by Lia Louis
‘Can’t you wait until we’re back at the hotel?’
‘No, I’m literally gonna piss myself. If you see Farmer Giles, send a smoke signal.’
She shoves the hazard button and gets out of the car. She ambles over to the sign, wind whipping her face, and moves behind it, into the bushes. She disappears, pops her head out, puts her thumb up, and disappears again.
I can’t believe this. I cannot believe we were so stupid. To just get on an actual plane, to rent a car and come all this way, to a town we have no idea about, except for a glorified silly school trip which is mostly a blur. We should have written or something, found some sort of phone number, we should have thought about this. But we didn’t. Not enough. We got too caught up in the whirlwind of it all, after meeting Harriet; after getting so close. I rode my emotions all the way here. To Scotland, to Tongue. Where me and Roman were, twelve years ago.
But he isn’t here.
Roman isn’t here.
Maybe we missed the boat. Maybe we left it too late, and the life in which me and Roman meet again, is out there, playing out, without us in it.
Priscilla clicks open the car door and pulls it open wide. She stands there looking in at me, her mac open at the waist, flapping in the bitter wind that has picked up outside. ‘There was an intercom,’ she says, breathlessly, her eyes wide. ‘And I spoke to someone. A bloke. It’s closed to holidaymakers. But not residents.’
Priscilla gets into the car, quickly, shutting the door, not buckling her seatbelt, and as I open my mouth to speak, the gate in front of us begins to open. Priscilla turns to me; she’s grinning a dazzling white smile.
‘I’ve found him,’ she beams, starting the engine. ‘The man I spoke to says Roman is a resident. And he’s home. You were right, Lizzie. You were right.’
This PC/D: Lizzie Laptop/Roman/
Roman signed in on 22/06/05 21:01
Lizzie: Hi Ro.
Lizzie: You hiding offline? Are you there?
Roman: Hey J
Roman: I am. Looks like you found me.
Roman: Been waiting for you :)
Chapter Thirty
Roman lives at number eighteen Cliff Acre Park. He’s alive. He’s here. I’ve found him.
Number eighteen is the furthermost lodge, at the highest point of the cliff, and the closest to the edge – the edge of the cliff, where we once sat, and looked out to endless sea and sky.
‘If you fancy the beach, drive down to the car park. Don’t be tempted to use the footpath you can access by Roman’s. Gets very slippery,’ said Freddie, the man who Priscilla spoke with on the intercom. He was tall, round, with a wide smile that made his eyes close. In his sixties, I’d guess. He and his wife, Saskia, a small, giggling, gutsy woman with beautiful long blonde hair, live in number four, and told us proudly they were wardens of the park. Priscilla had done most of the talking, while I stood outside the car, gazing around the park, digging deep for air in my lungs, unable to find a single word.
‘And he’s home? We’re old friends and, well, it’s a surprise,’ Priscilla had beamed.
‘Yep, he’s home, my love, last time I checked.’ They directed us to Roman’s lodge, all hands and arms, and I was glad Priscilla was listening, because I couldn’t hold onto a single word they were saying – it was like they were oiled, just passing in one ear and out of the other.
‘They brighten the place up,’ Saskia had told us. ‘Him and Barney.’
‘Barney?’ Priscilla had gawped, and Freddie had laughed. ‘His mutt,’ he said, and my body filled with warmth, like pouring treacle. He has a dog. Someone to love him in all of his ugliness.
We’d got back into the car, and Freddie had leaned into the window and told us the code to the gate, so we can ‘come and go as we please’. It amazed me how trusting they were, but as we drove off, I saw Freddie knock on a neighbouring lodge’s window and wave. This tiny little nook in the middle of a sleepy coastal town, battered by the seasons, is probably the sort of place where doors are left unlocked, and everybody knows each other. ‘It’s a family. A big family.’ Freddie’s words.
It was easy to find Roman’s lodge.
‘Follow the road round until it ends, and that’s Roman,’ Freddie had said. ‘He’s got the best views, the most peace and the coldest winds.’
And it is peaceful. There are minutes between the last lodge we saw and Roman’s. It’s on its own. And it looks out to the end of the world, which roars and crashes beneath us.
