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

by Lia Louis

  ‘We don’t,’ I say, then bend down to the handbag at my feet. I pull out the folded piece of paper and put it onto the table between us. He swallows then, and after a pause, he opens it for just a second, then places it back down. I jump in before he can say anything.

  ‘This is Dad’s headed paper.’

  Nathan, as red as a strawberry now, a sheen of sweat dappling his forehead, roughly rubs his mouth with his hand. ‘I know,’ he says, simply. ‘I know it is. I should’ve told you. That the paper was his.’

  An old lady, unsteady on her feet, fist clutching a walking stick, squeezes by our table. She knocks over our ketchup bottle which bangs loudly on the wooden surface. I stand it up again. A man dashes to open the door for her.

  ‘You knew right away, didn’t you? As soon as you saw Roman’s letter.’

  Nathan blows out a long breath. ‘I wanted to tell you, but I dunno, Lizzie. I shit myself, I suppose. I had to digest it myself before I came to you. It threw me.’

  ‘Threw me too,’ I tell him. ‘I found a blank piece when you went up to the loo. And I remembered. Just like that.’

  Nathan deflates with a noisy sigh. ‘I thought you might. There’s loads of that stuff. Katie and I used it for scrap paper at uni, there was so much of it.’

  I don’t say anything. I just watch my big brother, red and bumbling, wondering what’s going to come next. Bracing for it. But whatever it is, I am ready. Ready to know all these truths now, that keep making their way to the surface, like fat. Strong enough.

  An old Carpenters song hums through a boxy radio on the counter. Nathan presses his lips together. ‘I needed to gather myself, go back there, to when it all happened, get my own head straight before I could talk to you about it. It’s been a long time since everything.’ Nathan’s voice is deep and bassy as he drops it a fraction more in volume. ‘See I always thought Dad played a part.’

  ‘Really?’

  Nathan brings his thumb to his mouth, resting the nail between his teeth. ‘The day before Roman disappeared, I saw him. Dad, coming out of Roman’s house.’

  My insides feel as though they have plummeted downwards, the way they do on the drops on rollercoasters. ‘W-what? Are you …’ I can’t even finish my sentence.

  Nathan is pale now – almost grey. ‘I couldn’t get hold of you,’ he whispers. ‘You were in hell, you were a mess, Liz, you know how it was after Hubble died, you were … crushed. And you just went off, one afternoon, and you were gone ages. I was worried. I was always worried back then. So, I went for a walk to try and find you. I went to Roman’s first, thinking you’d be in that caravan or wandering about, eating chips or something …’

  The waitress appears at the side of our table. ‘Two bacon,’ she mumbles, before plonking a shiny, crusty roll down in front of each of us and walking off. Nathan raises his hand in thanks. I can’t move or speak. I am rigid, my head, swirling, pumping, the walls closing in.

  ‘But I didn’t see you. I saw Dad. Coming out of his house.’

  ‘What did you say to him?’

  Nathan raises a shoulder. ‘I didn’t say anything. Not right away. I don’t know what I thought. But when he disappeared … that’s when I approached Dad about it. At first, he denied even going to his house but then he just said Roman was ill. He was struggling. And he’d been looking for you too, and that’s when he found him in a state.’

  ‘In a state? What does that mean?’

  ‘I don’t know. He was out looking for you and found Roman in a bad way, I suppose and—’

  ‘I would’ve been at P’s,’ I snap. The tension between us is palpable. I can’t shake this feeling of betrayal. That’s how it feels. That all along, my brother knew this, while I cried myself to sleep, called police stations and hospitals and The Grove, desperate for anyone to tell me where Roman had gone. It was the not knowing. It was feeling as though I wasn’t good enough for him to stay. I let it whittle me down, let it talk me out of my dreams; out of college when I’d only just started, out of fresh starts and happiness. But all along he knew. He knew that my dad had barely spoken to Roman in over a year yet was seen coming out of his house just twenty-four hours before he left. That was a big thing to sit on. Huge.

  Nathan watches me, eyes watery, unblinking with worry. ‘You were at P’s,’ he says. ‘I went there after.’

  ‘So why was Dad there? Why was he inside Roman’s?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ says Nathan quietly. ‘But the caravan wasn’t there anymore, ’cause that’s where I was hoping you’d be.’

