Who is Tom Ditto?

by Danny Wallace

  But now Cass was signalling me and I shook myself out of it.

  ‘And of course,’ she said, ‘regular feature time here on London Calling … so let’s find out …’

  She hit a button.

  ‘What Did Tom Get Up To – Last Night?’

  She looked delighted. They’d done a jingle. They were surprising me with it. We waited quietly for it to finish while my mind raced – what did I get up to last night?

  ‘So – Tom?’ said Cass.

  ‘Oh … well … not much, actually,’ I said.

  A pause.

  Dead air.

  She willed me on.

  I shrugged an apology.

  She hit the button again.

  ‘That’s What Tom Got Up To – Last Night!’

  ‘Are you okay?’ said Cass, by the kitchenette. I was making a hot tap coffee and was terrified because I’d spilled some granules. ‘You seem … a bit different, lately.’

  ‘You mean crap on air.’

  ‘No, no …’ she said. ‘But yes.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I said, as brightly as I could. ‘Yeah, you know. Maybe I’m coming down with something. I don’t know. Just taking it easy. Having some downtime. How are you, anyway?’

  She paused, wondering how to put something.

  ‘What’s changed?’ she said.

  ‘I’m honestly fine.’

  ‘Do you want to talk?’ and without warning, that engineer was there again.

  ‘Weather today?’ he said.

  ‘Highs of nineteen,’ I said. ‘Oh – and cloudy.’

  He walked off, happy.

  ‘Talking of getting on,’ I said, moving away.

  ‘Tom – listen, do you want to hang out later?’ she said. ‘I’ve got this ticket to the M Style Awards thing and my sister’s dropped out. Which surprised me because Michael Fassbender’s going to be there and she’s been testing Fassbender out as a surname for about six months now. And anyway, I thought maybe we could hang?’

  Hang? Was this, like, a work thing? Or something … else? Could it be?

  I thought about what else I had going on. Another evening of awkwardness with Hayley, pretending nothing had happened, commenting on the haircuts on EastEnders, sloping off to bed, her sliding in an hour or so later, checking to see if I was awake. Me faking sleep.

  ‘Sure,’ I said, and I felt this surge of relief to be offered a momentary escape.

  ‘I mean – you’d need to wear a suit. Smarten up a bit.’

  ‘Yup,’ I said.

  ‘What are you doing now, anyway?’ she said. ‘You lunching?’

  I checked I had my wallet, my phone.

  ‘I’d love to,’ I said. ‘But I’ve got to be somewhere.’

  My appointment was for 12.30. It was 12.29. That’s an on-air man for you.

  I had a copy of the Standard in my lap. Something had caught my eye. Not for me, but for Pia. She might like this. She might smile.

  Should I tear it out? Keep it in my wallet? Just in case? Because what if I run into her? It might make a good ice-breaker, or …

  But who was I fooling? That was over. I was pretending. Holding onto something. I just had to accept that life was back to normal.

  Ding.

  * * *

  FROM: MAUREEN THOMAS

  TO: ALL STAFF

  Will all staff PLEASE REMEMBER the kitchenette is for the use of EVERYONE and SPILLING COFFEE EVERYWHERE is totally UNACCEPTABLE. The bins are there FOR A REASONS and if you don’t USE THEM you will LOSE THEM.

  * * *

  Delete.

  ‘So it’s been a while, Tom – how are you keeping?’

  ‘Up and down.’

  ‘And the—’

  ‘Comes and goes.’

  His eyes scanned his notes. I studied his badge.

  Dr J Moon. The one good thing about having a job with a name badge: you’re never in any doubt about who you are.

  ‘You stopped taking the amitriptyline for a while, didn’t you?’

  He looked up at me, studied my face for signs of happiness, tried to see if some weight was off my shoulders.

  ‘I did. I didn’t mean to. I just … some stuff came up.’

  ‘And at that stage you found you didn’t need them?’

  ‘I did,’ I said.

  ‘No incidents?’

  Well, we freed a marmoset.

  ‘No incidents,’ I said.

  ‘That’s good,’ he said, writing something down. ‘Has something happened recently to make you feel you need them again?’

