Friends Like These

by Danny Wallace

  ‘Well, it was a very short message, and he—’

  ‘Hang on – what?’

  ‘It was a really short message. I wasn’t—’

  ‘No, before that. What did he say? What did you say he said?’

  Something wasn’t right here.

  ‘He said, “This is Chris calling, can he…”’

  ‘No – you missed a bit. Did he say my name?’

  ‘Oh – yeah. “This is Chris calling for Danny Wallace…”’

  My heart sank.

  ‘Danny, or Daniel?’

  ‘Danny, I think…’

  ‘Is the message still on there?’

  ‘No – I – I don’t know…’

  I picked up the phone and checked. No messages. It’d been deleted.

  ‘What’s going on?’ said Lizzie.

  ‘Was it Danny, or was it Daniel?’ I asked, frantically. ‘Did he leave a surname? Did he say it was Chris Guirrean?’

  ‘I’m nearly positive it was Danny,’ she said. ‘Is that bad?’

  It was bad. Chris would not have known me as Danny. He’d have known me as Daniel. That’s why I’d been so careful with the letters. That’s why I’d signed them all Daniel.

  ‘Maybe he found you on the internet,’ she said. ‘Or maybe he knows someone who knows you. Maybe when you’ve been on telly, or…’

  ‘What’s this number?’

  ‘That’s just what he left on the machine…’

  ‘It’s… foreign…’

  And it was. But familiarly so. Was that good or bad?

  ‘Is it him?’ she said.

  I picked up the phone and dialled.

  One ring.

  Two.

  A man answered, saying something incomprehensible.

  ‘Hello?’ I said, cautiously.

  He had an accent. Not a Scottish one. And he didn’t say hello. He said hallo.

  ‘Is that Chris?’

  ‘This is Chris.’

  ‘Chris… Guirrean?’

  It didn’t sound like him.

  ‘Who is this, please?’

  ‘My name is Danny Wallace. Daniel Wallace. I’m calling from London. I got this message, saying that I should—’

  ‘Aha! Yes!’ said the man. ‘Here is Christian Zimmerman!’

  ‘Here is Christian Zimmerman?’ I said. ‘Where?’

  ‘I am Christian Zimmerman!’

  I didn’t know what any of this meant.

  ‘Sorry – you’re who?’

  ‘You had bought from me something from eBay. The World Cup 1986 book. It was just courtesy call to say I had sent the item and you should expect it. Has it been?’

  Oh… oh, no…

  I looked towards the stairs. There was a package. My eyes fell to my feet.

  ‘Ja,’ I said, and put the phone down.

  I looked at Lizzie.

  ‘It wasn’t him, was it?’ she said.

  ‘Never mind,’ I said.

  And she gave me a hug.

  *

  I was tired. All my leads had gone. I’d done my absolute best, but I was tired and all my leads had gone. Chris Guirrean had simply disappeared. It happens. I could only hope that wherever he was, he was okay. And hey – maybe one day we’d meet up. I knew I couldn’t do this forever. Eventually, I’d have to move on. Because moving on – growing up – had been the point of this all along.

  ‘Why don’t you go up to Dundee?’ said Lizzie. ‘Just for the day? See if you can find any leads?’

  ‘Peter suggested the same thing when I was in Melbourne. I don’t know. I’m not sure I have the energy. He’s disappeared.’

  ‘You should, you know. Just for your own peace of mind. You never know. He could be there.’

  ‘Virtually everyone’s moved on,’ I said. ‘It’s unlikely.’

  ‘Just for your own peace of mind,’ she said again, softly.

  And one day, just three or four days before my thirtieth, I’d decided I would. I had no expectations. It just felt right to do it. Complete the journey. See my first house, my first view, my first home. At least finish the tour.

  The plane flew low over Magdalene Green – the green I’d grown up playing football on with Ross and Leslie from next door. The same green with the same bandstand. The hill my dad pushed me down on the girl’s bike he gave me when I was six, letting me go without stabilisers for the first time, and watching me as I disappeared into a ditch at the end. And there was my house – number 1 Richmond Terrace, a grand and imposing Victorian house facing out towards the River Tay, the house I’d stood outside and had my picture taken on my first day at school.

