by Zoë Folbigg
‘For sure,’ says Nena, pleasantly surprised by how pleasantly surprised she is to see Emily Snatch, so she shuffles along the bench, teddy bear on her shoulder.
‘I’m sorry to disappoint though,’ Emily says in plummy tones. ‘I’m no longer a Snatch.’
They giggle, aware of how childish they’re being with their babies in tow.
‘My husband Harry is a Smith.’
‘Ahhhh, you’ll always be Emily Snatch to me.’
Emily puts the brake on her UPPAbaby buggy and peeps into the bundle lying horizontally.
‘So, we both got out of breeze-block hell and made something with our lives, eh?’ Nena nods to Emily’s buggy. ‘How old’s your little one?’ She cringes to herself. It’s chatter she hates hearing other people asking, back and forth, and tries not to hate herself for getting embroiled in it.
‘Oh, she’s six months. Iris.’
‘Oh! Ava’s five months. How funny,’ Nena says, thinking it’s not that funny really.
‘Your first?’ asks Emily, whose face is thinner and her body smaller than the kind and matronly girl she always seemed at uni.
‘Yep, my first. Although I have a stepson who’s five, so I had a little bit of a trial run with him.’
‘Nothing prepares you for this though, does it?’ says Emily.
‘Nope, definitely not.’
Hot Dad swaggers past with his little girl on his shoulders. Nena wishes Maya were on the bench next to her, so she could stick an elbow in Maya’s ribs and appreciate how fit he is, but she returns to polite chit-chat.
I miss Maya.
‘Is Iris your first?’
Maya doesn’t understand.
‘No, I have two older kids, they’re at school right now.’
‘Oh wow,’ says Nena, feeling cheated. The solidarity she felt to meet someone going through what she’s going through, something Maya doesn’t understand, seems fraudulent; Nena feels like a novice again.
‘Sammy is six, Belle is four…’
‘Wow, you’ve been busy!’
‘Yeah, do you remember Harry? Harry and I got together in the third year.’
Nena can’t for the life of her remember Harry, although she did sleep with a few Harrys at uni. She hopes Emily’s Harry wasn’t one of them.
‘Oh yeah,’ she lies.
‘Well, we got married after graduation. I’ve been pretty much knocked up ever since,’ Emily says with a laugh.
‘I can see! How’s it working out for you?’
‘Exhausting. Shit. Wonderful.’
Nena warms to her again.
‘Well, I guess you know what it’s like…’ Emily cranes her neck. All she can see is a shock of thick black hair under Ava’s bear suit but says Ava looks gorgeous anyway.
Nena smiles, she knows it’s true.
‘Yeah, weaning isn’t going that well for us… I just can’t get her off the boob. Can’t get her off me at all for that matter; she’s a drainer!’
‘Ahh, don’t worry, it’ll happen. I never would have had Belle if it hadn’t.’
A few weeks ago, Nena might have sternly told Emily to fuck off with the wisdom, but today she is willing, she is open, she is grateful, to cling onto any nugget of advice that says this will get better.
‘It gets much, much easier when they’re at school!’
That’s four years.
Nena wants to cry.
‘Which school are your kids at? Arlo, my stepson, he’s at St Andrew’s.’
‘That’s Sammy and Belle’s school! Which year?’
‘Oh, he started in September… is that Year 1?’
‘Reception. Belle’s in Reception; she’s not five until June though.’
‘Arlo Vernon. Brown bowl cut, shy smile, super cute.’
‘Oh, Arlo and Belle are in the same class!’ Emily’s birdlike features look both alert and puzzled as she pieces together the jigsaw of Nena from Bateson Hall landing a job on CBeebies – and so now she must be married to her friend Kate’s ex-husband, Tom. Kate leaving Tom for Bland Patrick caused quite the stir among the other mums at Baby Group, so Emily is heartened to learn it all worked out in the end for Tom.
‘Yeah, Tom is my husband,’ says Nena, as if she can read Emily’s mind.
