by Zoë Folbigg
Maya sponges James’ chest. ‘I saw that too.’
She lets him carry on.
‘I went back to the market, to take some more shots: the colours and the children and everything, they were so beautiful. I needed to remember that it was the right thing to do, turning it down… That I wanted to keep travelling. Keep seeing these amazing things. Keep having these mind-blowing experiences.’
Maya reaches for a dark brown bottle and squeezes a teardrop-shaped blob of shampoo into James’ hair, gently making a lather with one hand.
‘I was taking photos of the night market when, through the lens, I saw her. I saw Manon Junot. I thought I must be going mad, so I looked up. I was sure I saw her – with a man – but I lost her in the crowd.’
James’ voice wobbles and he holds his breath and plunges under water, to rinse his hair, to gather himself.
‘No no no! Don’t get your stitches wet! They said not to if you can help it!’
James rises but doesn’t care. He just continues.
‘I couldn’t see her, in the crowd of the night market. So I looked at the last photo on my roll, I figured it must have been a picture with that woman in it, so I scrolled back and zoomed in. And it bloody was! She was even wearing the clothes they described on the news. But they were dirty, she didn’t look well.’
Maya nods, wide eyes encouraging him to go on.
James ducks under again and rises back up, his hair now slicked back, water sloshing onto the tiled floor.
She strokes his exposed forehead, trying not to touch the cut next to his eye.
‘By the time I’d looked back at the picture and was sure it was her, I’d lost them. So I went running through the night market, trying to find her again. It started to rain, it was chaos, and people were packing up… People were appearing and disappearing out of nowhere.’
Maya remembers the fat drops; her hair still smells of its residue.
‘I’d seen she was with a man. But they didn’t look right, they didn’t look like a couple. She looked like a child with a grown-up, a parent – she was so small and so skinny. I searched in the direction I thought they were most likely to have gone and I couldn’t believe it, I saw them up ahead.’
Maya inhales a brief gasp before talking. ‘It was her James, you found her.’
‘Yeah, and I followed her. I followed them.’
‘Where to?’
‘Down by the river, right near where we finished kayaking. She saw me following and looked wary, like she was scared of me, not him, so I thought I might be being ridiculous, and I almost turned around. She put her arm around him, as if to tell me to go away, so I hung back. Pretended to take photos. But I could see fear and this weird look in her eyes. Like a catatonic, lifeless look. It wasn’t right, and I thought if it was her, if she was Manon Junot, then this wasn’t something I could walk away from. I shouldn’t have walked away from it.’
‘You didn’t walk away, you rescued her!’
Maya turns off the tap and lets the steam roll up and over James’ wounds, sweat and salt helping cleanse him. Her cheeks glow pinker as she leans in.
‘What did he look like, the man? Was it the guy from the police station?’
James shrugs. He didn’t see the man being brought in under armed guard, flanked by a formation of men with machine guns, shortly before James was allowed to leave.
‘He was older than us, about fifty? I dunno. Dirty. Curly hair, wet with the rain, or maybe it was greasy. And this moustache.’ James both sweats and shivers, as he draws a moustache on his face with his fingers. ‘I followed them along the river. It must have been for hours. Through the thick trees. I kept tripping on roots and vines. I went all along the bank we kayaked past, I couldn’t believe it. It was getting darker and darker…’ James eases his palms over his face to galvanise himself as Maya leans on the edge of the bath, elbows out, her chin on her flat hands. ‘I was having to follow quite a way behind them so they didn’t see me. She looked back a few times to check I wasn’t there.’
‘Maybe she was checking you were there?’
James raises his eyebrows and his stitches crinkle.
‘Maybe…’ he winces, through gritted teeth.
‘So where did you end up?’
‘It was dark and I was tripping over the tree roots. All these roots were everywhere. And I was so worried about getting back to you. I knew you’d be going crazy and be so worried – I’m so so sorry. But it was Manon fucking Junot!’
