by Lia Louis
‘Bloody hell.’ I look beside me at Priscilla. Her hand is at her mouth, the way it is when she watches a sad film. ‘Fuck me hard,’ she whispers into the silence, and we all laugh. And it’s like they say, there’s a fine line between the two, because the laughing tips me over the edge into tears.
‘Oh, love.’ Harriet steps forward and puts her arms around me. She squeezes me tight. Tears catch and sit on the thick fuzziness of her fleece. She smells like the lavender fabric conditioner Mimi used. ‘Goodness,’ she wobbles, pulling back to look at me. ‘I’m shaking. I dunno why I am shaking, bloody cheek of me.’
After a moment, she lifts her sleeve back and peers at a black leather watch at her wrist. ‘Oh, girls, I’ve got to get back, I’m sorry.’
And suddenly I want to grab her by the lapels and tell her to stay with us. Stay and tell me everything about him. Tell me it all. I want to soak it all up, revel in it, bathe in it.
‘You’ve been amazing,’ says Priscilla, folding her arms. She’s shuddering, her nose, red at the end. ‘And I know that you’re going to say that you can’t say anything, but—’
‘But where is he?’ nods Harriet. ‘The truth is, I don’t know. I really don’t. Information like his address, his number, that’s at his discretion, and I really would be breaching—’
‘Is there anything?’ I say, my voice is pleading – desperate, even. ‘Anything at all?’
‘The coast,’ she says. ‘I know he spends a lot of time at the coast. He likes to move around, take a lot of holidays. But he talks about his place at the coast a lot. Scotland, I think …’
‘Where in Scotland?’ asks Priscilla, eagerly. ‘North, south?’
‘As I said, girls, I really don’t know. He showed me pictures once and I remember thinking he was mad, being out on a bloody cliff in winter, little chalet thingamabob, nothing for miles, but it takes all sorts, as they say.’
‘Do you remember anything else he said?’
‘Priscilla,’ I say. I want to tell her to stop pressing – there’s no need now.
‘I’m sorry,’ Harriet says again, shaking her head. ‘It’s in Scotland, and it’s by the sea. That’s all I know.’ She looks again at her watch and cocks her head to one side. ‘I’ve gotta make a move, lovies.’
We thank Harriet again, and watch as she trudges across the stony drive.
‘Jesus Christ.’ Priscilla blows out her cheeks. ‘Are you OK?’
My cheeks are tingling, my heart racing, every cell in my body, fizzing. ‘Yeah,’ I nod. ‘I am.’
Priscilla smiles. ‘God, I feel like we’re close now, Lizzie. Really close. I just wish we knew where to go now. I mean, Scotland’s massive, and the coast … well, that’s bloody broad, isn’t it? I just— what?’ Priscilla stops and takes in my face, her eyes narrowing. ‘What? Why are you looking at me like that? Liz?’
‘Because I think I know where he is, Priscilla,’ I tell her, my cheeks stinging with how much I am smiling. ‘And if I’m right, it’s where he said he’d be all along.’
Chapter Twenty-Six
27th November 2005
I told them I couldn’t do it. Even Hubble tried to tell them, to let me sit with him, that it was bad timing, and I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to be in a place full of people, to walk down an aisle, all eyes on me. Dad, Auntie Shall. Nobody listened.
My bedroom door clicks. I look up. It’s Hubble, his crisp white shirt still perfectly pressed, the point of his navy-blue tie between his fingers. ‘Found a straggler,’ he says with a small, barely-there smile. He pushes the door so it opens wider than a crack and light from the landing brightens the dim haze of my bedroom. Roman, dicky bow wonky at his neck stands beside Hubble, hands in his tuxedo pockets. After Auntie Shall and Uncle Pete’s vow ceremony had finished, Dad had found Roman and I in the park. He’d bowled towards us, car keys dangling in his hand at his side, suit jacket swamping his frame.
‘The state of you,’ he’d muttered, as if only to himself as he approached. He stared only at me, pretended he couldn’t even see Roman, although Roman stood at the sight of him, dusting the dirt from his trousers. ‘Come and get in the car, Lizzie.’
‘Dad. I’m … I’m really sorry, I—’
‘You’re to go and get warm. A hot shower. And get that stuff off of your face.’ Stuff. Stuff he’d said looked ‘stunning’ on me just a couple of hours before. Before I had ruined everything for everyone. ‘Have an early night. We’ll talk in the morning. I think it’s best you avoid the scout hut for the reception. Your grandad will be leaving after the meal to look after you.’
