The Atlas of Us

by Tracy Buchanan

  There’s silence from Dad at first then he sighs. ‘I’m not sure finding Erin will be good for your mother.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘She’s very troubled,’ Dad said after thinking about it for a few moments. ‘I saw her at her worst when she stayed one Christmas. She was miserable, constantly crying and ranting.’

  ‘Over what?’

  ‘A man.’

  ‘Her husband?’

  Dad pauses. ‘No.’

  ‘She was having an affair then?’

  ‘Yes. With her brother-in-law.’

  I sit up straight, heart thumping. ‘You mean Milo James?’

  ‘Yes. I overheard her talking to your mother about it. What disgusted me was Milo was young at the time, just a teenager. Over sixteen but still. And, to make matters worse, it happened while Erin’s husband was injured after serving in the Falklands. Your mother was very annoyed at her.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. Is there anything else you can remember that might help me?’

  ‘No, nothing else. Your mother didn’t really tell me what Erin got up to and I didn’t want to know after that.’ He’s quiet for a few moments. ‘You’ll find her, won’t you? You’ll find her and bring her home?’

  My eyes fill with tears. ‘I’ll find her, Dad. I promise.’

  ‘Good,’ he says, his voice catching. ‘That’s good.’

  When he’s gone, I clutch my phone to my chest, tears starting to roll down my cheeks. ‘Oh, Mum,’ I whisper to myself. ‘Please be alive.’

  ‘Everything okay?’ Sam says, jogging over and crouching down beside me.

  ‘It’s just difficult talking to Dad, that’s all.’

  He squeezes my hand. ‘Of course it is.’

  ‘He told me something interesting though. Apparently, Mum’s best friend was having an affair with her brother-in-law, Milo James.’

  Sam’s eyebrows rise. ‘Very interesting.’

  ‘Did you find anything?’ I ask, brushing my tears away.

  ‘There’s too much stuff here for me to make head or tail of it, and most of it will be from other parts of the island anyway, dumped here when the wave receded. Might be worth you having a look to see if you recognise anything though.’

  I stand up, brushing the sand from my knees, and follow him down the beach, stepping over debris, a tangle of clothes, broken kettles, cupboard doors and so much more. There’s half a boat turned on its side nearby and a whole bamboo roof that’s somehow stayed intact but is now caught up in the branches of an upturned palm tree.

  There are diggers on the side; the clear-up has already started, and people in blue scrubs scour the beach in the distance, no doubt looking for bodies.

  I’m about to suggest heading back when a flash of yellow cloth catches my eye tangled in a palm tree nearby. I walk up to it. It looks just like the cardigan I got for Mum for her birthday with hearts on it.

  Sam stands on tiptoes and carefully untangles it. He hands it to me and I hold it to my nose.

  It’s hers.

  My legs seem to collapse beneath me and I sink down onto a spare patch of sand. I look up at Sam. ‘Oh God, Sam, what if she was in these bungalows when the wave hit?’

  Sam sits down next to me without saying a word, and we both stay like that for a while, taking in the ravished beach, the now-calm sea beyond it. Soon, it starts to grow dark, the debris around us like pieces of coal. So we head back to the stretch of beach where we were dropped off to wait for Sam’s friend to return. As we wait, I look down at Mum’s yellow cardigan, remembering when I’d given it to her. I’d treated her to lunch for her birthday and she’d put the cardigan straight on despite the fact it completely clashed with her tie-dye dress. I remember with a flinch how embarrassed I’d been as other diners had turned to look at her. Then I remember what happened next and laugh to myself: I was a few weeks pregnant with Chloe and was suffering from the worst kind of morning sickness, so I’d run to the toilet to puke. Mum joked that she really must’ve looked awful if that was my reaction.

  ‘What are you laughing at?’ Sam asks, a smile on his face.

  ‘Oh, it’s silly really, I was just …’ I pause. There’s something about that memory that’s spinning just beyond my grasp.

  I frown as it suddenly comes to me.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Sam asks.