  ‘No. Yeah. I mean, things are just … back to normal. Back to how they were.’

  He held my gaze.

  ‘The last time I saw you was when your girlfriend left you.’

  ‘She didn’t leave me. Technically. She was just … missing.’

  ‘And now she’s back?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The words hung in the air.

  ‘Look, remember: GP,’ he said, finally, pointing at himself. ‘Not psychiatrist. But you shouldn’t necessarily be afraid of change.’

  I crossed my legs, folded my arms, closed up.

  ‘I’m not really comfortable talking about my relationship,’ I said.

  ‘Well, on a smaller scale, then, I just mean – are you getting exercise?’

  This again. Exercise. The idea that depression – even mild – can be solved by star jumps.

  ‘Or enough sunlight? Levels of light exposure can be very important.’

  I get up when it’s dark. I sit in a striplit room then move to an airless box. In the winter, I go home and have a nap and when I wake up it’s dark again.

  ‘Or finding new ways to release your frustration? Are there people you can speak to? Often things get worse if there’s no one to share things with.’

  There’s Pippy.

  ‘And if you don’t feel comfortable talking to one of your friends, you can release the frustration in other safe and responsible ways. Walking. Running. Dancing.’

  ‘Dancing?’

  ‘Dancing, yes.’

  ‘You want me to dance my troubles away?’

  ‘Well no, not dance them away exactly, but you need to acknowledge them.’

  ‘Through dance?’

  ‘Look, sometimes when people go through this …’

  He thought about how to put it.

  ‘… it can be because they’re angry. At themselves. Sometimes with reason, often with none. You may be turning your anger in on yourself, Tom. Ask yourself why.’

  I unfolded my arms, and considered his words.

  The dog had found me after Mum died.

  I was sixteen. She was only forty-two. One of those vivid people, filmed in glorious technicolour, the ones who see music in everything. I was her world. She told me that all the time, all the way through school, kissing the top of my forehead, breathing her baby in, stretching up to do that even when my own height far overtook hers. I was her world, yes, and I was at that point we all reach where I was denying she was mine. I’d never quite forgive myself for that. Blame youth, blame hormones, blame me trying to work out who I was, but would it have killed me to take a moment, take a breath, just hug her and hold her just a few more times, instead of pulling away or watching the clock to see how long it’d be before I could run off to the park to drink cider with Calum and not talk to girls? As history would prove, I had many, many years not to talk to girls.

  No one had seen it coming, when it came. The doctors said it had spread too far, too fast. She had an illness – the illness – she couldn’t fight.

  All over in a matter of weeks.

  Shock, anger, rejection, acceptance, help. The five stages you’re supposed to face. I’d got as far as anger before she’d gone, and then I’d had to start all over again.

  But rather than face the pain, I’d tried to find a drawer for it, somewhere to keep it until I was stronger. I postponed it all. Gave the dog a spare room rather than have it put down. Hoped if I just dampened it
, kept it just below the surface, I’d be okay.

  But I’d never be truly okay, because somehow, now, I felt I’d always be alone. Dad dealt with it better. He moved on quickly. They say that’s quite common. Three years later I was heading for university and he was heading for New Zealand. Invercargill, just down there at the bottom of the South Island, just 11,902 short miles away from his old life, his memories, from me. He’d met a Kiwi nurse at the Grain Barge one night, and grabbed the opportunity at something. I remember him holding me, saying how sorry he was, but that I was a man now, and I didn’t need him, at least not as much, and this could be his last chance at a new start, and that Mum would be happy for him. I think he was mainly telling himself. I assured him I’d be okay, but I knew I wouldn’t. I assured him I didn’t blame him, but I knew I did. Nowadays, I’m pleased for him. I love him. But right then and there I felt like I had lost two parents, I felt like I had lost so much love, I felt like I had lost any importance, and I felt …

  Well.

  Lost.

  I’d always felt lost.

  ‘Can I tell you how I feel these days?’ I said, when the story had been told, and the doctor had fallen silent. ‘I feel robbed. I feel like I had a lot of my choices taken away from me. Like everyone else has a say, just not me. I feel like it’s been that way since my mum died. Like one day I had a world around me and then bit by bit that world fell away and I woke up briefly at thirty-four and found I had no control.’

