Yes Man (8 page)

“Thanks, then,” he said, clearly bored of my presence and willing me away.

“That’s okay,” I said rather pathetically, and drifted away, confused by my encounter and slightly dirtied by it, too.

I walked down the stairs and found my way to the train. Ah well. At least I had a newspaper to while away the journey. I suppose some good had come out of it.

I started to flick through it, determined to make full use of it, taking in the day’s news and humming a happy tune. So engrossed was I that I didn’t even look up when something fell out of the middle pages and onto my lap. It took me another two stops to realise that whatever had fallen out was, on first glance, some kind of advertisement. I very nearly went straight back to reading the paper, but then something about it caught my eye. It was a competition of some kind. A sheet of scratch cards. With an instruction.

An invitation.

An
opportunity!

PLAY SCRATCH-A-MILLION!

Okay!

But hang on. What was Scratch-a-Million?

I immediately scanned the rules on the back of the sheet. Inside the newspaper, it said, were six numbers. All you had to do was check your free scratch card for those numbers, and then rub them off. If you got three matching amounts, that was the amount that you would win. Simple!

I set about finding the numbers and discovered, to my delight, that my scratch card had all six of that day’s numbers. I felt a bit silly all of a sudden. I scanned left and right just to make sure no one was watching me. I, like you, am all-too-aware of what a rip-off the scratch cards that fall out of newspapers and magazines are. I used to fall for them all the time as a kid. “Well done!” they’d tell you. “You’ve won
a star prize!” And then you’d run to the phone and dial the number and spend fourteen pounds of your parent’s money in order to find out you hadn’t won one of the star prizes, like a boat or one of only three brand-new widescreen TVs. No. You’d won one of six million hairclips.

But this was no rime for embarrassment. Not anymore.

So I rubbed away the first panel.

TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND.

Cor! A great start! Twenty-five thousand pounds!

I looked up, proud of my latest accomplishment, but no one was there to congratulate me, so I continued.

I rubbed away the next panel.

TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND.

Brilliant! Another twenty-five thousand pounds! All I needed now was a third
TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND,
and then a world of unthinkable riches would be mine. But as you and I both know, that’s not how scratch cards work. They give you a thrill, a moment of escapism in which you’re happily tricked into thinking you might have a chance of winning a new life, and then they dash your hope just as quickly as they got it up. Oh, yeah. I knew how it worked, all right. I knew what to expect. I was one step ahead of those scratch card boys, and one step ahead of the rest of the
Sun-
reading public, too, as I scratched off a third box and saw …

TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND.

Hang about.

What were those numbers again?

Oh …

Oh. My. Lord.

TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND. TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND. TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND.

I couldn’t breathe.

I had just won twenty-five thousand pounds.

I told you it was incredible.

I was happy. Maybe a little too happy. But winning twenty-five thousand pounds on a scratch card you never would’ve normally scratched can do that to a man. Evidently it was rather suspicious
.

“Why are you smiling so much?” asked Hanne. I’d phoned her up, and we’d agreed to meet up again, in a café not far from Holborn. She wanted me to apologise for my behaviour; I wanted to tell her all about my scratch card win.

“Danny? What’s with the smile? Really?”

“I’m just really happy,” I said, building up to my moment.

Hanne just looked at me.

“You’re scaring me, Danny.”

“I’m just happy, honestly. Happy for so many reasons. Happy to be here. With you. Hanne. My ex-girlfriend.”

Hanne’s eyes got a little wider.

“And I just wanted to say how
fantastic—
how really fantastic—it is that you’ve found this new man. I think it’s fantastic. I think it’s really fantastic.”

I smiled broadly to show just how
fantastic
I really thought it was. And I did. It was fantastic.
Everything
was.

“Danny … are you …
high?”

I considered the question and conceded.

“A little.”

I was, in fact, and to quote our American friends, high on
life
. My jackpot win had put me in a rather generous frame of mind.

“First of all,” I said, “I
insist
on paying for your latte.”

I held both my hands up to show that there would be no arguing with me on this one. This was on me.

“Thanks,” said Hanne brightly (although some might say a little too quickly). “Why are you in such a jolly mood?”

“A jolly mood? I suppose I
am
in a jolly mood. Wouldn’t you be, after winning”—I paused for dramatic effect—“Twenty-five thousand pounds?”

Hanne looked stunned. Absolutely
stunned
. I laughed.

“You won twenty-five thousand pounds?” she said. “You
really
won twenty-five thousand pounds?
How?”

“Well …”

I thought about it. Do I tell Hanne exactly how? Do I tell her I owe it all to what she’d call a “stupid boy-project”? The very thing that had split us up? Maybe it would finally convince her that these are
good
things! But that would also confirm everything she thinks she knows about me … So do I project a new me? A new, smarter, grown-up, career-minded, pasta-making, garlic-crushing me?

“All I had to do was scratch …”

She looked impressed.

“You’re good at that,” she said. “You were
always
scratching when we went out. But my God, Danny! It’s incredible! Twenty-five thousand pounds!”

