Friends Like These

by Danny Wallace

  It also has a decent-sized car park.

  I hope that helps.

  ‘Shall we go in?’ I said.

  ‘Definitely,’ said Anil.

  We parked the Mini in the excellent car park and approached the front entrance. The rain had started now, and the Toby Carvery took on the kind of warm and inviting glow you see in films set in Victorian times. Through the windows you could see families enjoying themselves – a wooden bar, and red carpets and attentive staff running to and fro.

  We were welcomed by a girl in official Toby Carvery clothing.

  ‘I demand to see the manager!’ I said, which I had intended to say in an amusing voice but which had seemed to terrify the girl.

  ‘Oh! Um…’

  ‘We’re old friends,’ explained Anil, and I realised I should have said that. But it didn’t matter, because there, just by the bar, I saw him…

  ‘There he is!’ I said. ‘There’s Simon Gibson!’

  Simon Gibson had certainly grown up. In the old days, he’d been the scruffy kid at school, with a cheeky face and a fringe that always needed an inch taken off it. He’d worn the same tracksuit every day of the summer holidays and even though he had trainers, he’d always worn his school shoes, until the soles had been peeling off, like in a Charlie Chaplin film. His brother had called him fat – my mum had reassured him he was ‘pleasantly plump’, which I think in the end might have done more damage – but the puppy fat had gone, and now here he was – smart. Suited. In control. He was clearly sorting out some kind of problem, but doing it with a smile. He glanced over at us, didn’t quite take us in, and then looked again, harder.

  ‘I don’t believe it!’ he said.

  *

  Simon was rightly proud of his work at the Toby.

  ‘We run a tight ship here,’ he said. ‘We have a laugh, but we get the work done, which is important.’

  We were sitting at the special table in the corner – the one only members of staff get to sit at.

  ‘We take a hefty sum each year, do three and a half thousand dinners a week. About twenty-five staff. But we do have fun.’

  ‘That’s brilliant, mate,’ I said, genuinely impressed with how big it all sounded. ‘How about at home?’

  ‘Oh, I’m married now. To Claire. She’s amazing. The best thing I ever did was marry Claire. She’s so easygoing. There are only two rules she sets me – no other women, no other men. Other than that, I’m as free as free can be.’

  ‘We’re going out a bit later on in Loughborough with Michael Amodio,’ said Anil. ‘Are you coming out?’

  ‘Right…’ said Simon, thinking. ‘I might have to run it by the wife.’

  Luckily, Claire works at the Toby Carvery as well, and Simon dashed off to ask permission.

  ‘We’re with Simon Gibson!’ I said, to Anil. ‘He’s a whole new man! He’s in charge of all this!’

  It seemed a far cry from the Simon of old. It was great.

  Moments later, he was back.

  ‘Right. I have permission. But I can’t be out too late. Claire’s said she’ll get a lift to Loughborough later on and drive me back in our car. Listen – I only live round the corner. I should put a different shirt on. Come round – you can see my baby!’

  ‘You’ve got a baby?’ I said.

  Simon had definitely grown up.

  Simon whipped the white rubber sheet away and said, ‘There she is! My baby! My pride and joy!’

  We stood there, staring at a classic white MG – clearly the result of a boyhood ambition successfully realised.

  ‘She’s beautiful!’ said Anil, and I kicked myself as I remembered that I too should refer to cars as female.

  ‘What a lovely old woman!’ I said.

  ‘I’d always wanted one of these,’ he said, proudly. ‘Of course, we’ve still got the Ford Fusion. Got to have a sensible car, too. But this… this is my baby. Hundred pounds a year insurance, no tax.’

  I made an impressed face using my eyebrows and lips. I never know what to say when people tell me about their car insurance.

  ‘Anyway, I’ll get my shirt… come inside, meet the dog…’

  Simon’s front room was as cosy as the carvery, with soft lamps and large sofas, and photos of his wedding scattered about the place. And, most noticeably, a large and enthusiastic dog who clearly hadn’t seen anyone all day.

  ‘What’s the dog called?’ I shouted to Simon, as it tried its best to pop its paws inside my mouth and nose.

  ‘Pepsi!’ he shouted.