  I’d never told him about this; never opened up to him or anyone else apart from Hayley. I’d always tried to just keep things moving along until he got his pad out and dashed out another prescription.

  ‘So take back control,’ he said. ‘Find a way to exercise your choice. Show yourself who’s in charge. This is very unprofessional of me to say, but why be a victim in all this? Find a way, no matter how small it is.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘You could join a club,’ he said, and when I started to laugh, really laugh, he stuck with it, dug deeper. ‘I just mean find some likeminded people. You don’t have to be alone, Tom. You can lighten your load.’

  ‘I’m not laughing at the idea of a club,’ I said. ‘I’m laughing at the club I have an idea of.’

  He smiled.

  ‘I know you think it’s simplistic,’ he said.

  ‘I think star jumps can cure anything,’ I smiled.

  ‘You have an illness,’ he said. ‘But you can fight.’

  I sighed, and glanced up at the clock. Twenty-three minutes. A new record.

  ‘Thank you, doctor,’ I said, after a moment. ‘But if it’s all the same to you, I think I’m just going to take the pills.’

  He sat back in his chair, conceded, and opened up his pad.

  The M Style Awards were at the Troxy in Stepney, this art deco theatre in a part of London where the risk of mugging is just low enough to guarantee A List guests, but just high enough to make it seem edgy and cool. At least for the night. Something like this would be the only reason half the people inside would ever even have heard of Stepney. It’s not like on any other day of the week you’d be jostling for elbow space at the Rajboy Tandoori or Michael’s Chinese Food with Harry Styles or Cara Delevingne.

  You had to walk past thirty models in little black dresses to get inside. It was a horrible gauntlet to run. One of those nights where someone might realistically ask ‘who dressed you?’ and you’d end up panicking and saying, ‘Well, I dressed myself.’

  I like to blend. Not stand out.

  Cass looped her arm in mine and we walked through them all, these women just standing there, silent, hands on hips like plastic mannequins, smiling at you as you walked out of the lift, perfectly reflecting your inadequacy in their disinterested steel eyes.

  ‘You look great,’ said Cass, smoothing down my tie, brushing something off my collar. ‘I suppose I should say, “Who dressed you?”’

  Duchamp three-piece dash check suit. Paul Smith London Stamford shoes, red laces. Canali Jacquard-stripe single-cuff shirt. Tie: Boss, wool, grey with single black stripe. To be honest, I don’t know who the guy that dressed me was.

  ‘I feel a little out of place,’ I said.

  ‘Just be yourself,’ she said. ‘Best advice ever. Anyway, it’s something we can talk about on the radio tomorrow … What Did Tom Get Up To Last Night? “Well, Cass, I was stared at by thirty Sexbots from the future.”’

  Cass fitted in here. She could be any of these people, with her hair up, and a tight gold dress accentuating the things she wanted to accentuate. A small child from a boyband nodded at Cass and smirked. She smiled back, a beacon of early-thirties confidence, and he flushed and walked away.

  ‘That dealt with that,’ she said, and she passed me a drink as we made it to the other side of this warfield of glamour.

  I was allowed the occasional drink, the doctor told me, and thank God I was.

  ‘Check it out,’ she said. ‘Ronnie Wood.’

  There he was, skinny tie and wild hair, mixing with the guys you’d see in a magazine like M – the M for Men, but Men like this.

  David Gandy smiled enigmatically at no one in particular. Jake Bugg nodded at Miles Kane. Russell Brand floated past, and I took another deep slug of champagne, Cass passing me another glass the second a waitress was near.

  Bloody hell.

  Bradley Cooper.

  I thought back to Pia, what she’d said that day.

  ‘Who do you want to be like?’

  Well, look at me now! I’m doing the exact same as Bradley Cooper! Maybe I should follow him tonight. For old times’ sake. See if I can make it all the way to the bar at the Savoy. God help me if Axl Rose is here too.

  Another buzz in the crowd now, as people tried to pretend they weren’t pointing Justin Timberlake out as he arrived, the flutter of photographers’ flashes like a tropical storm in the corner of your eye. I took another slug of champagne.

