I checked and re-checked my email every five or ten minutes, hoping that Sam would reply . . . but nothing. Nothing for hours. I found myself unable to leave the flat. Always connecting to the Internet. Always hitting ‘Send & Receive’. Always making cups of tea in the hope that if I didn’t look at my computer for the five minutes it takes to brew up, the name Sam De Graeve would once again magically appear in my inbox. Always hoping that the next mail would be the one confirming that his message hadn’t been written in a moment of madness.
I started to worry that Sam was regretting his offer. Perhaps he’d just been carried away after listening to an enthusiastic friend. Or maybe he was an imposter. A joker. Perhaps he was a mental. Or what if he’d been drunk when he wrote it? I checked what time it had been sent. 9.17 am, Belgian time. The Belgians like a beer, but surely not that early in the morning? Mind you, this man worked in television. A lot of late nights. A lot of post-show drinks. I mean, maybe he really had drunk a little too much after yet another award-winning edition of De Laatste Show. Maybe Roger Moore had suggested going on to a nightclub, and Joanna Lumley had said, ‘Sod that, I’ve got a bottle of vodka in my room,’ and they’d all gone back there and polished that off, and then Tom Jones had arrived and said, ‘I’ve found some drugs from the 60s in my pocket,’ and Sam had just been carried away with the whole crazy vibe of the thing, and then there was a knock at the door and it was someone like Tom Selleck, who was in Belgium to promote a new kind of moustache or something and was on the next night’s show, and he’d turned up late and said ‘Hey Jo, Tommo, I’ve heard about this thing called Join Me, it sounds brilliant and I might write a Hawaii-based detective series about it, and Sam had said, ‘Yeah, my friend Geert was on about that,’ and Roger said, ‘You should get the bloke behind it on the show,’ and Sam had said, ‘Okay Roger, I’ll email him in a minute,’ and now he was sitting at his desk in a TV studio in Belgium wondering how on earth to tell me he’d changed his mind, and then I received his reply.
Danny,
Great! How about Thursday? We have a slot free then, but after that not for quite a while. If you are planning to come to Belgium, tell us where to pick you up from in Brussels and we come to get you at 17. OOh. You are very welcome. I look forward to your visit very much. Also, I have been looking at the Join Me website and I like the song very much!
Sam
Argh. Thursday. The night I was supposed to be spending meeting Hanne’s new and impressive friends. It was important to her, that much I knew. But could I really afford to turn down an opportunity like this? This would take some consideration. I did what I always do in situations like this – I tried to imagine what Roger Moore would do. But clearly, I’d already been given the answer. He’d appear on De Laatste Show. That was all the guidance I needed, because I realised there and then that if I analysed it too deeply, I’d start to feel guilty. If I started to feel guilty, I wouldn’t go to Belgium. And my gut was telling me that Belgium could be very, very good indeed. Plus, it’s at times like this that you, as a reader, have to be thankful that idiots like me make their lives difficult for themselves. If they didn’t, you’d now be reading a chapter about going to a small restaurant in Finchley to meet a teacher call Anna (hobbies: anagrams, riddles and wordplay), a trainee investment banker called Anders (travel, wine, taekwondo), a designer called Mike (cycling, rivers and, by the look of the photo Hanne showed me, pies) and all manner of other people with all manner of other hobbies, who would all, when I finally met them months later, turn out to be perfectly pleasant and lovely and nice, but not quite as attractive to me as Belgium.
I immediately jumped online and bought a very cheap ticket to Brussels, and an even cheaper hotel to stay in once there. I was going now, whatever happened. I would fly there on Thursday afternoon, do the show, and return not on Friday, but early on Saturday morning . . . because I’d had an idea. Quite a good one. Imagine what I could do with a whole day in Brussels. Especially if I’d had television exposure the night before. I hatched a plan. I would go on to the chat show, and then extend an invitation to the Belgian people to join me. I’d choose a place in the middle of town, and then tell them to meet me there the next day. For a moment, I felt quite sure that the entire population of Belgium would turn up, passport photos in hand, in order to join me – and all thanks to the all-powerful influence of television. I would conquer Brussels, the city at the heart of Europe, and then surely it wouldn’t be long before the rest of the EU would crumble and follow suit.
