Yes Man (19 page)

“If you’re sure. I mean, if you’re actually inviting me along, Seb, then yes. Yes, I’d love to.”

I had gone bright red. And so had Hanne. But not for the same reasons. Seb, though, ever the gentlemen, regained his composure, took his phone back out,
and said “Right … well … let me just call the restaurant and tell them it’s a table for
three
…”

It was
horrible
.

The three of us were sitting in near-silence in a rather posh restaurant called Circus. Seb and Hanne were sitting opposite each other, and there was I, perched in the middle, sitting on a hastily added chair at a table quite clearly meant for two.

I mean, it was
really horrible
.

We’d been sitting there for ten minutes. The candlelight was doing nothing to melt the ice in the air.

It became all-too-apparent that this was Hanne’s very first date with Seb—and here I was, gatecrashing. It is hard to adequately describe just how awkward I was feeling. But still, this was how it was to be. All I could try to do was jolly things along …

“So … how did you guys meet?” I said in as friendly a way as I could muster.

“Danny, do we have to …,” started Hanne before Seb chipped in.

“Through a friend,” he said. “I work with Cecilia.”

“Oh, Cecilia, yes,” I said.

“Yep,” said Seb, picking up his menu.

“Cecilia,” I said again, for some reason in an amusing northern accent this time.

Seb didn’t respond. Hanne just stared at me.

“Cecilia,” I said normally, to prove that I could.

Seb continued to study his menu.

“It’s like that song, isn’t it?”

“What song?” said Hanne, sternly.

“Cecilia,” I said. “By Simon and Garfunkel.”

“Yes,” said Hanne. “It is.”

“Have I told you my mum’s Simon and Garfunkel story?”

“Yes,” said Hanne. Seb didn’t look at all interested in hearing my mum’s Simon and Garfunkel story. Even though it is excellent.

At a table somewhere else in the restaurant, someone coughed.

“Yeah,” I said, taking a deep breath. “Cecilia.”

I bit into a breadstick. “How does that song go again?”

“Jesus,”
I heard Hanne say under her breath before picking up her menu.

So I looked at my menu as well, and the three of us sat there in silence, pretending to be deep in thought.

A waiter arrived.

“Would you like to order some wine?”

I don’t think he’d ever heard three people say yes with such conviction before.

I’d love to leave that particular evening there. Really, I would. But I can’t. Because it didn’t stop there. Plus / had to suffer, and now so will you.

Twenty minutes had passed, and we’d all ordered.

The waiter had recommended the fish, and though even as a child I never really ate fish, I had gone for it. Hanne had raised her eyebrows at me when I did this. Seb hadn’t really said anything in about ten minutes, and so it had fallen to me to make conversation. But how?

I thought about the joke I had made three nights earlier. That’d work! Surely! At last! The perfect icebreaker!

“I was thinking,” I said, smiling, and Seb looked up for the first time in ages. Oh, this was it. If I could give them the gift of laughter, the most precious gift of all, surely then all this embarassment would simply evaporate?

I chuckled to myself in anticipation.

“I was walking past Pizza Hut the other day, and for a second I was sure the sign said ‘Pizza
Hat.’
And then I thought, wouldn’t it be funny if there was a shop called ‘Pizza Hat’ that sold hats shaped like pizzas?”

I chuckled and waited, eyebrows raised, for the rest of the laughter to start. Seb looked back down at his menu. I turned my head to see Hanne glaring at me.

“You know …,” I tried weakly. “Because it sounds like ‘Pizza Hut,’ only it’s …”

I looked to Seb.

“… a hat shop.”

Nothing.

I couldn’t work it out. That joke had been an absolute
stormer
when I’d been off my tits on drugs. I guess sometimes people just don’t
want
to enjoy themselves.

“Hey, I nearly got ten million dollars the other day,” I said, but I was interrupted almost immediately.

“Look, Danny,” said Seb. “Why don’t you just eat your fish and fuck off?”

Hanne’s eyes hit the floor. Seb’s remained locked on me.

And so I quietly ate my fish and off I fucked.

I walked out of the Tube a deeply embarrassed man. I decided, quite rightly under the circumstances, that I needed a drink.

I texted Ian as I headed for the pub.

IF YOU WANT A PINT, I AM IN THE ROYAL INN.

He texted back instantly.

WHAT?

I checked what I’d written. Thanks to a distracted mind and predictive text messaging, I hadn’t quite got my message across.

HE YOU WANT A RIOT I AN GO THE ROYAL INN.

I phoned him. “Pint?”

“Yes,” he said. “Or we
could
start a riot.”

In the pub Ian laughed in my stupid, bespectacled face.

“You said
yes?!
Why the hell did you say
yes?”

“Have you forgotten about this whole saying yes thing, Ian? It does involve rather a lot of saying yes to things.”

“I know, mate, but what’s wrong with you? You’ve got to have limits!”

“Limits?
Be consistent! You’re the one who threatened to punish me if I so much as
dreamed
a no!”

“Oh, I’m not being consistent, am I?”

“No! You were the one with all the threats at the beginning. ‘Oh, I’ll have to punish you if you don’t do it properly.’”

“I don’t need to punish you! You’re punishing yourself.”

“Jesus, Ian, I looked like a tit. I’m
happy
for Hanne; it’s great that she’s found someone new. I don’t want her thinking I’m not cool with it.”

“Yeah, it does kind of look that way. What with you forbidding her from seeing a new man one week, and then gatecrashing their date the next. Maybe you should tell her about the Yes thing. Stop it from happening again.”

“I would rather Hanne thought I was having a mental breakdown than indulging myself in another stupid boy-project. Which this is not, by the way.”

“Sounds like one.”

“You’re not being much help, Ian.”

