by Zoë Folbigg
VOICE OF CLARENCE MEEK RETURNS.
‘The academic – who researches economic development of the Asia Pacific region at SOAS in central London – left the UK on the second of December.’
CUTS TO POLICE OFFICIAL KONGDUANG AGAIN:
‘We’re now talking to other guests at the hotel she was last registered as staying in, to see if they spoke to her in the days before she was due to fly home. Not all hotels and hostels register their guests’ passport details, but we are trying to piece together the last two weeks of her trip, when she stopped contacting family and friends.’
‘Clarence Meek, BBC News, in Bangkok.’
11
January 2016, London, England
Nena sits on the sofa, chewing a cold crumpet, gazing at the television and the face of a woman feeding bananas to an elephant. She didn’t take in any of the news story about the woman, if indeed the story was about the woman. Perhaps it was about the elephant. Nena’s too preoccupied, trying to remember if it was five times she woke in the night or six. However many times it was, it’s irrelevant.
Either way, I’m shagged.
She changes the channel, to try to find something that will wake her up, as Tom pokes his head around the living-room door.
‘I’ll leave you beautiful ladies to— Oh, where’s Ava?’
Nena scrolls up through channels, before quickly changing back to BBC Breakfast.
‘You going already?’ She looks up with pleading eyes.
Tom doesn’t answer.
‘She’s asleep,’ Nena says, pushing the plate with the half-eaten crumpet onto the low coffee table. It’s not even this morning’s cold crumpet, it’s one she made while she was burping Ava after a ferocious 1 a.m. feed. Now it’s 8.30 a.m., Tom’s only just going to work, in the same building this very news about an elephant or whatever is being broadcast from, and already Ava is on her first nap of the day, having woken again at 5 a.m. and Nena giving up on night.
‘What are you going to do today then?’ Tom asks cheerfully, as he wraps a grey scarf around his neck.
What am I going to do?
‘What do you mean?’ Nena’s feline eyes look alert and defensive, despite the shadowy pouches beneath them.
‘Well, why don’t you have a nap while she’s napping?’
Nena’s spine relaxes a little. ‘Oh. Well I can’t. This is my chance to eat, to wash up the shit in the kitchen.’
‘To watch Lorraine?’ Tom laughs but sees straight away that Nena doesn’t find it funny. ‘Leave the washing up, I’ll do it when I get home. Oh, I’m collecting Arlo from school remember, so we’ll be home earlier.’ Tom says this like it’s a good thing, but Nena is surprised this doesn’t make her happy. She doesn’t want Tom to go, but she feels under more pressure to get the flat in a fit state for Arlo’s Wednesday night sleepover, in a shorter time, if Tom is doing school pick-up. Sometimes it’s easier when Tom is working late.
‘Are you seeing that new girl today?’ she asks.
‘What new girl?’
‘My replacement.’
Tom can see Nena is in combative mode, so he slides his bag down his back and comes into the room, slinking into the sofa beside her.
‘She’s not your replacement. She’s additional talent. Anyway, no one could replace Nincompoop Nena,’ Tom says as he nuzzles Nena’s face.
A smile creeps across her lips. Before becoming a mother, before meeting Tom, Nena was Nincompoop Nena, the best children’s entertainer in North London. She wowed divorcee Tom – even more than she wowed Arlo and his friends at Arlo’s third birthday party – so much so that he gave Nena a job as a children’s TV presenter. Now Nena from Nena’s Tiny Dancers is stopped by mums and dads further afield than N16. Not that she’s been anywhere in a while. Not since their honeymoon last Christmas in Bahia. But even in Brazil, British parents would stop Nena on the reef and say, ‘Look! It’s dancing Nena!’ to their confused offspring.
‘Anyway, you’ll like Dr Rosa, she’s funny.’
‘A doctor.’ Nena sighs. ‘So she’s funny and clever. And attractive, no doubt.’
Tom doesn’t deny it but raises a diplomatic eye-brow.
‘I hate her.’
‘Well, I love you – come here…’ Tom leans in and Nena reclines a little.
