‘You’re supposed to be reconnecting with the past.’
Gerrard stepped up to take his penalty and the pub fell silent. He kicked the ball hard and fast, but – unbelievably and to the cries of the people around me – missed. Somewhere, a woman nearly fainted. A fat man swore loudly and a Portuguese bloke in the corner kept very still.
‘Your chances are better than ever,’ said Ian. ‘England’s losing! Agree to it!’
‘No…’
‘Agree!’
‘No…’
Petit ran at the ball and struck it. Portugal had missed again too. The windows shook in time with the cheers. This was shredding my nerves. England were still in it. But time was running out. Who was taking it? What would I say to Ian? I just had to stay strong…
Jamie Carragher stepped up.
‘This,’ said Ian, ‘is your chance to hang on to your youth.’
‘It’s not about hanging on. It’s about moving on…’
‘This is your chance to do something big and stupid and just like the old days. The days when you’d jump on a plane and head to Inverness at the drop of a hat! The days when you’d text me to say you’d be late for the pub because you’d decided to go to Belgium!’
‘But I’m married, Ian. I’m nearly thirty.’
‘Fight it! Do something! Take action!’
‘I am doing something! I’m reconnecting! I’m updating my address book!’
‘And you’re not even willing to leave the country? For an old friend? A friend’s worth more than a flight. And this is your chance,’ said Ian. ‘This is your chance!’ And I looked into his eyes. And I looked up at the TV screen. And I saw Carragher preparing himself. This was his moment to take the lead. To win it for England. To send me to LA to come to face to face with an old enemy; to make that old enemy a new friend.
Fuck. How would I explain this to Lizzie? How much DIY would equal a trip to LA?
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Let’s do it.’
The whistle blew. Carragher bounced on his heels and began his short run. Ian and I involuntarily stood up. The crowd’s shouts grew. The world slowed down by a third. Carragher struck the ball with power and grace and elegance…
… and…
Carragher had missed, and two minutes later both Postiga and Ronaldo had scored for Portugal. And that was that. England was out of the World Cup.
And I was walking back to the tube, utterly relieved that I would never have to go to LA. Never have to meet Ben Ives in the flesh. That I was moving on, not hanging on…
So why was I so annoyed?
Ian’s words were ringing in my ears.
A friend’s worth more than a flight.
And when I got home, and I turned on my computer, I still found myself annoyed, and I still found those words bouncing around my ears.
So much so that when I saw the words ‘New Mail’, and read the contents within, I had booked myself a flight just twenty minutes later.
Sod it.
I was taking action.
To: Ben Ives
From: ManGriff
Ben
Did you get my photo? Is the 21st still on?
To: ManGriff
From: Ben Ives
Hi
Okay! Yes. I did. Sorry I needed ‘evidence’.
I guess stranger things have happened. 21st okay.
To: Ben Ives
From: ManGriff
Great. I will let everyone know.
To: ManGriff
From: Ben Ives
Everyone? Thought it was just the three of us.
That is still best for me. A coffee and a chat only okay?
To: Ben Ives
From: ManGriff
Well, I’ll do what I can.
To: ManGriff
From: Ben Ives
?
To: Ben Ives
From: Gamron the Viking Dog
Hi Ben!
Gamron here (Simon)!
I hear we are all meeting up on the 21st to run through some of
the Stormy Leopard’s poetry.
We’re all really excited to see what she’s come up with this time!
We’ll see you soon,
Gamron the Viking Dog
P.S. Would you be up for an interview for our website?
To: Gamron the Viking Dog
From: Ben Ives
Er, Hi Gamron/Simon,
Can I ask: how did you get my email? ManGriff did not mention
you were coming. Think it would be best if it’s just me and
ManGriff and his girlfriend right now.
Ben
To: Ben Ives
From: Katherine Jameson [[email protected]]
Hello Ben
What time on the 21st?
Betty
To: Betty the Frog
From: Ben Ives
Hello Betty
Did you get my details from ManGriff? I’m just having a
quick coffee and a chat with him on the 21st –
sorry you were misinformed.
Ben
To: Ben Ives
From: Betty the Frog
Ben
I actually heard about the event thanks to dark fox, who forwarded me an email that JaJa Bah at DKB (!) received. But ManGriff Lord of All Enemies is a friend of mine too.
See you on the 21st for the big event!
Betty
To: Betty the Frog
From: Ben Ives
Betty
It is not an ‘event’.
Ben
To: Ben Ives
From: Jon Bonnaud
Subject: Yes
Yes I would like to attend the brainstorming on the 21st.
Jon Bonnaud
To: Jon Bonnaud
From: Ben Ives
Jon,
Who are you? It is not a brainstorming.
Ben
To: ManGriff the Beast Warrior
From: Ben Ives
ManGriff,
Slightly concerned. Am happy to meet up briefly to talk
about the article, but have started to get mails from strangers.
Not appropriate, really, I’m very busy all afternoon. If that’s
a joke, stop please. If not, then the same.
Ben
To: Ben Ives
From: ManGriff the Beast Warrior
I’ll take your details off the mailout.
