The Postcard Read online

  Tom bounces back up off the sofa.

  ‘We’ll cut it in a minute, Arlo,’ appeases Nena. ‘Daddy’s just making everyone a cup of—’ Nena cuts herself off with a realisation. ‘Holy shit! It’s your anniversary too!’

  Arlo looks at Maya and James with wide, shocked eyes.

  ‘Oh sorry, Arlimoo, don’t tell Daddy I said a swear.’

  Arlo blushes.

  ‘Well, yes, there is that.’ Maya smiles as James takes a swig from his bottle.

  Maya loved James from afar on their daily commute and it took almost a year for her to heed the advice of her elderly friend Velma and give James – or Train Man as he was known among Maya’s friends – a note, asking him if he’d like to go for a drink. James politely declined, on account of having a girlfriend and being a loyal sort of chap, so Maya went back to that excruciating, longing commute. Months later, Maya and James finally found themselves both single and both stranded in a snowy station doorway late at night. Maya had been travelling home from Nena and Tom’s Westminster wedding when the train stopped halfway to Hazelworth, and in the scramble for taxis (and wearing inappropriately strappy silver sandals), Maya bumped into James, who swept her off her frozen feet.

  ‘Sorry, Sugatits,’ says Nena, stroking Ava’s bottom as she suckles. ‘I’m so caught up in all this shit.’ She looks over to Arlo again but is relieved to see he didn’t hear her this time. He’s too busy zooming a plastic penguin wearing a deep-sea diving outfit along a skirting board.

  Maya shakes her head as if to say don’t worry.

  ‘Are you guys doing anything to celebrate? Please tell me you’re going out tonight and that you have a life. It’s fish ’n’ chips and night feeds for our first anniversary.’

  James strokes the back of Maya’s hair as she curls back onto him. ‘We thought we’d have dinner in town after seeing you guys,’ he says. ‘There’s only so many times we can go to the trattoria in Hazelworth. We’re upgrading our pasta tonight.’

  ‘Ooh, where to?’

  ‘Locanda Locatelli, in Marylebone.’ James rests his bottle on his jean-clad thigh.

  ‘Sounds delish,’ sighs Nena dreamily, believing she’s not going out for the next eighteen years.

  ‘It does look really special,’ says Maya, turning to James and placing a kiss on his lips.

  ‘Everyone want tea?’ asks Tom as he pokes his head around the door.

  Nena, Maya and James all nod yes pleases and Tom disappears again.

  ‘So, while I’m anchored here and going nowhere, tell me about your trip. I mean, who cares if Holly, Phil and the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills are my best friends, right? I can live vicariously through you two!’

  Maya blushes. She and James have been planning this trip for months now and she feels a little guilty talking about travelling around the world for a year, when her best friend can barely get past the thought of another sleepless night ahead of her. Out of guilt, Maya focuses on making faces at Arlo, still zooming a penguin along the skirting board. James fills Maya’s silence.

  ‘Starting in India – we leave on Boxing Day.’

  ‘Nice,’ says Nena, gazing down at Ava, as she takes her off the breast, readjusts her top and sits her on her lap.

  Maya marvels at the ease with which Nena does the mum-manoeuvre, not realising that Nena feels self-conscious and clumsy.

  ‘We start in Delhi and then travel to Udaipur, where the wedding is.’

  ‘Wedding?!’

  Nena looks at James like she missed the memo. Her eyes dart a glance to Maya’s left hand, still clutching an empty glass, but the only ring she can see is Maya’s Dinny Hall smoky quartz on her right hand.

  ‘Yeah, my old boss.’

  Maya feels agitated. ‘James’ old boss invited us to his wedding,’ she adds, although she’s sure she told Nena this before. ‘All Bollywood luxe in a palace on a lake. You know, low-key…’

  James widens his eyes to emphasise Maya’s point.

  ‘But James will have to work, so it won’t all be fun.’

  James nods his agreement.

  ‘James is photographer number four. Charged with doing the reportage pictures.’

  ‘Oh right,’ says Nena, trying to bring up the burp that is dancing knots in Ava’s hard stomach.

  Arlo pads back to the fraisier cake. Maya thinks he’s been so patient, so she slides down from James’ lap to the rug and removes another strawberry for him.

