Yes Man (35 page)

“Yes,” I said. “Sounds good. Whatever. Let’s go.”

However distracted I may have been, I suppose I was still at least saying yes to things. I just wasn’t enjoying it anymore. The thrill was gone. It was automatic. But I couldn’t see the point of it all in the way I once had, in the way I’d hoped I always would. And I didn’t want to think about it.

“I suppose now would be a bad time to tell you I’ve come up with the perfect punishment for you, if you don’t do this?” said Ian.

I glared at him. He looked frightened.

“This is worse than when you always used to say no,” he said. “At least then I didn’t have to hang around with you.”

We went to play pool.

Ian had managed to pot nearly every ball on the table. I was finding it hard to muster up the energy to compete.

“Dan … you’re not going to slip back to how you were, are you?”

I looked up from my shot.

“How do you mean?”

“Well … you’re not going to give up and revert back to how you were a few months ago are you? Because if you are, I will be able to put the punishment into action a little sooner than I’d thought…”

“Oh piss off with your punishment talk. You blatantly haven’t thought of one yet.”

Ian looked genuinely hurt.

“I have so.”

“What is it, then?”

“Okay, I haven’t. But I will. And it will be excellent.”

I thought about what to say and leaned against the table.

“When I won that twenty-five thousand pounds, and then lost it again, it didn’t really bother me. You know?”

Ian nodded.

“Because Yes had
given
me something. The fact that I lost it didn’t matter. But then Yes gave me something
better
than twenty-five thousand pounds. It gave me Lizzie. And that was a cruel thing for Yes to do, because I couldn’t keep her. It gave me someone who lives on the other side of the world, and it made me fall in love with her. And then she was gone.
That’s
why I’m in a foul mood. That’s why I think Yes is stupid. That’s why I’m playing pool in this pub with you, thinking life is a mess, a sad fucking mess, and I wish I’d just said no a bit more. No’s all I want to say, now, Ian. I don’t want to be like I was, but I’m so sick of saying yes. All it does is tire me. It was supposed to
help
. It was supposed to be
exciting”

Ian put his pool cue down and nodded sadly.

“What Yes giveth,” he said, “Yes also taketh away.”

Ian must have told Hanne what had happened.

The next day she wanted to meet up at a café near Old Street.

“Hey,” I said, sitting down.

I was twenty minutes late, but she didn’t say a thing. She was clearly in sensitive mode.

“Hey,” she said softly. “So I just thought we should meet up. It’s been awhile. I wanted to see how you are.”

“I’m fine.”

“Are you sure? You don’t look fine.”

“Honestly I’m good. I’ve just been a bit distracted lately.”

“Something else is wrong. I can tell.”

“No, you can’t. And no, it isn’t.”

“It is. I can read you, Dan. I know you better than anyone.”

“I’ve got a lot on my mind, that’s all.”

“Look, I know things are a bit funny, because of me and Seb, but …”

“Hanne. Honestly. That’s not what this is about. And you don’t have to worry. I’m absolutely not obsessed with you, and I didn’t want to go on your bloody date with you, and I’m sorry about the flowers and the small African child. It was odd behaviour, I know, but please, if you don’t mind, let’s put it behind us. I moved on ages ago. Seriously. You and Seb are fine. You’re great. And you and me—well, we’re friends. Great friends.”

Just then Hanne’s phone rang. She was about to turn it off, but I gestured for her to take it, pleased for the interruption. It was her mobile phone company. I could hear them, tinny and loud, from where I was sitting. They wanted to know whether Hanne had a few moments to talk about her mobile phone bill. She said not really. I smiled. It must be nice to be able to say that. But again I gestured for her to continue. I had nowhere I needed to be. I had my meeting with Tom at the BBC, but that wasn’t for hours yet.

“Okay …,” she said, mouthing
sorry
to me between answering questions. “Surname is Knudsen …,” she said, before giving the first line of her address, her date of birth, and her security password.

“Norway. N-O-R-W-A-Y.” She rolled her eyes. “Yes. Like the country.”

Well, what
else
was it like? The colour?

“Sounds good,” she said. “Okay, thanks …”

She hung up.

