Maya rushes across the terminal, under the reverse waterfall, past the wall of orange digits, to her train on platform 8. An Inferior Train. The last train home. Her skipping heart starts to sink a little as she knows that tonight, the last Friday before Christmas, this train will be the vomit comet, full of burger and Cornish pasty smells, sticky floors, and drunken men trying to be funny. In her emerald-green dress to just below very cold knees, Maya feels far too elegant for an icky Inferior Train after midnight.
Why didn’t I just book a hotel?
A ten-second high-pitched beep, the ding of doors, and the driver announces that tonight this train will be stopping at all eight stations along the line to Hazelworth, not the usual two.
*
Her tired arms hug the hatbox as Maya’s stole gives little warmth on a train with broken heating. She tries to rest her head on the box but the stiff curve of cardboard and its monochrome stripes make her feel even colder.
Across the aisle a woman with lank brown hair scraped tight into a straightened ponytail slumps across a man in a leather jacket. A group of teens out of sight but well in earshot cackle about their night at Camden Stables. Maya tries to cling to memories of a beautiful day as she cuddles into her ribs for warmth.
Please just get me home.
The carriage suddenly plunges into darkness and the train brakes to a screeching halt. The woman with the straightened ponytail slips off her boyfriend’s lap, sliding down his legs and into the facing seat in front of her. Maya’s fall is broken by the hatbox, which bends under the impact.
‘Shit,’ Maya whispers.
The clock on her phone says 01:31. Panicked passengers go quiet as everyone waits for an announcement. Maya looks at her phone and scrolls through photos of the day to give her a lift. A box flashes up: twenty per cent battery remaining.
Bugger.
Maya switches off her phone to preserve what battery remains and looks out of the window to try to decipher where she is. A freckled nose accidentally touches smeared glass and makes her recoil. It’s pitch-black outside, which means they’re either in a tunnel or at the part of the track where the train passes through a high grassy verge that must only be as wide as two trains. Maya knows this line. Given the lack of houses and the time on the clock, she thinks – hopes – that she is three quarters of the way home.
A voice crackles faintly from above.
‘Sorry about this, there seems to be a problem up ahead. Signals are all fine but we’re not sure if someone is messing about on the line. Since I put on the brakes so suddenly we do have a bit of an electrics failure but we’ll get them switched back on as soon as possible. We are behind another train and waiting for further information, but as soon as I hear I’ll let you know. In the meantime, sorry for the delay and the darkness. I’ll update you shortly.’
On the other side of an internal door, Maya hears people shout.
‘Turn the heating on, mate!’
Maya shivers, and switches her phone back on for reassurance.
Another box flashes up: ten per cent battery remaining.
Already?
She looks across at the silhouette of the woman with the ponytail as she tries to rouse her boyfriend, still oblivious that they have been plunged into darkness, somewhere on the line. He is dribbling and asleep and smells of beer and sweat and stale leather – but he is there. However useless he is right now, that woman isn’t on her own.
At 01:53 the lights come back on. The giggling teens who had started telling ghost stories sound disappointed. Maya is relieved. She looks at her phone once more for company.
Please start moving.
More pictures: Arlo kissing Nena with the soft clumsiness and innocent beauty of a besotted four-year-old; Tom, Nena and Arlo sitting opposite Maya on the circular top table; Victoria rubbing lipstick off Felipe’s cheek; close-ups of the macaron tower before it started to look threadbare; university friends; samba dancers; TV presenters; backing singers.
What a shit end to a brilliant day.
Without announcement or fanfare, the train starts to roll slowly out of the darkness of the tunnel or the grassy verge, and Maya sees fields changing colour from the hard dark brown of frozen winter soil to white in the flurry of snow under the moonlight. She now knows exactly where she is, almost three stops from home, slightly heartened by some light and familiarity.
‘Sorry about that, someone did jump onto the track in front of the train ahead. That one’s stuck but we’re going to roll into the next station where this train will be taken out of service.’
