Friends Like These

by Danny Wallace

  I shoved some more noodles into my face. And then I noticed something. Just behind Peter was a free newspaper. And face up, on a page somewhere towards the back, was a picture.

  ‘Pass me that, will you?’

  I looked at it. On a page marked Upcoming Gigs was a photograph. A photograph of Wag and his band!

  ‘I don’t believe it!’ I said. ‘That’s my mate Wag! He’s on tour at the moment – he’s playing here on…’

  ‘When?’

  Oh. Oh yeah.

  ‘On my birthday.’

  Part of me had always hoped that Wag would find a way to be home for my thirtieth. It was a stupid hope, really, and one that was now dashed by a smudgy black-and-white photo.

  ‘He’s on at the Corner Hotel. Is that near here?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said Peter.

  ‘Do you want to go and see him? Without me, I mean. I’m sure I could get you a couple of tickets…’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Pete, quite into the idea. ‘That’d be cool. You know… I might do this. Look up a few people. Get in touch. Maybe even see them again. It’s good, isn’t it?’

  ‘It is good,’ I said. ‘It’s very good indeed.’

  And then I looked up. And I noticed something else.

  ‘Remember how when we were kids, there was the big birthday treat?’

  ‘Well, if it was your mum sorting it, it was Red Sonja. I don’t think I slept for a year.’

  ‘I think I can make it up to you…’

  I pointed behind him, at a huge sign with an arrow, and the word ‘MEGA-SUPER-BOWL!’ painted on it.

  ‘What do you say?’ I said. ‘I missed your birthday. Let’s have a birthday treat…’

  And so Peter and I celebrated his thirtieth in fine style, with a jumbo Coke, some popcorn, and a lane of our own.

  *

  It was getting on for midnight.

  Pete and I were now fully fledged friends again. Seventeen years had passed, but it was like they’d never happened at all.

  ‘So what’s next for you?’ I asked, as we walked, happily and full of popcorn, to a taxi rank. ‘In the next thirty years, I mean?’

  Peter thought about it.

  ‘I really want to design theatres,’ he said. ‘If I can do that, I’ll be happy. But we’ll meet again before we’re sixty, won’t we?’

  ‘We definitely will,’ I said, and I knew that definitely we would.

  Then I remembered what I had in my bag.

  ‘God, I almost forgot – I got you something. Something to welcome you to Australia.’

  I handed him the package. He opened it.

  ‘Ah!’ he said. ‘My Illustrated Career by Shane Warne!’

  ‘It gets better,’ I said, which was lucky, because so far it was just a load of pictures of Shane Warne.

  He opened it, and read aloud.

  ‘To Peter! WELCOME TO OZ! Shane Warne.’

  He smiled.

  ‘It’s like being welcomed to Britain by the Queen,’ he said.

  ‘I think he really liked me,’ I said. ‘He was ever so chatty.’

  A taxi finally arrived.

  ‘So,’ he said. ‘Is it straight back to London for you? Not by taxi, obviously, unless you’re really scared of flying…’

  ‘I’m getting a flight in the morning,’ I said.

  ‘Heathrow? Gatwick?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Where, then?’

  And I smiled.

  Because I had one more stop to make.

  Chapter Twenty

  In which we learn that it is better to travel hopefully than to arrive disenchanted…

  WHEN I WOKE up, I was in the back of a small cab hurtling down a motorway with a strange blend of reggae-jazz causing the windows to vibrate and the driver to make involuntary noises.

  I didn’t really know what time it was. Darkness looked like it was on its way, and when I’d left Australia it had been light, but after twelve or thirteen hours on a plane I couldn’t tell if it was night on its way or morning.

  The blue neon digits on the dashboard clock said 18:32.

  ‘Good morning!’ said the driver when he saw I’d woken up. Which was nice, but only confused me more.

  ‘Hi…’ I said, and I looked out of the window.

  There it was.

  Tokyo.

  I was here for one reason and one reason only. You know what that was. But you don’t know how important it felt. Yes, I was here to meet Akira Matsui. But I was also here because I wanted to finish something.