He kisses crumpet crumbs off her lips; she tastes of butter and morning breath. She kisses him back, thinking for a second that this could be nice, if only she didn’t feel so knackered or so fat. Or there wasn’t the washing up to do. Or she’d sorted out getting her coil fitted. Or that if she tried it out – tried sleeping with her husband – and it failed, it would be the biggest waste of a nap ever.
I have so much to do.
‘Go on, you’ve got to go to work.’
‘I can be late…’
‘No you can’t. Go!’
A cry comes from the bedroom.
‘Oh for fuck’s sake, Tom!’ Nena says, as if it’s his fault. She struggles to get herself up off the apple-green sofa.
‘I’d better go,’ he says, slinging on his bag.
‘Can’t be late now, can you?’ she snaps. Tom looks hurt and Nena softens. ‘See you later. Hang on, let me get Ava so she can kiss you.’
Moments later, Tom cradles his wife and his baby in the hallway and goes down the stairs to the door, a little too happily for Nena’s liking.
‘Right, what shall we do today?’ says Nena as she slinks back into the sofa and changes the channel to ITVBe.
12
January 2016, Udaipur, India
In a dusty bus depot on the outskirts of a city, Maya and James remove their pristine backpacks and put them down on a vast expanse of dried, cracked mud. The brown ground is fleetingly tinged pink from the sunset and a wind whips up a whirl of dust and feathers. James throws his large grey-and-black bag down in a more gung-ho fashion than Maya – he thinks grime and dirt will make them look edgier, how ‘real’ travellers should look – disguising the fact they started their big round-the-world trip in Oberoi opulence.
James used to do the same thing when he was a teen with white, box-fresh trainers – he’d ask Francesca to jump up and down on his feet, to roughen them up a bit and make them look less ‘new’, to make him look less of a mummy’s boy. Francesca always obliged with more gusto than James intended, and the gentle toe taps and foot presses would inevitably graduate to stamps, painful kicks and James and Francesca coming to blows.
Maya doesn’t want to put her beloved new Macpac on the ground in case it touches one of the many globs of spit there, thick, gloopy and red from chewed-up tobacco, so she carefully heaves it on top of James’. It was an emotional moment when Maya found the backpack she wanted to buy. She and James had gone to the outdoor shops in Covent Garden to get themselves all the gear they would need for the year ahead, and she tried on different styles, as if she were wedding dress shopping.
Too big.
Too military.
Too Bear Grylls.
Too masculine.
Too feminine.
When Maya found the one that was just right – steely grey, sleek zips, and just the right proportions – she looked at herself in the mirror, the long empty backpack stuffed with bubble wrap and tissue, like a koala hugging her shoulders. Aside from it feeling deceptively light, Maya liked how she looked.
I look the part.
Sizing up her reflection, Maya imagined her departed friend Velma, young and adventurous, heading off on one of her trips to Buenos Aires, Paris, or Istanbul, to work in whichever bureau she was to report from. Full of excitement at the prospect of the sights she was about to see, the friends she would make, the food she would eat, the men who would twirl her around, at milongas or in the Moulin Rouge.
Velma would approve of this backpack.
‘That’s it. That’s the one.’
Velma would approve of James.
She took her Visa card out of her wallet and bought her backpack and one James had chosen, grateful
to Velma for the inspiration to travel – and the means of paying for it.
So no, Maya won’t fling her backpack onto ground stained with spit blobs that were right in front of where people stood waiting for colourful buses to take them beyond Rajasthan’s jewels and dunes. Besides, Maya put too much effort into her capsule wardrobe to just sling all her worldly belongings onto the floor.
I might have to put my face against it and use it as a pillow.
Crowds jostle, as a brightly painted bus pulls up, bald tyres skidding in the brown dust. A loud hiss emanates from the back of the bus as Maya and James wait beside it, inhaling a cloud of steam and exhaust fumes as they let the locals get on first. James drags and Maya lifts their packs towards the door, where they politely edge up some steps, cumbersome and cluttered, onto the already crowded bus. James hands two thin white pieces of paper to the driver and gives a hopeful smile.
The driver urges them up from his perch by the door and signals for them to move down the back of the bus.
‘Our bags?’ James asks. ‘Can you open up the side? The baggage storage?’
