‘One thing, though, Tom – your dad didn’t invent the Sprite logo, did he?’
‘No,’ said Tom, shaking his head. ‘Of course he bloody didn’t.’
And we all raised our glasses and laughed. And just like that, we were a gang again.
‘That was the best present ever,’ I said, to Lizzie, a little later on.
‘That? That wasn’t your present. That was just me harassing a man and convincing him you weren’t a gay stalker or after his money. I told him everything you’d been doing. He was actually rather sweet about the whole thing…’
‘So what’s my real present?’ I asked, confused.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a slip of paper.
‘This…’ she said.
I looked at it, unsurely, and then unfolded it.
It was an address.
It was Chris Guirrean’s address.
‘But… how? I tried everything!’
‘I phoned your mum. We spent an age trying to find Chris’s dad’s address. Turned out he still works up in Scotland. We found an email address for him, and when she was spelling it out on the phone to me, it turned out that he wasn’t a Guirrean.’
‘How do you mean? He’d changed his name?’
Was this common? Was that little Russian kid grown up to become ‘Ben Berlin’ just one of many?
‘No… I mean he was a Guirron. Not a Guirrean.’
‘A Guirron? But he’s a Guirrean. That’s what it says in the Book…’
‘Yeah. And when did you write his name in the Book?’
‘When I was… six.’
Lizzie just looked at me.
‘But I was an excellent speller!’ I said.
‘So anyway, I didn’t email his dad. I used the information to find Christopher’s address, instead.’
‘Well… where is he?’ I said, looking at the slip of paper.
‘He’s still in Dundee,’ she said. ‘I haven’t made contact. You can go and meet him. I reckon we can extend this past your birthday, seeing as he’s your best friend, and all…’
And I looked at Lizzie.
And I was filled with warmth and love.
And I said, ‘No, he isn’t,’ and she looked at me, confused.
‘You’re my best friend,’ I said.
And the next day, when the party had long finished, and before the sun had even risen, I got up, and I wandered into the spare room, and I finally mended that broken socket.
November 19th, 2006
Dear Andy,
I did it. I found them.
Daniel
Epilogue
Well, there you go.
The story of a summer turning into a winter. And, in some ways, of a winter turning into a summer.
I didn’t manage to meet all twelve of the Twelve by November 16th, 2006. Bearing in mind I only got Chris’s address at around 10pm that night, it would have been a bit of a tall order. But, and I hope this still counts, in January of 2007, on a dark and brooding Scottish evening, I did indeed manage to finally meet up with him, in Dundee, after nearly twenty-five years apart.
It was excellent.
Chris is in insurance now, and we spent a long and warm evening talking about days gone by, and walking around Dundee. We happened past our old school, Park Place Primary, where we’d first met, in 1980, and where he was surprised to hear I had vomited on Scott Butcher’s lap. To make it even better, with us was Jamie Maddox – now Dr Jamie Maddox – another great friend from those years gone by, and the three of us agreed never to lose touch again.
And so far, we haven’t.
Later that year, I travelled to the small town of Teplice in the Czech Republic, to watch my old friend Michael Amodio get married to the bellydancing granddaughter of a white witch. It was a lovely day, attended by more old friends I’d lost touch with over the years.
Michael’s brother – formerly of dance troupe Natural Born Thrillers – was also there, but managed to avoid any bellydancing.
Anil Tailor is about to finish his final exams before becoming a fully fledged architect. He never again saw the mysterious stranger he saw that day in his car… but it did make him think. He’s currently deciding where in the world he’d like to go. He still thinks he might give Peter a call.
Simon Gibson has made no new scientific discoveries this year, but has just opened up a new Toby Carvery in Banbury. Check it out. You will love the adequate parking facilities, though you will find it annoying that you can’t go back for seconds.
A builder called Greg has now replaced the guttering (despite being a man now, that was still a little too much for me). Plus, it took him about an hour, on the exact day he said he’d turn up. The canopy fell off during particularly high winds in April 2007. I have realised I have no use for a canopy. That socket broke again. But I fixed it straight away. It made me feel like a man.
In September of 2007, Lizzie and I travelled back to Berlin, where we met up with Tarek, his wife Anna (also a rapper) and their small daughter Naliyah (who does not rap). Tarek continues to produce some of Germany’s finest hip-hop, and is an adoring and doting father.
BRD is, by all accounts, still the Bester Rapper Deutschlands. Papo is still demolishing whole concert halls with the strength of a hurricane.
Lauren is very worried you’ll find her boring. I’ve told her you won’t. She’s also worried you’ll find her odd. I’ve told her you will.
Akira, Tom, and Ben are all doing very well indeed, and all say hello.
Cameron doesn’t – he says ‘Potatoo!’
But that’s Cameron for you.
Peter Gibson returned from Australia after 357 hugely enjoyable days. He’s back in London now, and I was finally able to have that pint with him in Tooting. He’s expecting Anil’s call any day now…
Michael Jackson recently bought a twenty-acre estate in County Wicklow, Ireland, and is currently working on a new comeback album, which is as yet untitled.
