The To-Do List

by Mike Gayle

  2.05 p.m. I’ve just repeated my invention wish to Claire. She tells me I’ve already got one: ‘It’s called a wife and it’s how ninety per cent of the things that need doing in our house actually get done.’

  2.10 p.m. I ask Claire if we really need hard copies of the photos of our kids. She doesn’t reply. This can be interpreted as: ‘You already know the answer to that question so don’t even bother trying it on, pal.’

  3.10 p.m. I have filled up five and a half CDs with the best images from my computer (roughly 1,540 pictures) and am taking them down to Boots to get them printed out.

  3.42 p.m. The woman in Boots wants to know how many photos I’ve got to print. I tell her 1,540 and she laughs and tells me to stop joking around. I’m forced to explain that I’m not joking around so she gets out her calculator and does the sums: ‘That’ll be £ 231,’ she says.

  4.11 p.m. In a bid to drive the cost down the lovely woman from Boots and I have gone through all five and a half CDs and picked out what we think are the best images. Given the wealth to choose from and the fact that we’re basically trying to represent the last four years of Gayle history we find it hard to narrow it down to anything fewer than 150 photos which she works out will cost roughly £22.50. A bargain!

  Thursday 9 August

  4.55 p.m. I am sitting in a coffee shop on the High Street watching my wife weeping as she looks through the edited version of the last four years of our lives: anniversaries, get togethers, barbecues, birthday parties, family holidays and new babies galore. In a masterstroke I have not only earned this tick but gone some way towards being the best husband in the world. I share my observation with Claire. She just smiles and carries on looking through the photographs.

  Chapter 22: ‘Appreciate your mates because without them the highlight of your Sunday nights would probably be Songs of Praise.’

  It was the second Sunday in August and I was in the Queen’s with the Sunday Night Pub Club, catching up with each other’s news. Steve and Kaytee were considering a career change and buying the lease on a shop on Moseley High Street; Amanda had won a cruise to the Canary Islands by completing one of those ‘This product is so wonderful because . . .’ competitions promoting a new line of wholemeal bread; Gary had been out two nights on the trot and hadn’t been to sleep for thirty-six hours; Arthur had bought some more Dr Who figures; Jo was going off to Norwich at the weekend to see her old flatmate; and Henshaw and Danby had spent the weekend at various kids’ birthday parties. As well as this we’d also discussed who (sitting around the table) we’d most like to be trapped in a room with; why it would be virtually impossible for Oasis to ever make another decent album; and voted for our top three vegetables to complement the perfect Sunday roast. All in all it was shaping up to be another sterling Sunday Night Pub Club night.

  Afterwards, Henshaw and I made our way along Moseley High Street to the minicab office on St Mary’s Row.

  Henshaw turned to me. ‘So are you pleased with how your list thing is going?’

  ‘Yeah really pleased. I feel like I’m finally getting things done.’

  ‘Good, I’m chuffed for you, mate. So, what do you think you’ve learned so far?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About your To-Do List. I’m curious to know what insights you’ve had frantically doing all this extra stuff.’

  ‘I dunno,’ I replied eventually. ‘I haven’t really had the time to do much reflection.’

  ‘None of us do these days,’ he said laughing. ‘But since you’re doing this and it may at some point turn into a book, don’t you think you ought to?’

  In the back of the cab I reflected on Henshaw’s question. He was right, I had been doing the List off and on for some eight months now, which in terms of the time I’d allotted to the project was two thirds of the way to my goal. I should be well on the way to learning a few things about life. What was the point otherwise? A quotation that I’d read when I was seventeen and thought meaningful enough to inscribe in ballpoint pen on my army issue rucksack sprang into my head: ‘The unexamined life isn’t worth living.’

  It was late on a Sunday night; I was in the back of a mini-cab listening to an Asian version of Simon Bates’ Our Tune while quotations from long-dead Greek philosophers randomly popped into my head.

