by Zoë Folbigg
This way.
Maya has the sensation that this is the right path to take, the feeling that something is pulling her. At the end of the alley, as she’s just about to step out into the sunshine of the courtyard, another swathe of fabric suddenly unravels in front of her, blocking her way. This time, an elderly tailor with skin like withered root ginger and brown stumps for teeth holds one end, smiling. His daughter – no, she must be his granddaughter or great-granddaughter – holds the other end proudly, so the Westerners taking tea in the courtyard can look at their colourful wares.
The vibrant fabric barrier is awash with colours of crimson red and midnight blue, rippling in the wind that’s started to whip up. It feels like a finishing line luring her in, as if it’s been held up specially for Maya to cross, to reach her prize. She so hopes Manon Junot is on the other side of the colourful cordon, and she strains her neck, showing her eagerness to pass.
‘Sorry,’ the tailor’s granddaughter or great-granddaughter giggles as she lets go of her end of the swathe so Maya can pass. The fabric billows towards the old man and Maya crosses into the courtyard, startled and frozen by the face unveiled in front of her, looking at Maya as if her arrival was anticipated. Through the red and blue barrier she just crossed. At this precise time. In this sunny courtyard. In an obscure and tiny corner of the world.
‘You found me.’
42
April 2016, London, England
‘Black decaf Americano, how you like it, yes?’
Rosa Samarasekera perches on the desk and crosses one thin leg over the other under a black leather pencil skirt. Tom is sitting at a desk in New Broadcasting House, trying to get as much work done as possible ahead of a busy day. Runners walk by, taking guests to radio studios, scripts to the newsroom, purchase orders to the finance department, cheese and ham toasties to their bosses.
‘Oh, thanks! Saved me from that godawful machine again,’ Tom says, barely glancing up as he frantically types, trying not to lose the autumn strategy document he was working on, in which Rosa features heavily. He presses save and minimises the document. Then looks up, giving Rosa his full attention.
Tom studies her face and wonders how long it will be before News try to poach her.
‘Well, I was going to get you caffeine but don’t want you to peak too soon. Gotta pace yourself, right?’ Rosa raises a long, arched eyebrow.
‘Yes, of course.’ Tom takes the proffered coffee and sets it down next to his laptop. Rosa’s bottom is so close to the charge cable he notices she accidentally pulled it out of its magnetic grip. ‘Although Nena can’t make it.’
Rosa has a look of I didn’t ask if she was coming, while Tom remembers how he left his wife this morning. In bed in their loft room with Ava suckling on her dummy next to her. Neither of his girls had seemed keen for much interaction. Nena less so after Tom had urged her to come to the Children’s party tonight, the party to celebrate sixty years since the first ever Bertie & Betty show.
‘Bertie Baxter himself will be there!’ Tom had enthused.
Nena shrugged. It made no difference to her.
‘It’ll help you transition back into work – see all the faces who miss you, everyone who’s asking after you.’ Tom tried, he really wanted Nena to get back to her usual self.
Nena had shrugged again and looked up out of the skylight, noticing how dirty the drizzle had made it. From the look on her face, work seemed like a closed chapter of her life.
‘I could ask your mum and dad to babysit…?’
Nena shook her head, and finally spoke, while still looking at the tiny circles of grey pollution on the Velux windows. ‘I can’t face it. Plus, you’ll be networking, I’d hold you back.’
‘I’ll be stronger for you being there.’
‘Tom Vernon’s wife,’ Nena said glibly.
‘Nincompoop Nena’s husband,’ Tom protested.
‘No. I wouldn’t know what to wear. I don’t want to leave Ava anyway,’ Nena said in a way that indicated the matter was closed.
Tom felt voiceless, knowing that the best thing for Nena would be to get away from Ava for an evening. To put on her old clothes and make-up. To work a room again. It would be the best thing for her, regardless of how useful it would be for her career, regardless of how it would save Tom answering awkward questions.
Rosa notices the detached cable and raises one buttock. ‘Oops, sorry.’
She plugs it back into Tom’s MacBook with a spark, and a lightning flash appears on the screen.
Tom laughs and rubs his head.