  Ah. I got it.

  ‘You always did like Pepsi & Shirley. Is that who she’s named after?’

  ‘She’s named after the drink,’ he said. ‘The drink of “Pepsi”.’

  I felt a bit silly asking that. Maybe it was just me who’d become momentarily hung up on those days. Simon had so far seemed a little further on down the track of accepting adulthood than me. Yes, he was settled, like me, but he’d taken it further. He had a proper job with ‘manager’ in the title. He had a dog. And he’d even bought his midlife crisis car – about fifteen years before he’d needed to. He was embracing his move into the world of the thirtysomething with gusto and grace. He wasn’t looking back. He wasn’t looking to the past. He wasn’t hung up on things that were once important to him, like…

  Hang about.

  What was this?

  ‘Simon! What’s this? On your wall.’

  ‘What’s what?’ said Simon, coming down the stairs with a smart shirt on.

  ‘This!’

  I pointed at it.

  ‘Ah…’ he said. ‘That, my friend, is a sealed, framed original Back to the Future III movie poster, signed by Michael J. Fox, along with cells from the actual film.’

  My God. This was like 1980s treasure.

  ‘Now that is impressive,’ said Anil.

  ‘The fact that it’s signed?’ said Simon.

  ‘The fact that your wife lets you hang it up in the living room.’

  ‘I told you,’ he said, putting his finger in the air. ‘No other women. No other men. The rest is up to me. Right. I’d better just feed the dog or Claire will go mental.’

  Simon took Pepsi into the kitchen and for a moment Anil and I simply stood in front of the poster and stared at its action-packed beauty. We were the post-Star Wars generation. For us, Back to the Future was probably the defining movie trilogy of our lives. It was the reason I’d got a skateboard for my tenth birthday – a skateboard I’d had to carry around everywhere because the wheels didn’t work properly. But that didn’t matter. Because from that day forth, I was no longer Indy. I was no longer Daniel-San. I wasn’t even Dr Venkman. I was McFly. McFly with a knackered skateboard, but McFly nevertheless.

  ‘There’s actually more of a reason I’ve got that,’ said Simon, closing the door to the kitchen. ‘I’ll tell you down the pub.’

  Anil and I both nodded. As if just having it wasn’t reason enough.

  ‘Right!’ said Simon, holding up his car keys. ‘To the Fusion!’

  We drove in convoy back to Loughborough – me and Anil in the Mini, Simon in his silver Ford Fusion people carrier.

  ‘Isn’t it funny that Simon’s got a Ford Fusion people carrier?’ I said. ‘It’s the new Simon. If it was still the old Simon, it’d be a Ford Cortina with no hubcaps.’

  ‘If it was the old Simon, it’d be a nine-year-old boy driving a car,’ said Anil. ‘But it’s funny seeing him drive. It’s funny how we’ve all been separated, but all gone through some of the same things. Learning to drive, getting our first cars…’

  ‘Your first heartbreak. The day you move out of home. Kissing a lady.’

  ‘You’ve kissed a lady?’

  ‘Once.’

  But I knew what Anil meant. You always imagine you grow up with your mates. But you grow up anyway. There are some processes we all go through no matter what. Processes far more fundamental, of course, than just learning to drive or moving out of home. Processes that define you, and just y
ou, but which define everyone else as well.

  ‘The past is just as important as the present,’ said Anil, wisely. ‘It’s like… if there’s a wrong in your past, you might as well try and right it. Like in that telly show. That’s why the past is still there. You can always go back to it.’

  I took a moment to think about what Anil had said.

  ‘Anyway, what was her name?’

  ‘Who?’ I said, lost in my thoughts.

  ‘The lady you kissed.’

  ‘Oh. Um…’

  ‘See, I knew you were lying…’

  ‘Our first pint!’ I said, and we clinked glasses.

  ‘To old friends,’ said Mikey, and I thought back to the doodle in my address book.

  It was a wonderful moment. A moment I couldn’t have predicted just a couple of days before. A moment that meant something.

  Here I was, sitting outside a pub in Loughborough, with Anil Tailor, Michael Amodio and Simon Gibson. The old crew. The old gang. Back together. Three of the first names in my address book. Reunited.