Emily marvels at what a small world it is and how surprised she is that she hasn’t seen Nena at school at all. Nena is too embarrassed to say she’s barely got out of her pyjamas since the school year started. Emily wonders if there is tension between Kate and Nena, although Kate’s never said anything negative about Tom’s new wife, only that she works in children’s…
Of course.
More pieces fit together.
‘My kids love your show, you know.’
‘More than Dr Rosa?’
Emily looks blank because Dr Rosa’s show hasn’t started airing yet. ‘I told Sammy and Belle that I was friends with you at university and they were very confused, as if it wasn’t possible for someone to exist outside of the television.’
‘I’m not sure it does seem possible right now,’ says Nena with a wan smile. Before realising that maybe she has revealed too much. ‘Yeah, it’s only on repeats at the moment. I’m on mat leave. And obviously I need to lose about three stone before I go back to work…’
‘Nonsense. You look amazing as ever.’
The thought of going back to work makes Nena panic. She has until October. Which seems both an age away and like it’s tomorrow. Nena is conflicted by how much she misses work: the energy of it, the pride she has in what she does, the autonomy of earning – and how terrified she is to go back.
It’d be nice to pee when I need to, or drink a hot drink while it’s still hot.
‘Are you still in touch with Maya Flowers? You two were as thick as thieves.’
‘Yeah, she’s still my mate, but she’s travelling with her boyfriend at the moment, so I haven’t seen her for a while. Lucky cow.’ Ava stirs. ‘You might have read her column about her travels, in Esprit magazine.’
‘Oh god, I haven’t read a Sunday paper in, oooh, about six-and-a-half years?’ jokes Emily.
‘Well, it’s the only thing I do read, to see where in the world Maya is – her emails are getting less frequent the further she gets from home. We must try to Skype soon.’
She won’t believe it when I tell her I bumped into Emily Snatch.
Ava wakes up and writhes, little knots of hunger gnawing at her tummy and Nena’s anxiety.
Emily peers into Nena’s shoulder again and coos.
‘Is she sleeping through the night?’
Nena wants to say ‘Fuck off,’ but remembers the kindness with which Emily held Berocca in her palm.
‘No. She hasn’t slept through once. I’m still feeding her through the night. Ridiculous, eh?’
‘Not really. You have to do what’s right for you. So you can stay sane while you’re keeping them alive.’
Nena feels a rush of relief.
That’s it. All I have to do is keep her alive.
‘How do you manage to keep three alive?’ Nena’s thick dark brows crease and furrow.
‘Oh, three is easier than a new “one”. Nothing was harder for me than going from self-indulgent, confident woman, to suddenly having a newborn. It was hideous. I don’t know how I managed.’
Nena looks at her watch, unzips Ava’s bear suit a little and puts her under her top to her breast. She’s not fed much in public, but for some reason she doesn’t feel self-conscious now, and that feels like a milestone.
‘Drat, what time is it? I have to get the kids from school.’
‘Two forty-five.’
‘Ah! I’d better go. Want to walk with me? Oh, I guess you can’t,’ Emily gestures to Nena’s chest.
‘No, Kate’s getting him today anyway. Tom does pickup on a Wednesday. I sometimes join him,’ Nena lies, feeling terrible that she’s not met Tom at Arlo’s new school once. She vows to remedy that, on a Wednesday soon.
‘Well, it’s
lovely to bump into you.’ Emily repositions Iris on the sheepskin liner of her buggy, then hesitates. ‘Hey, er, do you go to any baby groups at all?’
Nena looks nonplussed and doesn’t answer.
‘I go to a really nice baby sensory class, usually on a Monday morning, but she runs a couple of sessions a week. In the side building by the town hall. Fancy meeting there one Monday? They’re not wankers.’
Nena doesn’t know what to say, she is flooded with panic.
‘Well, some are, but we can laugh about them over coffee afterwards.’
Get a grip.
‘I’d love to,’ says Nena, warmly, as she pats Ava’s bottom.
‘Great. It’s 9.30, so I go straight from drop-off. See you Monday?’
