fetish. Instead, the large black headline that greeted her read: ‘Why I write letters to my brother – ten years after he disappeared.’ Below it there was a photograph of a grim-faced woman in her thirties, plus another of a young, blond-haired man. His cheeks were hollow, and his eyes cast down, as if he’d been unwilling or unable to meet the gaze of whomever was behind the camera, but there was a defiance in the angle of his shoulders, a challenge in the tilt of his chin. He was broken, yes, but not yet beaten.
It was an expression that she recognised well.
Lifting the magazine a fraction higher, Kate pushed up her glasses from where they had slid down her nose and began to read.
When it comes to tragedy, Angela Dawson has unfortunately had far more than her fair share. Much more, in fact, than anyone should have to endure in their lifetime.
By the age of just twenty-six, she had lost not only both her parents, but her younger brother too – a fact that haunts the thirty-six-year-old dental hygienist to this day.
‘There’s a finality to death that makes it difficult, but not impossible to deal with,’ she tells us, from her two-bedroom terraced home in Aberystwyth. ‘My parents dying was awful, but in many ways, Josh disappearing was worse. I know my mum and dad won’t arrive back at my door one day; I won’t spot either of their faces in a crowd and be able to run up and greet them, but those things could happen where Josh is concerned. I know saying “it’s the hope that kill” is a cliché, but it has become one for a reason. I do feel as if I die a little bit more every day that I don’t find him – every moment that my brother remains lost. It’s not just that I want to know where he is and what happened to him, it’s that I have to know, in order to live.’
Angela asks us to stop recording while she composes herself, which we do, taking in the photos she has of her absent brother on every available surface of the small living room.
‘I want him to know that I haven’t forgotten him,’ she explains. ‘That a day does not go by where I don’t think about him, wonder how he is and how much he would have changed in the decade since I last saw him. Take as many photos as you wan
t,’ she urges. ‘I want as many people as possible to see them, just in case someone recognises him.’
We ask her about the police and missing person charities, but Angela shakes her head, motioning that we should begin recording once again.
‘A hundred and eighty thousand people are reported missing in the UK every year,’ she tells us. ‘That is one every ninety seconds.’
We both pause for a moment to allow her words to sink in.
‘Of those hundred and eighty thousand, fifty-one per cent are men – so, that’s ninety-one thousand eight hundred men. Ninety-one thousand eight hundred hearts broken, lives shattered, and families torn apart. And I understand that Josh is just one of those, but he is my one. He was considered to be a “vulnerable person” when he disappeared,’ Angela goes on with a slight tremble. ‘That meant the authorities took my concerns for his welfare seriously, and through them, I discovered that he’d left the country. He took a train and then boarded a ferry to France. After that, however, the trail went cold; the limited resources available to the official channels ran dry, and the case was filed away. To the police, Josh is now a sheaf of papers, a statistic, another name amongst the list of those who disappear. I don’t blame them for not finding him and I understand why they cannot allocate any more resources to the search, but it doesn’t deter me. I still believe he is out there somewhere, and I am determined to find him – whatever it takes.’
As we have been talking, Angela has curled herself up into a tight ball, her shoulders hunched and her chin resting on her knees. She is fragile, yet undeniably tough, and the sorrow she feels is palpable.
The Getaway: A holiday romance for 2021 - perfect summer escapism! Page 2
