The Secret World of Maya Alexander

Chapter 24

The grand red brick neo-gothic frontage of St Pancras Station reached up with an air of self assuredness into the bright blue September sky. The Victorian masterpiece once considered too 'beautiful and romantic to survive' had survived nonetheless. Everyday it welcomed hoards of apparently happy passengers through its grand gateway and into its impressive train shed, shielded from the sky and the unpredictable British weather by its grand lattice roof of glass and steel. What a magnificent man-made marvel!

Maya was not fond of London. She had become content enough with the slower paced and sparsely populated towns of South Wales and had never understood the lure of the grand city. Yet despite her general weariness about the city, even she could appreciate the architectural beauty of its many historic buildings. When her eyes were presented with such icons, she would often drift away and imagine how the world might have looked when history was novelty. Not that Autumn day though. That day the building stood eerily in the empty blue sky. There was a chill of early autumn in the air and Maya felt it biting into her skin, as she made her way through the station front  and towards the 'meeting place' where she had arranged to convene with her mother.

The reconstructed Dent Clock hung high at the apex of the station shed. It told her it was a quarter past eleven with its roman analogue dial, and that her mother was now officially late. She felt an ache in her chest as she imagined her husband, glancing at the clock three times, before hurrying them through passport control and into the waiting lounge in good time for their train. The ache was not  a sense of loss or of feeling pained at his absence. It was guilt. She had stolen his hope. The feeling intensified as she saw the agreed acquainting spot marked by a tall bronze statue of 'the lovers' in intimate pose, marking the romance of travel. Maya felt herself gaze cynically at the frozen still of the lover's embrace. Was this ever a reality for any couple beyond the flights of fancy of artists she wondered as she failed to connect to the feelings locked within those cold figures.

Maya could not recall any romance in her memories of past holidays. Holidays were tense. They were timed.  They were full of compromise. The stoney profiles of the statue seemed to gaze at each other blissfully unaware of the world around them. Maya thought how Stephen always complained during every holiday that she was too busy day-dreaming and seemed oblivious to his presence. His observations had been accurate though. Her mind would drift away from the feelings of inadequacy that his presence instilled within her and instead she would absorb the beauty of the world, as she floated away to untouched lands. Lands where mountains whispered of love and worthiness. She used to try and share the kinder parts of these thoughts with her husband, but Stephen never seemed to hear. He was always in such a rush to get to the next landmark.

Maya was suddenly brought back from herself by a gentle pinch on her arm.
'Maya sweetheart! I was calling you but you were miles away in thought as usual' Jackie smiled warmly at her daughter, trying to conceal her concern. She looked up at the figure which had seemed to have entranced her daughter.
'Oh you are missing Stephen' she offered sympathetically.

Maya had not told her mother that Stephen had left their home. She did not want to talk about it. She had continued with her story that he was simply busy in work. It had been difficult enough taking June's intrusive and questioning phone-calls and she did not wish for any additional conversations to bring the status of her marriage to the forefront of her mind. At first June's daily calls had the quite obvious intention of  trying to reconcile the pair, but when Maya stopped answering her calls, she decided she should revert to her original plan or persuasion and Maya's promise to collect Jessica from school every Friday when she got back from holiday. 'Jessica is so excited' she would remind her daughter in law of the little girl's elation at the thought of spending time with 'Auntie Maya', confident that Maya could not dash the hopes of an innocent little girl.

Keen to break her daughter away from her thoughts, Jackie, linked into Maya's arm and began to tug her in the direction of another statue. 'You know that the poet John Betjeman apparently campaigned to save the station. We should have met by his statue. I think it has one of his poems inscribed on it. I can't remember which one though. Shall we take a look? I think we have time?' She suggested with a genuine openness as though it would have been okay for Maya to decline the invitation.

Maya smiled and felt happy to be pulled along by her mother's leisurely pace. Always oblivious to time. Determined to fit in whatever she pleased. Maybe losing a loved one before their time had made her think differently about life and how to make the most of it.

They both stood before the next artistic piece, as Jackie read out the inscription, encouraging her daughter's mind to stay with her for now. Jackie had passed on her love of literature to Maya more so than any of her other daughters. Perhaps it was because she would always leave her with the comfort of a book on the days when she had brought her home from school and had to hurry back to work. They did not often talk about what they had read or what they had thought of the books. But they had always been happy to sit silently in each other's company, drifting into the dreams of their authors late into the evening as they both avoided their beds.

'And in the shadowless unclouded glare/ Deep blue above us fades to whiteness where/ A misty sea-line meets the wash of air. John Betjeman. Cornish Cliffs' as Jackie finished she looked over to her daughter who had followed the gaze of the statue to take in the glory of the ceiling. And as they stared in the same direction, they both shared the thought of how the poem about a natural beauty also described so aptly the manufactured beauty above their heads.

'I don't think I have read his poems before, ' Maya finally joined her mother in conversation.

'Let's see is they have a book of his in the gift shop?'  she offered as she walked arm in arm with her daughter, growing hopeful that the trip would bring them closer. That maybe this would be the first holiday that she could manage to keep Maya's mind with her and that they could share in the joy of seeing somewhere they had not seen before. She hoped so hard it ached. She hoped that perhaps, unlike the holidays before, Maya would not drift so far from her she felt out of reach.