Yes Man

by Wallace, Danny

  But oddly it all seemed quite trivial. Apart from the crack users or the drunk drivers or the people who’d done something so obviously bad and wrong that it should never have been an option in the first place. But what I found next was different. What I did next seemed important. What I did next was type in “I wish I had said yes.”

  There were eighty-five results.

  I read through them.

  At first things seemed to be just as trivial.

  I wish I had said yes, when he offered to go Dutch. It was forty bloody quid and it wasn’t even cooked properly.

  I wish I had said yes, because at least then I wouldn’t have had to walk most of the way in the rain.

  But slowly I started to find themes developing. Sure, there were people out there who wished they’d said yes to certain things, and it had been no more than a casual annoyance. There were people who’d kicked themselves once or twice over the years, and probably uttered the odd “tsk” when the memory shot back to them and disrupted a lazy afternoon. People who’d probably lost a few hours sleep over a careless no …

  But there were also people who knew … pain.

  The pain of missing something; the pain of not knowing what could have happened; the pain of discovering that sometimes, opportunity really will only knock once; the pain of knowing where a No had brought them and realising too late when a Yes in its place could have led them.

  The pain not necessarily of having said no, but of not having grabbed a Yes.

  We gave the PlayMobil away today. I wish I had a penny for every time Harry had asked me to sit with him and play. I wish I had said yes and sat with him every single time he asked. Now he is older, and he never asks his dad to play. I miss that so much.

  “Yes, oh yes!” would have been the easiest answer. And why I did not say those words, I do not know, and even today, I wish I had said yes.

  I will never be able to explain just how much I wish I had said yes, because then at least we could have stayed where we were, and we could have held him in our arms until he was gone. I wish I had said yes.

  I miss her, I miss her. I wish I had said yes to her, because I miss her so much now.

  I wish I had said yes every time he wanted a hug. But I was always too busy, and now I just can’t …

  I didn’t know these people. I didn’t know their lives or their backgrounds, and I’d never know why not having said yes to one moment in time meant quite so much. They were just voices in the dark. But I could see their sadness.

  Maybe I was reading all this wrong, but suddenly, not having said yes to something that would have been great seemed worse than having said yes to something that could have been bad.

  Sure, it’s a case-by-case thing, but I was starting to realise that regret could always be with you. And maybe there’s a real difference between doing something we regret, and regretting not having done something. And it seemed that difference could be … well … sadness.

  Take the stupidest thing you’ve ever done. At least it’s done. It’s over. It’s gone. We can all learn from our mistakes and heal and move on. But it’s harder to learn or heal or move on from something that hasn’t happened; something we don’t know and is therefore indefinable; something which could very easily have been the best thing in our lives, if only we’d taken the plunge, if only we’d held our breath and stood up and done it, if only we’d said yes.

  If only.

  If I went to see Lizzie and it didn’t work out, would I regret it as much as I would regret never having done it? Would knowing be better than not knowing?

  But suddenly I snapped out of it. I switched the computer off. I was being stupid. I had done the right thing. The only thing I could. This wasn’t a film. This was my life. A part of me—and maybe even you—had hoped that by reading those random people’s experiences and seeing their grief, something would snap inside me. And I’d realise that I wouldn’t want to be like them, wouldn’t want to regret like them, realise that it wasn’t too late, that I could still take a chance …

  But it didn’t.

  It just made me feel like there were other people out there who would understand; who would know exactly how I felt. And right now that was enough for me, somehow.

  The following morning I would cut up my credit cards. I would book an appointment to get a haircut, during which I would lose my mullet and regain my old self. I would look into the best ways and means of selling my car. I would go back to how I was, in preparation for how I would be.

  Soon it would be Friday. I still had a couple of days to brace myself for whatever punishment Ian lined up, and I would undertake his wishes with a smile and good humour. You want me to dance around the pub in little blue pants? Fine. You want me to dress like a pirate and call myself Mr. Shitlerfor three weeks? Done. I’d do whatever he wanted. Once again, and for one night only, I’d be a boy who just couldn’t say no.

