The Map of Us: The most uplifting and unmissable feel good romance of 2018!

‘10.37am?’ Matt said.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Not 10.37pm?’ He said.

‘No,’ I said.

‘Oh.’

He looked more confused than ever. Somehow it bothered him that our marriage had come apart in the morning. Before lunchtime even. Not at night. Did it really make any difference? The end result was the same.

We were sitting in our favourite wine bar – that wasn’t really ‘ours’ anymore – discussing who should take custody of the three-seater sofa from the living room. It had seen better days. So had we.

‘10.37am,’ Matt repeated absently. Like the title of a film that he had never seen, starring someone that he couldn’t quite remember.

How could I be so exact? I had an affair. It started at 10.37am on April 22nd. It was a Thursday. I have a graph that explains why. Not why it was a Thursday – why it started at 10.37am. It’s more of flow chart, actually. It’s on Page 5 of the report. We’ll get to that. Maybe later.

I didn’t really want the sofa. But Matt did.

the marriage report

Okay. Maybe writing a report on our marriage with footnotes and a summary and a series of conclusions was another spectacularly bad idea. But that is what I did.

Matt just wanted to blame someone and feel betrayed and hang up on me all the time. I could see his point. But I wanted something more precise. I wanted to look at the distribution of fault and the relative impacts of known and random variables. Everything could be quantified and evaluated and interpreted using samples and controls and baselines – even the ups and downs of our relationship. I wanted to make sense of it all. I wanted a number. A simple diagram. Something that I could understand at a glance.

It was just another Bearing Foods presentation. It was no different. Not really. First, I had to identify my research aims. Then I had to gather evidence. When I had analysed all the available data, I could make informed statements and recommendations.

I chose to use a large lever arch file for my report. Something that would accommodate items of evidence that weren’t all flat. I couldn’t think of any items that might possibly fit that category, but I wanted to be prepared for the eventuality that one might crop up.

Matt and I had been married for three years. Our time together was like a low-fat snack bar for the health-conscious sector. A low-fat snack bar that had actually turned into something resembling squirrel poo. Now I was going to pick through the sticky ingredients with my fingers looking for answers. It was the least I could do.

clarity

I was in Trish Hudson’s office. Trish is my boss. She’s the head of the Statistical Analysis Department at Compass Applied Analytics. She is also quite short, so she wears irresponsibly high heels and has a blow-up cushion on her chair and wears a lot of vertical stripes because she thinks they make her look taller and thinner. They are only partially successful. She walks with a strange juddering totter because of her irresponsible shoes, and the thin vertical stripes make her look like a clump of dry grass swaying in a gale.

I get called to Trish’s office quite a lot. I got called to her office the time that I was overheard making a comment about Helen being married and divorced twice in 64.726% of the national average. It was just a joke. But Trish doesn’t think that statistics are a laughing matter. That’s why she’s the head of department. I suppose.

My trips to her office had been tapering off nicely. I was hoping this was only a blip in a long-term downward trend.

Trish looked like she had a wasp in her ear. That was fairly normal. She always looked like she had a wasp in her ear. When you got summoned to her office it was sometimes hard to tell if you were in trouble or not.

‘Am I in trouble?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ she said.

That cleared that up then.

wasps

The cause of Trish’s constant expression of irritated malevolence was the subject of much discussion and conjecture in the office.

Most speculated that it was the result of botched plastic surgery around the eyes in an attempt to make her look younger. The high heels and vertical stripes seemed to support the hypothesis. She already went to a great deal of effort to look taller and thinner.

Another, smaller contingent suggested that the blow-up cushion on her chair was not just to enable her to reach her phone but hinted at some chronic problem with her unmentionables. It was hard not to laugh at this one. For lots of reasons. None of them kind. I am a bad person. I admit it.

A third group thought that she did actually have a wasp jammed in her ear. Poor thing. The wasp, that is.

I’m not sure what I believed. It didn’t matter now. I was fairly certain that the current look of squinty-eyed hostility had something to do with the Bearing Foods presentation earlier.

Blaming Helen would be futile. I knew that. Helen was the only bridesmaid at Trish’s lavish destination wedding last year. The venue was a remote island in the Indian Ocean that took 5 hours to get to by small boat. I wasn’t invited. I’m glad I wasn’t. It rained for nine days straight. I’ve seen the rainfall figures. They were the highest ever recorded. A little over 320% of the normal monthly average. It was impossible to get outside. In the end Trish was married in the main guest hut surrounded by overflowing buckets and the sound of palm trees being blown over.

Trish and Helen went to the same prestigious university too. I didn’t. I went somewhere less prestigious that had an infamous nightlife.