  As soon as I’d landed, I’d made my way back there, and sat in the bandstand in the middle of the green. I’d sat here with Christopher Guirrean nearly twenty-five years before, on the day the big Pickfords van came to take our stuff down to Loughborough. I stood up, and walked towards my old house.

  Outside the house next door was a man bringing some shopping bags in from a bright red car. He looked at me for a second, and then looked away. But I couldn’t stop looking at him. He looked so familiar.

  ‘Leslie?’ I said.

  If it was Leslie, it was the same Leslie I’d always played football with all those years before. The Leslie that had accidentally let me watch Blade Runner with him and caused me endless sleepless nights as a result. The Leslie that used to make tapes of The Monkees and The Police for me and slip them through the letterbox.

  ‘Yes?’

  It was!

  ‘I used to live next door to you!’ I said. ‘Well – there!’

  I pointed at the house next door. My house.

  ‘Daniel!’ he said.

  Leslie had bought the house from his parents some years before, and was now raising his own kids in it. One of them was about as old as I’d been when I’d left Dundee. We drank tea, and I met his lovely wife, and then he said, ‘Do you want to see your old house?’

  And he went and asked the neighbours, and in we went, and the memories came flooding back. They’d done a lot to the place, but the one room that remained untouched was my old bedroom…

  I looked at the walls… they’d been wood-chip, and I’d loved picking bits of it away, despite being constantly told not to. I cast my eyes around. Incredibly, my damage remained. I didn’t know whether to be proud or ashamed.

  ‘I feel like I owe you a fiver,’ I told the new owners. ‘All those bits missing from the wall – that was me…’

  It was a memory I didn’t know I had, brought back into vivid colour right there and then. Just as so many memories had been these past few months.

  I thanked Leslie, and we took a picture together, sitting on the same bench in my old front garden that we’d had our picture taken on so many years before. And then I walked down the road, to Strawberry Bank, the street on which Chris had lived, and on which we’d done so much playing. His house was still there. But there was a different name on the door.

  And so I turned around, and, after a last walk across the green, I headed back to the airport, and back to my life.

  *

  I had officially given up, I decided, two days later, on my way to the corner shop to buy some milk.

  But I wasn’t too sad about it. After all – let’s look at the evidence. Tom had said no. Andy I couldn’t meet. And Chris was who knows where. But I’d managed to find and meet nine out of twelve of the names in the Book. And that’s a score of 75 per cent. That’s an A.

  Plus, there were the bonus balls. I’d be going to Big Al’s wedding soon – and that wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t sent him a text on a whim. I could hop on a train and see Alex Chinyemba, the karate-teacher-turned-estate-agent, and his many children. There was Eilidh, the Gaelic translator, living in Glasgow. But all this was, I knew, for another time. Maybe next year. Or the year after. Because – you know – life begins at thirty.

  I picked up the milk and wandered to the counter. And then I thought what the hell – and bought a packet of Wo
tsits. Just because I’m nearly thirty doesn’t mean I can’t buy a packet of Wotsits.

  And then I made a mental note to pick up some hummus later on.

  I was fumbling around in my pocket, though, when I noticed something absolutely extraordinary. Something you will not believe, but something which I promise you is true, and is easily verifiable, should you ever find yourself in the British Library with a few moments to spare…

  On the front page of the Evening Standard – the front page! – was a picture. A picture of someone very familiar. Someone from my childhood. Someone in the Book. And what’s more, it was someone I hadn’t yet met…

  I bought the paper and literally ran home.

  And then I literally ran back again because I’d forgotten the milk and Wotsits.

  ‘Cameron! It’s Danny! What are you doing tomorrow night?’

  ‘I don’t know! Nothing! Why?’

  ‘Meet me at the Richmond, on Earls Court Road, 7pm, tomorrow. Do. Not. Be. Late.’

  *

  It was the night before my thirtieth birthday. November 15th, 2006. 6.59pm. Cameron Dewa walked through the doors of the Richmond on Earls Court Road.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he said.

  ‘We have to meet a man,’ I said. ‘A man who’s going to meet us round the corner.’

  ‘Who? Why?’

  ‘History requires it,’ I said. ‘It’s to do with a man from our past.’