‘It’s OK, it’s OK. I survived.’
Now isn’t the time for Maya to tell James that it was the most frightening night of her life too.
‘So I walked, kind of slowly, knowing I could be losing them. But I didn’t want the twigs or branches to snap, and in some places it was really quiet, you couldn’t even hear the river – when the rain stopped, it was total silence. But I had to keep up too, to not lose them. I didn’t know where we were heading.’
‘You’re so brave.’
Maya gasps, thinking about what might have happened to him – what did happen – and the hideousness of the notion of life without James. The insight into it last night was horrific enough.
‘They stopped at this brick hut, really small, must have been halfway to the waterfall we went to, and a light went on inside, so I sat against a trunk trying to listen. Wondering what the fuck to do. Trying to catch my breath, get some energy. I was knackered, to be honest.’
Maya strokes the curve of James’ arm. ‘Poor baby.’
‘So I sat there for ages in the damp and the dark. Mosquitoes buzzing in my ears. I could feel all these things sucking and biting me…’ James points to tiny circles of blood on the skin around his ankles. ‘I needed to hear whether she was being held against her will, or whether she’d chosen to go missing. I needed proof before I went charging in there. I still couldn’t believe it was her. What if she’d just wanted to check out? What if she just wanted a quiet life and everyone had got the wrong end of the stick?’
‘No, of course not. Of course that wasn’t it.’
‘Well, I didn’t know what to do. But I remembered her family; her mental health. She didn’t look like a happy woman, or a woman in love, or a woman who might have chosen this – she was thin and dirty. Her eyes looked both alert and dead at the same time.’
‘I saw them,’ Maya concurs. ‘As you put her on the trolley at the hospital.’
‘So I sat and listened and wondered what to do. Tried to rest to get my energy up after the kayaking and the walk, but I could feel the leeches; the rain was making me shiver. I thought “What are you waiting for?” There was no right time. It was dark, they turned out the light, and I couldn’t see anything above the canopy of the forest. So I waited for the moon to get higher, so I had my best chance of light, but it just wasn’t showing through. Maybe it had peaked. I couldn’t work out what time it was. I couldn’t see my watch. It was pitch black.’
‘You need a new watch. We should have kept our phones!’
‘Well, it doesn’t matter now.’
‘So what did you do?’
‘I told myself to stop being a coward.’
‘You are not a coward.’
‘She needed me. You needed me. So I knocked on the door.’
‘What happened?’
James grits his teeth. ‘He opened it and just punched me, right in the face. Smashed my glasses and my eyes. He must have known I was coming.’
Maya cries as she dabs James’ less swollen eye with the sponge, bright pink and red where blood has congealed around a smaller cut.
‘My baby.’
‘She was there, sitting on the floor, chained to a little bed, like a kid’s bed. She looked neither afraid nor relieved.’
James winces.
‘Ow!’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I was on the ground, I fell back even though the guy was smaller than me, but he was strong, so I had to get back up and fight. I couldn’t leave without her. By t
hen I had no choice.’
‘Why didn’t you come back, call the police?’
‘Another few hours to get back to town? I don’t know what might have happened. I had no choice. He was feral and angry and holding her captive. I had to fight. I’ve never had a fight in my life.’
‘I know…’
‘But I was taller than him. I was younger than him. I hit him, Maya. I hit him, and he was punching me back. But I kept hitting until he fell back on the bed and I had enough time to get her out.’
‘Shhh, it’s OK, the police have him. I saw the man you described, he was dragged into the police station. He’s locked up.’
James takes a little comfort from this, and continues.
‘She put up a fight too – tried to kick me away – but she had no strength. She passed out on me as I carried her, she was flimsy but also heavy, it was weird.’
‘Shit.’
‘And all the time, as I was carrying her back – in the dark, and I couldn’t see – I thought I was about to get it, a blow to the back of my head. I was just waiting for it, waiting to be struck – all the way back to town.’
James sinks underwater again to cleanse his sorrow.