  When I reached home all I wanted to do was crawl into bed but my thoughts were urgent enough to make me grab a piece of paper and a pen. I wrote:

  Things I have learned from the To-Do List so far

  1. I have good friends.

  2. I miss some of my old friends.

  3. Everything takes longer than you think it should.

  4. Some things that you think are going to be hard are pretty easy.

  5. Some things that you think are going to be easy are pretty hard.

  6. There is no such thing as enough time.

  7. Sometimes doing stuff makes life easy.

  8. Sometimes doing stuff makes life a lot harder.

  9. Seeing my mum’s face when she saw Tony Blair was priceless.

  10. As hard as it is, being a dad is the best job in the world.

  I looked at the pad in front of me. As lessons acquired over the past eight months they didn’t seem too bad. Yawning, I put down the pen and was about to start getting ready for bed when it occurred to me that I hadn’t made my mind up about what my next big list thing was going to be.

  I scanned the entries looking for something to grab my attention but nothing sprang to mind. As a diversionary tactic I opened my laptop and saw that I had an email. A big smile broke out and got bigger as I read the contents of the message.

  The email was from Susie Dent, one of the co-stars of Channel Four’s long-running quiz series Countdown telling me that, yes, it would be okay if my friend Arthur had his photo taken in front of the show’s Countdown Conundrum Board.

  My next big tick was here.

  All of the Sunday Night Pub Club were on the To-Do List in the form of ‘Do something nice for . . . [insert name of Sunday Night Pub Club member here] and some of them had already been ticked off. Steve had informed us all one night that he’d never had anyone send him flowers so I sent the largest bunch I could find to him at work; Gary had received his in February when during an attempt to come up with a definitive list of ‘the most fanciable female singers of the Nineties Brit Pop era’ Gary confessed to a not inconsiderable crush on a particular female lead singer. A few weeks later, having called in a few favours from some friends of friends who knew her, Gary’s girl indie singer crush very kindly called him on his mobile while he was sitting round at Arthur’s house playing Vice City on the PlayStation. And in March, following a discussion about toys we had all wanted when we were young, Jo revealed how she had dreamt of owning a Girl’s World. Three days, a hotly contested auction on eBay and a not altogether insignificant amount of money later, and a pristine never-been-out-of-its-box-before Girl’s World was winging its way to Jo.

  Since then things had gone a bit quiet on the ‘do nice things for the Sunday Night Pub Club’ front. Not for lack of trying. I’d been struggling to find anything for either Kaytee or Henshaw and although Danby did mention something about his love of merino wool underwear I decided that was perhaps a step too far. But Arthur was going to be the most difficult to please as he only ever really got enthusiastic about Dr Who and Paul Weller and he already had pretty much every single Dr Who-related toy/DVD and the entire output of Paul Weller (even the really rubbish covers album). Or at least that was what I thought until his new girlfriend Amy revealed that in her spare time she travelled the country being in the audience for TV shows. So far she had ticked off Trisha, The Wright Stuff, Dancing On Ice, Top of The Pops, Question Time, Blind Date, Play Your Cards Right, The Weakest Link and Can’t Cook Won’t Cook. The only one that she hadn’t been on was Countdown. Arthur piped up how he’d always wanted to have his photo taken in front of the Countdown conundrum in a ‘Sir Edmund Hillary planting a flag on Everest kind of way’ as
he had only ever missed two episodes of Countdown in the last three years. Suddenly I had a way to make his dream happen and add a little something extra into the bargain.

  About a year ago I was invited to be a judge on the Best Novel section of a well-known book award. My fellow judges were Kate Adie and Countdown’s Susie Dent and, following a summer of reading, we all met up to discuss who we were going to put forward as the winner of the award. I’d felt a little out of my depth given that Kate was famous for reporting the news while being shot at and Susie was famous for knowing the Oxford English Dictionary inside out. Fortunately both were exceptionally nice people and for a short while they were candidates for Item 364 on my To-Do List: ‘Try to make friends with new and interesting people so that you don’t spend your whole life talking about films, music and last week’s episode of Dr Who.’ Just imagining the look of surprise on the Sunday Night Pub Club faces if I turned up at the Queen’s with Kate Adie in tow was enough to make me smile.

