by Zoë Folbigg
‘Dominic showed me your website, you’re not as shit as I thought you’d be.’
‘Thanks. It’s going well so far.’
‘Bring that new bird of yours too.’
James told Maya about the crazy phone call, thinking she might quite like an Indian escapade after Christmas, before she started looking for a professional role in patisserie, but it planted a bigger seed than he’d anticipated and her eyes sparkled in excitement as it grew.
‘Why don’t we go out for Jeremy and Priyanka’s wedding, and just, kinda, stay there?’ she said one autumn afternoon while they read the Sunday papers in their local pub. ‘Use a chunk of Velma’s inheritance to go travelling. Make a year of it before we… before we get proper jobs and settle down. It’ll be perfect!’
Maya’s beloved friend Velma, a septuagenarian agony aunt with a penchant for cream cakes, had died just before Maya had given James the note asking him if he’d like to go for a drink. In fact it was Velma who had encouraged Maya, with her adventurous spirit, her twinkle in her eyes, and her ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’ attitude, to make the leap and take a chance. And it was Velma who was still inspiring Maya to live a little and see the world.
James took some persuading. He already had wedding bookings for summer 2016 and he would have to turn them down if they did stay in India and go travelling from there. And he was keen to get on the property ladder somehow – he’d never owned a home and didn’t want Maya to think he was riding on her coat-tails. She owned the light and lofty Victorian maisonette they lived in, but he wanted to bring something to the relationship. And then there was the fact Maya would be funding the trip; he wasn’t sure how he felt about that…
‘Come on, baby,’ Maya pleaded. ‘We’ve barely seen each other since you moved in. This way we have a whole year to talk, to travel, to make love, to make sandcastles, to make plans for the rest of our lives together.’
James still looked uncertain.
‘Think of your travel portfolio! You could take some amazing photos. I can see it now: Indian kids playing cricket on dusty greens; Buddhist monks walking in a line; or cute Guatemalan kids in colourful artisan clothes – travel magazines love that kind of thing. You could move into travel photography, sell some pictures while we go along…’
James thought about how much he loved photographing people; how he thrived on seeing their stories and the peculiarities of their lives through his lens. And he looked at the excitement and the enthusiasm on Maya’s freckled face, knowing she was right. The housing market could wait. People would carry on getting married and would always need photographers.
So he had said yes and scooped Maya up when she flung her arms around his neck and said, ‘It’s going to be such fun!’
He came round to the idea and started buying guidebooks and researching places of interest, even if it pained him every time someone from the Kaye-French photographer’s agency contacted him about a booking he had to turn down, or a bride-to-be contacted him because she had seen amazing pictures he’d taken at a friend’s wedding. What pained James most was how terrible he felt when he cancelled the bookings he already had lined up. Brides cried. Grooms said ‘For fuck’s sake,’ and James apologetically returned their deposits. But Maya hugged him, said it would all be OK, and hoped James really was on board.
*
‘You really think we’re going to have an amazing adventure; you really think we’re doing the right thing?’ Maya says, with a hopeful smile.
‘Well you talked me into it, so I bloody hope so!’
Maya pretends to wince.
‘I know so,’ he adds, letting go of Maya’s hand.
4
A woman with carmine-stained lips and hair that dances around her ears looks through a bakery window. Above, a royal-blue awning protects her paper-thin skin from the sun, enhancing its deathly hue. She bites her bottom lip as she surveys the offerings from under her furrowed brow. A row of roulé Normand. A solitary abricot-frangi poire panier. Three pistache-framboise pliés. She is neither hungry nor full. She has felt the same for the past few days, and she wonders why, even faced with tiny delicacies she knows she enjoys, she’s not moved enough to buy a single one.
A man with a paper bag packed full of pastries opens the bakery door to leave and the pale woman walks slowly through the wooden frame. She doesn’t thank the man for holding the door open for her, nor does she notice his chagrin. The man’s not even sure she noticed him at all, but he rolls his eyes to himself and tuts.
