Yes Man (24 page)

“How good?”

“He said if I bought it, he’d give me a blender.”

“Good deal!”

“And he invited me to his good-bye party tomorrow. Do you want to come?”

“Where is it?”

“Liverpool.”

“Not really.”

Ian walked around the side of the car, took it all in, kicked the tyres, and looked like a real man (although I noticed he didn’t squat, like I would have done). He asked me to pop the bonnet open, and once I’d worked out how, I did. He fiddled with things and made sure other things were securely fastened, and then he dropped the bonnet back into place.

“Looks good,” he said.

I nodded.

“All the indicators work too,” I said. “I checked them.”

“You know what this means, don’t you, Dan?”

“What?”

“You’ve got a
Yesmobile!
You’re like Batman!”

“It’s not a Yesmobile. It’s a Nissan.”

“It’s a Yesmobile! Now, where’s this blender? Let’s make a smoothie!”

Life was really fun.

I popped open the boot, took the blender out, and we carried it to Ian’s kitchen and plugged it in.

It didn’t work.

If only blenders had indicators, I would’ve been on it like a flash.

I think Thom had only invited me to his party out of politeness. He hadn’t really been expecting me to say yes. But that’s what I’d done, and now I was stepping off a train in Liverpool after a three-hour journey to attend a party, which began at six. To be honest I felt slightly awkward about travelling two hundred miles to say good-bye to a man I’d only met twice before. It smelled slightly of obsession or, at the very least, infatuation.

As I made my way to the taxi rank outside, my phone rang.

“Hello?”

That was me answering the call and speaking, by the way; not just saying hello to a ringing phone.

“Danny? It’s Gareth here. We met the other night at the party.”

“Yes! Hello! And can I first of all apologise for taking you through that whole birth-canal-corking thing in quite so much detail?”

“Don’t you worry. I mean, the diagrams were probably unnecessary, but otherwise it was a very informative nine-minute monologue.”

He was joking. I hadn’t even made any diagrams. And I’d talked
way
longer than nine minutes.

“So, listen, I was wondering if you’d like to come into the office for a chat about something?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t know what it is, yet.”

“Oh. Okay. So what is it?”

“Why don’t you come in, and I can tell you face-to-face?”

“Good idea.”

“Tomorrow morning?”

I looked at my watch. I have no idea why. “Yes.”

We said good-bye, and I suddenly realised that if I was going to make it to a
meeting in Kennington the following morning, I was going to have to return from Liverpool tonight. What a hassle. Another three hours on a train. I wouldn’t be home until the wee hours.

So I trudged back into the station and found my way to the information booth.

“Hello,” I said. “Can you tell me when the last train from Liverpool to London is?”

“Last direct train, seven forty-nine,” said the man, without even looking up.

I looked at my watch. It was ten to six.

“Seven forty-nine?”
I said. “Are you sure?”

The man looked up at me wearily. He was clearly sure.

“But isn’t that a bit … early?” I said. “Don’t last trains usually go at about midnight?”

“Not to London,” he said. “And not from here.”

This was utterly ridiculous! The last train at seven forty-nine? Surely there was some mistake? Unless on the way up here I’d got on some kind of special time-travelling train and journeyed to a place where the local time was the fifties.

“But I’ve got to go to a party!” I said desperately. “And I’ve got a meeting in London tomorrow!”

“Seven forty-nine,” he said again.

“Hi, Thom,” I said. “Look, I can’t stay long. I’m going to have to leave in about an hour.”

“Oh,” said Thom. “Where are you off to?”

“London.”

“But … where have you just come from?”

“London.”

I think Thom took a very small step back from me at this point.

“Well … it’s, um … very
nice
of you to come, but you needn’t have come all this way just …”

“I didn’t realise the last train was at seven forty-nine,” I said, explaining myself. “And I’ve got a meeting tomorrow, which I’ve agreed to, so …”

“Why didn’t you drive up?”

“Drive up?”

“Yes. In your new car.”

He had a point. But I had an answer.

“It took me three and a half hours to drive thirteen miles yesterday. Liverpool is 215 miles away. It would have taken me more than two days.”