  ‘I’m just popping to the loo,’ said Cass, and my knees nearly buckled.

  ‘Do not leave me.’

  ‘I’ll only leave you for a second.’

  ‘Do. Not. Leave. Me.’ But she just laughed, turned on her heel, and swayed away.

  Christ.

  My eyes darted around. Black ties. Velvet. Diamonds. Huge, manly Breitlings. I wanted to get my phone out and pretend to text. But that would send out the signals that I was alone and uncomfortable. People would notice me trying not to be noticed. I had to just not be noticed, and the best way not to be noticed was to not try not to be noticed.

  A girl was next to me, now, and she too was on her own. A saviour. Model-pretty, expensively dressed, she stared out at the crowd in front of her, blank, cool, totally in control of her own solitude, totally unfazed. Maybe we could team up. Save each other.

  She held the smallest canapé I had ever seen.

  ‘What a small canapé,’ I said, eyebrows raised, pointing at it.

  ‘I’m married,’ she said, moving immediately away.

  I took another huge hit of champagne.

  I realised now I was standing by a giant M cover, blown-up, huge, and on it, the tanned and smooth face of an absolutely massive Matthew Channing.

  ‘NEXT BRIT THING,’ said the coverline, next to other, smaller lines, like ‘Lose that Belly!’ and ‘How to Make Her Yours!’ and ‘Ten Ways to Drive Her Wild!’

  I suddenly felt just a little inadequate. Walking back, Cass could tell what I was thinking.

  ‘Amazing that we’re always trying to be something we’re not,’ she said, holding two fresh glasses of Moët, and there, just over her shoulder, I saw the man himself: Matthew Channing.

  I tried to shrink into the background.

  ‘Christ, this is embarrassing,’ I said.

  ‘How so?’ she said.

  ‘Matthew Channing. I saw him just the other night for a drink. And I saw him at the station too. And once before that.’

  ‘I’m sorry – what?’

  And then there he was, tur
ning away from another photograph, on his way past us, hand clasped tightly to the hand of a woman behind him, dragging her through, and …

  ‘Oh!’ he said, stopping.

  Cass raised her eyebrows, seemed impressed.

  ‘Tom, hi …’ he said, a little flustered, then, smiling, ‘are you following me?’

  ‘Hello Matthew,’ I said, going for casual, but all I could think was, there’s another really huge you right behind me. Tom looked to Cass.

  ‘This is Cass,’ I said. ‘Cass, this is Matthew Channing, the next Brit thing.’

  That was a ridiculous thing to say.

  ‘I feel a little narcissistic standing here,’ said Matthew, smiling, pointing at the cover.

  ‘I hate narcissists,’ said Cass. ‘I only really want to talk about me.’

  Matthew smiled, charmed, was about to say something clearly very clever back, and then the woman he’d been dragging behind him stepped forward.

  ‘I’m Olivia,’ she said, open, friendly, full of warmth, but very definitely cutting in. ‘How do you do?’

  She was beautiful – stunning, really – and heavily pregnant. She put one elegant hand on Matthew’s arm.

  ‘Darling, we said we’d catch up with Piers …’

  Matthew shot me an apologetic look, but a millimetre deeper than that I could tell he was embarrassed. I knew his story. I knew what might be coming. And now I’d seen exactly what he had to lose; now I understood the depths of his stupidity; now I saw exactly why he needed me.

  ‘I’ll catch up with you later …?’ he said. ‘Nice to meet you, Cassandra.’

  They wafted past, heads turning, eyes scanning them for flaws.

  ‘He’s very charming,’ said Cass, watching them go. ‘And she’s very pregnant.’

  I took another deep sip and nodded.

  The awards rumbled on. Confident, loud men took to the stage and thanked each other for voting them Most Stylish, or Best British Breakthrough Use of a Cummerbund, or whatever. Spotlights, strobes and speakers on a stage dominated by one giant, multi-bulbed ‘M’. I spent much of the evening staring at Jeremy Piven.

  Matthew Channing was awarded the perspex New Man Award in Association with Bvlgari Man and made a self-effacing speech in which he pretended to be overawed and wowed by the company in which he suddenly found himself.