“They’ve moved me to a better call plan. Free text messages, twenty percent off my bill. Glad I took the call …”

At least saying yes was working out for
someone
.

“So, listen …,” she said.

“I’m going to be fine,” I said, cutting her off. “Life’s just a bit … strange right now.”

“Strange how?”

“Well, it
was
very uneventful. And then it
wasn’t
. But now it …
is
again. But I like it that way. I’m just tired, Hanne.”

She wrinkled her nose, struggling to follow my babbling.

“I never thought I’d say this, but … it sounds like you need to get yourself another stupid boy-project,” she said, and I considered the irony. “You know
you’re allowed to now? You can do whatever you want. You’re free! You know … You could count all the hairs on your legs again. It’s been ages since you did that. You could see if you’ve got any new ones. Photograph them. That kind of thing.”

I nodded. That sounded okay.

“I’ll be fine, Hanne. Anyway. How’s Seb?”

“He’s good. He’s still a little confused as to why you joined us for dinner that night.”

“He asked! I felt I
had
to say yes!”

“Oh, sure, you
had
to. And I suppose you’d have said yes if Seb had asked you to jump off a cliff, would you?”

I opted not to answer that one.

“There’s … another reason I wanted to meet up with you,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“Well … there’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

“Eh?”

“A girl I know.”

Oh, no.

“Hanne, I’m fine….”

“You said you were bored!”

“I didn’t say I was bored. I just said things were uneventful.”

“Look, do this for me. Just have a drink with her. What have you got to lose?”

“Hanne, ex-girlfriends aren’t supposed to set their ex-boyfriends up on dates.”

“Danny, ex-boyfriends aren’t supposed to sponsor small African kids for their ex-girlfriends. And yet they do. All the time. It’s really very common.”

I blushed a little. “But I don’t want to.” I sounded like a child and I knew it.

“Oh, go on. Live a little. You seemed like you’d got back into the swing of things until just recently. You seemed like you were really enjoying yourself.”

“I was.”

“So have a drink with Kristen. Just a drink. I think you’ll get on brilliantly. And you’ll feel better for it.”

Maybe Hanne was right. I mean, obviously, I’d have to say yes, but on another level it might be good for me. I knew the situation I was in. And I knew the solution too. Get over it. And how do you get over something like that? You get on with life. You don’t look back. You look forward.

“Fine. I’ll have a drink with Kristen. I’ll give her a call.”

Hanne smiled an oddly satisfied smile and wrote the number down on a napkin.

“That’s great,” she said. “That’s really great. And listen … tell me to get lost if you think I’m being too nosey, but … I was talking to Ian, and … well, don’t get annoyed, but I think maybe you should see someone.”

“Well, obviously you do. That’s why you’re trying to set me up with your mate.”

“No. I mean,
see
someone. A psychologist. A psychiatrist. A counsellor. Just …
someone”

Oh.

“What the hell did you tell Hanne?” I said to Ian.

“What?”

“Did you tell her I was saying yes to everything?”

“Of course not! Why?”

“Because she wants me to see someone! A psychiatrist or something!”

“I think, to be fair, she may want you to see someone, because
she
doesn’t know about your Yes thing. She must just think you’re mental, that’s all.”

“I’m not mental!” I said, probably a bit too loudly.

“Keep your voice down,” said Ian. “Shouting Tm not mental!’ only makes you sound more mental. And anyway, think about how it looks to
her …
You live for months in your flat in some kind of cocooned depression, then suddenly you’re out every day and night, you buy a weird car, you seem on top of the world, and then
bang!—
you’re all depressed again. It’s like schizophrenia! Or the beginnings of a midlife crisis! No wonder she wants you to see someone. You’ve got to snap out of this. It’s been weeks since you got back from Edinburgh. You’re in danger of undoing all our good work.”

“Our
good work?”

“Look, you have to get a grip. Jesus, think about what saying yes has done for you. Think about all the good things that have happened, if there
are
any. And then learn from it and put it to bed, if you have to.”

“Put it to bed?”

“Yeah. I’ll let you off the punishment. You can stop right now, and that’ll be that. No repercussions. Just you. Cheered up.”

