5. And Daniel took up the tea and was thankful, saying, Thanks.
IN THE DAYS after my return from Norway I was like a man possessed. The very moment I’d returned home I’d ripped open what post I had and totted up my new joinees. The fact that I’d been away for a few days, and had been avoiding my duties for the few days before that, meant that I’d amassed quite a few . . . and the sight of all these new faces, all at once, gave me great encouragement.
I only needed ninety-nine joinees. Ninety-nine! I was so, so close to the end. My collection was nearly complete and I could almost smell my return to some semblance of normality. I’d given up a lot to make this happen, and I knew I had to get it over with. I was getting desperate for joinees, and being dumped by my girlfriend had, in a weird way, only spurred me on to do even better. And never more so than in one inspired evening, when I dialled 192 and found myself several new numbers . . .
‘Hello, BBC Bristol, Sian speaking . . .’
‘Hello. I was just wondering what the subject of tonight’s phone-in is?’
‘Er . . . well, the show’s on now, so if you tune in—’
‘I’m actually calling from London, so I can’t hear it . . .’
‘Um . . . right . . . well . . . why are you—’
‘I’m calling radio stations all over the country, you see. In order to get my . . . um . . . points across. It’s very important that I do this, because I have some very sensible things to say on a really wide range of subjects.’
‘Right. Well, tonight we’re taking calls on Iraq.’
‘Yes, I’d like to talk about that, please.’
Iraq. Fox hunting. Illegal immigrants. Holiday nightmares. Congestion charging. Gun control. Euthanasia. Each of these debates I gamefully entered into before somehow turning them round to the world of the Karma Army and what I was doing. Sometimes it worked beautifully. ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all be nice instead of just being so not nice all the time?’ I’d say, as I approached the topics of Iraq, asylum seekers, fox hunting and road rage. ‘Old men are often involved in euthanasia, aren’t they,’ I’d try, ‘but they’re also often involved with peanuts. I could talk about that if you like. And let’s not forget that “euthanasia” also sounds a bit like “youth ‘n’ Asia”, and that reminds me of an article I saw in the Asian Xpress recently . . .’
And the presenters – from radio stations in Manchester to Edinburgh to Portsmouth to London – all seemed quite pleased to hear from me. As did their listeners. Photos started to arrive, along with pledges to do good, and we were soon picking up quite a momentum again. It wasn’t stopping there, either. I badgered my joinees to put the effort in, to please not stop asking others to join, to keep on doing what they were doing. And when I’d finished doing that, I made a cup of tea and sat down at my computer.
There were the usual several dozen emails from people asking me how they could join up (to which I replied instantly, virtually begging them to do so), a few claims of Raymond Price sightings, and the odd piece of abuse (apparently, the word ‘tosser’ is also used in Canada . . .). But right at the bottom, I found an email from someone or something called ‘Preventie’ . . . and it was marked highest priority . . .
>To: Join Me
>From: Preventie
>Subject: Help?
Stedelijke Preventiedienst Stad Brugge
Blinde Ezelstraat, 8000 Brugge
Hello,
I found your website by co-insidence and it’s so amazing goooooood. How did you start such an initiative, because we’re interested to do something simular in Bruges. Can you send me some information and good tips, please. We want to make our plans a little more concrete . . .
Looking forward for your information.
Greetings, Sophie
Well, that was nice. At first glance, it seemed as if someone wanted to set up their own branch of the Karma Army in Bruges. Ah, the Belgians. They never fail me. And they’d be more than welcome to set up a spin-off organisation. All they’d have to do is post me their passport photo and then gather up a few joinees of their own. Sophie had put her phone number at the end of the email, so I thought rather than send her a longwinded email with tips on how to do her good deeds, I’d give her a quick call instead.
It wasn’t her who answered, though.
‘Stedelijke Preventiedienst,’ said a man.
‘Oh . . . hello . . . is Sophie there, please?’
‘No, she is not in the office right now.’
‘Oh, I didn’t realise I was calling her at work, sorry.’
‘Is this . . . the Join Me man?’
Blimey.
