‘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 clenched 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.’
Maya sobs into Christopher’s chest, the thought of Velma on her own as she left the world she lit up. She didn’t ever get to be a grandmother. Maya pulls away and looks up at Christopher’s blue eyes. He looks so strong and solid, standing there needing to be comforted.
‘I’m so sorry,’ is all Maya can say. Muffled, teary, snot-filled.
Maya composes herself, releases from Christopher’s arms and goes into the mode Maya knows best.
‘You’re not alone. What can I do to help?’
‘Nothing now. I can’t face going through her things yet.’
‘Oh I totally understand. Sorry.’
‘That makes it real. I guess I have to start planning a funeral, but that can wait for the morning. Right?’
‘Right.’
‘Right now, I need a drink.’
‘I’ll get you one,’ says Maya, breaking away from their bubble in the middle of the chaotic living room to find a glass in the kitchen.
‘Stay with me?’
Christopher gently pulls on Maya’s arm and she turns back to look at him and nods reassuringly.
A classroom of eight students dust down biscuit crumbs and place empty cups of tea on the table at the edge of the room, awaiting their teacher who won’t be back tonight.
*
Maya wakes on the sofa. Christopher lies on the floor next to her, both draped in blankets, shawls and throws that were dotted all over the room. They were up for hours, Christopher telling Maya stories about his childhood in Brooklyn; his visits to his mother on her overseas adventures; how he and Conrad felt as proud of their mother as she clearly was of her sons when she introduced them to her colourful friends.
Maya looks up at Velma’s grandfather clock in the corner and sees it’s already 8 a.m. She’ll miss the 8.21. She’ll miss Train Man.
‘Shit, I left my bag at college. It has my keys and train pass in it, I’d better go.’
‘Can’t you stay?’ says Christopher.
‘I have to go to work.’
Maya looks at Christopher’s forlorn face.
‘I’ll call my boss and see if I can take compassionate leave.’
Christopher walks through the glass doors to the kitchen and scratches his head while he looks in the cupboards for coffee. He’d hoped it was all a bad dream. That he was in New York and his mother was in England just fine. He feels sick and slams a cupboard door shut.
Maya, having slept in one of Christopher’s roomy T-shirts, throws on yesterday’s pink houndstooth-check capri pants and black polo neck and ties her hair into a high pony. Christopher watches her clutch the phone to her ear as she talks.
‘Hi Lucy, it’s Maya, I was wondering… I’ve had some bad news…’ Maya looks towards Christopher and feels guilty for using his mother’s death as a reason to skip work, even though he has asked her to.
Maya turns away and stands in front of bookshelves that line an entire wall.
‘A friend of mine died on Monday and I only found out last night, I kind of need a day to get my head around it and help the family sort through things for the funeral.’ As she says the word family she nods to the solitary man in the kitchen.
‘OK, bye.’
Maya ends the call and unfurls the twisted polo neck around her neck that’s making her feel claustrophobic.
‘My boss wants me to go in. She says my company only gives compassionate leave if it’s a direct relative who has died. I’m sorry, Christopher.’
Maya feels wretched. Christopher was doing OK until Maya said the word ‘died’ but now he’s starting to cry. Maya walks over to Christopher and puts her arms around strong shoulders as he slumps over the kitchen counter, his face in giant palms. Maya rubs the expanse of Christopher’s bare back as she leans into him.
‘I’m so sorry.’
She kisses his warm cheek and leaves.