I’d waved at Roman as we pulled away, who’d mimed that he would text me. Dad said nothing on the way home, and when he let us in the house, he strode off to the kitchen, leaving no chance for words, from either of us. I went to my room and closed the door. I heard the front door close downstairs a few minutes after.
‘Alright?’ Hubble asks me now and I give a nod. I haven’t moved from my bedroom, from sitting, hugging my pillow on my bed, skin still unthawed from sitting in a frosty park.
‘I’ll be popping back to the reception now to pick up my coat, then I’m going home,’ he carries on. ‘Your dad should be back a bit later, so don’t take the mick.’ Hubble gives a small smile, then leaves us, shutting the door slowly behind him.
Roman stands for a while at the foot of my bed, hands in pockets, head ducked. His eyes drift around the room. ‘Nice,’ he says, eyeing the posters covering my wardrobe doors. ‘Very … Lindsay Lohan Freaky Friday.’
I smile. ‘Thanks? I think.’
He bends to sit at the bottom of the bed, slouching forward and knitting his fingers together, his forearms leaning on the thighs of his ridiculously long legs. ‘I’ve been wandering, waiting for the house to be free so I could knock, see if you were OK,’ he says. He turns to look at me. ‘Are you?’
I pause, pull the sleeve of my long pyjama top so the tips of my fingers are only just visible. My face is still itchy with the amount of foundation Auntie Shall’s make up artist pasted on this morning, and my curls still stiff with hairspray. ‘I don’t know. I’m mortified. I can’t believe that it happened. I can’t believe I did that.’
Roman shrugs. ‘I told you, it’s not your problem, and not your fault.’
‘It was just the champagne. I shouldn’t have had the bloody champagne. But I was nervous, wasn’t I? About the aisle, about the reception …’
‘J, we’ve been over this. Nobody would blame you—’
‘But they think I was drunk. Dad does. So they all probably do. They’ll all be thinking I cared so little about their day that I actually got pissed. Nobody will believe it’s the tablets, that I didn’t realise—’
‘Well, fuck them, J, OK? Seriously. Let them believe that. What does it matter?’
I shake my head and cover my face with my hands. ‘I just keep thinking of her face. And my dress. Shall’s shoes. The video.’ I look at him through my fingers. ‘And what about the performance?’
‘What about the bloody performance?’ Roman rolls his eyes.
‘She wanted to be like Jane McDonald,’ I tell him, ‘singing and making Uncle Pete fall in love with her all over again and stuff, like she did on the cruise ships. She wanted all of us as backing singers, like she had back then, and she bought me a dress for it. And I ran.’
‘You were sick, Lizzie. You were ill, and you were forced down that fuckin’ aisle. Of course you ran.’
I groan and drag my hands through my hair. ‘I am so embarrassed, I can’t think straight.’
Roman looks to his side at me. ‘J, seriously, you did nothing wrong. You told them. You told them you didn’t want to walk down the aisle, time and time again, that you didn’t want to do the song, that you felt sick. It’s no wonder you felt the way you did. Champagne or no champagne.’
‘I know.’
‘And I know you’re getting better but a performance? I mean, come on, Lizzie, it’s ridiculous, for anyone
. A joke. Something out a film.’ Roman shakes his head, his face screwed up. ‘You go out there, and ask anyone, weeks into recovery or not, if they wanna walk down an aisle, let alone get on a stage and re-enact, I dunno … Cliff Richard and the fucking Shadows or some shit. You see what they say.’
We stare at each other across the bed. There’s a beat. Then I snort and burst out laughing. And so does Roman. I double over, burying my head into my duvet, laughing so hard my stomach aches, the sound of Roman’s laugh making me laugh even more. My cheeks are tight and hot, and tears – happy, joyful tears – wet my bed sheets. I love this laughter. I really do. It makes me feel alive. It warms me through like sunshine.
When I get my breath, I raise my head from the bed, curls gathering now in a mass on my head. Roman is lying back on the duvet, hands on his stomach, his face inches from mine. He smiles, and slowly, hesitantly, reaches a hand up to my face. He runs his finger down the bridge of my nose. The skin on my arms tightens with goosebumps and I don’t breathe. I can’t. Instead, air and words stay trapped in my throat, fluttering like butterflies. I am frozen. I can’t look away, but I also can’t bear looking at him this close, all at the same time.
