Who is Tom Ditto?

by Danny Wallace

  Dad had come over for Christmas. He loved Cass. Said Mum would have done too. Said he’d never liked Hayley.

  ‘Why?’ I said. ‘You’ve never even met her!’

  ‘She didn’t remind me of anyone,’ he said, thinking about it. ‘I know that sounds unusual, Tom, but whenever you talked about her … I could never tell who she was.’

  The dog was still around, of course. No happy ending there. I don’t think the dog will ever really truly go away. I don’t think they do. But it’s a smaller breed, now. I think I can hopefully say I’ve at least found the beginnings of a leash.

  Pia had left Eric Street and I’d quite obviously moved out of Wandsworth. There are only so many nights in a row you can eat a Holiday Inn Express Chicken Tikka Masala. We found a small two-bed together in Hackney, above the Hard Wok Café. It had a little balcony. We could sit there, with our tea, legs dangling over the edge, watching people go by, guessing where they were going, following their journeys in our heads.

  We both lost people, me and Pia. We both lost ourselves. We almost lost each other.

  ‘It’s probably just the usual,’ I said, getting my phone out. ‘Spam. Or some different spam.’

  ‘Will this work out, do you think?’ she said. ‘I mean, this guy could be going anywhere.’

  She cocked her head and nodded at the man we’d chosen. Baseball cap down low, sunglasses, decent jeans, expensive bag, oblivious.

  Los Angeles? Paris? Monaco?

  ‘It’ll work out,’ I said. ‘It’ll be an adventure.’

  She smiled.

  I looked at my phone and my heart sank.

  * * *

  FROM: MAUREEN THOMAS

  TO: ALL STAFF

  All staff PLEASE refrain from PUTTING BISCUIT’S in the CUPBOARD’S as these CUPBOARD’S are NOT meant for FOOD.

  WILL YOU EVER UNDERSTAND?

  * * *

  I stared at it.

  Took a breath.

  My fingers hovered over the keypad.

  ‘I love you, mate,’ said Pia, suddenly.

  I turned to her.

  ‘I love you too,’ I said.

  Someone nearby sneezed.

  ‘But not like that,’ she said, turning away again.

  ‘Christ no,’ I said, looking back at my email. ‘Not like that.’

  I hit reply.

  The first time I’d done this.

  * * *

  FROM: TOM ADOYO

  TO: MAUREEN THOMAS

  * * *

  I thought about it.

  Should I?

  Sod it.

  * * *

  CC: ALL STAFF

  * * *

  What to write?

  How to put this?

  Ah, yes.

  * * *

  UNSUBSCRIBE.

  * * *

  I pressed Send, then put my arm around Pia, two friends on a train, wondering what might happen next.

  And what happened next was that the man in the hat got his ticket out.

  And we held our breath.

  Acknowledgements

  My first thanks must go to Matt Dyson, one of Britain’s finest newsreaders, who unwittingly allowed me to intricately study the minutiae of his work for four hours a day, five days a week, between August 1st 2011 and December 21st 2012, from a distance of less than six feet. That’s research.

  Matt is not Tom Adoyo, but he taught him everything he knows.

  At the same time, I should thank Dave Masterman, Andy Ashton, Steve Ferdinando and Simon Fowler, as well as everyone at Global Radio (which is not and never has been SoundHaus…). Also to the confirmed listeners of Xfm – thank you.

  Thanks to my editor, Jake Lingwood. To Emily Yau, Gillian Green, Louise Jones, Amelia Harvell and everyone at Ebury.

  Thanks to George Cockroft of Canaan, New York.

  Thanks to Greta and Elliot, and to mum and dad, who read everything first and always will.

  And – of course – thank you to you.

  www.dannywallace.com

  If you enjoyed Who is Tom Ditto?...

  Read on for a extract from

  Charlotte Street

  Also by Danny Wallace

  ONE

  Or ‘(She) Got Me Bad’

  I wonder if we should start with the introductions.

  I know who you are. You’re the person reading this. For whatever reason, and in whatever place, that’s you, and soon we’ll be friends, and you’ll never ever convince me otherwise.

