Who is Tom Ditto?

by Danny Wallace

  I wondered what Pia would think of me doing this. Gathering information; setting my mind at rest. It was cathartic. I was freeing myself.

  Since I discovered the world of Jeremy, my vision was clearer, the universe in sharper focus.

  I sat in the corner of the restaurant, made slow work of my poppadoms.

  They mainly ordered beer. Half an hour in, one of them tried to light a fag. The waiters were good about it, polite, they talked him out of it, but the second they walked away the impressions started. The laughter soared.

  They went to the Casino after, the one in Leicester Square, now down to just four of them, ties undone, faces flush, a gas of booze trailing in the air behind them.

  I sat, facing the Empire, for an hour and a quarter until he came out, on his own, the fresh air now hitting him, a bouncer trying to steady his gait but being shaken off in a flurry of obscenities.

  These people. These people who just know who they are. Who think they live their life as the only important person in the world when they share it with so many others. Who don’t realise what they’re like. Where do they get the confidence? They’re the ones who need to change. They’re the ones who need to find themselves, not us.

  We made eye contact for just a second and I saw him judge me. Or perhaps try and place me. He gave up and moved off. I let him. Why confront him? I was nothing to him. He wouldn’t give me the time of day.

  I’d done what I’d wanted to do. Seen the man who won. The better man.

  And then, there, huddled by the Burger King, just metres away, I saw someone else.

  I stood. Moved closer.

  My heart stopped for a second when I saw him. It beat faster now, my left hand shaking slightly from adrenaline, the hairs on the back of my neck rising with the fight or flight of it all.

  Blood red eyes.

  The same hoodie.

  It was him.

  I froze for a second, the memory of it all washing over me.

  And then I snapped out of it.

  ‘Hey,’ I said, and this man looked up, confused, already agitated. He looked smaller, hungry, less angry, not like the same guy who’d trapped me, slapped me, stolen from me in an alleyway off the main drag. But I didn’t care about any of that now.

  He didn’t recognise me.

  I lost confidence; faltered again.

  Fuck it.

  ‘You’ll never guess what,’ I said, trying to make my voice more blokey, more man-on-the-street. ‘That guy just won massive on the roulette wheel.’

  I pointed at Jeremy, stumbling away, telling some guy with chips to F-off home.

  Maybe this, too, is what the doctor meant about taking control.

  I watched this other man heave himself up to his feet, nod me his gratitude and slowly follow Jeremy into the night.

  thirty-four

  ‘And finally,’ I said, using The Voice, ‘not to end on a disappointing note … but despite our best efforts here at Talk London, Mayor Jackson was once again forced to express his disappointment at the latest crime figures which show yet again that muggings are up in the capital …’

  Cass shook her head, disgusted.

  ‘Highs of nineteen today – it’s 6.33, and now you’re up to date.’

  ‘Okay, before he goes,’ said Cass, ‘let’s just get this out of the way …’

  She pressed a button.

  Jingle.

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

  I found a man I’m fairly sure was a convicted criminal and I think I got him to beat up a love rival.

  ‘Curry in town and a stroll through Leicester Square!’ I said.

  Then I took my prescription amitriptyline and squeezed it through the plughole of my filthy sink using the base of my kettle.

  ‘Followed by an early night with a cup of tea!’

  We may meet again. But bye for now, mon ami.

  ‘That’s lovely!’ said Cass, hitting the button.

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

  ‘Pippy said you’d booked 6A tonight,’ said Cass, nudging me. ‘What’s this for? Doing your showreel?’

  ‘Can I help?’ said Work Experience Paul. ‘Like … please?’

  ‘Leslie James headhunting you, is he?’ said Cass.

  I laughed.

  ‘The story,’ I said. ‘Talking to someone sometime after five. Between five and eight.’

  ‘Oh, the story?’ she said. ‘The big mysterious story that only you know about.’

  ‘Can I know about it?’ said Work Experience Paul.