  And so I got on with life. I went to the supermarket. I rented some DVDs. I started thinking about what I was going to do in January at the BBC. I played a few video games, replaced all the batteries in all my remote controls, and fixed a broken pen. I stayed in and watched telly. Lizzie left a message, saying she’d gotten back safely and wishing me a happy Christmas. I couldn’t face phoning back.

  And just when I thought that any hope had gone and that the course of my life was now more or less set, I received a postcard.

  And that postcard, my friend, changed everything.

  Chapter 26 In Which Something Remarkable Happens

  It was Tuesday afternoon and time to face my punishment.

  I drove through central London on my way to Langham Street and the Yorkshire Grey, where Ian would already be waiting for me.

  I parked my car outside the Yorkshire Grey, popped my MIMSTER ON OFFICIAL BUSINESS sign on the dashboard, and walked through the doors. He was sitting at a small table by the fireplace. He smiled when he saw me. Of course he did. The bastard. He’d been looking forward to this since the summer, and the fact that I’d lied to him about Kristen had only doubled his venom.

  I had my diary in my hand—the result of nearly six months of intensive Yessaying, the proof of my decision to live my life religiously by the power of Yes—and yet the very document that also confirmed I had failed. I set it down on the table and saw that Ian too had brought something. A long, red envelope, with the words THE PUNISHMENT written across the front.

  “Is that the punishment?” I said slightly unnecessarily.

  “It certainly is. It’s a good one. I think you’ll like it. I have put a lot of thought into it, Danny. A lot.”

  Ian smiled.

  “You did far better than I thought you would,” he said. “I’m sorry it had to be this way. But a deal’s a deal. As we have established, you have failed on three counts, averaging out to roughly one failure per two months. Not an impressive record.”

  The fact that all three Nos had happened in the last six weeks apparently meant nothing to Ian. And he’d conveniently forgotten about his role in the dastardly plot to make it all so much harder, too.

  Luckily I hadn’t.

  I would still have my revenge on Ian. But not today.

  “So … let us count the ways in which you have said no.”

  “Well, hang on. What about the ways in which I said yes?” I said.

  Ian considered the point, and with a theatrical wave of his hand, signalled for me to explain. I felt like a serf being granted an audience with the king.

  “Well … what I mean is … I’ve tried really hard at saying yes to things. Yes to everything. And what I’ve learnt is that Yes is a powerful word. It’s a word that can set us free and let us open our hearts and fly like the wind. It’s a word—”

  “Oh, Jesus, shut up, mate. Yes. It’s a word. But the point is, it’s a word you failed to say three times. To a pint. To a girl. To Australia. And now, by the power vested in me by the Yes Manifesto, I …”

  “There’s something else I haven’t tol
d you.”

  Ian put his head in his hands.

  “If I’ve got to rewrite the bloody punishment …,” he said. “What is it? What haven’t you told me?”

  “Well, what you’re saying isn’t strictly true. I mean, yes, I did say no to those things, and so technically I failed, but …”

  “Oh, here we go,” said Ian, throwing his hands up in the air. “You’re going to find a loophole, now, aren’t you? Or some kind of last-minute twist. Well, that isn’t fair. You said no. That’s the end of it. You failed.”

  “That’s just it,” I said. “I did fail. I didn’t say yes to everything. But I only said no to two of those things. I only failed on two counts.”

  Ian looked at me suspiciously.

  “Have you been round Kristen’s house? I thought you were looking a little tired….”

  “No. I’m tired because I’ve been up half the night packing.”

  “Packing?”

  “I’m going to Australia. To see Lizzie. See how things go. Take a risk. I’m saying yes.”

  “What!?”

  “I’m flying out tonight. I’ll be there Christmas Eve. I’m afraid your elaborate and well-thought-out punishment will have to wait until I get back.”

