Friends Like These: My Worldwide Quest to Find My Best Childhood Friends, Knock on Their Doors, and Ask Them to Come Out and Play

by Danny Wallace

  Our meeting only lasted an hour. But it was a great hour. An hour that meant something to me, and, I hope, a little something to him. We took him back down to the train station, where I waved goodbye to Akira Matsui—friend number eleven.

  This was it. Just Chris to get. And I was thankful. Because I was so tired.

  And then, laughing like high little boys, Bob and I hit Tokyo to celebrate.

  Bob and I sang loud and ridiculous karaoke in a small booth in Roppongi Hills. We drank sake in a strange bar in Akasaka. We high-fived confused strangers as we crossed the road before the Rainbow Bridge. We studied weird Japanese toys and a twenty-foot Godzilla in a shopping mall. We declined a foot rub by a fourteen-year-old girl dressed as a French maid. We stood at the foot of the Tokyo Tower, and wondered what it must be like to stand at the top.

  But I already felt like I was.

  And, when hunger finally set in, and Bob decided we needed to do something about it, I said, “I know just the place.”

  “Where?” he said.

  “You’ll love it,” I said. “I know a master ninja who gives great advice…”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  IN WHICH WE MEET SOMEONE UNEXPECTED…

  The trip had been an unmitigated success. An unmitigated success.

  I had done it! Peter and Akira. Numbers ten and eleven. Updated. In the book. Friends again.

  Now, I thought, again, stepping off the Heathrow Express, there was just number twelve. Chris Guirrean. And he was virtually in the bag. He’d called. Left a message. I had him.

  This had been quite a journey. From Loughborough, to Berlin, to LA, to Melbourne, to Tokyo, to London… and all in the name of friendship. And I’d come a long way in other ways, too. I would meet Christopher by November 16th. I would meet him by the time I was thirty. And then I would be ready. Ready to accept my fate—no, not fate: destiny—as one of the walking thirtysomethings.

  At Paddington, I hopped in a taxi and cheerfully headed for home. Lizzie would be at home today. I texted her telling her to put the kettle on in anticipation.

  Oh yeah. Because this was a celebration.

  “How was it?” she said, and I got my digital camera out.

  “That’s Peter relaxing with a Guinness!” I said, pointing him out. “We went bowling and ate noodles!”

  “Brilliant!” she said. “And Akira?”

  “That’s him there! I got trained by ninjas and traipsed around the Japanese countryside! If Bob hadn’t been there I’d never have found him…”

  “Who’s Bob?” she asked.

  “He’s an old friend.”

  “Of course he is.”

  I hugged her.

  “Tea?” she said.

  “Yes! But no! First, give me Chris’s message!”

  And, like a dutiful wife, off she ran.

  “I wrote it down,” she said. “All he’d said on the message was, ‘This is Chris calling for Danny Wallace, can he call me back,’ and then his number.”

  “Ace,” I said. “Did he seem pleased to hear from me?”

  “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 dialed.

  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 stabilizers 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 in front of 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 b
ringing 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 neighbors, 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 color 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 percent. 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 Doritos. Just because I’m nearly thirty doesn’t mean I can’t buy a packet of Doritos.

  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 Doritos.

  “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, 7 p.m., tomorrow. Do. Not. Be. Late.”

  It was the night before my thirtieth birthday. November 15th, 2006. 6:59 p.m. 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 recognize 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 11:15 p.m. 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.<
br />
  “Keep them closed! Now… open them!”

  I opened my eyes.

  And there, before me, another childhood ambition realized.

  “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.