Me and You - Claudia Carroll

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was v. scary, we were taken into a security office and threatened not only with the police being told, but even more intimidatingly, with being barred from every Top Shop branch on the planet for life. I was all of twenty-one years old at the time and while Kitty brazened it out with all the swaggering confidence of someone who’s had to fight all her own battles from a young age, I collapsed under questioning and just sat there, bawling hysterically. End result? We were let go with a caution, but to this day I still can’t cross threshold of any Top Shop without breaking into a cold, clammy sweat.

      Mum’s implication is v. clear though. That somehow, even without realising it, I did something to piss Kitty off, and now she hasn’t disappeared at all. She’s just not speaking to me.

      7.35 p.m.

      Dinner over, thank Christ. And now we’re all sprawled round the fire with Mum point-blank refusing to switch on the telly, even though I’d kill to see lovely, life-affirming It’s A Wonderful Life and banish the horrendous shittiness of last twenty-four hours temporarily out of my head. The others are all back to chatting about mutual colleagues that they know and I don’t, to the background track of Dad snoring like a passing Zeppelin.

      So, so bored. And still so worried about Kitty.

      I’m just thinking about her when my mobile rings … Simon! Suddenly wide awake and on high alert, I race out to the hall to take it, away from the riveting background debate on the gripping subject of Flynn vs. Sullivan and whether or not sentencing was overly lenient.

      ‘Simon? Can you hear me?’

      My heart’s nearly walloping off my ribcage by now, cartoon-like.

      Please have news, please, please have good news, please can Kitty somehow have surfaced and be with you and please tell me that all is well …

      ‘Hi, Angie, look I’m so sorry to bother you on Christmas night, when you’re with your family …’

      The line’s v. bad, he’s already cracking up on me, but even so, I can clearly hear the deflation in his voice. Not a good sign.

      ‘Simon, are you still there?’

      Have to shout this a few times before he comes back into coverage again.

       Come on, come on, come on!!!!

      ‘Yeah, look, Angie,’ he almost has to yell now to be heard, ‘I’m still with my parents down in Galway and the signal is rubbish at their house … Have you heard anything yet?’

      Oh shit. If he’s calling me to see if I’ve any news, then we’re really in trouble.

      ‘No, not a word, I was hoping you might have by now! What about Mrs K. in the nursing home? Did you have any luck getting through there? I tried earlier but no joy.’

      ‘Me neither. So look, here’s the plan …’

      Good. A plan. I’m a big fan of plans. Everything works better with a plan. Weddings, murders, everything.

      ‘I’ll keep ringing every friend Kitty has that I can think of tonight,’ he says, sounding more and more crackly by the second, like he’s calling from inside the large Hadron Collider at Cern.

      ‘Great, I’ll do likewise …’

      ‘… And if there’s still no sign of her by first thing in the morning, I’m going to drive straight to the nursing home in Limerick, to find out exactly what’s going on for myself.’

      ‘And … well, what if Kitty’s not there either?’

      My voice is sounding tiny now, like a small child’s, and the worry sweats have restarted with a vengeance.

      ‘Then I’ll just come straight back to Dublin and I guess we’ll take it from there. The main thing to remember, Angie, is not to panic. I’m sure she’ll turn up safe and sound and that there’s some perfectly reasonable explanation for this.’

      As ever, when told not to panic, my shoulders seize and my breath starts to come in short, jagged bursts.

      ‘But, Simon, what then? What’ll we do if we still can’t find her?’

      Too late, though. His phone’s gone totally out of coverage. Line’s now totally dead.

      And he never even answered the question.

       Chapter Three

      Stephen’s Day, 7.01 a.m.

      Another sleepless night alternately spent tossing, turning or else staring at the ceiling, hoping against hope that my phone would just ring and it’d be Kitty. Then I switch the light on, check the mobile on my bedside table, thinking maybe, maybe, maybe the Miracle of Christmas has actually happened … Keep telling myself that you just never know with her … But nothing. So I lie back down again, try to sleep, can’t, then repeat the whole palaver all over again at regular thirty-minute intervals.

      At first light, I check the phone for about the thousandth time, but it’s a total waste of time, the screen’s completely blank. Automatically I hit the re-dial button and call Kitty’s number, almost through force of habit at this stage. I know it’s like eating a whole tube of Pringles and that it’s ultimately v. bad for me and will end up driving me mental, but I just can’t stop myself. And, of course, her phone clicks straight to voicemail.

      ‘Hi there, it’s Kitty! Sorry I can’t take your call, but leave a message and I’ll ring you back. Providing of course that you’re a) good-looking, and b) that I don’t owe you any money!’

      Completely weird hearing her disconnected voice like this. It’s almost a shock how bright and bouncy and full of energy she sounds, while we’re here, agonised out of our minds about her. I check the number of times I’ve called her since the whole Christmas Eve/aborted birthday fiasco. Fifty-two. And not one single message returned. Even find myself turning to prayer, something I only ever indulge in when I’m really sick with worry.

      Listen God, I know you don’t exactly hear from me all that often, and I appreciate you’ve probably got miles more important things to get on with, such as sorting out famine in Africa, etc., etc. But if you could just see your way to keeping Kitty safe wherever she is and maybe if you could get her to turn up anytime now, we’d all be so, so grateful. Come on, God, you can do it! It is, after all, officially the Season of Goodwill, isn’t it? Any chance this could be my miracle of Christmas?

      P.S., hope Baby Jesus had a really lovely birthday yesterday.

      The only straw of hope we’ve got is this: at end of day, it is Kitty we’re dealing with here. I have to constantly repeat it over and over, like a mantra. Therefore, the rules that bind ordinary mortals like you and me just don’t apply.

      True, she’s my best friend, but still … I remind myself of the sheer number of times in the past when she’s flaked off like this before. Honest to God, you’d marvel at how entirely possible it is to love another human being dearly, and yet want to strangle them with your bare hands at same time. No question about it: Kitty’s the type who could have taken off anywhere, or who absolutely anything could have happened to. Easily.

      Might possibly even have ended up drunkenly crawling on a flight to Rio, with a gang of people she accidentally got swept up with, and now can’t get in touch with us …

      Highly unlikely, but you’d never know … I keep saying it over and over, like it’s playing on a loop in my mind.

      With Kitty, you just never know.

      7.02 a.m.

      Snap out of it immediately. Course she’s not on a flight to Rio. As if! I’m suddenly aware my excuses for her now becoming increasingly more far-fetched. Jeez, I’ll be imagining alien abductions next. I tell

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