Yes Man (39 page)

Hugh balked and took a step back.

“Ah. Well. Wow. That’s different from just an openness to saying yes…. That’s … well … you could get into a lot of trouble in two months.”

“Well … could you put a limit on it?” I said. “Could you perhaps make me stop short of murder and robbery?”

“You won’t do anything that’s against your moral code. That’s not how hypnotism works. But it
will
mean that you’ll lose your inhibitions…. I’ll have to get into your subconscious.”

“Is that dangerous?”

“Well … the subconscious is an amazing tool. People don’t realise that you can literally ask your subconscious any question, and when you’re at your most relaxed, it will give you the answer. You literally ask it out loud, you go away, and it’ll work on it.”

“Do you do that?”

“All the time. Like … last week. I was trying to come up with a tide for a competition to find another Hypnodog. You know, an audition for another dog that can hypnotise people, like Murphy can. But I was trying so hard to come up with a title that I just couldn’t. So I asked my subconscious.”

“And?”

“Well, sometimes it takes a little time.”

“Oh.”

“Now, when I get into your subconscious, I’ll remove the self-doubt you have. That fear of saying yes.”

“It’s not just fear that used to make me say no, though. Sometimes I just couldn’t be arsed. Someone would say, ‘Come and see this band tonight,’ and even if I was free, I’d say, ‘Ah, I can’t. I’ve got something on.’ And then I’d go home and watch
Neighbours.”

“So you need to regain your childish enthusiasm … that’s fine. We can do that. I suppose in some ways we have to find your …
reset
button.”

“Right, well … how are we going to do this?” I said, and I clapped my hands together to try and show I meant business. But I was actually becoming more and more nervous. Murphy rested his head on my lap. Was this part of it? If Hugh did the same, I was in trouble.

“I’ll play some music. I generally use Baroque music, because that’s sixty beats a minute, like the heart. Or failing that I’ve got a Richard Clayderman CD, and you’ll relax for a little while. You’ll stare into Murphy’s eyes when I tell you to, and we’ll take it from there. What I’d like to do is rid you of your preconceptions. Make your Yeses new and wonderful again.”

I wondered what preconceptions he thought I had, given that I had already agreed to be hypnotised by a man and his dog. I think Hugh saw that in my eyes.

“What I mean is … it’s like with danger. You put a plank of wood between two buildings, and no one will walk across it. You put that same plank of wood on the ground, and they won’t have a problem doing it. I’m going to put all your Yeses on the ground.”

I saw what he was saying. If every option seemed secure, and every opportunity felt like a safe bet, I’d be far more likely to take them. I wanted to ask Hugh a little more about what we’d be doing, but I was a bit distracted. Murphy had started to sniff me, and it was slightly intimidating. Plus I didn’t want to wake up and discover that while I’d been asleep, he’d given me a pair of huge German breasts. Although I suppose then I would at least have a chance of winning the contest held by the people looking for Britain’s most German-looking man. Who, by the way, still hadn’t phoned back.

Murphy whimpered, and suddenly I wasn’t so sure about any of this. Sure, I needed a booster, and yes, this was the perfect cure-all for my particular predicament, but was it … right? Was this cheating? Would it really be me
saying yes to things, or would it be Hugh saying yes for me? If I couldn’t help but say yes, that wasn’t
choosing
to say yes, was it? Or was it?

Hugh switched the video off and tried to find the right remote for the telly. He’d already found the right CD and dimmed the lights.

What was I doing? I was about to be hypnotised by a stormtrooper and his spacedog! I needed more time…. I glanced about the room, desperate to find a distraction.

“Hugh, did you paint that picture?”

I pointed at a poster hanging on the wall.

“No …,” said Hugh. “That was Rembrandt.”

What else was there in here? What else could I use? And then I noticed something … something on the TV Something that actually genuinely intrigued me. A strangely familiar view. When Hugh had turned the video off, the picture on the screen had turned into … well …

“Hugh, what’s that?” I said.

“What’s what?” said Hugh.

“That view on the telly”—I pointed at it—“that’s the view out of your front window, isn’t it?”

This seemed very odd to me, whether buying time or not. Why close your curtains to block out the view but purposefully have the view piped into your TV? It seemed like something an extravagant rapper on MTV
Cribs
would do. Perhaps Hugh was more showbiz than I thought.