The driver pauses for the collective groan he can’t hear from his cabin at the front of the train.
‘Station staff will advise you on a rail replacement service, or you can find alternative transport.’
Maya’s mind races.
Alternative transport? At 2 a.m. in a sleepy village station?
Maya can’t wait for hours in the snow for a rail replacement service. Especially not in a strappy green dress, silver sandals and a tiny faux-fur stole.
The pub will be closed.
Maya looks at her phone desperately.
She thinks of Jacob and Florian but knows they’ll both have been out drinking tonight. And she can’t call Clara and Robbie and wake three exhausted little boys. And Herbert and Dolores will be long asleep, snuggled together in bed in the house on the hill, mobiles left downstairs or switched off.
I have no one.
Maya looks in her silver clutch and scrabbles around for cash. She knew Felipe Oliveira wouldn’t let anyone pay for a drink at his daughter’s wedding so she didn’t take much money with her, only what was in her purse as she rushed to get the hatbox of macarons and its large lemon and lavender base into the taxi that was waiting outside her flat at lunchtime. Maya sees the reassurance of a crisp twenty-pound note.
I hope it’s enough. This is a nightmare.
Then Maya remembers to be grateful that she’s not stuck on the train in front. Or the person whose soul shot out of their body on impact with the windscreen just three miles up the track. Or that person’s family. Or the driver, for whom Christmas will also be ruined.
Get a grip Flowers. Someone just died. You have crossed the Darien Gap on your own, you can get home from Rockfield at two in the morning.
The train rolls slowly and comes to a stop on a quiet village platform. The snow flurry builds, swirling chaotically under the lamps that light the exit. Maya looks at it as she steps off the train, putting an unusually graceful footprint into virgin snow, and it reminds her of the precision and elegance of Felipe and Victoria Oliveira’s dance as they moved around the oak-sprung floor hours earlier. She thinks about how they’re probably already tucked up in bed, holding each other tight on this momentous day for their only child.
Maya looks to the pub down the steps that lead to the foot of the railway bridge. She has passed that pub every working day of her adult life but has never been inside. The lights are off, the doors are bolted shut. Disgruntled passengers gather outside it in coats and hats and scarves and gloves and Maya hears questions flying across the night sky as disorderly and chaotic and cold as the snow.
‘Who would do such a selfish thing?’
‘Why isn’t the landlord getting out of bed and offering us sanctuary?’
‘Where is the bus replacement service?’
‘Why aren’t there any taxis?’
‘Why did I take this train when I meant to come home earlier?’
‘Who can I talk to about this?’
‘Where are the staff?’
‘Why isn’t my wife answering the phone?’
‘Who’s in charge here?’
Maya doesn’t feel angry. She feels cold, vulnerable and alone. She looks around. There must be at least 150 frosty, angry, tipsy people, all more appropriately dressed, and she feels utter despair.
A taxi swings into the station, the first to get word of this captive market. A tall man in a fedora and a long, straight coat jumps into the back and says ‘Hazelworth,’ as if it’s a military command: quickly, efficiently, without making eye contact with anyone.
‘Hang on a minute, mate!’ says a woman with a lot of gold around her neck as she stands to block the door he was about to pull shut. ‘There are loads of people ’ere going to Hazelworth. Budge up.’
The man slides along with a sneer while the woman weighed down with gold and her friend squeeze in next to him.
‘I may as well too,’ says a young man sheepishly, getting in the front passenger seat. The driver doesn’t care. More stops, more money.
Standing on the pavement with numb toes painted oxblood red, Maya wishes she had been quicker.
Or just less polite. Pockets of people group together, asking where each other is from. Nortonbury. Leathermore. Peterham. Arguments break out over whose need is greatest. So much for Blitz spirit.