The woman shuffles towards the counter, where more baked goods await appreciative tummies. Her eyes, wide and light, stare. She does long, slow blinks, as if she’s a baby taking in the world.
A kindly man behind the counter nods, indicating for her to tell him what she wants while he puts out oven-fresh delights. As he leans into the glass cabinet that separates them, he notices the woman’s bottom half. The way her white cotton vest clings to her flat waist; her blue chambray shorts have a cloth belt of the same fabric; she has nothing on her feet, except for a chain on her left ankle.
Silly tourists, he thinks, still smiling amiably.
The man places croissants in a row behind the sign that reads ‘croissants aux amandes’, like little, dappled soldiers, hot from battle in the oven.
Customers sit at tables reading books, maps and newspapers. A small man dressed as Napoleon Bonaparte stands in the corner, waving his arms, trying to catch the woman’s attention.
‘Pssst! Pssst!’ he says, hoping no one else in the bakery cafe will notice.
None of the customers – the gossiping friends, the businessmen nor the backpackers – look up from their crêpes and coffee. The hissing man disturbs only the woman, wide-eyed at the counter.
‘Pssst! Pssst! What is your name?’ he asks, in an abrasive voice.
‘You already know my name,’ whispers the woman, with alarm. His craggy, caricature-like face reminds her of an illustration from her past. The man looks like Rumpelstiltskin, hopping on one leg and making a fist, from the cover of the book her father read to her as a child. The face scared her then and it’s unsettling her now.
‘Ahhh, yes,’ he says, rubbing his hands together. ‘Man. On. Well. Pay me some attention, Manon, and I will give you good advice,’ says the little general in his navy coat with gold brocade epaulettes. He has a mischievous look on his face.
He is bothering Manon and he’s enjoying it.
She wonders why he is bothering her when she was minding her own business, seeing if she could arouse a hunger from within her aching stomach by looking at the pastries laid out in front of her, reminiscent of those she loves from her favourite bakery in her village back in Alsace; wondering why no one else has noticed the man in the corner, causing a brouhaha.
Show him my fear and he’ll grow. If I am friendly he might go away.
‘Aren’t you hot in that?’ Manon finally gets the courage to ask, turning to the little man in the corner as she says it, but not looking him in the eye. It is a hot and languid day outside. The heat is bringing the scents of tamarind and coconut into the bakery, where they marry with pastries and coffee. It is far too hot for such military regalia.
The baker behind the counter looks puzzled.
‘Hot? I’m OK. It hotter out back with my ovens,’ he shrugs in broken English. ‘What would you like?’
Napoleon laughs. ‘Silly girl.’
‘What?’ she says towards the corner. Taken aback.
‘Would you like something to eat or drink?’ says the man behind the counter, confused by the delicate-looking woman without any shoes on. He looks at her over the counter now, getting a fleeting impression of her from the floor up, and wonders whether she has the means to pay.
I’m not a charity, you know.
But she looks clean enough. She might just be lower maintenance than most of the travellers who come in with backpacks, long lenses and guidebooks.
The baker looks to the pockets of Manon’s c
hambray shorts and she secretes a shaky, self-conscious hand inside the left one.
Napoleon starts taunting her, egging her on to eat. ‘An army marches on its stomach, you know.’
‘I’m not hungry!’ says the woman irritably.
The man behind the counter puts his palms up submissively, as if to say he doesn’t care whether she does or doesn’t buy anything, and he slopes off out to the ovens, to check his next batch of cinnamon whirls.
Napoleon laughs. A nasty, goading, belittling laugh.
‘I said I’m NOT HUNGRY!’ She bellows this time, like a child having a tantrum, repeating the words NOT HUNGRY, NOT HUNGRY, NOT HUNGRY.
The man in the corner laughs demonically under his bicorne hat, his Rumpelstiltskin face contorting, until he laughs so hard that he rolls on the floor and starts kicking his little legs into the air like a beetle stuck on its back.
Diners pause their conversations and look up at the woman as she runs out of the bakery and onto the steamy street, towards the curve of the mighty Mekong river.
5
December 2015, Hazelworth, England
‘Tell me the route again!’