‘Anyway, what’s the dress code? I didn’t quite get the whole “Bertie & Betty” theme. I don’t want to dress like smelly geriatrics, I treat enough of them at Guy’s…’
Tom looks at Rosa’s face, trying to work out if she’s joking. Intrigued, he rubs his head again and answers the question in hand.
‘Well, I think the idea is to dress as if it’s Bertie & Betty’s heyday. Fifties, I guess. But I’ll just wear a suit. I have a vintage Liberty tie of my grandad’s – let’s just say it’s from the 1950s even if it isn’t.’ Tom gives a cheeky smile.
‘Yah, I’m not really a 1950s sort of person, but I have a stunning Victoria Beckham dress that might suit the Savoy.’
‘Perfect!’ says Tom, raising his eyebrows and having no clue what a Victoria Beckham dress might look like, hoping it isn’t like the Union Jack one Geri wore. Hoping even more it’s not a black skimpy minidress, because now he’s imagining what Rosa’s tits are like and he needs to get on.
He puts the blue cardboard coffee cup down and strikes a key on his laptop to awaken the screen. R.
‘I’ll let you get on,’ Rosa smoulders.
‘Great – yes – I need to finish this document before tonight. Autumn planning. Charmaine will be there, I know she’ll be pleased to see you too.’
Is he flustered?
‘Great,’ Rosa smiles. ‘Enjoy the coffee.’
‘Yes, coffee. Thanks for that, that’s really sweet of you.’
‘My pleasure.’
Rosa propels herself off the desk, smooths down her skirt and walks away in skyscraper stilettos towards the newsroom.
Tom looks up as he types, watching Rosa slink away as he sinks into his seat and lowers his head behind his laptop. He looks at the coffee cup next to him, inhales the comforting aroma and notices Rosa’s Pillow Talk lipstick imprint on the white plastic lid.
43
April 2016, Hoi An, Vietnam
Maya steps back, wondering if the elderly tailor and his granddaughter might catch her fall in their fabric.
‘I wasn’t looking for you.’
Sea green eyes glimmer in the sunshine.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asks.
Jon doesn’t answer. Instead he stands and pulls out the other wrought-iron chair at his table in the middle of the courtyard cafe, offering Maya a chance to join him. A small cup of coffee sits on the mosaic tabletop, a ream of paper is anchored by a mobile phone, protecting it from the breeze swirling off the river behind the buildings.
‘Well, this is freaky,’ he smiles.
Maya stands awkwardly, looking behind her, at the fabrics, the alleyway, the street.
‘You have to stay for a coffee at least. What are the chances…?’
‘I can’t really, I’ve left James and some friends in a tailor’s shop a few streets away. They’ll wonder where I am.’ Maya sounds like she’s convincing herself more than Jon.
He doesn’t say anything. He just looks up, hopeful, enchanted.
Leonardo DiCaprio in a fish tank.
Maya thinks of her first crush, how much she loved him, and suddenly feels somewhat flummoxed.
‘I thought I saw…’ Maya realises how silly she’s going to sound in these most silly of circumstances. ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter.’
‘Please,’ Jon smiles, his best Oscar-winning smile. ‘The coffee in this place is amazing.’ He clicks his fingers and gestures to the wait
ress to bring two more. ‘Better than any expresso I’ve had anywhere in the world.’
It’s espresso with an s.
‘I can’t be long,’ says Maya, disarmed by his enthusiasm, forgiving him for expresso, admitting that this is rather an exceptional coincidence.
She pulls the small, heavy seat out further. Iron scrapes on concrete and makes Maya’s chest hurt. She looks at Jon as she sits down. He is more tanned than he was when she left Thailand, so the rest of his stay must have done him good. His bright eyes jump out against his skin and his blond hair, pushed upwards, looks even fairer. Jon checks his phone then flips it over, giving Maya his total attention.
‘Look, sorry I didn’t get to say goodbye to you at The Haven,’ he laments. ‘Had a sudden message about a callback, so I headed straight home to London.’
Maya looks puzzled, then realises Jon doesn’t know she and James left first, or that they disappeared as soon as they could to get away from Poo Camp, to appease James and prove to him that nothing had happened that night she and Jon got drunk in the bar. To run away from old feelings.