But obviously, I had some excuses to make, Hanne-wise. It was now Wednesday. How could I get out of the dinner on Thursday? I’d left it late to cancel, but only because I really hadn’t been expecting to be offered a spot on one of the most popular shows on Flemish TV. There was only one thing for it. I would have to be ill.
I phoned Hanne.
‘Hanne, I’m ill.’
‘What?’
‘I’m ill.’
‘You don’t sound ill,’
‘That must be part of the symptoms or something.’
‘You’ll be okay for Thursday, though, won’t you?’
‘Let’s cross our fingers, but it’s not looking good.’
‘But I’ve just had an email from you saying you’ll be there!’
‘It’s only come on in the last ten minutes. Listen to this . . .’
I attempted to cough a little. It sounded rubbish.
‘Danny, you’ve got to come on Thursday. I can’t be there with those people on my own.’
‘But I thought they were your friends?’
‘No – I’m only going because Cecilie wants me to be there. They’re her friends, not mine.’
‘Why didn’t you say that before?’
‘Because I thought you wouldn’t come.’
Treachery!
‘So you’d force an ill man to go to a boring dinner with people he doesn’t know just because a friend of yours wants you there?’
Nice reversal of guilt, I thought.
‘I’m sorry, Danny. I should have been honest.’
‘That’s what a relationship is all about, Hanne,’ I said, making myself cringe. ‘We have to learn to trust. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go and blow my nose and be sick or something.’
Yes. I felt guilty. But needs must. At least now I could crack on with things. I knew that I had to make the most of my trip to Belgium. I couldn’t claim to be ill again. Hanne would be sure to notice, and might make me go to a doctor who’d want me to take my shirt off and put cold things up me. I had to make this count. And to make it count, I’d need the help of the media. I had a plan; I just needed an outlet. I found the name of the biggest Belgian paper I could – De Standaard – and gave them a ring. I spoke to a reporter called Frank.
‘Yes, I see, but why did these people join you?’ he said. ‘I really don’t understand . . .’
‘They joined me just because they wanted to.’
‘I really don’t understand at all. They joined you just because you asked them to join you?’
‘That’s right.’
‘But why? Why do they join?’
‘Because they want to. Because they’re good people.’
‘I don’t understand. This is stupid. I don’t understand.’
‘Will you write an article?’
‘I think I had better.’
I explained the work of the Karma Army to Frank, and then told him my next plan – to initiate a meet-up of potential joinees, somewhere in the heart of Brussels. Frank suggested that outside the town hall would be good, but that ‘I still don’t understand this at all’. I told him it didn’t matter – and if he helped bring me Belgians I’d consider him an honorary joinee. This seemed to make him happy, although I’m sure, when he thought about it later, he wouldn’t understand why.
‘Listen,’ said Frank. ‘What about a photo? Could you email one over? We go to press very soon and we need to get this into tomorrow’s paper if the appeal is to work pr
operly.’
I am afraid that I neglected to mention that throughout this conversation I was still wearing nothing except for my boxer shorts. It’s hot in my flat sometimes. Anyway, I ran to my bedroom, pulled a shirt on, set my digital camera up on a suitable shelf, and took a picture of myself, pointing at the lens, and holding up a sign saying ‘JOIN ME, BELGIANS’. I emailed it straight off to Frank and then set about packing for my trip.
Thursday morning, and I was up bright and early and ready for action. My cab to the airport arrived on time, I checked in with no problems whatsoever, and I was at my gate in good time for boarding.
I apologise. I feel I’ve let you down somehow with my tales of reasonable and efficient travel. I’m sure if I’d been Bill Bryson my taxi driver would have told me a funny story, or something. I’m afraid mine simply listened to BBC London and was outraged by everything the presenter was saying. He did spit when he talked, though, if that’s any use to you.
But this might make up for my shortcomings: I couldn’t help but notice that the lady in the opposite aisle of the plane to me was looking at me slightly oddly. Only slightly oddly, mind. Every few seconds she would lean forward very gently and cast me a curious sideways glance. At first I’d thought she was trying to take a look out of my window, but no, we were definitely making eye contact.
