Yes Man Read online

  “You suggest a time.”

  “Right. How are you fixed for Tuesday, Mr. Wallace?”

  “Yes, Tuesday. Yes.”

  “Two o’clock?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, let me just make a note…. So, that’s Tuesday, at—”

  “Um … I should warn you, though. My windows are already double glazed.”

  “You’re what, sorry?”

  “I already have double glaze throughout my flat.”

  “Right … so … Sorry, I don’t …”

  “I’m just saying, I’ve already got plenty of double glazing, but you shouldn’t let that put you off. Life should be all about taking opportunities, you know? The best things that ever happened to us happened because we said yes, just like the man on the bus told me. I realise that now.”

  “Well, wait a second … Why would you want a quote?”

  “Sorry?”

  “Why would you want a quote on double glazing, when you’ve already got double glazed?”

  “Well, you asked, and—”

  “Just seems like a bit of a waste of everyone’s time, Mr. Wallace …”

  “I just thought it might be nice. Maybe you could come round and tell me what you think of the double glaze I’ve already got. We could have some tea. You could still give me a quote if you like.”

  “I have to go now, Mr. Wallace, okay?”

  “Yes.”

  And that is how my Yes experiment started—confusing a cold-caller with my unnerving desire to discuss all aspects of double glazing.

  I’d woken up only minutes before and was now lying in bed with a grin on my face and a head full of thoughts. What should I do? Where should I go? How should I begin?

  But that wasn’t up to me. None of it was. I had to see how things went. I had to go with the flow. I got up and switched my computer on, willing it to provide me with all the opportunities I’d been batting away only a day before. I had a few e-mails and quickly scanned through them.

  One was from Hanne. Could we have a chat? Yes.

  Another was from my good friend Wag. Did I fancy a pint sometime? Yes.

  Another was from a complete stranger. Would I like a bigger penis? Ye—hang on. Who was this from?

  Would you like a bigger penis? New Penis Patch Technology now means thousands of men just like you can …

  Oh. Spam. Still, I’d rather it was a piece of spam than a suggestion from an ex-girlfriend. My cursor hovered over the Delete button, an instant reaction formed by thousands of similar unsolicited e-mails in the past, but then I realised that wasn’t the spirit. Or the attitude. Or the game.

  So I said yes. And I laughed. Then I clicked on the link, added my credit-card information, and ordered the Amazing Penis Patch. Well, it couldn’t hurt, could it? Not unless you put it on wrong.

  I filled the kettle and scratched around in the cupboard, looking for something to eat. I found a small box of Cocoa Pops that I didn’t know I had and was absolutely delighted.

  I walked back to the computer, hoping that in the five minutes since I’d written back to Hanne and Wag, they’d replied with suggested times and places. But they hadn’t. So, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I sat down at my computer and drafted an e-mail. When I’d done that, I sent it to every friend I felt I’d let down, or said no to, or hadn’t seen in too long.

  This is what I wrote:

  To : Mates

  From: Danny

  Subject: Me, you, and us

  Hey there,

  Listen. It’s been too long. That’s my fault, and I’m sorry. But I’ve changed. I’m going to be more like the old me now. So, if you fancy meeting up … let me know.

  Your pal (I hope),

  Danny

  I felt oddly cleansed. But then I decided to up the ante. I phoned Hanne.

  “Hey, Hanne, it’s Danny.”

  “Hey, Dan. You got my e-mail?”

  “I did. And yes, I would love to meet up for a chat.”

  “Okay … in town for a coffee? Today?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fourish?”

  “Fine.”

  “I’ll meet you by Covent Garden Tube station. Is that okay?”

  “Yes, absolutely. I’ll see you there.”

  Great! That was easy! I had just successfully organised a meeting with my exgirlfriend. If there were such a thing as the Grown-up Scouts, I’d probably get a badge for that.

  Next I phoned Wag.

  “Wag! Waggle! Wagamama!”

  Sadly this is not me saying that. This is how Wag chooses to answer the phone sometimes.