‘Oh, don’t worry, I think we might have left by then anyway. Decided to sack off the detox and head straight to Vietnam. That hangover! Wow, I mean, it hurt. Anyway, I couldn’t face disappointing Moon.’ Or James. ‘So we made up some family emergency and left the next day.’
Maya curses herself for saying too much. She always says too much when she’s nervous. Always plays her hand too early. She didn’t have to say anything, didn’t have to justify herself to Jon of all people.
‘Yeah, that was brutal, eh?’ he says with a twinkle in his eye. ‘Note to self: never go on a detox with Maya Flowers again. You always were the best tequila partner.’
They lock eyes.
Jon relaxes back in his chair. ‘So, what do you know, I go all the way back to London for the callback, get the gig, and we’re straight into production, on location in…’ He opens his arms as if to say ‘ta-da!’.
Maya looks blank.
‘Southeast Asia!’
‘You’re working out here?’ Maya looks at the stack of paper on the table, to see what his big gig is, but his phone obscures the title page. ‘Wow,’ she adds with a small voice, trying not to sound impressed.
‘Yep, a new le Carré. With Damian Lewis. Shot in Vietnam, among other places. And I bump into you. What are the odds?’
Maya shrugs.
Damian Lewis?
‘Weird,’ she concurs.
The waitress brings two tiny bronze cups of coffee and Maya realises that her mouth is parched from eating the sweet coconut and peanut bun so quickly. She thinks of asking for a glass of water but is really keen to get back to the tailor shop.
‘Thanks,’ Jon nods, working that Hollywood charm like Bradley Cooper on a talk show.
‘So, what’s your role?’
‘Damian and I play brothers… bit unlikely…’ Jon gestures to his hair. ‘But he’s a great guy. And it’s nice to bury the hatchet after Homeland.’
‘Homeland?’
‘He just pipped me to the lead.’
‘Surely you were too young to play a middle-aged US Marine turned rogue.’
‘Make-up is a wonderful thing, Maya.’
‘What’s your stage name again?’ Maya asks casually.
‘Look, while I have you, I really did want to say sorry.’
‘Oh please, Jon, we went through that at The Haven.’
‘I know but…’
‘And really, you have nothing to be sorry about. I got my happy ever after.’
‘No, I meant I’m sorry for fucking off the next day, we had such a fun night. I shouldn’t have left without saying goodbye.’
‘Oh, look, don’t worry, we left the next day, really, we didn’t notice. If you feel bad, I should be feeling bad.’
‘Boy, did I feel bad. You’re a bad influence, Maya. I’ve never broken a cleanse before I broke it with you.’
‘What can I say, I’m a maverick.’ Maya laughs. And blushes. The realisation that she’s flirting makes her down her coffee swiftly. The hit of rich nutty caffeine makes her mouth feel even more parched and her senses sharpen. Jon gazes deep into her eyes.
‘Listen,’ he says, stroking his hair upwards. ‘Don’t go off again before giving me your digits.’
‘Oh, I don’t have a phone any more. We gave our phones up before we left the UK.’
‘Your email then. I was kicking myself about not getting it before. It was just too serendipitous to have bumped into you, Maya. At this stage of my life.’
‘What do you mean at this stage of your life?’
Jon looks at Maya intently, his smile fades.
‘OK,’ she says, to break the silence more than anything. She scribbles down her email address on the front of his script.
Jon looks at the familiar scrawl and remembers letters sent to his parents’ house full of heartbreak.
‘We’re staying at the Hoi An Happy Homestead.’
I said too much again.
‘Can we meet later for a drink?’
‘Only if you bring Damian Lewis,’ Maya says with a smile as she walks off. Her conflicted heart making her forget about Manon Junot; an umbilical cord of colourful cotton drawing her back to James.
Once is a coincidence, twice is a… charm? Is that how it goes?
44
‘Do. You. Have. Any. Chicken wings?’ Dee asks loudly and slowly, as if that’ll make her more easily understood. The waiter looks perplexed. It’s not that he doesn’t understand English, he just can’t understand why the woman is being a stickler about chicken wings in this, the restaurant with the most sought-after tables in central Vietnam.