  I remember. I remember dashing there, when it got to almost an entire twenty-four hours of calls going straight to voicemail. I was sure I’d find him, maybe in a bad way, maybe at that place again, dark and sad and wrapped in a blanket, on that narrow brown sofa. And we’d talk about it, make plans, pull hope from anywhere we could like we always did, and I’d be frightened – terrified – that he was so down again, and of what he might do, of what he might take. But he’d be in Sea Fog. He’d be there. Safe. But that day, Sea Fog had gone and instead a stretch of discoloured stone, shielded from the sunlight for all those years, was all I found. ‘So, he knocked at the house,’ carries on Nathan. ‘Dad said Roman’s mum’s bloke had sold the caravan.’

  ‘What?’

  Nathan raises a shoulder to his ear. ‘Sold it and legged it with a load of cash.’

  I open my mouth to speak, but just strained sounds come out. A tiny part of me had always hoped that somehow, some way, he’d managed to do what he always said he’d do when we were free – towed it far, far away, and just kept going, until he found where his heart wanted to be.

  I shake my head, backtracking on everything Nathan has just spilled out on the table between us. ‘What did he mean when he said Roman was ill? W-what does that matter? What does it even mean? Why mention—’

  ‘The drugs,’ Nathan cut in. ‘He mentioned the drugs. And that Roman was in a bad place.’

  ‘What do you mean the drugs?’

  Nathan shakes his head, his mouth pressed together with irritation. ‘He said he found him wrecked. Off his face, Lizzie, in a bad way, upset, and he was worried for him. He sat with him, talked to him—’

  ‘But …’ My face screws up and I shake my head. ‘But the drugs weren’t that much of a problem. Not really. Not after what happened. I was with him when he got rid of them after he got home from the hospital. And OK he might’ve done the odd thing with Ethan, with his mates, like lots of teenagers do—’

  ‘Lizzie.’ Nathan stares at me. He takes a breath, eyes shutting and opening slowly. ‘Lizzie, he was an addict.’

  ‘He wasn’t an addict.’ I scoff a laugh, shake my head. ‘He was depressed, sometimes, really low, and yes, he sometimes took things, but … then he’d be fine, he’d be more than fine.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Lizzie, but no child goes to a day centre, for rehabilitation, for therapy, for years, for nothing. I know he had other troubles but … Lizzie, he was an addict. A junkie. That’s why he was there. With you.’

  I swallow down tears. I can’t speak. Junkie hurts. It burns in my chest.

  ‘I’m sorry, Liz,’ he says, face softening. He reaches forward and holds my wrist, gently in his shovel hand. ‘I’m sorry. I know I didn’t know him like you did. I’m just telling you what I think you need to hear …’ He trails off. I nod at him and wipe away tears with the cuff of my jumper. ‘And I’m sorry for not telling you about Dad. Back then and any time after that.’

  I see the way his eyes shimmer, and the pink tips of his ears and I realise, in that moment, how much that year affected us all. Not just me. Not just Dad. All of us. Everything changed so quickly. Our family was torn into shreds, our foundations, collapsed. And he was just eighteen. He wouldn’t have got through that year unscathed either.

  I put my hand on my brother’s. ‘It’s OK,’ I tell him, although it doesn’t feel that way, not at all.

  After a while, Nathan starts to eat, but I can’t. I tear
pieces of fluffy bread from the sides of the roll and chew, but I can’t swallow them. Because the walls aren’t closing in anymore. They’re falling away, like a set, crashing, and shattering, leaving only reality – leaving only the truth. And it hurts to look at it, like looking at the sun.

  ‘Is there anything else,’ I ask thickly. ‘Has anyone else been lying to me?’

  Mid-mouthful Nathan shakes his head and makes a muffled sound. He looks hurt, but I wonder if his chest feels as heavy, as crushed, as mine does. If his world feels as much of a sham as mine does right now. ‘Of course there isn’t. I promise. Dad said he just talked to him. And that was it. None of us mentioned it again and after that, nothing. I’m not hiding anything else.’

  ‘And you believe that? That nothing else happened.’

  Nathan leans forward on the table, forearms resting on the wood. ‘I did,’ he says. ‘Until I saw that letter was on Dad’s paper. Now I just … I dunno.’

  ‘I think Dad helped him leave.’

  Nathan’s brown eyes widen. ‘Why, though? Why would he do that?’