  ‘Here you go,’ she whispers, smoothing his shiny hair into place while James resumes telling Nena about their itinerary.

  ‘So, we’re starting in India, and then travelling to Thailand and through Vietnam, Laos – maybe Cambodia – Indonesia, Australia…’

  But Nena’s eyes are firmly on her daughter’s back. She needs this burp to come up before Ava starts crying and fretting, and before Nena does the same during another fraught evening and night ahead.

  James trails off.

  ‘Here,’ says Nena as she stands, defeated, thrusting Ava towards James over the coffee table. ‘I can’t get her to burp – can you give it a go?’

  ‘We’re out of milk!’ groans Tom, poking his head around the door again. ‘I’m just popping to Sainsbury’s.’

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ says James, bouncing up out of the armchair and forcing Nena to hold on to Ava, who lets out a huge burp over the fraisier cake.

  ‘Thank god she didn’t puke on it,’ laughs Tom.

  He and James put on their coats and head out into the dark December afternoon before Nena and Maya have a chance to shout, ‘Bye!’

  ‘That went well,’ laughs Nena.

  Maya had noticed how uncomfortable James looked as he jumped up and threw on his navy peacoat and she can feel Nena’s tired eyes boring into her right now, so she keeps her gaze firmly on Arlo.

  ‘How’s school then, buddy? You getting on OK in Reception?’

  ‘Yeth,’ lisps Arlo. ‘My best friends are Loota and Miss Telly.’

  ‘Loota? That’s an interesting name.’

  ‘Lu-ca – ca, ca, with a curly ca,’ says Nena kindly. ‘Lu-ca and Miss K-k-kelly.’

  ‘Lu-ta,’ Arlo tries.

  Nena doesn’t want to push it. She loves being Arlo’s stepmum and they have a brilliant relationship, so she can see that if she says it again it might knock his confidence.

  ‘So, tell me again,’ says Nena, still standing while she places Ava into the crook of her shoulder and rubs her back. ‘I wasn’t really listening.’

  ‘I know,’ Maya says, giving an understanding smile.

  ‘India first. Then where?’

  ‘It’s OK, we’ll send you postcards.’

  Nena looks a little crestfallen. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve just got so much going on with all…’ Nena gestures to the baby.

  Maya feels bad that she’s made Nena feel bad, so she tries to make it right. ‘No, no, no, it’s fine. I don’t know how you manage it. A five-year-old and a newborn! You’re doing amazingly.’

  Nena shrugs as she rubs the sleep out of her eyes. ‘Yeah, but Arlo’s with Kate and Patrick most of the week, I don’t even have to do a school run. Perhaps if I did, then I’d make it out of my pyjamas…’

  ‘Yes, but what fine pyjamas they are…’ admires Maya, stroking Nena’s faded oversized Levi’s T-shirt with baby sick on the shoulder.

  She has a point. Only Nena could make the tired-new-mum-look chic. Her T-shirt is tied in a knot above her soft belly, where a brown line runs down brown skin; her marl shorts don’t look that dissimilar to her usual off-duty dancer look of leggings, long skirts and sweatshirts over vests or one bare shoulder. Her long, straight, jet-black hair is shinier and fuller than ever thanks to the hormone surge, and she hasn’t started the new-mum shed yet. And her make-up-free face looks tired yet youthful; her huge eyes shine less brightly than usual, but they are stark and beautiful.

  Nena changes the subject. She doesn’t like talking about herself any more. ‘So, how’s it going with Train M
an? Do you think you can handle a whole year of just the two of you?’

  Maya has been asked this question a lot lately. By her sister Clara, by her old workmates at FASH, by her new baking buddies from Pastry School, although not all of them still call him Train Man.

  ‘You can call him James, you know.’

  ‘I know, old habits…’

  ‘Well, I think we’ll be OK.’

  ‘You “think”?’

  ‘We’ve barely seen each other since he moved in. He’s been so busy building up his portfolio, doing all these weddings, I think it’ll be nice just to catch up, to be honest. To just get on with it.’

  ‘But you live together…’

  Maya’s face prickles with heat. ‘Well, I’ve been at Pastry School in town in the week… and packing up the flat so we can rent it out since I graduated. And James has been out loads working; shooting weddings most Fridays and Saturdays… Apart from Tuscany, we’ve barely had any time to stop. And there he was so nervous about being Dominic’s best man, he couldn’t exactly relax.’

