March 2014
‘I booked my flight, I’m actually doing it!’ says the jubilant old woman.
Maya and Velma are sitting in the first-floor lounge of Maya’s Victorian maisonette. Budding branches dance high in the wind outside the peeling sash windows and the room looks bright and white since Maya painted the entire flat a shade of I’ll come back to that. The first-flutter-of-spring afternoon accentuates the fresh feeling reeling from the walls and it’s nice to have a visitor. Most of Maya’s friends live in London, her siblings are all in relationships and Nena has been too busy with Tom to come and see the flat yet. But afternoon tea with Velma brings as much cheer as the blossom in the sky outside, despite a sadness in the pit of her stomach that Maya is trying to ignore. It’s become something of a Sunday ritual since the grey January afternoon Maya first visited Velma’s town square apartment. The hostess always bakes. The agony aunt always listens. Although today she is even giddier than usual, brimming with excitement.
‘Heathrow to Miami, July 22nd. Although I’m going to take a little trip to New York before that when my granddaughter is born.’
Velma is beyond excited about becoming a grandmother. She didn’t have Conrad until she was thirty-six – ‘which was practically ancient back then!’ – and ever since her sons were young she had this niggling fear in the back of her head that she might not live to see her children have children.
‘When is Madison due?’
‘May 1st. I cannot wait.’
‘Well I’ll give you a pass off class to go visit the baby, but I am very glad you’re not moving to Miami until the end of the academic year!’ Maya jokes as she pours tea from a pot into two little handleless cups with sunbeams on them.
‘Well that was a consideration, my darling, it really was! I wouldn’t miss class for the world. I’m genuinely going to miss Spanish with Miss Oh Just Maya. And our afternoon tea dates and chats…’ Velma rests an elbow on the cushion of Maya’s brown leather sofa. ‘But you know you will always have a home in South Beach if you want one.’
Words an adventurous girl like Maya likes to hear, although she hasn’t been anywhere in a long time.
‘Oh just try keeping me away! I’m thrilled for you, Velma, and your Spanish is coming along really well. You’ll be teaching me when I visit. Cake?’
Maya lifts the cloche off her favourite cake stand to make a big reveal.
‘Honey, that’s something else!’
It certainly is. The cloche almost squished the top of the cake, it’s so bountiful. Four sponges create a tower of caramel in four different ombres of brown. Pale vanilla sponge with just a hint of caramel in its light muscovado sugar sits at the bottom; next up, pure caramel, made even sweeter by dark brown treacly sugar in the mix; then choco-caramel with a hint of cocoa; and sitting on top, dark chocolate sponge. All sandwiched with dulce de leche, which oozes out from between the layers, stopping at varying altitudes down the side.
‘My dentist is gonna kill me!’ Velma claps.
Maya is happy.
Ever since Maya was a little girl she loved to bake. Chubby legs would climb onto a kitchen stool and soft dimpled hands would pull down the ingredients from the cupboards, as instructed by her mother. Baking transferred Maya to a world away from the raucousness of boisterous baby brothers, a loud big sister and chaotic parents. Dolores the dressmaker, who made dresses for her girls and dungarees for her boys, but always managed to forget she had left pins in them, so they prickled little legs on the first wear. Herbert the teacher, the poet, the symmetry obsessive. But oh the results! Maya could make such sweet triumphs that would bring Clara, Jacob and Florian to the table and silence them for five whole minutes. Maya loved watching little faces light up for those brief moments, people-pleasing even when she was six.
By the time she was ten, Maya would get so lost in a recipe, she would forget she was in her parents’ kitchen and silently pretend that there was a TV camera watching her knead, fold and smooth. As if she was one of those precocious children from the TV show only children presented. Dolores Flowers didn’t know there was an imaginary camera crew and invisible studio lighting watching her and her daughter in the kitchen. She didn’t know her little girl was being watched by millions, but she did know that sharing her baking knowledge was a Good Thing To Do. Dolores didn’t communicate with Maya much – Maya was such a quiet little thing – and it made her feel like she was getting through to her daughter in her own imaginary world. A freckled mystery who would play entire games just by sitting, staring at the bookcase. Dolores often asked Herbert where he thought Maya went when she was sitting still.
‘She’s fine, my love, we all need space to meditate.’
Feeling distant from her daughter, Dolores was relieved that they were so similar looking, it aligned them.
A mini version of me.
Same almond shaped eyes with long straight lashes. Same chestnut brown hair, shiny and poker straight. Same straight nose and small round lips. They didn’t know then, as the sweet smells flowed through the kitchen, that, some twenty years later, heartbreak would make Maya’s hair go wavy, distancing them physically but bringing mother and daughter closer than they had ever been. Now Velma is sitting in Maya’s sitting room, intrigued by the creation in front of her.
‘So tell me news of Train Man. Have you seen him this week?’
Velma always raises the subject of Train Man. She likes how Maya’s serious resting face lights up when she talks about him. But Velma knows that talking to Train Man is something only Maya can do. Maya told Velma about the ticket drop and was surprised when Velma said she thought pretending to drop her ticket was a bit duplicitous.
‘You’re wonderful enough to just be yourself, Maya, to smile and say hi.’
Maya accepted the wisdom, but she’s still not sure how to strike up a conversation in a silent carriage.
Today Maya’s face creases. It doesn’t light up.
‘I haven’t seen him, Velma, and I’m worried he’s moved away or changed jobs and got a different train.’
‘Vacation?’
‘I hope so. He wasn’t on the train all this week, and I’m shocked by how much I miss him. How can I miss someone I don’t know?’
‘It’s a pure emotion, it’s how you feel, sweetie. Let’s hope he’s back on the train tomorrow and you haven’t let the opportunity pass.’
Maya doesn’t have much of an appetite as she lowers a knife through a silky tower of caramel sponge.