“Not much help? Now I’m inconsistent
and
not much help! All I do is help! Without me, you’d have been beaten up by Omar in Amsterdam!”

“Or I would have got ten million dollars.”

Ian laughed.

“Yeah, right,” he said. “Prick stick.”

Suddenly I took great and brutal offence. It had suddenly become quite an emotional evening, and I wasn’t going to sit here in my own local pub, being called a prick stick just because I dared to have a little faith in my fellow man.

“Prick stick?! I’m
not
a prick stick!”

I was probably overreacting.

“I’m just saying, Ian … maybe Omar really
was
in danger! You can’t totally discount that!”

“We talked about this! I proved it to you! The man was a scammer! You’re being stupid! This whole thing is pointless and stupid!”

“It’s not pointless! I’ll find the point! And I’m not being stupid, either! Are you really telling me, despite all the recorded evidence, that there was absolutely no chance whatsoever—
whatsoever—
that Omar wasn’t really a scammer at all? That he
wasn’t
the son of a murdered sultan? I’m being human, Ian!”

Ian simply looked at me. “I had a
brilliant
idea for a punishment for you. But now I’m going to scrap it. I’m going to find something a hundred times worse.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

I walked out of the pub that night, my mood not exactly enhanced by two pints with Ian and a bottle of wine with Hanne, Seb, and humiliation. I’d been hungry, so had stopped at a shop on Roman Road and ordered myself a packet of chips and a can of Fanta. The chips were drenched in vinegar, ketchup, and chilli sauce—the three options the man had given me, the three I’d agreed to—and I didn’t even make it halfway to my flat before furiously throwing them in a bin.

When I got home, I flicked the computer on and started to make myself a sandwich.

Sure, I thought. The argument with Ian aside, Yes had dealt me a pretty major negative tonight. But it had also dealt me a few positives. And who knew? Maybe this would eventually make me and Hanne closer friends.

My phone beeped.

A message from Hanne.

TWAT.

I decided she’d probably misused her predictive text too, and she’d meant to write “Twav,” which was probably Norwegian for something nice, like flowers, or a tiny waving baby.

I sighed. Remember: positives. Yes had dealt me positives.

And it was about to deal me another. Another positive which would shut Ian up once and for all. Oh, this was great. This was brilliant.
This
would show him. This would teach him to have a little faith in a project! This would force him to admit that I wasn’t a prick stick.

Only one e-mail sat in my in box, hopeful and alone.

It was from a Dr. Molly Van Brain.

She was writing to tell me I had just won twenty million dollars in the Spanish lottery.

I was amazed. I hadn’t even
entered
the Spanish lottery.

And now Dr. Molly Van Brain wanted to invite me to come and collect my winnings from her personally.

All I’d have to do was get on a plane.

To Holland.

The fact that this was a leap straight into level five both excited and scared me
.

Clearly this was something I simply shouldn’t be doing. I can admit that now. Ian had already proved to me that 99 percent of these unsolicited junk e-mails were scams designed to delight and entice hapless, gullible people. But surely that still left 1 percent. And one in a hundred aren’t bad odds … think of how the odds were stacked against my
Sun
scratch card win, after all—the one thing I still clung to as proof that Yes could work …

But I knew what Ian would say to thinking like this. He’d say that I was stupid. That Dr. Molly Van Brain probably wasn’t a doctor. Or a Molly. Or even a Van Brain.

But c’mon … this was worth a shot. Worth a further look. Worth a
yes
.

It was like the world had shifted slightly. Now I was dealing with a whole new and fascinating universe. A universe of what-ifs …

Like …

What if the Spanish lottery really had somehow picked me out as a winner?

And …

What if right now, somewhere in a room in Amsterdam, a lady doctor really
was
counting and recounting my twenty million dollars out in front of her and saying, “Well, I hope
this
one turns up, because everyone else seems to just
ignore
my e-mails….”

It was unlikely, sure. But it was
attractive
.

As the train made its way into the city, I looked once more at her e-mail. “Congratulations, winner!” it read. “Well done from all at SkyLow Lottery International!”

My name, it read, had been chosen by a computer ballot system “drawn from 91,000 names from around the world!” But I had to keep completely quiet about my win. “Due to a mix-up of some names and addresses, it is imperative you keep this award completely personal until your claim has been processed. Do not tell anyone at all.” This was part of their efforts, it read, “to avoid
unwarranted taking advantages of the situations by other participants or improper impersonators.”

Very sensible! And of
course
I’d keep it quiet—the last thing I needed was Ian I’ or Wag popping on a pair of glasses and impersonating me. But it was the next bit that was the best.

You have therefore been approved for a payment in cash credited to file reference number: LIP/63474-444/RT6. This forms a total cash prize of $20,756,820.00 (Twenty Million Seven Hundred and Fifty-six Thousand Eight Hundred and Twenty Dollars).

And there, underneath it, the name that had brought joy to my heart. Dr. Molly Van Brain. There was another name too—someone called Albert Heijn from the Legal department. I was to deal with him after processing my details with Molly, who’d told me all I had to do was come to Holland as quickly as possible or, more conveniently and desirably, contact Albert, and he would deal with all the paperwork and legal aspects for a one off-processing fee (seven thousand euros, which they would require before presenting me with my cheque). Well, no disrespect to Albert, but I wanted to do this myself. It would only take about fifty pounds and forty-five minutes to fly to Amsterdam, where I could take care of business myself. Besides, seven thousand euros seems a lot of money for a bit of processing.

So I’d written back to her, saying, “Tell Albert not to worry! I will come to Amsterdam and meet with you directly! I have my ticket and will be there tomorrow!” If that didn’t excite the socks off Dr. Molly Van Brain, then nothing would.

I stepped off the train as we rolled into the city centre and strolled into the Internet café.