But we *are* definitely on for the 21st?
To: ManGriff the Beast Warrior
From: Ben Ives
Yes, so long as there’s not hundreds of you.
From: ManGriff the Beast Warrior
To: Ben Ives
Cc: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]
Subject: Poetry and Fun in LA!
Dear all,
Okay, we have to sort this out. I know that there has been some excitement about the poetry event on the 21st. But we need to put a limit on numbers as I believe Ben is getting nervous about lunch orders etc.
Just myself and the Stormy Leopard will now be attending. Stickleback Stan and Tickles the Spider – sorry, guys… next time!
Betty – we need to take this out of the newsletter and off the website ASAP! Also, remove Ben’s cell number from the mailout.
I will let you know how it all goes.
ManGriff
To: ManGriff the Beast Warrior
From: Ben Ives
ta.
Chapter Thirteen
In which we learn you can often catch Danny rubbadubbin’ in a club with some bubbly…
I HAD SPENT the several days before the flight wondering whether perhaps I should cancel. Whether perhaps I should st
ay in London and work on the house. Whether perhaps I should make do with a phone call and a catch-up.
Well, I’d been wondering all that, and emailing Ben Ives ever more obsessively.
But Ian had been right, in some senses. To reconnect fully and properly required a face-to-face meet-up. And hey – it’s not like this was in danger of going on forever. I had until November 16th. The day after, I would buy Lizzie all the cushions and potplants she could eat. Literally.
Plus… this felt… fun.
That’s not to say I didn’t feel slightly guilty. I did. I wasn’t working at the moment and I’d asked Lisa, my agent, to turn down any meetings for the time being. When she’d asked why, I’d cited ‘personal’ reasons, which is an excuse you can use on any occasion without fearing any follow-up questions. But really, it was because I was excited. Plus, a deal’s a deal – Lizzie had set out the rules and I was obeying them. To make up for the fact that I would be gone this weekend, I’d mown the lawn, replaced a doorknob and bought a new doorbell. I’d begun to enjoy myself somehow, so bought a tin of paint from the man at the DIY shop who had inexplicably started calling me Rhodri, and I’d painted the window frames. They looked amazing. So I tried to find other things I could paint. I painted the handrail next to the stairs. Immediately, it looked brand new and I patted myself on the back for being such an expert. I went outside and painted the little garden wall that surrounded the flowers and bushes. I was proud. It lent the garden a Mediterranean feel, and so I moved a terracotta pot that the previous owners had left behind and suddenly it all looked like something out of a magazine. But terracotta is such an orangey colour, and so, in an amazing moment of creativity, I painted it white. And then I’d noticed I still had more than half a tin left, so I started to paint the shed. This was going well.
I was now a man of some responsibility, unable to simply board a plane and leave the country, and I understood that. I was, for one thing, a boss. I’d called Paul and instructed him I would be away this weekend and therefore would not be around to let him in to begin the canopy and the guttering. He’d listened attentively, but then I’d had to spend a couple of minutes reminding him who I was and what he was supposed to be doing for me. He said he could maybe sort things out this week, only his assistant was ill and he wasn’t feeling too good either.
All of this had, though, meant I could board my flight with the beginnings of a clear conscience. I sat quietly and read my complimentary copy of High Life magazine, and there, over three or four pages, was a huge and colourful feature on… Los Angeles.
I wolfed it down. LA looked exciting. Dangerous. Exotic. A place of fun and shenanigans. Ben Ives must love it there. There were muscly men rollerskating near the beach. Girls in bikinis eating ice cream and dancing. Yellow cabs, and bright sunshine, and neon lights, and billboards and cops and film stars.
But, as I looked around me, and at the stewardess starting to point out the emergency exits, I remembered that I wasn’t going to LA.
My plane would land in Berlin in an hour and forty minutes.
Tarek’s email had made me remember exactly why we’d been friends. It was warm, and inviting, and immediately made me feel like we hadn’t been apart for sixteen years. It was like nothing was missing… and it was full of promise, too. He’d told me to look him up the next time I was in Berlin, that we had so much to catch up on, that there were so many things he wanted to remember with me, that I should absolutely, definitely come back over…
And so I’d decided I would. There and then. A friend’s worth a flight. Yes. A friend is worth a flight. And so I’d started the booking process – a booking process that reminded me that a friend would have to be worth a hotel, too. But yes. A friend is worth a flight and a hotel, I assured myself. And a taxi from the airport. Yes. A friend is worth a flight and a hotel and a taxi to and from the airport.
Yes.
But I’d begun to feel slightly nervous. Finding a hotel had proved difficult. Two separate websites which individually checked availability throughout the whole of Berlin had both come up with just one option… a hotel next to the Ku’Damm, right in the heart of the city, at a nightly rate of £290.
£290! A night! I struggled to see where the money could possibly be going. There was no talk of king-size beds, or duck-down duvets, or complimentary champagne, or any of the things you’d expect and demand as you handed over your 290 quid. There was just a picture of a room. A very normal, German room.
