Friends Like These

by Danny Wallace

  Well, apart from me.

  My final lesson took place one rainy Wednesday night. Michael Amodio had inexplicably failed to turn up. I had no partner to practise with. So George took his place. He towered above me, as he lined everyone up to face each other.

  ‘This,’ he said, turning towards me and measuring the distance between us with his arm, ‘is what I want you all to do. The straightforward strike may seem simple, but it is a thing of great power and requires immense discipline and control. Do not simply hit out. Know your move. Feel it before it happens.’

  He took a step back and lowered himself, like a tiger about to pounce.

  ‘And then…’

  He drew his arm back.

  ‘LIKE THE PYTHON!’

  He shot forward with a small scream and punched me straight in the face.

  I span right round, and then fell backwards into the wall.

  There was a confused silence.

  An embarrassed cough from somewhere.

  A forty-year-old man with a handlebar moustache had just started a fight with a small boy.

  ‘Oh,’ said George. ‘We should work on your block.’

  I was on the fourth masala dosa and I was feeling it.

  The pressure to eat them had been great enough in the 1980s. Now, because so many years had passed, and because I’d come all the way from London, the pressure was even greater. I didn’t want to let Mrs Tailor down. But I had just eaten the equivalent of a month’s worth of curry, and there seemed to be no sign of her letting up. The more I ate, the brighter the fire in her eyes became. She was becoming addicted to my eating; determined I should continue. I began to feel slightly afraid. What would snap first? My manners or my belt?

  ‘More on the way!’ she shouted from the kitchen. ‘Keep eating!’

  Anil was keen to talk about the old days and what we should do that afternoon. I was finding it harder to talk. Every bite seemed to fill another area that had never been filled before. I was convinced I now had very fat toes.

  ‘We should take a walk down to the old school,’ said Anil, who, as far as I could tell, was still on his first serving. ‘And then we could walk up and see that old tree – the magic tree!’

  Now, I wanted to see the magic tree again. Contrary to its name, there had been virtually nothing actually magic about it, so far as we could tell. It was just an old tree we used to sit under and read comics. We’d stopped going after being told that the local bully – a terrifying kid called Tez – had bought some rope and hanged a woman off it. We believed every word of that story, despite the fact that Tez was only about twelve at the time and no one else had ever heard anything about it. Either Tez had been an incredibly powerful child with a tight grip on not just the police, but also the local media, or someone had made the whole thing up. Either option seemed hard to believe, so I guess we’ll never know.

  ‘And then we could head into town!’ he said.

  I was trying to respond but with a stomach full of curry my responses were slow. In my head I was simply trying to think of ways to turn another serving down. Wait! I could just put my knife and fork on the plate! In the tried-and-tested position which means ‘I couldn’t possibly eat any more’. That was good – that was polite! I just had to finish this last mouthful off…

  ‘And we need to surprise Mikey…’ he said, and I nodded, now noticing just how much I was sweating. But Christ – what was this?

  I now sensed a presence over my shoulder. No! It was Mrs Tailor! I turned, slightly, and out of the corner of my eye I could see she was holding a pan. A pan with another steaming masala dosa in it. She was getting ready to lunge in with it! It was huge! I couldn’t handle that! I couldn’t handle another!

  I just had to be grown-up about this. I was nearly thirty, for God’s sake! I couldn’t be bullied by a friend’s mother! I had to be strong! I turned to her…

  ‘Mrs Tailor, these have been delicious, but I—’

  ‘ONE MORE!’ she shouted. ‘ONE MORE!’

  I instantly became a frightened child. Mrs Tailor’s voice had gotten much, much louder.

  ‘I’m not sure I—’

  ‘ONE MORE! COME ON!’ she yelled. ‘WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU?’

  I couldn’t believe it. She actually said, ‘WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU?’

  I had to get out of this! This could kill me! What would the doctors tell my parents? ‘It appears your son was 85 per cent curry!’ They’d have to bury me in one of those aluminium containers with the cardboard lids!

  ‘JUST! ONE! MORE!’ she shouted.