‘Er . . . yes . . . how did you—’
‘Sophie said she had sent you an email. We are all very interested in what you are doing.’
‘Oh. That’s nice.’
‘Yes. And Sophie has been thinking for a while of starting something a bit like it here in Bruges, through this office.’
‘What . . . like a work club, or something?’
That sounded great. I started to wonder how many people worked with Sophie; how many potential joinees the company employed. Maybe they’d be all I needed to finish this quest off.
‘Well, not exactly. We want to do a similar thing, but we have to run the idea past the Mayor first.’
‘The Mayor? What Mayor?’
‘The Mayor of Bruges.’
I was stunned. What on earth did the Mayor of Bruges have to do with any of this? What number had I called? What was going on here?
‘Who are you people?’ I asked.
‘This is the . . . what would you call it . . . the town hall. Like the council. So I will tell Sophie to call you to talk more about your Karma Army.’
And, slightly shocked, I put the phone down and said goodbye. Yes. In that order.
I made another cup of tea and tried to think about what was going on. Could it really be that someone from the office of the Mayor of Bruges had found out about the Karma Army and now wanted to instigate a similar scheme over there? Someone certainly seemed to be interested in what I was doing. Someone from the city council! And they wanted me to advise them. Me!
And then the phone rang.
It was Sophie.
* * *
‘So . . . what line of work are you in?’ said the man in the seat next to mine, who’d managed to begin a conversation with me by belting me in the face with his rucksack.
‘I’m an international goodwill adviser, with special responsibility to Bruges,’ I said. ‘Yeah, I’m just on my way there now, actually. I’m going to give a brief presentation to some of their top people. I would’ve brought a flipchart, but I gave it to a Dutch woman recently. How about you?’
‘Telesales.’
‘Right.’
It was the next day and I was on a packed train leaving Brussels central station on my way to Bruges. I was thrilled. This was quite a big thing. The event, I mean, not the train.
Sophie had seemed incredibly keen to quiz me on what I was up to, and I was incredibly keen to tell her . . . so why not do it face-to-face? Bruges wasn’t all that far away. A Eurostar train to Brussels, a train to Antwerp, then another one to Bruges. Surely it was worth that little bit of effort and expense to ensure the word of the Karma Army spread to people who were in a position to do something with it? You know – people like mayors and stuff.
Sophie and I had decided to meet at her offices, just off the Grand Place in the beautiful city centre, where I would talk her through how I’d started Join Me, how the Karma Army had come about, who my joinees were, and what they did each and every Good Friday. And she was going to listen. And take me seriously. And maybe even take some notes.
I, Danny Wallace, would be responsible for someone taking some notes.
And not just that – I would, for the first time in my life, be directly affecting Belgian social policy! And which of us can ever forget the first time we did that? I’m sure you have some pretty fond memories yourself.
‘Danny, come in, let’s get a coffee,’ said Sophie, when I finally arrived. She was an impish lady, dressed head-to-toe in black, and had a kind face. ‘Or a tea if you would prefer.’
I tried to look like it didn’t matter, and I’d be happy with whatever. But I couldn’t do it.
‘Tea, please.’
‘Okay, come through here . . .’
We sat at a table in a fine and grand room, tucked away at the bottom of the ancient building where Sophie had her offices.
‘Do you like Bruges?’ she asked. And yes, I did. Cobbled, winding streets with elegant buildings, hugged by narrow canals . . . it takes someone who lives in Bow to fully appreciate somewhere like Bruges.
‘Now, Danny,’ said Sophie matter-of-factly. ‘Like you, we think it is important to do good, and to have a social responsibility. We have been trying to encourage people to be nice to one another by giving them sweets.’
‘Sounds good,’ I said. She was talking my language. ‘A kindergarten approach.’
‘We handed out thousands of them, attached to paper cards like these.’
She handed me a brightly coloured card. It was in Flemish. I couldn’t read it. I didn’t know how long I should pretend to be reading it before putting it down without seeming rude. I gave it five seconds.
‘We made many of them,’ said Sophie.