It’s only seven o’clock but it’s dark, and from inside the hire car, under the deep, indigo sky, stars sprayed across it like paint, the end of the world looks like exactly that.
‘Do you want me to get out and just go and see—’
‘No, no.’
‘I don’t mind coming to the door with you, babe. We can knock and I’ll run before he—’
‘No, Priscilla,’ I say. ‘No. I’ll be fine. I just need a moment.’
‘Course,’ nods Priscilla, and other than the distant roar of waves, there is silence.
We’ve been sitting here for the last ten minutes or so, staring at the back of Roman’s lodge and the small, grey path which circles the side of it, around to Roman’s front door. And sitting here, already, I know more than I have ever known about Roman as a man; Roman in his next life. He has a dog named Barney, he drives a Range Rover in bottle green, which has a tree-shaped air freshener hanging from the rear-view mirror, and he has blinds up in his lodge. Beige ones, and tonight, dim lamplight glows behind them. Roman is behind them, too. Roman is home. He is just feet away.
When we first pulled up, we saw the lights on, steam rising and wisping from the small metal chimney on the side of his lodge, and the excitement had surged through us like an electric shock. We screamed. Then laughed and screamed some more – a release of everything built up inside us. But now, the excitement has gone, and it’s like everything is still – as if the clocks have once again stopped. We made it. We found him. And now, I get to see him. I get to look at him, talk to him, and not just in made-up conversations in my head.
‘After this,’ I say to Priscilla in the quiet of the car, ‘I don’t get to dream up answers that make me feel better. And I’m scared.’
‘Scared is OK.’ Priscilla reaches over to hold my hand. ‘Scared means that you’re on the edge of something happening. Of change.’
‘I hate change.’
Priscilla laughs. ‘We all do. But we love it, too. The whole human race is in a love-hate relationship with change.’
‘Say he tells me to fuck off.’
‘Lizzie, as if—’
‘Or say if he doesn’t want to see me, for whatever reason, and all this was a waste of time?’
Priscilla puts her hand on mine. ‘Well, if he does, then we have this, Lizzie, don’t we? We have this trip, and this crazy memory. We have me and you. Always.’ Moonlight reflects in Priscilla’s eyes. ‘Now. I promised you a long time ago that you weren’t ever getting rid of me. That I’d be beside you, behind you and in front of you dragging you the fuck along when you need me to.’
I laugh, my voice is thick, and there are tears at the edges of my eyes.
‘And that, my friend,’ laughs Priscilla, ‘is where I’m about to be. In front of you, dragging your arse up that path.’
We look at one another. ‘Go and knock, Lizzie. Get out of the car and knock. There’s nothing between you now. No parents, no dragon-arse aunties, no social workers, no hospitals. Just you and Roman. You two.’
And I know that she is right. It is time. It is time for answers. It is time for us to meet again.
I click open the car door.
‘Do you have signal?’ asks Priscilla.
‘Yes,’ I say, checking my phone. ‘Three bars, no internet, though.’
‘Text me. Have a text ready on your phone. An ‘I’m OK’, or one word or something, and press send the second you know it definitely is Roman, and that you are OK with me leaving, and I’ll go
back to the hotel. The second you need me to come and get you, just call me. I’ll wait up.’
I nod. ‘OK. Thanks, P.’
‘And I’m gonna wait here for a while,’ she says. ‘OK? Even if you send the text. I’ll wait for half an hour or something.’
I push open the car door. ‘OK.’ Then we pause and Priscilla leans forward, throwing her arms around me. I hold her tightly. My Priscilla. My lovely, lovely Priscilla.
‘I love you,’ I say.
‘I love you too, Liz,’ she says. ‘Shit loads.’
I don’t feel the icy winds or the spray from either the sea or the beginnings of rain, as I walk the path to Roman’s lodge. I am shaking, but I am warm. I am where I am meant to be in this moment.
I turn the corner, Priscilla now out of sight. And I stop, dead, at the sight of it all; of Roman’s home. A porch. Roman has a porch. The wraparound porch we talked about, looking out to the sea, and I feel like I am stepping into a dream. Into a life that’s been waiting for me all this time, somewhere out there, in the universe.