‘It’s OK,’ Maya says with a smile, pushing him back up with a hand pressed to his hair-smattered stomach. Stroking his swollen nose with her finger. ‘You did it. You found Manon Junot! You rescued her, and now her family can hold her and hug her and get her the help she needs. You did it, James. This will be news all over the world soon.’
James looks to Maya, horrified. ‘I can’t go out there. I just want to sleep.’
‘That’s fine, you sleep. The ambassador might be hours, we don’t know. I won’t let anyone talk to you until you’re ready. I’ve got your back.’
James shuts his eyes in relief and the swelling of his closed eye seems to subside a little, as relaxation creeps over his face.
Maya grabs the towel above the passport, also warming on the radiator, and holds it, crisp and taut at each end.
She changes her tone. ‘It wasn’t the right thing to do you know.’
He opens his eyes – or tries to – and looks at Maya.
‘What wasn’t?’
‘Turning down the big A-list wedding. I mean, Hugo Linden and Ashley Jolly want James Miller to photograph their wedding?! Film director Hugo Linden, who must know shitloads of camera people, cinematographers, set photographers – and they want you? It’s amazing. You were trying to convince yourself that staying here, with me, was the right thing to do. When it wasn’t.’
‘May—’
‘It’s OK. I accepted it for you.’
‘What?’
‘I emailed her back. Brooke. Must have been a couple of hours later, pretended I was you.’
‘What did you say?’
‘I said, “Sorry, had a moment of madness, but rethought it and if it’s not too late…” kinda thing. Said, “I’d really love to do it – where do I sign?”’
‘You did?’
James’ face brightens.
Maya nods.
‘What did she say?’
‘She messaged right back. Said, “get your arse on a plane asap”.’ Maya looks up at the clock. ‘There’s still time – although hopefully even a supermodel diva like Ashley Jolly would understand you being waylaid…’
James rubs his eyes. ‘Wow.’
‘I’m sorry I held you back. I know it’s what you want. Not this self-indulgent trust-fund backpacking malarkey.’
‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘It’s OK, I get it.’
James looks up sheepishly at Maya, through his one good eye. ‘I don’t want to go back without you. But I don’t want to hold you back either.’
Maya lets go of the corners of the towel and lets it fall to her lap. ‘We want different things, James. I thought this would be a good idea, a great thing to do: go travelling, get it all out of my system before we went home, I got a dream job with my diploma or something, and maybe we tried for a baby…’
James exhales across the bath, towards his crinkled toes, causing a ripple in the water.
‘But I could see you flinching every time I mentioned travels – or our life after it – but it’s OK.’
‘It’s not that I didn’t—’
‘It’s fine, I totally understand. I am a bit full-on…’
Maya stands up from the closed toilet seat and perches on the bath’s edge. She opens the towel out again, so James can get out, get some rest. So he can go home.
He looks up at Maya’s freckled face, sees the tension in her knuckles as she clutches the towel corners taut. And he knows he has to be brave again.
69
‘It’s not that… It’s not that I didn’t want this. The trip has been ace. Well, mostly,’ he shrugs, woefully. ‘It’s not that I don’t want to have a baby…’
A tear rolls down Maya’s cheek and into the bath. She’s been so sad and so shocked and so scared and so hurt and so relieved, all in the space of just a few hours, and now she’s about to be so heartbroken.
‘It’s just that—’
‘You don’t want to have them with me?’ she asks.
‘I guess I’m just more of a traditionalist than I realised.’
Maya is confused.
‘I do want to have babies, Maya, just not yet.’
Maya takes a deep breath and dries her eyes on the corner of the towel. ‘I know, I know. It needs to be the right time, right place, right girl…’
‘I want to get married first.’
‘What?’
‘But every time wedding talk comes up, I see you flinch, Maya, you recoil. You shrink away from me.’