I stared at it some more, and nodded. Nope, I still couldn’t understand it. But I liked it. A lot.
‘You can keep that,’ she said.
‘Thanks.’
‘Read it later.’
‘I will certainly look at it some more, yes.’
This was great. It was like coming home. Here I was, sitting with someone who was taking a ‘stupid boy-project’ as seriously as I was. And she’d managed to get council funding!
‘Now,’ said Sophie, pouring my tea, ‘we want to do something special. I saw the movie Pay It Forward, and I thought to myself, now there’s a good idea. I thought to myself, maybe we can be kind like that.’
Bloody Haley Joel Osment. Always stealing my thunder. Still. Where was he now? Not in Bruges talking to someone who knows the Mayor, that’s for sure.
‘And I also saw what you are doing, and it is similar to what we want to do. And so I would like your advice . . .’
‘No problem,’ I said, giving her two thumbs-up.
It turned out that Sophie and her colleagues had decided that they wanted to start something called the Ambassadors Scheme. Anyone interested in joining them would get a special badge which they would wear at all times. They’d also be given three other badges, and once they’d done a good deed for someone, they’d hand over one of those badges. Then that person could apply for some extra badges of their own, and start doing good deeds themselves. Sophie hoped that eventually everyone in the city would be wearing an Ambassadors badge.
I had to hand it to Sophie – this was a sophisticated scheme. But before I could give my expert opinion, there were a few important details I needed to go over.
‘What’s the badge like?’ I asked.
‘Well, we don’t have the design yet. But it has to be something grown-up,’ she said. ‘Something serious and mature.’
‘Oh,’ I said, sensing that her approach was probably going to be quite different from my own. ‘I see. So it’s quite a grown-up thing, is it?’
‘Well, yes. But these Ambassadors are all very middle-aged people. They wouldn’t wear a childish badge. There are already fifty-one of them.’
Fifty-one, eh? I made a sympathetic face. Fifty-one wasn’t really all that impressive. How intimidated Sophie must have been by my presence; a man in command of nearly 1000 dedicated joinees. A man who . . . hang on . . . fifty-one people? Fifty-one . . . that would leave me just thirty joinees short of my target! What if those fifty-one people joined me, as well as the Ambassadors scheme? That would more than halve my workload in one easy moment! From 919 to 970 just like that!
‘Do you think . . .’ I said, ‘that maybe these fifty-one people might join me, as well . . .?’
I had hope in my eyes, but the look on Sophie’s face told me she was about to dash it. I suddenly realised . . . I had crossed a line. I had come here offering help, and now it looked like I was here to steal her joinees. I was becoming the Joinee Whitby of Bruges.
‘Er . . . I don’t . . . it’s . . .’ Sophie was struggling to work out how she should react, and I became instantly and deeply ashamed. I mean, I was now an experienced collective leader. I should’ve known better. What if I’d asked a fellow collective leader for advice in the early stages of Join Me, and he or she had then tried to nick what few joinees I’d had?
‘I’m sorry . . . I didn’t mean for—’
‘Let’s just talk about what you did,’ said Sophie, waving the thought away and moving the conversation along. I felt so cheap. Like a parasite. I resolved to make it up to her by giving her the very best tips I could, for as long as she could stand hearing them. Because the important thing here, today, in the city of Bruges, wasn’t completing my quest, or nicking her joinees, or spreading the word of the Karma Army. Sophie’s Ambassadors and my joinees would be working together whether they liked it or not, towards a common goal: being nice. That was the important thing . . . spreading the good for absolutely no personal gain whatsoever.
And if that last line doesn’t get me at least a mention in the New Year’s Honours List, then I don’t know what bloody will.
We talked for maybe an hour before I realised I had started to repeat myself, and Sophie looked like she was about to nod off.
‘Well, Danny, thank you for coming over,’ she said.
‘Not at all,’ I said. ‘Thank you for the tea. And good luck with your Ambassadors. I hope your badge turns out to be lovely. And suitably mature.’
