Who is Tom Ditto?

by Danny Wallace

  I clicked the audio open and found my headphones.

  Someone hadn’t expected something to happen to them, and for the first time, I knew exactly how they felt.

  Because who the hell was Andy and what was ‘the place’?

  I’d played and replayed the message.

  ‘Hayley… it’s Andy from the place.’

  One more time.

  ‘… Andy from the place.’

  Again.

  ‘… Andy from the place.’

  So I say again: … who the hell was Andy and what was ‘the place’?

  It continued.

  ‘Just wondering if you’d made your arrangements after all. I’ll try you on your mobile.’

  The voice – flat, emotionless. No obvious class association. Generic English accent.

  ‘Just wondering if you’d made your arrangements after all.’

  After all? So whatever these arrangements were, there’d been doubts? Had she been talking to Andy about going? Had she been confiding in him? He didn’t sound like a man calling a lover. He sounded like a man checking someone had done a spreadsheet, or forwarded an email.

  ‘… Andy from the place.’

  No pause as he said ‘the place’. No hesitation, no thinking necessary. He always called it that. No emphasis on the words, either – he wasn’t making any concessions, wasn’t putting imaginary speech marks around them, he didn’t have to explain. She would know. Hayley would know exactly what the place was.

  And it wasn’t a bar or a restaurant or a place called The Place. This was the place – not The Place. Casual, throwaway, familiar, secretive.

  Secretive.

  You probably think I’m insane, analysing in this way, but look – I know words. I know how they sound. I read for a living. Out loud. For strangers. I can see those words in the air as I hear them, like subtitles in a film only I’m watching. I can feel words.

  And these words felt weird.

  Seven-forty-five am, and Leslie was performing a paid-for read.

  These are tricky. Sales & Promotions people love them, but they’re not in S&P for their writing skills. You could see Leslie trying to make sense of the words in front of him, correcting their spelling, moving words around, trying not to spit them out with disdain, trying to act like it’s completely natural he wants to tell you that …

  ‘… if you’re anywhere near Lakeside in Thurrock today, don’t forget to join Tony Ram and the Talk London street team as they hand out vouchers for a whopping 20 per cent off purchases over £15 at The Body Shop!’

  The veins in the side of his head were throbbing … the problem with S&P, he’d tell you, was that they saw him as a mere vessel for their words, not as an artist trying to cope with them … his fists clenched, now …

  ‘Though remember! Terms and conditions do apply, and all the info is on our website!’

  He plastered on a smile, coming through the worst of it …

  ‘Find the crazy gang at The Body Shop, shopping level two, just opposite Foot Locker! And tell Tony to buy me some foot scrub for my cracked heels! Happy shopping!’

  Jingle. Ads. Done.

  ‘I hate these bloody things!’ he said. ‘I’m not a salesman. I’m an ideas man. Why am I talking about 20 per cent off body bollocks at Lakeside? I should be talking about Iran!’

  He wouldn’t be talking about Iran. He’d be talking about a new survey in the Daily Mail that says nine out of ten dog owners wish their dogs could talk.

  ‘Happy shopping? Why did they put that? Why do I have to say “whopping”? Just give me the facts and let me get on with it! I added that bit about the foot scrub and the cracked heels.’

  ‘It was very powerful,’ I said.

  He scanned my face, coldly, for signs of mockery, then gave me the benefit of the doubt.

  ‘Exactly. That’s how you bring something to life. That’s how you get Mrs Bingo in Stroud Green to sit up and take notice! Not “terms and conditions apply”!’

  Janice, the producer, scuttled out of the room. She could sense the darkness coming.

  ‘How much is Tony Ram getting paid for doing that?’

  The red ‘phone’ light lit up.

  Someone didn’t mind the cracked heels stuff as it was on message but didn’t think Leslie should be referring to the street team as the ‘crazy gang’ in case it made people uneasy in their presence.

  Leslie told them where they could shove his heels. It was a startling image which took some working out.

  The news travelled upwards.

