Friends Like These: My Worldwide Quest to Find My Best Childhood Friends, Knock on Their Doors, and Ask Them to Come Out and Play (33 page)

The success was making me giddy, and as the sky outside my windows darkened, I found the clipping from the
Loughborough Echo
which mistakenly reported that Tim Sismey and I had both won the conker championships of ’87… and then found Tim Sismey’s
email address hidden away on a website about music… I wrote to him apologizing for such a devious media cover-up, and he replied,
saying:

Thank you so much for your concern about the Echo article. I feel it’s important that we, the people who make the news, do
not let the people who report it use our lives to further their own causes and I applaud your honesty.

And guess what? In clearing out a wardrobe in my mum’s house a year ago, I discovered a Harrogate Toffee tin, which actually
contained the remains of the winning conker from that brutal battle. How weird! Take care, Tim.

That
was
weird. A memory that I’d assumed was probably just mine had been remembered from a slightly different angle only a year before…
how often do shared memories pop up around the world? What happens if two people have the same memory at the exact same moment?
Are they connected for a split second? Does the memory get stronger, somehow?

This was all a little too philosophical for me, and my head had started to hurt, so I made a cup of tea and had a sit-down.

I ate a cookie and thought about the names that I’d tapped out on my keyboard today. I knew that—granted—it was fairly unlikely
I’d ever get to re-create my conker battle with Tim Sismey again. Nor would I see Bob in Japan, or Grisha in Israel. But it
suddenly hit me that with all the tools at my disposal—texts, MySpace, Face-book, Bebo, Google, email, iChat, Skype,
everything
—I had no excuse whatsoever for letting
any
of these friendships ever slide again.

And then I sat back down at my desk, and looked at all I had achieved with my day. It had been nine hours since I’d started.
I decided I should probably think about lunch, and then I’d earn myself a few MPs. But then I heard Lizzie’s key in the lock.
It was evening.

*   *   *

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said, not entirely brightly.

“But I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

We were eating our dinner in front of
The National Lottery.
Neither of us had bought a ticket but we’d both been pretending it was interesting all the same. Paul’s ladder was now in
the corner of the room, mocking my lack of manliness.

“It’s
not
fine, baby. You asked me to do
one
thing.”

“Seriously, it’s cool.”

“It’s not
cool,
either. You asked me to get you that form from that post office and I didn’t.”

“Relax.”

“But the Deal!”

“You can get it tomorrow.”

I looked at her.

“You’re not making sticking to the Desperados Pact very easy. Perhaps if you were nastier I’d get more done. It’s making me
feel very guilty.”

“And that’s exactly what I’m relying on,” she said, putting her fork down. “So have you found Chris yet?”

I shook my head.

“Nope.”

“But he’s the big prize, right?”

“Kind of. I mean, I want to see all twelve, but Chris was first, y’know?”

“You’ll find him. And as for the Deal, you’ll have all next weekend to work on that…”

“Will I?”

“Yup. Sarah’s thirtieth, remember?”

Ah, yes. Sarah’s thirtieth. Another brave twentysomething warrior stepping into the unknown. Another birthday closer to it
being
mine.

“She’s booked a hotel in Brighton for the girls… is that cool?”

“Of course it’s cool,” I said, feeling somehow more guilty than ever. “And I’ll get to work, really I will. I’ll finish painting
the shed. And also, Paul’s coming round to sort out that canopy.”

Lizzie smiled. I made a mental note to ring Paul to get him round to sort out that canopy.

“The reason I can’t sort out your canopy,” said Paul, very slowly, “is due to the nature of the corrugated plastic which we
all agreed would be the best material for the job…”

I waited for him to continue, but he didn’t seem to have much more to say. And then I realized that I’d never actually talked
about corrugated plastic with him before. I’d never talked about it with
anyone.
If anything, I find corrugated plastic to be a
boring
topic of discussion, but I do realize that’s quite a controversial thing to say.

“But Paul—I don’t even remember really
wanting
this canopy,” I said. “I just wanted my
guttering
sorted.
She
was the problem!”

“Who was?”

I pointed.

“The guttering… lady!”