‘See you Monday, Emily Snatch,’ Nena smiles.
Emily hesitates, seeing a self-doubt in Nena that makes her think she might never see her again. ‘Actually, let me get your number, in case anything comes up. It often does with three to get up and out in the morning.’
Nena calls out her digits while Emily presses them into her phone and sends her a text.
‘That’ll have my details. Right, better go,’ Emily mouths as she unlocks the brake of her turquoise roofed buggy and walks hastily on the path out of the park.
Nena looks back at the children’s play area and the lake beyond it. It’s emptied out now. Just her and Ava. Everyone else dashed off to flirt some more or to collect big siblings, or to get the tea on. Or to just keep their little ones alive.
21
March 2016, The Haven, Thailand
‘I’m going for a run,’ Maya whispers, as she kisses James’ forehead. ‘It might be my last for a while…’
Maya knows she sounds melodramatic but is worried that, even in a few hours, she might feel too weak on her diet of clay shakes, herbs and air to do anything as physical as running.
James sits up, rubs the sleep out of his big brown eyes and puts on his glasses. ‘OK, honey, go carefully yeah?’
‘I’m only going along the beach – maybe the paths at the back of it.’
James blinks behind his lenses, to help him focus. ‘It all gets a bit jungly at that far stretch, I’m not sure what’s around the karst at the end – I wouldn’t go off the shore or the path or anything.’
James has never seemed to worry about Maya running; he’s always had confidence in her strength, her common sense, her orientation. But since they’ve been following the disappearance of Manon Junot on BBC World or CNN, he’s become increasingly apprehensive every time she laces up her trainers.
‘I’ll stick to the beach then,’ Maya appeases, before planting a kiss on James’ full lips as he clicks on the television with the remote control on the bed.
*
When Maya packed her capsule wardrobe for their big trip, she knew that one of her footwear items (alongside the bronze Havaiana flip-flops, the red Lulu Guinness raffia wedges and the clunky North Face walking boots she travels in – all bases covered) would have to be her Nike trainers. Running for her was non-negotiable. The freedom to move after being cooped up. The chance to reflect. The opportunity to think about what her next column should be about. The chance to scout out new places to eat. Since Maya’s father had encouraged her to take up running by convincing her that it could mend a broken heart, she had never looked back. Slowly building up from a slumpy novice to a strong woman, and now when Maya runs she is Beyoncé outrunning a big cat – she can do anything. Even if some of her runs on this trip were ill-advised.
In Agra, Maya was chased by wild dogs, yapping at her heels before she ran for cover in a surprise branch of Pizza Hut, where she leaned against the glass window and cried while she waited for the dogs to lose interest and disappear.
After their stay on the houseboat in Kerala, Maya ran along the beach at Alleppey, marvelling at the men on their haunches, meditating as they looked out to sea. It was only as she got closer she realised that the men weren’t practising yoga, they were using the beach for their morning constitutional, and she scowled as she ran past their neat piles of poo.
Some runs have been beautiful. Lodhi Park in Delhi; Lumphini Park in Bangkok; the beach on the Andaman Coast. Maya still appreciates the curative powers of running, even when the runs are less than pleasant. She pictures Herbert running in front of her, the comforting bob of his bouncy hair, leading the way to safety, giving her strength.
I miss my dad.
The norms of a Thai beach mean Maya can wear shorts and a vest with her Nike trainers today, so she weaves out past The Haven’s rustic cabañas, alongside Moon’s open-sided common room that they haven’t dared venture into yet, and to the shore. While the gemstone-green water is dazzling, the coastline is less pristine here than the Andaman Coast. Seaweed and sticks pepper the sand. The beach here feels more… raw, which suits the back-to-basics ethos of the spa. Indian opulence this isn’t, despite the hefty change-your-life price tag they’re relieved they don’t have to pay.
Maya breaks into a run, thinking about the man she left behind, rubbing sleep from his eyes and putting on CNN. How supportive he is, of her running, of her baking. How he put his dream career on hold for her so they could go travelling. How she can’t mention again the yearning she feels inside.