  ‘At least he had a weekend off photography detail.’

  ‘I think he’d rather have been behind the camera than making the speech. But he did a great job.’ Maya sighs proudly. Then remembers her protest. ‘We’ll be fine,’ she says, with a slight irritation in her voice.

  ‘Well, you’re about to find out. I imagine travelling will be a test: helping each other through the squits… pissing on each other when you’re stung by a jellyfish… getting ripped off at every border crossing… arguing over who decided to take the wrong turn… Surely travelling and parenting are the two biggest killers of relationships.’

  Maya frowns. ‘I hope not.’

  ‘But, hey, if it goes well, you never know what might happen.’ Nena holds up her left hand and wiggles four fingers. The gems in her engagement and wedding rings sparkle.

  ‘Oh, shut up, not you too! It’s all I get. At Dominic and Josie’s wedding; from my sister; from the guys at Pastry School; all this chat about the Bollywood wedding… everyone going on at us and saying, “You’re next!” and “Tick tock!” It’s all getting a bit tiresome.’

  ‘Well, if he doesn’t ask you to marry him, then he’ll be missing a trick. He’ll have so many sunsets, so many romantic opportunities, it’d be rude not to, if you ask me.’

  I didn’t ask you.

  Maya looks uncomfortable and tries to make things good again. ‘Anyway, pass Ava to me, will you?’ she says, opening her arms and changing the subject. ‘Come to Aunty Maya, you peach of a baby you.’

  As Maya takes Ava into her embrace, she closes her eyes and inhales the smell of her small furry head. The sweet clean scent helps soothe out the knot of ill ease in the pit of Maya’s stomach, but it can’t quite erase the image of James’ face as he dashed out of the door.

  3

  December 2015, London, England

  ‘So, what else is on our to-do list?’ Maya asks, before slurping up a strand of chestnut tagliatelle too clumsily for the restaurant they’re sitting in. A speck of taupe-coloured sauce lands on the crisp white tablecloth; the beige and white booths in this elegant corner of London feel like a cosy hug on this decadent December night.

  ‘It’s just the last of those boxes to go into storage: our clothes, my camera stuff, your KitchenAid… unless you’re leaving that for Timo.’

  ‘I am not leaving that for Timo.’

  ‘Well, we can’t do any of that until Christmas Eve anyway.’ James pushes his glasses up his nose and tucks into his black truffle gnocchi. They both mentally count down the days until Christmas Eve and say five to themselves at the same time. ‘Did you tell the insurance company that the flat needs to move over to rental for the year?’

  ‘Shit, no. I’ll add that to my list.’

  Maya marvels at how clever, how organised, how handsome James is.

  James taps a front tooth, signalling to Maya that a short strand of chives has got stuck between hers, and she blushes and smiles from behind her hand. Maya reaches for the compact mirror in her make-up bag, looks into it and removes the offending greenery, thinking how much worse it will be when she gets the squits, as Nena so cheerfully put it.

  ‘I think you have to tell them; it changes something about the building or contents insurance if you’re renting it out.’

  ‘Do you think we’ll regret Timo taking over the flat?’ she asks.

  ‘He’ll be fine. He’ll have Florian to answer to if not. And me when we get home.’

  Maya laughs. James doesn’t have an ounce of aggression in him. And her baby brother Florian is a 6ft 5in quiet giant. But Florian’s best friend, Timo, is Hazelworth’s biggest playboy, and Maya doesn’t want to think about how many girls will be passing through the stained-glass door of her lovely, light, first-floor maisonette in the next twelve months.

  James looks at Maya reassuringly. Everything about James is reassuring. His warm brown eyes. The dimple in his left cheek. His strong shoulders and soft hands.

  ‘I’d better make a note to call Nationwide or I’ll probably forget…’

  Maya takes a black Sharpie and a notepad out of her bag – the notepad she tore a piece of paper from, more than a year and a half ago, on which she wrote a note for James, asking him if he’d like to go for a drink. First came his crushing rejection, then seven months of longing, not knowing that he too had wished his circumstances were different, before they were thrust together in the most serendipitous of circumstances, in the snow one year ago tonight.