  But me?

  I’m Jason Priestley.

  And I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking: Goodness! Are you the same Jason Priestley, born in Canada in 1969, famous for his portrayal of Brandon Walsh, the moral centre of the hit American television series Beverly Hills 90210?

  And the surprising answer to your very sensible question is no. No, I’m not. I’m the other one. I’m the thirty-two-year-old Jason Priestley who lives on the Caledonian Road, above a videogame shop between a Polish newsagents and that place that everyone thought was a brothel, but wasn’t. The Jason Priestley who gave up his job as a deputy head of department in a bad North London school to chase a dream of being a journalist after his girlfriend left him but who’s ended up single and going to cheap restaurants and awful films so’s he can write about them in that free newspaper they give you on the tube which you take but don’t read.

  Yeah. That Jason Priestley.

  I’m also the Jason Priestley with a problem.

  You see, just in front of me – right here, on this table, just in front of me – is a small plastic box. A small plastic box I’ve come to regard as a small plastic box that could change things. Or, at least, make them different.

  And right now, I’d take different.

  I don’t know what’s in this small plastic box, and I don’t know if I ever will. That’s the problem. I could know; I could have it open within the hour, and I could pore over its contents, and I could know once and for all whether there was any ... hope in there.

  But if I do, and it turns out there is hope in there, what if that’s all it is? Just a bit of hope? And what if that hope turns to nothing?

  Because the one thing I hate about hope – the one thing I despise about it, that no one ever seems to admit about it – is that suddenly having hope is the easiest route to sudden hopelessness there is.

  And yet that hope is already within me. Somehow, without my inviting it in or expecting it in any way, it’s there, and based on what? Nothing. Nothing apart from the glance she gave me and the fleeting glimpse I got of ... something.

  I’d been standing on the corner of Charlotte Street when it happened.

  It was maybe six o’clock, and a girl – because yeah, you and I both knew there was going to be a girl; there had to be a girl; there’s always a girl – was struggling with the door of the black cab and the packages in her hands. She had a blue coat and nice shoes, and white bags with names I’d never seen before on them, and boxes, and even, I think, a cactus poking out the top of a Heal’s bag.

  I was ready to walk past, because that’s what you do in London, and to be honest, I nearly did ... but then she nearly dropped the cactus. And the other packages all shifted about, and she had to stoop to keep them all up, and for a moment there was something sweet and small and helpless about her.

  And then she uttered a few choice words I won’t tell you here in case your nan comes round and finds this page.

  I stifled a smile, and then looked at the cabbie, but he was doing nothing, just listening to TalkSport and smoking, and so – and I don’t know why, because like I say, this is London – I asked if I could help.

  And she smiled at me. This incredible smile. And suddenly I felt all manly and confident, like a handyman who knows just which nail to buy, and now I’m holding her packages and some of her bags, and she’s shovelling new ones that seem to have appeared from nowhere into the cab, and she’s saying, ‘Thank you, this is so kind of you,’ and then there’s that mo
ment. The glance, the fleeting glimpse of that something I mentioned. And it felt like a beginning. But the cabbie was impatient and the night air cold, and I suppose we were just too British to say anything else and then it was, ‘Thanks,’ and that smile again.

  She closed the door, and I watched the cab move off, tail lights fading into the city, hope trailing and clattering on the ground behind it.

  And then – just as the moment seemed over – I looked down.

  I had something in my hands.

  A small plastic box.

  I read the words on the front.

  Single Use 35mm Disposable Camera.

  I wanted to shout at the cab – hold the camera up and make sure she knew she’d left something behind. And for a second I was filled with ideas – maybe when she came running back, I’d suggest a coffee, and then agree when she said what she really needed was a huge glass of wine, and then we’d get a bottle, because it made better financial sense to get a bottle, and then we’d agree we shouldn’t be eating on empty stomachs, and then we’d jack in our jobs and buy a boat and start making cheese in the country.

  But nothing happened.

  No screech of car tyre, no pause then crunch of gears, no reverse lights, no running, smiling girl in nice shoes and a blue coat.

