The problem was that after a year’s taxi-driving, Ben began to feel lodged in a rut. A rut that was deepening with every week. He and Kirsten were married by then, and he felt a quiet premonition of horror at the thought of spending the rest of his years trapped in the driver’s seat of a cab while life happened on the other side of the windscreen. All he was doing was taking people to places and never going anywhere himself. His creativity felt like a wilting plant with no means of nourishment. He needed more, before the last of his leaves shrivelled to a crisp and fell right off. It really came home to him one afternoon when he was dropping a middle-aged couple at the crematorium for, as it turned out, their nephew’s funeral. This nephew had died unexpectedly, falling down a flight of stone steps and breaking his neck. Only twenty-seven, the same age as Ben. ‘You never know, do you?’ the man said grimly. ‘What’s in store for you. All we can do is try and live our best lives, every single day.’
‘And not put things off,’ his wife had added, dabbing her eyes. ‘Do everything you can before it’s too late.’
It had sowed a seed deep inside Ben – the feeling that he wasn’t living his best life, that he wasn’t making the most of his opportunities. That he had shelved pretty much all his ambitions without even trying. Didn’t he owe it to the couple’s nephew, and every other young person who’d died too soon, to try harder, to seize every chance that came his way?
As if some higher power heard him, a new business idea sent up a little green shoot the very next day. He’d been chatting to a passenger who told him her husband was from Leeds, and that the early years of their relationship had been conducted up and down the M1. This brought to mind dots on a satellite map, moving towards one another, and then Ben thought about all the many similar journeys travelled between other couples. Could you plot a relationship on a map? It turned out that, with bold colours on a clear background, you could tell a visual story, clearly and effectively. He started small, designing prints as gifts for friends and family, before building himself a website and getting on to an independent shopping platform. Suddenly he was receiving orders from around the country – around the world, occasionally – and after six months or so, he decided to take the plunge, give up the cab-driving and throw himself into his own business.
He diversified into Cambridge souvenirs, designing prints and postcards, tote bags and mugs, which he sold to several tourist sites in town, and then, when the old vintage maps shop went up for sale five or so years later, the idea of having an actual storefront and a presence within the city was too appealing to ignore. Since then, he’d taken on two part-time members of staff to help run the shop while he produced the personalised maps, and his profit margins were gratifyingly robust year on year.
‘You must have been to so many places, I’m guessing,’ said the Australian woman now, pausing in front of an antique map of Patagonia. ‘Even looking at these maps, I’m getting itchy feet again. Hey, Jon, when are we going to make it to South America? There’s so much world to see, right?’
Ben smiled politely but felt something of an impostor, as he always did whenever people asked him about his own travels. He was glad that his assistant, Nick, was in the back room, parcelling up prints to send out to customers, and couldn’t see the awkward expression on Ben’s face. Because in truth, although he loved maps and thought they were beautiful, fascinating objects, he was embarrassed to admit that he’d hardly been to any of the places displayed in frames around the walls of his shop. He hadn’t been to Greece or Rome; he hadn’t been to China or Indonesia or Australia. He definitely hadn’t been to Patagonia. Did it matter? Did it make him a fake?
‘Your dad didn’t die because you went to New York,’ Kirsten had gently reminded him a few years ago, when she mooted the idea of going somewhere far-flung on holiday (Thailand? Bali?) only for him to mumble reasons about why he didn’t want to. Environmental concerns, he’d said. Long flights. Tropical diseases. And then she’d said that, about his dad, and it was as if she’d seen right through him. Of course Ben’s aborted trip to the States hadn’t caused Stewart McManus’s heart attack. He knew that, obviously, as a rational human being. Yet it was hard to shake off the superstition that still gripped him – that if he took his eye off the family circle, if he went too far away again, then something else bad would happen, and it would be all his fault.
Did that make him an idiot? Or merely the punchline to a joke – a man selling maps who never travelled anywhere himself? It was almost as ridiculous as a man driving a cab and never going anywhere. ‘We need an adventure,’ Kirsten had said to him at the time and the words echoed in his head now, as he thanked the young Australians for their custom, promised he’d have their print ready within a few days, and they left the shop. He and Kirsten could have had more adventures together, he thought ruefully, watching the couple resume their hand-holding outside with easy intimacy. But he’d never come good on delivering one, had he? Somehow the spontaneity had silently departed their relationship. On impulse, he picked up his phone and dialled her number, suddenly needing to prove that he could still surprise her.
Chapter Nine
Rain began to patter against the windscreen as Lara and Eliza approached Peterborough, one of the wipers screeching and juddering each time it moved, where the rubber trim needed replacing. Once Lara finished describing how she’d met Ben, only for him to vanish completely after one single, glorious night, Eliza loudly professed her outrage.
‘What, so he stood you up? And you were hanging around waiting for him?’ cried Eliza. ‘How could he do that?’
‘Well—’ Lara hesitated, but Eliza was still in full flow. ‘What do you think happened? Why didn’t he meet you?’
‘I don’t know,’ Lara sighed. ‘I went to his hostel the morning after, but was told he’d checked out the previous afternoon – before we were even due to meet.’
‘What the hell?’ Eliza looked incensed now. ‘What a complete and utter shithead.’
‘My thoughts exactly,’ Lara replied grimly. And yet she still didn’t know if it was quite as straightforward as all that. Had he really been a straight-up con man, a so-called shithead, only out for sex? He’d been incredibly convincing if so. But who wanted a relationship with someone like that? Not her. So good riddance, frankly.
Had she been too full-on, maybe? Too keen? The morning after, she’d jokingly asked how the two of them were going to spend the rest of their lives together – but it had been a joke. If anything, he’d been more overtly enthusiastic about a relationship, telling her that he’d changed his mind about moving back to Scotland following his trip. ‘I hear Camberwell’s a great place to live,’ he’d said, arching an eyebrow at her that made her tummy flip over. Yes, please, she’d thought, smiling at the idea.
Maybe, though, he’d woken up and decided he didn’t fancy her any more without his beer goggles. Perhaps her chunky thighs had put him off, the sight of her bare bum or terrible bed hair the next morning. Maybe she had farted in her sleep all night. Maybe he actually had a secret wife and kids. Good riddance in that case, too.