The Postcard

by Zoë Folbigg

  In the silence and the sweat, James lies, thrashing in the heat, his skin smelling of chemicals, his brain hallucinating. His hair damp. His chest clammy. He thinks he can hear Maya’s feet on the gravel path leading to their room, but the sound fades out and disappears, deeper into the woods beyond the kitchen block, beyond the furthest rooms. James lies with his arms above his head and kicks his legs. He hears giggles, he hears whispers, rising and falling through the window. He hears a door, he hears a stumble and a crash, and then, finally, he sinks into a feverish slumber.

  34

  March 2016, London, England

  Nena brings the buggy to a standstill outside the unassuming 1960s building with pebble-dash render. It doesn’t sit well adjacent to the Art Deco town hall, but it serves the community with jumble sales, ballet lessons and baby sensory classes. Nena had to google what baby sensory actually was, after Emily Snatch told her about it. She soon learned it was all about developmental play through sight, sound, smell and touch, but still didn’t really get it.

  ‘Throwing jelly about? Foam parties?’ she scowled at Tom’s laptop screen. ‘I have enough food and shit thrown at me at home.’ He hugged her and said it sounded great. So, this Monday morning, Nena asked Tom to watch Ava while she got dressed and brushed her teeth. She even combed her long black hair before putting it in a messy ballet bun. And she made it to the community centre, a whole ten minutes early.

  Triumph.

  Nena sighs and thinks of Emily’s reassuring birdlike face. How she always looked like a mother hen, even when she was eighteen, wearing her lady shirts and wielding a first-aid kit around. So if mother hen goes to baby sensory classes with her third baby, it must be better than some of the classes Nena has scoffed at.

  It’ll do Ava good.

  Nena eschewed the NHS Baby Group at the health centre after just one meeting, telling Tom all the other women were arseholes. She smiled politely when the health visitor handed her leaflets about Tumbletots and Music Train, then tucked them into the recycling. And at baby weigh-in clinic she always keeps her eyes down.

  It’ll do me good.

  Nena looks at her phone. It’s nine twenty-one, so she decides to grab a coffee from the Costa next door to ease her apprehension.

  I’m not sure I can be bothered.

  Nena thinks of Maya and imagines what Maya might be like as a mother. She knows Maya would try really hard. Maya would probably have gone to all the baby groups, all the classes, and made loads of friends. Maya is a doer and a trier.

  I’ve never had to make an effort.

  This feeling is so alien to Nena, she feels discomfort in the pit of her stomach. She looks up at the coffee menu on the wall to try to calm herself with familiar fonts and colours; trying to distract herself by pondering the vast array of choice, when she knows all she wants is a milky latte.

  What’s wrong with me?

  Before Nena became a mother, she would turn up at parties alone and know she would make five friends that night. She would happily walk into any room and confidently make conversation – usually with the most handsome or most damaged guy in it – and more often than not she’d end up naked with him, then breeze out of his flat the next morning, leaving him hanging.

  Nena sees her reflection in the flat stainless steel of the back of the coffee machine and doesn’t recognise the brown-skinned girl with an unusually pale face. She isn’t familiar with the nervous eyes looking back at her.

  ‘Half-shot latte,’ she says, swaying rhythmically, gently back and forth, against the buggy without even noticing. Comforting Ava, comforting herself.

  She looks out onto the high street and sees a drizzle start to form on the windows.

  Sunshine, I need sunshine.

  Nena thinks of Maya again, lording it up, all freckled and tanned, at the luxe spa in tropical Thailand. Free and fit and entwined in Train Man, all tanned and strong and ready to take on the world – and Jon Vincent – together.

  She pays for her coffee and wheels the buggy to the end of the barista’s bar. As she waits, she looks out of the vast window again, idly out onto the high street, wondering how wet she will get ducking next door to baby sensory.

  Shit.

  Nena sees the woman she disliked most from the one and only NHS Baby Group session she went to. The woman is walking cheerfully through the drizzle, her baby in a sling on her chest as she pulls open the heaving door of the hall, ready for class. She’s the mother who dominated the session, trying to beat everyone as if they were playing birthing Top Trumps, regaling the group with the horrors of her fourth-degree tear.