  “But the punishment is brilliant!” he said, holding up his little red envelope with some degree of desperation in his eyes. “You can’t do this to me! I worked long and hard on this!”

  “I’d better go.”

  I started to stand up. Ian looked at me pleadingly.

  “But … what changed your mind?”

  I picked up my diary and flicked to the last page.

  I found the postcard—the glorious, glorious postcard—that had arrived mornings before. I put it on the table and slid it toward him.

  “Read this,” I said, and I watched him while he did.

  “Oh …,” he said. “Wow.”

  And then he handed it over, I put it back in my diary, left the pub, and got back in the car. I was driving to the airport. But there was one thing left to do.

  I got my phone out and dialled Wag’s number.

  “Wag?”

  “Hiya, Dan.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m in Italy.”

  “Right. Well. This’ll sound a bit odd, but there’s a big favour I need …”

  Many thousands of feet up in the air, I thought about what I was doing. It was a risk, yeah, but it was a risk I was glad I was taking. Lizzie had been delighted when I’d phoned her up to ask if the offer still stood and to explain my behaviour the last time I’d seen her. And like Ian, she’d wanted to know why I’d changed my mind; what could possibly have happened to make me decide to find the one credit card I hadn’t cut up—the one credit card I’d saved “for emergencies”—and book myself on the first available flight to Melbourne.

  I opened up my diary and took out the postcard. It was battered, and bruised, and smudged, and it was all the way from Thailand.

  Danny,

  How’s it going? It’s Jason here, I met you a while back at Thorn’s party in Liverpool. Sorry for being a bit of a dick that night—methinks one too many. Well, a few days later I realised that I really did want to go travelling with my brother. Work was getting me down anyway, dunno if you could tell! So here we are in Thailand; dunno where to next. We’re having an amazing time. Thorn gave me your address and said you wanted to chat with me. I’m back home in a few months, how about then? My new e-mail address is *******@hotmail.com or call me on 07*** *** ***. Gotta go, the beach is calling …

  Jase

  I smiled. Jason had said yes.

  I had no idea whether his decision to give up his job and do something that made him happy had anything to do with me. I suspect that on the whole it didn’t. But a part of me still hopes that it did.

  It’s incredible how a few words from someone you hardly know can have an impact on your life. Of course some would call this divine intervention. That maybe Maitreya did exist, and it had been him that had done this. But I knew something. A stranger can affect your life in a thousand different ways—with a new thought or idea … or suggestion. I had my man on the bus—perhaps Jason had his stranger at the party. And maybe right now, he was on some beach in Thailand, telling a local girl (who one day, I like to think, he might marry), all about the night he met the stranger at the party, and all about those few words he’d said that had made him change his ways.

  It was actually more likely that he was on some beach in Thailand, getting drunk, but it’s a nice thought all the same.

  The fact is saying yes hadn’t been a pointless exercise at all. It had been pointful. It had the power to change lives and set people free. People like me or Jason. Maybe even you. It had the power of adventure. Sometimes the little opportunities that fly at us each day can have the biggest impact.

  And now as I sat, cramped and sleepy, in a passenger jet high above the ocean, I would see what else Yes had in store for me.

  This was it. This was life.

  I leaned against the window and fell asleep in an instant.

  SELECTED EXTRACTS FROM THE DIARY OF A YES MAN

  December 26

  I have been in Australia for a full three days.

  Everything is … great.

  Lizzie met me at the airport with a Kiss and a smile.

  On christmas Day had a barbecue with the family and drank beer with all the various, cousins and brothers and stood around and bated in a thirty-degree heat. I feel it is important to stick to as many international cultural clichés as is possible in life, so as well as the barbie, I also had someone lend me a hat with some corks in it. Plus, despite my lack of tan and muscles, I really fit in here. Australia is the land of the mullet! I feel that at last I am among my own people.