  I made sure that my first email to Susie was chirpy and not at all stalkerish:

  Dear Susie,

  It’s Mike Gayle here. I was a judge with you on the Book Awards. I was just wondering whether it would be okay to bring a couple of mates up to Leeds to watch Countdown being filmed. Hope you’re well!

  Mike x

  Dear Mike,

  Do come to Countdown and bring some friends! Just let me know when you have in mind.

  Hope you’re well.

  Susie x

  Great, I thought to myself, another tick. But then I realised I could kill two birds with one stone and follow up on a promise that I had made earlier in the year and before I knew it I was writing another email.

  Dear Sam,

  Remember how I said that now that we were friends again that we shouldn’t lose touch? Well me and Arthur and his bird are coming up to Leeds. How do you fancy meeting up and coming to see Countdown being filmed?

  Less than a minute later I received the following reply:

  Wahey! Do I ever! I love, love, love Countdown! Let me know the dates and I’ll book the day off work.

  Sam x

  So, suddenly it was on. Me, Arthur, Amy and Sam were heading over to Yorkshire TV to watch Countdown being filmed.

  Sam looked well and happy and was overjoyed at seeing Arthur for the first time in a decade. I introduced her to Amy and they exchanged comments about how much they loved Countdown and how excited they were at the thought that they might get to meet the show’s main presenter, Des O’Connor.

  We were all laughing and joking so much that we didn’t pay much attention to the huge coaches lined up on the double yellow lines outside the studios. Had we been paying attention we would have gleaned an early indication of our fellow audience: a sea of old people. One hundred and twenty of them covering every shape and size. There were tall old people and small old people. Old people in wheelchairs and old people on crutches. Old people who looked like old people versions of Hollywood stars (Danny De Vito, Will Smith and Nicole Kidman) and old people who looked as though they were seconds away from taking their last breath. All we could see was old people.

  And then there was us. Four youngish-looking people dressed like students.

  ‘It’s like being in the nursing home in Cocoon,’ said Arthur. ‘I’d guessed that old people were into Countdown because my mum loves it but this is ridiculous.’

  ‘Do you think they’ll turn on us?’ grinned Amy. ‘You know, start a fight because we’re on their turf?’

  ‘They’ll be fine,’ I replied, ‘I’ve got an affinity with old people because like them I enjoy moaning, hate being cold and am partial to the occasional Werther’s Original.’

  Realising that we were blocking the only door into the foyer and risked being tutted into oblivion we tried to make ourselves as inconspicuous as possible, a task not helped by Arthur gleefully taking photos of us against an octogenarian background.

  After half an hour or so some trendy-looking twentysomethings wearing headset microphones and carrying clipboards appeared as if from nowhere and began their spiel about the dos and don’ts of watching Countdown. The old people ‘oooohhhed’ and ‘aaahhhed’ at all the right moments while Sam, Arthur, Amy and I looked on in a mealy-mouthed fashion as we tried to hide our resentment at no longer being the youngest people in the building.

  The lead youngster-with-head-mic clapped his hands to get our attention.

  ‘Right, we’re going to go into the studio now so could we have anyone in a wheelchair or with a physical disability going in first, then the following guests: Mike Gayle, Arthur Tapp, Samantha Campbell-Midford and Amy Langham.’

  If it had been a competition to find the best way to embarrass four thirtysomethings in front of a crowd of old age pensioners, the youngster-with-head-mic would have won hands down. As we joined the queue behind the extra elderly and infirm and ahead of people some forty years older than us, we could feel the eyes of every pensioner in the room boring into the back of our skulls, as they silently asked themselves, ‘What’s so special about that lot that they get to go in front of us? We fought world wars and made this nation great. All they’ve done is leech off the government, listened to loud rock music and taken drugs.’