Herbert Flowers on Christmas Day is a man in his element. He doesn’t wear a gaudy jumper with a smiling reindeer and a light-up nose, nor does he wear novelty socks with jingling bells on them. On Christmas Day, Herbert Flowers favours a Nelson Mandela-style shirt, golden, brown and majestic across his wide shoulders, for all the heat he will generate eating nut roast while he tries not to look at the plump turkey sitting on a clementine and sage wreath on the serving platter in front of him.
Maya’s father decided to become vegetarian on his sixtieth birthday and often enthuses about a whole portobello mushroom, stuffed with cheese or pan-fried in red wine and garlic, despite looking longingly at the meat resting in front of him. Truly, he is grateful for everything in front of him, he loves a special occasion: having his wife next to him at the head of the table; his four adult children and three grandsons around him – chatting and laughing and mocking each other while he relishes the revelry, red wine and Turkish delight. He is comforted by the clatter of crockery and the production line of dishes filled with red cabbage, Brussels sprouts and roast potatoes, being passed diligently in a row. Herbert is the congenial host, with ruddy cheeks glowing, and he even twirled the edges of his moustache for the occasion.
He tops up glasses from his standing position to the left of the turkey, only stopping when his youngest grandson, Oscar, leans to take a swig of what he thinks is Ribena. His mother, Maya’s older sister Clara, intercepts before it’s too late.
‘Erm, not for you, Oski. Here, have some apple juice.’
Oscar’s big brothers, Henry and Jack, look at each other and giggle about the wine, while Maya’s younger brothers, Jacob and Florian, shovel more roast potatoes than they ought to onto their plates from ceramic bowls as they pass.
Maya drowns her plate in gravy from the red-and-white jug her mother Dolores only uses on Christmas Day, as she starts the well-rehearsed route.
‘India tomorrow. We fly to Delhi, spend a few days there, then travel to Udaipur for the wedding.’
‘Ah, now India is a place beyond all others where one must not take things too seriously.’ Herbert quotes Kipling to his daughter. ‘The midday sun always excepted…’
Maya looks up at her father, bottle of wine in one hand, as red as his cheeks, and Herbert gives her a wink as he smooths his billowing shirt over his rounded tummy. He lifts a satisfyingly heavy spoon and starts to load potatoes onto his own plate. She smiles and continues.
‘Then Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, maybe Cambodia – we’re not sure yet. Indonesia by summer, then…’
‘No, Herbert!’ scolds Maya’s mother. ‘They’re cooked in goose fat! Those are yours – I did those ones in olive oil…’ She gestures to a small tin at the other end of the table, which Maya’s brother Jacob graciously passes, not before Florian has poached one as it passes through.
‘Hey, they’re Dad’s!’ snaps Clara.
‘Bellend!’ mouths Jacob.
Herbert puts the bottle and the spoon down, chuckles to himself and takes ten little roast potatoes from a tin, crisp and golden and not made from any meat product whatsoever.
It’s always when Maya or James get to the Indonesia part that people start to glaze over and drift off. Not that people think Indonesia is boring – it looks pretty spectacular from the travel books and blogs Maya and James have been reading – but people tend to switch off when they get too detailed or too excited about their trip.
Except for Amy Appleyard – editor of Esprit magazine, Britain’s glossiest broadsheet Sunday supplement. Amy had keenly followed Maya’s Fifi Fashion Insider column she wrote for The London Evening Standard. It ran for a couple of months last winter, as an anonymous exposé about life working on the inside of a fashion retail giant. Everyone was talking about it at the time – from This Morning to Victoria Derbyshire to Newsnight – wondering who Fifi Fashion Insider really was. Amy Appleyard noted Maya’s name when she finally cracked and revealed that she was Fifi Fashion Insider, and she called Maya in for a meeting to chat about a staff job on Esprit.
When Maya told Amy she was about to go travelling with Train Man, a man she had loved from afar on her daily commute and who was now her boyfriend, Amy was intrigued and asked Maya if she’d write about her travels in a weekly column. Amy even listened to the entire route with interest: India and Southeast Asia for six months, then Australia and the Americas from June until Christmas.