  Ding Ding.

  A text message.

  Hayley?

  I was home, now, the day a wasted blur, waking up on the sofa. I rubbed my eyes, focused on the words.

  Tom. It’s Fran. I’m sorry I’m late to reply. Can we talk about Hayley?

  I hadn’t seen Fran in what seemed like forever.

  This city can do that to you. Pure intentions fade with time and distance and exhaust fumes until barely there, like a tube map left in the sun.

  The last time I’d seen her, we’d had fun, the three of us. We’d been full of ‘we should do this more often!’ and ‘next time come round ours!’ and talk of picnics and roasts.

  For a while, Hayley and Fran had seemed glued together and with a shorthand impenetrable to others. They’d met one day a few years ago in town – bumped into each other in some shop, went for drinks, got on furiously. They’d found an easy friendship in one another. I liked her, and I sat, waiting, at the Daily Grind on Clerkenwell Road, another one of those places that wasn’t there yesterday and probably wouldn’t be tomorrow. All wrought iron and stained wood and elaborate eggs Benedict, a ‘Director of Coffee’ behind a brushed steel counter, ordering beautiful Latvians to bring out more £5 croissants.

  I stirred my coffee and stared at the wall, feeling heavy as I did every day at the moment. A black cloud over my head and under my eyes. I knew this feeling.

  I decided that maybe I’d got it wrong. Maybe Fran was here to tell me about Andy. That made sense. We get on, me and Fran, perhaps Hayley thought it best to send in a third party; someone to ease the blow and make caring faces and say things like, ‘she still loves you, Tom, but she’s not in love with you,’ and ‘Andy’s a really great guy, I really think the two of you would really get on.’

  And now she was here. Vintage dress. Red lipstick. Handbag on the table. Furrowed brow.

  ‘Tom …’

  ‘Hey, Fran …’

  ‘You look …’ – struggling to find the right word as she sat down, brush a curl of red hair behind one pale ear – ‘… well.’

  I lift a spoon to check my reflection. I think it actually makes me look better.

  ‘I’m sorry for … what you’re going through,’ she said. ‘It’s so …’

  She shrugged, shook her head, looked to the waiter and ordered her coffee.

  Fran paints small trees on plates and then sells them for a fortune to hipsters at markets. I don’t know how she does it. They’re just small trees painted on plates.

  ‘I don’t actually know what I’m going through,’ I said, noticing her brooch. It had a small tree on it. ‘Hayley’s been a little unclear about things.’

  ‘So that was it? You got that note and nothing else?’

  ‘Did she say anything about it to you?’

  Fran raised two thin eyebrows in mock-surprise.

  ‘Tom, I hardly ever saw her.’

  I narrowed my eyes.

  ‘You always saw her.’

  ‘When was the last time I saw her?’

  ‘I dunno. Couple of weeks back?’

  ‘January.’

  I frowned. Her coffee arrived.

  ‘We had a fight,’ she said, as the waitress left and we could talk again. ‘She didn’t tell you?’

  ‘No, nothing,’ I said. ‘Wait, what? You had a fight about what?’

  ‘I said things that I meant at the time but which probably seemed a bit harsh.’

  �
�What things?’

  She took a moment.

  ‘We were out one night,’ she said. ‘Mayfair. She seemed so distant, like she was more concerned with what was going on at the table next to ours. I couldn’t get through to her any more. Seemed like she was always on the lookout for something better, or someone more interesting.’

  ‘She’d been unhappy at work,’ I said. ‘Maybe she was just distracted.’

  ‘She was always distracted,’ she says. ‘And I told her as much. I made up some excuse about iffy tapas and said I had to go, but she hardly even took that in, just kept listening to these guys banging on about their Christmas bonuses or something and so I told her how much I hated it that she’d changed so much and …’

  The words were starting to wash over me. None of this made sense. I was drowning. I waved her back.

  ‘Wait – stop. Changed how?’

  Now it was Fran’s turn to frown.

  ‘You don’t think she’d changed?’