  I didn’t want to hear it then, I don’t want to hear it now.

  Nena picks up her half-shot latte and wheels the buggy to the door, hitting the automatic open button with her jean-clad hip. She steers the buggy out of the coffee shop, lowers her sunglasses despite the rain and walks past the pebble-dash community centre, towards home.

  35

  March 2016, The Haven, Thailand

  Maya stirs to the sound of pottering and packing. She can hear footsteps padding around the bed. Zips opening. Clasps fastening. The sound of nylon straps being pulled and tightened. The sound of intention and movement. She opens one eye and James comes into focus. Top off. Cargo shorts slung low around his slimmer hips. He looks more spritely than when he shuffled off to take his pounding head to bed before the sun set last night.

  James, relieved that it has passed, yet packing with purpose, must have sweated out every toxin, every bug, every last bit of clay and clag, to rise like a phoenix from the ashes – before having a much-needed shower. Jon’s day three is obviously James’ day four, and only now does he feel like he’s come through the worst.

  Maya feels like it’s the Day Of The Dead, her head is throbbing at the front and the taste of bile and tequila rises from her stomach.

  He’s packing?

  The ill feeling in Maya’s head is echoed by the atmosphere in the room, and it forms and lingers like a black smoke snaking around her heart.

  ‘What are you doing, baby?’

  Hurt and sadness fill James’ big brown eyes. It’s a look Maya hasn’t seen before – except maybe fleetingly on the train, when she didn’t know that his own heart was hurting as much as hers. The unfamiliarity of it is disconcerting. Knowing that she has caused it makes her feel wretched.

  ‘Packing.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Away from here.’

  Maya sits upright and clutches the sheet to her chest. ‘What? You’re leaving?’

  Horror crosses her face.

  ‘Yep, I’m not staying around here.’ More zips, more straps, all pulled with stern precision, not anger. ‘It’s up to you if you come with me or not.’

  James sounds so callous. Maya has never heard him sound anything like this. She hopes he’s bluffing, that he does want her to go with him really, but the sick feeling in her stomach and the guilt in her heart make her realise, she deserves this.

  ‘But we have… three days left.’

  ‘I’m done with it.’

  James’ face is more beautiful than ever, which in turn makes Maya panic even more.

  I can’t lose him.

  ‘What?’

  Maya has that terrible feeling she’s being dumped.

  ‘I’m done with it, Maya.’

  Maya shakes her head as if to say no, and a boulder rattles inside her skull. ‘James, please…’

  ‘You’ve made me look like such an idiot. I didn’t want to drink clay and stick a tube up my arse. But I did. For you. For your column. I didn’t want to hang out with your ex-boyfriend, but I did. For you. And, if I’m honest…’

  ‘You didn’t want to come travelling?’

  James finally meets Maya’s eye. He doesn’t answer.

  ‘I want to get to Vietnam. Keep moving.’ He puts his backpack on the floor by the door. ‘Last night I felt the shittiest I’ve felt in ages. I was sick. Sweating. Awful. And where were yo
u? Breaking all our hard work in this bullshit, getting pissed by the looks of it.’

  Maya feels terrible and nods a gentle nod.

  ‘With your ex-boyfriend too, I imagine?’

  Maya’s silence says it all.

  James remembers the laughter rolling on incense from the bar to the bedroom.

  ‘Nice one, Maya, nice to know we’ve got each other’s backs.’

  ‘Oh no, I’m so, so sorry.’

  Maya jumps up onto the mattress, determination to salvage things overriding her nausea, the sheet still wrapped around her, and touches James’ bare shoulder. He shrugs her off, takes the T-shirt that’s hanging from the chair and puts it on. It feels unkind and alien to James to shrug Maya off, he just wants to wrap his arms around her, but he can’t.

  ‘Look, nothing happened with Jon. We went to the common room, watched the movie, listened to Moon, and then… he asked if I wanted to go to the bar.’