  If Chris had left a message for me at home, I was nearly done. Yeah, so Tom wouldn’t meet me. So what? I would get Akira, and then I would get Chris, and then Tom would have to live with the fact that he hadn’t been a part of this. A part of a regrouping of friends. Proof that in a society where everyone moves away, everyone moves on, where the internet can facilitate a thousand semi-friendships a second, proof that real friendships can last. That all it takes is a little effort. Effort that I was willing to go to, even if Tom wasn’t.

  Akira had to meet with me. And to make sure he did, I wasn’t going to give him the option not to. I had to achieve this. Finishing a Panini sticker album wasn’t enough.

  But the fact that Akira’s first-ever email to me had been… well… quite formal, meant that I knew I had to be careful with this one. If we’d started our renewed friendship by talking about the Gastroenterological Society of Japan, it could be years before we moved it on to talk of having dinner or a beer. And I wanted that now. Before I was thirty. Because November 16th was little over a week away.

  So this was my plan. Go to Japan. Find him. Force him to meet me. End of plan.

  Akira had literally no idea I was on my way. No idea that I was in Japan right this very second for the sole purpose of tracking him down. I had only one full day in the country to make my impact and achieve my goal. One day to locate him and meet him. But I had one ace up my sleeve.

  When I’d been excitedly tapping new names into the internet that day – the day I’d emailed Tim Sismey about conkers and found the karate teacher estate agent Alex – I’d stumbled upon the fact that my friend Bob was now teaching English in Osaka. It stood to reason that he’d have a little Japanese under his belt. I’d emailed him and told him I was coming to Tokyo, and asked whether he’d like to show me around. He said yes, but warned me his Japanese ‘needed work’. I told him that didn’t matter, and that I was delighted he’d agreed to show me around. But little did he know that when he arrived at Shinjuku station at 9am tomorrow, I would have another task for him altogether…

  I’d booked myself into a ryokan – a traditional Japanese hotel – on a strange and sparse street somewhere in the suburbs. The driver had had trouble finding it and we’d stopped to ask for directions. A man in a hat had his finger to his mouth, trying to work out where we’d need to turn off. He shouted out to a friend, who brought a map with him. They studied it together, and this brought the attentions of a passing cyclist, who stopped and asked if he could help. All three men and the driver were now studying the same map, huddled together, every now and again looking at me apologetically. I looked back, trying to look even more apologetic, and thankful for their attentions. It was like we were in some kind of etiquette-off, all trying to be as polite as we could possibly be. If there is anything that will bring the Japanese and the British to war, it will be over who is the most polite. But even if that happens, it’ll never really come to blows, because we’ll all spend so long insisting the other side take their shot first.

  Finally, thankfully, I arrived at the ryokan – lit up from within like a lantern and as welcoming as you could imagine.

  I opened the door and stumbled in to find the receptionist sitting right opposite me. At a cooker to my right, a man was frying some chicken and tossing bright green vegetables into a pan. At a table, a barefooted gent with a huge beard grinned at me, and poured some tea. It was a tiny room. But it was homely. In fact, it was so home
ly I was worried I’d inadvertently wandered into someone’s home.

  ‘Mr Wallace?’ said the receptionist. ‘We’ve been waiting for you!’

  The bearded man nodded.

  ‘Hi…’ I said, turning to make sure I made eye contact with the chef and the bearded man, but forgetting I had my rucksack on and knocking something off a shelf. God. It was really small in here.

  ‘Don’t worry!’ said the receptionist, as an orange plastic Buddha clattered around on the floor. ‘Please don’t worry!’

  The bearded man found this inexplicably hilarious and nearly choked on his food.

  ‘Please – you are in room four,’ said the receptionist. ‘I give you your key.’

  She searched about in a drawer, trying to find the key to room four.

  ‘You are on first floor,’ she said. ‘Bathrooms are on second floor.’

  ‘Cool,’ I said, taking the key. ‘Thanks.’

  A bathroom. That was a good idea. And food. I needed food. That chicken smelled amazing.