Hanne recently met up with an old friend she’d made contact with through Facebook. She grudgingly admitted, ‘It was pretty great, actually,’ and hasn’t ruled out doing it again. Although she wants you to know that she sees it as a business utility, first and foremost.
Ian has joined the Neighbourhood Watch scheme in Chislehurst. He says it has given him a ‘real sense of purpose about life’. He no longer wears that shirt, as he feels it does not fit in with the ‘image of authority’ that the Neighbourhood Watch requires of him.
I have suggested he roam the streets dressed as a bear, as if there’s one thing that’s bound to put burglars off, it’s a burly, roaming bear.
Ian says I’m a tit for thinking this.
Wag is on tour again, with a second album in the shops, and I am now so good at Call of Duty 2 that the Bald Assassin refuses to play against me.
Ben Ives and I had a Christmas drink in Bath.
He turned up wearing a small dog mask on his head.
I wasn’t tricked for a second.
Therefore I win.
Bad Mutha! is yet to hit cinemas anywhere.
Weirdly, ten days after my thirtieth birthday, the 1980s and early 1990s began to tap on my shoulder.
By Christmas, Take That had reformed and enjoyed their first number one in ten years. The Spice Girls weren’t far behind. Even A-ha got in on the act. And Dirk Benedict from the A-Team went on Celebrity Big Brother, meaning that, thanks to Lizzie and her reality TV connections, I got to say hello.
Apparently, he never got my Jim’ll Fix It letter.
A few months later, defying Mr Williams’s ban, Cadbury’s announced the return of the Wispa bar. As if in reaction to this, The Police announced they would be reforming.
Soon after Transformers: The Movie became Britain’s number one film, and Indiana Jones 4 made us all feel so happy, Steven Spielberg declared production on the film of The Goonies 2 would finally begin this year. It is not known whether Tarek will be involved in the German version.
&n
bsp; Plus, marvellously, in October of 2007, I was asked to appear on BBC1’s Mastermind. My specialist chosen subject?
Ghostbusters.
Man Points are now a thing of the past.
Thank God.
I returned to Dundee towards the end of 2007 to attend the wedding of Christopher Guirron to his new wife Louise. I was the only man not in a kilt. They were married at a church in Broughty Ferry, and the reception was held on the River Tay, with the same view as I’d grown up seeing every single day without any thought as to how lucky I was.
It’s funny, sometimes, how life works out, if you give it the chance.
I haven’t stopped, either, by the way. Just because I’m thirty doesn’t mean I can’t still have fun. It just means I have to have display cushions.
Give it a go.
Look someone up.
Danny would like to thank…
My friends. Ian. Hanne. Wag.
Anil Tailor. Michael Amodio. Simon Gibson. Cameron Dewa. Tarek Helmy. Lauren ‘Not Boring’ Medcalfe. Tom Bain. Ben Ives. Akira Matsui. Peter Gibson. Chris Guirron. And Andy Clements.
Massive, massive thanks to Jake Lingwood, to Simon Trewin, to Jago Irwin, to Lisa Thomas, and, in advance, to Ed Griffiths.
Huge thanks to Tokyo Bob, Tomoko, Kyohei, and Jamie Maddox. Stefan and Georgia, my goddaughter Poppy (is that her name?) and near-goddaughter Daisy.
Thanks to Peter McInnes, Nadine Beatty, and Zairul (the kid who lived at number 3, Malaysia) for randomly getting in touch before the publication of this book and just before their thirtieth birthdays – after twenty-five years apart. Here’s to meeting up. And to Elliot, who I hadn’t seen in just as long, and who turned out, bizarrely, to be living in the building opposite my old flat.
Thanks to close friends from kidulthood who for whatever random reason weren’t mentioned in The Book… Amy, Josh, Brian, Espen, Erik, Jonas, Ian, Helen, Anna, Ross, Alec (thanks for the wedding!) and everyone else.
Thanks to the waiter at Desperados who gave Lizzie and me free beer when we explained that we’d started an entire pact in his place of work.
Well done and thanks to Rich Glover and Natalie Byfield. To Ben Frost, Ken Barlow, Karl Pilkington, Mike Gayle, Phil Hilton, The Friday Fun Club’s Richard Bacon and Marc Haynes, Mrs Tailor, and conker champion Tim Sismey. Bald Assassin – you suck. And no thanks to Paul the builder (but no hard feelings, either… plus, I still have your ladder).
And thanks to Mum and Dad, for sending me The Box out of the blue, and of course (especially) to Lizzie, who didn’t mind me opening it.
This book was written on Great Barrier Island, New Zealand, in Berlin, Germany, and in my back garden, in London, with a cup of tea and a sandwich.
And then I sat outside The Crown in Islington, and made it all a bit better.
Thanks to you for reading it.
www.dannywallace.com
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Friends Like These Page 38