  Just a new taxi stopping, so a fat man could get out at a cashpoint.

  You see what I mean about hope?

  ‘Now, before we go any further whatsoever,’ said Dev, holding up the cartridge and tapping it very gently with his finger. ‘Let’s talk about the name. “Altered Beast”.’

  I was staring at Dev in what I like to imagine was quite a blank manner. It didn’t matter. In all the years I’ve known him I doubt he’s seen many looks from me, other than my blank one. He probably thinks I’ve looked like this since university.

  ‘Now, it conjures up not only mysticism, of course, but also intrigue, meshing as it does both Roman culture and Greek mythology.’

  I turned and looked at Pawel, who seemed mildly traumatised.

  ‘Now, the interesting thing about the sound effects—’ said Dev, and he pressed a button on his keyring and out came a tinny, distorted noise that sounded as if it might be trying to say, ‘Wise Fwom Your Gwaaave!’.

  I put my hand up.

  ‘Yes, Jase, you’ve got a question?’

  ‘Why’ve you got that noise on your keyring?’

  Dev sighed, and made quite a show of it. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Jason, but I’m trying to tell Pawel here about the early development of Sega Mega Drive games in the late 1980s and early 1990s. I’m sorry we’re not covering your personal passion of the work of American musical duo Hall & Oates, but that’s not why Pawel is here, is it?’

  Pawel just smiled.

  Pawel does a lot of smiling when he visits the shop. It’s usually to collect money Dev owes him for his lunchtime snacks. I sometimes watch his face as he wanders around the floor, taking in ancient, faded posters of Sonic 2 or Out Run, picking up chipped carts or battered copies of old magazines, flicking through the reviews of long-dead platformers or shoot-em-ups that look like they were drawn by toddlers now. Dev let him borrow a Master System and a copy of Shinobi the other day. Turns out you didn’t really get many Master Systems in mid-80s Eastern Europe, and even less ninjas. We’re not going to let him borrow the Xbox, because Dev says his eyes might explode.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Dev. ‘The name of this very shop – Power Up! – owes its existence to—’

  And I start to realise what Dev’s doing. He’s trying to bore Pawel out of here. Dominate the conversation. Bully him into leaving, the way men with useless knowledge often do. Throw in phrases like, ‘Oh, didn’t you know that?’, or, ‘Of course, you’ll already be aware ...’ in order to patronise and thwart and win.

  He can’t have enough cash on him for lunch.

  ‘How much does he owe you, Pawel?’ I asked, fishing for a fiver in my pocket.

  Dev shot me a smile.

  I love London.

  I love everything about it. I love its palaces and its museums and its galleries, sure. But also, I love its filth, and damp, and stink. Okay, well, I don’t mean love, exactly. But I don’t mind it. Not any more. Not now I’m used to it. You don’t mind anything once you’re used to it. Not the graffiti you find on your door the week after you painted over it, or the chicken bones and cider cans you have to move before you can sit down for your damp and muddy picnic. Not the everchanging fast food joints – AbraKebabra to Pizza the Action to Really Fried Chicken – and all on a high street that despite its three new names a week never seems to look any different. Its tawdriness can be comforting, its wilfulness inspiring. It’s the London I see every day. I mean, tourists: they see the Dorchester. They see Harrods, and they see men in bearskins and Carnaby Street. They very rarely see the Happy Shopper on the Mile End Road, or a drab Peckham disco. They head for Buckingham Palace, and see waving above it the red, white and blue, while the rest of us order dansak from the Tandoori Palace, and see Simply Red, White Lightning, and Duncan from Blue.

  But we should be proud of that, too.

  Or, at least, get used to it.

  You could find a little bit of Poland on one end of the Caledonian Road these days, the way you could find Portugal in Stockwell, or Turkey all through Haringey. Since the shops came, Dev has used his lunchtimes to explore an entirely new culture. He was like that at university when he met a Bolivian girl at Leicester’s number one nightclub, Boomboom. I was studying English, and for a month or so, Dev was studying Bolivian. Each night he’d dial-up Internet and wait ten minutes for a single page to load, before printing it off and committing stock Spanish phrases to memory, hoping once again to bump into her, but never, ever managing it.

