A vacant stool sits in a studio while James tests his flashbulbs against the mottled grey backdrop he rolled down behind it at 6.30 a.m. It’s now 8 a.m. and this is James’s first booking as a freelance photographer through his agent at Kaye-French. It’s not his dream gig – portraits of big cheeses at an asset management firm in the City – but given that fat cats work an earlier day than advertising creatives, it was a booking James could fit in before his day at MFDD starts. A trail of portly men and the occasional woman have steadily passed through the studio, and James is surprised by how many of them he liked through the lens and enjoyed talking to while they sat nervously, out of their comfort zone. The first subject was quite unforgiving when James’s digital SLR ran out of battery and he had a 6.45 a.m. conference call to get to, but James was so annoyed with himself, his heartfelt apology meant that headshot #1 (Harold Leaver, Investment Portfolio Manager) cooled a little. James has that effect on people. That’s how James has done so well in a career in advertising, despite not being able to talk the talk. Dominic does the bullshit, James backs it up with quiet authority.
Next up on his call sheet is headshot #12, Miriam Wallace, Assistant Vice President.
‘Morning,’ she says, exactly on time. She walks in, sits on the stool and fidgets.
‘Morning,’ smiles James, trying to put her at ease.
Miriam has soft beige hair framing a tense, lined face. She undoes a button on an ill-fitting blazer and looks nervously into the lens. She was busting balls in the Frankfurt office via Skype fifteen minutes ago and now she feels vulnerable.
‘This won’t take long, just try to relax.’
‘I don’t relax.’ Miriam refastens her jacket button and feels the pinch of last night’s seven-course dinner hosting her New York counterpart.
‘What have you got in store for the rest of the day?’ asks James, making chit-chat as he sees some softness through the lens.
‘I’m firing someone in Geneva as soon as this is over,’ Miriam replies without a hint of irony.
‘Oh dear, sorry.’
‘I’m not sorry, he’s incompetent.’
Saggy lids hang over dispassionate eyes. James doesn’t want to take a picture he knows Miriam Wallace will hate every single time she walks past it in reception, however much she would pretend that vanity is beneath her.
The studio goes quiet. James examines Miriam.
‘What was the best thing that happened to you all week?’
‘What?’
Miriam is taken aback. No one in this building would think or dare to ask her a question like that.
‘What was the best thing that happened to you this week?’
Miriam touches soft hair while she thinks.
‘My daughter. My daughter got back from Australia on Saturday. She was gone a year.’
Click.
*
Ever since Velma died, Sundays have made Maya feel somewhat empty. But this Sunday, what feels like it might be the last sunny Sunday of the year, calls for a morning run to get Maya up and out and to stop her feeling lost. Later today, Nena and Tom are finally coming to Hazelworth, so Maya decides to get out early so she can spend the morning baking up a storm for their long-awaited visit.
Maya sits on the black and white chequered tiles of the hallway floor and laces up her trainers. Two rectangles of stained glass let the morning light shine down on her shins and as she flexes her heels to lace up her left trainer she notices definition. A satisfying dip between shin bone and muscle that empowers her.
Maya stands, straightens her running tights up over her waist and pulls a long-sleeved lime green top down over a thin running vest. Beyond the stained glass the sky is tinged with pink hues and sympathy.
Maya runs the short path, turns right, then right again at the end of the road, over the roundabout with the gastro pub with the hanging baskets, that looks like a large selection box of something tasty sitting on the corner. Tired eyes adjust to the light as Maya focuses on the musings she was writing until 1 a.m. on a Saturday night. An Insider’s Guide To FASH. As Maya runs down a Roman road with grand houses on one side and tiny terraces on the other, she wonders why she stayed up so late writing it: it’s not a style guide, it’s not helpful. It’s gossipy, it’s negative, it’s an exposé. But that doesn’t matter because it felt cathartic and no one will ever read it. At the end of the Roman road, fuchsia flashes on Maya’s trainers as she bears right onto an unspectacular thoroughfare that looks like it could be a through road in any suburban town in this country. Petrol station. Takeaway shops. A grocery store. Houses built in the 1930s, a vet’s clinic. But it’s a means to a park, where grand gates sweep open to let Maya in.
