It’s June, and we’ve just arrived in Rome.
The mobile home is bearing up well, though its constant need for fuel is a burden that we still curse on a regular basis. Clare and I take turns driving, avoiding motorways as much as possible for a winding, scenic route that has taken us across Spain, around the south of France, and along the east coast of Italy down into Rome. The weather is clear and hot, bright blue skies rarely decorated with a fleck of cloud that suggests a long, dry summer. The night sky is a wonder of light and colour that I often find myself staring into until the early hours of the morning. Clare joins me whenever she notices my absence from my bunk, and we lie in fields of tall grass, her head resting on my shoulder, our hands clasped together, wrapped in a silence that neither of us dares pierce. Neither of us really knows what to do next, and so we’ve reached a sort of platonic stalemate that we both know can’t last.
Rome is immense, a shining sea of red tiled rooftops suburbs rising towards the domes and spires of the hundreds of churches and galleries and cathedrals of the central districts. I sleep through much of the journey into the centre of the city, and only notice where we are when Clare grabs my hand and bites my fingers, hard. I snatch my hand away, awake and alert in an instant. She flashes me a wicked grin.
“Wake up sleepy. We’re here.”
Indeed we are. Ahead of us the Colosseum is a vast wall of arches and columns that curves away gently on either side. Clare drives us around it in a vast loop around the elliptical road that surrounds the stadium, parking at the northern entrance originally designed for the roman emperor. In the silence we both stare up at the facade, the three stories of arcades between the interior and exterior walls laced through with steel scaffolding and supporting trusses. Evgeny is asleep in his bunk, one of his increasingly frequent naps, and we both agree not to wake him for a little while. We both slide out of the cab and close the doors with a light touch. Clare starts skinning up before my feet have even touched the ground, a habit that I encourage her to continue at every opportunity. Whilst she rolls, we wander around looking for an open entrance. It takes a little whilst to find a gate that is open, and I point out to Clare the marks where a lock has been pried open. She nods, lighting, inhaling, and then passing the lit spliff to me. The gate creaks as it swings open, echoing off the distant walls, but no other sound can be heard.
We spend an hour or so wandering around the ruins of the great circus, assuming every role imaginable. Clare condemns me to death after a valiant struggle against a horde of gladiators, then runs down into the main arena to scream as an imaginary lion mauls her. I give an impassioned speech on the virtues of the republic after heroically defeating Emperor Commodus in single combat before dying tragically at the feet of Clare’s weeping Lucilla. She pulls me to my feet and we spar for a while before she impales me on a pole arm. We race chariots through the arcades, yelling and screaming as we flit between shadows and out into sunlight, before finally collapsing in a giggling heap on a bench.
Clare points out that Evgeny has been asleep for a while, and we amble back to check on him. The ‘Bago is still as we left it, and Clare raps gently on the side door.
“Evgeny, you awake in there mate? We’ve made it to Rome.”
No answer, and Clare looks to me and shrugs her shoulders. “Still asleep, the old fart. Guess he was up too late partying.” She snorts with laughter, and waves her hands in the air as if she’s bouncing around at a rave. I grab her around the waist, and lift her up and away from the door, planting her firmly on the ground before unlocking it. I step inside with a sense of anticipation, sure that Evgeny must be about to yell at me for waking him.
Inside, absolute silence.
Evgeny is laid on his back on his bunk, head propped up by the pile of pillows and cushions that he prefers to sleep on. His eyes are closed, and his face pale and tinged with blue around his eyelids and lips. His hands are folded and rest on top of his brown knitted blanket, about level with his navel. His mouth is open just the tiniest amount, but his chest is motionless and the only breathing I can hear in the cramped little space is my own.
Clare barges in through the door and around the kitchen unit. She’s speaking, but I can’t understand what she’s saying. She stops when she sees my face, and I try to reach out to her, but she pushes past me and throws herself at Evgeny, shaking him in desperation, not wanting to see the truth. His head lolls from side to side, and I grab her and pull her off him, wrapping myself around her.
Clare says something to me, and I look at her, my face a blank. She repeats it, and when I don’t respond she pulls herself away from me and slaps me across the face. I sit there, and she hits me again, with real force this time.
“WHAT?” I scream at her, pouring all of my rage and pain and loss into the single syllable. She stands her ground, waits a few seconds, and then sits next to Evgeny on the bed, taking his hands in hers. His fingers are huge, gnarled and calloused from a lifetime of hard work. Hers are small, unblemished, tanned, and trembling. I can see tears dripping down onto the blanket, and she keeps her face turned away from me.
“Clare, I’m sorry.” What else can I say? I don’t think I’ve ever apologised to anyone before and meant it as much as I do right now. I kneel on the floor, and put my hands over hers, holding the three of us together.
“He wanted to see the Colosseum so much,” her voice is muffled by the tears, her breathing shallow, “he said that he didn’t really mind about any of the other shit, but this was the important one.”
“I know.”
