Who is Tom Ditto?

by Danny Wallace

  ‘Christ,’ I said. ‘How hard is it to pick up the phone? Would it kill her? If you love someone, if there’s even a moment of love left in you, that should be reason enough just to pick up the phone.’

  She avoided my eye, walked past me.

  ‘They’re probably laughing in their cab about it right now,’ I said, as she slid onto the sofa, grabbing one of Hayley’s magazines from the table.

  ‘Yes, but on your terms,’ she said, starting to flick through. ‘You didn’t tell them because you had to. You told them because you decided to. Now when they tell this story at their next Crouch End dinner party – because yours is a story they’ll tell a lot – it’ll be about a girl in a dressing gown offering them chicken wings and talking about cats and tiaras as much as it’ll be about your girlfriend running off and OH MY GOD LOOK AT THIS.’

  I span round.

  nineteen

  Great.

  So Hayley was insane.

  She was an obsessive. Fantastic. I’d been living with an obsessive. This was all such wonderful news.

  Ding.

  * * *

  FROM: MAUREEN THOMAS

  TO: ALL STAFF

  I am DISAPPOINTED TO SAY that only THREE PEOPLE turned up to Adewale’s SECURITY FAMILIARITY BRIEFING. This is NOT ACCEPTABLE and NAME’S HAVE BEEN SENT TO MANAGEMENT. We are RESCHEDULING FOR TOMORROW at 5PM. And NO EXCUSE’S!!!!

  * * *

  Delete.

  And look – I don’t pretend we don’t all have our obsessions. We all did as kids. I liked Knight Rider. But here was a woman in her thirties displaying all the signs of an adolescent.

  Magazine after magazine.

  Page after page.

  Picture after picture.

  Post-it after Post-it after Post-it.

  I’d seen some of these Post-its before but thought nothing of it. Because I hadn’t seen the pattern or noticed the volume. I’d assumed she’d just been marking out small details of interest – a brand here, a place there – but now I really looked … I recognised these clothes; I recognised these places.

  Bubbledogs. The weird champagne and hotdog place in Fitzrovia. Had she mentioned it? Had I?

  ‘Pop star Aphra pictured outside London restaurant Bubbledogs.’

  Maybe. Possibly.

  A navy top – one I thought I recognised – one I was sure she’d ordered from ASOS in some fevered rush. I mean, it was just a navy top. Maybe she’d bought one like it. But look …

  ‘Pop star Aphra shines at the MOBOs in classic blue.’

  Yellow heels.

  ‘Aphra hits the yellow brick road to Chinawhite.’

  Hayley had yellow heels. Not the same ones – these were about two grand – but she had yellow heels. Well, yellowish. Burnt orange. But the same direction. The same basic direction.

  And more, and more, and more.

  This was weird. It was sad. It felt creepy.

  The feelings I had for her quickly turned to a weird sort of … disgust.

  ‘The song,’ I said. ‘Do you think it’s …’

  Pia was way ahead of me. She flipped the laptop round, and hit play.

  Sorry I’ve been so distant, I am just elsewhere.

  You must be so confused and wonder if I care …

  And as it built to the chorus, this latest hit from Aphra, my knees buckled and the blood drained from my face …

  Carry on, baby, carry on … just carry on without me …

  Of course.

  Why not.

  The lift doors opened to reveal Pippy.

  ‘The hell?’

  ‘Hayley thinks she’s Aphra,’ I said, laughing, smiling, shaking my head in disbelief, just as I’d done all the way in.

  Work Experience Paul span round in a bright blue office chair, grinning, expecting some big joke to equal the laughs.

  ‘Man you get in early,’ I said, and he nodded, sadly. ‘Anyway, Hayley thinks she’s a pop star! Or she’s obsessed with her. Or she’s just been copying her. Or I don’t know what. But at least I know it’s not me. It’s not me! She didn’t go because of me.’

  The words sounded great. I didn’t care any more. I didn’t care who knew. I felt light, I felt trippy, I felt for a pot plant to steady myself.

  ‘She went because she’s a nutcase.’

  Hallelujah! HALLELUJAH!