Tall copper beeches punctuate a path with a white line painted down the middle of it before the path snakes to the left of a large expanse of grass. One side of the path has an illustration of a man wearing a hat, striding with purpose, the other side has a picture of a bicycle. Maya stays on the side with the walking figure on it, even though there aren’t any commuters whizzing through the park to the train station at 8 a.m. on a Sunday. Maya starts to find her stride, using the line as a tow to regulate her pace. A dog walker, in the middle of the field, leads an ageing Rottweiler towards the banks, at the far right of the park, against the train track obscured by tall elms. A man wearing a waterproof jacket even though it isn’t raining helps a little girl learn to ride without stabilisers. A woman does tricep dips on the bench by the path’s edge. The rest of Hazelworth is sensibly still asleep.
Thump, puff, thud. Maya hears the feet of a faster runner coming up the path behind her and obviously moves to one side so the runner can pass her without impediment, or the feeling that Maya is being competitive. One of the unspoken rules in the Running Code that Maya learnt from Herbert Flowers along with Nodding, Never Getting Too Close and Not Spitting, not that she ever did that of course.
The faster runner’s pace slows on his or her approach. He or she has chosen not to overtake, which throws Maya because she was adhering to The Code and making it clear that she was Happy To Be Overtaken. As Maya’s lungs strengthen and her cadence becomes more confident, she decides to speed up a little to shake off the runner who isn’t adhering to The Code. It shouldn’t annoy her but it does.
I would have been overtaken. Now I feel under pressure to go faster.
Maya’s irked mind flashes to Cressida and she tries to remember the name of the intern Cressida bullied at Walk In Wardrobe, the one who pretended to be run over by a bus rather than come back to work with her. As feet hasten, a name escapes her, but Maya can picture eyes wide with wonder and expectancy on the cusp of a career in fashion. Bullied out by a few off-the-cuff but oh-so-cutting comments that weren’t even dwelled upon by their deliverer.
Maybe the intern whose name I can’t remember wasn’t tough enough to work in fashion either.
Maya speeds up again as she follows the curve of the path, leaving the tree-lined avenue at the entrance of the park and turning into something less defined. A rough track laps around the expanse of grass, heading into hidden nooks and bushes, and a weeping willow by a brook. Maya wonders why her feet chose this route today now that the footsteps following make her feel under duress. Sometimes Maya runs in the countryside, to the hills that frame Hazelworth in its bowl, sometimes through the town itself, zig-zagging the roads that lead off the market square and back again. Sometimes she runs up to Herbert and Dolores’s house on the hill, so she can say hello, wave goodbye, then run back down with Hazelworth stretched out before her. Her town. Her home. Her sanctuary.
Why did I run this route today?
Maya needed to run in circles around the park, where she wouldn’t need to think about her pace or her route or her surroundings or whether it was too early to wake her parents. She just wanted to think about what she wrote last night. What she was going to bake for Nena and Tom (she’s even thinking of some kind of macaron tower as today has a special occasion feel about it) and how she should approach work tomorrow morning. If she’s being edged out of FASHmas, is it time to look for a new job?
Still hearing the footsteps behind her, suddenly Maya is aware of how few people are around. That Rottweiler looks hopeless, and the man with the girl is so engrossed in scooping up his daughter after each enthusiastic fall that Maya doesn’t think he would even hear her scream. A quick glance back, while adhering to the Eye Contact rule Herbert Flowers taught her: never make eye contact with a male runner if you don’t feel one hundred per cent certain that he’s not a murderer.
Too fleeting. Maya could only just gauge the height of a slender man with light brown hair. Maya tries to peel away, except now she’s on the path that laps the edge of the park by the hidden railway track, there’s nowhere to peel away to. The once-kind morning sky has turned grey and gloomy clouds loom. Perhaps the man in the waterproof jacket was onto something.
Go.
Maya’s feet are moving faster than her legs can handle and as she revs up her revolutions she trips on a root of the willow tree and tumbles into nettles on one side of the path.
‘Owww!’