‘We have calamari tempura, tuna ceviche, pork and shrimp crispy rolls…’ the waiter replies in perfect English with an American twang. Lenny has the face of a hopeful puppy. ‘But no chicken wings I’m afraid.’ Lenny’s face drops. ‘The chicken pho is tip-top though.’
Maya squeezes James’ leg under the table. Whether they were eating with hill tribes or at snake palaces or in modern fusion restaurants, Dee’s relentless quest to find chicken wings for her man, just the way he likes them, is endearing, if a little embarrassing. They’ll miss Dee and Lenny when they head home for Aidan’s wedding tomorrow. Not before picking up their new clothes in the morning.
Dee looks back down at her menu in a panic. ‘Babe, why don’t you have the chicken pho? It’s like your mam’s chicken noodle soup. Only a bit more flavoursome.’ She strokes the back of Lenny’s neck.
‘No no no no no,’ he frowns. ‘I just wanted some chicken wings.’ He looks up at Maya and James in despair. ‘I’d even take a plum dip or something fancy, just so I could have some chicken wings.’
‘I know, babe,’ comforts Dee.
‘You’ll be home soon,’ James consoles.
‘Ahh,’ says Lenny with a twinkle in his eye. He can almost smell the sticky BBQ glaze from his favourite place on Montague Street.
‘He’ll have the chicken pho. But hardly any liquid thanks. Can you make it more like chicken noodles than soup? And I’ll have the calamari tempura please.’
The waiter nods.
‘Right, so that’s one green papaya salad, one red snapper, a calamari, a chicken pho without the pho, and, for you, sir?’ The waiter turns to Jon.
‘What do you recommend, my friend?’ Jon sits looking polished and proud: pomade slightly darkens the blond hair it pushes upwards; an Omega watch sits heavily on his wrist; a pressed white summer shirt with tiny geometric squares on it makes him stand out in the darkened restaurant. His clothes are ironed and expensive-looking. He is clearly The One Who Isn’t A Backpacker.
The waiter shrugs. He doesn’t have much time to schmooze; this table has already taken long enough to order. ‘The five-spice marinated beef is good,’ he says nonchalantly, looking around at the other tables all needing his attention in the vibrant waterside venue.
Maya sips from her mango margari
ta while Dee and Lenny put down their menus and gaze adoringly at the actor at their table, waiting to hear what soliloquy will come forth from his lips. The waiter is as unimpressed as James.
When Maya made it back to the tailor’s shop, flustered and out of breath, James, Dee and Lenny were sitting on the pavement outside, so she had no choice to explain what had happened. James wasn’t sure if he believed the Manon Junot part – it did sound ludicrous – and wondered if Maya had just seen Jon passing and wanted to pursue him. Later, when they bumped into Jon on their way to dinner, James was even more irked when Dee and Lenny invited him to join them, and James had to pretend that this guy didn’t rattle him.
‘One of those please. Blue.’
‘It comes how it comes. Grilled.’
Jon smiles. ‘However it comes will be wonderful, I’m sure.’
The waiter is already halfway to the kitchen.
Now that the issue of chicken wings has been put to bed, Dee can’t wait to grill Jon on what he’s been in, which celebrity gossip he can tell her, who his famous friends are… She keeps glancing at his phone and wonders which A-listers’ numbers are in his contacts.
‘Sooo, tell me what I’ve seen you in,’ she says, rubbing her hands together. A row of shiny bangles jingle up her arm. She wraps an arm around Lenny but drapes off him, leaning open-mouthed towards Jon. Maya holds onto James’ leg.
‘Hamlet at the Barbican?’
‘We’re from Dublin,’ Dee and Lenny say in unison.
‘Of course,’ Jon blushes. ‘I had a run in Hamlet. With Cumberbatch,’ he says, putting a fist to his mouth and clearing his throat politely.
James’ spine rises. Maya plays with the mango twist in her cocktail and inspects the barman’s impressive fruit topiary. It’s a handy way to hide her own impressed face. She doesn’t want to fawn like Dee and Lenny, who definitely recognises Jon but can’t place which show he saw him in.
‘I’ve done TV dramas you might be more familiar with.’