‘We’ll call it My Travels With Train Man,’ she said, not giving Maya a chance to suggest any other title.
Maya had got into all kinds of trouble when she wrote the secret insider column about her old workplace, FASH, and vowed never to do anything so underhand or so stressful again. But this was different. Legitimately Maya. An honest and open account of what it’s like to go travelling with your boyfriend in your late twenties, when most of your friends are settling down and having babies.
Plus, the column payments would be a little bit of pocket money to boost what was left of Velma’s inheritance, after the £17,000 Maya spent on her diplôme de pâtisserie at the Cordon Bleu. All Maya needed to do was persuade James that this column was a good idea – he was a shy guy after all – but she promised him she wouldn’t write anything too personal.
Maya looks up, already knowing she has lost her audience, and changes tack. Besides, you have to be quick at the Flowers dinner table, especially on Christmas Day. There’s no time to talk when Florian is sniffing around the roast potatoes – he’s often on his second helping before Dolores has finished carving herself a first slice of turkey. ‘Thanks, Mum, you’re the best. Bon appétit everyone!’ Maya raises a forkful of petits pois doused in gravy. No time to raise a glass even.
‘Happy Christmas!’ chime Jacob and Clara.
‘Epic spuds, Mum,’ mumbles Florian, through a mouthful of Maris Piper.
Henry and Jack, who are eight and six, chink their glasses of apple juice and are scolded by their dad, Robbie, when they splosh it over their best trousers.
Jacob flashes a full mouth of stuffing at Florian, at an angle so their parents can’t see. It’s a little game they have taunted each other with since they were their nephews’ ages – flashing food from their mouths at each other without getting caught or bollocked for it, although now they should know better.
Maya catches sight of sage, onion and saliva in Jacob’s mouth and rolls her eyes at him.
I wish James were here.
Which reminds her. There is so much to think about in the next twenty-four hours.
‘Did you have a word with Timo about taking care of the flat?’ Maya asks, slowing down Florian, trying to save some potatoes for their mother. ‘And, you know, that thing we talked about?’
‘What thing?’ Florian says, looking irked. All he wants to focus on is the red cabbage on his fork.
‘Spunk on the sofa?’
interjects Clara with a childish chuckle.
‘Clara!’ says their father in a jolly bellow.
‘What’s spunk?’ asks Henry.
‘Lingua!’ shouts Herbert, trying to hide the amused sparkle in his eye.
Dolores frowns, although her dreamy demeanour makes it hard to decipher if she’s frowning at the change of tone at the Christmas table or the fact that nobody saved her any gravy.
‘He’s coming over later to pick up your keys. Talk to him about his spunk then.’
*
‘Why the hell are we doing this? Where are those lazy bastards?’
Clara is standing at a sink full of orange-tinged dishwater and greasy plates, annoyed by her brothers. Maya dries knives and forks with methodical pride.
‘They’re playing Frustration. With Dad and Rob…’
‘Oh right, well who the bloody hell is watching the boys?’
‘I think they’re watching Frozen. Mum’s having a lie-down.’
‘Great.’ Clara empties the dirty water from the sink and the plughole belches. She refills it with an irritated shuffle from one foot to another but knows she is getting to the satisfying part where she can see progress is being made in the mess of dirty crockery. ‘Well, they can sort the tea and stollen, lazy shits.’
‘Who, Henry, Jack and Oscar?’ asks Maya in alarm.
‘No! Jacob and Florian. They always do this…’
Maya looks at her reflection in the shiny silver knife blade – the knives Dolores and Herbert only get out on Christmas Day – to appreciate her polishing skills more than the fatigue in her face. She examines an eyeball, as if hoping to find that her to-do list is written in the black and orange flecks around her hazel irises.
Keys to Timo, cancel car insurance, double-check both passports are with James, give mobile to Mum…
‘Shame James isn’t here,’ laments Clara as she watches a heavy stream of water push up the rising suds. ‘It would have been nice for you to spend Christmas together, given you didn’t last year.’