  I knew my room didn’t have en-suite facilities so I carried on up to the second floor, inching past an elderly couple on the very narrow stairs and apologising for knocking their elbows with my backpack. I found the toilets, and eased myself through the door. There was a sink in here, and, beyond, a separate cubicle. By now, the water I’d drunk in the taxi was tapping at my bladder, asking to be let out, and I squeezed my way into the cubicle, my backpack catching slightly on the lock of the door as I did so.

  And then I simply let nature take its course, as I stood there, smiling blankly and thinking about chicken.

  Finished and satisfied, I attempted to turn around and unlock the door.

  But I couldn’t. I tried, but I couldn’t.

  Why couldn’t I turn around and unlock the door?

  I tried once more, but my backpack only allowed me an inch or two of turning space. I turned right, but no. My backpack just softly baffed against the wall. So I tried turning left, as if that would make any difference whatsoever. If anything, it was worse. The toilet-roll holder made contact with an area that toilet-roll holders should never make contact with. So I tried turning right again.

  God.

  I was stuck! I was stuck in a Japanese cubicle!

  Panicking slightly, I tried to reach up to the straps of my backpack and slide my arms through them – but there wasn’t the space. My elbows couldn’t get out far enough to get them through. I tried turning as far as I could and sliding – no luck. I tried simply leaning. I tried hopping up and down with my arms straight down but the backpack kept catching on my jacket and wouldn’t budge. Eventually, I realised there was only one thing to do.

  I looked at the key to room four. I got my phone out. I dialled the hotel receptionist. I waited while the call bounced via satellite from the toilet, to England, back to another satellite, and down to the receptionist, two floors below.

  ‘Hello,’ I said, when she answered. ‘This is Mr Wallace. I’m afraid I’m stuck in your toilet.’

  ‘You are stuck in the toilet?’ she said.

  In the background, I heard the bloke with the beard start choking again.

  *

  I decided, once I’d been freed, that maybe I’d better eat out tonight. The bearded bloke – whose name was Adriaan and who came from the Netherlands – still seemed some way off finishing his dinner, and I didn’t really want to explain how I’d ended up stuck in a Japanese toilet. He, the chef and the receptionist all waved me off, and I strolled out to meet Tokyo for the very first time.

  I could people-watch, I decided. Get to know the local culture. Get inside the mind of the Japanese. That way, when I finally managed to track Akira down, I’d have something to talk to him about. And so on I walked.

  I walked down small streets and little alleyways, before finding myself on a large road twisting through tower blocks and past skyscrapers, under shopping malls and vast neon lights. I walked on, as a dark Tokyo evening began to blush under orange streetlights. The city was thriving. Cool kids with strange haircuts and risqué clothing hugged in the streets. Drunk businessmen staggered into bars, filling the air around them with sake fumes and belched laughter. My stomach rumbled as I watched people through windows, eating noodles or sushi or strange dark meats. I found everything fascinating. The people. The buildings. The street signs. The fact that their taxi drivers all seemed to wear small white gloves and drive cars called ‘Cedric’. There was chatter everywhere; noise all around. There’s nothing better, sometimes, than being somewhere where virtually nothing you see or hear is understandable – not a sign on a door, nor a symbol on a map, nor a single thing someone says. You’re lost in a safe place. A strange mix of the alien and the totally familiar. And so on I walked, and when it looked for all the world like I was starting to get lost, there I saw it – a black, barely visible oval sign bearing the letters NJA – and the more welcome word ‘Restaurant’ beneath it. I was ready to eat. After a moment or two I found the door and pushed it, but nothing happened. There were no windows, no lights, and just as I decided it must be closed or non-existent, I heard a tiny, indefinable click. I pushed the door again, and this time it swung open, to reveal a small, dark room, with rocky walls and water features, and a girl dressed entirely in black standing behind a counter. It didn’t look much like a restaurant to me. For a start, there was no… well… there was no restaurant.

  ‘Hi…’ I said, suddenly very unsure of myself. ‘Is this… a restaurant?’

  ‘Hello!’ she said, clasping her hands together. ‘Welcome!’

  I stole another glance around. It still didn’t look much like a restaurant.

  ‘You are… alone?’ she said.