The driver shrugs, and ushers them on.
Maya steps up behind James and whispers in his ear. ‘I don’t think there is a baggage compartment. We’ll have to take them on with us.’
James looks irritated and pushes his glasses up his nose. ‘There isn’t room,’ he says through gritted teeth.
James surveys the bus. It’s entirely full. Eyeballs look back at him with interest, in silence. There are no wide, reclining seats waiting for James and Maya. There are no wide, reclining seats at all.
James turns back to the bus driver. ‘Erm, I think this must be the wrong bus. We’re meant to be on the night bus to Bundi. Is this it?’
The driver gives a gentle, graceful move of the head and James can’t decipher what it means.
Do we get off?
Do we stay on?
A young man with thick sideways hair and white teeth, sitting in one of the six front seats, stands up to make a declaration. ‘Dude. I love your shirt,’ he says, appreciatively as he eyes the beige cheesecloth shirt on James’ back.
‘Thanks.’
The man looks pleased with himself and sits back down.
James sees an opportunity – the passenger looks more agreeable than the driver.
‘Do you know where our seats are?’ James asks hopefully. He shows the passenger the thin white pieces of paper. ‘We have sleeper tickets.’
‘Ahh, sleeper tickets are up there, sir,’ the man says cheerfully.
James and Maya look to the roof of the bus. There is no upstairs.
‘There, dude.’ He points again to an open compartment that looks more like a parcel shelf than a bed. The shelves run down the entire length of the bus, with sliding doors so passengers’ belongings (or passengers themselves) don’t tumble out on the winding, mountain roads. Most are crammed with plastic holdalls, laundry bags and bundles tied with string. Maya’s sure she can hear a chicken clucking in a compartment near the front. At the back they seem less stuffed.
‘That’s the sleeping compartment?’ James asks.
The young man moves his head and James thinks it’s a nod.
Maya gasps. ‘James, why is no one else sleeping in the boxes?!’
‘Because they’re not stupid.’
The bus driver wants to get going; the passengers are starting to get irritated by the dude in the cool beige shirt and his worried-looking companion.
James walks down the aisle, past storage crammed with picnic hampers, more laundry bags, blankets and boxes.
Was that a dog in that compartment?
He turns back to Maya.
Or something else?
‘Yep, this is it,’ James says soberly.
Maya feels like she’s been punched in the stomach.
‘You’re kidding.’
A woman in a pale blue sari and her son lean towards the window, anticipating that the Westerners’ sleeper compartment is above their heads; enabling James to throw their luggage up and into it with a laboured heave.
‘You next,’ he says, offering Maya a foot up. Maya puts one foot in James’ cupped hands and the other on the edge of the woman’s seat, careful not to touch her beautiful clothing, as she climbs into the box. There is dirty carpet on the base of their compartment and her nose almost touches the roof as she lies down.
James looks around, without a clue as to how he’s going to get into the box without just climbing all over the seat and the woman and her son, who still don’t say a word.
He shrugs an apology and gives an optimistic smile, hoping she’ll move further. She leans towards the window again, this time squishing into her son and him against the window, making way for James’ foot so he can get a leg-up.
The bus lurches forward, making it even more awkward for James to get a foot in without kicking any of the passengers.
‘Sorry,’ he mumbles, as he pushes himself up and slides into what looks like a coffin made for two. It would be romantic if it weren’t so hellish.
Inside, Maya curves into a ball and tries to suppress small sobs. The box is too small for her, how the hell is James – all 6ft 1in and equine legs – going to curl inside it next to her. And their two huge backpacks. But deftly he does, and they lie side-by-side on their backs, their noses touching the roof of the box, their legs feeling amputated by their baggage. The bus engine chugs and Maya and James turn to face each other, knowing this is the part where they have to dig deep. They lie like two coils, fully sprung.
James tries to smile. ‘Shall I shut the “door”?’ He gestures to the wooden sliding panel at the edge of their box.
Maya doesn’t know what’s worse, the tinny noise and dramatic sound effects of the 1970s movie that’s just restarted in the main cabin or the chug of the throaty engine, hammering into the space behind their skulls. She can’t even answer through her stifled tears.