Maya teeters, still clutching the towel on the edge of the bath, only their ends are no longer taut. ‘Are you kidding?’ she asks, searching James’ face, trying to look into his eyes, which is pretty difficult given the state he’s in. ‘You think I don’t want to marry you? You think I don’t want to marry Train Man? James Miller? Saviour hero of Manon Junot? Best, most tolerant, most handsome boyfriend in the world ever?!’
James’ face lights up in the reflection of the bronze bath and his eye widens. As best it can anyway. Relief rolling over him with the steam.
‘Oh my god, I so do! I’ve wanted to marry you since the first day I saw you on the platform. I thought I would sound nuts if I ever said it. But I do I do! I just thought you thought it was too…’
James stops Maya by pulling her into the bath with a kiss, her lace-trimmed knickers and vest soaking.
‘Then let’s do it,’ he says, entwining his legs around hers, pulling her towards him from under her bottom. ‘I don’t have Cartier or Tiffany or Haribo, but Maya Elizabeth Gloria Flowers…’ he says with a smirk.
‘Watch it!’
‘Will you marry me?’
‘Yes!’ Maya laughs, relief washing all over her as they wrap their legs around each other and she gently kisses James’ cracked lips.
‘Ow!’
70
May 2016, London, England
‘Surely Prince Harry or someone is due any second,’ says Francesca, nudging Petra’s waist and pointing to the bank of photographers. Petra looks up from under her lilac fringe.
‘They’re here for James.’
‘Shut up are they for James!’
‘No, really.’
In the airy arrivals hall of Heathrow’s Terminal 5, Francesca and Petra wait, marvelling at the press pack leaning against the thin metal barrier, unaware that on the other side of the photographers and cameras and reporters, Herbert Flowers holds an A4 piece of paper with ‘Maya Flowers’ written on it in hieroglyphic-style handwriting only she will understand.
A young man in a suit stands to Petra’s left, taking a briefing from a woman in a more expensive looking two-piece.
‘Do they all have breaking-news permits?’
‘Yes, ma’am, I checked.’
‘And you know what to do to get them out afterw
ards?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘OK great, concierge will accompany him through. Remember there will still be hundreds of other passengers trying to get through. We have Jeddah, Frankfurt, Tokyo and Nice in there at the moment, as well as Bangkok, so try to keep it brief or keep it contained. Apparently he will talk, but doesn’t want to for long. And he doesn’t want the conference room.’
‘Very well, ma’am.’
‘When I give you the nod, start ushering them out. I suspect you’ll be doing him a favour as well as us.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
The woman looks at the iPad she’s clutching on top of her box files.
‘Dubai and San Diego are incoming too.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
*
‘Oh look, there’s her dad!’ shouts Nena, as she hurries into the hall with Ava on her hip.
‘I’ll check the screen,’ says Tom, looking around and scratching his head.
‘Herbert!’
‘Nena, my dear! How wonderful to see you.’
‘Didn’t know you were coming.’
‘All the world’s a stage, my dear,’ Herbert declares, leaning in to stroke Ava’s button nose. ‘And all the men and women merely players…’
Nena laughs.
Herbert leans in further, conspiratorially. ‘They have their exits and their entrances,’ he adds, sweeping his arm towards the big black letters that say INTERNATIONAL ARRIVALS.
‘And one man in his time plays many parts?’ replies Nena, with a question and a wink. Herbert chuckles behind his bushy beard. His rosy cheeks rise. ‘This is Ava! Ava meet Herbert. He’s Aunty Maya’s daddy!’
Ava looks at the man with the bushy grey beard and hair the shape of a clover, bouncing in three little grey clouds above his head. She gurgles and tries to grab his soft grey-and-white chin.
Tom returns. ‘Landed. At baggage reclaim.’
‘Tom, this is Maya’s dad, Herbert.’
‘A pleasure to meet you, Tom. I’ve heard only wonderful things about you.’
Tom smiles and matches Herbert’s effusive handshake with his, then both look back to the stream of weary travellers arriving from distant parts.