May 2014
It is the last hour of the last day that Maya will be twenty-seven and she is lying on the living-room floor. The television is on mute and she’s not paying attention to the CIA agent in the asylum. Prince oozes out of speakers that are too small for this large and airy room. Maya flips open a white unlined notepad, one she’s never used before, but now seems like the right time to christen it. Virgin A5 paper. In Maya’s right hand is a black Stabilo OHP pen for permanence and neatness. Maya’s words need strength but they should not be imposing.
In her left hand is the birth announcement card that arrived through the door this morning. Audrey Evelyn Velma Diamond was born two weeks ago, on the day her grandmother was interred. Christopher gave a heartfelt eulogy at St Anne’s Church in Soho. Radio producers, book and magazine editors, journalists, politicians and key movers in the feminist movement turned out in Velma’s signature black and grey and squashed into the modern-looking chapel within Wren’s historical church. Maya looked around, thinking it was the perfect venue for an ageing yet thoroughly modern thinker who had spent much of her life in London, in an apartment just a stone’s throw away.
Maya wasn’t surprised by how revered and respected Velma was. Words such as ‘passion’ and ‘wisdom’ and ‘independence’ tinkled across the piano bar at the wake. Maya walked around the room, smiling at people but not knowing anyone. Except Christopher. Maya felt fraudulent being there. She had only known Velma for a few months of her long and full life. People who had known her for many years had flown in from all over the world to be there.
I’m just a girl from the suburbs.
In the church, Christopher spoke about Velma’s love for his father, how their marriage had made him believe that there is one true love for everyone in the world. Maya looked down at her shoes on the cold stone floor, knowing Velma had thought otherwise, she had said so just a few weeks earlier with laughter and custard emanating from the corners of her mouth. Christopher spoke eloquently about what it was like to have a mother whose spirit you couldn’t stop from soaring, even when he and Conrad thought she should settle down, be around the corner harassing them with hot dinners like a ‘normal mom’. But she wasn’t a normal mom and they were proud of that.
He spoke about her youth as a journalist in Paris and Buenos Aires, their childhood with her in New York, her career as an agony aunt and writer, and how she was still making new friends in her last days. He referred to his mother’s afternoon tea dates with Maya, and how Velma would call Christopher or Conrad on a Sunday lunchtime in New York, full of cake and the joys of life. He looked up at Maya and gave her a smile that spoke a thousand words more.
He talked about Velma’s excitement on the eve of becoming a grandmother, of her big move to Miami and how the family had been looking forward to breaks in the sunshine with her. How heartbroken he and Conrad were now that they were robbed of these.
But as Maya walked the piano bar, smiling but not knowing, she felt the atmosphere was upbeat. A room full of gratitude. And Maya met more interesting people that day than she had met in her entire life. She felt privileged to be there.
As the sun was setting over Soho, Christopher found Maya on her own on a little balcony facing a cinema on Shaftesbury Avenue, its façade lit in electric blue.
‘Hey,’ he said, handing Maya a glass of fizz, the knot of his tie loose around his broad neck.
‘Hey.’
‘Sorry we’ve barely had a chance to talk, I wanted to catch up with you,’ Christopher said, blue eyes shining in the twilight.
‘Oh god don’t worry, you must know so many people here, you’ve had to run it all.’ Maya paused to sip her Prosecco. ‘You’ve been amazing, Christopher, your eulogy was just beautiful.’
Maya wrapped a floral shawl around her shoulders, hugging her body and enveloping her dark grey tulip dress as the evening chill started to settle. Christopher put an enormous arm around Maya and took in the view of Soho’s twilight rooftops by her side. Maya leaned in to the warmth of his body.
‘Where on earth do these come from?’ she said, nudging the side of her temple into Christopher’s huge bicep. ‘What did your mum feed you?’ They both burst into laughter.
As Maya walked away from Soho and towards the train home, she knew the biggest tribute she could make to Velma would be to ask Train Man out for a drink.
Now the card with the photo of a tiny newborn on a vast fluffy cushion is in Maya’s left hand and Velma’s advice is ringing in her head, as it has been since she died.
‘What’s the worst that can happen?’
The pen shakes in her right hand. Maya has seen Train Man every weekday morning since the funeral but has barely been able to register him, so nervous is she at the prospect of what she knows she is going to do. How can Maya sound sexy, friendly and sane all at the same time? How can three sentences and a friendly sign-off make someone realise you are their soulmate?
Maya decided not to write the note on the train in case the chug, click, jolt made her writing look spidery or silly. She wants to give Train Man the impression of having written an off-the-cuff note, breezily penned by an über-confident yet down-to-earth goddess. This needs to be legible. So Maya casts aside six pieces of paper into crumpled balls on the floor around her before crafting the final note:
Hello,
It’s my birthday today, and I think everyone should do one crazy thing on their birthday, so here’s mine:
I think you look lovely, so I was wondering if you’d like to go for a drink sometime? If not, don’t worry, I’ll leave you in Solitude and wish you happy travels.
Cheers,
Maya x
Three sentences and a friendly sign-off. And a kiss. And her email address so he doesn’t have to reject her by phone.
Be positive.
Maya puts Solitude in title case so Train Man gets the literary reference and realises that she too has read it. Although if they ever do go on a date, Maya will never tell Train Man that she didn’t enjoy One Hundred Years Of Solitude as much as she thinks she ought to.
Maya examines attempt number seven. Lucky number seven. She has written clearly and with satisfactory neatness, so she tears the page away and places it back into the notepad, just to ensure the note has a clean tear but stays flat until morning. With a shaky hand, she picks up the phone to call Nena and tell her what she is going to do tomorrow.