Somewhere Close to Happy: The heart-warming, laugh-out-loud debut of the year

by Lia Louis

  Calvin pushes off from the door frame and shoves his hands in his pockets. ‘She’s hardly an upstanding citizen herself, though, is she?’ He sits down at his desk. ‘She nuts people in the workplace, chins innocent men trying to earn a crust. She deserves the sack if you ask me.’

  ‘And thankfully, Cal,’ I say, turning back to look at him, ‘nobody is.’

  Cal smiles, picking up something that looks like a gigantic pastry brain in both hands. I have never seen someone handle pastry the way Cal handles it. It’s like he’s cradling glass, or the breast of a beautiful woman. It was one of the things Priscilla told me about him before my first day here, six years ago. ‘You’ll never meet a man more in love with the notion of eating. You wait until we have a board meeting with free cake. He almost climaxes.’

  ‘Well,’ chews Calvin. ‘Nice to see the back-chat is back.’

  I laugh. ‘Me? Did it ever leave?’

  I look past Calvin to Priscilla, who’s on a spare chair at the end of my desk. She’s talking in a low voice into her phone and her hand is over her ear, her face is turned away from us.

  ‘Ah, I dunno,’ Cal shrugs. The enormous ham and cheese croissant is inches from his mouth. Gary, our clammy, bumbling, lone IT guy, brought it in for him at the start of our lunch break, and neither had said a word when he’d placed it down. Calvin had just looked up at him, watery-eyed, and Gary had sashayed off. They’re unlikely friends, really, Calvin and Gary, although I guess people used to say the same about Priscilla and me, at school. But there is one common interest that keeps their relationship ever-spiced: baked goods. Both are obsessed with pastry and specifically, the tray bakes Hiking Sarah often brings in. ‘You’ve just been quiet lately,’ Calvin carries on. ‘Even more so this week.’

  ‘Have I?’

  ‘Mmm,’ he munches. Behind him, Priscilla hangs up. She stares at the desk for a moment unblinking, her hands, one on top of the other over her phone on the desk. I bet Chris’s ex-wife Mandy’s been on the phone again. She rings Chris a lot, harping on about how Chris doesn’t discipline their daughter, Summer, enough on the weekends, and nothing irritates Priscilla more. ‘You’ve been a bit … what’s it they say?’ Calvin says. ‘Away with the fairies? Somewhere else. You know. Not your usual self.’

  Priscilla looks at me then, at the sound of those last words, as if someone called her name. Her glassy eyes search my face.

  ‘Well, I am fine, Sir Meathead.’ I clear my throat, turning to look back out through the gap in the door. ‘Now, I’d appreciate it if you would shush. Sad Gail has just brought the Suffragettes into this and I won’t hesitate to kill you if you make me miss it.’

  The truth is I haven’t been anywhere for the last few weeks – not away with the fairies, not anywhere else. Nowhere. I’ve just been here, living solely in my own head, which feels like standing in a dark tunnel of a thousand chattering voices, talking a thousand words a minute, overlapping, urgent, each voice trying to be heard. It’s exhausting. I’m exhausted. I’m not sure when it started. Maybe it was turning twenty-eight that did it – my ‘scary’ age, the age that always seemed miles into the future, the time when I’d be brave enough to be exactly who I wanted to be. Maybe it’s Dad, moving in with his long-term girlfriend, Linda, and moving out of the home my childhood played out within; the rooms slowly transforming as things are sold, or thrown away, or moved out. Maybe it was those boxes; all those drawings, books, plans, and the hope that was attached to it all – the world that was waiting for us. Or maybe it was all of it, finally coming to a simmer. And now there’s the letter, of course – Roman’s letter – landing in the centre of it all, causing everything to boil over and spill over the edges. It’s the questions more than anything I think, getting heavier the longer they sit there unanswered. The whys, the wheres, the hows. My mind is brimming with them, bowing with them, like rain-filled tarpaulin, and as hard as I try, I can think of nothing else besides Roman Meyers. Nothing besides The Grove and that year. Roman’s letter, lost, that somehow made its way back to me too many years too late; too late for any of it to have any meaning now.