On Fridays they sometimes shared a car to work. Neither had ever accepted a lift in mine. I could see their point. It used to belong to my father. It was full of sand. I tried to get it professionally cleaned once. They took one look at it and said no. Then they asked me to leave their forecourt, but the car wouldn’t start because it was damp and it was French, and they had to push me down the road while I tried to bump start it and I only remembered to take the handbrake off when they had to ask more people to come out and help push.

Yup. There was no point blaming Helen. That much was clear. If this was about the Bearing Foods presentation, I was done for.

something about squirrels

‘It’s about the Bearing Foods presentation,’ Trish said.

Nuts.

I tried not to shrug. I do a lot of shrugging. Especially when I’m about to get told off. I shrug at other times, too. Maybe it has something to do with hanging out in old French cars for so long.

Trish was wearing a cap sleeve shift dress with wide pink and white vertical stripes. She looked like a deckchair. A small deckchair. I could hear her blow-up cushion protesting as she squirmed in her chair and straightened to her full height. I could still barely see her over her laptop.

‘I’ve just had Daniel Bearing on the phone,’ she said.

Daniel Bearing was the CEO of Bearing Foods. We’d met, briefly.

‘Yes?’ I said.

No shrugging.

‘He’s not happy.’ She said.

‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ I said.

Must not shrug.

‘He said that there was some problem with the new Seedy-Pea-Nut-Slices?’

‘Really?’ I said.

I could feel my shoulders tighten and lift slightly.

‘Something about squirrels,’ she said.

‘How odd,’ I said.

Shrug averted. That was close. Now I just had to stop myself from smiling. Trish had drafted a policy document about smiling in the workplace. It was stuck on the wall in the kitchenette. In her view, smiling was the sign of an idle mind. She thought it looked unprofessional and insincere. She wanted her team to remain impassive and focused. She did her very best to lead by example. Apart from the whole wasp in the ear thing.

‘I thought that Helen was helping you?’ Trish said.

‘Helen was great,’ I said, suddenly aware that I shrug when I lie as well. Too late.

‘Sort it out,’ she said.

‘I will,’ I said.

And then I was dismissed.

I was glad. Trying not to shrug had really taken it out of me. I was exhausted.

G.I.T.S.

The Group Imaginative Thinking Session at Bearing Foods was not going well. Daniel Bearing’s father didn’t like the term ‘brainstorming.’ He thought it sounded outdated and silly. Group Imaginative Thinking Sessions were his idea. They happened once a week. It was part of his legacy. They also had an unfortunate acronym.

Daniel’s father had recently retired and was now living in the Outer Hebrides in a former shooting lodge that had its own stone harbour and a beach of pure white sand and nine bedrooms and views to the Isle of Skye. He had worked hard for over thirty years so that he could live peacefully among puffins and grey seals and bottle-nosed dolphins in the middle of the North Atlantic. The constant buffeting of the wind was playing havoc with his hair implants.

Daniel was in charge now. He could call the weekly sessions anything he wanted to. He didn’t really care one way or the other. Everyone just argued about the same things they always did. Mostly about cashews being too expensive and the laxative effect of eating too much coconut and whether chocolate chips really had any place in a low-fat snack bar.

Daniel Bearing wasn’t really listening. He had a lot on his mind.

Dear Matilda

Just a quick note to let you know that washing machine No.76 arrived safely earlier today. How exciting. I doubt it will last any longer than the others, but it looks very fine in its cardboard overcoat. I haven’t unpacked it yet. It’s sitting in the middle of the living room at the moment. It seems happy enough. It has no idea what we have in store for it.

Mr Southerton (Jnr) has promised to come around tomorrow to plumb it in for me. Mr Southerton (Snr) is retiring. He says that he is too old to play around with hoses and stopcocks. He says his son is very good at fixing things. Much better than he is. Was. His son is called Bailey. He went to school with Jack. Do you know him? He has a very nice voice on the phone. He has also agreed to take the remains of washing machines No.74 and No.75 to the dump so that your father can park the car in the garage for a change. He won’t. But he could.

Mr Southerton (Snr) says he will still call by and see Sidney when he is passing. I know that Sidney is very fond of his company.

Your brother is in South America somewhere. Don’t ask me where. He did say, but you know what Jack is like when he starts talking about things that are blue. He gets all artistic and lyrical. I stopped listening in the end.

I have not heard from Katherine. I fear that the ‘handbag problem’ may have flared up again. I will keep you posted.

Your father is at the Festival of Sand at Barmouth beach all week. He called and said there are seven dolphins already and he thinks there may be some mermaids arriving later. I fear another second place is on the cards.