  ‘I got the nod,’ I went on, simultaneously shaking my head at Paul. ‘I think you’ll be pleased. It’ll be for tomorrow’s show.’

  ‘So we should leave some space in the running order, should we? You sure about this?’

  ‘Yes I am,’ I said. ‘You leave some space …’

  I could have told her. But this was mine. I couldn’t risk it getting out. Didn’t want Steve Penny or Lydia Barnes swooping in on this one.

  ‘Talking of stories, how’s yours? What’s happened with …’

  We both stared at Work Experience Paul until he got the hint and wandered off.

  ‘Pia?’ I said.

  ‘Pia.’

  I sighed and shook my head.

  ‘She’s gone off-grid,’ I said. ‘I went to a guy I thought could help. He did help, but in a different way.’

  ‘Facebook? Twitter?’

  ‘She’s on neither. Which is weird, because you’d think Twitter would be natural for someone so keen on following.’

  ‘Is there anyone else you know that knows her?’

  Andy didn’t know her address. She’d been round to his, once, after her first meeting. She’d just followed him home straight after, surprised him outside his house, asked if he had any squash. Andy invited her in. He told me he’d never found someone so lost. He told me a lot of things.

  Then there was Ash. I’d rung him at the zoo. He told me never to phone back. I asked if there was any news on Binky. He told me never to mention his name. I asked if he’d heard from Pia. He told me to go jump off a fucking bridge.

  She’d disappeared.

  Pia could have been a million things, I now realised.

  Maybe she’d been a military kid, always moving, always adapting, always having to fit in. Always making new friends but never friends that lasted.

  Or maybe she was on the run. Or she was an orphan. What if she’d stolen money from her parents and fled?

  Cass said I should wait for her in reception. We’d go to lunch, we’d brainstorm, we’d come up with something.

  I sat under a screen that said WELCOME TO OUR FRIENDS AT TOYOTA! The receptionist whose name I could never remember was fielding calls.

  ‘Hello, SoundHaus, what department please?’

  Click of a button.

  She never fitted in, she said that once, so maybe to cope, she’d fit in with whomever and whatever she could. Or what if maybe she’d been too popular? Maybe she didn’t like it and changed her life to suit?

  Maybe she’d been all of those things, maybe she’d been heavily into drugs, maybe she’d suffered amnesia, maybe she’d been none of these.

  Everything about her was a little off.

  Which is why when something seemed just right, it stood out.

  Of course she wore that parka. It looked right.

  Of course she knew obscure facts about pandas. That seemed right.

  ‘Hello, SoundHaus, what department please?’

  Jesus, I wished this woman would give it a rest. How did she do that? The relentlessness, the repetition. She needed to shake things up. She should start following.

  I stared at her. Listened to her. These words, this rhythm, the beats of the sentence must be drilled deep into her dreams, chiselled into her subconscious. One of those jobs. Pick up the phone, say the sentence, next call, say the sentence, next call, say the sentence …

  Escaping this sort of thing – that’s exactly wha
t CC was for.

  And as I heard ‘Hello, SoundHaus, what department please?’ one more time, I felt a shadow at the door. A thought. An idea.

  And the shadow grew stronger, and the shadow grew richer, until I realised the shadow could be real. I stood.

  ‘Where’s Work Experience Paul?’ I said, a little too loudly, barrelling towards the lift as Cass was stepping out. ‘I need Work Experience Paul!’

  And the woman on the phone paused and stared up at me, no one in this building ever once having heard those words before.

  thirty-five

  ‘And this is for the story, yeah?’ said Work Experience Paul, picking up one of the landlines, his face a picture of eagerness, willingness, gratitude. No one else in the newsroom knew about this. I’d waited for Bron to leave for lunch.

  ‘It’s for a story, yes,’ I said. ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Your story, I mean?’ he said. ‘The one you were talking about?’

  I considered it.

  ‘Yeah, let’s go with that,’ I said, and excitedly, he began to dial.

