Friends Like These: My Worldwide Quest to Find My Best Childhood Friends, Knock on Their Doors, and Ask Them to Come Out and Play (38 page)

“I’m only after
twelve!
Plus, you told me you didn’t understand this whole thing about the past—you said life was about moving forward, not looking
back! Anyway, what do you mean, ‘mainly’ business associates?”

“Well… I found someone on Facebook who was friends with someone I hadn’t seen in years.”

“Aha! I
knew
it!”

“And we kind of got back in touch. And it was cool.”

“
You’re
doing it too!”

“But I didn’t set out to do it. It was just tapping into a network. Friends of friends. It seemed silly not to say hi.”

“You see? It seems silly
not
to!”

“But I’m not going to travel back to Norway just to see them! And then dress up as a…”

“As a rabbit.”

“As a rabbit, yes.”

“Well,
maybe you should!
” I said, although, on reflection, I am not entirely sure why.

On the way home, my BlackBerry went off. I had an email.

To: Danny Wallace

From: Ben Ives

Subject: GIT!!!!!!

Okay, so you got me and we’re even. What annoys me most is I go back and look through my emails and I notice that one of the
other recipients seemed to be called “Fishbod” at
Casey.com
… right near someone whose address was
[email protected]
…”

You GIT! I’ll be in the UK by Christmas, so how about we meet up again? And if we do, leave the bloody rabbit head at home.

Ben

X

P.S. Forgot to ask: who the hell was the bear?

Ha! Here it was! The written confirmation of my revenge! And all taken in such good spirit!
That
was friendship. You see, Hanne? With just a few lines of friendly text, Ben had let me know that ours was a friendship which
had been rightly reinvigorated. And all thanks to a bit of effort—a friend being worth a flight. Would that have happened
on Facebook? No. I felt my actions were rejustified.

Although I did nevertheless make a mental note to keep my eyes peeled for any
revenge
revenge attacks in 2022.

But immediately I knew—I
would
meet up with Ben at Christmas. I’d travel to Bath, maybe on Boxing Day, or the day after. Because somehow, lately, this had
become something
more
to me. I looked over at the sofa, and at the
McDonald’s Loughborough
T-shirt that lay across it. I smiled. This wasn’t just ticking names off a list. It wasn’t just updating my address book.
This was…
important,
somehow. I
cared
about this. These were my
friends.
This was my
history.

My phone went off. It was Paul the builder.

“Hello, mate, just to say, I’m not going to be able to make it round today.”

“Fine,” I said.

“My van’s broken down, see.”

“Fine.”

“I’ll be in touch about another date.”

“Fine,” I said, and I hung up. I didn’t care. I didn’t care a
jot.

There was still so much more to do.

I quickened my pace.

If
Tom
wouldn’t meet with me, I had to make sure that the
others
did…

What was it Hanne had said about networking? It had given me an idea.

I only had three people left to actually locate. Chris. Lauren. And Andy. Maybe if I couldn’t find these people
individually,
I could find them through people
they knew.
I could follow the human footprints until they led me to the foot I needed. And once I’d found the foot, I could look a bit
higher up, and say hello to the face.

I got home and typed a name into Facebook.

Lauren Medcalfe.

Two people came up. Neither of them her.

Who did she know? She’d been a pen pal of mine. We moved in different circles. Knew different people.
Who did she know?

We all have our own networks of friends. Each one of them is entirely unique to us. But there are crossovers—there
must
be crossovers.

I thought back. Who did Lauren used to talk about in her letters? Was there
anyone
we both knew?

I picked up my phone.

“Mum! It’s me!”

“Who?”

“Let’s not go through all that again—listen, do you remember when I was a kid, I had a pen pal?”

“Yes! Natalia! The French girl! She liked pop music.”

“No! Not her—another one. Lauren?”

“Yes, of course. She was the daughter of a friend of Lorraine’s.”

“Who was Lorraine?”

“A friend of Martha.”

“Are you still in touch with Martha?”

“Well, we send Christmas cards, and so on…”

“Can you ask Martha to ask Lorraine to ask her friend to give her daughter my number? Or my email?”

“Well… yes, of course… but why?”

“I’m updating my address book. I want to send her a Christmas card.”

“Oh, how
lovely!
”

“Thanks, Mum.”