  I look at my brother, the worried crinkles by his eyes, his brow furrowed with concern, his gaze fixed on me, the little sister he has always tried so hard, in his own way, to protect, and my heart twangs. Nathan was one of the only reasons I felt guilty for planning to run one day, with Roman. I used to imagine him going into my bedroom, to toss me a new CD, to see if I wanted to watch a film, like we always did, the pair of us cross-legged on my little single, and find me not there, my stuff gone. The thought of his face, the colour draining at finding an empty bedroom, empty wardrobes, stopped my heart. No matter how much I wanted to run away back then, he was one of the only reasons I wanted to stay.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I tell my brother now. ‘Maybe Dad wanted to get him away from me. He didn’t like Roman. He even resented Hubble giving him the time of day …’ The words catch in my throat.

  ‘He’s a father, Lizzie. He worried about you. He worried whether The Grove was even good for you. He wanted you back at school, everything back to normal.’

  I don’t say anything. I just twist and tear the edge of my roll, my eyes fixed on a spot on the table.

  ‘Are you going to talk to him?’

  ‘When he gets home,’ I say quickly. ‘But we’re going to a hospital first. In Reading.’

  Nathan looks at me, can of Coke inches from his mouth. ‘A hospital?’

  ‘I think we’ve found where Roman is,’ I tell him. ‘And I would rather hear it from him first.’

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  24th August 2005

  We sit amongst colour, Hubble, Roman and me, the pinkest pinks and the greenest greens. The air smells of honey and lavender and carried on the breeze is the faint smell of coffee from the tea room across the path. It’s beautiful here. Like a safe pocket of the world as Mother Nature intended it to be, in the middle of chaos. You would never know it’s here.

  ‘Bored yet?’ Hubble asks.

  Roman, beside me, shakes his head. ‘No,’ he says to Hubble. ‘No, sir. Definitely not.’

  Hubble smiles, eyes scrunching at the corners. ‘Good,’ is all he says, then there is silence again, between us three, here on the cool stone bench beside one another, me in the middle, Hubble on my left, Roman on my right. It’s a hot day, ‘bloody unbearable’ Dad called it this morning, hunched over his toast in the dark of the kitchen, slinging down the slices after messy bites, as if simply holding it was too much effort. But there’s a breeze here, in the gardens of Fort Manor. There’s air. Hubble comes here a lot, meeting his friends, Angie and Jim, for lunch, and when Mimi was alive she’d go too. I have never been before. Sitting here, lost among all this colour, among the rustling of leaves, the trickling of water, and the calm of distant voices, I wonder why it’s taken me sixteen years.

  ‘It’s sorta nice,’ says Roman, hands clutching the grey stone of the bench at his sides, arms straight, ‘to be somewhere else. To be away from everything.’

  Hubble nods. ‘It’s important you are from time to time,’ he says. ‘Even if it’s just an afternoon, a change of scenery, a change of air … it does wonders, I think. Especially somewhere like this.’

  I smile up at Hubble and he leans, touching his arm to mine.

  ‘It was a good idea,’ I say to him, ‘bringing us here.’

  ‘Well, I did think you might be bored.’

  ‘No,’ Roman and I insist at the exact same time, and the three of us laugh. I wish every day could be like this – this easy. I wish Roman could stay with me, with Hubble, every second of the day, so I know he’s safe. So I know he isn’t taking anything or getting into any trouble with Ethan and his mates. He doesn’t talk about them anymore, not since the hospital, but I know he still sees them. Perhaps, just not as much. Still, I wish I never had to say goodbye to him, so I know he isn’t lonely, in that bedroom, within those tinny, damp walls of Sea Fog. So I’m right there – we are, Hubble and me – should he ever feel again, like there’s no point to his being here. Because we’d show him there is. There are so many.

  ‘Great masterwort,’ Hubble says, a hand gesturing towards a mass of pink flowers and herby green leaves beside Roman. Its flowers bow and sway with the weight of bees landing and taking flight from its centres. ‘Or Astrantia. That’s its other name. One of the first things I ever planted when me and your nan moved into our first house, that was.’

  I gaze at the plant, its flowers are like Catherine wheels with large petals fanning out at its sides, but tinier ones spraying from the inside, like the seeds of a dandelion.

  ‘They’re really pretty,’ I say softly and Roman leans over, lowering his nose so it touches a flower.