Maya looks at her phone and decides to attempt to wake Herbert on the landline. He would rather get changed out of his nightshirt and come to collect Maya than have her standing in the cold feeling scared. Even at twenty-eight, a girl might need rescuing. Freezing fingers press a button to activate a phone but the screen stays blank, the battery dead.
‘You’re stuck too?’ says a calm voice among the hullaballoo.
Maya turns around and looks up. Tall, safe, comforting Train Man is standing facing her. Or ‘photographer: James Miller’. Their names sat side by side in the newspaper, although neither of them opened it to see the finished article, neither could face it. Maya gasps, exhaling breathy relief that rolls out as steam in the cold night.
‘It’s you.’ Maya’s blue lips can barely emit words but relief washes over her and suddenly the hostile white night sky seems like a protective blanket swaddling them.
‘Big night out?’ James says, looking at Maya in her finery. The hair jewel that sat straight above her ear slopes diagonally above a looser, dishevelled side bun. Her green dress shines like a jewel in the darkness.
Maya blushes and gently touches the bun, making sure it’s still pinned up at all.
‘My best friend’s wedding. It was the most wonderful day ever… until now.’
James tries not to look deflated.
‘Well, not now,’ Maya concedes. ‘I must say I’m relieved to see you among all this.’ Maya looks around, her brow furrows despairingly at people climbing over each and shouting, and looks back at James, wrapped in a long cable-knit scarf from the collar of his navy peacoat up to his full and thoughtful lips. Black rectangles frame wide, lovely eyes. Eyes Maya feels she has known all her life. She wants to stand on tiptoes and bury her head in James’s scarf, to nestle into his neck, just as she longed to the first day she saw him on the train, but she stops herself as she remembers Kitty Jones, whichever of those two girls she was.
Taxis start to stream into the station approach and disgruntled passengers elbow each other out the way, now in packs, so that this next taxi will be their taxi. Tension cuts through a sleepy village while most of its inhabitants are unaware.
Maya and James hover at the back, facing each other as they lean into the arch of the pub’s closed door, framed by hanging baskets, colourful flowers trying to stand up to the snow.
‘About what happened in the studio…’ James looks down at the floor and sees snow settling on his boots. ‘I hope I didn’t say something to upset you.’ He looks up, dark eyebrows dive in confusion. ‘You just disappeared.’
‘I’m sorry – you got your shot though, yes? The story went down a storm I hear, and, as expected, it cost me my job.’ Maya tries to steer the subject. Embarrassed as she is about being outed as Fifi Fashion Insider, it’s less embarrassing than falling for a man who is in love with someone else.
‘Did you get my email?’
‘THAT’S MY TAXI!’ bellows a woman in a Rudolph jumper.
‘Look, James, it’s all good. I get it. You have a girlfriend. Can’t win ’em all!’ Maya shrugs, trying to make light of it. ‘And some good came of all this weirdness. After what you said about starting all over again with photography, doing something creative, I decided that this should be my new direction.’ Maya raises the empty hatbox.
‘Millinery?’
‘No!’ Maya laughs through chattering teeth. ‘You said I was brave, but I think you are, you had more to lose giving up something you were doing so well in. So I decided to stop feeling sorry for myself and I’ve enrolled in a patisserie course. Starts in January. And my friend’s wedding cake today – that was my first commission.’ Maya beams proudly. ‘I’d show you a picture but my phone died.’
‘That’s brilliant, Maya.’
He said my name.
Maya glows.
James’s smile drops.
‘She’s not my girlfriend, you know.’
‘It’s none of my business if she is.’
‘Well she isn’t. She was. For eleven years. But I’ve been single for six months.’
Maya is confused. About the girl he held hands with at the studio; the one who slept on his shoulder that steamy summer morning after Jack White.
‘But what about the Chinese girl, beautiful face…?’
James looks puzzled. ‘Josie? She’s one of my best friends.’ He breaks into a smile. His dimple deepens in the dark. ‘No, Josie’s definitely not my girlfriend. But Kitty was,’
Maya thinks of the woman in the studio with the pixie crop of white-blonde hair.