  I put my hand up to signal that she had to stop, that this had to end, but I’d inadvertently given Anil’s mother a clear path to my plate… she saw the weakness and darted forward… I tried to stop her but my arm was too slow…

  And then – boom. It was on my plate.

  George had been right. I needed to work on my block.

  Mrs Tailor cackled.

  That’s right – cackled.

  I stared at my fresh plate of curry. If this had been a cartoon, one of my buttons would’ve popped and landed in a fishbowl.

  ‘I’ll get some more going,’ she said, running off to the kitchen.

  I looked Anil straight in the eye.

  ‘The last time I had six masala dosa,’ I said, ‘I was sick in a neighbour’s bin.’

  It seemed to do the trick.

  ‘Mum!’ he shouted. ‘We have to go now! We have to go and surprise Michael Amodio!’

  ‘I am making more!’ she shouted back.

  Anil looked at me and smiled.

  And then he mouthed the words, ‘Peg it!’

  It was exciting, standing outside Michael’s house. He lives on the other side of Loughborough now, near a B&Q, not too far from the station. I realised I’d have felt a little odd being here on my own, turning up out of the blue to say hello to someone I hadn’t seen since I was a kid… but Anil was here. It felt more like a celebration than anything. I tried to think of the last time I’d seen Michael, but I couldn’t remember. There hadn’t been any goodbye, any see-you-soon – I think one day we’d just been playing, the next I’d packed up and gone… but I was suddenly worried. What if he didn’t remember me? What if he didn’t want to see me? But then I reminded myself – all I was doing was updating my address book.

  I turned to Anil.

  ‘Shall I?’ I said.

  He nodded, and leaned back on the Mini.

  I knocked on the door.

  A moment later there was a figure behind the glass.

  The door was unlocked.

  And there stood a man.

  He had Michael Amodio’s face. But he was a man.

  ‘Michael?’ I said.

  ‘Jesus Christ! Come in!’

  Chapter Six

  In which we learn that quite often, the truth is rubbish…

  ‘I’D HAVE CLEANED up if I’d known you were coming round!’ said Michael, bringing three cups of tea into the living room. I was pleased to see he hadn’t changed much. We were surrounded by Xbox discs and Stallone DVDs. ‘And I’d have done something with my hair…’

  He pointed to the side of his head. There was a large patch of hair missing.

  ‘I saw you on telly,’ he said.

  ‘Oh!’ I said.

  ‘You were a bit odd. I suppose you have people to do your hair nowadays, do you?’

  ‘It wouldn’t look like this if I did,’ I said.

  ‘Problem is, I tried to cut my hair last night with an electric razor. It didn’t work quite as well as I’d hoped.’

  I pulled up the sleeve of my shirt and showed him a small, straight burn.

  ‘I noticed my shirt was a bit creased the other day,’ I said. ‘I tried to iron it while I was still wearing it.’

  Michael shook his head.

  ‘It’s tricky being a grown-up, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘You’re just expected to guess your way through. No one teaches you these things at school…’

  It was then
that I realised perhaps we’d have been better off at a special school.

  ‘So how are you?’ he said, his face full of warmth. ‘And what are you doing here?’

  ‘I’m just updating my address book,’ I said, and he pulled an odd face. ‘Also, I gave Anil a call, and he said he was coming to Loughborough, and… well… it just sounded like a good idea…’

  I didn’t tell him about the Box. I didn’t tell him about feeling like I was growing up too fast, stepping into adulthood before I was ready, hoping that finding my roots and revisiting my childhood might let me extend my stay. It was better to keep things innocent for now.

  Michael had been one of my very best friends as a kid. We’d had real fun, me and him. But despite that, he’d always been quite subdued. Quite quiet. Sometimes he’d disappear for a while. But here he was, I thought. Right in front of me.

  Just then someone started to walk down the stairs.

  ‘Danny, this is Nikol, my girlfriend. She’s from the Czech Republic. She’s the girl I’m going to marry… She’s a belly dancer!’

  ‘You’re engaged!’ I said, delighted. ‘To a belly dancer!’

  ‘Well, no, not yet… but one day.’

