Join Me

by Danny Wallace

  ‘Danny? You’re on.’

  I was marched downstairs, through a maze of corridors, past a lady sitting in the subtitling room (whom I wished good luck) and round the back of the studio where I waited, behind a black curtain, and studied the monitor to await my introduction. Predictably, it was in Flemish, and I had to wait until I was prodded in the back by the floor manager before I walked on stage to the applause of about fifty Belgians and the sight of big old Bruno Wyndaele. All my concentration had been on connecting my hand with his and carrying out a proper handshake. It wasn’t until I was sitting down that I remembered to listen out for the appropriate music the house band was playing. And I was amazed.

  You gotta Join . . . Join Danny . . .

  You gotta Join . . . Join Danny . . .

  Smoke a joint . . . Join Danny . . .

  You gotta Join . . . Join Danny . . .

  ‘Cos tonight we’re gonna party like it’s 1983 . . .

  The band had learnt the official Join Me song!

  Fair enough, they’d changed part of the lyrics to suit their rock ’n’ roll image, but still . . . I was impressed. And touched. They’d downloaded it from the Join Me website and set about learning, practising and adapting it for their own house band stylings. What would Joinees Wayne and Christopher think when I told them the work we’d completed in their Middlesex spare bedroom was now being enjoyed by millions of toe-tapping Belgians? The lead singer looked over at me proudly as the guitarist put the final improvised flourishes on the end of the song and the drummer finished with a crash-bang of the cymbals, and before I could say anything, Bruno exclaimed: ‘It’s your Join Me song!’

  He was evidently just as proud of the performance as the band.

  ‘It certainly is,’ I said. ‘And played beautifully . . .’

  ‘Join Danny . . . so what does it actually mean, this Join Me?’

  It was my first question. My first question on international television. I decided to play it vague.

  ‘Just what it says. I want people to join me.’

  ‘But for what?’

  Be mysterious, Danny. They love that, the chat show hosts.

  ‘Well, we can discuss that when we’ve all joined together.’

  I saw a look of blind panic in Bruno’s eyes. Was this all he was going to get out of me? Was he going to have to spend ten minutes asking the same question and receiving incredibly vague and non-specific answers in reply? No, of course he wasn’t. I’m British, and I’ve been brought up properly.

  And so I set about telling Bruno, and the assembled crowd, and the people of Belgium, all about Join Me. Bruno seemed entertained, but that was because he spoke perfect English. I started to worry about the people at home.

  ‘Am I speaking too quickly, by the way?’ I asked. ‘Because I walked past the subtitling room on the way here. This will have subtitles, won’t it?’

  ‘Yes, it will,’

  ‘Because I was thinking, maybe I should just start making up words . . . so that the people next door go “what the hell is he saying?” and have to get a dictionary out . . .’

  Bruno laughed.

  ‘But I won’t do that.’

  ‘No,’ said Bruno.

  ‘That would be lebstromonous of me.’

  Phew. I’d got a big laugh out of the audience. And I’d confused at least four of them, who each leant to the person next to them in order to ask what ‘lebstromonous’ meant. But now I’d gained their trust, so I could tell them about the small ad. About Joinee Jones. About the Karma Army. And about Good Fridays. Bruno asked about international joinees. About good deeds. About making old men happy.

  ‘So it’s like the boy scouts?’ he asked.

  ‘I s’pose so. But more grown up. More like the man scouts.’

  Bruno nodded thoughtfully. I felt sure that I was getting through to him, and getting through to the audience, too. I felt sure that some of them would be joining me by the end of the interview.

  ‘All I require for someone to join me properly is a passport photo, and tomorrow, at 6pm, I’ll be standing outside the town hall, in the Grand Place, in Brussels, holding a small sign, saying “Join Me Belgians”.’

  ‘Right . . .’

  ‘And if any Belgians do wish to join me, all they have to do is turn up. It’ll be lovely.’

  ‘And how many do you want to turn up tomorrow?’

  ‘I’d be happy if even one Belgian turned up to join me. Even just one. And I’ll buy them a beer.’

  I suddenly realised what I’d said. Beer could be expensive in Brussels.

  ‘But if a million turn up, they can buy their own.’

  ‘Well, Danny, I wish you the best of luck with your movement. And I wish you all the best for tomorrow, when you will be standing, very lonely, outside the town hall . . .’

  ‘I’m well aware it might just be me and you, Bruno. But thanks.’

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen: Danny Wallace!’

  We shook hands, I smiled at the applauding audience, the band struck up and before I knew what was happening, my spotlight had disappeared, the cameramen had run off and Bruno was sitting down on a sofa in order to counsel the suicidal footballer. The floor manager whisked me backstage where I was picked up by someone else and taken back to the green room. I felt good, though. It had been a successful appeal, and I sat down with the others and opened a can of beer. The Minister for Culture regarded me with a look of deep suspicion, and I was tapped on the shoulder by a tall man with glasses.

  ‘Hi. I enjoyed your interview very much. I think you will get some success from that. I’m Peter from De Standaard. You were in my paper today. But I must apologise to you. I’m afraid we got some of the facts wrong.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Never mind. It was in Dutch so I couldn’t understand it anyway.’