  ‘No. She was just … Hayley. Maybe it was you that changed, not her.’

  Fran gave a small smile, and said, gently: ‘Who’s the one you’re sitting having coffee with? Who’s the one that’s actually here?’

  I stared at my reflection again.

  ‘I just felt she was trying to be somebody else. Small things at first. The hair.’

  The hair. So what? She’d changed her hair. People change their hair. I’d noticed that she’d changed her hair and said ‘nice hair’. We’d talked about it. That had been us talking about it.

  ‘The clothes.’

  And? People buy new clothes. People buy whole new wardrobes sometimes.

  ‘The make-up.’

  Jesus Christ.

  ‘And then there were the other things …’

  Oh, what was she going to say now? She’d started buying Crest instead of Colgate?

  ‘She wanted to go to all these new places all the time.’

  Travel. I started to feel a little sick.

  ‘Places that weren’t us. And that I just didn’t think were all that her. It was fine at first, because it just felt like adventures, but it was starting to get really … pompous.’

  Pompous?

  ‘I mean, I love a good restaurant. But she was like, “let’s go to Nobu!” Pricey, you know? And it’d be fun so you would, but then the next day she’d be texting saying “let’s go to Roka!” Or Hakkasan. Or, like, nightclubs. I’m too old for nightclubs! I’ve got a job, I need to be on site at eight, I don’t—’

  ‘Hang on,’ I said, relieved I could join in on this one, relieved I wasn’t totally in the dark. ‘She did mention clubs. She said there was an indie night at the Islington Academy and that we should go sometime. Britpop, old Suede, that kind of stuff.’

  ‘No,’ said Fran, leaning in, pointing a finger at me. On the finger was an oversize ring with a small tree on it. Hayley had one of those. ‘I mean, like, Chinawhite. Boujis. You know?’ She laughed. ‘Those places. Places Russian Oligarchs go to get off with Moroccan pop stars. And if I said no, she’d get all funny and say I was acting like a loser – she actually used that word – and I was boring and all this stuff. And that’s basically when I told her to fuck off.’

  Sitting back in her chair, Fran fiddled with her brooch defensively.

  ‘Chinawhite?’ I said, startled.

  She’d never once mentioned Chinawhite to me. We used to just go to the pub. Maybe pick up a bottle on the way home. What the hell did she want to go to Chinawhite for? I didn’t even know where it was. I’d read about it in the papers, of course, and Fran was right. It’s just people from reality shows and David Hasselhoff and girls in short skirts looking out for Prince Harry.

  It was all a bit … tacky.

  ‘When did she have the time to—’

  But I stopped. I’m brushing my teeth by 8.30. Often she’d just be getting ready to go out. But not to clubs. To … well … see people like Fran.

  ‘When I first met her, that day in Topshop, she was this ray of sunshine. I turned round and there she was, out of the blue, telling me she loved my necklace, and where did I get it. I didn’t want to talk to you about it because I thought the old Hayley would grow out of it and come back,’ said Fran, ‘and it just felt disloyal going to you. And I thought you’d think I was boring, saying no to Nobu, or whatever, because I’d started to think that I must be.’

  ‘I … I don’t know what to do with this information,’ I said. ‘I thought she was just going to Pilates or seeing you guys, or—’

  ‘But didn’t you notice? The changes? Come on, you must’ve noticed.’

  ‘She changed her hair, yes, I noticed that, I told you,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t be a cliché. Don’t lie to yourself. How could you have lived with her and not seen it?’

  ‘Fran – genuinely. She never once mentioned going to a nightclub or wanting to eat at … wherever. Never once. I would remember. I would have taken the piss relentlessly. Because that’s just not us.’

  Fran leaned back in her chair. I let the words hang. And I realised that maybe I was the problem after all.

  ‘Can I ask you something?’ I said, and Fran nodded. ‘Who’s Andy?’

  ‘Andy?’

  ‘Andy.’