  On Sunday night, I sat staring at the hundreds of instant messenger conversations on the disc, scrolling and scrolling, watching them drift up the screen; these tiny little windows into us. Roman and me. Talking. Frozen in time. I’d scanned over a few at first, lump in my throat, scared to read too much, but then I couldn’t help but stop to take in the words. And as I read, I felt him coming to life again. I could hear his voice, as if there was a tape playing, could remember how his arm felt, heavy and strong over my shoulder, and how we’d sit, like that, in Sea Fog, squashed together, legs up on the flimsy vinyl-wood table, talking, singing, eating chips, and praying that when the time came for me to open the narrow caravan door to go home, we’d find that we’d somehow missed the end of the world, and we were the only ones who remained.

  ‘S’cuse us, Liz, out the way.’

  ‘Uh?’

  ‘Chop, chop, out the way, excuse et moi.’ Cal taps on the top of my arm with the back of his hand, which clutches a piece of paper.

  ‘Cal, no,’ I say. ‘You can’t possibly think of going out there. Gail’s still on one.’

  ‘Don’t talk daft.’ Cal pulls open the office door.

  ‘But it’s an unsecured area,’ I say, pressing my hands to my chest. ‘Keith just went over to use the photocopier and Gail actually mistook him for a predator and snarled at him, with all of her teeth …’

  ‘I need to speak to Niall,’ Calvin chuckles, jaw still chewing a mouthful of croissant. ‘He’s going at one, I need to catch him before he leaves.’

  ‘But think of Gerry’s nose,’ I whisper, frantically. ‘It still looks like a beef tomato and it’s been weeks since she chinned him …’

  Cal walks out.

  I look round at Priscilla and grin. She bursts out laughing.

  ‘It really does look like a beef tomato, doesn’t it?’ She pulls open the lid of her lunchbox. ‘How’s Tim doing out there? She disembowelled him yet?’

  ‘Unfortunately not, P.’

  ‘Shame.’ She tilts her Tupperware box towards me. ‘Brownie?’

  ‘If they’re the ones you make with sweet potato and all those seeds—’

  ‘Nope,’ smiles Priscilla. ‘Made with all the bad stuff.’

  I join Priscilla over at my desk. We eat our brownies in silence, occasionally narrowing our eyes and nodding at each other in agreed ecstasy at the dense slabs of sticky deliciousness in our hands. It reminds me of those times we’d raid the school cafeteria of all the custard doughnuts the loose change in our blazer pockets could buy, and eat them on tables in empty form rooms at lunchtime, talking about what we’d become and who we would be, and what we imagined certain teachers looked like with their pants off.

  ‘Was that Chris on the phone?’ I ask, not looking up from scrolling through eBay.

  ‘Mmm? Just now?’

  I nod.

  ‘Yeah,’ Priscilla sighs and leans back in her chair. ‘It was nothing. You know, just … a disagreement.’

  I pause and look over at her.

  ‘Oh, I dunno.’ Priscilla lifts her bony shoulders to her ears, chewing slowly. Her eyes drop to her lap. ‘Being a step-mum to a fourteen-year-old at twenty-eight. It’s hard sometimes, Liz. Most of the time I feel way out of my depth and like I’m just not cut out for the whole thing – mood swings, messy bedrooms, homework, karate classes …’ Priscilla waves her hand in the air, as if she’s batting away a fly. ‘Anyway. It’s nothing, really. I just told Chris that this morning – that it’s too much for me sometimes, a teenager to parent when I don’t even have a child of my own yet. Not to mention the drama of Bandy Mandy and her blaming us for every bad grade, every bit of bad behaviour, and well,’ Priscilla sighs, ‘I may have accidentally said it in the style of a tactless motherfucker.’

  I laugh at that and Priscilla breaks into a smile – her lips are a deep plum colour today. I don’t know how s
he pulls it off. I think if I walked in with lips that colour, Cal would sound the alarms and drag Boring Jeremy from marketing in for first aid assistance.

  ‘He was just ringing with an olive branch,’ continues Priscilla, fiddling with the piece of brownie between her thumb and finger. ‘You know Chris. Hates arguing.’

  I wrap my hands around my mug of tea. ‘I’m sure he gets it, though, Priscilla. Anyone would. He finds it hard enough at the moment, and he’s her dad.’

  Priscilla nods. ‘He does,’ she says, breathing deeply. ‘I’m lucky. I know that.’ Then she straightens in her chair and says, ‘And what about you?’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yeah. Are you OK? You know, since Roman’s letter and everything.’

  I nod, so hard, that what feels like a ball is shaken free and rolls around in my skull.

  ‘Yes,’ I lie, turning back to my computer and opening my emails. ‘Fine. I mean of course I’ve been thinking about him and I’ve read it probably five hundred times now but … it is what it is, isn’t it?’