  ‘On the phone earlier, Dad mentioned one Christmas when Erin James came to stay. I just remembered I found her being sick in the toilet. Later, I overheard Mum asking her, “is it his?” Of course, I didn’t understand what she meant at the time. But now I realise she must’ve been asking if the baby was Milo’s.’

  Sam’s mouth drops open. ‘Jesus. What a mess that family was.’

  There’s a noise nearby. We both look up to see the boat appear. Sam stands, putting his hand out to me. I take it, letting him pull me up.

  ‘There’s another passenger on there,’ I say, noticing a man standing on the boat.

  The moonlight shines down onto the boat and I squint my eyes, trying to get a better look. Then my breath catches in my mouth.

  It’s Will.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Iso-Syöte, Finland

  2000

  Claire looked out at the white landscape spread out before her – skies as pink as a child’s blush; snow piled upon snow piled upon snow. It was like looking out at a scene from a Christmas card each morning, snow-clad fir trees as far as the eye could see with wooden huts like theirs dotted between them. It felt completely untouched, like she’d arrived at the beginning of the world.

  Milo was in the distance, leaning against a tree, blowing out a circle of smoke as he stared into the forest. His hair had grown, his fringe now long enough to hang in his eyes the way Claire loved. He was dressed head to toe in black, stark and tall against the snowy backdrop, the opposite to Claire in her scuffed pink salopettes and the white moon boots she’d kept from her teenage winter travels.

  She stepped outside and did what she’d been doing ever since they’d arrived a month ago: completely avoided the path he’d carefully dug out for them and jumped into the snow instead, sinking in up to her shins. Milo turned, face softening and opened his arms to her. Happiness tugged at her insides as she pumped her legs to get to him. By the time she was in his arms, she was out of breath, face tingling with cold, icicles already forming on her eyelashes and hair as she breathed in the pine-scented air.

  ‘Do you know what time it is?’ Milo murmured into her hair.

  ‘I don’t care. Time doesn’t happen out here.’

  ‘Easy for you to say, tucked away with your laptop.’

  ‘But you make me so tired,’ she whined, pressing herself against him, the sore parts of her throbbing so much, wanting him even more.

  He pulled his gloves off and traced his cold thumb along her jaw line, his brown eyes flickering with emotion. She felt that magnetic pull of his making her lose focus.

  ‘We can go back,’ he said, his voice husky. ‘We don’t need to leave for another fifteen minutes.’

  ‘It’ll take us that long to get ourselves out of our snow gear.’

  ‘But it’s the only thing that works in these temperatures, this skin-on-skin thing.’ He slid his hands under her coat and jumper, his cold fingertips making her flinch as he brushed them across the bare skin of her back.

  The past two months had been a blur of his body against hers, lips pressed hard against every part of her, his fingers, his smell. They’d barely noticed the transition from one country to the next, both minds fuzzy from lack of sleep, every part of their bodies aching from what they did to each other and what they wanted to do again and again.

  But beneath the surface was what Milo had done to Luna back in Serbia. Claire couldn’t quite shake it off, despite Milo’s explanation that it was a natural instinct drummed into him at the farm to protect the youngest, healthiest animals. He’d gone into autopilot, he told her, but had deeply regretted it after. She’d believed him, but it played o
n her mind, especially when she thought of what his brother had once said to her: ‘If an animal needs to die – for food, to put it out of pain, to save a younger animal – you kill it.’ She thought Milo was different from his brother, that the ‘James Curse’, as he called it, had bypassed him. But had killing his own brother brought something out in him?

  She’d thought long and hard about how the impact of what he’d done to Luna would affect the fragile beginnings of their relationship. But she saw the vulnerability in him, and the damage that both his upbringing and his brother’s death had wrought. If she had vowed to save animals that slipped between the lines, why not people? If she gave up on this damaged man, a man she was beginning to fall in love with, then what hope was there for her aspirations to be a woman who made a difference and didn’t just observe?

  It was hard after the incident though. Despite the wonder they shared at finally being together after all those years apart, the atmosphere at the sanctuary those last few weeks was horrid; Nikola cold, the other Serbians keeping their distance. Filipe was the only person who seemed to have forgiven Milo. When Filipe’s father passed away and left the reindeer farm to him, he invited them to move out to Finland to help him run it – and so there they were, living on the earnings they made from Milo’s work on the farm and Claire’s freelancing, Milo’s savings from his family’s farm sale stowed away for future adventures.

  Future adventures. That’s exactly what Claire wanted right now. As she’d come to learn in San Francisco, her wanderlust was returning and it needed sating. Combined with her desire to make a stamp on the world with her writing, she felt like she was really getting into her stride as she marched down her chosen path. And Finland was ideal: she’d never been before so there were new vistas to explore, new foods to taste, new scents to smell … and something to get her writing teeth into: the land disputes between the indigenous Sami people and the Finnish government were ideal material for her.

  Life was close to perfect those first few weeks in Finland. It wasn’t just about the nights they spent exploring each other’s bodies. There were snow fights, day-long expeditions on snow mobiles, just the two of them discovering Lapland’s landscape. When they stayed in, they read each other passages from their books – Claire some travel memoir or another, Milo one of the classics he’d brought back from the sanctuary.

  Living together had its quirks, of course, as it did for every couple. Claire was her usual messy self while Milo preferred no clutter. She slept in too, while Milo would rise with the sun. Then there were the nights Milo spent pacing the house with his copy of Paradise Lost as though something in those scuffed pages would give him the answer to all his internal troubles; the way, sometimes, his touch would grow too rough, his lips too forceful. The nightmares were bad too, Milo waking in the night and calling out his brother’s name. When Claire tried to talk to him about it, he closed up, the usually happy air darkening. After all the darkness, Claire craved light. So that’s what she tried to keep, her questions gradually dying away.

  Excited families poured into the arrivals lounge at Kuusamo airport, reminding Claire of how it had felt two months ago, the reindeer and sled that greeted them in the baggage area making her giggle like a child. Three hours later, she’d been crying because her toes and fingers were so cold.

  Among the sea of faces, a hint of red curls bounced towards them; a freckled face; a bright red coat and white woollen mittens. And then, two distinctive blond heads bopping above the crowds ahead.

  Holly spotted Claire and Milo, her green eyes lighting up. Her face had thinned out, her high cheekbones exposed, and she had red tulip lips and eyes so big and slanted, they didn’t look real. She was beautiful, breathtakingly so. Claire could hardly believe this was that fourteen-year-old girl who’d hidden under a table that night three years ago.

  Holly ran towards them, throwing herself into Milo’s arms as he laughed, twirling her around. People turned to stare at them both. Claire couldn’t blame them. They looked stunning together, red hair against black, perfect skin, striking features.

  In the distance, Claire’s sister Sofia appeared, her son Alex checking his phone as he trailed after her. Ed, Sofia’s husband, wasn’t able to fly out due to business commitments, his usual excuse for missing get-togethers. Sofia looked as elegant as ever in smart blue jeans and a fluffy white jumper, her long blonde tresses twisted into a French plait, a contrast to Claire’s messy brown hair. Despite how smartly she was dressed, she looked just like their dad with his light hair, but they couldn’t be more different in personality.

  ‘Look at you!’ Sofia said when she reached Claire, holding her at arm’s length. ‘Your hair’s the same colour it was when we were kids! You’ve put some weight on too,’ her sister added, pinching the skin on Claire’s arm.

  Claire yelped. ‘Sofia!’

  ‘What? It suits you. You were too skinny after …’ Her voice trailed off as she looked at Milo, her blue eyes narrowing as she did what she usually did, judging him before she’d even spoken to him. That had always struck Claire as strange – Sofia’s penchant for jumping to conclusions, considering her job as a solicitor. Wasn’t the idea ‘innocent before proven guilty’?

  ‘You been down the gym, Alex?’ Claire asked her nephew as he joined them. He’d grown so much in the few months since she’d seen him last. He even had light gold stubble on his chin and cheeks, the thick jumper and baggy jeans he was wearing making him look like some famous football player.

  She wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders, giving him a peck on the cheek.