“Bye, picklebear.”

Well, that was something. And I knew I could entrust this important mission to my mum. She throws nothing out. If she did,
you wouldn’t be reading this book.

Fired up, I thought about Andy.

Where would he be? How could I get to him?

I hit Facebook again.

Plenty of Andy Clementses came up, most of them students in America. But only a handful of Brits, all of them either too young,
a different color or the wrong sex. So who else was there? Who had he hung out with? We’d been at different schools, spent
our days with different people, but there’d always been a crossover
somewhere
… the days we’d spent kicking a football around on the patch of grass outside A. MISTRY’s newsagents… the long afternoons
at the park near the school, trying to catch sticklebacks but only ever coming home with tadpoles… the nights we’d spent at
the annual fair, when for one week only the high street would be full of waltzers, and dodgems, and helterskelters and more…
we’d buy toffee apples and candyfloss and throw inadequate balls at nailed-down coconuts…

All those days, and afternoons, and nights—they had
all
involved
other people.

And then a name came to me.

Louisa.

Louisa had always been around. Andy had lived next door to her for a while, and their two families had spent a week in Black-pool
together… Andy’s friend, whose name I couldn’t remember, had briefly gone out with Louisa’s sister, and I’d always assumed
that maybe Andy and Louisa would end up together, too…

Louisa was the
key
to finding Andy. Hey—maybe they’d be
married!

But how would I find her? Would
she
be on Facebook? And what the hell was her last name? Maybe it was now the same as Andy’s!

I suddenly really wanted Andy to be the next friend I met. Peter Gibson would just have to wait. I already had him, in a sense.
He’d agreed to meet. But the gauntlet had been thrown down the very moment Andy’s letters had made their way back to my house…

I typed “Louisa” into Facebook. It was a long shot, to be honest.
Too
long. I tried putting in keywords, like Loughborough, and 1989, and anything else I could think of that could
possibly,
on the
off-chance,
have
conceivably
been mentioned.

But wait—hadn’t Louisa’s dad run some kind of shop on the high street? A newsagent, maybe? And wasn’t it called something
like… Robinsons? Wasn’t that what we’d called it? Robinsons?

I scooted straight to Google and tapped it in… nothing. They must’ve shut up shop. Or perhaps local newsagents just don’t
see the need to be found on the Internet. But now I had her last name…

Louisa
Robinson.

I went back to Facebook, and tried it…

Fewer results this time… that was good…

I waded in… one of them looked faintly familiar… it wouldn’t let me check her page unless we became friends, and I didn’t
have time for that… but it
did
say she lived in Brighton…

I typed Louisa AND Robinson AND Brighton into Google, and, in among the various names and places and people that came up…
there was Louisa Robinson AND a job title AND a phone number…

I high-fived myself. Which made me look a little odd.

This could be it!
Why
hadn’t I thought of this before?

I dialed the number and looked at my watch. It was 3 p.m. Louisa Robinson should really be at work now, and if she wasn’t,
I’d ask to speak to her boss and have her reprimanded.

It was ringing.

I held my breath and told myself not to worry. I was just an old friend of a friend, phoning to see if she could tell me where
Andy was. Andy, who’d written to me so faithfully when I’d moved away. Andy, who I’d had such fun with. Andy, who…

“Hello?”

“Oh. Hi. Is that Louisa?”

“Speaking.”

“Louisa—listen, you probably won’t remember me. I’m a friend of Andy Clements. Or I used to be.”

There was a silence on the other end, which I did my best to fill.

“My name’s Danny Wallace. Well, Daniel Wallace. I used to live in Loughborough. Does the name ring any bells for you?”

A pause. And then…

“Daniel… yes… how are you?”

She sounded a little shocked that I’d phoned. I figured that was more than okay—I was asking her to think back quite a few
years.

“I’m fine, I’m fine—and you?”

“Yes. I’m okay. Thank you. So why have you…”

“I’m basically ringing to ask a favor,” I said, picking up my treasured McDonald’s T-shirt and stretching it out in front
of me. “Now I realize that’s a bit of a big ask seeing as we haven’t seen each other in so long, but I’m just wondering… after
I left Loughborough, did you keep in touch with Andy?”

“Of course, yes,” she said. “He was my neighbor…”

“Yeah, fair enough, that was a stupid question. Well, thing is, I’m kind of updating my address book, and I was hoping you
might be able to put me back in touch with Andy?”

A silence.

“I promise I’m not a stalker,” I said. “It’s just I’ve been getting back in touch with people lately, and I’d really like
to see how Andy’s doing.”

Another silence, long enough for me to start to fold the T-shirt, but then broken by the words…

“Daniel… I’m not sure how to tell you this… but Andy passed away.”

And I sat down.

And I nearly dropped my phone.

A
n unknown number of days had passed, and I sat on the couch.

I’d done nothing. Seen no one. Been nowhere.

That’s not to say I hadn’t been busy. I’d kept myself
very
busy. Work-wise, it was time to get on with things. I phoned my agent and told her I was ready to do stuff; that my summer
holiday was finally over. She arranged some meetings.

At home, I’d painted three rooms, spending hours on my knees making sure the moldings were immaculate. I’d emptied the last
of the boxes. Arranged all my books first in alphabetical order, then in order of theme, then back to alphabetical. I’d done
the same with my DVDs, although not by theme, by sleeve color. I’d sorted out the garden table at last, spending a long and
arduous afternoon with some varnish remover and a scraper, and an early evening with a brush and a tin of matte black paint.
I’d resecured the rickety canopy, wondering why on earth I’d ever deemed a canopy necessary, and I’d hung pictures, fixed
blinds and taken down old and worn curtains. I’d done it all in near-silence.

Paul the builder had been supposed to come round to fix the guttering. Again. But he’d phoned half an hour before he was due
to say that his van had broken down. Again. I’d suggested a cab, or the bus, but he said he really had to stay with his van.

“It’s got my equipment in, see…”

“It’s not got your bloody ladder, though, has it?” I said.

“Eh?”

“
I’ve
got your ladder. It’s been here bloody
months.
But you haven’t.”

“There have been complications, yes,” he said. “But the screws have come in, now, and I can…”

“You’re sacked, Paul. Come and get your bloody ladder.”

“What?” he said.

“Come round and get your bloody ladder. The ladder is clearly in on this. It’s a conspiracy. It’s the only one that knows
about our appointments. Appointments you can never make, because your van breaks down, or your daughter gets mugged, or you
can’t find the ‘correct’ screws even though you are a BUILDER and they are NORMAL SCREWS.”

Paul laughed, uneasily.

“Plus, I’ve done the canopy myself. And you know what? There was absolutely no reason to have a canopy. But I did it. Not
you. Because I
can.
”

“I could probably be there about five thirty…” said Paul.

“I can’t make that,” I said. “My foot has fallen off and I’ve got all of Belgium coming round. I’ll leave the ladder out the
front.”

“Hang on…” said Paul.

“Nope. Sacked. Bye.”

And for the first time, I truly felt like a grown-up.

Lizzie’s time on the big reality show had come to an end, and we’d half-heartedly celebrated with a night in a restaurant,
but I’d been distracted and distant. She started a new job two days later, one that meant she’d be getting home earlier from
now on, but I hardly noticed, busy as I was making myself busy.

Andrew James Clements had died in a car crash when he was just eigh teen years old. And I really didn’t know how to take it.

Eighteen.

Every single second that I’d been alive since I was eigh teen was a second that Andy never had. And the more I thought about
this, the less I knew how to react. For the past few months I’d been naively undertaking this small and personal quest. Traveling
about, and knocking on doors, and turning up out of the blue. It had been a simple and happy way to spend my days. But now,
I understood, it had also been
dangerous.
Blindly walking into other people’s lives is a
stupid
thing to do. Because sooner or later, you’re going to find out something you didn’t want to know. That you
should
have known, but which you were better off not knowing. That sounds selfish, and stupid. But maybe I
was
selfish and stupid. Maybe I
deserved
this. Maybe this had been about mortality all along. Knowing that I was closer to my threescore and ten than I ever had been
before. Knowing that tomorrow I’d be even closer than I was today.
My
“mortality” issues may have been trivial and childish. I was turning thirty. So what? So bloody
what?
But now, mortality had shown me just how serious it can be. The fact that in real life, bad things happen. The fact that
you have to be prepared that sometimes life is unfair. Unjust. Horrible.