The runner in pursuit trips on Maya’s foot, jutting out onto the path, and falls deeper into the nettles, stinging his arm and scuffing his knees.
‘Jesus!’ huffs Maya, angrily, dusting off twigs and berries from lime-green sleeves.
‘I’m so sorry.’ A red face rises. ‘I just wanted to know if it was you,’ says a man who looks like a boy. A face with more freckles than the spaces between them blushes. ‘It is you!’
‘What?’ Maya scowls, bending and flexing her ankle gingerly to see how serious her fall was.
‘Maya Flowers? Remember this? Pretty familiar scene, although we used to do it among the silver birches.’
Maya feels stalked and uncomfortable and angry that this man made her feel scared when she usually feels strong when she’s running.
‘You made me fall over,’ she says, still unpicking berries from her clothes.
Maya looks up and sees his face. The face of a boy she used to know. Blue eyes. Light brown hair. Freckles. A checked bomber jacket with a sheepskin collar long since recycled or turned to rags. His hair used to curl over and kiss the sheepskin collar but now it is cropped and short – but Maya can see an eleven-year-old face looking at her with delight.
‘Pip? Pip Smith?’
‘Maya Flowers. You used to slow down for me in kiss chase – you’re faster now,’ he laughs.
‘That’s not funny, you scared me.’ Maya’s anger turns to relief, and with a little sigh and a whisper of a laugh, the tension flows away like the blood running down Pip’s knee.
Pip Smith was the sweetest boy in the playground. Always sticking up for people. Always inventing new games. Always running faster, jumping higher and climbing dizzier heights just to impress Maya. Always drawing pictures for Maya after school, then taking a folded piece of paper out of his pocket the next morning and watching Maya’s face as she opened it, to see if she liked the Ninja Turtle or Simba the lion cub or the self-portrait of Pip doing judo. Sometimes Pip used to draw Maya as a princess in Cinderella-esque ball gowns. Maya liked Pip’s drawings. And she did secretly slow down for Pip in kiss chase too.
Pip extends a hand to help Maya up. ‘I really am very sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I just saw this flash of familiarity and had to know if it was you. I’ve been back in Hazelworth for a week and I hadn’t recognised anyone until I saw you.’
‘Hmmm, that’s OK,’ says Maya, letting Pip take her weight in his hands as he pulls her up by the arm. ‘But a word of advice. Never. Ever. Chase a girl in the park if she’s not expecting it. Kiss chase in the silver birches when you’re eleven is one thing, but that was just creepy.’
‘I’m sorry. Look, why don’t we run a circuit or two of the park together – if our legs work.’
Maya looks doubtful.
‘I’ll protect you from evil Shredder or Uncle Scar,’ Pip jokes with a bashful smile.
‘Well, OK…’ says Maya. Quietly relieved to see a friendly face from the past.
*
‘You made that?’
‘Yes!’
‘It’s beautiful. A work of art. You really ought to sell these, Maya, they look as pretty as Pierre’s.’ Nena slides her phone out of her pocket to take a photo of a conical tower covered artfully in pale lilac, pale pink and pale yellow circles of lavender, rose and lemon.
‘Hmmm, don’t look too closely, a few cracked as I stuck them on,’ says Maya, downplaying how pleased she is with her first attempt.
‘Can I taste one?’
‘Of course! I made them for you guys.’
‘I know, but it feels criminal to break into something so beautiful.’
Maya lifts the cone and cautiously moves it along the kitchen counter to place it in front of Nena.
‘I think I need to cover the base with some pretty wrapping paper or something, polystyrene doesn’t look that tempting, but I ran out of time,’ Maya shrugs. ‘Google macaron towers and you’ll get the idea…’ Maya motions to her laptop on the little breakfast counter in the corner where Tom is sitting, and he presses a button to wake the machine.
‘Oh my god, amazing!’ Nena says with yellow crumbs around her lips and a pale lilac circle of deliciousness in her hand.
‘Here, try a rose one too.’ Maya watches Nena’s face, eagerly awaiting feedback, and both girls go quiet as they eat.