  ‘I’m afraid we said you had tens of thousands of followers from all over the globe.’

  Tens of thousands? Well, it was an exaggeration, but that was fine by me. It could be that the Belgians might be hard to win over. Maybe thinking tens of thousands of people had already joined me would be a good thing. And if Peter thought I’d achieve some degree of success from the appeal, I was ready to believe him, because once again, he was in a position of authority and slightly taller than me. It works every time. My trust was his. It really is lucky I’m not a midget, or I’d probably be serving time by now.

  The show finished half an hour later and I got my stuff together. Annalies would be driving me back into town.

  ‘I have another cake in the car if you’re interested,’ she said. And I was. I suddenly realised how hungry I’d become and asked Annalies to drive me to any street in Brussels where the food was good. It soon became apparent that any street in Brussels at all would fit the bill.

  Annalies only let me out of the car when I’d taken yet another piece of cake, and I ambled around until I found a restaurant called Bonsoir Clara, on rue Antoine Dansaert – an achingly stylish place on an achingly trendy street; an experience spoiled only by the fact that I’d had to leap over a suspicious stream which started rather near the trouser leg of an unconscious drunk outside a furniture shop. But inside, it was all zinc-top tables, moody lighting and huge 70s mirrors on every wall. I decided to treat myself to an expensive meal. The finest steak and chips in all of Belgium. It arrived, and it was excellent. This was the life. Here I was, making waves in Europe, enjoying a fine meal, relaxing nicely. But I did feel a pang of guilt. Right now, in Finchley, North London, Hanne would be sitting, without her boy-friend, at a table in a restaurant with a load of people she didn’t really want to be with. And where was her boyfriend? Secretly on telly in Belgium. I sighed, and knew I should just come clean with her. Ian was right. I should just tell her. She wouldn’t mind. She might even think it was fun. And positive. What if she joined me? What a team we’d make. We’d be here together, enjoying Belgian frites and buying each other posh chocolates. But the problem was, I’d already messed up. I’d kept it a secret
all this time. That alone would anger her.

  Back at the hotel, I fiddled with my television until I found TV1 and waited until I was sure De Laatste Show was going out. To be honest, I knew it would be. It would have been a hell of an elaborate practical joke for someone to pull on me, what with the whole setting-up-an-entire-Belgian-TV-station aspect to it, but with my friends, you can never be completely sure. The show started, and there I was, subtitles and all. I started to feel sleepy. It had been a long day, with one thing and another, and the next day promised to be even longer. I watched the rest of the interview, knocked my light off and fell asleep more or less straight away.

  But I was woken, two or three hours later, in the wee small hours, by what sounded like a mouse scratching at my door. I sat up, reached for my glasses, knocked a bottle of water over, and found the light switch. In slightly odd hotel practice, the people at the Ibis had decided that now was the right moment to slip the bill under my door. I waddled over to pick it up and opened the envelope.

  But it wasn’t the bill.

  It was a passport photo.

  I recognised the face. It was the receptionist who’d checked me in that afternoon. She’d obviously been watching the show downstairs and then looked up which room I was staying in. There was a short handwritten note:

  Hello Danny.

  I found your idee very good. I would be happy to join you!

  Greetz,

  Anya

  I had my first Belgian joinee!

  I opened the door and peered out. The corridor was empty. Anya had scarpered.

  I closed the door, clambered back into bed, and went back to sleep with a huge grin on my big, stupid face. I was happy.

  * * *

  I awoke in the morning with a huge grin on my big, stupid face. I was happy.

  I switched my phone on. There was a text message from Hanne. ‘HOW ARE YOU FEELING? X’. I replied, ‘BIT GROGGY. TALK IN A BIT.’ I felt bad about this. But, for now, at least, this was how it had to be. Especially now I’d told her I was ill, rather than in Belgium. It’s not easy to mix those two up. I couldn’t exactly claim she’d misheard me. ‘What? You thought I said I was ill? No, no, no . . . I said I had to go to Belgium to be on the telly!’ If I came clean now, I had no doubts Hanne would consider finishing with me. I’d lied, and, perhaps worse, I’d started devoting most of my free time to complete and utter strangers.

  I looked at my watch. It was 9am, and I had the city to see. I already knew a little about Belgium and the Belgians. They like their chocolate. And their lace. And . . . that’s about it. Whether they’re happy with it or not, the Belgians do have to live with the fact that their European neighbours regard them as . . . well . . . a little on the dull side.

  But what I saw of the city in just one morning was enough to convince me otherwise. Never have I seen a city bustle quite so convincingly. People everywhere. Constant chatter. And it soon became clear that the best way to get around would be to walk. The trams were tempting, but only because I’m a boy and therefore quite like the look of trams. The city is so compact, though, that it’s possible to get anywhere you need to with nothing above the stress you’d associate with the words ‘a gentle stroll’. I therefore found myself strolling gently through streets teeming with restaurants and over-eager restauranteurs, past buildings of undeniable splendour and only round the corner from streets of undeniable poverty, drinking hot chocolate at cafés on small town squares, and finding things I really didn’t need at a shouty, sprawling flea market.

