Join Me

by Danny Wallace

  ‘Right,’ I said. ‘I will, then.’

  ‘And that’s what intrigues me about this whole Join Me thing, and kind of why I joined. I did a term at theological college on “Sociology and Religion”, and our lecturer kept banging on about how no one is joining anything any more. That explains why church membership is declining, and why membership of political parties is going down, and so on. So I was interested in what you’re doing, because the sociological theory says that people just will not join you.’

  ‘Well, I fly in the face of that theory,’ I said. ‘But as a vicar, how have people reacted to you joining? I mean, what do they think of a vicar joining something like this? You’re already part of something, after all . . .’

  ‘Essentially, there’s something about Join Me that appeals to my faith as a Christian priest. You know? The Church is not a cult; it’s a collective of Christians who are joining together to spread the word about Jesus Christ and improving people’s lives a little. Maybe Join Me will get there first. But Join Me is also about faith. Faith in one another. Faith and trust in following something you don’t really know completely.’

  I considered Gareth’s words carefully.

  ‘I suppose that makes me some kind of Jesus figure,’ I said.

  Gareth didn’t look too sure about that. I continued anyway.

  ‘But . . . y’know. He’s had a bit of a headstart on me. Two thousand years or so. No wonder he’s so far ahead. You shouldn’t compare us, really.’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘I’m just saying, you shouldn’t.’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘Well, good. Because you shouldn’t.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  Despite his somewhat churlish reluctance to herald me as the new Jesus, Gareth was my kind of vicar. Cool, down-to-earth, and utterly inspiring in that, at the end of the day, he’s just a normal bloke, with no airs, graces or pretentions. The most ordinary people can easily be the most inspiring, and while you couldn’t call Gareth one of the most ordinary, there was certainly something inspiring about him.

  On the way out of the cathedral, though, I spotted a sign that didn’t seem to sit well with Gareth’s more relaxed way of life.

  ATTENTION

  DO NOT PARK ON THE GRASS.

  DO NOT PARK YOUR CAR IN FRONT OF THE CATHEDRAL.

  All very unfriendly. All very old-fashioned. All very stem. I’m not a churchgoer, as you may have guessed, and I suppose it’s partly to do with the attitude I’ve found that the people who run it usually have. I pointed it out to Gareth.

  ‘Yes, I’m replacing that, with something far nicer. I did do a draft the other day actually, in the style of the original. It said:

  ATTENTION

  DO NOT PARK ON THE GRASS.

  DO NOT THROW THE HYMN BOOKS.

  DO NOT PASS WIND.

  DO NOT SHIT ON YOUR PEWS.

  ‘I showed it to the Bishop, but he didn’t seem keen.’

  I really, really liked the Reverend Gareth Saunders.

  * * *

  That night we ate dinner with Jane, and then they taught me how to play Mah Jong. We drank red wine, and ate cheese cake, and laughed. Gareth played me home videos from years back, and I sat on their sofa and stroked their three cats.

  I slept well that night. I’d made a good friend. And I’d had lots of wine too.

  In the morning, Gareth dropped me off at the airport, and we began to say our goodbyes.

  ‘You taught me something vital,’ I said, in a moment that wouldn’t have seemed out of place on Highway To Heaven. ‘About personal contact. I’m going to try and keep that up.’

  ‘Do that,’ said Gareth. ‘I think it’s important. Promise me you’ll meet the next person who says they’ll join you.’

  ‘Sure,’ I said.

  ‘No, actually promise me. There’s a lot of good can come from Join Me. Not just the old man thing, but if you extend it.’

  He was looking at me, deadly serious.

  ‘If you’re honestly going to continue with this, I think it’s important that you visit people. So promise me you will.’

  ‘Okay. I promise.’

  And with that, I climbed out of the car, waved him goodbye, and flew back to London.

  I knew that that had been an important moment for Gareth, and I knew I would carry out his wishes. I would visit the next person who said they’d join me. It would become part of my brief. I’d go anywhere; meet anyone. It was for the good of Join Me.

