Tracy Buchanan - The Atlas of Us

Milo noticed her watching him and smiled, placing the magazine in the back seat and jumping out of the car so he could hold the passenger door open for her. She paused a moment, taking the chance to still her heart as she took in the misty valleys ahead of her, feel the cold on her cheeks. Then she clambered in, placing Archie on her lap as Blue regarded them from the back seat.

‘You were reading my magazine?’ Claire asked, gesturing to it.

Milo nodded. ‘Holly got a copy off Henry after hearing you’d be staying here so I nabbed it off her. You’re a great writer, Claire.’

Claire looked down, feeling her cheeks flush. ‘Thanks. It took a lot to write that article, I really liked Victoria.’

He was quiet for a few moments. ‘It made sense what you said about how losing someone burns a hole in you. But how the love of the people left behind can make new skin grow back.’

‘You talk like you’ve lost someone too.’

‘Haven’t we all?’ He started the engine, the smell of petrol filling the car. ‘We better get a move on if we want you back for Henry’s thrilling lunch.’

He winked at her and she laughed. ‘Your engine sounds a bit dodgy, we may well break down on the way back.’

‘Good thinking,’ Milo said.

Claire looked around at the car’s immaculate interior as it rumbled down the road. ‘Nice and tidy. You’re a farmer. Shouldn’t there be some dead pheasants in the back or something?’

Milo raised an eyebrow. ‘Or an African drum like the one in your back seat? Holly noticed it when we walked past your car yesterday. And all the books too.’

Claire thought of the back seat of her car, taken over by items she’d picked up from her travels and books taking her back to the distant lands she’d visited as a child: travel memoirs and novels crammed with dusty roads and stunning vistas.

She sighed. ‘It’s a mess, isn’t it? I haven’t properly tidied my car since I got it years ago. I like to hoard stuff. My dad used to call me his Littlest Hobo.’

‘Like the dog?’

She laughed. ‘No! He said I was like a homeless person, collecting all these items during my travels. He even got me a shopping trolley once in Spain which I hauled around a campsite with all my stuff. Plus his name was Bo and everyone said I was a miniature version of him, so it kind of stuck.’

Claire wondered if those people would say the same now. She had a job writing about travel, there was that at least. And a failed marriage on the horizon, just like him too. Claire swallowed, turning to look out of the window at the forest-fringed road to distract herself.

‘No wonder your car’s playing up if you’re treating it like a trolley,’ Milo said. ‘There are such things as glove compartments, you know. Speaking of which,’ he said, leaning across her and opening the glove compartment as she tried to control her heartbeat, ‘I can’t promise any Bob Dylan but I have some U2 tapes somewhere.’

He pulled a tape out and stuck it on as Claire forced herself to relax. Over the next three hours, Milo drove them around beautiful fishing villages where he seemed to know half the people, waving at them out of his window. When they stopped at a couple of places, Milo led Claire on a wild goose chase to find a ‘little tea room with outdoor seating I’m sure’s just around the corner’ or an ‘old open-air book market I swear is just here’. He only seemed comfortable outdoors, hovering outside with Archie and Blue when Claire wanted to pop into a shop or museum.

They drove even further along the coast, stopping to take a twisting coastal walk up a hill thick with grass, sheep grazing in the distance, the growl of waves nearby, the mouth-watering smell of fish and chips from one of the restaurants dancing up the hill towards them. They talked a lot, Milo telling Claire about his childhood on the farm, she telling him about her job and the people she’d met along the way – about everyone but Ben, the person who pulsed between them wherever they went. When lunchtime drew closer and closer, Claire found herself not wanting to leave. As though sensing her thoughts, Milo looked down towards the restaurant where the delicious smells were coming from. ‘Hungry?’ he asked with a smile.

She thought of Henry who’d be looking at his watch while tapping his fingers on the table. Maybe he’d even called her from the restaurant phone? She didn’t dare check. She didn’t want to check. She wanted to stay here, her troubles a distant memory, just the sea, Exmoor’s sloping hills, two dogs and Milo for company.

She matched his smile. ‘Very.’

Half an hour later, they were eating fish and chips in a café overlooking sandy, windy beaches.

‘You eat very slowly,’ Milo said, watching as Claire chewed on a chip.

‘It’s become a habit, I guess. My dad once said travel writing’s about all five senses, so I savour every mouthful to write about it later.’ She laughed as she watched Milo wolf down a chunk of cod. ‘Maybe you should try the savouring thing too?’

‘Have you seen the way my brother devours food and drink? I’ve had to learn to eat quick around him so he doesn’t get a chance to steal my stuff.’ He took a quick sip of cider. ‘So your dad taught you everything you know about writing, right?’

‘Yep. Jay was right: he was a really special writer. I have this one article of his I like to read over and over. Funnily enough, it’s about a country that’s really close to us, Belgium. He visited Ypres with my mum and sister while Mum was pregnant with me and he wrote about how the air was so heavy with loss and torment, he was scared it would infect me as I grew in Mum’s belly. But then he saw a solitary poppy, and it reminded him that birth and death are part and parcel of life, with blood spilled both times. It is what it is.’

‘I’d like to read that.’

‘I’ll dig it out and send it to you. It won an award, the Flora Matthews Foundation Prize for Travel Writing. It’s pretty prestigious.’

‘Sounds it.’

Claire looked down at what remained of her food. ‘That’s the night Dad left us actually.’

Milo frowned. ‘Left you?’

‘We woke to find him gone the morning after the ceremony, just a note scribbled on the back of the awards menu I’d kept. Time to march off the map, my darlings. All my love, Daddy Bo. ’

‘I’m sorry. How old were you?’

‘Sixteen. Looking back, it shouldn’t have been a huge surprise. He’d started taking all that marching off the edge of the map stuff too literally, banging on about needing to leave behind societal pressures – which, in the end, meant his family too.’

‘Where did he go?’

Claire shrugged. ‘No idea. We didn’t hear anything from him over the next few months, not even on my seventeenth birthday or at Christmas. It felt like he’d thrown us away like a piece of rubbish. Mum said we needed to accept we might never see him again. My sister Sofia grew bitter. She’d never been as close to Dad as I was, but that really changed things for her. She pretended like he was dead.’ Claire looked down at the tiny globe hanging from her bag. ‘But I refused to give up on him. Six months after he left, I used the money he’d left in my savings to go find him.’

‘Brave,’ Milo said softly.

‘I was brave back then.’

‘Not now?’

Claire shrugged again.

‘So did you find him?’ Milo asked.

‘Not then. I carried on travelling for a year or so, making money from articles. My mum met a new guy, moved to Hong Kong with him – she’s still there now. Sofia started training to be a solicitor, the very job my dad despised. It was only me who followed his path, travelling, writing. Then my uncle passed away. Mum couldn’t track Dad down to tell him, so I did some investigating and …’