The saying goes, ‘you can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family’. Roman and I chose each other. We clicked, but not in the way you might expect. Both of us were outsiders; both misfits in our families. We palled up at university and continued our adventures in Europe; I worked in a provincial town in Germany and Roman studied in ad hoc fashion, in Paris. He threw himself at life one day – which thrilled me – and retreated into despair and withdrawal the next.