recently?’
‘Nearly thirteen years ago. Cancer.’ She saw her dad’s thin face again as he stared up at her all those years ago. She peered back towards the hotel. ‘Will your brother be okay?’
Milo frowned. ‘Yeah, he gets like that when he’s had a few drinks. Add that to how tough things are at the farm nowadays, it’s not a good mix. Sorry you had to see him like that.’ He peered towards the path. ‘So, what are your plans for tomorrow?’ he asked, quickly changing the subject.
‘Just lunch with Henry. Otherwise, I was thinking about driving somewhere, maybe further west towards Cornwall. I’d like to write about some of the places people can visit while here. Saying that, my car struggled enough on the journey down.’
Milo followed Claire’s gaze towards her aqua Fiat Uno. ‘It’s quite a specimen.’
‘I swapped Bob Dylan tickets for that old thing years ago with a friend.’
‘You missed a Bob Dylan gig for that?’
She shrugged. ‘She brought me back a T-shirt.’
‘Well, if it’s just your car stopping you doing a tour, I can drive you tomorrow morning if you want? Can’t guarantee you’ll get back in time for lunch. But then maybe that’s not such a bad thing,’ he added, raising a dark eyebrow. ‘Lunch with Henry isn’t exactly thrilling; he’ll just bark on about why he had the restaurant walls painted cream instead of teal.’
‘How do you know I don’t find the interior decoration of West Country hotels fascinating?’
Milo smiled, a swift breeze whipping its way around him and picking up strands of his dark fringe. Claire wanted to reach out, sweep it away from his eyes. She felt guilt burn in her stomach. What was wrong with her?
She turned her attention to Archie so Milo didn’t notice her blush. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea for them to spend the morning together? ‘I’ll manage on my own, I’m sure you’ve got better things to do with your time.’
‘Like terrify tourists with my stag-shooting abilities?’
‘I bloody hope not!’
‘Never again,’ he said, his face very serious. ‘Look, I’m due some time off. Dale keeps hassling me to take a break. What do you think?’
Claire held her breath. This press trip wasn’t meant to be about this. A quickening of the heart, the inability to breathe as some virtual stranger looked her square in the eye. She needed space to figure out a future without Ben – ‘see the wood for the trees’ as he had said. But she felt like she’d stepped even further into the forest, the wood and the trees blurring even more than ever.
But as the seconds ticked by without her answering, and a frown puckered Milo’s forehead, she found herself unable to say no.
So she said yes instead.
Claire was nervous as she approached Milo’s Land Rover the next morning. She’d promised herself the night before she wouldn’t read anything into every flutter of her heart, every catch in her breath. It was like looking at a beautiful painting when she was around him. Aesthetics and desire, that’s all, she reasoned. She needed the company, a distraction from dwelling on her problems with Ben all the time. But that didn’t detract from the fact she was anxious.
As she reached the car, she paused. Milo was reading her magazine, his eyes heavy with emotion. She recognised the article, an obituary for the magazine’s financial director Victoria who’d passed away a few months ago. She’d always got on with the gentle, kind woman, who was a contrast to the magazine’s obnoxious founder. In the article, she’d drawn on a conversation she’d once had with her about how important it was to follow your own path, something Victoria had done by moving from the tiny Italian village where she’d been born to live in the UK, despite her family’s protests. Claire had used a quote by Bob Black, the anarchist her dad loved reading: The reinvention of daily life means marching off the edge of our maps.
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