  I’m not sure why this felt like such great relief. I don’t know why it stirred such joy in me. To have an answer? Even an answer like this?

  It was the first relationship ever to jump the shark.

  ‘Look!’ I said, at my desk now, delighted, and digging through the computer. ‘I did mention Paris!’

  I’d done a search – found the news story.

  I put on my newsman’s voice.

  ‘“Aphra says she’s keen to settle in Paris with rap star Blaze.” Haha! Wow. So I guess Hayley has gone to Paris to find a rap star to settle down with. Yes.’

  ‘Tom, are you okay?’

  Concerned face. Half-frown. Work Experience Paul’s face had frozen in some kind of semi-fear.

  ‘I’m brilliant! I’m just so happy for Hayley.’

  ‘You are …?’

  ‘Oh God, yes. She’s finally found herself. She’s finally found herself and she’s Aphra.’

  ‘I’m not sure you should go on air.’

  ‘No, I’m okay, Pippy, I’ve started following people around London with a girl called Pia who once started following me.’

  She was moving towards me, uncertainly. Sniffing the air for booze. Instinctively I patted my pocket. I had what I needed in there. I’d taken one already this morning.

  ‘I’m absolutely fine. I’m absolutely delighted, is all,’ I said, beaming. ‘I hope there are more rap stars in Paris. It would be a terrible shame to move to Paris and not find any other rap stars.’

  ‘Tom, I’m going to call someone.’

  ‘Pippy, I’m fine.’

  ‘You don’t look fine. You look like you’re about to cry.’

  ‘I’m not! I’m not! It’s joy! I’m fine!’

  I rapped the table three times, hard, with my knuckles, the way people do when they’re absolutely sure they’re fine.

  The phone rang. We stared at each other. The phone never rang at this time.

  One word on the screen: SECURITY.

  ‘Oh, look – it’s Golden Boy. The Golden Boy of broadcasting,’ he said, choking out a bitter laugh. If he could have spat it at me, he would. ‘And here sits thine past.’

  My eyes shot past him, over his shoulder, to the brightly lit security desk behind the glass doors. I used to hate it when he’d say things like ‘thy’ or ‘thine’. Adewale stared out from the office beyond, iPlayer on his laptop as usual. He raised his eyebrows to assure me he’d seen Leslie, then slowly shook his head to assure me he’d already denied him entry.

  I’d come outside because they didn’t know who else to tell, and sending a stranger seemed a cruel way to treat one of our own. Leslie did not look well. Jacket on lap, crumpled white shirt, a trail of red wine from pocket down to once-cream linen trousers. Fag end stuck to his shoe. Small plastic badge clipped to his belt, his name above a Comet logo in faded cyan. Someone somewhere needed to replace a cartridge.

  I guessed he’d been hosting a corporate for them, handing out awards for Best Regional Comet or Best Comet Store Manager or whatever. Probably the Hilton, or in the Great Room at the Dorchester. Either way, Mayfair. I guessed he must have taken advantage of the free booze afterwards. Pressed the flesh with the great and the good of the washing machine and white goods industry. Probably exchanged business cards with a chief exec. Maybe followed some of them on. Ended up alone in an inappropriate club, or shared a cab with a hanger-on to some clip joint in Soho. I guessed he’d have looked at his watch, forgotten himself and headed here for work. Tried to get in to do his show. Found out the hard way from Adewale.

  ‘Hi Leslie,’ I said. ‘Nice to see you again.’

  Because what else
do you say?

  ‘Nice to see me again? Is it?’

  Cold blue eyes, widening as he wondered what level of contempt my platitude deserved.

  ‘How’s my replacement?’ he said, faking a smile.

  ‘She’s fine,’ I said.

  ‘Making a name for herself,’ he said. ‘Not bad for a fraudcaster.’

  He was pleased with that. I held my tongue. This wasn’t the time. Leslie looked different. Rattled and dishevelled.

  ‘You know where I’m off to?’ he said, shaking his head. ‘You know the only people even to get back in touch with me?’