  I got home to my flat that night and checked my emails.

  I clicked the first one open. It was from someone offering to join me. A girl. A girl with an exotic name.

  I remembered my promise to Gareth.

  But you’ll never guess where she lived . . .

  CHAPTER 11

  16. And Estelle the Parisian was very wroth, and her countenance fell.

  17. And Daniel said unto Estelle, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen?

  18. And Estelle said, Intendest thou not to bless the female stricken in age as thou blesseth the male stricken in age?

  19. And Daniel lowered his eyes and was speechless without all hope of life.

  THE FACT THAT word had spread across the English Channel to France thrilled me beyond belief. And the fact that a chic Parisian girl by the name of Estelle was offering to join me thrilled me even more. And not for the normal reasons being joined by a chic Parisian girl would thrill a boy for.

  I was thrilled because she was my first international joinee. No longer was the collective a hundred per cent British. We were breaking down the boundaries. Reaching into Europe. Becoming a global entity.

  Granted – she’d only offered to join me so far. But that was reason enough to meet her – particularly after my promise to Joinee Saunders – and I was certain that once I’d explained a little more about the scheme, she’d willingly hop on board. So we’d arranged to meet, and two nights later I was clambering off the Eurostar and making my way into the heart of Paris.

  I’d told Hanne with a certain amount of guilt that I had loads of work on, and would have to spend the evening on it, and she’d said that was fine. I hadn’t, strictly speaking, lied. Meeting Estelle would, in some odd, roundabout way, be work, even though it was actually happening in Paris, over a coffee. It’s just that, if there was ever a time to tell Hanne about Join Me, it wasn’t just before meeting a strange French girl in the city of love.

  Now that I had arrived in the French capital, my plan was to entertain myself tonight, then meet Estelle the following day and charge her with the enviable duty of spreading the word of Join Me throughout France. I was sure she’d be only too happy to oblige. In fact, I was sure she’d buy into the whole Join Me concept wholesale. From our brief correspondence, I’d learnt that she was an artist and amateur poet. She’d been told about Join Me by a friend of hers in England (who, incidentally, hadn’t joined), and liked the idea of strangers coming together for a single purpose. Whatever that purpose was. And now that we had a definite purpose, I was keen to tell her more about it, face-to-face. But that was tomorrow.

  I dumped my rucksack at my inordinately grubby hotel, and went out in search of food. This I found at a little restaurant tucked around a comer in the Latin quarter of town and, sated, I wandered around, every so often pausing to look into the window of a bar or restaurant to see happy faces laughing and talking and laughing some more.

  Oddly, all these faces were middle-aged. Where were all the young, hip Parisians? Was this one of those cities where no one bothers to go out before two or three in the morning? I walked down a few more streets, away from the more touristy-looking spots, to see if I could find them, but to no avail.

  Then, down a sidestreet, I passed a tiny, thriving bar. I peered through the window. It was packed with young, cool Parisians – almost intimidatingly young and cool, in fact. But it still appealed more than the cold night air, and so in I went. I attracted a few looks as I walked in, being alone as
I was, but I strode confidently up to the bar, not making eye contact with any of the people I sensed were studying me.

  I stood at the bar and immediately saw that there were no beer pumps. No problem. I’d go for wine.

  ‘Vin blanc, s ‘il vous plaît,’ I tried.

  The barman, who appeared no older than 18, looked at me with confusion in his eyes. Maybe it was my accent.

  ‘A glass of white wine, please,’

  ‘Er . . . je . . .’ He trailed off and shrugged.

  ‘Vin?’ I tried. Come on, this was France. They’ve definitely got wine here. I’ve seen it on programmes. I persisted.

  ‘Vin? Wine?’

  The barman picked up a laminated menu and showed it to me.

  ‘Only this,’ he said. ‘Only this.’

  It was a cocktail menu. Well, that was fine. I studied the list, but didn’t recognise even one of the cocktails. They were all named after things that were familiar, though, like Asterix, and Pocahontas, and Goofy, but I’d never had them, and I couldn’t read what was in them because it was all in French. So I decided to just order anything and try my luck.