“Oh, that, yeah,” said Arlene, suddenly there. “There’s a camera on the windowsill.”

“Right. What, like a security thing?”

I was very grateful she’d arrived. She’d just bought me some time.

“No, no … nothing like that. It’s very safe here.”

“Well, why, then?”

“There’s a little boy next door,” said Hugh, studying the back of another CD. “Dean, his name is. He’s great fun, but he wants to come in all the time.
Literally
all the time. He always knows when we’re in, and so we close the curtains and put the camera on so we know if it’s him at the door. Otherwise I’d end up doing magic all day, every day. Usually we’ll hear a knock, so we’ll turn the telly on, and his face will be filling the whole screen. He presses his face right up to it so we can see it’s him.”

“So, he knows it’s there?” I said. As a distraction technique this was working wonderfully.

“Oh, yes,” said Arlene. “Doesn’t stop him. He loves watching magic, and Hugh just can’t turn him away.”

“I’m too polite. So that’s why I had the camera installed.”

This was brilliant. They had actually installed a camera in their window so that they could avoid the little boy next door. And they’d had to do it, because they were too polite to say no to him. They were trapped in their own home by a Yes.

“Can’t you just tell him to come back another time?” I asked, wondering what else I could use to stall for time.

“He’s crafty,” said Hugh. “As soon as you open the door for him, he puts his foot in the hallway so you can’t close it again. Sometimes we have to hide behind the sofa and keep quiet, like if we’ve forgotten to close the curtains, and he stands there with his face pressed up against the window for ten minutes or so, waiting for us to move.”

“Last week,” said Arlene, “he knocked on the door and when we turned the camera on, he was holding his school report card up to the camera so we could read it. I mean, you can’t really turn that away, can you?”

I loved Hugh and Arlene for this. I loved the fact that they were essentially being terrorised by a little boy who just wanted to be friends with them. I loved the fact that they wouldn’t just tell him to go away or complain to his parents or jade him for life by rejecting him outright. And I loved the fact that when they talked about him, they smiled broadly and with real love and enthusiasm in their voices. They loved the kid next door. They just wished he’d stay there.

“Look,” said Hugh. “He gave me this the other day….”

He pulled open a drawer and took out an A4 certificate. He read from it.

“It’s a Best Mate Award. It reads: ‘It’s hard to find a friend like you. Lucky people have just one or two. However, many good friends are rare. And you for me are always there!’”

“But you’re not!” I said. “You’re usually hiding behind the sofa!”

Suddenly there was a knock at the door. A loud one.

“Sh!” said Arlene, putting her fingers to her lips.

There was another knock now.

Bang
.

Bang, bang
.

Hugh sat perfectly still. Arlene sat perfectly still. I sat perfectly still as well. We all stared at the TV. Suddenly, he stepped into frame. A little boy, of around
eleven or twelve, with short, blonde hair and big, blue eyes. He was staring at the camera now. He stepped closer to it and just stared and stared, and then tapped the window, and then stared.

No one said a thing. It was genuinely one of the most terrifying moments of my life.

And then the little boy shook his head, crossed his arms, and walked off.

“Anyway,” said Hugh. “He’s a lovely lad. But sometimes when he comes in, he’ll take his jumper or one of his shoes off, and he’ll hide it in here, so he can come back to get it later. And he’ll leave little presents. He gave me an ashtray he’d nicked from the pub the other day.”

“We call him ‘The News of the Valleys,’” said Arlene. “You tell him something, and the whole valley knows before the end of the day.”

“Just before Christmas,” said Hugh, “I told him he was doing my head in, so I’d decided to move to Bosnia. The next day he turned up with a card that read ‘Bon Voyage’ and a biscuit for the trip. I couldn’t move, because people kept coming up to me in the town and wishing me good luck in Bosnia.”

Suddenly, and with no warning whatsoever, we heard the letterbox flip open quite violently. It was Dean. He was trying to catch us out. The letterbox remained open for ten or twenty seconds, while we all sat in our chairs, wide-eyed and silent. It started to close, but as it did so, Murphy let out a short sneeze, and the flap slowly opened up again. It was like something out of
Jurassic Park
. I held my breath. Moments later it slammed shut, and we watched the screen as a little boy, who’d obviously tried to avoid the camera, walked sheepishly away and headed, grumpy-faced, back down the road.

“Anyway,” said Hugh. “Are we going to get you hypnotised or what?”

And then, out of the blue, it hit me.

“Hugh! That show you need a title for!” I was excited all of a sudden.

“Which show?”

“The one where you audition dogs to try and find a new Hypnodog!”

“Yes?”

“You should call it
Pup Idol!”

Hugh’s face lit up.

“Pup Idol!
Brilliant! I told you! The subconscious! You concentrate on something else, and the answer comes to you! Right, hang on. I’m going to make a phone call….”

*   *   *

An hour later, and I had just woken up.

My
Pup Idol
revelation had bought me some time … but nowhere near enough.

I had undergone hypnosis.

I couldn’t tell whether the dog had been involved at any point—which is always worrying when you wake up in a stranger’s house—but he was certainly staring at me now. And so was … a little soldier.

The tiniest soldier I had ever seen, in fact.

I recognised him more or less straight away. It was Dean. The kid from next door. He was sitting on the sofa opposite me.

“Hello,” I said.

“Hello,” he said back.

He was wearing a large, black beret, camouflage gear, and shiny black boots. I wasn’t sure quite what was going on, to be honest with you. It was like I’d fallen asleep, and next door had invaded.

“Hey, Danny, I thought I’d let you wake up naturally,” said Hugh, walking into the room and throwing Murphy the last spare wonton. “Have you met Dean?”

“Yes,” I said. “But have you hypnotised me to make children look like soldiers? Because if you have, you should stop that right now.”

“Dean’s on his way to ACF.”

“ACF?” I said.

“Armed Cadet Force,” said Dean.

“Oh,” I said, impressed but yawning. “What are you armed with?”

“Nothing,” Dean said.

“His wit!” said Hugh. “Hey, he nicks all my jokes, this kid.”

“They’re not yours,” said Dean. “They’re Tommy Cooper’s.”

“We like watching Tommy Cooper videos, don’t we?”

Dean nodded and smiled. Suddenly the fez made sense. And it was brilliant, seeing the way the two bantered. They were clearly great mates.

But while all this was lovely, there was only one thing on my mind: Had it worked? Was I now a Yes Man, whether I liked it or not? I tried asking myself a question in my head.
Shall I have a cup of tea later? … Yes
. It certainly
seemed
to be working.

“Danny, did you know Tommy Cooper lived down the road in Caerphilly?” said Hugh. “Quite a few people lived around here. Tommy Cooper, Tom Jones …”

Suddenly Arlene poked her head around the door.

“Dean, you’d better be off to ACF …,” she said.

Dean nodded, gave us all a little salute, and said he’d be back round later, at which Hugh secretly rolled his eyes.

He walked toward the door, and I was about to ask Hugh how the hypnosis had gone, when he turned around.

“By the way, I came round earlier, but you didn’t answer,” he said, accusingly.

“I was out,” lied Hugh.

“But your car was here.”

“I … walked.”

“No. You were in.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I looked through the letterbox, and your keys were in the door.”

Hugh went a bit red.

“Okay. I was in. Now get out.”

Dean shut the door behind him.

“You let him in, then?” I said.

“Arlene was putting the bins out, and he ran in while her back was turned.”

“Nice kid, though.”

“The best.”

There was a slight lull in the conversation. I knew what I wanted to say, but I didn’t quite know how to put it.

“So … um … I don’t … y’know … feel all that different.”

“No?”

“Nope. I mean, since the … you know. Since you …”

“Since you fell asleep?”

“Yes. Well, no. I mean, since you put that Richard Clayderman CD on and …
hypnotised
me.”

Hugh sat down.

“Danny, listen. Don’t be annoyed, but… I decided not to hypnotise you. Not properly, anyway.”

“Eh? Why? I thought that’s what you did? You and Murphy?”

“Well, it’s mainly me. Murphy’s a dog, after all. And I decided not to.”

“But why?”

“I talked to you when you were under, and … well … you don’t need it. From everything you’ve told me, you’re doing this because you want to, and because
you need to. It takes a certain amount of dedication, and that’s what you’ve done … and it means more if you can fail. Because if you can fail, then you can also
win
. The way I see it, it means more if you do it yourself. As humans we seem to go to more effort to avoid trouble and pain than we do to make things better. Avoiding rather than
doing
. Am I anywhere near the mark?”