by Zoë Folbigg
‘Do you mind me asking how Duke died?’
‘Not at all, darling,’ says Velma, as she clumsily wipes cream off her lip with a shaky hand. ‘We knew straight away that we wanted to settle down together. I wasn’t getting any younger, and Duke was ten years older than me, so I happily gave up being a correspondent and took the agony aunt job so I could stay in New York where his work was. We got married, had the boys, my work fitted in nicely around motherhood, and we had this lovely life in Brooklyn. Until…’
Maya looks terrified. ‘What happened?’
‘One day he got in the car to go to work, drove across the Brooklyn Bridge onto FDR Drive, and had a massive heart attack at the wheel. He was only fifty-five. And when the police came to our house, I just knew it. The hardest thing I ever had to do was tell the boys. It was even worse than hearing it for myself.’
Maya’s eyes are so full of tears she knows the next blink will send one tumbling. She puts her plate down on a pile of books with caution.
‘I’m so very sorry, Velma.’
‘Thank you,’ Velma pats Maya’s hand in comfort. ‘Me too. Sorry for the boys mostly, he was such a wonderful father.’
Velma puts down her cake plate and pours tea.
‘At first I was angry. Marriage and kids caused me to lose my adventurous spirit and I became a bit more timid. When Duke died I felt hopeless, and I kinda resented him for that. But that passed. The boys grew up. I travelled again, went to the West Coast, back to Europe. To London.’
‘You didn’t ever fall in love again?’
‘Nope.’
Velma stirs the tea.
‘Do you think then that there really is only one person for everyone? One true love, and Duke was yours?’
‘Hell no!’ Velma laughs, as she brings her hands together in a clap. ‘I have received enough correspondence and heard enough tales from the heart to know people can fall in love many times, sometimes as deeply and passionately as the last, sometimes even more so. There isn’t just one person for everyone. That’s nonsense.’
‘But you travelled all around the world and met Duke on your return to New York.’ Maya takes her teacup and looks down into it, feeling bad about what she’s about to say. But if there’s anyone she can be candid with, it’s Velma. ‘And there’s been no one since.’
‘I’m sure I could have fallen in love anywhere if he was right. But that’s the thing. The connection and that feeling of everything being right is so rare and only happens a few times in life. For me it happened once, but it can happen more. I have widowed and divorced friends who have gone on to love again, and it’s a very real love. I have friends who have fallen in love when they shouldn’t have. But it happens. I just know that those feelings, those connections, those moments… they don’t come along all that often in life. And they need to be acted upon. I didn’t let suitors pass me by out of some widowly duty to Duke, I was just unlucky not to have had that feeling again. You have to make the most of it when it does come along.’ Velma gives Maya another of her kind, knowing looks.
‘Oh I wish Train Man would ask me out like Duke did you. He’s barely noticed me.’
‘Well times are different now, honey. I might have even asked Duke had it been another day.’
The cake is so delicious their plates have almost cleaned themselves.
‘Another slice?’
‘No thanks, I’m going to my sister’s for a roast dinner with her family.’
‘Oh how wonderful. Why don’t you take the rest of that for them when you go?’ Velma says, nodding to the remaining cake. ‘It won’t keep. And would you like to borrow the book? I’ve just finished it.’ Questions that come like friendly commands.
Maya picks up Josephine Baker again and looks at the cover. Carnegie Hall 1973. What must it have been like to be Velma? To only spend twelve years of a lifetime with your soulmate, although Maya feels that she would give anything for just one hour to talk to Train Man. She tucks the book into her bag.
‘Oh I have something for you!’ Maya remembers, as she takes a dainty-looking rectangular box out.
‘Are these what I think they are?’
‘I made them!’ Maya squeaks. ‘My best batch yet!’