  ‘Snoopy,’ I said.

  ‘Okay,’ said the barman. ‘Snoopy.’

  And he began to make me a Snoopy. And while he did, I looked at the decor behind him. It was all a bit odd. There were lots of small toys and models decorating the shelves. A large plasma screen in the corner showed strange Japanese cartoons. There was a coat rack with people’s names written above the coats in childish scrawl. On the bar was a bucket of lollipops. It all reminded me of being at primary school.

  I turned around and looked at my fellow drinkers, and was horrified to see that they all looked like children. Not little children, but not proper grown-ups, either. What kind of bar was this? Everyone appeared to be about 16. I was undoubtedly the oldest person in the entire bar, by some margin.

  I turned back to the bar to see that the barman had finished mixing my Snoopy. But rather than putting it in a glass . . . he’d . . . my God. What had he done?

  This man had poured my drink into a baby bottle. A baby bottle complete with sterilised teat. And was now looking at me expectantly. He was expecting me to start sucking down my cocktail like a baby.

  ‘What the hell is that?’ I demanded. Was he taking the piss? Was the Snoopy regarded as the most childish of drinks? Was he saying I was a baby for ordering it?

  ‘Snoopy,’ he said, pointing at the strange blue drink in its strange transparent bottle.

  ‘Yes, it may well be a Snoopy,’ I said, outraged. ‘But what the hell have you put it in? Why have you put it in a bloody baby bottle?’

  He looked frightened now, like I was about to strike out at him. It was probably the first time in ages he’d been scolded by an adult. It was probably the first time in ages he’d even seen an adult. He pointed at the toys around the bar, then at my fellow drinkers.

  I turned round and noticed what I had failed to notice the first time. Everyone in the entire bar was drinking their cocktails out of baby bottles. I was shocked. What kind of place was this? It must have been some kind of fad bar, but if it was, it was a fad that’s yet to hit London.

  Embarrassed at my outburst, and even more so by my cocktail, I sat, cheeks burning, at a table. The youths at the table next to mine started to sing ‘Happy Birthday’, and it became shamefully clear that I’d gatecrashed someone’s seventeenth birthday party. It was horrible.

  I tried to suck away discreetly at my drink – which turned out to be disappointingly non-alcoholic – but, being someone who has in the past struggled and failed to even give a hickey, I am sorry to report that drinking that Snoopy out of a rubber teat was extremely slow-going. Mind you, it wasn’t a bad cocktail. I dare say that if my mother’s milk had tasted like a Snoopy, I might still be breastfeeding to this day.

  Needless to say, I wasn’t going to stay for more than one, and stood up and paid as soon as I’d made decent headway into my drink. I needed the toilet before I went, but decided against it, given that what with their chosen theme and decor, they would probably have replaced the toilets with potties, and upon trying to leave I would doubtless be stopped by a stern-looking woman who’d demand to inspect me to make sure I hadn’t got any down my trousers.

  I went home, went to the toilet, and went to bed.

  * * *

  Now, if I were a proper travel writer, I would tell you that that I spent my time before meeting Estelle discovering unseen parts of Paris, and strayed from the tourist trail, and discovered unique and original and delightful things. But I’m not a proper travel writer. I’m a bloke. So I went to the Eiffel Tower and had a shufty about.

  I’d be meeting prospective Joinee Estelle in a couple of hours, so to kill time I just stood, staring, at the giant steel tower. It was once, at 300 metres high, the tallest building in the world. Nowadays, some hats are bigger and more impressive. But it’s the feeling of being near the Eiffel Tower that marks it out as special. I love the fact that places like this bring together tourists from every part of the world. So special and iconic is it that on any given day there will be people from every corner of the earth drawn to it. People stand in queues next to other people who logistically and by rights they should never even have seen, let alone stood next to. It’s only at times like this that a family from a village in Italy can meet a family from some town outside Yokohama without it seeming even slightly extraordinary to anyone that they should have crossed paths. No one treats it as special, or in fact with any degree of interest at all, but I love it. Landmarks bring the world together.