  ‘And phones?’ Maya asks, Sharpie at the ready. ‘Are we sure we’re cancelling our contracts and ditching our mobiles?’

  ‘Yep. Don’t need them.’

  ‘But shouldn’t millennials always stay connected, even on the Mekong Delta? Shouldn’t we be vlogging about this experience in daily updates to billions of YouTube fans?’

  ‘You sound really square, Maya.’

  ‘Just sayin’…’ Maya tries to look youthful and sassy, and then remembers she’s in a restaurant where she should be looking adult and refined. She smooths down the black blazer over her gold lamé vintage dress.

  ‘Well, not at the price we pay a month – I checked. Laos and Cambodia aren’t the kind of countries we can roam for free,’ says James. ‘Bin them. It’ll be liberating. There are internet cafes everywhere now. We can email and Skype and chat whenever we need to. We’d only ever need a phone in an emergency, and we’d be really unlucky to encounter one of those…’ James raises one eyebrow hopefully.

  ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’ replays in Maya’s mind.

  A waitress in a white jacket comes to refill their glasses with white wine from an ice bucket, then leaves again promptly.

  ‘Anyway, enough about dull things like mobile contracts and house insurance…’ James lifts his glass and widens his eyes. ‘Happy anniversary, beautiful, sweet Maya. I love you so much.’

  Maya blushes and beams a sparkling, chiveless smile. She can’t believe how she’s lucked out. Train Man – Train Man – is in love with her. Train Man thinks Maya is beautiful and sweet. Train Man agreed to take a whole year out so they can spend every single minute of every single day together, travelling the world, lounging on beaches, reading books, plotting their future together.

  She smiles, raises her large wine glass and hopes their futures are aligned.

  ‘I love you too, baby. And a year!’ she sighs. ‘It’s gone so fast! Although, technically, it’s two and a half for me…’

  James laughs, and his dimple sinks further into his cheek. He spears some gnocchi onto his heavy shiny fork which then pauses at his lips.

  ‘We’re going to have such a brilliant time,’ he says, before tucking in enthusiastically.

  Maya lets out a sigh of relief. ‘Really? You think so?’

  *

  James hadn’t been all that keen on going travelling when Maya first suggested it. He was worried about how much time he’d spent building up his portfolio throug
h hard work and word of mouth, only to throw it all away by turning down portraits, family photos and weddings. For a whole year. Worse still, he’d have to cancel bookings he had already accepted. But a phone call out of the blue from his old boss at the advertising agency where he had worked with his best friend Dominic had got Maya thinking.

  ‘Millsy you twat, it’s Jeremy Laws here.’

  ‘Jeremy, hi!’

  James pictured Jeremy Laws, chief creative officer at MFDD advertising agency on Charlotte Street, scratching his red beard as he spoke.

  ‘You’re coming to my wedding.’

  ‘Eh?’ James had said – surprised to hear from a boss he was sure he’d burned his bridges with.

  ‘I’ll pay for your flight and a couple of nights’ accommodation… on the condition you take some photos. Priyanka wants that reportage style and Dominic says you’re not too bad. So, I’m booking you as well as the official photographer. And the fashion photographer. And the interiors photographer. Jesus, she wants this wedding to be in Vogue, Tatler, Elle Deco and Grazia India. It’s crippling me!’

  James had heard that Jeremy Laws was finally settling down, with a woman who looked like an Indian princess no less, but he didn’t expect to be on the guest list, let alone to be part of a wedding in Rajasthan.

  ‘Congratulations, Jeremy, I’m—’

  ‘Do me a favour and just be the reportage photographer. Nice post-Christmas break. I’ll pay for your trip over and you do your pictures for free. Deal? I’m not paying another bloody photographer.’

  James laughed as he listened to the rasping sound of Jeremy scratching the russet-coloured stubble over his Adam’s apple. He hadn’t spoken to Jeremy Laws since he quit MFDD just over a year ago, to leave a life of branding, packaging and advertising dog food, craft beer and feminine hair-removal products for a new career taking wedding photographs and portraits.

  ‘When is the wedding?’

  ‘New Year’s Eve. Udaipur, India. If you say no, I’ll fire you.’

  James laughed again while he tried to get his head around Christmas plans he hadn’t yet made. A conversation – a commitment – he and Maya hadn’t got round to.