  Lizzie’s just made me a cup of tea. She’s looking after me. I am pretending to be more jetlagged than I am. I get a lot more tea that way.

  December 28

  This morning Lizzie wote me up to tell me we were going on a journey in her little red Nissan. We set off in the direction of a place called Glenrowan. She wouldn’t tell me why. It took three hours to get there, and when we arrived, there didn’t seem to be much of it. Ë dirt tracte, a few dusty wooden buildings, and an old man in dungarees and a beard he must have been growing since the 1800s.

  Lizzie got out the car and asted the old man, “there’s Ned?”

  He poted a thumb to his right and said in a gruff and husfy accent, “Pound the corner.”

  I tried to ask Lizzie who Ned was, but she put her finger to her mouth, and then beckoned me to follow her.

  And then I saw it. Towering high into the sky with a gun in one hand and a buctet on his head was … a Big Ned Kelty A Big Thing! My first-ever Big Thing! It must have been a hundred feet if it was an inch! A true Australian hero, lovingly re-created in concrete and fading plaster. Okay, so it was no Big Prawn, but it was brilliant nonetheless.

  We stood there for what seemed lite an age just quietly staring at the silent majesty of Ned. There was reverence in the air. I loved Lizzie for that.

  When we got home, I sat down with a map and enthusiastically attempted to plot the most efficient route round Australia with a pen. A grand, epic journey that would take in the Big Rock, the Big Lobster, the Big Cow and the Bid Oyster. Me and Lizzie. On the road, in a tiny red car. For months and months and months.

  December 29

  It appears that the map has mysteriously disappeared.

  How curious. Unie seemed just as shocked as I was and gave me a look that some would have mistaken for guilt, but which 1 Know was of a genuine disappointment.

  December 31

  It’s New Year’s Eve.

  Exactly one since the last one.

  And the night I was supposed to have finished being the Yes Man, in a pub, with lan—either triumphing as the Yes Man, or receiving my punishment with humility Cut here I am instead, on the other side of the world, having said the biggest and most unexpect
ed Yes of my life … and happy Happier than I’ve been in ages. So happy that I came here.

  Melbourne is ablaze with fireworks. We’ve been standing in Federation Square, watching live bands and drinking bottles of water, counting down to midnight—all around us happy Australians, who are hugging and shading hands and ooh-ing at the fireworks that bang and burst above our heads.

  Lizzie and I hug. And at one point she looks at me, and she says something along the lines of “We can make this all work out, can’t we?”, and I look at my watch, and I see that it’s 12:04 in a brand-new year. And I realise that for the first time in months, I feel like I can say whatever I want, with no restriction, and no regrets. Anything I want.

  And so I turn to her.

  And I say “Yes.”

  In Which Ian Gets His Just Desserts

  To : Danny

  From: Ian

  Subject: Help me!

  Dear Danny,

  In the last forty-eight hours I have received more than one hundred calls on my home telephone. Each one of these has been from a confused Italian looking for someone named Charlie. One of the more persistent callers is a teenage girl who, as soon as I pick up, spends upwards of a minute simply screaming at me.

  I did the sensible thing, of course, and switched my answerphone on. However, I forgot that my outgoing message contains my mobile number, and consequently I woke up this morning to find thirty-two texts and forty voie emails—one of which was just a minute and a half of screaming.

  I take it that all this is not just coincidence.

  You bastard.

  Your former friend, who wishes he had helped the Challenger even more now,

  Ian

  P.S. Enjoy Australia

  In Which We Must Finally Say Good-bye

  Well, then, there you have it.

  I am ftilly aware that technically, I failed at being the Yes Man. I’m sorry about that, and I hope you don’t feel too cheated. But I hope you’ll agree that, in the end, I probably won something a little more important.

  Nevertheless, my Yes adventure was at an end. I hope, maybe, that at some point today, or tomorrow, or next week, even, you might say yes to something you’d normally say no to.