Must dash. When are you coming to see us?

Love

Mum x

handbags

It was a patent leather top handle with a double zip and a detachable cross body strap. Katherine knew that she shouldn’t stop and look. It was already too late. She had stopped. She had looked. She was drawn in. Her face was pressed against the glass.

It was sitting on its own acrylic plinth in the window of a shop that she was not allowed to enter. She was not banned. Katherine was always welcome inside. Cash or credit card. That was not the issue. She had made a promise. She had made the same promise before and been weak. Her resolve had not held. Not for long. She had given in after a month. Maybe a little less, but a month sounded better.

She had other top handle handbags of a similar design. Thirty or so. And three hundred different styles of handbag as well. In their own room. Lined up. On glass shelves. Constantly rearranged by size and colour and designer and season. That was a lot of handbags. That was why she had promised. So many times before. No more handbags. But this was different. This was something else. It was £485. It was worth it.

She tried to walk away but found herself walking towards the door of the shop instead. She couldn’t stop herself. She went inside and was greeted like an old friend. She was weak. She knew it. She hated herself. But she bought the handbag anyway. She wanted it.

blue

Jack was lying in a tent near a small village in the palm swamps of an isolated area on the border of two South American countries. He had no idea which side of the border they were on. It didn’t matter. He was floating a foot off the ground, and his toenails were talking to him. He had a fever. He was sweating. He was ice cold. He wasn’t drinking enough water. He couldn’t keep it down. He was hallucinating.

The nearest doctor was 80 miles away upriver. The journey would take six days. His guide assured him that the fever would break in 48 hours. He had seen it before. If it did not break in 48 hours, he would probably be dead. Either way, they weren’t getting in the boat and traveling upriver to get a second opinion.

Jack was drifting in and out of consciousness. He did not mind. He had seen a Hyacinth Macaw in the wild. It had taken almost a week to reach the palm swamps on the edge of a border that had no real edges, only endless trees and muddy rivers.

Jack had seen the lurid blue of the Indigo Bunting, the pale blue of the Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher and the elegant blue of the Purple Martin. The Hyacinth Macaw was another blue again. He was glad that he had traveled so far to see it. He would never forget.

He fell asleep. All his dreams were blue.

sand

Not sure that the nose is right.

Doesn’t look right.

Looks wonky.

Askew.

Maybe it’s just the direction of the sun?

Getting low now.

Sunset at 8.26pm.

Low sun.

That’s all.

That’s the problem.

Yeah.

It will look fine in the morning.

Stop messing with the nose.

You’ll make it worse.

Move on.

Still got the tail to do.

Haven’t even started on the tail.

Or the wings.

Going to be tricky.

Wrong sort of sand for wings.

Should have thought of that.

Why didn’t I think of that?

Same thing last year.

Wrong sort of sand for porcupine quills.

Still got second place though.

Don’t know how.

Idiot.

Sand sculpture of a porcupine?

Idiot.

What was I thinking?

Maybe if I used the plaque scaler again?

Add some more detail.

Won’t notice it’s wonky.

More scales.

Good thinking.

Useful having a dentist in the family.

Odd bloke though.

Wouldn’t want to go on a camping holiday with him.

Get stuck in a tent.

Man has a thing against sand.

Odd bloke.

Doesn’t know what he’s missing.

Still looks wonky.

Not the sun then.

Bollocks.

Taken too much off the nose.

The nose is all wrong.

Don’t think dragons have noses.

Snouts?

Muzzles?

Doesn’t really matter.

The nose is wrong.

Should have done a bloody dolphin.

Don’t be an idiot.

Just do the nose right.

Can’t.

Not enough sand.

Already taken too much off.

Off the nose.

Or the muzzle.

Snout.

Whatever it’s called.

Have to start again.

Bollocks.

Idiot.

Don’t have to start again.

Just make the whole thing smaller.

Done it before.

What time is high tide?

Should have done a bloody dolphin.

Idiot.

N

Abby was standing just inside the school gates. She had pen on her uniform. Asha Jackson did it. Abby didn’t mind. Asha was her friend. They sat next to each other in class. Not all the time though. Sometimes she sat next to Francesca Drinkwater. She had long hair. Abby didn’t have long hair. She had short hair. It was easier for her mum.

Abby was standing with a teacher. Abby didn’t know what the teacher’s name was. She was new. She wasn’t really a teacher. Not yet. She was something else. Abby didn’t know what.

Abby was getting bored of waiting. Everyone else had gone home. It was just her and the teacher that wasn’t a teacher yet. Abby wanted to sit down. And something to drink.