  We walked round the corner and met the man. Cameron didn’t recognise him. Nor did I. Because he wasn’t the man from our past. He was the man I’d paid money to in order to see the man from our past.

  I handed a small brown envelope over.

  He handed me one in return.

  I turned to Cameron.

  ‘What date is it?’

  ‘November the fifteenth.’

  ‘Remember this date,’ I said. ‘Because this is the date we do what we always said we were going to do.’

  Cameron looked at me blankly.

  I took a deep breath.

  I opened the envelope.

  I took out the tickets. The tickets I’d paid for on eBay.

  ‘We’re going to see Michael Jackson,’ I said.

  Cameron’s face lit up like I have never seen a face light up before.

  ‘WHAT?’

  ‘Yeah!’

  ‘AMAZING!’

  ‘Definitely.’

  ‘INCREDIBLE!’

  ‘Okay, people are looking at us now…’

  And that is how Cameron Dewa and myself got to achieve our only childhood dream, the night before my thirtieth birthday, in Earls Court, London.

  Michael Jackson was closing the show at the 2006 World Music Awards, in front of Lindsay Lohan, Usher, Paris Hilton, Beyoncé, a few thousand people, and – right at the very front, just eight feet away – me and Cameron Dewa.

  It was brilliant.

  Michael Jackson even nearly sang his songs. He spent most of the time waving, and being surrounded by tiny, jumping dancers. But he was there. The thirteenth name in my book. The extra, added, unofficial member.

  Next to me, a burly Asian lad with a single white satin glove was in tears.

  ‘What are you crying for?’ I said. ‘He’s right there!’

  ‘He’s just so amazing,’ the lad said, and one of his mates pissed himself laughing.

  ‘I don’t suppose you know the current address of the Michael Jackson fan club?’ I asked, as the opening chords of ‘Thriller’ sent the crowd into a frenzy.

  ‘Eh?’ he said, wiping away another tear.

  ‘Do you know the current address for the World of Michael Jackson?’

  ‘Oh – yeah. It’s michaeljackson.com…’

  Of course it was. Times had changed.

  ‘Why?’ he said, and I put my pen away.

  ‘I’m just updating my address book,’ I said.

  Cameron and I jumped into a black cab at 11.15pm. If we timed it right, we could be back home, with Lizzie, by midnight. We tore through the streets of London by moonlight. The river looked amazing. Big Ben was bright, the Millennium Wheel lit up, and we crossed the bridge. I’d been over this bridge thousands of times before. Turning right at the end would take me to the East End, the place I’d lived throughout my twenties. But things were different now, in a dozen different ways. We turned left.

  ‘That was so cool,’ said Cameron. ‘That was like being a kid again.’

  ‘What time is it?’ I asked.

  ‘11.43,’ he said.

  ‘We’re going to make it.’

  And at 11.57, me, Lizzie, and my childhood friend Cameron were standing in my kitchen, back at home, holding a bottle of champagne and counting down the seconds.

  And at twelve midnight, I, Danny Wallace, turned thirty.

  The next morning, Lizzie woke me bright and early with my birthday cup of tea.

  ‘Come on, old man!’ she said. ‘Come with me! Close your eyes!’

  I did as she said and followed her into the hallway.

  ‘Keep them closed! Now… open them!’

  I opened my eyes.

  And there, before me, another childhood ambition realised.

  ‘It’s a Chopper!’ I said. ‘You got me a bloody Chopper!’

  It was a bloody Chopper. Beautiful, sparkling and fire-engine red. The bright yellow word CHOPPER down its side. The low-rise seat. It was everything I’d ever wanted as a kid. If it had come with an Evel Knievel suit I would’ve probably exploded.

  ‘Do they still make these?’ I said, gazing at its wonder.

  ‘Special edition!’ said Lizzie.

  ‘Special edition!’ I said. The two words lent it such glamour.

  I hugged her, tight.

  ‘I have to go to work,’ she said. ‘You’ll get your real present, tonight…’

  I raised my eyebrows.

  ‘Are you being saucy?’ I said.

  ‘No’, she said. ‘I’m being literal.’

  And with that, she went to work.

  I lay back down in bed and turned my phone on.

  The text messages started immediately.