  ‘And you did. You wanted to go and get pissed with him rather than check on me.’

  ‘I wanted an apology. That’s what I really wanted.’ Maya is shocked by how angry she sounds. It’s enough to make James stop and look at her. ‘I’m sorry, I should have come back sooner, to see if you were OK, but I wanted to look him in the eye and ask him why he did it.’

  ‘And did he? Apologise?’

  ‘Yes. He did. I needed to hear it, to be honest, so I could draw a line under everything.’

  James widens his eyes as if to give a sarcastic thanks.

  ‘Look, let me get showered and dressed, I’m coming with you, it’s not even a question.’

  James feels relief but doesn’t show it. That it was what he needed to hear.

  ‘Baby, I hate this place. I hate him! I was just doing it for the column. So they didn’t sack me, so I didn’t…’

  ‘So you didn’t what? Lose your career? Whether it’s newspapers or patisserie, I’ve supported everything you do, Maya.’ James shrugs.

  ‘I know. And I don’t want you to think I’m not supporting you. You’re an amazing photographer. This time next year you’ll be overrun with bookings and commissions.’

  Maya edges towards the side of the mattress and stands, still wrapped in the sheet, level with James, still looking downbeat.

  I’m such an idiot.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry. But I cheated on the detox, with tequila, not on you, with Jon. And I shouldn’t have done it, I should have come back and mopped your brow.’ She smooths his hair to the side of his forehead and kisses it. ‘I’ll do anything to make it up to you.’

  Maya wraps her arms around James’ neck.

  ‘Anything?’ he asks.

  ‘Anything,’ she says with a twinkle in her slightly yellow eyes.

  ‘Get dressed, and let’s get out of here.’

  Maya nods.

  ‘I don’t want to rummage in my shit, or for broth to be the culinary highlight of my day. And I don’t want to see your ex-boyfriend, who treated you awfully, fawning over you and parading around like the Big I Am because he’s a hotshot actor who can do the lotus position better than me. He might know loads of A-listers, and I’ll always make nice and be polite, but I’m never not going to think he’s a prick.’

  ‘I’m never going to not think he’s a prick.’

  ‘Good. Then kiss me and pack.’

  Maya likes this commanding side of James. He’s usually so amiable and placatory. But feisty Train Man is hot.

  Maya moves her kisses up James’ neck until she plants one on his lips.

  ‘You stink.’

  ‘I know!’ she laughs, and jumps down, untangling herself, so she can shower, pack and get the hell out of Poo Camp.

  *

  Maya stands at the table with all the leaflets on top of it and steps out of her bronze Havaianas, ready for her weigh-in. Or weigh-out, rather. While she waits, she ponders how she can let Moon down after The Haven kindly offered this trip to Maya and James for free, for a write-up. How can she write it with the tension Amy Appleyard wants (Well done, Amy, you got your bust-up) without letting Esprit readers know she royally messed up?

  As Maya waits for Moon, she looks at a leaflet about crystals, and considers which small and polite fib she can tell, to explain why they’re leaving three days early.

  Another member of staff, a man Maya hasn’t seen before, walks up the wooden ladder steps to the common room and comes in clutching the scales.

  ‘Mister Moon is in the main office. Big hoo-ha. Guest leave without paying.’

  Maya gasps. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah, it happen every now and then. But we track ’em down and kill ’em.’

  Maya gasps again before seeing the smile on the corner of the man’s mouth.

  ‘Well, I’m sorry to hear that. But if you can let Moon know everything was wonderful, thank you, and sorry that we’re leaving halfway through, we’ve just had a family matter come up.’ Maya hopes her excuse sounds less flimsy to someone who doesn’t speak English as their first language. ‘I’ll write up a glowing review.’

  ‘Here to please you, ma’am. Hope you return to The Haven again soon.’

  ‘We will,’ Maya lies, knowing she will never voluntarily not eat for a day ever again.

  ‘Always our raw restaurant,’ says the man, as if he can read her mind. ‘Not everyone come to fast.’