I count my shaking breaths as I step up to the front door. I hear the muffled sounds of a television. Audience laughter.
Here goes nothing. Here goes everything.
And I knock.
An explosion of deep, excitable barks. Barney.
Then a muffled voice, too quiet to make out the words. And footsteps. Heavy, steady. I stand back, phone in my hand, thumb hovering above ‘send’.
The door opens.
And he fills the frame. Taller. Broader. But I know. It’s the eyes. And it’s the mouth.
I press send, and look up at my friend – my friend Roman Meyers.
Chapter Thirty-One
I don’t know how I thought it would be. I have imagined this moment so many times; many versions of it. I have imagined a thousand different scenes starring me and Roman; one, five, twelve, thirteen, twenty and even thirty years forward. In some it was awkward, in some I screamed at him, in some we flew together, and in others, I didn’t recognise him at first, or he didn’t recognise me. In most, it was awkward, stuttery, talking all at once, and then not at all, and the desperate searching for a reason to leave, get away – like when you’re cornered by an old school friend in the supermarket.
But like most things, it’s never how you imagine.
As soon as I saw his face, I wanted to cry tears of joy. Happiness – this sudden, fizzing happiness, filled me from my toes to my brain, like a champagne bottle, just opened. And then I could barely speak.
Roman, at first, spent a couple of seconds with that ‘yes?’ face on – the sort of face you have on for the person that stands on your doorstep with a clipboard and a fixed grin. That raised eyebrow, shut-mouthed smile, a corner upturned, eyes unblinking. Then, it registered. I saw the exact moment that it did, like a penny landing with a clang. His face dropped, his mouth fell open. His whole body, sort of sagged. It was like watching a slow-motion video of someone who’d just been booted in the stomach.
And as if I had been rehearsing, I said, ‘Hi, Roman.’ It was relaxed, almost amused, almost cocky with a, ‘so, are you just gonna stand there, then?’ confidence. But I was none of those things. I was elated. I was heartbroken. All at the same time.
Because it was Roman.
Older, manlier, broader, more chiselled. But Roman. Roman Meyers, standing in front of me, on the cliff which we sat on twelve years ago, planning our lives, planning what we’d do and who we’d be when we were free.
He opened his mouth to speak. But he didn’t. Couldn’t. His hands flew up to his head and he held his skull, staring wide eyed at me; as if he’d just witnessed a near-miss. As if I was that boat manoeuvring through the waves, too close to an iceberg.
‘Hi,’ I said again, thinking for a moment that he didn’t recognise me, or thought the years had stamped on me, wiped the floor with me, and he was shocked at the sight of me. I had played out this scenario so many times. I knew this part. He thought I was Lizzie but then I had aged so badly that he was too scared to say my name in case it wasn’t me and instead some very old lady looking for a Tupperware party or something and had got the wrong door. So, I went to say my name. I stepped forward, just inches between us both now, and had, ‘It’s me. Lizzie,’ on the tip of my tongue.
But then his lips parted, and with his hands holding his forehead, his chest rising and falling, he said my name. In a whisper. ‘Lizzie.’
And beneath the stars, like a thousand searching torches, suddenly, I was in his arms, and he was holding me, tightly against his chest, and that’s where we stayed, on the wraparound porch, swaying side to side, the waves, rumbling, crashing beyond the darkness.
He said my name again, louder, and then, ‘Oh my god,’ and, ‘Jesus, I can’t believe this,’ and at the sound of his voice, which was the exact same, just in a deeper note, butterflies broke free in my stomach. And I told him I’d never forgotten that sound. Then I looked up at him, and said, ‘So. Tongue.’ And he’d laughed, and so did I. Muffled, hysterical laughter, our arms still wrapped around each other, faces buried – both of us knitted together, under that endless sky.
Then the rain began.
Fat, noisy drops, so cold they stung my scalp.
And when we pulled back to look at each other, I couldn’t work out if they were rain drops or tears on his face. I knew what they were on mine.
Roman smiled, and squinting to look up at the sky, he laughed, and said ‘Welcome back, J. Do you want to come in?’