We sit there for a while, talking about Evgeny’s plan, the list of things that he wanted to see, the stories he told us about how as a young man he’d served in the Russian Army, travelling around most of Europe, but never getting to see any of it. For Clare the idea of having her freedom restricted is unthinkable, and though she could never understand Evgeny’s frustration, she’s spent the last month sharing in his elation at finally travelling and seeing the world.
We have to go on. I know this with absolute certainty. The list is important to me as well, because in a year or so it’s not going to be possible to travel any more. To survive we’re going to have to go back to the roots of human civilisation and settle down and farm. Preserved food is only going to get us so far, and then the last ten thousand years of progress will be undone. It’s a sobering thought, and something that the three of us have discussed at length in the past few months.
I tell Clare all of this, tell her that Evgeny was probably the last human being who will ever live a modern life without having to work every single day for his own survival. That we’re living on borrowed time now, every day that we can continue this journey is one more day that we can cling on to the old ways. We’ve been living in denial for nearly eighteen months, and we can continue for a little while longer. We have to make every moment of it worthwhile.
Evgeny wanted to see the Colosseum, but it’s the Colosseum that sees Evgeny. We drive the Winnebago through the Emperor’s entrance at speed, slamming through the iron gates and roman stone, crashing down into the centre of the circus and pulling to a halt in a cloud of dust and rubble. It’s not graceful, but that’s not the point, it gets the job done. We leave everything except the drugs and alcohol, dousing the mobile home in several gallons of petrol and pouring a long line of fuel back to the gate. I light a cigarette, which Clare takes from my hand after the first puff and doesn’t show any sign of returning to me. I light another for myself, and offer her the lighter. It’s a cheap plastic Bic, but it’s good enough.
The flame races across the floor of the Colosseum, down the stone steps and across the the open arena. When it hits the ‘Bago the entire thing is engulfed in flame, and then the open cans of petrol inside catch, and it explodes in a fireball that roars into the afternoon sky, chased by a small mushroom cloud of black smoke. The noise of the blast almost knocks us off our feet, and is repeated seconds later when the vehicle’s fuel tank goes up. Debris is scattered around the arena, but the main chassis is still intact and glowing in the centre of the inferno.
Clare stubs out the butt of her cigarette, and I do the same. My heart is pounding, adrenaline rushing through me, the world in a sharp focus. I pick out two bottles of vodka, and pass one to Clare. We raise them towards the fire in salute to our fallen comrade, and drink to his memory. Evgeny told us about the Russian tradition of breaking glasses when making a toast, and we hurl the bottles towards the fire, clear alcohol spraying in great arcs as the spin through the air. Clare’s falls short, but rolls into the flames and explodes. Mine shatters against the side of the vehicle, and Clare compliments me on my throwing arm. I pass her another bottle, and we drink until the fire has burnt down to glowing embers.
It’s the end of the world. All of the old rules are gone, and it’s time to start thinking about new ways of living. I’ve spent so much time waiting for things to magically return to normal that life has been a series of interludes, that I’ve stopped living it.
Its the end of the world, but not the end of our lives. All of the old rules are gone. Clare’s whispering this to me as our hands trace across the outlines of each other’s bodies. Her lips meet mine, and I know she’s right. There’s nothing left now but us. Her lips are right next to my ear, barely breathing the words as each breath brings us closer together. Her hands are under my clothes, warm against my skin. I pull her closer, and every part of us is touching.
Live with me, love me. I can’t tell which one of us is saying it, and it doesn’t make any difference now. Our clothes fall away with the last traces of the world, and there’s nothing left but us.
From Rome we travel to Venice, then when the stink of the city’s sewage-filled waterways is too much, up through Austria to Vienna where we dance and sing and fuck our way through the city’s great music halls. In July we drive across Slovenia, crossing into the Ukraine and driving its entire length before turning north towards Moscow. Travelling is slower without Evgeny, as now that Clare and I have started sleeping together barely an hour passes without us wanting to stop to have sex. Sometimes days pass at a time where we do nothing but stay in bed and fuck. Clare is an enthusiastic lover, and what she lacks in experience she makes up for in energy and quantity. We go through condoms as if they’re going out of fashion. I guess, in a way, they are.
After Moscow we head up to the coast and turn back west towards St. Petersburg. Another week passes immersed in art at the State Hermitage museum, however this is not the chaste study of lost culture that we enjoyed in Paris, but a precision exercise in looting, vandalism, and plunder. Clare helps herself to a collection of Faberge jewellery which she supplements with an elegant imperial tiara. She dresses in the finest regalia of the Tsars, which I am careful not to damage in my rush to remove it from her when we make love that evening. When we finally leave, our spoils probably make the Citroen we’re driving the most valuable car in history.
Russia becomes Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and as July becomes August we head for the Mediterranean for the last leg of our journey. We spend one last month exploring the ruins of the birthplace of modern civilisation, taking a boat out around the Aegean sea to explore the tiny islands, or just lounging in the the sun, our bodies now deeply tanned, clothes almost forgotten as an inconvenience.
Life is as perfect as I could ever imagine it.