Chapter Thirty-One
Nena sits on the multicoloured chaise longue of FASH reception, legs curled underneath her, black mischievous eyes eyeing the side of the staircase high in front of her to see if she can spot her friend’s feet, ankles and legs before her torso lowers into view above them. It’s just a little game Nena’s playing with herself to while away her nerves. But Maya descends in too much of a hurry for her best friend to recognise her as quickly as she might. Or maybe Nena’s not seen enough of Maya lately to recognise her by her clothes. Nena has pretty much always worn a dancer’s uniform of leggings, a vest or off-the-shoulder top and then one brightly coloured piece on top. But ever since Maya went to work at Walk In Wardrobe, after they graduated from their south coast sojourn, her style has evolved. At first it was all about black separates in a killer cut. All-black everything was easier than having to think about what to wear in an office where it was all about high-fashion. When Maya moved to FASH and everyone seemed a little bit more street, a little bit more high street and a little bit more relaxed, Maya slunk into her comfort staples of jeans and Converse. But since she first saw Train Man on the platform that drizzly morning last July, Maya decided to unleash all her dresses that are cinched in at the waist, the cute vintage twinsets and the button-down circle skirts that she was Saving For Later because Maya realised that later had arrived. Who was she saving them for if not for Train Man?
So Nena doesn’t realise that the blush pink pumps with the bow on them or the stripy peach cotton dress with the big nude belt belong to Maya, until Maya’s chestnut waves bounce into sight.
Nena twists the ring on her left hand nervously, uncurls her legs and stands up with her arms open.
Maya doesn’t give Nena a bear hug as usual, just a gentle embrace and a quick peck on the cheek.
‘Hey hey you OK?’ Nena says.
‘Yes fine, where did you want to go? The canteen upstairs? A cafe out?’
Maya was surprised Nena wanted to come to meet her for lunch in the first place. She hasn’t seen her since Valentine’s Day two months ago. Nena was too busy around her birthday to meet for a cocktail and she still hasn’t been to visit the flat in Hazelworth. So why the sudden urgency to meet today?
‘Don’t mind, as long as we get out of here, all these fashion losers are making me want to hurl,’ Nena says, nodding her head towards the fresh-out-of-college intern in hot pants and Buffalo boots as she wheels a rail of clothes across reception.
Is Nena belittling what I do?
Maya tries to shake it off, she is after all happy to see Nena. It’s been too long.
‘How about that cafe there?’ Nena asks, pointing through the gaps in the columns to the cafe run by the Venezuelan couple over the road.
‘No, it’s not that good,’ Maya lies, thinking of their creamy fifty per cent cacao hot chocolate, wanting to keep that to herself and her ‘fashion loser’ friends.
‘Hermé?’ they both chime at the same time then laugh, relieved that a tense cloud is starting to evaporate over their heads.
Nena threads her arm through Maya’s, conveniently hiding her ring as they walk south towards Oxford Street exchanging pleasantries. Like fighter planes turning at the exact same time, they curve left through an unimposing side door into the food hall where sandwich shoppers fight through the crowds. Maya and Nena weave past the slim black deco font that says DELICATESSEN and down the steps into the gilded grandeur of the chocolatiers and macaron maestros.
Lemon and hazelnut praline; rose and quince; salted caramel; candied chestnut for Nena. Rose petal; Brazilian Paineiras Plantation chocolate; jasmine; pistachio and mandarin for Maya. They file through the stationery section and to the nearest Up escalator, all the way to the top-floor food court.
; The window tables that look out onto Oxford Street are all occupied. Maya points to a table in the middle of the cafe, under a large white domed lampshade, and Nena nods. It’s a sunny spring day but light is needed in the middle of the department. As they sit, Maya wonders why Nena wanted to meet her, then a bright sparkle refracts from the light above.
‘Is that what I think it is?’
Nena looks flustered.
The girls have only just sat down but Maya’s bottom bounces straight back up off her chair.
‘Oh. My. God! When? How? When? How? How exciting!’
Maya’s face is hot under the light and she’s glad she’s wearing just a cotton sundress. Suddenly she wonders if she’s jumped the gun and Nena’s ring is costume jewellery. Surely Nena, the last girl to settle down, wouldn’t settle down with a guy – a dad – this quickly. But it doesn’t look like costume jewellery. It’s beautiful. A baguette-shaped diamond, deco and decadent shining shyly on its new owner’s finger.