  “Hey, Wag … I got your e-mail. I do indeed fancy a pint sometime. When and where do you recommend?”

  “Coool … How about today?”

  “Yes.”

  Oh, hang on, though. I started to realise that blindly saying yes to everything could well have its complications. What would I do if he suggested four o’clock for a coffee at Covent Garden?

  “How about seven for a pint at the Horse and Groom?”

  Thank God Wag was a bloke.

  “Done,” I said.

  This was all going very well. Very well indeed.

  Arrangements for the day made, I pootled down to the corner shop to buy milk and a newspaper or two. I was already starting to feel like a new man, which probably explains why I also bought a pot of natural yoghurt and some freshly squeezed orange juice. It was the kind of feeling that usually ends up with me considering going to the gym, or getting a dog and walking it a bit, and doing all the things that blokes in catalogues do. It was a feeling I hadn’t had in quite some time.

  Back upstairs I sat down with my tea and my newspapers and looked up at the clock. Midday. Just four short hours before I had to be anywhere. I could relax. Trouble was I didn’t want to relax. I wanted to get on with things. I wanted to say yes more. But there would be time.

  I started to leaf through the Guardian before realising that I was kidding myself, and picked up the Sun instead. I wish I was the type of person who could read the Guardian before reading the Sun, but even as a kid I’d want to eat the chocolate mousse before I attempted the healthy stuff.

  I amused myself with a piece about a young Scottish man who’d tried to take his kite out in a storm and ended up flying for three quarters of a mile, before I turned the page and saw, in a small box at the top of the page:

  DO YOU HAVE AN lNVENTION?

  I bristled with excitement. Now, technically, no, I didn’t have an invention. I had no invention at all. But this tiny advert was an opportunity. An opportunity to try my hand at something new. I could invent something! Maybe that’s why I was put here on Earth! To be an inventor!

  I tore the ad out and read it again. It had been placed by the Patents & Trademarks Institute of America, and it was offering to help new inventors get their brilliant inventions off the ground. Ace! All I had to do was phone them up and ask for an information pack. Five minutes later I’d done just that and had been assured my information pack was on its way to me. I could relax again.

  I finished off my copy of the Sun, picked up the Guardian, put it down again, and decided to head into town a little earlier than I’d planned.

  I could always buy the Mirror on the way.

  It was a sunny day, and it felt like a different city.

  London was bright and fall of colour. Even my walk to the Tube station, under deafening railway arches and down sparse streets, pavements broken up by tufts of dying grass and puddles of spit, had a certain beauty about it.

  But now here I was, walking from Leicester Square up to Covent Garden and feeling quite proud to be a Londoner. No more Yes Moments had presented themselves since I’d left the flat, but one was just around the corner.

  “Cup of tea, please,” I said to the man in the café.

  “Sugar?” he said.

  “No thanks.”

  “Fifty pence, please,” he said, putting my polystyrene cup in front of me.


  I reached for my change and realised I’d made a huge error. An error which I hope you will find excusable, based as it is on twenty years of habitual tea drinking.

  “Sorry, you asked me if I wanted sugar …”

  “Yeah,” he said. “You said no.”

  “I know. But … could you ask me again?” I slid the tea back toward him.

  “Eh?”

  “Could you ask me again if I want sugar, please?”

  The man frowned slightly, but then obliged. He picked up the cup and said, “Sugar?”

  I cleared my throat.

  “Yes, please,” I said.

  “How many?”

  Now it was my turn to frown.

  “I don’t know. I don’t take sugar.”

  Now we were both frowning at the same time.

  “Just give me whatever you think’s reasonable,” I said with a shrug.

  The man took a spoon and, without even breaking eye contact, slowly and carefully put three heaping teaspoons of sugar into my tiny cup.

  “Okay?” he said.

  “Yes,” I said. “Thank you very much.”