  ‘You all meet Holly at Gatwick okay?’ she asked as they waited for Holly and Milo to finish hugging.

  ‘Yeah,’ Alex said. ‘She’s really cool.’

  Sofia raised her eyebrow just long enough for Claire to notice. What could she possibly find wrong with Holly?

  Holly pulled away from Milo and turned to Claire, a host of emotions running over her pretty face. Then she jogged over and wrapped her arms around Claire’s shoulders. She was so tall now her curls muffled Claire’s mouth.

  Claire stood still at first, surprised. They barely knew each other and the last time they’d seen each other, Holly’s father was lying dead in Milo’s arms. But she was holding Claire so tight, with such enthusiasm, Claire couldn’t help but relax against her, wrapping her arms around her too.

  ‘You’re a woman,’ Claire whispered.

  ‘I hope so,’ Holly replied in a voice that had lost all its girlishness. She pulled away from Claire and searched her eyes. ‘I’m so pleased you and Milo got together.’

  Milo strolled over and shook Alex’s hand before kissing Sofia on her powdered cheek.

  ‘How was the journey?’ he asked her, trying to hide his nerves with a bright smile. Claire had warned him what Sofia was like and it was obvious he was trying his best with her. Claire’s heart went out to him.

  ‘The food was dreadful,’ Sofia replied as she looked him up and down, assessing him like a CT scanner. ‘But the flight crew were nice enough.’ Sofia pulled a letter from her designer bag. ‘Right, we better get those bloody dogs.’

  Claire and Milo smiled at each other. It had taken some persuading to convince Ben to let Archie stay with them for the next six months. They’d talked over email, curt, cold messages. When Claire told him she was with Milo, it made things even worse. But in the end, somehow, he relented, and they’d made arrangements for Archie and Blue to come over with her sister and nephew. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that, according to one of her old work colleagues, Ben had met someone, a perky blonde with a penchant for bright red lipstick and fifties-style dresses called Belle. Claire was pleased for him. Maybe Belle could give him everything she couldn’t?

  Holly slung her arms around Claire and Milo’s shoulders, her face bright with happiness. ‘It’s so cool the dogs are coming too. Then we’ll all be together again, just as it should be.’

  Sofia raised an eyebrow again but Claire ignor
ed her. She wouldn’t let her sister’s prejudgements about Milo and Holly ruin their first Christmas together.

  Four hours later, they all arrived at Filipe’s house – Claire and Milo’s cabin was too small to host more than four people for dinner. Filipe may have had to leave his job and the conveniences of Helsinki behind when his father died, but he refused to give up the luxuries, his new house a modern building entrenched in a snowy mountain for insulation.

  Everyone bundled out of their cars, including Archie who leapt out into the snow while Blue delicately sniffed it before cocking his leg and spraying it with his scent.

  The door to the house opened and Filipe appeared at the entranceway in a thick grey jumper, his glasses perched on his nose. He gave Claire a kiss on the cheek then grabbed Milo into a hug. They’d grown close over the past couple of months, working day in and day out together on the reindeer farm.

  ‘I don’t think I’ve had so many Brits on my doorstep,’ Filipe said, beaming at everyone. ‘Come in, please!’

  Everyone walked in, shaking the snow from their hair and handing their coats over to Filipe. Claire was surprised to see Holly was wearing a beautiful oriental-style dress with long sleeves and blue flowers all over it, a contrast to the jeans and wellies Claire had seen her wear three years ago.

  ‘It’s from Japan,’ she said, noticing Claire’s interest. ‘I saw it on the internet, and it reminded me of the dress you wore to the wedding.’

  Everyone went quiet at the mention of the wedding. Claire examined Holly’s face. How could she mention it so nonchalantly? Milo must have thought the same as he regarded Holly with worried eyes.

  Filipe smiled to ease the tension. ‘Good choice, you look divine.’

  ‘Lovely place,’ Sofia said, smoothing her blonde hair down as she looked around. ‘Worth a fortune too, I imagine?’

  ‘Mum!’ Alex said. ‘You can’t say things like that.’