I don’t think he saw the logic, which is a pity for someone who works with numbers.

“Well … would you like a beer?”

“Yes.”

I was determined to make the most of my hour at the party, and I started by eating a packet of crisps. Just to let the room know I was a
proper
party animal.

We were in a bar called the Baa Bar, and only a few of Thom’s friends had arrived so far. It was just after six. But there was one man by the name of Jason, who had clearly been there for some time, waiting for the party to start. He was more than a little bit drunk.

“What do you do?” I asked him.

We’d been sitting next to each other for a few minutes now, and I’d been watching him flick cigarette ash into a pint glass.

“I’m a civil servant,” he said. “I work in immigration. Home Office stuff.”

“Wow,” I said. “That’s a proper grown-up job.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you enjoy it?”

“No.”

“Oh. Why not?”

“Because of a lot of things. Because it’s my job. It’s what I do so I can eat; not what I do because I want to.”

“Right,” I said, deciding that Jason was on the point of turning from someone who seemed mild-mannered but distracted, into quite an angry drunk. “So … what kind of things do you have to do?”

He refilled his glass from a bottle of wine on the table and turned to me.

“Today, right, this woman comes in. She was from Nigeria, and I had to interview her. She’s not said how she’s got into the country, and I need to know for the forms and that. So I say to her, ‘How did you get into the UK?’ And she looks at me like it’s not her fault and tells me a witch doctor turned her into a peanut and smuggled her into the country under his hat.”

He shook his head and smiled, and we laughed.

“Did she think that would work?” I asked, amazed.

“Yeah,” said Jason.

“So did you let her in?”

“No,” said Jason, quietly. “Poor cow. God knows what she was running from. God knows why she wants to live in this shit of a country. God knows why she thought pretending she’d been a peanut would help.”

Usually that’s a sentence that would have made me laugh. But it didn’t. There was a sadness in Jason’s eyes.

“Another bloke came in last week. I said to him, ‘Why are you seeking residency in the UK?’ He says that he’d been watching TV back home in Cameroon with his wife. It was a lovely, normal evening, he says. And then he turns round and sees a goat standing in his living room.”

“A goat?”

“A goat.”

“And what happened then?”

“No. That was it. That was his excuse. A goat had been in his living room.”

“Was he allergic?”

Jason shook his head.

“Something to do with omens. A goat is a bad one. So that’s why he decided to come to Britain.”

“Well, there are less goats, I suppose. And did you let him in?”

“No,” said Jason. “I sent him back. I end up sending most of them back.”

I didn’t quite know what to say to this. This was a man clearly affected by his work. He saw suffering, and he heard tales of woe and desperation. He spent his days listening to stories of rape or murder or beatings. Of political pressures and harassment. And at the risk of sounding glib, of ladies being turned into peanuts. And all from people who just wanted a home. Jason was one of the many whose job it was to decide who was telling the truth and who was not. It was a heavy burden with life-changing consequences.

“I don’t know,” he said, shrugging. “Sometimes I’m happy with life, and sometimes I’m not. It’s like, I know I’ve got a good job. It’s a job with responsibility, and I’m kind of lucky in that way. I’ve got a good head on my shoulders, and I’m a fair man, when I could easily be some right-wing bastard doing my job and turning everyone back. And it’s not a dead-end job. Not really. There are prospects. But … I dunno.”

“What would you rather be doing?”

“Anything,” said Jason. “Pretty much anything. I mean, in an ideal world, it’d be travel. I’ve never really travelled. My sister—she took a year off before going
to university and travelled round the world. She works in a call centre now, but she’s happy enough, you know? Because she’s done something. I sit in a little office with the same people every day, and I think … Is this it? Surely this can’t be it? My little brother finishes school in five weeks. If there’s one thing I’m going to make sure he does, it’s travel. Not make my mistake.”

“Why don’t you go with him?” I said.

“He’s asked. I can’t. I’ve got too much going on. I’m the most experienced member of the team. If I go, well … I can’t. And I couldn’t afford it. I’ve got a mortgage. Pension. No, no. I’ve made my choices. I’ve had my fun.”