  And that’s when it hit me – a place like this is precisely where I should be spreading the word of Join Me. Landmarks!

  This was brilliant. I’d been excited enough to get a French person interested in Join Me. But this place attracted people from all over the world. Germans, Italians, Dutch, Finns, Danes, Swedes, Japanese, Chinese, Americans, the lot! I’d get my 1000 joinees in no time here!

  I knew what I had to do. I had to send them a message. Get them intrigued. I needed some paper and a pen.

  I dashed to the gift shop under the tower. They had no paper, nor any suitable pens, but I bought a large print of the Eiffel Tower for 3 euros simply because its reverse side was white and blank. Now all I needed was a pen. Souvenir Eiffel Tower biros were too thin, and there were no stationery shops for miles, so I asked the lady behind the counter whether I could buy some lipstick off her. She must have thought it was a rather strange request, like I was late for a transvestite’s ball or something, and she smiled politely and said she didn’t have any. But sensing my disappointment, she pulled out an eyeliner from her handbag.

  ‘Would you like this?’

  It was perfect. I thanked her, and handed her a couple of euros, then found myself a bench. I sat down and thought about what to write. JOIN ME. There. That would do.

  And so I sat, on the bench, holding my sign, waiting for people to approach me. No one did. In fact, all of a sudden, no one wanted to come anywhere near me. My sign seemed to be having the reverse effect from the one it was designed for. People were sitting on other benches, mind you – it was just that for some reason my bench didn’t seem quite so appealing any more. So I moved. I didn’t want to be sitting on an unappealing bench, after all. But still no one came up to have a chat.

  No one, that is, until a lone Chinese girl with a huge pink rucksack approached me with great caution.

  ‘What does this mean, please?’ she said.

  ‘I’m trying to get people together,’ I said. ‘Trying to create a kind of club.’

  ‘What kind of club?’ she said.

  ‘One based on good deeds, I think,’ I said.

  ‘No,’ she said, and walked off.

  Well, at least I’d talked to someone. That was progress of sorts.

  I decided, however, that maybe I just wasn’t being specific enough. Maybe that was why people weren’t coming up to me. I had to appeal to certain groups, ra
ther than just to a vague mass of people.

  So I bought another picture of the Eiffel Tower, and wrote on it:

  JOIN MOI

  THE FRENCH

  I thought they’d appreciate the effort I’d gone to, to speak their language. I stood, holding my sign, in the square directly beneath the Eiffel Tower. And then the heavens opened, the rain lashed down, and everyone ran for cover. I gave it a minute, ditched my sign, and then ran for cover with them.

  Bugger.

  * * *

  Prospective Joinee Estelle and I were to meet near the Pantheon, on Rue Soufflot, in a small café she couldn’t remember the name of but which I’d apparently recognise by its orange and brown facade. At quarter to two I was sitting, ready, by the window of the café, watching people running by outside, umbrellas obscuring their faces, free hands tucked up in waterproof pockets. Estelle was late, but it didn’t matter. The rain was doubtless to blame, and I was happy enough, with a hot chocolate in front of me and the warm light of the café.

  A group of Americans sat down at a table behind me and began to talk about their day, loudly and with the confidence of people who think no one else in the country can possibly understand them. They weren’t particularly impressed with Paris. Or the food. Or the French. The croissants weren’t as good as the ones you get in America, it seems. Nor the wine. I imagine you probably also got better French people over there. You certainly get better Americans.

  I swirled the last of my hot chocolate around the bottom of the cup and looked up to see a girl walk into the café. She had a fake-fur-rimmed parka much like mine, and long, wet brown hair. Her face had the unmistakable pout of the Gallic. I raised my eyebrows at her and she said ‘ah!’, and walked towards me.

  ‘I am late,’ she said, shaking my hand and taking a seat.

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ I said. ‘Thanks for coming!’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, looking around the café distractedly, as if she was still looking for the person she was supposed to be meeting.