Nena smiles nervously. ‘Tom asked, I said yes,’ she shrugs sheepishly.
Maya clutches Nena’s hand then wraps her arms around small shoulders, hugging from an awkward angle across the table.
‘How? When?’ Maya repeats, her voice getting higher.
‘My birthday, in the studio. Everyone was in on it. You know me, I don’t like a fuss…’ Nena flutters a huge eye and winks as she lets out a single bellow that belies her nerves.
‘I wasn’t in on it,’ Maya blurts uncharacteristically, surprising even herself. ‘Why didn’t you say sooner? Your birthday was a month ago.’
‘I don’t really know why. I’m so happy, I guess I was worried you’d disapprove.’
‘Disapprove?’
The girls look away from each other while the bubbles in their sparkling water jump and fizz. Nena is the first to speak.
‘It is sudden,’ she concedes.
‘I don’t think so,’ says Maya, thinking back to the conversation she had with Velma about the moment she met Duke Diamond on the subway. ‘If it’s right, it’s right. It doesn’t matter how quickly or slowly it took you to reach this point. And Tom seems amazing. I just wish I saw you both more so I could get to know him better. You must come up to Hazelworth and see the flat.’
Nena looks down. She knows she hasn’t been around for her friend lately. And looks back up.
‘You’re amazing, Maya. I should have known you’d be nothing but happy for me.’ Nena twists the rope of her hair to one side with both hands. ‘I guess I felt bad, for going off grid and spending all my time with Tom.’
‘Oh don’t worry about it!’ Maya casually waves a hand in the air pretending she doesn’t wish Train Man was her Tom. She doesn’t want to ruin Nena’s moment.
‘I was just trying so hard to ingratiate myself with Arlo and being around and constant for him. He needs consistency.’
Maya feels bad for feeling sorry for herself.
‘Don’t worry, really, it’s more important you’re there for them. I’m happy for you, I really am.’
‘Well it does feel weird and I have been feeling wretched for deserting the single sisterhood for Netflix and soft play.’
‘What’s “soft play”?’
‘Hell on earth, mostly.’
Maya laughs and looks down at the shiny cellophane bag on the table in front of her: pink, brown, green and orange hues snuggled together for comfort, destined to make the people whose mouths they unravel in happy. Although it will be Maya’s mouth and she hates to admit it, but sometimes she’s not happy.
‘I am sorry I’ve neglected you; that I haven’t even been to visit you in your flat yet.’
‘Don’t feel bad. I’m OK. And besides, we have a wedding to plan!’
‘Ah yes, but first this,’ says Nena, taking two tickets out of her bag. ‘Jack White. Hammersmith Apollo. July.’
Nena the charmer. As colourful and as full of zing as the macarons on the table.
*
Maya walks through her front door, kicks off her pumps and loosens the belt on her peach summer dress. Hot commuter feet are cooled by the black and white chequerboard tiles of the hallway. On the train home Maya looked for Train Man from the security of her seat and couldn’t see him. She thought about Nena. She felt sad that for one whole month Maya’s best friend didn’t tell her something she thought she would share with her straight away. She thought about the shock that Nena, the free spirit, is getting married.
Halfway up the hall, Maya spies a postcard that must have danced through the letter box and almost reached the foot of the stairs. Maya cricks her neck, drops her keys on the console table and picks up the card on her way up the stairs. On one side is an illustration of Josephine Baker. On the back is a little drawing of a macaron and in the same pen the familiar flowery scrawl of a familiar student fills the card even though it says just four words:
Perfection! As are you x
Chapter Thirty-Two
‘Knock knock’ says Glyn, not actually knocking as he walks into class.
‘Oh sorry, Glyn, I was miles away in another world, take a seat.’ Maya pivots around to face incoming classmates. ‘How’s your week been?’
Maya had been in another world, an Italian small-town fishing port. As she daydreamed waiting for class, Maya had stared at the photographic scene on the wall, wondering where the little harbour actually is in the world and whether it has changed much since the eighties, when it must have been photographed and someone thought fit to turn it into wallpaper.