The lack of accommodation, and the high price, were both, I knew, down to one thing. I was heading for Berlin on the day of the World Cup final. The day all eyes would be on the city. It was Tarek who’d suggested it. He’d said we should meet up, have a chat and a beer, and then go and watch the final on one of the big screens near the Brandenburg Gate. It just seemed too perfect not to do. Me and Tarek, hanging out again, in the most exciting place of the moment. And so I’d bitten the bullet, bought an overpriced ticket and booked an overpriced room. Ah well. Hang the expense. I’d live in luxury for a weekend in the name of friendship. To make it work, though, I’d had to cancel my meeting with Peter Gibson. But that was fine, I reasoned, as I stepped off the plane and walked into the arrivals lounge. Peter would be okay about it. He was in London, after all, and now that contact had been made, I could see him any time. Who’d begrudge me a trip to see an old friend on a night like this?
I turned my phone on and immediately received a message.
Why have you painted everything white?? Why did you only paint half the shed??
Well, Lizzie maybe, but that was fair enough.
Now that you and I are best friends, I’d like to present you with a new rule of travel. One which I hope you will treat with all the gravitas and seriousness you have come to treat all my important advice.
Never get a hotel room based on a picture you see on the internet.
Because, sometimes, those pictures are actual size.
If I’m honest, I was mildly suspicious from the very second I caught sight of my plush, £290-a-night, luxury Berlin hotel.
For a start, there was the fact that, as per the website, nothing so far was really screaming ‘plush’. Or ‘luxury’. In fact, there wasn’t really much even screaming ‘hotel’. For the price of a night in the Dorchester, its location was undoubtedly excellent – ten seconds from one of central Berlin’s most exciting streets. But location isn’t everything. Sometimes a hotel needs a little more. Like locks. Treat this as piece of advice number two.
The lack of a proper lock was my first clue, as I stood outside, fruitlessly pushing a doorbell from which wires spilled out liberally, and noticing the scratched and scruffy door secured by nothing more than an open brass padlock. Not one of those big ones, either. A tiny one. The kind you’d give to a child so that he can lock his pencil case. Then there was the broken lawnmower on the stairs. The peeling wallpaper and cracked, blackened windows. I found myself tutting as I passed these, noting what a lick of paint could do for those frames. And then there was the fact that, as I found the lady sitting behind the plastic desk in what the sign above her peroxide head insisted was the reception area – but which also appeared to be someone’s bedroom – she seemed incredibly surprised to see me there at all. I knew this because her eyebrows were somewhere around her hairline. But then, these were eyebrows she’d drawn on herself, so who knows what she was thinking.
‘You booked on internet?’ she said, perplexed. She was young, and Polish, and I may well have been the first guest she’d ever seen.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘But… you have read description of the room?’ she said.
Another clue for me, there.
‘Um… yes,’ I said.
‘Well… we need you pay now, before I can give key.’
This was suspicious. If I’d been buying a car or adopting an orphan I might have thought twice. But I handed over my credit card and shrugged. I’d seen a picture, after all – surely I didn’t need to see anything else
. The lady ran the card through the system, never once taking her eyes off me, and then handed me a massive key, attached to a large block of orange plastic the length and width of a brick, but heavier.
‘Are you here to see football?’ she said.
I nodded.
‘Kind of,’ I said.
‘You must be very big fan,’ she said. ‘You must love football game.’
‘Well, I’m here to see a friend as well,’ I said. ‘An old friend.’
‘He must be very old friend,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘He’s 102.’
I laughed lots and lots. She didn’t laugh at all. Her eyebrows remained perfectly still and blue.
‘You go down this,’ she said instead, pointing to a corridor somewhere off to the left. As I wandered off, I turned round to see her still looking at me with a mixture of confusion and fear on her face. I walked on.
There was a strange smell in the air. It was manly, and musky, and reminded me of cheap nightclubs and angry, fighting men. As I found my room, I also found the source of the smell. The cleaner – and it’s hard to call someone that when they actually look dirtier than you do – was doing a spot of air freshening by walking down the hallway with her finger jammed down on a can of Lynx. This is how I used to make my room smell nice when I was a student, and it did not work. I scrabbled to get the key in the lock and managed to force the door open just in time to avoid total saturation by the smell of a thousand teenage boys. And then I saw my room. Well, I couldn’t help it. One step in and I was already halfway through.
It was tiny. Absolutely tiny.
Every piece of furniture had been shoved into one small corner. The TV – one of those wood-panelled push-button ones that one day no one will believe ever existed – was rammed with the sink, the bin, everything, all into one corner. There was a dirty bar of soap face down on a damp table. The window couldn’t be opened because it was jammed shut by the communal bins outside. There were wires where lights should have been. The cold tap spat water around the bowl, unpredictably and perilously close to the telly. There was no toilet or shower. There was a three-inch gap between the floor and the door. I stood there and blinked at it all a few times. And then I blinked a few more times, because the cleaner must have been in here with the Lynx a few minutes ago and the fumes were prickling my eyes. I looked around me and tried to convince myself that this was £290 well spent. And then I realised that looking around me wasn’t helping my case.
Friends Like These Page 20