“The guttering will be sorted, Danny,” he said, very calmly. “Leave it with me. But the canopy has to go up first, you see,
and
then
I can begin work on the guttering.”

It made no sense to me, this builder logic. As far as I could see, the two jobs were entirely unrelated. It was like saying,
“I can’t punch a tiger because my aunt likes ceramics.”

“Well… do you still need to leave your ladder here?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said.

And then he said he had to go because he said his daughter had been mugged.

“She wasn’t mugged,” said Ian, shoving some bacon into his mouth.

We were at a small café off Poland Street and Ian had gone for the full En glish.

“I
know
she wasn’t mugged,” I said. “But how do you tell a man his daughter hasn’t been mugged?”

“You could ask if you can meet the mugger.”

“Why would I ask to meet someone’s mugger?”

“Just say you’re interested.”

“I am not interested in meeting someone’s fictional mugger.”

“So why have you asked me here, taking me so far away from the beauty of Chislehurst, if you’ve already decided
not
to meet someone’s fictional mugger? I’m not dressing up as a bear again—I don’t care how much Kung Po chicken you’re offering…”

“I think I’ve done something stupid,” I said, and Ian looked thrilled.

“Brilliant!” he said, his mouth full of sausage.

Just hours after Paul had left, I’d been attempting to rack up some more MPs. The excitement of finding the names of those
people not in the Book had died down somewhat, and their replies and hellos had stopped trickling in. I’d popped out to buy
more filler as well as an electric screw driver, which I thought might get me more excited about the prospect of screws and
their driving. I’d decided to tidy up the shed, too, but it had started raining by the time I got home so I made a cup of
tea and wandered around the house, working out what my priorities should be, and how many MPs I could expect to earn from
each one. The problem, as I saw it, was that as far as MPs were concerned, I was flying blind. There was no
system
in place. What made one bit of DIY more valuable than another? And how much was an MP worth, anyway? A phone call? An email?
A
trip?

And then I’d heard the familiar bing-bong of New Mail…

There were two emails waiting for me.

The first was from—
joy!
—Akira’s dad…

Dear Daniel,

Thank you for your mail.

I remember clearly you and your family.

I often remember our life at Loughborough.

My son Akira became a medical doctor and works at the Yamanashi University Hospital now.

Yours sincerely

Isamu Matsui

I sat back and smiled. So Akira had done it! He’d achieved his childhood dream—the dream he’d told me about on his postcard.
He was a medical doctor.

I patted myself on the back, and then realized that was quite an odd thing to do.

The second email was from Ben Ives.

A rather
nervous
Ben Ives.

ManGriff (what’s your real name, by the way?), Sorry, but I’m now guessing this is actually some kind of joke after all…

Shit! He
knew!

… in retribution for the article perhaps?

Ha! He still thought it was them! Even if it
was
a joke, he thought it was
ManGriff the Beast Warrior
’s joke—not mine!

I smiled, with relief. The trick was still on. But then… an ultimatum.

I also think that if we’re going to meet it should be just the two of us, and not at the office. But next Friday is now the
only day I can do. I am very busy at work and this is the only time I will be able to fit you in for the foreseeable. It will
have to be very quick, I’m afraid.

Many thanks

Ben

I’d winced when I’d read the final paragraph.

Because I knew nothing more could now develop. I’d hoped to carry this on, to keep making him worried, perhaps canceling the
21st and arranging more meetings for the future, each one more bizarre and more worrying, before finally phoning him up, and
yelling, “It was me all along!” But somehow, with this email, Ben had gained the upper hand. He’d forced me to quit early.
He’d firmly told me that there was to be no more messing about—that this one date was the only one he’d be able to do, and
the implication that this would be an end to things was clear. There would be no canceling, no rearranging, no making things
bigger or better—it was now, definitely, all about the 21st. In fact, I realized with a strange sensation in my tummy, it
was all about
next Friday.

“So what’s the problem?” asked Ian. “Have you lost your nerve?”

No. It wasn’t that. Although I had slowly begun to feel a little unsure about what I’d been doing to Ben. I mean, yes, I owed
him. And no, it wasn’t malicious. But perhaps this was the wrong way to get him back. Was this really the best way of getting
back in touch? Was this truly better than just turning up and saying hi, it’s me, how are you, like I’d done with the others?