And then I noticed what she was reading. In her hands was a copy of De Standaard. Of course! The Join Me story was in that! They’d have brought that morning’s papers over on the first flight of the day, in order to keep returning Belgians happy. And they must have printed the picture – how else would the lady have recognised me? I stopped one of the cabin crew as they shimmied by and asked for a copy of De Standaard. Dutifully, they brought me one and I turned the pages until I saw myself staring back at me, under the headline:
KARMA ARMY RONSELT LEDEN OM GOED TE DOEN
No, I didn’t understand, either. But embarrassingly, I was still wearing the same shirt as I had on in the picture. I’d just pulled it on again that morning, and, consequently, I must have now looked like nothing more than some kind of filthy cult leader. But it was quite a distinctive shirt, which must have been what alerted the lady opposite. I looked over at her and did the same pointing gesture as I was doing in the picture. ‘Join Me’, I mouthed, and smiled. I’d expected her to smile back, to be honest, but she didn’t. She just looked at her companion, and back at me, horrified. What had Frank written? I couldn’t make head nor tail of it, but I hoped he hadn’t described me as some kind of odd-shirted, pointing murderer.
‘Excuse me, can I help you?’
The lady’s companion, a biggish man in his early thirties, was speaking to me.
‘Er, no, I was just saying “Join Me”.’
‘And you were pointing at my mother. What did you want?’
‘Nothing. I was just pointing.’
‘And saying “Join Me”.’
‘Yes.’ I looked to the man’s mother, hoping that she would fill in the gaps in the story. Surely she’d have to now mention the fact that she’d just read about me in her paper? She didn’t.
‘And why did you do those things?’
I tried to think of an excuse. My mind went blank.
‘I ask you again: why did you do these things?’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, before, absolutely inexplicably, ‘My leg hurts.’
I turned away, and stared at the seat in front of me. I was going bright red. What the hell had I just said? My leg hurts?! Why had that popped out? Why had I thought that there was any way in which that could come across as a valid excuse? Why couldn’t I have just told him about the newspaper article? I could have come up with any number of believable excuses to get me out of a potentially embarrassing situation like that, and I’d chosen ‘my leg hurts’.
The man and woman said nothing, and I continued to stare straight in front of me, my cheeks burning. I noticed the man in the seat right next to mine bristle with embarrassment as he glowered intently at his book.
‘Sorry,’ I whispered, as much to myself as to him.
He said nothing, not wanting to be connected to me in any possible way.
I remained silent and well-behaved throughout the rest of the short flight, not looking over at that troublemaking old woman even once. I didn’t know what her problem was. What had she been playing at? I waited for everyone else to get up at the end, so that I could be the last to leave, and could do so relatively unseen. Why hadn’t she spoken up? Why had she denied all knowledge of me? I found out as I reached to get my rucksack out of the overhead locker. I looked down to where she’d been sitting and went bright red again.
She’d been reading the previous day’s Standaard.
* * *
I walked out of Brussels airport and immediately set about finding a cab. This I did, and thirty minutes later I was checking into my hotel. A shower, a change of shirt, a cup of tea and five minutes in which I did absolutely nothing later and I was waiting in the lobby to be picked up by someone from De Laatste Show. It was Annalies who turned up; six foot two of blonde Belgian student, a work experience girl driving around Brussels in her mum’s silver Mercedes picking up the guests for that night’s show.
I’d been mentally running through what on earth I was going to say when she’d walked in to collect me. I didn’t really know how the people at the show were going to play this whole interview thing, but hey – it was an adventure, and a spur-of-the-moment one at that. Annalies took me out to the car park and pointed her keys at the Merc, which chunk-chunked and beep-beeped as it unlocked itself.
‘I would now like to ask you something,’ she said, as we clambered in. I like it when people announce what they’re about to do.
‘Go on, then.’
‘I was wondering . . . before we set off for the studio, would you like some cake?’
This was television. Surely she meant some coke? They can’t be so clean living in Belgium that even the television executives choose to snort Battenburg?