Her pace quickens as the wet sand on the shore is hard enough and flat enough to tread without the sensation of running through treacle. The beach isn’t wide but it is long, and completely empty. There are no tourists dipping in the crystal water. No paddleboarders wading towards the inlet at the end.
Look at this! This is all for me. This is going to be my best run yet.
Maya decides that if it’s too barren and too isolated beyond the jungly end of the beach, where the karsts come closer to the shore – they might even jut out of the sand, it’s hard to tell from here – she will turn around and do a few lengths of the beach before she goes back to James and starts the brutal business of cleansing. She thinks of a plate of mango, bursting with the zing from a lime squeezed over it, cold from a few minutes in a fridge. Her mouth starts to water.
Shit, I forgot my water.
Maya nears the end of the beach and judges from the time it took her to run it that it must be half a kilometre at least.
Perfect. If it’s too isolated and barren beyond, I will turn around and complete 20 lengths.
The end of the beach is getting closer, the rocks that spike out to reach the sky become taller, swamping her, and Maya wonders what lies around the most lush and proud karst at the end, right in her path. Will she be able to snake past to another similar expanse of sand, or will the water come up high and smack the rocks?
She turns to look back behind her, to see how small the buildings of The Haven are from this far end of the deserted beach. And then her head smashes into something she neither saw nor expected. Something that is both hard and spongey. It hurts, and it dazes Maya, who struggles as she stumbles back, trying not to lose her footing and fall in the water. She flails, aware that there is the figure of a man standing in front of her. Confused that her main priority is to not fall onto the sand where the water laps, because if she gets wet, it will be harder to run away.
‘Uff!’ says the man, whose face she can’t see for the stars in her eyes.
Her arms flail further, as her wide, flat feet save her. Balancing her. Stopping her from being dragged onto the sand and into the sea. She stills herself, and puts her hand to her throbbing forehead, shielding her eyes as she regains her composure.
‘Ow.’
James was right.
Maya pushes her hand up, over her forehead, and opens her eyes, trying to focus on the man who still seems to be standing tall in front of her, unaffected by their collision, not saying a word.
Maya thinks of Manon Junot and wonders if she ran into a man on the beach, never to be seen again. She wonders why this face in front of her looks familiar, like someone from the television or a face from her past.
This can’t be righ
t. I must have hit my head hard.
She focuses again, into the sunlight.
But she is right.
‘Oh. It’s you,’ Maya says, rubbing the bump she can already feel on her forehead. ‘What are you doing here?’
22
Years of love and harmony unravel and rewind until Maya sees herself lying broken on a bed, crying so many tears that they tumble into her hair, turning it from poker straight to forever wavy.
‘Are you OK?’
Maya puts her palms on her thighs and takes deep breaths into the sand. The shore just about laps at the edge of her trainers. Not getting wet was a win.
‘Yeah… yeah… I’m OK. Just confused. What are you doing here?’
‘What am I doing here? What are you doing here more like?’ he laughs.
Jon Vincent is smiling. His glacial eyes are as bright as the sea, but not as warm. His once-shorn hair is now longer, his hairline higher, as an arc of blond rises upwards from a curved widow’s peak. Gone is the tennis-ball fluff of a buzz cut Maya used to give him at university. They both look different.
Maya catches her breath.
Those eyes.
‘I’m travelling. With my boyfriend,’ she adds a bit too hastily to be as casual as she intended. ‘What are you doing here? How did you spring out of nowhere? I didn’t see you.’
‘Yeah, I realise,’ Jon says, pummelling the red patch on his chest with one fist. ‘I didn’t see you either. But this is my morning walk. I love this stretch, especially when it’s so peaceful.’ Maya and Jon look up and down, surveying the empty beach. ‘Although, weirdly, I prefer not to have a beautiful woman run full pelt into my chest.’
Jon’s fist opens into a flat palm and he circles his torso to soothe the impact point. Maya doesn’t apologise.
‘Are you staying at The Haven?’ she asks.