  Priscilla smiles and bows her head in one nod. ‘Yeah. I suppose.’ She dusts the ends of her fingers of crumbs and leans back in her chair, phone in hand. I take the last bite of brownie and glance at my screen. A new email from my brother, like I get most Thursday afternoons. Today he’s asking me to get some biscuits on my way to Dad’s later. ‘Dad says nice ones. M&S or something?’

  ‘Lizzie,’ says Priscilla. I nod, fingers tapping the keys. When she says nothing else, I look at her. She’s staring at me, nibbling the corner of her lip. I stop chewing.

  ‘What? What is it?’

  Priscilla pauses and puts her phone down on the desk. She straightens it with her fingers then looks up at me.

  ‘I found something.’

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘To do with Roman.’

  I can’t swallow. The brownie sits in my throat, a disintegrating lump. She stares at me, waiting for a response.

  ‘I know you said you didn’t want to, Liz, but—’

  ‘Priscilla …’

  ‘I know, I know, but I couldn’t help myself,’ she says, fanning her hand at her face, the way people do on films, when they start to cry or accidentally touch something disgusting. ‘You know what I’m like, Lizzie, I’m like a fucking dog with a bone with stuff like this.’

  I raise my eyebrows at her, but I can’t speak.

  ‘But it’s driving me mad. I haven’t been able to stop wondering about it. Have you?’

  I hesitate, but eventually, shake my head. Priscilla smiles gently.

  ‘So, I Googled DDC, ’cause those letters in the logo at the top of the paper are really bugging me,’ she says, leaning forward, forearms resting on the desk. ‘And I got nothing, Lizzie. Zilcho. It’s too vague. I mean, there are a billion companies called DDC – IT places, clothes shops, building firms, people. DDC could literally be anything.’

  I don’t react. Because I already know. I couldn’t not search for it myself. The headed paper Roman’s letter is written on has a logo made up of the letters ‘DDC’ in gold-brown at the top, but nothing else – no address, no phone number, nothing. I don’t know what I was expecting or hoping to see, but still I found myself typing the letters into a search engine, little sparks of hope drifting like embers from my fingertips as I typed.

  ‘So,’ Priscilla continues. ‘On the envelope there’s a stamp, isn’t there? A tree in the bottom corner.’

  I pause, furrow my brow. ‘You mean the recycled paper logo?’

  ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Well, no, see it’s not a recycled paper thing. I thought it was too, but when you look closely, it’s a pear tree, and the trunk of the tree is actually a fish.’

  I don’t say anything. I just watch her; her eyes the shape of mint leaves, the apples of her cheeks always taut, and her perfect, perfect skin. I remember that being one of the first things I noticed about Priscilla – after her ridiculous cackle, of course; her flawless light brown skin, always smooth and glowing. Nothing like my typical teenage skin was. Dry one day, and as greasy as lard the next, and where foundation went to clump, gather, and die.

  ‘I thought it was weird when I saw it. That’s why it stuck with me,’ rambles Priscilla, the pad of her index finger swiping and tapping on the screen of her phone. ‘So, I went a bit Sherlock Holmes, had a search, and that’s when I found out it isn’t just any fish. It’s a trout.’

  ‘Right?’

  ‘And this came up.’ Priscilla flips the phone over to show me the screen. And there it is. The little bottle green tree logo at the corner of the envelope Roman’s letter came in. The exact same.

  Priscilla stares at me for a moment, then her lips slowly lift into a smile. ‘So, I kept delving.’

  I can hardly bear waiting for her to speak. She is dancing around the words as if they are burning coals.

  ‘And it was easy, really, once I’d found that.’

  ‘Right?’

  ‘See, once I’d found—’

  ‘Priscilla, for Christ’s sake,’ I blurt, ‘can you please just spit it out?’

  ‘I found an address, Lizzie,’ she says. ‘I think I’ve found where Roman’s letter came from.’

  This PC/D: Lizzie Laptop/Roman/

  Roman signed in on 04/03/05 20:16

  Roman: I’m still laughing.

  Lizzie: i’m not! i’m mortifed.

  Roman: Why!?

  Lizzie: because she was so rude to you. i’m sorry Ro.

  Roman: I honestly couldn’t give a shit, it was hilarious.

  Roman: And don’t say sorry. Your auntie Sharon’s a knobber but that’s not your fault.

  Lizzie: hubble chucked her cake in the bin when she left.

  Lizzie: he was angry, i could tell. he said for us to go there again after the grove tomorrow. if you wanna?

