‘I’m going for a run,’ Maya whispers, as she kisses James’ forehead. ‘It might be my last for a while…’
Maya knows she sounds melodramatic but is worried that, even in a few hours, she might feel too weak on her diet of clay shakes, herbs and air to do anything as physical as running.
James sits up, rubs the sleep out of his big brown eyes and puts on his glasses. ‘OK, honey, go carefully yeah?’
‘I’m only going along the beach – maybe the paths at the back of it.’
James blinks behind his lenses, to help him focus. ‘It all gets a bit jungly at that far stretch, I’m not sure what’s around the karst at the end – I wouldn’t go off the shore or the path or anything.’
James has never seemed to worry about Maya running; he’s always had confidence in her strength, her common sense, her orientation. But since they’ve been following the disappearance of Manon Junot on BBC World or CNN, he’s become increasingly apprehensive every time she laces up her trainers.
‘I’ll stick to the beach then,’ Maya appeases, before planting a kiss on James’ full lips as he clicks on the television with the remote control on the bed.
*
When Maya packed her capsule wardrobe for their big trip, she knew that one of her footwear items (alongside the bronze Havaiana flip-flops, the red Lulu Guinness raffia wedges and the clunky North Face walking boots she travels in – all bases covered) would have to be her Nike trainers. Running for her was non-negotiable. The freedom to move after being cooped up. The chance to reflect. The opportunity to think about what her next column should be about. The chance to scout out new places to eat. Since Maya’s father had encouraged her to take up running by convincing her that it could mend a broken heart, she had never looked back. Slowly building up from a slumpy novice to a strong woman, and now when Maya runs she is Beyoncé outrunning a big cat – she can do anything. Even if some of her runs on this trip were ill-advised.
In Agra, Maya was chased by wild dogs, yapping at her heels before she ran for cover in a surprise branch of Pizza Hut, where she leaned against the glass window and cried while she waited for the dogs to lose interest and disappear.
After their stay on the houseboat in Kerala, Maya ran along the beach at Alleppey, marvelling at the men on their haunches, meditating as they looked out to sea. It was only as she got closer she realised that the men weren’t practising yoga, they were using the beach for their morning constitutional, and she scowled as she ran past their neat piles of poo.
Some runs have been beautiful. Lodhi Park in Delhi; Lumphini Park in Bangkok; the beach on the Andaman Coast. Maya still appreciates the curative powers of running, even when the runs are less than pleasant. She pictures Herbert running in front of her, the comforting bob of his bouncy hair, leading the way to safety, giving her strength.
I miss my dad.
The norms of a Thai beach mean Maya can wear shorts and a vest with her Nike trainers today, so she weaves out past The Haven’s rustic cabañas, alongside Moon’s open-sided common room that they haven’t dared venture into yet, and to the shore. While the gemstone-green water is dazzling, the coastline is less pristine here than the Andaman Coast. Seaweed and sticks pepper the sand. The beach here feels more… raw, which suits the back-to-basics ethos of the spa. Indian opulence this isn’t, despite the hefty change-your-life price tag they’re relieved they don’t have to pay.
Maya breaks into a run, thinking about the man she left behind, rubbing sleep from his eyes and putting on CNN. How supportive he is, of her running, of her baking. How he put his dream career on hold for her so they could go travelling. How she can’t mention again the yearning she feels inside.
Her pace quickens as the wet sand on the shore is hard enough and flat enough to tread without the sensation of running through treacle. The beach isn’t wide but it is long, and completely empty. There are no tourists dipping in the crystal water. No paddleboarders wading towards the inlet at the end.
Look at this! This is all for me. This is going to be my best run yet.
Maya decides that if it’s too barren and too isolated beyond the jungly end of the beach, where the karsts come closer to the shore – they might even jut out of the sand, it’s hard to tell from here – she will turn around and do a few lengths of the beach before she goes back to James and starts the brutal business of cleansing. She thinks of a plate of mango, bursting with the zing from a lime squeezed over it, cold from a few minutes in a fridge. Her mouth starts to water.
Shit, I forgot my water.
Maya nears the end of the beach and judges from the time it took her to run it that it must be half a kilometre at least.
Perfect. If it’s too isolated and barren beyond, I will turn around and complete 20 lengths.
The end of the beach is getting closer, the rocks that spike out to reach the sky become taller, swamping her, and Maya wonders what lies around the most lush and proud karst at the end, right in her path. Will she be able to snake past to another similar expanse of sand, or will the water come up high and smack the rocks?
She turns to look back behind her, to see how small the buildings of The Haven are from this far end of the deserted beach. And then her head smashes into something she neither saw nor expected. Something that is both hard and spongey. It hurts, and it dazes Maya, who struggles as she stumbles back, trying not to lose her footing and fall in the water. She flails, aware that there is the figure of a man standing in front of her. Confused that her main priority is to not fall onto the sand where the water laps, because if she gets wet, it will be harder to run away.
‘Uff!’ says the man, whose face she can’t see for the stars in her eyes.
Her arms flail further, as her wide, flat feet save her. Balancing her. Stopping her from being dragged onto the sand and into the sea. She stills herself, and puts her hand to her throbbing forehead, shielding her eyes as she regains her composure.
‘Ow.’
James was right.
Maya pushes her hand up, over her forehead, and opens her eyes, trying to focus on the man who still seems to be standing tall in front of her, unaffected by their collision, not saying a word.
Maya thinks of Manon Junot and wonders if she ran into a man on the beach, never to be seen again. She wonders why this face in front of her looks familiar, like someone from the television or a face from her past.
This can’t be right. I must have hit my head hard.
She focuses again, into the sunlight.
But she is right.
‘Oh. It’s you,’ Maya says, rubbing the bump she can already feel on her forehead. ‘What are you doing here?’