This is what I wanted. This is all my fault.
James sees the panic and desperation on Maya’s face, a darkness looms over him and he’s reminded for a second of Kitty, his ex-girlfriend, stern and scowling, and what it felt like to care for someone plunged into thunderous darkness.
‘It’ll be OK, honey – you’re my champion sleeper, you are. Just try to get some kip and before you know it we’ll be in Bundi.’
Maya breathes rapidly and struggles to speak. ‘We’ll… we’ll suffocate with that door closed.’
‘Look, I think that’s a window…’ James reaches behind Maya’s head. ‘That’ll let some air in.’
James cranks open a small triangular window behind Maya and in flies a cloud of thick black exhaust smoke. Both of them cough, struggling to breathe in the box.
‘Urgh, no! We’ll choke to death if the exhaust fumes come directly in… I can’t really breathe as it is.’
James shuts the window. Tinny Bollywood soundtrack it is.
Maya takes sharp shallow breaths, trying to expel the black fog from her lungs, knowing that her only comfort is in the fabric of James’ clothing, the smell of his neck. Her legs start to tingle and shake, as if she’s just walked ten thousand steps down a mountain, and they feel out of control.
‘Honey, you’re shaking…’
Perhaps it’s pins and needles.
‘Come on, it’s OK, hug in to me and take deep breaths.’
But my stomach hurts too.
Maya plants her face further into James’ shirt, his chest.
My legs. They’re out of control.
James holds Maya into him, but that only stifles her more. She flails onto her back and kicks her legs rapidly, as if she’s clawing her way out of the ground.
I’m being buried alive.
‘Breathe…’
This is what I wanted.
‘James, I have to get off.’
This is what she wanted.
‘You can’t get off, honey, we’re stuck here all night. Just curl into me and try to get to sle
ep.’
A horn sounds on the cliff-edge road and Maya’s heart races even faster.
‘I can’t, I can’t, I just feel so desperately…’
Stuck.
Maya’s breathing is sharper and more anxious; she can barely speak through panic and tears and a feeling of being stifled.
And empty.
‘I just, I just… I just want to…’
Suddenly Maya finds her voice among the sharpness and the shouts into the chug of the engine, the blaring movie, the horns of passing trucks on the road out of Udaipur.
‘I JUST WANT TO GET OFF THIS FUCKING BUS!’
James is alarmed. Mild Maya, who’s never raised her voice at him, is shouting in anger and panic and kicking her shaking legs, and he wants it to stop.
‘It’s OK. You’re OK. We’re OK…’ he says, stroking her forehead. Repeating his mantra over and over again, softly into her ear.
Maya pulls back and looks at James. His wide, lovely eyes are full of such certainty and conviction that Maya can’t help feeling calmed. Her breaths regulate and the shaking of her legs slows down. Tears leave tracks down her cheeks, telltale stripes cleansing away the pollution they hadn’t realised enveloped them, and Maya looks into James’ eyes and lowers her voice, as if this box is a priest’s confessional.
‘I just want to get off this bus, James,’ she sobs. ‘I want to get off this bus and go home. I think I want to have a baby.’
My Travels with Train Man
So that stunning wedding I told you about? Turns out not every day in India is like that. Hotel rooms don’t all have slipper baths, chocolates on plump pillows and towels fashioned into swans. Life isn’t an inexhaustible buffet of pani puri, bhel and gulab jamun, served on silver platters that never seem to dwindle. Men in colourful kurtas don’t just break out into a dance. Women in turquoise, fuchsia and saffron-hued saris don’t stride in glorious formation on every street corner. Life isn’t like a Bollywood movie. The Indian wedding – my introduction to this wonderful, polarising, beautiful, noisy, hectic country – gave me false hope, and the reality is, some days are hard. The noise, the begging, the pollution… just getting from A to B feels like a slog of packed trains and pushing; English is widely spoken, yet every conversation seems to end in a misunderstanding. And if one more person launches a red spitwad (called paan, apparently, which doesn’t make it any more appealing) onto my shoes, I’ll cry. It’s a good thing Train Man has the ability to make everything OK.