There was something about the way Jason said he’d had his fun that made me incredibly sad. He was in his twenties. And yet he thought he’d had his fun. He thought he’d made all his choices. He thought that this was it.

“Maybe this doesn’t have to be it,” I said.

“It is, though.”

“All I mean is, maybe you should quit your job. Do something else. See what life brings you.”

“Oh, it’s that easy, isn’t it?” he said sourly.

“Well, I dunno. Why don’t you take a risk?”

“Take a risk?” he said. His anger shocked me. “Who the hell are you to suggest taking risks? I can’t take risks. I have to be measured and logical and make the right decisions. In my life and with the lives of others. I’d love to have a stupid, risk-free job where the biggest worry is whether or not you’ll get down the pub before it gets crowded or not. But I don’t. I have a grown-up, responsible job with grown-up, responsible pressures.”

“I’m just saying …,” I tried before I realised that I didn’t know what I was saying. I gave it one more go. “I’m just saying that maybe sometimes it’s riskier not to take a risk. Sometimes all you’re guaranteeing is that things will stay the same. Sometimes it’s more important to say yes to things than it is to say no.”

Jason didn’t say anything. He just stared into his glass. Maybe it was the drink inside him, but right now he felt nothing but contempt for me. I could hardly blame him. His was a tough job. The conversation had taken a darker twist somewhere along the line, and now I was a child in front of him—a stupid child with a stupid job, who lived his life in a stupid way. And what was I basing my big, superficial sayings on, anyway? What did I know? I was embarrassed and stood up to leave.

“I’m just saying that yes is as good a word to say as no,” I said. “When a chance comes up, I mean. When anything comes up.”

“That’s the problem,” said Jason, still staring into his glass. “I spend all my time saying no, and it’s depressing. I say no at work and no at home. I tell people they can’t come into the country. And why? Because of a set of rules. I tell them they can’t start a new life here. I crush people’s hope. Even the ones who are lying or who don’t deserve to be here or are probably complete and utter bastards in their own countries. I even crush
their
hopes. And then I take that home with me.”

I thought about leaving at that point. About walking away. But I didn’t. I had a sudden urge to just tell Jason the truth. Explain the real reason why I’d travelled so far to go to a party and would only be staying one hour. It didn’t really compare with the kind of decisions he had to make, but it might mean
something
. I wanted to tell him about all the things I’d said yes to … and all the things that had happened as a result. The good things
and
the bad things. I wouldn’t leave the bad things out. They were just as important. I would leave Jason under no illusions, but I would show him … well … that he had a choice. He could do like Thom was doing and walk away and leave his job and sell his car and find a new life. He could do like I was doing.
He could say yes if he wanted. Yes to himself
.

He could
say yes more
.

“Listen, you’ll probably think that what I’m about to tell you is stupid. Or pointless. Or childish. But I want you to hear me out, because it’s something that’s become quite important to me. But at the same time, when I tell you, you can’t use this against me, okay?”

“I’m not agreeing to anything, mate….”

“No, seriously. If I tell you this, you can’t tell
anyone
. You could ruin my life. If Thom finds out, and he tells someone who was at the party the other night, and they tell someone else, I could be in a lot of trouble. So keep it between us’ yeah?”

Jason raised his eyebrows and considered it. And then he nodded.

And so I told a complete stranger what I was up to and what I’d done from the start and where it had led me and where I hoped it would lead me in the misguided belief that it would somehow help him.

And when I finished, that complete stranger stood up, swore at me, and walked off toward the bar.

*   *   *

“Thom … that mate of yours,” I said. “Jason.”

“Oh, yes. Jase. Sorry about him,” said Thom. “He’s, well, he’s got the weight of the world on his shoulders.”

“Why can’t he give up? Do something else?”

“He feels like he’s responsible for everything. And that makes him feel like there’s no way out. It’s no use talking to him. He won’t listen. I think he’s jealous that I’m in a position to leave, and he’s not.”

“I guess he’s got the kind of job he can’t really walk away from.”

Thom nodded. And then looked at his watch.