  ‘You mean …’

  ‘Work-wise, yes. Not Radio 2. Oh, no. No, my friend there – or I thought he was my friend – no, he put paid to that. You might think LBC would be a good fit. But no, it’s a closed shop, one in, one out, thank you very much.’

  ‘Something will come up, Leslie. It’s been hardly any time.’

  ‘My agent does not share your optimism, Tom. So come next month I’ll be doing an afternoon slot on Sunrise.’

  ‘That’s … the online thing, yeah?’

  Station. I should have said ‘station’.

  ‘People say good things about Sunrise,’ I said.

  ‘It’s one up from prison radio, Tom.’

  ‘At least they might have an exercise yard,’ I said.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ he said, not getting his own joke.

  He stood.

  ‘You should have gone,’ he said. ‘Mistake like that. What have you got on them? Or are you there to make up the numbers? Someone’s done a survey and found out, “Ooh, we need more of them.”’

  I had to be careful here.

  ‘You mean because …’

  ‘I don’t mean anything.’

  ‘Sounds like you do.’

  ‘Don’t you try and put words in my mouth. That’s your trick. That’s how we ended up here.’

  ‘I didn’t put those words in your mouth, Leslie.’

  ‘No, but you let them out!’

  He staggered, steadied himself on the bench. He stank of booze and Embassies.

  ‘You people, you think—’

  ‘What people am I, Leslie?’ I said. ‘Why do you keep saying “you people”?’

  ‘No, not like that. Stop trying to make it look like I’m …’ – he reset – ‘You young people, you think the world has only ever been the way you see it now. You don’t know how it was. I’ve been in broadcasting thirty-five years, I’ve seen people like you come and go, young people, people who haven’t got the gift, and one review in The Times means nothing. Nothing.’

  One finger in my face now.

  ‘You should have gone, not me. I didn’t even know your name.’

  ‘Come on, Leslie, go home, mate.’

  ‘I am home. This is my … it’s what I’m best at. You know why? Because I know who I am, “mate”. I know who I am and that’s what you have to know to be a success at this. I’ve always known. What do you know?’

  He started to walk, brushing past me, though not, I think, entirely on purpose. And as he got to the edge of the pavement, he turned once more.

  ‘Do you even know who you are, Tom?’ he smiled. ‘I should come after you with all guns blazing but the truth is, you survived because you’re a nobody. You slip through. Low impact. No one cares enough. You don’t matter. Nobody cares enough about you to bother doing anything about you because really, what’s the difference?’

  And he laughed, and shook his head, and walked over, jacket now tossed across one shoulder, out into the street, where he was hit by a cab.

  Boom. Screech. Horn.

  And ‘Hang on,’ I remember thinking, straight after, as the howl of the ambulance grew closer and someone – some tourist – took a picture on their phone. ‘What review in The Times?’

  twenty

  I was sent home again. Compassionate leave (one day). Pippy said it was because of the whole Leslie thing, but I suspect it was actually because she’d witnessed what she was pretty sure was the start of some kind of episode.

  I think she may have been right. The dog was sniffing around. Trying to find a place to settle. The dog was finding its spot.

  I sat in the corner of the room, no longer comfortable on my side of the sofa we’d bought, the chairs we’d bought.

  The Times was on my lap. Media section. It was only a small review, but in radio, that’s like the cover of Vanity Fair. The words, though, were what mattered, and they were enough to distract me for now.

  MAYOR’S ON-AIR ’MARE

  Talk London’s new breakfast show has a snap, crackle and pop at Mayor Jackson. Another serving, please, says TIM EDMUNDS …

  I read and re-read the words.

  After the morning snoozefest that was London Calling with Leslie James (the five-year run’s only notable highlight being the ‘Jam Nazi’ rant most recently played out on US network NBC’s late-night talk show, Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, and which ultimately led to James leaving the station in disgrace), the capital has a new pretender gunning for morning glory …

  We’d been recognised. Cass was the focus, of course. It was her harrying and prodding on her first show – when the Mayor had thought it was going to be an easy little press opp with a few new ears on it – that had secured the story. But I was name-checked too. Singled out for praise, even.

