The summer had been full of dry heat, marking the fields with the brittle paleness of its passing. From the train windows, each county seemed more drained of vitality the further west we travelled, until, as the usually varied and rich colours of the approaching coast filled the view, everything seemed as if it had lain under a fine coating of dust for weeks. The heat of the station was stale, drawn from the bricks and tarmac of the city around, and each passing bus and car only filled the air with the greasy smear of its passing. I found myself holding my breath by the busiest junctions.

It was with an exhaled relief that I checked into the hotel, a modern, bland building of concrete and glass, tucked unnoticeably among the rest. The room was small, as familiar as any other hotel room. The air-conditioning had cooled the air, though it felt musty, unmoving. The window opened only marginally, a latch preventing it swinging out above streets far below. Yet, even through this prudent opening, the smell of the city trickled insidiously in, replacing the stuffiness of an unused room with the oppressive heat of another long summer day.

The conference did not start until the morning, and though there was a meet-and-greet session over drinks that evening, I did not yet feel ready to assume the professional persona usually expected at such events. The pressing thickness of the hotel pushed me out into the city as the half-light of evening settled, bringing with it a different heat, escaping from each paving stone and wall. The restaurants and bars, their doors and windows flung open, filled the air with the smell of cooking. It floated on the rising heat and filled the senses. A city on a warm summer night demanded attention.

I walked into the older parts, the roads narrowing to lanes, sloping down towards the harbour, and with each turn the air seemed to lift, its heaviness eased apart by the nearing boundary of land and a shifting sea. At a turn and a pedestrian crossing, tarmac faded raggedly into cobblestones, the buildings either side became haphazard, smaller, leaning in, and there at the end of the lane, the night sky was suddenly unencumbered. A steady, gentle breeze spoke of the ocean beyond. An unnerving chill teased across my skin.

Here, smaller bars crowded the street front. It was busy, people constantly flowing around me but it lacked the hectic bustle of a city’s centre. I picked a restaurant almost randomly, an Italian, its walls a pale terracotta, tables and chairs of dark wood. It was comfortably busy, enough so a single diner could be less noticeable. Conversations, the rattle of plates and glasses provided a reassuring but not intrusive atmosphere. The food was good enough, and the wine was made more so by a long day of travel now left behind.

In the easy loosening that follows food and a second glass, I set aside the local paper I had picked up at the station and began to observe the other people. Two families far enough away that their constant restless attention on their children did not reach me. A few couples, older, settled into their food with little conversation. In the window, a larger party, all adults, their mix suggestive of work colleagues. Perhaps, I wondered, they were attending the same conference. At another, small table, next to me, his back towards the front of the restaurant, another solo diner, a man a few years younger than me, though his beard obscured his true face. He was chewing the last of a bread roll. Having shoved his empty dinner plate away, he rested both arms on the table and fed chunks of bread to his mouth in a distracted way. His focus was elsewhere, and though his eyes rested on the empty chair opposite, they were idle, not taking in his surroundings, his mind lost in thought, or, perhaps itself idling, everything suspended. My attention must have rested on him too long, because I suddenly saw the sense of him return to his eyes. He looked up and then across at me. Naturally, I looked away, but not quickly enough, because he sat up, leant over to me, and said, “Another bunch gone missing, I see.” He nodded to my paper, resting on the edge of the table. His voice seemed thin, as if sparingly used, and he gave a short cough to clear his throat. It did little. For a moment I was confused, and seeing this, he unfolded a thick arm and tapped an article tucked down towards the bottom of the open page.

“Search for Missing Walkers Continues.”

I gave an ‘ah, yes’ of understanding, and before I could form anything more, my neighbour shifted his body awkwardly towards me and continued.

“That’s the third one I’ve spotted. Fourth if you count … well, I just bet there’s more. I reckon they haven’t all been round here.” He nodded out into the darkening night beyond the restaurant.

I had long ago learned that one of the rarely acknowledged joys of travelling for my work was not just the independence but the chance encounters with other people. In my earlier years other people were to be avoided, at most a nuisance and a threat to that sense of freedom I gained from travelling alone. However, I gradually began to realise that buried within it there was a loneliness travelling with me. Though it was always an opportunity to observe others, travelling alone reinforced the sense of exclusion, of being an outsider. While others encountered their lives, I was passing through. I began to resist the urge to push away the inevitable casual encounters and conversations that could happen during the abundance of waiting that, ironically, dominates travel. It became as if learning a new skill, the art of knowing when to encourage a chance conversation, and sensing when to politely rebuff it. The man at the next table began to lean back, away from a conversation he sensed was not welcome, and briefly I saw the widening of his eyes, an embarrassment, an awkwardness, and despite a vague sense of unease I decided to engage.

“Do people often get lost on the moors?” I said.

He opened his mouth, a silent ‘ah’ of surprise at the invitation to continue. He nodded, his lips tightly together again, a knowing shrug.

“Even with today’s tech? Sat-navs and such?”

I was aware I was encouraging him now, and couldn’t help but sense I was heading towards something unknown, but my years of inviting the chance encounter held me present before him and we fell into a surprisingly easy conversation.

Over coffee and the last of my wine he told me a story that would have lain nearby unnoticed if I had decided to politely rebuff his earlier awkward engagement. Loosened perhaps by the beer he kept at his fingertips throughout, he spoke in a distant way, with an easy melancholy, recounting his story as if to himself for the first time.

‘There were 16 of us …

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