  There’d been something that had struck me as odd, that first night with Pia – the night we stood on Church Street, moments away from spotting Old Man Stokey, moments away from my first follow.

  I couldn’t work out why it seemed odd, at the time, because everything seemed odd that night … but now, here, it hit me: it’s precisely because amongst all that, it seemed so normal.

  I found a number – made sure Paul had his – and dialled.

  I know words, I’m sure I do; I know how they sound. I know what they look like as they leave a person’s mouth. I know when someone’s reading, I know when someone’s ad-libbing, and I know when someone’s said something a million times before.

  ‘Hello, I wonder if you can help me, I’m calling from SoundHaus Radio,’ said Paul, when someone on the other end picked up, and as someone picked up my own call I said the same …

  Pia had said what she’d said a million times before, I now realised.

  It was too casual, too quick to trip off the tongue, too easy.

  Paul hung up, shook his head, found the next number on an incredibly long list of kitchen and home supply stores in north, east and north-east London, and started to dial.

  [12]

  Ezra James Cockroft passed away on 17 September 1983. He was eighty-one.

  I attended his funeral. I brought white lilacs, the same white lilacs he’d laid at the grave of Mae, his adored but imperfect wife, every Sunday since 1973 and his return to New York.

  There were mourners at his funeral. The small white church in Amenia Union rang its bells loud that morning. I read on a plaque that it was considered one of the finest imitations of an English country parish church in the country. I guess he would’ve liked that.

  I stood at the back, with the guys Ezra would see every day in Greenwich Village. Ray from Ray’s Pizza and the girl from the Chinese takeout on Franklin mixed with the guys with whom he’d seen the tail end of the war, and the few academics from the university who still spoke to him.

  The reverend spoke tenderly, and I noticed in front of him a beautiful woman with beautiful hair and a beautiful smile and eyes that could light up the sky.

  She was crying.

  I knew I would go home, but when the service was complete, and the mourners began to move, and the cars started up, I followed instead.

  Found myself by her side.

  The truth of this piece is, I’m not sure Cockroft had the answer.

  To be or not to be. To live or to live like some other guy.

  He fell into following because his life was suddenly out of his control.

  He saw a man who looked like he had what Ezra no longer did.

  He wanted it back, because it had belonged to him, once.

  And the only way he could take it was by pretending. He was a mimic.

  He’d admit that. He’d be the first.

  Or the second, of course – being a mimic.

  He may have spent much of his life being someone else. But whomever he was, and whenever that was – he was the greatest man I knew.

  I shared a bus back to the city with the girl with the smile.

  We sat adjacent to a man who’d travelled to the funeral with his family. I noticed they had more luggage than most.

  I extended my hand and introduced myself.

  ‘Andreas,’ he said, with a hint of an accent.

  thirty-six

  Grey office, strip lighting, and I’d say probably plenty of Pippies and Maureens.

  Cars shot by, buses in both directions.

  It was quarter past five. I stood across the road, wind flicking polystyrene takeaway boxes down the street, cellophane wrappers and crisp packets rising and dancing round bins.

  Work Experience Paul had struck gold. The one thing in our favour had been her name. Pia. Just rare enough. We’d tried kitchen supplies, kitchen and home supplies, kitchen and home suppliers, kitchen fitters, kitchen installers, kitchen and home advisers, kitchen makers, cabinet makers, commercial kitchen supplies, commercial kitchen suppliers, the list goes on and keeps featuring the words ‘kitchen’, ‘kitchens’ or ‘home’.

  And then, almost three hours in …

  I’d sorted Paul out. Promised him an exceptional reference. Gave him my M Style Awards goodie bag. Raided the prize cupboard and thrown albums and premiere tickets and t-shirts at him. Promised never to call him Work Experience Paul again.

  ‘Finally,’ I told him. ‘You are going to reap the rewards of undertaking thankless and barely-paid tasks for London’s third-favourite commercial radio endeavour. And you are going to reap those rewards daily.’

  Then Pippy walked in and told him to fetch her a posh coffee.