  Instantly, the chat began… we talked relentlessly about the times we’d had, and the things we remembered, and the things we remembered about each other. We compared notes, and filled each other in, and laughed and joked.

  ‘Thing I remember about you, Dan,’ said Simon. ‘Always very good at spelling.’

  ‘Yes! Thank you!’

  I made a mental note to remind Lizzie of this when I got home.

  This was warm, and fun, and felt important, somehow. Like a meeting had been inevitable; like nothing had ever changed.

  We discovered that Simon’s dad was indeed – as we had predicted at the time but which Simon had furiously denied – the only man in Loughborough to have bought a Betamax video. That Anil was the one who changed the lyrics of ‘He’s Got The Whole World In His Hands’ to ‘He’s Got The Whole World In His Pants’ the morning we all had to stay behind in assembly and apologise to Jesus.

  We talked about the day our primary school burnt down – ‘I’d left 60p in my drawer at school and some MicroMachines,’ said Simon. ‘I’ll never see them again.’

  And then I changed the subject. Changed it to something I’d been wanting to ask since I’d first seen the boys again. But how to phrase it? How to phrase a question that means so much? That contains so much angst, and worry, and paranoia?

  ‘Can I ask you all something?’ I said, slowly. ‘Has anyone else here…’

  I still didn’t know quite how to put it.

  ‘What?’ said Anil.

  ‘Has anyone else here,’ I said, ‘… started listening to Magic FM?’

  There were coy looks around the table. No one made eye contact. No one seemed keen to speak. Was I the only one worried about growing up? Growing old? Turning thirty?

  And then Mikey coughed once, softly, and spoke…

  ‘I wouldn’t say I was a regular listener,’ he said.

  ‘So you do listen to it?’ I said.

  ‘Sometimes it’s on in the background,’ said Simon.

  Maybe I wasn’t alone!

  ‘But have you ever listened on purpose?’

  He went a bit red.

  ‘It’s just so feelgood,’ said Anil. ‘They do all the hits.’

  Thank God. Thank God it wasn’t just me. Here we were, four nearly men, each sharing a terrible admission of guilt. Maybe this was perfectly natural. Maybe this was just part of the process. I suddenly felt such warmth towards my friends. Okay. I hadn’t seen them in the best part of twenty years. But we were all the same age; we’d gone through the same things in different ways. We’d continue to for the rest of our lives, even if we never met again.

  It made me realise there would always be a connection.

  Simon was explaining how he’d entered the world of carvery management.

  ‘I started off working at the one in Loughborough… the one down by Forest Gate? I worked there for a while and then the offer of a job up in Aberdeen came up, so off I went. Then Birmingham, where I met Claire, and then off I went to Colwick. Although they’re opening up a new one in Banbury next year which me and Claire might have to go off and start…’

  ‘And how about the rest of the time? Any hobbies?’

  ‘Well, with the car, the dog and the wife, all my time is taken up, really…’

  ‘There must be something you enjoy doing…’

  ‘It’s such a lot of work, y’see…’

  ‘No hobbies?’

  Simon shook his head.

  I guess that was the thing about growing up. Responsibility takes over. Hobbies can easily become a thing of the past. Sure, we’d all had time to collect stickers and learn the guitar and go BMXing when we were kids… but those days were done. And Simon didn’t seem to mind one bit. Of the four of us, he was the most grown-up. The most at ease. The most sensible.

  But then he said…

  ‘Oh! There is one thing…’

  ‘What’s that?’ I said. Maybe he was still collecting Micro-Machines, or he’d remembered that he quite enjoys Doritos.

  ‘Well, for the past few years,’ he said, ‘I have been working on my own independent theory of time travel.’

  I looked at him. I blinked a couple of times.

  ‘You’ve been what?’

  He took a sip of his pint.

  ‘I’ve been working on my own independent theory of time travel.’

  Mikey and Anil were talking about something else. I felt Simon’s statement warranted an interruption.

  ‘Fellas… did you know Simon’s been working on his own independent theory of time travel?’ I asked, amazed.

  ‘Your own independent theory of time travel?’ said Michael.