Nena turns to Tom, wondering why her fiancé hasn’t said anything about the beauty beholding them in the kitchen. Tom is leaning against the breakfast bar, shoulders up to his ears and chin resting in his palms while he looks at Maya’s laptop.
‘Did you find a picture?’ Maya asks. ‘Some of them are just stunning…’ Maya notices Tom is lost in something other than Pinterest boards, and she feels a rising panic.
‘Hang on!’ pounces Maya, embarrassed by what Tom may have read. ‘I need to save something,’ she lies, sharply turning the laptop away from Tom.
‘Maya, did you write that?’ Tom asks.
Maya’s cheeks flush. She’s not sure what to say but feels a little intruded upon by this man she doesn’t really know. She doesn’t want their visit to turn sour, it took so long for Tom and Nena to leave Islington for the depths of the Shire, so she stays quiet so as not to cause upset. Flustered, embarrassed, exposed.
‘It’s brilliant! So funny. And shocking. Is that what it’s like to work at FASH?’
‘What is it?’ asks Nena, a rose macaron bursting from raspberry lips.
‘What about the taste?’ asks Maya, closing the lid of her laptop in order to gloss over its contents. ‘I think the lavender flavours could be stronger, no?’
‘I’m sorry Maya, I didn’t mean to look,’ says Tom with a twinkle. ‘It was just there on screen. But I saw the hook and was reeled in. Which is testament to how great a piece of writing it is. You should publish that.’
‘Publish WHAT?!’ shouts Nena, little dot of pink landing on Tom’s cream cable-knit jumper.
Maya rolls her eyes and hands Nena the laptop reluctantly. ‘Don’t judge OK? I don’t mean to be bitchy, it’s just a private little rant. Well it was meant to be private anyway,’ she says, looking at Tom.
‘Sorry,’ he mouths with a disarming smile.
‘Oh I love Bitchy Maya!’ says Nena, eyes widening with glee as she plonks herself down on Tom’s lap. ‘I see her so rarely but when I do… she’s a tiger!’ Nena giggles and turns to Maya’s words. Tom wraps his arms around Nena’s waist while both of them read.
Maya boils the kettle, wanting the ground to swallow her up.
A few minutes later Nena’s face rises. ‘I thought you were happy there?’
Maya pours tea into three handless cups with sunbeams on the side.
‘I was, but something changed. All the good things about FASH seemed to turn bad. So I just started writing a few notes about it really. Mainly to get it off my chest so I don’t bring anyone else down at work.’
‘I really think you should publish it. This is brilliant insider intel that loads of people would enjoy,’ says Tom, pale eyes looking warm.
‘If anyone read that then I’d just look like a bitter employee. Someone who isn’t talented enough for promotion. And it’s underhand.’
‘It’s very funny,’ counters Tom. ‘And you wouldn’t have to know it was FASH. There must be a few companies like that, I reckon people would love to know what it’s like to work at any of those fashion giants.’
‘Come on Maya, this guy is good at sniffing out talent,’ Nena says with a wink. Tom tightens his embrace around Nena’s waist and smiles. Proud, besotted, happy.
Tom releases one arm so he can rub his bald head as he thinks. ‘I have a friend at the Standard, she’d love to read this, I’m sure. She’s always asking me about new talent for columns, she wanted a newsreader contact of mine to do one…’
‘Which newsreader, baby?’ asks Nena, equally proud and besotted and happy.
Tom carries on. ‘I think you could write a brilliant column about FASH. From what Nena tells me, it’s a crazy place to work. Would you mind if I mentioned you to her?’
Tom’s eyes pierce Maya and she finds it hard to say no. Maya gets the feeling that if Tom thinks something will work then it probably will.
‘But it’s not like anyone has done anything bad – not really bad anyway – it’s just office politics,’ she counters.
‘Yeah, but it’s this kind of office politics that fascinates people. A bitchy boss. The fashion vernacular. Models eating fry-ups. It’s the little titbits people like to read about and get lost in on their commute. They pay handsomely at the Standard too.’
