By Maya
She walked like the wind, as though an invisible force propelled her down the paving stones of London, whizzing in and out of the Underground, her head bobbing up and down along with crowds of tourists and other Londoners. Her favourite place was the British Museum. Chances are, if you ever saw a tall, slim woman flying her way on the Piccadilly Line to Russell Square Tube, she was on her way to the museum or to have lunch with her best friend at Garfunkel’s.
Mum was a born raconteur and storyteller. Her years working with actors in the jungles of Southeast Asia had rubbed off on her. I remember her telling me about her brother and how she loved dancing big Tango steps with him. ‘I was very proud of him,’ she used to say. ‘He was a very good-looking man. There he was, sweeping me off the dance floor. I must have looked good with this very handsome man.’
Her brother was a psychiatrist who worked at a gender clinic. He was a compassionate man who worked tirelessly to take care of his patients. Mum herself became a psychotherapist and worked with refugees and survivors of cruelty from war-torn countries.
Years later, at her brother’s funeral, she found herself suddenly engulfed in a bear hug; she disappeared into the hairy arms of a 6-foot-4-inch transgender woman who’d been one of his patients. Weeping giant tears, the transgender told her, ‘Your brother often told me I was just like his sister, and now I’ve met you, I see it’s true.’ Mum would burst into hoots of laughter every time she told this story.
Mum was my biggest supporter when I started taking photos. ‘When you take photos, you combine your father’s gift in media with your mother’s love of the arts,’ she used to tell me. As a child, she took me to museums to look at the paintings in Florence. Some of the paintings moved her to tears: ‘Look at the light, the light darling,’ she said with an accent, which had an American twang – a legacy from the years she spent in the States as a child. And somehow, through her eyes, I did see it.
Mum was always passionate about people. ‘Never forget the down-and-out, the lonely. Remember to tell the stories of the bus drivers, train drivers, the dustbin collectors, the street cleaners and how the people make this big, complicated city possible.’
Photograph courtesy Maya
Mum has a home in Switzerland on the Italian border. Getting in a car with her was like playing Russian roulette. She drove along the winding mountain roads with the panache, style and speed that would make an Italian driver proud to be Italian. When she was young, she drove up the mountains with her blond hair flying in the wind and a sparkle in her eyes. The Italian drivers on the road would hoot furiously at her as she flew past them, with a flash of that famous smile.
Did I tell you about her smile? Her smile would light up a room. When she smiled, you felt as if she was smiling for you alone; suddenly, the world felt a little less drab and a little more magical. But six years ago, all that changed. I can give you the date and the time when it changed. Violent, black storm clouds winged their way towards us on the breath of the wind, and my mum and I were hurled into a deadly, dangerous and dark subterranean Underworld.