“Or,” said Ian, suddenly having an idea, “is it that you think he knows it’s you?”

“It’s crossed my mind,” I said.

I’d started to think about my first proper job, when I’d been a journalist. Letters from members of the public were an occupational
hazard, and those who did take the trouble to write, in order to proffer a correction or disagree with an opinion, were, more
often than not, a little bit nutty. And then there were the letters from people like me and Ben, teenage hoaxers, giggling
as we spewed out random opinions from made-up characters… which had started to make his at first blind acceptance of them
all the more worrying…

“Nah,” said Ian, mopping up brown sauce with a slab of bread. “It’s LA. The fact that some people who enjoy dressing up as
animals would take offense at an article making fun of people who enjoy dressing up as animals probably happens twenty or
thirty times a day over there. And they’re probably always turning up at journalists’ offices all dressed up and waving their
poetry about.”

And he was right. For about a quarter of a second.

Because this was
Ben Ives
we were talking about.

Was he actually, secretly, on to me? Was this an elaborate double bluff? You could never be sure with Ben. I thought back
to my days at Argos, at the pristine white letter that had been pinned so carefully to the staffroom wall… the way he’d looked
when he’d told me I’d never get him back… the way he’d always been one step ahead…

“So what
is
the problem?” asked Ian, sitting back, full of beans.
Literally
full of beans, I mean. “Because I’m not being funny, Dan, but there’s a
fete
on in Chislehurst today.”

“Well, I wrote back,” I said. “And I arranged a meeting.”

“You’d
already
arranged a meeting,” said Ian. “The made-up meeting.”

“No,” I said, slowly. “I mean, I
arranged a meeting
…”

The fact was, this was Ben’s fault. This was what I kept telling myself. This was Ben’s fault for getting all jittery and
precious and trying to force ManGriff the Beast Warrior’s hand. Paw. Hand.

Had Ben not made it absolutely clear that this was ManGriff’s one chance of a meeting for who knows how long, perhaps all
that would’ve happened was, two or three minutes before the agreed meeting time, I would’ve phoned up and laughed down the
phone at him.

But now, the way things had developed, I wanted more… I didn’t want Ben calling the shots.
I
was in control. And I wanted to see Ben. Not in the same way as I’d wanted to see Tarek or Cameron, but in a more base and
visceral way. Plainly speaking, I wanted to see Ben’s face when he realized that it wasn’t an annoyed group of Furries who’d
come to see him after all. It was me. Danny Wallace. A wronged man.

“Something has to be done, Ian!” I said. “
I
have to do something. Ben Ives tricked me. He broke the rules. You don’t prank a pranker, Ian. You
never
prank a pranker!”

“Well you should get him back!”

“That’s what this is all about! Why do you think I’ve been pretending to be a variety of animal-obsessed poets?”

“Right!” said Ian, nodding, eyes closed. “Got you.”

“Ben was trying to regain control of the situation, and I didn’t want to let him,” I said.

And that was why, almost without thinking of the consequences, I’d gone to a website, checked a few details, and then tapped
out my reply.

Ben,

That’s fine. We can meet alone—I’ll clear it with my girlfriend. How about the Garden Bar, which isn’t too far from your office,
next Friday afternoon at 2pm?

ManGriff

“So you emailed him back?”

“Nearly,” I said, my finger pointing in the air.

“Why
nearly?
”

I’d been staring at the screen for a couple of minutes, my finger hovering over my mouse. And I just didn’t know whether to
press Send.

I’d been doing so well. That table was nearly all varnished and that rubber band had
really
sorted out my hosepipe. I’d been at a crossroads these past few months, and Ian knew that. Finding my old friends had been
a handy way of coping with the prospect of turning thirty—of seeking reassurance that we were all going through the same things.
Of making my leap into the world of the thirtysomething okay. Of calming myself down, and leaving stupid behavior behind.
But this was something else. If I was to fly to LA just because I wanted to redress a balance that had been off-kilter for
the last sixteen years, I would have trouble justifying it to Lizzie. To me. To
anyone.