  It was there that I picked up an ancient photo album, lodged deep down in the bottom of a rain-spattered cardboard box. I turned the first, stiff page and found photo after photo, carefully and lovingly arranged and annotated by whatever member of the family took care of such things. I was mesmerised. Each photo was from 1922, and it was like watching the seasons change with each turn of a page. There they were in the garden, each striking the kind of mannered pose I suppose people must have taken when cameras were expensive and film a considerable luxury. There was dad, smoking a pipe in the doorway, looking proudly at his daughter, reading a book on the good chair. There they all were at the beach – the girls sitting in their bathing suits in front of the changing chalet, the men standing behind them, hats on, chests puffed out. I began to get to know the characters. The thoughtful girl, always sitting, always reading. The mother, never pictured alone, but always on the edge of laughing when around her friends. A man with a consistently odd posture, who it’d be safe to say was probably the weird uncle of the family. And picture after picture of a podgy girl in a variety of glamorous poses I can only assume must have been considered attractive eighty years ago. I was fascinated by each picture, each pose, each look on each person’s face. They’d be long gone now, each of them, and it was a strangely sad moment for me. This was a book full of memories, but with no one left to remember them. Fair enough, there were no events that stood out as incredibly important. No births, no marriages, no anniversaries. But I’m a firm believer that sometimes the most normal, comfortable, unremarkable times are the most special. The only remaining evidence for each of those people’s normal feelings, each of those normal looks and glances, each of those long, happy, normal days was right here in my hands. In those days, you just didn’t order a second set of prints, or ask the lady at Boots if she could put this one of weird uncle Peter onto a mug or coaster. You put them in an album which one day, maybe in the next century, would be tatty, and torn, with smudged, inky captions, and capturing the attentions of no one for decades, apart from some bloke from a foreign country who’d find it completely by accident. I felt it was my duty to buy it, and for the rest of the day, I lugged it around in a noisy, pink carrier bag the stallholder picked up off the ground and handed to me.

  From there, I wandered around, trying to find the symbol of Brussels – the Manneken Pis. It wasn’t tough. A large crowd had already gathered around it, somehow organising themself into some sort of order, each person striding up to have their photo taken and, five seconds later, making way for the next stranger who wanted to be pictured in front of what’s essentially a statue of a small boy having a pee. The statue, it’s said, is supposed to represent the ‘irreverent’ nature of the city of Brussels, but to be honest, if having a whizz in the great outdoors is irreverence, then closing time outside my local must be the European centre of irreverence, and you can keep it.

  But the tourists love him – so much so that they were hungrily gobbling up every piece of Mannekin Pis-related tat they could . . . Mannekin Pis thermometers, Mannekin Pis clock radios and even a Mannekin Pis corkscrew, where the corkscrew itself became a bizarre extension of the tiny boy’s winkle. I’m glad I didn’t see that just before bedtime, because a penis that can open bottles is a recipe for nightmares if ever I saw one. I was far happier with my souvenir of Belgium. The album. It represented something much more . . . real. But then, most things are much more real than a tiny Mannekin Pis in a novelty Elvis suit. I picked one up. Absolute rubbish. I was considering this blatant commercialism when I was tap-tapped on the shoulder.

  ‘Excuse me? Are you Danny?’ It was a man in a blue T-shirt. He had a friend with designer stubble with him.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, somewhat taken aback. ‘Er, I wasn’t going to buy this, you know.’

  The man glanced at the tiny Elvis in my hand, and thankfully chose to ignore it.

  ‘I thought it was you, Danny. I saw you on De Laatste Show. It sounds like fun what you are doing, and I wanted to wish you luck with it.’

  ‘Oh. Cheers. Will you be coming along at six?’

  ‘No, we can’t, we’re going to a party.’

  ‘Ah. Well, do you still want to join me?’

  ‘No. We have to go now. Bye.’

  His friend murmured a goodbye, too, and off they went. Two potential joinees. Gone. Of course, they’d never had any intention of joining me. They just wanted to say hello to the man they’d seen on the telly. But I couldn’t help bu
t think it had something to do with what I’d been holding in my hand. I somehow found it in my heart not to snap the thing, and carried on killing time until 6pm, and my appointment at the town hall.

  It was soon upon me. I bought a giant marker pen and piece of A2 paper from an art shop in order to make my sign, and at 5.45pm started to walk to the Grand Place. It was, and is, an extraordinary part of Brussels. I stood right in the middle of the square and turned, slowly, full circle. Once a marshland, later a market, later still the chosen site for public executions, and now . . . well . . . now it’s the most photographed set of buildings in the country. And they’re glorious. I’d been told that, as night falls, a kind of Jean Michelle-Jarre lightshow dominates the square, with the town hall, The Hotel Du Ville, standing proud as the centre of attention. But which one was it? As I started to walk towards the one I’d thought was probably it, a young, slight man with glasses and a neatly trimmed goatee beard stopped me.

  ‘Danny?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I have come to join you!’

  His name was Waldemar and he had travelled 120 kilometres to be here.

  ‘My name is Waldemar and I have travelled 120 kilometres to be here.’