Roman’s eyelashes bat slowly, chestnutty curls falling away from his face. ‘Hi,’ he whispers.
‘Hi.’ I barely mouth it. Barely breathe.
Roman edges closer, just a tiny bit, so our noses are almost touching. I can feel his breath on my face. He’s going to kiss me. I think he’s going to kiss me. And I want him to.
There’s a low hum. Roman’s eyes close, and he laughs. ‘Phone,’ he says, getting to his feet.
I sit up, my cheeks glowing with hot embarrassment. I don’t know where to look. I don’t know what to do with my hands.
Roman talks woodenly and quietly into the phone. It’s all ‘yes’, ‘no’ and ‘alright, then’. Then I hear him say ‘bro’. It’s Ethan. It has to be. I can just tell by the way he’s speaking, the way he’s standing, slouching and awkward, the way he does when he’s with him and his little gang. He changes shape almost, into someone else when he’s with them.
‘Ah, bugger.’ Roman hangs up the phone. He holds it in his hand, at his mouth, lips parted. ‘I uh … I’ve gotta shoot, J.’
‘Why?’
‘Mam,’ is all he says. Then he gives an awkward smile and says, ‘Plus. Don’t fancy being here when your dad gets in.’
I don’t say anything about Ethan. I don’t say anything about just now or tell him I want him to stay with me. I just say, ‘OK. I’ll text you,’ and settle back against the headboard, legs crossed.
‘Cool,’ he says.
‘Cool,’ I say.
His eyes linger on me for a moment, then he strides across the room in one step, ducks and kisses me on the forehead. ‘See ya, Cliff,’ Roman grins, inches from my face. ‘And remember, if Jane McDonald starts giving you shit, keep on running.’
Chapter Twenty-Seven
‘Let’s have champagne; just a glass each. To celebrate. And also,’ Priscilla leans across the counter and whispers, ‘it’ll help settle our nerves.’
‘Why? You’re not a nervous flyer.’
‘No, I’m not,’ says Priscilla, nudging my arm. ‘But you. You on a plane, Lizzie. It’s … huge.’
I nod. She’s right. It is huge, but the truth is, I hadn’t thought much about it. I knew where I needed to be – where Roman was – and I just simply took a breath and booked the tickets. Fear barely had a say. ‘My stomach is in knots, I’ll admit, but I’m ready for it.’
Priscilla smiles proudly. ‘Well, I don’t know about you, but my stomach is in knots thinking about actually getting there. I can’t actually believe we’re going to do this.’
‘Me neither,’ I say. ‘Now, where’s that barman? I need something strong enough to make Phil Mitchell wince.’
‘I’ll just have one. Being the driver for this adventure, and all.’ Priscilla laughs, and rifles through her handbag, pulling out a tiny circular tin of lip balm. She pats it onto her lips and I look down the length of the bar, eyes glancing at the clock on the wall every few seconds, as if it is even possible that an hour could accidentally fly past and we’d miss our flight.
‘So, we’ll get into Inverness about eight,’ waffles Priscilla, eyeing herself in her compact mirror, ‘pick up the hire car, and drive to the hotel. It’s about two hours. And I got a four by four. ’Cause you know, it’s cold, it’s hilly – is hilly the word? Or is it mountainous? Fuck, I’ve only ever driven as far as Nuneaton. I hope I’m gonna be OK.’
The barman appears, dark eyebrows raised.
‘Two glasses of champagne, please,’ I say. ‘One small, one big.’
This week has been the longest of my life, waiting for today – Friday. For the day that Priscilla and I fly to Scotland, to the lodge park I am positive Roman lives. In a tiny village near Tongue, in the Highlands, where all of us at The Grove went for that school trip where for a few days, we were all set free. That place that fit the criteria for our other life – barely any people, somewhere far away, with nothing but sea and sky for miles and miles – as if you could well be looking out to the very end of the world. I’d known the second Harriet mentioned Scotland, the second she mentioned a cliff, in winter. Instantly, I saw us, sitting high up on that bench, being battered by winds, watching the angry turquoise waves crash and foam, the half-built lodges shells, waiting, ready for new lives to play within them. I knew that’s where he’d be.