I was happy, as I walked through Bruges, trying to find a bus that would take me to the train station. I’d enjoyed my meeting with Sophie. Especially on my way out, when I discovered that her department, Stedelijke Preventiedienst, would be known in English as ‘Crime Prevention’.
How brilliant did that make me feel?
Now not only was I some kind of freelance international goodwill adviser . . . now, at long last, I was also a crimefighter!
Alright, I didn’t have a cape, and fair enough, much of my crimefighting would have to be done in Belgium, but that was good enough for me. So long as I didn’t have to be known as Waffle Boy or the Chocolate Avenger, I was fine.
Before my train back to Brussels I had half an hour to kill, and I sat in a packed café by Bruges station and chewed on a croque monsieur. My thoughts were largely centred around designing a crimefighting mask made from finest Belgian lace, but these were disturbed by the waitress, who asked me if, due to the business of the place, it’d be alright if I shared my table with someone. I said of course, and down sat a ginger woman in her late twenties. I was in an incredibly friendly mood, and gave her a big ‘hello’ straight away. She gave me an even bigger ‘hello’ right back. Life was great.
‘What are you doing here?’ I cheerfully enquired.
‘Waiting for my train,’ she said. ‘And you?’
‘Same. Waiting for my train, though, not yours.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘Brussels,’ I said. ‘I was only in Bruges for the day.’
‘Just a day? Not enough to experience my city. What did you see?’
‘A crimefighting lady,’ I said. ‘Dressed all in black like a ninja. It was brilliant.’
‘I never saw her,’ said the woman, whose name, I would find out moments later, was Monica. ‘What does she do?’
‘Good deeds,’ I said. ‘All for Bruges.’
‘Really?’ said Monica. ‘A good deeds lady. The world needs more of this.’ And I suddenly realised that I had a potential joinee in my grasp. She was already open to the idea of well-meaning ninjas; surely she’d be open to the idea of the Karma Army. But you know what? I did something very
strange indeed next. Very strange, and very, very out of character. Instead of giving her a Join Me leaflet, or doing the hard sell, or telling her how important and vital and necessary it was for her to join me, and then get her mates to join me . . . I dug into my bag and found the Flemish goodwill card that Sophie had presented me with. I handed it to Monica. She read it with interest. Unless she, like me, couldn’t read Flemish either, and was just pretending, too.
‘They’re doing a thing called the Ambassadors Scheme here in Bruges,’ I said softly. ‘Maybe you should join it.’
‘Maybe I should,’ said Monica. ‘Maybe I will.’
We said our goodbyes and I got on my train to Brussels. But my God. What had I done? What was I doing? I’d had a potential joinee right in front of me. And I’d turned her into an Ambassador instead. As the train began to move off, I tried to justify my actions to myself I tried to tell myself that that had been a random act of kindness. I’d helped get the Ambassadors scheme another Ambassador. I’d sacrificed a joinee to help get another scheme off the ground. Surely that counted as a good deed? But I just wasn’t convincing myself Somewhere deep inside, I suppose I must have known why I’d done that. A part of me obviously didn’t want this to end. It was an extremely confusing moment. For someone who wanted so desperately to make it to 1000 joinees, I was suddenly acting like someone who was quite happy to potter about and stay as I was. There’d been no real point in going to Bruges, now I thought about it. I could have had that chat over the phone. I’d gained no joinees out of it. I hadn’t moved closer to my target.
I’d started to think I’d done it solely because I could tell the journey was coming to an end, and I wanted to extend it, because I knew that the moment I had my 1000 joinees, the moment I tossed my Leader hat to one side and decided to approach life as a normal human being, well . . . that would be the moment I’d feel like something was . . . missing. I’d be faced with two gaping holes in my life. One of them would be Hanne-shaped. And one of them would be joinee-shaped. Which, if we’re going with the current average, would be about 5ft 9in and with a slight case of early thirties spread. But there was no way to extend the journey any more. I couldn’t just stop and stay as I was. People were joining me every day, whether I liked it or not. Join Me had a momentum all of its own. It wasn’t my choice any more. I was kidding myself if I thought I had any control.
Join Me Page 34