Steam rises from our mugs, and dances between us. Roman made tea the minute we got inside, and as he stood in the kitchen, he seemed to forget how. I watched him from my seat at the small, square kitchen table, Barney laying at my side, as he took out mugs, swapped them, then put them back. He’d then got one out. Then two. Then boiled a kettle that had nothing in it but a trickle.
And I started laughing. So did he. He held the sides of the kitchen counter and looked over at me, grinning that grin that always exploded onto his face.
‘You’ve forgotten how to make tea,’ I said. ‘Do you want me to do it?’
‘I’m a twat,’ he said, laughing. ‘I’m all over the shop here.’
‘Me too,’ I said.
‘And no. You sit. I can do this.’
Now, at the small, square table, in the warmth of the teak lodge, we sit in the dim light of the kitchen. Just us. Me and Roman. Twelve years on. Rain clatters down. The TV in the next room, mumbles. It’s us, opposite each other, questions hanging in the air around and above us like clouds, but both too winded to ask the first one – both too stunned. So, we just gaze at each other and then our teas, fiddling with the mug handles, and not looking around the room, but just giving the impression of it, with the movement of our necks and heads, turning our faces, to pass the time.
‘I’m …’
I look up from my tea. He’s looking at me, smiling gently.
‘I … I guess I’m speechless,’ he says. He is still so beautiful, his smile still transforms his face, his eyes still flash with something at all times. Cheek. Worry. Amusement. All of them.
‘Y-you’re here. You’re actually here,’ he says. ‘Lizzie J. In my kitchen.’
I wrap my cold, shaky hands around the mug. ‘And I’m here. At Roman M’s table. In Tongue.’
Roman smiles. His Adam’s apple bobs in his neck. ‘God. I never thought I’d ever …’ He trails off. He can’t speak.
‘Me either.’ I look skyward, to the high, wooden ceiling, and in and around Roman’s home. It’s beautiful. It’s small, and cosy, and full of books, and weird trinkets and instruments. It has him all over it. ‘I like it,’ I say. ‘It’s very you.’
‘Thanks.’ Roman slouches back on his chair. He gazes at me, thick eyelashes slowly batting. ‘Got the wood burning stove.’
‘Have you?’
‘In the other room.’
Then there’s silence again. There is so much I want to say – but it all just sits in my che
st, crammed, and blocked; a huge mass in my throat. I’m guessing if it was any other type of reunion – the type between two old school friends who just fizzled, who moved away, promised to write and never did, then this might be the sort of reunion full of, ‘how the devil are you?’s and ‘what are you doing here?’s. But it isn’t like that. It feels nothing like that. It’s as if the last twelve years have been geared towards this moment – like we both knew, on some level, that we were always headed here, and now we have arrived. Sitting still within it, this moment; soaking it in, before things have to move, have to change again.
‘I tried calling you.’
‘Which number?’
‘Ramesh—’ I start.
‘It’s an old one. Pay as you go. I’m rubbish with phones. Don’t like them.’
‘Ah.’ Simple. The simplest of answers.
More silence now. The fridge whirs behind us. Barney pads out of the room.
‘I’ve thought about this,’ Roman utters. ‘Hundreds of times. And you think you know how you’ll feel or what you’ll say, then it happens, and … god,’ he chuckles to himself, ‘I— you … you look exactly like you.’
‘So do you,’ I laugh.
‘You still have the lone dimple.’ Roman leans forward and touches my cheek. ‘The lone, orphan dimple lives on.’
My cheeks heat at his touch.
‘And you still have that mouth,’ I say. ‘Too big for your face,’ we say together. Our laughter trails off, and there’s quiet between us again. The rain hammers the lodge and a sombre, newsreader’s voice mumbles from the television next door.
‘I feel like I’m dreaming,’ I say. ‘Like, I’m going to wake up any moment or something.’
‘Well if that’s what this is,’ says Roman, with a smile, ‘let’s hope we don’t.’
Then I start from the beginning; from the letter that I held in my hands, on that sweltering tube carriage, back in July, to now, and everything in between. The hours speed by, and as the silent early hours creep in, Roman falls asleep first, and I lay there, beside him on the sofa, watching him, counting his eyelashes, and imagining, like I did back in that caravan, what answers and secrets are playing out beneath the skin, beneath the skull, and in that brain of his.