Priscilla knocks back a mouthful of champagne. ‘Thank you, Lizzie,’ she says.
I smile, surprised. ‘What for?’
‘For letting me come.’
I clink Priscilla’s glass. ‘I wouldn’t want to go on a plane or to the middle of nowhere with anyone else. It would always be you. Every time, P.’ And I mean it. Priscilla is a source of light to me – she has been from the moment I met her. Even during the darkest, most hopeless times of our lives, when I am with her, when we are together, there is light. Glimmers, bursts, and sometimes, only little sparks, barely there but there, nonetheless, reminding me to hope. Reminding me that there are better times ahead – better days – because she is there. Because I have her.
Priscilla nods, her lips pressed together. ‘I meant for letting me come along for the ride. For letting me help you find him, for letting me butt in.’
I crinkle my brow. ‘Shouldn’t I be thanking you?’ I ask. ‘You’ve been my sidekick in all this. Actually, I’ve been more of the sidekick. You have been Sherlock. Living and breathing Sherlock.’
Priscilla laughs, then looks down into her glass. ‘I needed this, Liz. A distraction.’ She doesn’t say anything else, and while it’s quiet at this bar, amongst the loud hubbub of rushing commuters, ambling time-killing holiday makers, and tannoy announcements, I ask her something that’s been niggling at me for weeks really, and ever since she told me about Ethan, on the cobbles by the canal.
‘Are you OK, P? I mean. Are you really OK? How is everything … with you and Chris?’
I expect her to raise her eyebrows, widen those huge eyes of hers, laugh, and do her infamous, over-exaggerated gesture of the hands, and say, ‘What, me? No ! Oh, I’m fine. Fine ! I’m just tired! You know me, I’m always happy.’ But she doesn’t. She stares at me, eyes unblinking, glass at her chest in her hand, and shakes her head. ‘No,’ she says. ‘No, I’m not OK. Not at all.’
I nod. ‘I’ve wanted to ask, Priscilla. I have. But I know what you’re like. You only talk when you’re ready and I’ve tried to—’
‘I know,’ Priscilla says. ‘And I know you’ve known for weeks, that things aren’t right.’
‘You speed up,’ I say. ‘You always speed up when things are tough and—’
‘I know, I know. God, Liz. This whole thing is a mess. It’s … I mean, me and Chris are fine, I love the man to death, he’s wonderful. A saint.’ Priscilla pauses and looks at her lap. ‘It’s me. All me. I’m pushing him away, Lizzie. He …’ She brings h
er hand to her forehead and presses her fingers against the skin. ‘He wants a baby and …’
‘You don’t.’
‘No,’ jumps in Priscilla, looking back up at me. ‘The thing is, Lizzie, I do. I really do.’ Priscilla brings the champagne flute to her mouth and takes another mouthful. ‘And OK, yes, he was mentioning trying for a baby two years ago, and then I was dead against it, and he was fine about it. Chris is … he’s never put pressure on me. He might mention it, joke about it, say something like “you don’t have to take it, you know” when I take a pill, but he’s always said if I never want children, then that’s fine.’ Priscilla closes her eyes, as if gathering herself. She opens them again. ‘But last year, we went to see Perry’s daughter’s new baby and he talked a bit more seriously about it in the car on the way home. And I told him we’d start trying. Soon. But I never took a pill after that.’ She pauses and looks at me. ‘I was hoping to surprise him. But …’ She doesn’t finish. She puts down her glass on the bar and brings her hands together, at her nose, as if in prayer. ‘It hasn’t happened. Nothing. Not even a day late, not once.’
‘Priscilla,’ I lean in. ‘It can take a while. I’m certainly no doctor but look at Eva and Cal. Three years of trying and—’
‘Say if …’ Priscilla shakes her head and dabs at her eyes with the pads of her fingers. ‘Lizzie, say if that baby was my only chance, and I blew it.’
‘No,’ I utter. ‘You don’t – that’s not how it works, P.’
‘How do we know, though?’ she asks, dark-with-mascara tears now steadily sliding, one after the other, from her eyes. She takes a small square napkin from the bar and dabs at her cheeks. ‘How do we know that the baby I was pregnant with at sixteen wasn’t the only baby my body was going to make. That Ethan’s baby wasn’t the only one written in the stars for me and I …’ Her words catch in her throat. ‘I got rid of it. Just like that.’