‘Er . . . I’m okay for cake, I think.’
She looked disappointed.
‘Because it’s my last day on the show, and my mother has baked a cake which I will share with everyone. Would you like some of it?’
‘Um . . . what kind of cake is it?’
‘It is made from eggs.’
‘An egg cake? Um . . . okay.’
Annalies, happier now, reached into the back seat of the car and pulled out a neatly sliced, bright yellow cake, lovingly wrapped in cling film and with a small golden ribbon Sellotaped to the top of it. I took a sliver, and we sat in the parking lot of the hotel eating our bits of cake in silence and staring straight ahead of us.
‘Okay,’ said Annalies, flicking a solitary crumb off her leg. ‘Now we have had our cake, we can go.’
‘Cool,’ I said, as she revved up the car and nearly backed into the one behind it. ‘So who else is on the show tonight?’
‘Let me think,’ she said. ‘Tonight there is the national Minister for Culture . . . and one of our biggest football stars, who yesterday let in six goals and so is not very happy . . .’
I took it these weren’t the same man.
‘We also have a comedian from Holland, and a senior editor from De Standaard, the newspaper.’
‘Oh. I was in that, today.’
‘Yes. You were.’
I waited for her to continue, but she chose instead to throw me a concerned glance. She’d obviously read the article.
We rode on in silence.
* * *
‘Danny, I’m Sam, come in . . .’ Sam said to me, asking me to come in. Which I think you may have already got from what he said, but it’s best to make sure you understand, what with his accent and everything.
‘Everybody, this is Danny Wallace from the UK.’
I had now arrived at the studios of TV1, a neat grey concrete box at the end of a clean suburban street, and had been offered beer, sandwiches, a chair and a tour in the
time it took me to take my jacket off and blink a couple of times.
Sam De Graeve, a friendly-faced man in a rollneck top and combat trousers, cracked open a bottle of water and sat himself down next to me.
‘I’m a big fan of Britain,’ he said. ‘I’ve been there often. Once, I hitchhiked across the country. It was only in Milton Keynes that no one stopped to pick me up.’
‘Really? But you got out eventually?’
‘Yes. But strange people there. We were there for a day and a half.’
‘Blimey. Not even the people who live there stay longer than that.’
Sam nodded, and glanced downwards. These were obviously painful memories for him.
‘Now, you know who else is on the show tonight?’
‘Yes. A politician, a depressed footballer, a comic and a newspaper editor.’
‘He only edits a newspaper, not a comic too.’
‘No, I mean a comic, like a comedian.’
‘That’s right. I am joking with you! Now, you’re the first guest on, because we have to have technical time to get you subtitled.’
‘I’m going to be subtitled?’
‘Yes. The show goes out a couple of hours after we record it, and we need to make sure the Flemish people can understand you. Anyway, you are on first, and you will walk on to the stage while the house band plays some appropriate music.’
I made a mental bet with myself that it would be ‘Danny Boy’.
‘And then Bruno, the host, will shake your hand, and you will both sit down and talk for maybe ten or fifteen minutes about this whole Join Me thing. Hopefully, there will be some applause at the end, and that’s you finished.’
‘Great. Where’s Bruno?’
Bruno Wyndaele had been described to me as the Belgian Terry Wogan, which is quite a terrifying thought, but one that was thankfully far less terrifying in the flesh. Inordinately tall and with the look of a consumer affairs presenter about him, he had a reassuring smile and a firm, manly handshake. And that’s about all I got out of him. He was a busy bloke, and had to prepare for the show, so we talked for maybe five seconds before he was ushered out of the room by a Belgian, and into make-up. I, meanwhile, was left to talk very slowly and carefully with the Belgian Minister for Culture, who told me he’d once been a boxer and later in life hadn’t been allowed to join the priesthood. I told him I used to work at Argos and was now a kind of cult leader. He didn’t say much after that. The depressed footballer sat in the corner of the green room, on his own, looking for all the world like a depressed footballer. His team had indeed lost 6-0 the day before and, as the goalkeeper, I assume he felt somewhat responsible. We swapped a smile, and then he went back to staring into his drink.
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