  Maya blushes and takes her cue to step on the scales while James walks their luggage to the little wooden boat waiting at the shore. He already clocked a loss of 4kg this morning. As Maya rises barefoot, she steps up onto a cloud of relief. She’s relieved to be leaving; relieved to be putting Jon well and truly in her past; relieved that the weight of betrayal is now lifted from her shoulders.

  My Travels with Train Man

  If you’re looking for the elixir of life, I’m afraid to say clay shakes is not it. We’ve just left what rapidly became known as ‘Poo Camp’, and while my skin is sparkling with radiance and freckles, and I am lighter and leaner than I’ve felt in ages, I am also desperate for some spring rolls.

  It’s been a strange few days here. The daily meditation, lectures, sunrise yoga, late-night yoga (which isn’t a euphemism, it’s actually a thing) were all just the tonic after getting bogged down by long bus trips, too many Magnums and a lazy lifestyle at the beach. But I won’t mind if I never have to do another self-administered colonic again. Or any other kind.

  The embarrassment and hunger made for a tetchy few days between Train Man and me. I’m not very good at not eating sugar; it makes me really grumpy. So much so that even being in a Thai idyll couldn’t stop me acting like a total bitch over our nightly vegetable broth. If there were chocolate on the premises, trust me, I would have found it. So this, our biggest test, has only confirmed what I suspected: that Train Man must be the most patient man on the planet.

  Poor guy. He has gamely watched Legally Blonde, Dirty Dancing and The Devil Wears Prada in a common room surrounded by women (he was rooting for Anne Hathaway in her cerulean blue cable-knit, mind); he had to get onboard the (enema) board to fill his bowel with a coffee solution and even offered to go first so he could tell me the dos and don’ts of it; and he didn’t love me any less when he heard me discussing the contents of my basket with Moon (no Matchbox cars for me, but I think there was a Creme Egg wrapper in there somewhere). He even forgave me when I cheated on him and broke the detox for a couple of cheeky tequilas and a bowl of wasabi peas after I bumped into an old friend in the bar (go figure).

  Anyway, in a world where ‘rawsagna’ is cheating, you know you’re in for an intense few days. But our stats speak volumes. Train Man’s brown eyes are glowing like Oscar statuettes. And I have lost more weight than I’ve put on during this trip and can even see the outline of some muscles on my stomach (if I say six-pack out loud then I’ll think of Tunnock’s Tea Cakes, so best I don’t). But I really, really, want a plate of spring rolls. And a Crunchie.

  So, with a gleeful heart, we say goodbye to beautiful Thailand and head
to Vietnam, where we will take in a motorbike tour around the north of the country, eat spring rolls in Hanoi and have clothes made for us at the famous tailor shops of heavenly Hoi An.

  Train Man and I feel closer because we’ve overcome our first true test, and I never have to do another self-administered coffee-colonic. We’ll never speak of this again.

  36

  March 2016, London, England

  Who’s the twat buying the kale? Nena thinks as she idly stares at the conveyor belt in front of her. The middle-aged woman sitting behind the checkout with a badge that says Sandra gives a sympathetic smile, to half apologise for the customer in front, who just nipped off to ‘get one more thing’ before Nena got in line. Nena doesn’t smile back, instead she rhythmically rocks the pram, hoping Ava doesn’t wake in Sainsbury’s. She studies the shopping on the belt in front of her and compares it to her own meagre bag of pears, the single butternut squash, a bag of salted peanuts and a box of Mikado. Judging from the customer in front and the abundance of buckwheat, flaxseed and sumac, she must be much more wholesome and much more organised than Nena, but Nena knows she can – she will – always come back tomorrow. It’s pretty much the only place she goes.

  Ava lets out a little gurgle to announce that she is awake.

  Shit.

  Nena was hoping that Ava would stay asleep until they got home, so Nena could wake her by getting her out of the pram at the bottom of their flat stairs. Every nap has an optimum length, depending on the time of day it falls. Not too short or Ava will be ratty, not too long or the night will be even worse than usual. Nena seems to punctuate her day by trying to get Ava to sleep, then trying to wake her up.