  Nikol and I shook hands and said hello, and she sat down next to Michael. She had long hair, right down to her waist, and it was obvious she adored him. And Michael had been working out. He’d gone from six-stone weakling to the kind of guy you’d think twice about messing with.

  ‘I’m a chef now, at the university.’

  ‘Loughborough University?’

  The same place we’d all spent our youth creeping on to to try and get chased by security guards! Mikey was now part of the Establishment!

  ‘Do the guards still chase you?’

  ‘Not as much nowadays, if I’m honest. But whenever I see them, I think back to those days. But I’ve not been there long.’

  ‘What did you do before?’

  ‘I was in the army,’ he said. ‘I didn’t enjoy it much.’

  ‘Really?’ I said. ‘The army?’

  It just didn’t seem to fit with the quiet, softly spoken kid I used to hang out with. Michael had been through quite a bit as a child. He’d kept it all in, and just got on with life. His was a sensitive soul. I was surprised at his career choice.

  ‘I enjoyed it for a while. But I ended up injuring my back in training while I was running up a hill. I had to stop training altogether. And that… well… that made me see a different side to the army. You don’t mind being shouted at while you’re training, but then… then it all just got a bit much. And as someone in his midtwenties, I thought, is this really what I want to do with my life?’

  ‘Getting shouted at by burly men?’

  ‘It’s… it’s worse than that,’ he said, and Nikol squeezed his hand. ‘And it’s very difficult to get out of. I’ve seen things I really didn’t want to see… I know things I’d rather not…’

  And then he told me one or two of those things. And trust me: you don’t want to know them either. I felt sad. Getting into your twenties was always about making your own choices, to me. Mikey had nearly lost that power, in one way or the other. But then he brightened up.

  ‘Still, the CS gas was fun.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘They spray it in your face. It’s really funny.’

  ‘Funny?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, with no hint of irony or sarcasm. ‘They spray it in your face and you start coughing and crying, but afterwards it’s hilarious. Everyone’s rolling around in pain, trying not to rub water on their face because that intensifies the pain…’

  ‘It sounds… great,’ I said.

  ‘I much prefer what I’m doing now. I’m a chef at the university. It gets tiring, but what job doesn’t? And if I hadn’t started there, I’d never have met Nikol.’

  Nikol smiled. Mikey kissed her on the forehead.

  ‘And I learnt stuff in the army. A bit of self-defence doesn’t hurt.’

  Not unless the self-defence in question involves you being smacked in the face by a forty-year-old called George.

  ‘Do you remember that day you didn’t turn up for karate, and I got whacked in the face?’

  ‘Oh yeah!’ said Mikey. ‘I felt a bit guilty about that. But my dad had rented Cobra on video and I wanted to see it. Sorry about that. Hey – do you remember that Japanese kid at school?’

  Yes. I did.

  ‘Akira Matsui!’

  ‘When was the last time you heard that name?’ said Anil, and I knew: it was just a couple of days before, when I’d seen it in the Book and whispered it in awe…

  ‘I remember when I’d just seen The Karate Kid,’ said Mikey, ‘and I thought it would be a good idea to welcome Akira to the school by imitating the Deadly Crane Kick from the end of the film. But I accidentally followed through and kicked him in the head and he fell to the floor. I felt so guilty afterwards. I think he thought I was an evil ninja. Or a racist.’

  Akira Matsui had come to Loughborough with his family and been placed in our school for a short while. The only link any of us had with Japan was Mr Miyagi, and we’d employed all the wisdom we’d learnt from the films to make Akira feel welcome. On his first day, I’d run up to him and counted up to five in Japanese, very loudly, in his face. He had been terrified. Anil would shout ‘Wax on! Wax off!’ at him, in the hope of somehow making a connection. And then, apparently, Michael had kicked him in the head. Which I suppose was a real connection. As welcomes go, there have been better. But when Akira recovered, we all became firm friends. We had just three foreigners in our school. Akira, a Greek kid called Spiros, and… I suddenly remembered someone… someone from the Book… someone important…

  ‘You’ve just reminded me of someone else,’ I said, excited. ‘Cameron Dewa! Remember him?’