  Now, I realise that this sugar-based story probably reaches new lows in terms of contemporary European storytelling, and that as you read this, half of you is probably tempted to turn back a few pages in order to enjoy a banker like the PC World story once more, but to me, this really meant something. I’ve been drinking tea for a long time. A lot of it. And this was the first time I have ever consciously asked for it with sugar. It represented a lot to me: I was willing to change even the most basic, ground-in aspects of my daily routine. It was a discovery that excited me.

  I left the shop, sugared tea in hand, and wandered farther toward Covent Garden, pausing only to watch a juggler drop his balls, and a small child nearly run off with one of them. It was this that was distracting me when I was pounced upon.

  “Excuse me, sir, do you have two minutes?”

  “Yes,” I said, instantly and with joy in my heart. I turned to see a short woman with curly, ginger hair and a bright green bib on. She was carrying a clipboard, and she looked very bubbly.

  “Great! Can I tell you a little bit about Help the Aged?”

  Ten minutes later, and we’d had a lovely and informative chat about the elderly. I’d agreed to sign up to their Adopt-a-Granny scheme and had directed a few quid of my monthly earnings toward some deserving old woman’s upkeep. Mainly because she kept beginning her sentences with the words “Would you be interested in …” and I kept saying “yes.” But I didn’t mind. After all, thanks to me, some old granny would now never have to worry about where the next mint was coming from. I said good-bye to the little, bubbly, ginger-haired lady and walked on toward the Tube station. It’d be time to meet Hanne soon, and I wanted to have a look in some of the fancy shops before we hooked up. But then I heard a voice to my right.

  “Excuse me, sir, do you have two minutes?”

  I was certain I’d heard those words before. Not too long before, either.

  I turned to see a tallish man with a long nose and a green bib. A green bib with the words “Adopt-a-Granny” on it.

  “Er, well, yes, but…”

  “Great! Can I tell you a little bit about Help the Aged?”

  And he did.

  * * *

  “So you’re late because …”

  “I was adopting some grannies.”

  “I should have guessed,’ said Hanne, and we started to walk to a nearby café. “It is, after all, why most people are late these days. Anyway, it’s good to see you. It’s been too long.”

  Since we’d split—which is my nice way of saying “since she’d dumped me”—Hanne and I had remained very good friends. We’d started off having lunch every week, and sometimes we’d catch a quick drink, if we could, but lately we’d been seeing a lot less of each other. That was fair enough, I’d reasoned. After all, Hanne had been concentrating on making great waves in her career, and I, of course, had been eating toast.

  “How’s Lizzie?” asked Hanne, and I smiled.

  Since the break up, neither Hanne nor myself had been in another relationship. I’d come close, with a girl called Lizzie. A fantastic girl called Lizzie. But Lizzie, of course, had left. Not because we’d split up. But because ten days after we’d met she’d had to go back to where she’d come from. Australia. About as far away as it’s possible to get. We were still in e-mail contact, and there was even the odd phone call, but we both knew as much as we liked each other, it was an impossible situation.

  “You liked her, didn’t you?” said Hanne.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I did. She was cool.”

  Hanne had been a great girlfriend. And an even better ex-girlfriend. She was supportive of the whole Lizzie thing when I’d told her. And, even better, she’d never put me in a similar position. There’s a time after every split up when you genuinely hope the other person will find it so hard to get over you that they’ll book themselves straight into the nearest nunnery…. Hanne hadn’t gone quite that far. But as yet neither had she brought out the jealous ex-boyfriend in me.

  “I know things never really got off the ground with you and Lizzie,” she said. “But you’d have liked them to, wouldn’t you?”

  “Well, yeah,” I said. “I would.”

  It was nice of Hanne to care, I thought.

  “And you and I have been apart for quite a while now, haven’t we?”

  “Yes … I mean … I suppose we have.”

  Suddenly it felt like Hanne had brought this up out of more than concern. It was like she was building up to something. In fact, I could tell she was, because she’d started to play with her napkin, and she wasn’t looking me in the eye. If you’re ever having dinner with Hanne, look out for this, because it may mean you won’t make it to dessert. But what was on her mind?