‘Hmmm,’ ponders Maya, taking the most cracked macaron, a dusty pink one, from the conical tower so no one else has to eat it. ‘See what your friend at the paper thinks – but if she wants to discuss it further I’d need anonymity, Tom. It’s my job. I need to pay the mortgage.’ Maya bites the macaron in her left hand and creates a whirlpool of Earl Grey with the spoon in her right hand. ‘Anyway it’s Sunday. Can we not talk about work today please? I have funny news.’
*
‘Pip Smith?! The kid in the sheepskin bomber?’ Clara’s eyes widen. ‘I totally remember him. He was really cute. Didn’t he draw your face on a Ninja Turtle’s body or something? Bit weird… But he was a sweet kid. I remember he had a little snub nose and tons of freckles.’
‘No! It was my face on Wonder Woman’s body.’
‘Well either way I think you should go for a drink with him. Now that’s a romantic story. Not a guy you don’t know on the train who could be a serial killer.’
‘Aunty Maya, another another!’ says Oscar, Maya’s youngest nephew, tugging at the hem of her tea dress. A scarf hangs around her neck and at each end of it a two-year-old attempts to scale his aunt.
‘James Miller is not a serial killer.’
‘Aunty Maya! Aunty Maya!’ Oscar hangs, pulling Maya towards him from the sofa to the floor.
‘Watch out, young man, or the kiss monster will get you!’ Maya says, diving down on top of Oscar and nestling into his naked pot belly. Wet giggles tumble out from behind milk teeth.
‘Biscuit! I want another Aunty Maya biscuit!’ Oscar demands, from the depths of a carpet bundle.
Clara sits on the sofa curled up with a cup of tea. The first one she’s had all day that wasn’t cold when she started drinking it.
‘They’re called macarons, Osky. And that’s up to your mother.’
Maya popped around to Clara’s house to drop off the leftover lilac, pink and yellow macarons, not realising that 6 p.m. on a Sunday evening is probably the worst time you can bestow sugary treats upon three children aged six, four and two.
‘One more and that’s it!’ commands Clara. As soon as the exclamation comes out of her mouth, two slightly larger pairs of feet come pattering into the cosy front room to claim their ‘one more’ too.
A little blond boy and a slightly bigger brown-haired boy with similar faces stand in front of their mother.
‘What do you want, boys?’ asks Clara, knowing exactly what they want.
‘Aunty Maya’s biscuits,’ they chime.
‘They’re macaronnnnnns!’ Maya says through the raspberries she’s blowing on Oscar’s tummy. He laughs so hard Clara is relieved that her baby is still in nappies.
‘They’re yummy, Aunty Maya,’ says Henry, the oldest, matter-of-factly.
‘Yes, absolutely yummy, Aunty Maya,’ says Jack concurring.
‘Thank you,’ they chime, and walk out of the room back upstairs to their bedtime game of lining up all their dinosaurs on one side of their bedroom and all of their superheroes on the other side of the room facing them.
‘So, Pip Smith. This is encouraging,’ says Clara, an expert at drifting from parenting to gossip and back again. ‘Is he still cute?’
‘Well I only saw him in his running gear, but he looked pretty good. Taller than he was when we were eleven, which is a plus.’ Maya blows more raspberries into Oscar, giggling, adoring, hyperventilating on the rug. She breaks away, hovering teasingly over a shattered boy. ‘But he’s no James Miller.’
‘Enough!’ shouts Clara.
Maya is startled and picks up Oscar.
‘Oh, sorry,’ says Maya, straightening Oscar’s pyjamas. ‘I didn’t mean to get him overexcited.’
‘Not Oscar. Enough with James Miller. It’s a non-starter. He has a girlfriend. You already know that. Gorgeous little Pip Smith is still wanting to play kiss chase with my baby sister and you’re wasting your time thinking about someone you don’t know, who it can’t go anywhere with. Open your eyes, Maya.’
Maya concentrates on keeping her eyes wide open. If she blinks a tear will fall out. She hugs Oscar, for her comfort more than his.
‘I know,’ Maya whispers, still startled. ‘You’re right. I’ve already forgotten about Train Man. I’ll call Pip in a couple of days.’
‘Who Train Man?’ asks Oscar, scuttling out of the room and upstairs to his brothers’ bedroom, to see what this new public-transport-based superhero might look like.