  ‘My own independent theory of time travel,’ said Simon. ‘I think I’ve basically cracked it.’

  ‘You’ve cracked it?’ I said, stunned. ‘You’ve cracked time travel?’

  ‘Basically, yes,’ he said. ‘And string theory as well, although that was just a by-product, I didn’t mean to crack that.’

  ‘You’ve cracked string theory? So it’s no longer a theory? It’s string… fact?’

  I imagine we were the only people in the whole pub having this conversation.

  ‘It’s the simplest thing in the world,’ said Simon. ‘It really is.’

  ‘You can’t just say that,’ I said, outraged. ‘Tell us how time travel works! I want to know how time travel works!’

  If Simon’s theory was true, perhaps there was still a chance for me – perhaps I could still be McFly!

  ‘It’s all about dimensions and thinking laterally,’ he said. ‘Think of time as a clock or date… are you doing that?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Right. Don’t. It’s nonsense. No. Time… is a map.’

  He said this in quite a magical way, as if everything had suddenly become clear. But I’ll be honest: it hadn’t.

  ‘Think about Einstein’s theory of relativity, think about every element that works… you can mark time, you see, so if you work out the velocities that move the earth round the sun then you can easily map where time is going to be, and where it’s been. It’s all about where the earth is going to be. We think of it as here and now, but…’

  And I just stared at him while his mouth moved and words like ‘relativity’, ‘wormhole’ and ‘galaxy’ popped out.

  I was amazed. Since leaving school, Simon Gibson had managed several Toby Carveries and solved time travel! Of course, I had no real proof of this incredible claim whatsoever, but he certainly knew some long words, and more often than not, that’s enough for me.

  ‘And like I say, this theory also proves wormhole. But you know’ – he shook his head like a tired and beaten man – ‘you try telling Hawking this stuff…’

  ‘Have you tried telling Hawking that?’ I asked. ‘Because if you faxed him on Toby Carvery-headed notepaper, there’s a chance he might not have read it!’

  Just then, we were joined by Michael’s girlfriend, Nikol. W
e all said hello and were as polite as we could be, but it’s difficult to focus on airs and graces when someone’s just told you they’ve solved time travel. But Nikol represented a fresh perspective.

  ‘Simon’s solved time travel,’ I said.

  ‘Just now?’ she asked, in her thick Czech accent.

  ‘No – it took a few years,’ I explained.

  She looked unimpressed with the length of time it had taken Simon to crack one of life’s eternal mysteries. I should have told her he had a dog to look after as well. If Einstein had had a dog, or a local carvery to run, he’d have got a lot less done. And you’d probably always find hair in the soup.

  ‘Hey,’ said Anil, and we all turned to listen. ‘I guess now Simon’s warmed you up with a bit of weirdness, it’s okay for me to join in…’

  ‘What was weird about that?’ asked Simon, genuinely confused.

  ‘You’ve solved time travel!’ I said.

  Anil waved this away and began to speak.

  ‘Now, like I say, this is weird, but… the other day, in Huddersfield, I was on my way home from work. I don’t know why, but I took a different route from normal. I was waiting for a bus to pull out at a junction, and I was sort of lost in my thoughts…’

  But Simon solved time travel! was all I could think.

  ‘And then I saw this bloke coming out of a pub. He looked like a Sikh guy, with a beard but no turban on, and when he saw me, he sort of saluted at me. I thought he was saluting at someone behind me, and so I checked, but there was no one there…’

  He wasn’t even any good at maths!

  ‘And then when I look back round he’s right there – right next to my window. He knocks on it, and asks me to wind it down. So I do…’

  And this is where Anil caught my attention. Because I suddenly realised what he was saying was weird. Because what he was saying – or at least a variation of it – had once happened to me…

  ‘… so this stranger, he says to me, “You’re worried.”’

  ‘That’s odd,’ said Simon, which just goes to show how odd it must have been.

  ‘It was odd. But it gets odder. He says to me, “You’re wondering whether you should stay in your current job, or move somewhere else.” And I had been. I’d just been thinking that. I was thinking, should I stay here in Huddersfield, or should I move to London, or Chicago…’