  “I know there’s no need to ask you this, Dan … but the thing is … we were together for quite a while, and I’d just feel better if I said this to you now, to get it out in the open, you know …”

  Oh. Oh my. Suddenly I realised. Hanne was about to ask if we could get back together!

  “And … Well, God, this is stupid…. I don’t know why I’m so nervous asking you this….”

  Blimey! She was! She was about to ask to get back together! What was I going to say? How did I feel?

  “I know your answer already, Dan, but I just want to hear it from you….”

  She had real love in her eyes, now … Yes, it was fairly well hidden, but that’s probably what she loved about me most—that I just knew these things.

  “… and you must be completely honest with me about this….”

  God, this must be hard for her, realising she’d made the biggest mistake of her young life, knowing she’d have to plead with me to get me back … I had to play this with great care….

  “It’s okay, Hanne,” I said. “You can talk to me about anything.”

  She squeezed my hand.

  “Would you mind,” she said, “if I started seeing someone else?”

  Oh.

  “There. Said it,” she said, and sat back in her chair with a smile.

  I didn’t quite know what to say. She’d met someone else. Jesus. What should I say? I had to smile and say well done, clearly. But oh, God—she was asking me for my blessing. The girl I’d been out with for three years before she dumped me was asking for my blessing. This was it! The end of an era!

  Who had she met? Or had it gone further? Oh no. Hanne was engaged, wasn’t she? And she was probably pregnant, too. And he was probably an amazing bloke. He was probably a baron or something! I bet he was a millionaire. I always knew Hanne would end up with a millionaire. A millionaire who was dashing and had a castle and who, when offered an Amazing Penis Patch at a party, would just laugh heartily as if the very idea was the silliest thing he’d ever heard. I hated him. He was a twat.

  “Danny?” said Hanne. “What are you thinking?”

  I snapped back
into reality.

  “I was just wondering if he was a baron.”

  Hanne smiled.

  “No, he’s not a baron.”

  It sounds odd, but this was a genuine relief.

  “He’s just a guy I met through Cecilia. But I like him. He reminds me of you a little. Just less … work.”

  “Well … that’s …”

  “I know, I know. You’re cool with it. I mean, of course you are.”

  And I was. I was cool with it. In fact, the more Hanne talked about him, the more cool with it I began to feel. If this whole Yes thing had been about starting again, then surely this was one of the best things that could have happened. It was significant. It represented something. It was out with the old, in with the new.

  “Danny? You’re not saying much.” She looked concerned. “Do you mind that I want to start seeing someone else?”

  I was about to shake my head, smile, and say, “Hanne, that’s the best thing ever. Go forth and make this bloke yours.”

  But suddenly I realised what she’d just said—or, rather, the way in which she’d said it—and my stomach churned slightly.

  “Sorry?” I said, playing for time, but it was already too late.

  “I said, you don’t mind that I want to start seeing someone else, do you?”

  Hanne smiled sweetly. It was short-lived.

  “Yes.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Yes, what?”

  “Yes to what you just said.”

  “Yes, you don’t mind, or yes, you do?”

  I think I looked a bit scared now. “Yes.”

  Hanne’s mouth dropped open. “Yes, you mind? You mind that I want to start seeing someone else?”

  Oh God.

  “Yes.”

  Now, clearly, this was a stupid thing to say. And the fact that Hanne kept repeating the question, and I kept saying yes to it, wasn’t helping matters much either.

  She looked shocked. Utterly shocked.

  “I’m shocked,” she said. Which just adds extra weight to my previous statement.

  “I’m just trying to be more positive, you see,” I tried.

  “But this isn’t positive! It’s negative! Very negative! How can you say that? How can you say you mind, when I was so cool about you and Lizzie? Because I was so cool about you and Lizzie!”

  “Well … it depends on how you ask me, you see … If you said, ‘Will you give me your blessing to start seeing this bloke?,’ then I would definitely have said yes …”