The Atlas of Us

She sighed. She shouldn’t have said that. ‘I’m sorry, it’s none of my business. Goodnight.’ She went to walk up the stairs.

‘You took the wrong path today, by the way,’ he called out after her.

She paused, turning around. ‘Sorry?’

‘The path you took to Hope’s Mouth.’

‘I took the official path.’

‘The official path isn’t always the best path.’

‘How so?’

‘Secret passages.’

Claire laughed. ‘I didn’t realise we were in Narnia.’

‘Narnia’s got nothing on Exmoor.’ His face grew serious. ‘I’ll take you tomorrow morning if you want.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Via the better path. Unless you have other plans, of course?’

Claire stared at him, not quite sure how to take him. Was he being serious?

His sister came out with a pint of bitter in her hands. ‘What are you doing, Milo?’ she asked, looking Claire up and down. ‘It’s Holly’s birthday, remember?’

‘Thanks, Jen.’ He put his arm around his sister’s shoulders and led her to the bar, peering over his shoulder at Claire. ‘So see you outside at eight tomorrow morning then?’

‘I have plans.’

‘I won’t bring my gun, if that’s what you’re worried about.’

They disappeared into the bar, laughter ringing out from inside. Claire stood where she was for a few moments, face flushed, heart thumping. Then she whistled for Archie and headed to her room, desperate to disappear into the pages of her novel again and forget all about gun-toting farmers with unbearably handsome faces.

The clouds hovered above like bin bags ready to burst as Claire walked outside the next morning. It was nine; she’d made sure not to show her face before then. If she went for a walk with Milo, how would that look? This was a work trip after all and she wanted to hurry up and get home. Then there was everything that had passed between her and Ben the past two days. It wouldn’t be right.

But as she rounded the corner, the first person she saw was Milo, his hands in the pockets of his wax coat as he leaned against a wall, a small smile on his face. Her traitorous lips tried to form a smile in response. She forced them into a grim line instead.

‘You’re a bit late,’ Milo said, looking at his watch.

‘I never said I’d meet you.’

‘But you’re here now.’

‘No, I’m heading out for a walk alone, with my dog. I need to take more photos for the magazine.’

‘Oh, come on. Doesn’t the part of you that bought those earrings want to see Narnia?’ he said, referring to the striped tribal earrings Claire’s dad had got her when they were in Zanzibar.

‘Narnia’s a million miles away from where I got these earrings,’ she said, thinking of the red dusty roads and cracked pavements, tiny children dressed in torn jeans and filthy T-shirts reaching their hands out to her as she passed in the four-by-four her dad had hired. Then there was the other side: the soft golden sands of the affluent coastal resort of Mangapwani; the scent of expensive suntan lotion mixing with exotic spices; couples walking hand in hand as the sky turned orange on the horizon, the same sun that was setting on those children just a few miles away. It was something Claire saw in every place she visited, excruciating poverty in sharp contrast to nauseating wealth. She always tried to touch on it in her writing, her little way of helping in some way, but the lines she wrote were inevitably cut out at subbing stage, her publishing director scolding her as he told her she didn’t work for ‘bloody Oxfam’.

‘Narnia might be far from Zanzibar,’ Milo said, snapping her out of her reverie. ‘But it’s just a thirty-minute walk from here.’

He shot Claire a smile, teeth white and crooked, brown eyes sparking, and her stomach rippled. She wrapped her arms around herself, pressing the handle of Archie’s lead into her middle. She wasn’t supposed to react like this to another man.

Milo raked his fingers through his dark hair. ‘Look, I feel bad about what happened yesterday. I’m doing this to make it up to you. No tourists know about this place, you’ll love it. Really. You can write about it in your magazine.’

‘I don’t know,’ she said, peering towards the path she’d taken the day before.

‘Fine,’ he said, putting his hands up as he backed away. ‘I get the message. I’m going up there anyway so feel free to join me. If not, I guess I’ll see you across the river on your official path in a couple of hours.’

He strode away and Claire stood where she was a few moments. It would be good to write about something a little different. She’d got a letter from a reader the other day moaning that all the magazine ever wrote about was information they could get in guide books anyway.

She decided to follow him after all. Maybe that reader would rue their words this time?

Milo slowed down when he heard her footsteps and let her fall into step beside him, shooting her a smile.

‘How long have you had him?’ he asked as they watched Archie stop at each place Milo’s dog did, resolutely covering his scent with his own.

‘Five years. No one else would have him at the rescue place – too snappy apparently.’

Milo raised an eyebrow. ‘So you’re a fan of the underdogs, then?’

Claire thought of the other children she’d try to play with during her travels as a kid: strays and waifs with hidden troubles. ‘I suppose so.’

‘Holly told me how you stuck up for her in front of Henry.’

‘Is Holly an underdog?’

His face clouded over. ‘In some ways.’ Archie jumped up at his legs and his face softened. ‘So how old is he?’

‘Seven.’

‘He still looks like a pup.’

‘Everyone says that. But he sees himself as a man dog.’

Milo laughed. ‘Man dog. I like that.’

Claire felt a stab of guilt. Ben had come up with that phrase. She wondered how he’d feel about her walking their dog with a man who looked like Milo. Maybe he wouldn’t care.

‘So how do we get onto this better path?’ Claire asked, shrugging the thought away.

‘Over that.’ He pointed towards the river.

‘We have to cross the river?’

He put on a mock scared face. ‘I know, rivers can be terrifying, all that water trickling over little scary pebbles.’