  Talking bravely about his recent and horrific experiences at the hands of a knife-wielding maniac on London’s streets, Adoyo spoke candidly …

  The press like finding something they can say they found. We’d be ignored from now on, of course, but this is what put Leslie over the edge today. An early morning copy. A casual glance. A realisation that he had never once been plucked out of the blue for praise. The world was moving on without him.

  I put the paper down and looked at the TV, so desperate for my attention, impotent and mute. Took another swig of beer. Then looked at the picture of Hayley on the mantelpiece.

  It had been four weeks. Four weeks.

  Maybe there’s a more innocent explanation to all this, I thought. Maybe she won a competition and was too embarrassed to tell me about it. We all have weird things we’re into. Some people are into some really weird stuff. There’s nothing too weird about liking a pop star. Nothing weird about liking their style, what they stand for, what they represent. Perhaps Hayley won something from a chocolate bar or a radio station and couldn’t turn it down and …

  The morning grew hazy and warm, thanks to my pill, the light blanding out before me, the world a little floatier … the box a little emptier.

  Time to see Dr Moon.

  I whistled as I picked through Hayley’s magazines. Grazia. Cosmo. All of them. And I learned more about pop star Aphra than I ever thought I would.

  First, it seemed impossible to write anything about pop star Aphra without calling her ‘pop star Aphra’. It’s like that was on her birth certificate, and if it was, I suppose music seemed an inevitable choice of career.

  Born in Trinidad, moved to Miami, spotted in a Walmart, modelled for a year in Paris and Milan, courted Kanye, signed with Sony, toured the world, settled in LA with a pad in Paris, rapper boyfriend, perfume called Raindance.

  I guessed I’d probably recognise the smell. I guessed it’d probably remind me of Hayley.

  Aphra even had a reality show.

  My eyes flicked to the telly.

  I switched it on. Found the Sky Remote. Checked the Planner.

  Oh, look. Aphra: Pop Warrior. Surprised it wasn’t series linked.

  I started the first episode and went back to the magazines, the twaddle and screeches of a pop star and her entourage now in the background.

  Aphra was furious because a puppy she’d ordered in black had arrived in dark brown. Her personal assistant, a camp man with a rictus grin, fanned himself as he called it ‘literally the worst day ever’.

  How much further could she make my heart sink? In how many more ways? At least try and
emulate someone you’ve got something in common with. Someone you can respect yourself for liking.

  I switched the telly off and I wanted to howl.

  I’d been seeing Dr Moon since I arrived in London.

  He has a nice little practice on a tree-lined street round the back of Green Lanes. Brass plaque outside, parquet flooring, very nice, thank you.

  He’s maybe two or three years older than me. He tries to stay professional, but I know he listens to the show, because the little digital radio he has in the corner of his office betrays him: ‘Talk London’ scrolling quickly along its small screen, ready to be turned up between patients.

  He usually gives me six minutes. It’s the London average. Though today I got more as he popped to the loo at the start of the appointment. He left his Facebook page open when he did, so I know his favourite films are Shutter Island and Gangster Squad, he enjoys the work of Leonard Cohen, Nick Drake and Kanye West, and he ‘likes’ the official pages of Only Fools and Horses, Olivia Wilde and – weirdly – Smints.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ he said, kindly, sitting back down at his desk, quickly clicking Facebook away, hiding the profile pic of him and his rugby mates, pretending he was just a doctor again, not a man with a life and interests.

  ‘Same,’ I said, bluffing, just trying to make this normal. ‘That sort of … blah.’

  ‘Things not looking up?’

  Not really, doctor, no.

  ‘Everything at home okay?’

  Not really, doctor, no.

  At least this time there was a cause, a root. How to describe it, normally? It’s just a complete lack of will. The will to get better, even the will to look for how to. Not caring enough.

  But it’s a feeling that is crawling along so subtly and becoming so insidious that soon five, ten, fifteen years may pass, where you’re chained to this feeling of ennui, without ever really realising that you weren’t, in fact, crawling along – you were going downhill. That’s the fear. The slow and the steady decline just starting to feel perfectly normal. The grey gauze, the black dog, the slowly falling cloak over your head.