  HAPPY BIRTHDAY MATE. It was from Peter Gibson.

  HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Lauren.

  HAPPY BIRTHDAY BROTHER! AND THANKS FOR THE MARS BAR YOU LEFT AT THE CORNER HOTEL! That one was from Wag in Australia.

  SEE YOU AT THE PARTY MATE! Ian.

  And then the phone rang.

  ‘Are you near a radio?’ said Hanne.

  ‘Yeah – I’m still in bed.’

  ‘Lucky you – I’m at work. Turn it on right now!’

  I turned it on and heard Hanne give some kind of signal.

  Nick Ferrari on LBC took a deep breath.

  ‘And a very happy birthday to a very lucky young man indeed – Danny Wallace turns thirty this very morning! Happy birthday from all of London, Danny!’

  I smiled.

  My sixth birthday had just been topped.

  That night, on the top floor of a bar in Islington, they arrived.

  My friends.

  New, and old, and much older than I’d ever have dared hope for.

  Ben Ives was still in LA, of course, but I’d sent him an invite anyway, and he’d sent me a birthday email in return. Tarek had recording commitments in Berlin. And Akira… well… Akira was in Japan, solving cancer.

  But as I stood there, at the door, welcoming people in, I watched, honoured, as Michael Amodio and his girlfriend Nikol entered the room…

  ‘We’re engaged!’ he said. ‘You’ve got to come to the wedding!’

  ‘I will!’ I said. ‘I promise!’

  And then Cameron Dewa, still high after seeing Michael Jackson the night before, walked in with his wife, Nadine.

  ‘Potaaatoooo!’ he said, and then spent a few minutes explaining to Nadine precisely why he’d been saying ‘Potato’ so much lately.

  Anil Tailor arrived, and moments later, Lauren walked in.

  Timelord Simon Gibson had sent his apologies – he
was busy opening up a new Toby Carvery and probably solving more mysteries of the universe while he was at it. But then, just as I was handed a pint by someone at the bar, in walked Neil Findlay.

  ‘We only seem to meet at thirtieth-birthday parties,’ he said. ‘But happy birthday!’

  ‘Happy birthday, mate!’ I said, before realising that was quite a strange thing to say, as it was my birthday. I wanted to tell Neil what an effect his party had had on me. How it had come at just the right time. But suddenly there was a tap on my shoulder.

  ‘I’m wearing my shirt again!’ said Ian, proudly.

  ‘It’s brilliant,’ I said, happily. ‘It is a brilliant shirt! The people of Chislehurst should be proud!’

  ‘Yeah – though – I am thinking about moving back to London,’ he said. ‘Even they’ve started turning on the shirt…’

  ‘Get a drink. This is Neil…’

  And as Neil and Ian walked off together, I turned and bumped into Hanne…

  ‘Happy birthday,’ she said, hugging me. ‘Old man…’

  She handed me her present. I opened it. It was a display cushion.

  ‘Ian said you loved these…’

  ‘Love is a strong word,’ I said. ‘But I’m ready for one now, I think…’

  ‘You actually sit on them?’

  ‘They’re not for bottoms,’ I said.

  She smiled.

  ‘I also got you some Wotsits,’ she said, and I stood back, and I looked around the room, and I saw all my friends, and I felt so lucky.

  ‘Having a nice night?’ said Lizzie, putting her arm round me.

  ‘The best,’ I said.

  ‘Good. By the way, this is Tom…’

  I looked at the man with her.

  ‘Hi, Tom…’ I said, and then slowly, I realised which Tom it was…

  ‘Your wife’s been pestering me to show up,’ he said. ‘Email after email. A quite considerable marketing campaign. So I showed up… how are you, Dan?’

  I looked at Lizzie. Because this wasn’t about meeting Tom again, as nice as it was. It was about what she’d done for me. What this meant to me. She’d joined in. Seen something that was wrong. Made it right.

  ‘It’s really good to see you, Tom…’ I said. ‘Really good.’

  Another address updated. Not counting Michael Jackson, that was ten out of twelve. That wasn’t an A any more. That was first-class honours.

  And then Tom and I began to talk about the old days. And I introduced him to Cameron, and to Anil, and to Mikey.