  Roman: Oh no, not her amazing pineapple cake! :o :o :o

  Roman: And cool. That’s nice of him. Thanks :)

  Lizzie: she really believed you when you said you’d never seen a pineapple before.

  Roman: Well that’s the thing about us kids who live on council estates. We only eat spam and Findus pancakes. A pineapple could be anything to us ;)

  Lizzie: I think I died when you put it to your ear and said hello?

  Roman: hahahahaha

  Roman: Just a shame she snatched it off me before I could do something else with it.

  Lizzie: lol. I do not want to know.

  Roman: Mind out the gutter J :)

  Roman: So I’ll see you in the morning?

  Lizzie: yep.

  Lizzie: and come to hubble’s with me after for dinner?

  Roman: It’s TEA. :P

  Roman: But course. I’m there. Let me know if Shall’s coming. I’ll bring her some Special Brew.

  Chapter Four

  My brother leans against the kitchen counter, his mouth a gawping ‘o’.

  ‘What?’ he whispers. ‘What’s the big deal?’

  ‘I just can’t believe you didn’t mention they were coming.’

  ‘I forgot. End of story.’

  ‘But you know, Nathan. You have always known to tell me when Auntie Shall is anywhere near the vicinity, to warn me, so I can you know, not come, or get Norovirus or something equally awful—’

  ‘Well, I didn’t this time. Get over it.’

  ‘No, I will not get over it, because I don’t actually believe for one second that you forgot.’

  ‘I do,’ says Nathan, crunching a chocolate finger in half and shrugging. The kettle rumbles beside him as Katie rushes about, lining up mugs on the countertop. ‘Because guess what, Lizzie? Humans forget stuff sometimes. And shock horror, call the fucking papers, I am human.’

  It’s Thursday evening, and like every Thursday evening, I am at Dad’s for dinner. It’s something Nathan, Katie and I have been doing for about thirteen years now, ever since Mum left Dad and the chaos and heartache of everything simmered down. It was something Dad seemed adamant on doing after his da
d died, too. I guess we needed a new constant – something to rely on again, like Hubble always was – and since then, that’s how it’s been. Occasionally it’s Linda too, Dad’s girlfriend, but mostly it’s us four, a tray of steaming, homemade lasagne, a dish of crumble, bundled on the sofa watching rubbish soaps in the honey-glow of Dad’s lamp-lit living room. And that’s where we should be now; watching EastEnders, snuggled on the sofa, passing bourbon creams around and discussing Max Branning’s life choices as if they are those of a dear friend. We’re not though, and that’s because sitting in the next room on the sofa instead, is Dad’s soft wally of a brother, Uncle Pete, and his wife – uppity, sour-faced Auntie Shall who treats me like I am somewhere between a puzzle she wouldn’t dare begin to solve, and a Harry from Harry and the Hendersons type character – someone of sub-zero intelligence, who is experiencing human family life for the first time. They’re here because they have an announcement to make apparently, which may have piqued my intrigue for a second had they not made approximately 7654 ‘announcements’ in my twenty-eight-year-long life. Their last one was made over lunch at The Toby Carvery, and it was the news that Uncle Pete was getting a vasectomy.

  ‘Well, this is certainly a surprise,’ says Auntie Shall as I place down a plate of M&S shortbread on the coffee table. ‘I didn’t realise you’d be here.’ She’s standing in front of the television, hands clasped together at her lap, as if she’s about to give a sermon.

  ‘Didn’t you?’ I settle down onto the two-seater next to Katie. ‘But I’m here every Thursday.’

  ‘I know that, sweetheart, I know that. But I thought we might’ve missed you, what with it being gone eight o’clock and everything. I know you like to get yourself home, that’s all I meant.’ Auntie Shall tuts, and looks at Katie, rolling her eyes, as if to say, ‘sometimes I think there’s only you and me left.’ Auntie Shall always wanted another daughter, and growing up, I always felt my presence was a reassurance to her; to be thankful she never fell pregnant again, because she might’ve had a stroke of bad luck and had a second, strange buffoon like her poor brother-in-law did. Then Nathan started dating Katie in year eleven, and it was like someone had presented Shall with the second daughter she’d never had. Shall loves Katie – marvels at her, as if she is a nineteenth century antique teapot – and is always far too familiar with her, stroking her fine, blonde hair, or flashing her secret, knowing looks that seem to bewilder Katie, who barely sees her from one week to the next.