  She looked blank while she thought about it. I shifted, prepared myself. If Hayley had been seeing someone, she’d have told Fran. And Fran would have told her to put an end to it. Fran’s good, she’s moral. Maybe that’s why they fought. Maybe that’s it.

  But: ‘I don’t know who Andy is,’ she said.

  ‘What about “the place”?’ I said, now feeling a little desperate. ‘Did she ever even once mention a place she called “the place”? Or do you know what “the place” might be?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Fran. ‘Oh, God, do you think Andy is …’

  ‘I don’t know either,’ I said. ‘Did she ever mention a man?’

  ‘I wish I could help you …’

  ‘I’m so angry,’ I said.

  And she reached across the table and squeezed my hand, and it was then that I realised I was crying.

  I felt heavier than ever as I got home. Hayley was a magnet beneath me.

  I sank to my knees as I walked through the door.

  Reached behind and slammed it shut.

  Darkness.

  Limbo.

  I was powerless. I had no moves.

  What can I do, here? I can leave her, but how can I leave her when I can’t even tell her? I can do as she asks, and carry on as normal, but there is no normal, because she took that with her, along, it turns out, with most of the crazy.

  All I can do is just … be here.

  What do I have left? A job that I like but which doesn’t make me happy, a flat I share with someone who’s gone, no real friends in the city, no idea where to turn.

  I closed my eyes and lay down on the floor, the rough prickles of the sea grass mat scratching at my cheek, the smell of must and dust and mud dancing around me, my energy sucked through my pores, and I thought about things for a minute, maybe an hour, maybe much longer.

  And when I was at my lowest, I turned my head and stared at the phone cord, the taut, white phone cord, thick and strong and unbreakable, fastened to the wall with gun-grey staples, and I reached out and touched it, and a thought I’d not had before came to me.

  five

  ‘It’s 6.01am, Saturday June 16th, I’m Tom Adoyo with the stories you’re waking up to …’

  The last text I’d had from Hayley I knew off by heart.

  It read: ‘Five mins away. Passing wine shop. Cheeky bottle of sauv blanc?’

  I’d replied, ‘Sure.’

  Just that. The last text I knew she’d got.

  ‘… and in showbiz, Jay-Z remembers Glastonbury, and who won the double, with two MTV Europe Awards in Paris …?’

  Saturday today, meaning no Leslie, thank Christ. He’d be at the Yewtree – his vast faux-Tudor Surrey pile – where I imagine he’d be fla
bbing about by his indoor pool or twatting golf balls with his neighbours, all of whom seemed to be fading radio stars, big in the 80s, bitter now.

  Leslie hated it here. He didn’t get the respect he deserved, he said. He constantly referred to ‘Management’ and their ‘Ideas’ and made liberal use of visual quotation marks. He was on his second warning with the company, after swearing at a vegetarian on air, and for some vague rumour of bullying a suddenly-no-longer-there intern, but that’s just idle gossip, and I don’t deal in that. The plus side was that he now tended to keep his rants within studio walls.

  ‘There’s a reason the canteen only has eggs on a bloody Friday,’ he bellowed once, while the ads were on. ‘And it’s to keep the workers docile. They want us compliant so they starve us of fuel. Feed us fucking porridge like we’re Dickensian orphans. Crush our spirit so that the advertisers from Tango know we won’t have a bloody meltdown. That’s all they fear, “Management” …’ – there go the fingers again – ‘… freedom of expression! What’s the obvious way to quell it? Pretend you can’t have fucking eggs delivered in London in the twenty-first century except as a fucking treat on a Friday!’

  Still. We were free of him on Saturdays.

  ‘… with highs of nineteen in the Capital today …’ I finished, and then, from force of habit … ‘And now you’re up to date.’

  Oops.

  Mic down. Red light off. Ads.

  ‘Sorry, it’s Tom, yeah?’ said the girl at the mic. ‘I’m Cass?’

  She said her name like it was a question, held her hand out and I shook it. She had a limp handshake, like she expected everyone else to do all the work. On the plus side, she’d fit right in.