‘She wanted to talk to me, she’d changed her mind about an affair she’d had. But she was too late. I’d already seen you.’
Another taxi zooms into the station approach, the driver hoping the four punters he’s about to pick up live far away from each other.
‘“Seen me”?’ quizzes Maya, repositioning her stole over the spaghetti straps of her green dress and wrapping her arms around herself as she shivers.
‘Here.’
James slides the straps of his grey backpack off his shoulders and swings it in front of him. The top doesn’t quite close due to the long cardboard tube sticking out of it. James draws it out, the way he used to draw inner tubes of wrapping paper out of his waistband when he was playing knights and dragons with Francesca as children.
He hands the tube to Maya, who takes it from the other end and pops open the white stopper.
James removes his coat. ‘Here, take this too, you’re freezing.’
He carefully rests his thick wool peacoat around Maya’s shoulders like a heavy cape. She breathes in the smell of him on the upturned collar that brushes her cheek and looks at him intently. Not wanting to pull away from him to look inside the tube.
Maya slides out a roll of photographic paper and unfurls the scroll. She breaks James’s gaze to see a large picture of her in profile. Looking out of a window at the last of the Soho sun bouncing off shards of orange dotted around sad brown irises.
‘Gosh.’
‘I didn’t send that one to the paper, I kept that back. For you. I’ve been wanting to give it to you but just haven’t seen you.’
Maya’s not sure if it’s the cold or the caipirinhas, but she can’t get her head around any of this.
‘I don’t get the 8.21 anymore,’ Maya shrugs in confusion but the weight of James’s coat anchors her shoulders, warming her from her tummy out. Suddenly Maya can feel her toes again.
James looks at Maya, she sees defeat in his dark eyes.
‘After you ran off I went home and looked at the photos on the light box. This one,’ he nods to the picture now curled back together, ‘it’s the most beautiful photograph I have ever taken.’ James says it with such conviction, orange shards drown under tears.
‘You can fall for someone you don’t know, Maya.’
Maya is so shocked, her mouth hangs open.
‘Here, you keep it,’ James says, as he hands Maya the tube. He wonders what her boyfriend will think of him giving Maya the picture, knowing he too will agree it’s beautiful.
Maya tucks the tube under her arm beneath the navy peacoat cape without taking her eyes off James, locked in the sanctuary of the pub doorway.
The last of the aggrieved passengers bundle into the last taxi and the woman with lank brown hair scraped back into a ponytail bellows out of a rear window.
‘Room for one more!’
Her drunken boyfriend slumped on the seat next to her doesn’t flinch.
‘You take it. You’re freezing. I’ll wait for the next one,’ James says, preparing himself to walk two towns to get home tonight.
Maya looks at the woman. ‘No thanks. I’m staying,’ she says, nodding in James’s direction.
‘Won’t your boyfriend wonder where you are?’
Boyfriend?
‘I don’t have a boyfriend.’
Maya and James lock eyes and laugh nervously.
Cold but content, James holds Maya’s face in his hands and wipes a snowflake from her eyelash with his thumb.
‘Here, take this,’ he says, removing his cable-knit scarf and coiling it around Maya’s neck. As James’s arm circles above Maya’s head and the scarf rises, she thinks of Tom spinning Nena around the dance floor, just hours ago. As she watched, Maya thought it would be a long time before that would ever happen to her. Her Seeing The Future skills have let her down again and she doesn’t mind one bit.
Now the world around Maya starts to spin and the street lights and snow and hanging baskets and railway bridge all whir into a blur beyond the comfort of James’s winding arm. Tingling feet edge onto tiptoes, silver sandals shine in the moonlight, and Maya reaches up to touch James’s lips with hers. He kisses her back. Full of warmth on a cold night. Full of hope for having arrived. Full of excitement for the journey ahead of them. Full of relief to be home.