‘Not too bad thank you, can’t complain,’ Glyn answers. Glyn is always Not Too Bad. Never actually bad, never good, although he always seems quite cheery.
Jan and Doug walk in, hand in hand, and take their seats, always at the front, always next to each other. Always in harmony.
Esther and Helen walk in together, complaining about not knowing it was fancy dress day at their children’s schools and how the lack of communication with the parents isn’t good enough. Maya doesn’t interrupt and lets their conversation peter out.
Keith walks in, doesn’t say anything and sits in his usual seat in the far corner at the back, tossing his long hair like the whip of a lasso.
Ed is absent because he’s still in Argentina wooing his girlfriend Valeria with his new-found vocab. Ed must have been the keenest student this year, taking to Spanish with the enthusiasm of a man in love.
Cecily walks in on her own.
‘No Dad tonight, he has a gig.’
Gareth plays the fiddle in an Irish pub on the third Tuesday of the month, and right now he’s warming up to ‘Two Reels’.
It’s a depleted class tonight. Still no Velma, still no Nathaniel. Maya decides to get started anyway so as not to lose time.
‘Buenas tardes clase.’
Nathaniel walks in with a dandy flounce.
‘Perdoname la hora,’ he says in the most English of accents, smiling at his subjects before sashaying to his usual seat in the middle of the room.
Velma’s seat, next to Jan’s, at the front and in the middle, is empty, but Maya tries to focus on the class in hand and not speculate or worry. She had said she was going to record a piece for Woman’s Hour at the BBC at some point this week, perhaps it was today.
Maya ploughs through where buildings are in relation to each other.
El cine está a la izquierda del supermercado.
La biblioteca está enfrente de la sinagoga.
‘I wouldn’t miss class for the world!’
Bad feelings rise and Maya’s Seeing The Future skills come to the fore.
While Glyn munches on a Custard Cream during the half-time break, Maya says she has to pop out. She rushes across the road into the little antiquated arcade that leads to the town square. Maya looks up across the cobbles to the pizzeria in the corner. A light is on in Velma’s apartment above it.
Relief.
Maya opens the grey door next to the red double doors of the restaurant, climbs the staircase and raises a cle
nched fist to knock.
Seeing The Future skills fill Maya with a sense of doom and her fist knocks noisily with four curt taps.
A man answers. Tall, shorn black hair, square-jawed, ashen-faced. The all-American smile from New Year’s Eve is nowhere to be seen.
‘Christopher?’
‘Maya, right?’ he says, knowing all about Maya, having heard so much about her over the past few months.
‘Yes, is, er, everything OK?’
Maya already knows the answer is no.
‘I literally got here a half hour ago, I took the first flight I could.’
Maya scans the apartment behind broad shoulders that fill the door, but there is no loud laughter emanating from the kitchen. No hands clap together in glee. Tiny feet don’t shuffle in shoes that look like slippers. The radio is turned off. The wind chimes are silent. For once the window is closed. All Maya can hear is the muted noise of cutlery chinking and a muffled sing-song of ‘Happy Birthday’ below.
Christopher looks at Maya’s panic-stricken face and realises she doesn’t know. He widens the door to let her in.
‘Mom died yesterday. Massive stroke, here in the apartment.’
Maya gasps for breath.
‘The postman was delivering a parcel in the afternoon, a proof of her new book, and heard her crying out so he broke in, called for help.’
‘Oh my god I’m so sorry,’ Maya says, slumping into Christopher’s chest and putting her palms on his back to steady herself. In an unnatural situation it seems like the most natural thing to do.
Sturdy arms wrap around Maya’s shoulders and Christopher puts his hand on Maya’s head to hold her in while he stifles tears. He hasn’t had a chance to cry yet. He was so desperate to get to England, to Hazelworth. And he doesn’t have anyone to cry with anyway.
‘Does Conrad know?’
‘Yes, but he can’t leave Madison, she’s due in a couple of weeks.’
‘Oh god the baby!’ Maya feels like she can’t breathe.
‘He really wanted to come but was torn, so I said I could sort things out alone. We both feel so awful for being so far away when Mom needed us.’