  ‘Fate!’ he’d say. ‘Ah, fate.’

  Now it was all about Poland. He gorges himself on Z szynka cheese, proclaiming it to be the finest cheese he’s ever tasted, ignoring the fact it’s processed and in little plastic packets and tastes exactly like Dairylea. He buys Krokiety and Krupnik and more cheese, with bright pink synthetic ham pebbledashed across each bland jaundiced slab. Once he bought a beetroot, but he didn’t eat it. Plus, if it’s the end of the day he’ll make sure whatever customer happens to still be there sees him with a couple of Paczki and a goblet of Jezynowka. And once he’s made it obvious enough and they’ve asked what he on earth he’s got in his hands, he’ll say, ‘Oh, they’re brilliant. Haven’t you ever had Paczki?’, and then look all international and pleased with himself for a bit.

  But he’s not doing it to show off. Not really. He’s got a good heart, and I think he thinks he’s being welcoming and informative. It’s still the laziest form of tourism there is, though. No one else I know simply sits there, playing videogames, and waiting for the countries to come to him, with each new wave of what he likes to call the ‘Newbies’. He wants to see the world, he’ll tell you – but he prefers to see it all from the window of his shop.

  Men come from everywhere to shop here. Men trying to recapture their youth, or complete a collection, or find that one game they used to be brilliant at. There’s new stuff, sure – but that’s just to survive. That’s not why people come. And when they do, sometimes they get the Power Up! reference. After that, it’s only a matter of moments before Dev mentions Makoto Uchida, and that’s usually enough to establish his superiority and scare them off, maybe having bought a £2 copy of Decap Attack or Mr Nutz, but probably not.

  Dev sells next to nothing, but next to nothing seems to be just enough. His dad owns a few restaurants on Brick Lane and keeps the basics paid, and what little extra there is keeps Dev in ham-flecked Szazinska, at any rate. Plus he’s been good to me, so I shouldn’t judge him. I lost a girlfriend and a flat but gained a flatmate and virtually no rent in return for a few afternoon shifts and a weekly supply of Krokiety.

  Talking of which ...

  ‘Right, we’ve got Żubr or Żywiec – take your pick!’ said Dev, holding up the bottles. I wasn�
��t sure I could pronounce either of them so pointed at the one with the least letters.

  ‘Or I think I’ve got some Lech somewhere,’ he said, pronouncing it ‘Letch’ and then giggling. Dev knows it’s pronounced ‘Leck’, because he asked Pawel, but he prefers saying ‘Letch’ because it means he can giggle afterwards.

  ‘Żubr is fine,’ I said – something I’d never said before – and he flipped the lid and passed it over.

  I caught sight of myself in the mirror behind him.

  I looked tired.

  Sometimes I look at myself and think, Is this it?, and then I think, Yes, it is. This is literally the best you will ever look. Tomorrow, you will look just a little bit worse, and this is how it will go, for ever. You should definitely buy some Berocca.

  I have the haircut of the mid-thirties man. Until recently, I wore cool, ironic T-shirts, until I realised the real irony was they made me look less cool.

  I’m too old to experiment with my hair, see, but too young to have found the style I’ll take to the grave. You know the one I mean – the one we’re all headed for, if we’re lucky enough to have any left by then. Flat and dulled and sitting on every man in an oversized shirt at an all-inclusive holiday resort breakfast buffet, surrounded by unpleasant children and a passive aggressive wife who have worked together in single-minded unity to quash his ambitions the way they have quashed his hairstyle.

  I say that like I’m any better, or that my ambitions are heroic and worthy. I am a man between styles, is all, and there are millions of me. I’m at that awkward stage between the man of his twenties and the man of his forties. A stage I have come to call ‘the man in his thirties’.

  I sometimes wonder what the caption at the bottom of my Vanity Fair shoot would say, the day I wrote the cover story and they decided to make a big deal of me: