39 Quotes & Sayings By Sanjida Kay

It’s as if he’s trodden in my footsteps, seen what I’ve seen, felt what I’ve felt, as I’ve criss-crossed the moors countless times. Sanjida Kay

They stole you from me. They took you away for seven years. Your entire lifetime. A life sentence. The waiting has been endless. The watching. The planning. Now, finally, I’m almost ready. I’ve got a few things to take care of and then we can be reunited. Sanjida Kay

Make no mistake, my darling. I am coming for you. I will take you back. Sanjida Kay

If we were walking here together, I’d point out the carnivorous plants that grow on this spot: sundews with sticky red leaves, eating insects to sustain them because the soil is so poor. If you were with me, I’d take you to the Doubler Stones, where thousands of years ago, Neolithic peoples carved channels in the rock to drain away the blood from their sacrifices. I would show you where the plover nests, and the green hairstreak butterfly lays its eggs. I love this place. I love this land. It’s part of me, it’s part of who I am. But it’s no place for you: a seven-year-old girl in a princess costume. . Sanjida Kay

Where I’m taking you, no one will ever find us. We’ll have all the time in the world for you to grow to love me as much as I love you. Sanjida Kay

Tesco at the best of times is soulless — but it’s so much worse at 6 in the morning. It’s not as empty as I thought it would be. Who the fuck shops at 6 a.m.? e florescent lights flicker. e shelf upon shelf of coloured cans make my eyes go funny. Everything is hard and shiny and there’s so much fucking choice. Why do I have to choose from thirty kinds of granola? Do I want Country Crunch or Rude Health? Raisins and almonds or tropical? Goji berries and chia seeds or Strawberry Surprise? I’ll just buy the Tesco range — that’ll be easiest. No, wait, there’s Tesco finest*, Tesco Everyday Value and Tesco Free From. What can be so damn fine about granola? You eat it everyday and what could it be free from? It hasn’t got anything unhealthy in it! What could one possibly take out? Actually, we don’t need any fucking granola. Sanjida Kay

Mum, your heart is the same size as your fist, ’ she told me once in delight, and we both made our hands into fists and held them against our chests and bumped them together: hands as hearts. Sanjida Kay

I don’t believe he was deliberately taking indecent pictures, they’re too artistic; he’s managed to capture that magical moment when a child’s mind spins into a make-believe world. But actually, what Jack did is steal something — a child’s innocence — whilst creating something darker that will resonate with the adults looking at these photos: themes of sexuality and death, the leitmotifs that run through fairy tales, the stories that we tell ourselves about our children. Sanjida Kay

She said that the mummy and the daddy took their daughter up onto the moor. They had a picnic. They’d brought all of her favourite food — cheese sandwiches on white bread with the crusts cut off and strawberry-pink cupcakes — and when the little girl had finished eating, she looked around for her mummy and the daddy. But they’d gone. They’d left Evelyn on the moor by herself. Sanjida Kay

I can’t believe I ever thought reading to her was a chore. I’d sit here some nights, fidgeting, thinking of all the things I needed to do, my voice hoarse, reluctant to read, ‘just one more chapter, ’ wishing I could escape to my glass of wine. What did I have to do that was so important? What could be more important than reading my daughter a bedtime story? Sanjida Kay

Here we are, squabbling over tuna fucking sandwiches and there she is — almond-shaped green eyes, snub nose, lopsided grin, the hint of a dimple in her cheek. ‘MISSING’ is stamped over her face in large black letters. Sanjida Kay

Evie is our beautiful, dark-haired, green-eyed child, ’ I say. I can hear the tremor in my voice. ‘Like many seven-year-old girls, she’s obsessed with princesses. We think she looks more like a fairy. She loves Lego and painting. She laughs easily. She has pretend tea parties in a tree in our garden and invites all her dolls. She wants to be an artist when she grows up. Please find her. Please bring her back to us. We miss her beyond measure. She is the love of our life. Sanjida Kay

She shivers. ‘I can’t understand why anyone would want to live out there. You’d be totally isolated.’
 I do. I could imagine waking up each day and instead of looking out of the window and seeing the moor in the distance, you’d be in the heart of it, feeling the wind turn, the storm rage, the rain lash, hear the plovers piping. Sanjida Kay

My husband hands me my glass, full to the brim with green-gold wine and I stifle my resentment and attempt to smile at him. I mustn’t lose sight of what we have — two beautiful children; an amazing house that I never, in a million years, thought we’d be able to afford; Gill and Andy, my best friends — and this perfect day. I take a deep breath and feel my shoulders relax. I can smell the faintest trace of heather, drifting down from the moor. . Sanjida Kay

The moor has always been part of my life. It’s like a muse: the colours of the heather and the sky; how you can see the savagery of the wind in the way the dwarf pine trees are bent double, the bleak lines of the landscape in winter when everything save the moss and the grass are dead, stones like bones, poking through a thin skin of bilberry bushes, rushes reflected in black bog water. Sanjida Kay

Hello my darling, I’m your real father. I’ve been searching for you ever since you were stolen from me. I love you so much. Daddy Sanjida Kay

It’s quiet in the suburbs. It’s too cold for people to be in their gardens; and it’s not a thoroughfare so few cars drive by. I look past decaying roses and through the first flush of Michelmas daisies, blazing a glorious purple, into the darkened windows of the houses we walk by. Who lives here? Are they watching us? Did one of our neighbours do something seven years ago that he now regrets? How little we know of the people who surround us. . Sanjida Kay

The dark edge of the moor and the Cow and Calf rock are crisp against the blue-black sky. I can’t see anyone outside, watching us. As I shut the door behind me, I hear a noise. It came from the hall. I feel the hairs rise on the back of my neck. Sanjida Kay

I think about the story I always tell her — of the kind lady who gave her to us. I suppose that must be how she imagines her father — as a kind man who gave her away too, as if she were a gift. Only now he wants her back. Sanjida Kay

He places the skull in the palm of my hand. There are four canines; the top two are so long and curved I can feel them pricking my skin. There’s a green tinge round the eye socket and in a fine line across the cranium. I’m not sure what animal it’s from. ‘Stoat, ’ Harris says, as if I’ve spoken out loud. ‘They hunt grouse and partridge. I found it behind my house. I buried the body in the furze until it was just bone.’ His hand is still beneath mine, supporting it. I think of him seeing the small dead creature and digging a tiny grave for it. Planning ahead for all those months just so he’d see the skeleton. Or maybe he severed the animal’s head and that was the only part he buried. ‘It’s been waiting for you all this time. Like I have. . Sanjida Kay

She could already feel the dryness in her throat, the catch in her voice, when she’d have to stand up in class and tell everyone what her grandparents did. After the other kids read out their work on grannies who baked them squidgy chocolate chip cookies, she could imagine how the others would look at her when she talked about Grandmother Vanessa who strode through the desert with her binoculars, counting kudu. Sanjida Kay

She felt as if she had no bones, like a jellyfish, hooked from the sea. She walked slowly towards them, her ears ringing, but they ignored her. All except for Levi, who stood at the end of the bridge, his hands in his pockets, smiling. Sanjida Kay

The lines began to sing, a shrill, electric song, and then the cacophony of the train roared out of the darkness. The carriages were almost empty and painfully bright as they hurtled along the tracks to the heart of the city. In the fleeting light she saw the meadow, dotted with stunted hawthorns, their twisted limbs dense with red berries, and then a shape: achingly familiar, child-sized, shockingly still. Sanjida Kay

Most of the vegetables in the allotments had died back but one, tended by a Jamaican man, was full of squash. They lay among the dying leaves, rimmed with frost, huge, orange and alien, half hidden by the mist. They reminded her of the fairy stories she’d read as a young child, of white horses and gold carriages that turned into mice and pumpkins on the stroke of midnight. Sanjida Kay

A cool white, wintry light glazed the buildings on the highest hill: Will’s memorial, the unsightly chimney from the hospital, the modernist cathedral in Clifton. The jumble of styles and eras lent the city the semblance of a medieval Roman town. Laura drove the long way round, up past the Clifton Suspension Bridge, strung like an a engineer’s dream over a river sinking into the mud. Leigh Woods was on the far side, the trees dark, bereft of leaves, clawing at the sky. . Sanjida Kay

When Autumn was born, it was as if she recognized her, as if she’d always known that it would be her, this little person who had come to live with her and reside permanently in her heart. It was a love unlike any other: fierce and powerful. Sanjida Kay

Autumn put in the DVD she’d been watching every night. It was Deadly 60. It was all about animals that could be a bit tricky if you tried to catch one. There was something comforting about watching it over and over and over again. You knew what was going to happen. There were no surprises. And even though all those animals bit, squeezed, stung, spat or poisoned, they did it because they were hungry or frightened. They didn’t do it because they thought you were stupid and ugly and they wanted to hurt and humiliate you. Sanjida Kay

Autumn began to run. She felt an icy terror flood through her. He must have been waiting for her. He’d followed her all the way here. To this open, empty place. He knows where I live. Sanjida Kay

She couldn’t tell how long she’d been searching for her daughter. It was dusk, but it had seemed darker as she ran through the wood, tripping on hooked tree roots, her feet crunching through crisp, curled ash leaves. Sanjida Kay

There was no sign of her daughter, no sign of a small body crumpled by the railway. Sanjida Kay

She was more exposed to the elements now: the wind and rain howled through the metal cage enclosing her. It seemed impossible that someone could fall or be shoved from the bridge. She forced herself to look down. She had to prepare for the worst. Sanjida Kay

A feeble orange light was flickering in the allotments, low down near the ground. Laura looked hopefully towards it. It was a huge pumpkin, its flesh brick-red, its mouth cut into a crude gash, candle- flame dancing through slits for eyes. There was no sign of Autumn. Sanjida Kay

Autumn imagined the girl, with long dark hair in plaits and a red cape, running through the wood and stopping because she hears something: soft paws crushing damp moss, an animal breathing. She runs on. She’s frightened. She knows what will happen is inevitable. All the while the wolf is keeping pace with her, watching her, its pink tongue lolling over its sharp, white teeth. Waiting for its chance. Sanjida Kay

It wasn’t until the train went past that she saw the small body lying in the long grass by the side of the wood. Sanjida Kay

In the fleeting light she saw the meadow, dotted with stunted hawthorns, their twisted limbs dense with red berries, and then a shape: achingly familiar, child-sized, shockingly still. Sanjida Kay

Only one small, pale spot on her cheek was visible where her skin, free of blood, gleamed, as polished as bone. Sanjida Kay

And even then, it might not have been too awful, but his head snapped back and he hit a rock, breaking like a blunt molar from the ground. Sanjida Kay

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us... Save my little girl... Sanjida Kay