  I’d been here, on this road, for an hour. Busied myself for a while in the café under the bridge. Read the Sun cover to cover. Apparently there’d be an explosive story at the weekend ‘set to change all you thought you knew about a major British star – only in this week’s super soaraway Sun on Sunday!’

  I looked over at the door again. This was one tatty operation. Peeling paint, scratched glass. Faded sky-blue logo not touched since the eighties. Rusty cages protecting cheap double-glazing, ancient curved PC screens.

  A woman pushed the door open, bade someone inside goodnight. The wind caught the bag in her hand and she smoothed her jacket down, braving an evening on the turn.

  My phone buzzed.

  Blocked.

  I knew what this was. I could answer; put him off. But I needed time.

  No, I should answer.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Tom, this is Jo Ward – just checking you’re there and your phone’s on.’

  ‘Yes, Jo, hi …’ I said. ‘I’m not at the studio, but I’m on my way.’

  ‘You’re …’

  ‘It’ll be fine, Jo, speak soon.’

  Hang up.

  Still no sign of Pia.

  I decided I must do this. I could be back at the studio in twenty minutes if the tube was kind. I pushed at the door. It was locked. I pressed the bell. They buzzed me in.

  Inside the small office of Mandrake Kitchens and Home Supplies, six desks at odd angles battled for space. It was otherwise empty, save for a short, red-faced woman in the corner. Absolute Radio blathered away in the corner. The woman sat in a navy MKHS sweater below a poster for rivets and joints and MDF.

  ‘Can I help you?’ she said, all smiles.

  ‘Hi,’ I said. ‘Look, this’ll sound odd, but does Pia work here?’

  Her face lit up.

  ‘Pia Jones?’

  When she’d said it that night – ‘Don’t you want to be normal? Order the same curry every Friday night from the same place you always use? Get an office job, answer the phones, “Good morning, Kitchen and Home Supplies, Tom speaking …?”’ – I’d thought nothing of it. But it was a little piece of grey reality in a world she wanted to be rainbows.

  ‘Pia … Jones,’ I sa
id. ‘Yes.’

  The woman pointed at a photo, enlarged but faded, tacked to the wall. Staff Christmas Party. All smiles, drunk in a Wetherspoons, holding barley-yellow pints, Pia giggling. It was the first time I’d seen her as really part of something.

  ‘Yes, she works here. Well, she did. Well, she does.’

  ‘Did or does?’

  ‘Tomorrow’s her last day. It was her leaving do last night.’

  Of course it was.

  ‘Who are you, sorry?’ said the woman.

  I wasn’t sure what to say.

  ‘I’m her friend,’ I said. ‘I’m her best friend.’

  She stood.

  ‘Tom!’

  She knew about me, this woman. Looked delighted. Said Pia put the show on in the office. Talked about me, proudly. They knew my voice here.

  ‘What time do you have to get up?’ she said, moving towards me. ‘Do you have to go to bed really early?’

  ‘When it’s still dark, and yes,’ I said.

  ‘What’s Cass like?’ she said. ‘She sounds lovely. Why didn’t you come to the leaving do? Oh, you should have come. You could have brought Cass. All the boys—’

  ‘Listen, I’m so sorry to be rude, but can I ask: where’s Pia right now?’

  ‘Have you called her?’

  ‘Yes,’ I lied. ‘Went straight to voicemail.’

  ‘That girl,’ she said, shaking her head and laughing. ‘Well, she went home. I gave her an early. No point sticking around when there’s nothing to do.’

  ‘And where is home?’ I said, slowly, trying my luck.

  ‘Round the corner,’ she said, uncertainly. ‘Not far. Though if you don’t know, I’m not sure I can really tell you. Is everything okay? Did you two have a fight or something?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I just thought she’d been doing really well lately. And then all of a sudden she wasn’t, and then she said she was thinking about moving back home, and she stopped putting your show on in the mornings, and …’

  ‘Going home?’