  It was the very definition of the walk of shame.

  The stress and strain we had endured was worth it to see Arthur’s face light up when the production assistants handed him an official Countdown notepad and pen. We got to have our photos taken on the podium in front of the Countdown Conundrum. Even I was aware that we were standing on hallowed ground. All in all it was everything that we’d hoped would be.

  It was just after eleven by the time Amy’s Fiat Punto pulled into my road. Climbing out of the car Arthur thanked me for sorting everything out.

  ‘You should get your own TV show called Mike’ll Fix it,’ said Arthur.

  ‘I’m already working on it.’

  As I scrambled around in my bag for my front door keys and Amy beeped her car horn goodbye, I thought to myself that this was what the List was all about. Making things happen that wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t pulled my finger out. My head suddenly flooded with things I was desperate to do. Heading inside I made my way upstairs and went to my desk to find the List and work out which particular item would make the most sense for me to do next but when I opened the drawer I was shocked to discover that it wasn’t there. I checked all the drawers, the top of my desk, my shelves, the bed, my bag and my coat but to no avail. Panicking, I turned the entire room upside down before acknowledging that somehow, somewhere, I’d lost the List.

  PART SIX

  September – The End

  (During which I mostly try to fill the huge empty void caused by the absence of the List)

  Chapter 23: ‘Learn to look after your things.’

  As a child how many times had my mum told me to take better care of my things, otherwise I’d ‘live to regret it’? A hundred? A thousand? Probably more like ten thousand. And now here I was, alive and regretting it. Big time. And if my mother had been right about this, what else might she have been right about? Would my finger get stuck up my nose if I carried on picking it? Would I catch a cold if I went out in winter without a vest? Would I not feel the benefit if I kept my coat on indoors? And though these thoughts raised a small smile, it faded all too quickly once I recalled what had led to them in the first place. I went downstairs to enlist Claire’s help.

  ‘It’s got to be here somewhere,’ she reasoned. ‘You’re never without it. It’ll be in your office somewhere.’

  ‘I’ve already checked.’

  ‘But how well did you check? Remember that time when you were completely convinced that you’d lost that £500 that you’d taken out to pay the builder and how you got me and my mum to scour the streets for it while you turned the house upside down looking for it? Where was it in the end?’

  ‘On my desk.’

  ‘And was it even hidden under anything?’

  �
�No,’ I sighed. ‘It was just sort of sitting there.’

  ‘And what about the time we were supposed to be going out for an anniversary meal and you thought you’d lost the car keys somewhere between the car park and the restaurant? We spent the entire night walking backwards and forwards looking for them – with me in my heels! – and where were they in the end? Inside your suit jacket where you insisted you’d checked a million times. I couldn’t look at you for days without wanting to throttle you. See? There’s hope yet. More than likely it’s somewhere obvious just waiting to be found.’

  ‘Okay, you’ve made a pretty good point,’ I conceded, wondering why these things always happened to me. ‘I’ll check again.’

  I spent until just after midnight going through my office, the bedrooms, the kitchen, the living room, the bathroom, the conservatory and even the cellar. I checked inside cupboards, toy boxes, the oven (even I thought that was a long shot); underneath beds, duvets, sofas, tables and small children. I went through the newspaper and magazine stack, my record collection, the food cupboards, our wardrobes and the drawer by the back door (noticing en route that it was fast on its way to becoming repopulated with takeaway menus). I then checked the roof area next to the skylights, the garden shed, the newsagents up the road, the lining of my black suit jacket, underneath the front wheel of the car, the bath, inside my printer’s paper drawer and between the pages of my copy of War and Peace. It wasn’t there.

  Thoroughly dejected I returned to the bedroom where Claire was giving Maisie her midnight feed.

  ‘I can’t find it anywhere,’ I said flopping down on the end of the bed.

  ‘Didn’t you make a copy of it?’

  ‘Of course I didn’t,’ I snapped. ‘It was a handwritten To-Do List, why would I bother making a copy of it?’