Another teacher came out and told them both to come back inside. She said it like she didn’t want Abby to hear, even though Abby was standing right there in front of her. She was called Mrs Whittle. She was the deputy headmistress.

Abby’s mother wasn’t coming to collect her.

Abby was six.

boots

At first Violet North sent her imaginary hero to sea, but it did not sit well with him. The blank expanse of blue water was not to his liking. The food was stale. His cabin was compact and stuffy. It was too near the engine room to sleep. The metal plates of the hull gathered condensation that seeped into his bunk. He shared the cabin with a fellow traveler who had bad dreams and tied his boots to his wrist so they would not be stolen. He could hear the cargo shifting. He worked his passage as far as the Azores and then disembarked, tired and disillusioned.

Violet offered him a better cabin, but he would not leave the comfort of the shore. She made him the Captain of a merchant ship. And a smuggler. And a retired Admiral. But he would not go. He found cheap lodgings and ate plump grilled sardines and drank green wine, and as the sun dipped he stood on the harbour wall and wondered what it was he would do next.

Violet sent off for a book to keep up with him. It was in Portuguese. Things could not continue this way.

She gave him boots. They were stolen from his companion in the cabin. She had invented them. They were hers to steal. They did not fit, so she wrote that they were another size. That was better. He liked the boots more than he had liked the food onboard ship. He went for a walk to try them out.

oversight

Violet left him to walk in stolen boots for some time. She did not want a repeat of his disastrous voyage at sea. He was not turning out to be the man she had thought she imagined. Not at all. He had a mind of his own and a temperament that was combustible and a face she had not yet had the delicacy to finalise. His stride was long, and he had the hands of a violin player, or perhaps a pianist, and a voice that had not yet been tested. It was not until he had gone some several miles into an unwritten wasteland that she realised she had sent him on his way without a name. It was an oversight that she sought to quickly remedy.

Violet thought of her father, but his name would not do. He was a cruel man who had shunned her and stayed away and led a life elsewhere that did not include a daughter who could not walk far and whose frailty was a downright disappointment. She did not wish to recall his name. Or the name of her brother who pinched and pushed and kicked and dropped things from a height. Sharp things. Heavy things. Just because her legs did not work did not mean that she could not feel.

There were other names. Many. She wrote a list. And all the while a man with an uncertain face walked away from her into a shapeless void that had not yet been typed.

name

Violet’s house had four floors and an attic. It was detached and made of hard white bricks and was surrounded by a large garden that was already beginning to look unkempt and overgrown. There were 93 steps inside. The staircases were narrow with painted banisters and fluted spindles. Some of the spindles were broken or missing. The staircase from the ground floor to the first floor was carpeted. The rest were bare boards. The carpet was held in place by brass stair rods made by Galbraith & Sons of Edinburgh. That would be his name.

The washbasin in the first-floor bathroom was manufactured by Arthur & Co. It sat on a cast iron stand and had a white marble surround. There were 14 steps and a small landing between the ground floor and the bathroom. It took Violet five minutes to reach it. She clung to the banister. The paint had worn off in places. There were many layers of paint hidden beneath. Violet hoped to see them all one day. That would be his name.

And so Arthur Galbraith was born. Not exactly born, but brought into the world of imaginary existence. He was the child of a brass stair rod and a first-floor washbasin with a marble surround. They represented the outer limits of Violet’s universe. A name should mean something. His seemed apt somehow.

kissed

Violet had been thinking about Arthur Galbraith’s face again, but she was yet to be convinced by any of the faces she had devised. None of them would do. She did not ask his opinion, for he had already shown himself to be difficult and ill-tempered when it came to making a choice.

Her problem was further complicated by a small technical matter. Almost every element of his face had an ‘e’ in it somewhere and the ‘e’ on her borrowed turquoise blue Royal Quiet Deluxe typewriter often stuck. There was an ‘e’ in ‘nose’ and ‘ear.’ There were two in ‘eye’ and ‘eyebrows’ and cheeks’ and ‘teeth’ and ‘forehead.’ It was infuriating. Every time she would have to press a small button and the top of the Royal Quiet Deluxe typewriter would pop open automatically, making the interior of the machine accessible. Then she would unstick the ‘e’, replace the top, press the backspace key and start again.

Only Arthur’s chin and mouth and lips were immune from the lengthy and annoying process. But they were not a place she cared to start. She knew something of chins and mouths, but a man’s lips were unknown to her. She found herself thinking about them far more regularly than his nose. Did it matter what an imaginary explorer’s lips looked like or felt like? She would never be kissed by such a man – and ‘kissed’ had an ‘e’ in it.