  Anil piped up.

  ‘The albino?’ he said.

  ‘The Fijian,’ I said.

  ‘I knew it was something like that.’

  ‘I wonder where he is now,’ I said.

  ‘Probably Fiji,’ said Michael, and we all agreed that that was quite a sensible answer.

  ‘And what about Simon Gibson?’ I asked. ‘Remember how excited we all were when we saw McDonald’s was coming to town? I wonder how he is?’

  Michael’s hand shot in the air.

  ‘He’s back!’ he said.

  Anil looked puzzled.

  ‘Last I heard he was working in Aberdeen,’ he said. ‘No, Birmingham. At a Toby Carvery.’

  ‘They moved him – he’s manager of the Toby Carvery in Colwick.’

  ‘Where’s Colwick?’ I asked.

  ‘Just outside Nottingham,’ said Anil.

  ‘But that’s…’

  ‘Close,’ said Mikey.

  I looked at Anil. I raised my eyebrows. He shrugged and nodded.

  We would go and find Simon Gibson. A third name from my address book. A third name to be updated.

  ‘Mikey, listen,’ I said. ‘What are you up to later on?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Michael.

  And then I uttered a phrase that I’d never said to either Anil or Mikey in my entire life before.

  ‘Shall we go to the pub?’

  We were going to meet later on that evening in the centre of Loughborough to catch up some more and fill each other in on what we’d been up to. It felt good to see Mikey again; like I’d recaptured something. Revisited somewhere I thought I’d lost.

  And as we were leaving, I remembered something.

  ‘How’s the family?’ I said. ‘How’s your brother?’

  ‘He’s a policeman now,’ said Michael.

  ‘Cool,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah. He gave up the stripping.’

  ‘The stripping?’

  ‘Yeah. He was a stripper for a long while. He was in a male stripping group called Natural Born Thrillers. They were very successful. They went to Greece and everything. But he gave it up after there was a riot in Middlesbrough when sixty drunk old women
went mental when he was late on stage. I think he decided enough was enough after that.’

  I didn’t really know what to do with that information.

  ‘Listen, Dan…’ said Mikey, suddenly. ‘And, Anil, too… listen… this is… I don’t know how to put it…’

  Anil and I both looked at Michael. He wanted to tell us something. We didn’t know what. We couldn’t even be sure Mikey did. And then he waved it away and looked to the floor.

  ‘It’s… I’ll tell you later…’ he said.

  And I nodded, and we hugged, because we would see each other later. We could see each other whenever we liked, now.

  And then Anil and I jumped into the sparkling, revved-up Mini and set off.

  I was excited.

  We were going to find Simon Gibson.

  In the late 1980s in middle England, the Toby Carvery was the height of exclusive dining. Not only did they offer quality meats at reasonable prices, but if you were a dedicated visitor to ‘Tobies’, you could also buy individual Toby jugs – mass-manufactured clay jugs in the shape of a grotesque man’s face, which, if you had enough of them on your mantelpiece, could instantly knock thousands of pounds off the value of your property. Apart from the jugs, grown-ups would unfailingly make reference to two things when they talked of a Toby – the fact that you couldn’t go back for second helpings, and the invariably excellent parking facilities.

  And now I was returning to that cosy, clay world.

  The sky was darkened by storm clouds as we pulled off the motorway to arrive in Colwick, a few miles to the north of Nottingham, along the River Trent. Anil and I had been swapping anecdotes about growing up; catching up on the things we didn’t know about each other. Then we had seen it there before us: the mighty Toby Carvery Colwick. It ruled the area, like a castle on a mountain: a powerful brick square standing guard over the roundabout and the dual carriageway beyond.

  Inside, it was glowing. It looked busy in there. Weeks later, I would find the following on the internet. A review from a regular punter, keen to spread the word of Colwick’s number one Toby Carvery:

  I have been to this establishment twice. On both occasions I took a disabled person in a wheelchair. I had the chicken and bacon wraps both times and so did he. They were cooked to perfection. You can help yourself to as much veg and potatoes as you want but you can’t go back for seconds which is a disadvantage.