I thought about what Ian had said. And I thought about what I’d achieved so far. Life
had
been more fun. I’d met some interesting people, I’d done some new things, and, all in all, Yes had been a minor success. But that had been in the early days, when the consequences hadn’t seemed to matter so much. Now, I was in a lull.
I wanted life to be normal again. We were only just coming up to October, for God’s sake. October! If I was going to do this properly and stick to my Yes Manifesto, there was still a long way to go. An
impossibly
long way. Could I really only be halfway through? I felt like crying. I felt like grabbing someone—
anyone—
and teling them the whole story, start to finish … but I already knew I didn’t like the way the story finished. Not if it ended like this. Hanne had said she wanted me to see someone. Maybe she was right. She wouldn’t have said something like that if it wasn’t important.

I lay in bed that night, thinking and thinking and thinking. Did I stop now? Or did I see it through? In what direction should I take my life?

I needed a sign.

The next morning my phone rang. I answered it. The person didn’t hang up.

And I had the sign that I so badly needed.

“I need a bottle of champagne, please. Cheapest you’ve got.”

“How much are you looking to spend, sir?”

“Um … a fiver?”

“We’ve got two pounds off Dom Perignon at the moment, at twenty-six pounds and eighty-eight pence, if you’re interested?”

I relished the moment.

“Yes!” I said.

“Would you like to buy a cooler with that?”

“Yes!” I said. “Yes—whatever you like!”

“What are we celebrating?” said Ian, standing at the door. “And why are you grinning like that?”

“We are celebrating some shocking news,” I said, pushing past him. “And a new beginning.”

“What news?”

“My promotion,” I said.

“Your
promotion?!”

“My promotion.”

“But you’re never at work!”

I ignored Ian’s childish comment and found two mugs in his cupboard.

“Blimey. Dom Perignon … feeling flash, are you?”

“Not really. I wanted the cheap stuff, but the man suggested this.”

“Why have you brought a corkscrew?”

“It was on offer.”

“So …”

“Yep. ‘Just when I thought I was out, Yes pulled me back in.’”

I poured the champagne, and Ian opened his packet of nuts.

“So what’s the job?”

“Well… it’s in a small department over at TV Centre—
tiny
, really—working up new ideas, finding new talent, developing stuff, that sort of thing.”

“What’s your job title?”

I took a deep breath and told him. “Head of Development.”

I was beaming. Absolutely
beaming
.

“Head of Development!?”
said Ian. “What? You? A
head
of something? That’s
ridiculousl”

“I know. But if it makes you feel better, there’s literally no one beneath me. It’s like being made Head of Stationery just because I’ve got my own pencil.”

Ian shook his head.

“As far as I can tell,” he said, “you’ve just got an executive-level promotion at the BBC, the most respected broadcaster in the world, essentially on the basis that you say yes a lot.”

We clinked mugs.

“Yes,” I said.

“So you’re still going to say yes?”

“Yes!”

What Ian didn’t realise was what this
really
signified.

There was a reason for this. I knew it. It had come just at the right time—just when I was doubting the validity of what I was doing and considering another change in life. A change to the sensible. To the more predictable. To the more comfortable. And it had confirmed to me that that choice was
right
.

An optimist would say that Yes had given me another big chance, and I should stick with it. I would have said the same a month or two earlier. And it’s true—saying yes to that first meeting had set off a chain of events that had somehow led me to buying a bottle of champagne and toasting a new start. But a realist would see what this really meant.

I realised now all too clearly that you can’t live life as a total optimist. I saw the underlying reason for this promotion. The secret reason. It was there to
encourage me to say good-bye to my stupid, carefree ways. To say good-bye to living life like it was all about fun and frolicks and adventure. At some point you have to grow up, move on. Hanne had always told me that. And now I’d realised it for myself. Jason had been right that night at the party. Responsibility comes to us all. Life can’t just be about fun. We have to sacrifice our freedom sometimes, so that we can progress. I would e-mail Jason once again. I would thank him for the lesson. Who’d have thought it? The Challenger won after all. No was best.