  I nodded. The girl looked slightly perplexed, but then shook it off and said…

  ‘Please wait one moment. You will have wonderful evening. We have very nice food. Traditional Japan food. Please wait. Your ninja comes in one moment.’

  I relaxed slightly. It must be a restaurant. I wasn’t sure why she thought it was so unusual that I should be here on my own, though. Surely people in Japan sometimes ate on their own. I guess even in London, though, restaurants are for sharing, and…

  Hang on.

  My what?

  ‘Sorry – what comes in one moment?’

  The girl was now beaming at me.

  ‘Your ninja will arrive in one moment!’ she said.

  ‘My ninja?’ I said.

  How jetlagged was I?

  ‘Your ninja,’ she said, and then, pointing one finger in the air, importantly. ‘For ninja training!’

  Ninja training? What was this place? When had I ordered ninja training? I hadn’t even ordered a starter!

  ‘But I didn’t order a ninja!’ I said, confused. ‘Not even a little one!’

  I tried to think right the way back through our conversation. Had I ordered a ninja? I was pretty sure all I’d said so far was, ‘Is this a restaurant?’

  ‘I’m not sure if this is the right kind of—’

  But the girl put one finger to her lips.

  And then I heard it.

  But what was it?

  And then there it was again…

  A blood-curdling scream from a room somewhere far away. Followed by a thump. And then a series of thumps. Like a toddler backflipping through a hallway. And then, totally without warning of any kind whatsoever, a hidden door was flung open and out leapt a small female ninja.

  I realise I may sound mental at this moment, but I promise you it’s true: out leapt a tiny ninja.

  The ninja landed softly on the floor beside me, and crouched for just a moment, summing up in one split second the dangers the room held. But it didn’t hold any dangers. It held a Danny. A rather confused and reasonably scared one. As odd as it may seem, I was very annoyed with myself. I’d only been in Tokyo a matter of hours, and already I’d let a ninja get me. Why had I come to Japan? Of course I was going to be got by a ninja!

  There was another scream, and t
he ninja shot straight up, undertaking a number of rigorous hand movements and shouting various statements in Japanese, before turning to me, fixing me with the eyes of a killer and shouting, ‘ARE YOU READY FOR NINJA TRAINING?’

  I looked at the ninja. And then at the receptionist. The receptionist looked at me.

  ‘And then will I get food?’ I asked.

  The receptionist closed her eyes and nodded. I looked back at the ninja. She raised her eyebrows.

  ‘I am ready,’ I said.

  Like pirates, sharks, monkeys and ghosts, ninjas will never not be exciting. It was part of the reason why suddenly having a Japanese kid in school was so thrilling. Akira Matsui was our pathway to this mysterious and hidden culture. You can imagine our disappointment, then, when it turned out he neither knew any ninja magic, owned any ninja swords, nor even seemed to know what a ninja was. Michael Amodio and I put this down to a special ninja code of silence, and would often throw things at the back of his head to see if he would react with lightning speed. But he never did. He just turned around, looking hurt and confused. It was a shame, because the 1980s really was the decade of the ninja. The petrol station me and Michael used to stop at on the way home from swimming to buy packets of Revels and look at the videos bore testament to that.

  These videos were brilliant. They were clearly pirated (which made them all the more exciting – pirate ninjas!), with photocopied sleeves and battered covers, but when we were able to get our hands on one, high production values weren’t our concern. There was The Nine Deaths of the Ninja, of course, as well as American Ninja and American Ninja 2: The Confrontation, but Michael and I both found these simplistic portrayals of ninja culture too broad and Westernised in their scope. Plus, they didn’t use nun-chuks anywhere near enough. There were nun-chuks galore in Enter the Ninja, which was also better because it ended with a freeze frame of the main character winking at the camera, which is a technique that I have now decided is how every film should end. Then you had Revenge of the Ninja, and Ninja Resurrection. Mafia Versus Ninja (imagine!), Zombie Versus Ninja (imagine!!!), Chinese Super Ninja, Phantom Diamond Ninja, and Ninja Kids, which was critically acclaimed, but rubbish.