  ‘OK, so you don’t smell as nice as you look, dude,’ he winces with a smile, and Hubble laughs and says, ‘I’m sure they’d say the same about you, if they could.’

  I close my eyes and lift my face to the sun, and listen to the buzzing of bees, to the chirping of birds, to Hubble quietly explaining to Roman about great masterwort – about its hardiness, how although it looks fragile, it is strong; stronger than most, even those that look as though they could easily brave a storm. It can survive in the coldest frosts, in gale-force winds and blazing sun. ‘Through it all, it keeps living,’ he says, and it’s then I feel Roman’s fingers touch mine.

  ‘We thirsty? Hungry?’

  I open my eyes at that, and see Hubble is standing now, hand digging deep in his jeans pocket for his wallet.

  ‘I’m OK, thanks, Hubs,’ I say.

  ‘You sure?’ he asks, white eyebrows raising. ‘Don’t want an ice cream or something?’

  I pause, and of course nod as quickly as I can. ‘Um, yes,’ I tell him with a grin. ‘Definitely want ice cream if that’s an option.’

  Hubble lifts his chin. ‘You, Roman?’

  ‘I’m fine. But thank you.’ Roman says no to everything Hubble offers, even though he might really want to say yes. It’s politeness. It’s pride. When we’re at his house together, the pair of them play an almost well-rehearsed game; a dance, if you like. Hubble offers Roman something, Roman declines, Hubble nods then brings it anyway, whatever it is – tea, toast, a roast dinner – then Roman enjoys every moment, and thanks him, always more than once.

  Hubble strolls slowly across the path in the direction of the tea room, and Roman and I sit in silence for a few moments, following one another’s gazes, to the sky, to birds flitting, perching on branches, on the edge of the stone fountain, pecking at the shallow pool of water, to passers-by, to flowers. Then, eventually, to one another.

  I smile gently at Roman. His curly eyelashes bat slowly. ‘It’s so nice here,’ I utter, and he nods, but says nothing else. I can feel it. Something there, something swelling inside his mind, weighing him down, passing shadows across his face.

  ‘Mam seemed upset this morning,’ he says, quietly. ‘She found some old photos of me. At nursery, and when I was at primary school, and she was crying. A lot. Sort
of made me feel like crap.’

  ‘Why?’ I ask gently.

  Roman shrugs, his eyes staring at the ground, hands still grasping the bench. ‘Things were better back then, J. We were, I dunno, happy. Happier, anyway.’

  I nod. ‘Feels like another life, sometimes, doesn’t it?’

  Roman nods and steals a glance at his side, at me. ‘I just think if I wasn’t like this, maybe she wouldn’t—’ He stops, shakes his head. ‘I mean, it can’t be easy, can it? Having a son whose head’s like a fuckin’ rollercoaster, you know? A son who does stupid, selfish things and doesn’t even go to a normal school or do normal things—’

  ‘No,’ I cut in. I duck to meet his eyes. ‘Roman, what she does is nothing to do with you.’

  ‘How can it not be?’

  ‘Because …’ I stare at him, my mouth open, gaze unwavering willing him to stay with me, to listen, to believe me. ‘Because I know plenty of people who know you, and love you, and spend time with you and … we don’t do what she does. You just make us happy.’

  Roman swallows hard, hand covering his mouth. I want to reach out and push his hair behind his ears, to twist it around my fingers, to kiss the top of his head. But I don’t. I don’t move, but I don’t take my eyes off him. ‘Sometimes,’ he says in the tiniest voice, ‘I feel like I ruin things, Lizzie. Like I’m bad for people.’

  I tell him he’s not. That he’s the opposite for me; that like holidays and sunshine and laughter, he is good for me. Because it is true. He makes me feel healthier. I feel nothing but warmth around him; nothing but light.

  He holds my hand and we sit for a while, once again surrounded by all those colours and the smell of warm syrup and coffee, and when a man walking by trips on an uneven paving stone and tries to pretend he didn’t by doing a very theatrical footballer’s run, we giggle until we are laughing without sound, without breath, behind our hands. We lean on each other, eyes closed, happy tears at the corners. Our hands, still holding.

  ‘Oh, I see,’ Hubble says, approaching with a plastic bag and a Styrofoam takeaway coffee cup in hand. ‘Laughing at some poor unfortunate swine who almost fell arse over tit, are we?’