“I know!”

“So … when do you get the money?”

Ah.

Now, that was the problem.

One hour later. The Yorkshire Grey with Ian.

“Ian, I am going to tell you something. Something
brilliant.”

“You’ve written a poem.”

“No. Better. This …”

I pulled my diary out of my bag.

“… is my diary. I want you to read it. It will tell you all the things I’ve said yes to over the past week and give you some idea of my dedication and commitment to the cause.”

Ian started to flick through it, found a page, and stopped.

“’Bought some new printer cartridges.’”

“Ignore that,” I said, taking it from him and finding the correct week. “Here …”

Ian started to read out loud.

Monday

Passed the Scientology centre on Tottenham Court Road. A lady asked me if I wanted to undertake a free personality test. I said yes. It took forty minutes, and it turns out I am quite nice
.

“Are you sure she did it properly?”

“Read on.”

The mad preacher on Oxford Street, who walks around with a loudhaler telling people “Don’t be a sinner! Be a winner!” shouted at me as I passed him today. He said “You! Are you ready to take the Jesus test?” I walked up to him and said that yes, I
was
ready to take the Jesus test and asked him what it was, and would Jesus be doing it himself. He didn’t seem to know what to do next and ignored me and just carried on shouting about how we shouldn’t be sinners but winners instead. I wonder how many people have taken the Jesus test, and whether if they passed, they were actually allowed to be Jesus for a bit
.

“Danny, what’s all this leading …”

“You’ll find out. Read on.”

And I stood up to go to the bar.

When I came back, pint in hand, Ian had made good headway.

“So … you attended a golf sale, yes?”

“Yes.”

“And you said yes to a waiter’s recommendation of the fish, even though you don’t eat fish, and you never have?”

“Yes. I was wrong about them. I always thought they were looking at me strangely—even the ones without heads. Turns out they were just being tasty.”

“Okay….”

Ian retraced with his finger what he’d already read.

“And you went to a gig…. You bought a new type of shower gel and a sandwich from Boots, ‘thanks to clever phrasing on their in-store marketing’ …”

“Yep.”

“You took a leaflet for an English language school and did as it said by checking out the Web site…. You tried a new type of chocolate bar…. You sent off for a brochure about Turkey….”

“Turkey: Land of Great Wonder.”

“You said yes when someone asked if you’d mind lending them a tenner.”

“I did.”

“You bought some stamps off an old woman. You said yes to going out for a
drink with a boring colleague. You made good use of a money-off voucher. And you attended the leaving do of a man you’d never met and consequently weren’t all that sorry to see go.”

“All that and more. Where are you up to?”

“Thursday.”

Thursday

A heart-stopping moment on the Tube today. I saw an advertisement, which read
CAN YOU REALLY AFFORD NOT TO BUY IN SPAIN?

For a second I knew one thing: I was going to have to invest in a villa
.

And then I reread the ad and realised that, actually, yes, I really
could
afford not to buy in Spain. The only people who can’t, I think, are probably Spanish
.

Ian rolled his eyes, which I thought was a little unfair, because that’s actually quite an important social comment, and he scanned on.

Said yes to giving a bloke some change. Said yes to a market researcher
.

He started to speed-read.

Yes to meeting with Wag next week. Yes to applying for a new type of credit card. Yes to going for coffee with Hanne. Yes to man obsessed with saving the whales
.

He got to Friday.

Friday

I bought a ministry in a box
.

“What’s a ministry in a box?”

“I can do weddings and stuff. Read on.”

“What do you mean you can do weddings and stuff?”

“I’m a minister. I can do weddings and christenings and stuff. Read on.”

“You’re a
minister?!”

“Read on!”

He did as I said but then stopped, dead. He didn’t look up. He read, and
reread the sentence in front of him. And then he said it out loud: “I won twenty-five thousand pounds.”

He looked up at me, slowly.

“You’re bloody kidding me.”

I shook my head.

“You’re bloody
kidding
me!”

I had prepared for this. I reached into my pocket and brought out my winning scratch card—the same scratch card that had stunned Hanne into silence just an hour earlier. I slid it across the table to him.

He picked it up and took in the numbers.

TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND. TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND. TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND.

He shook his head, bewildered.

“How did …”

“I said yes to going to play football, right?”

He nodded.

“If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have left the flat when I did. I bumped into a man, who I otherwise wouldn’t have met, and he needed a pound. I said yes. But I had to get change. So I bought a newspaper, which I wouldn’t have done if I hadn’t said yes, and in the newspaper, which I wouldn’t have bought if I hadn’t needed change for a man I wouldn’t have met if I hadn’t said yes in the first place, was a scratch card. And it said I should play it, and I did. And I won.”

Ian laughed. “Wow …,” he said.

“It was a chain reaction, Ian. Each yes took me closer to that twenty-five thousand pounds. Yes
wanted
me to win.”

Ian slid the scratch card back across the table to me.

“God … so … When do you get the money?”

Ah.

Now, that was the problem.

What I now had to tell Ian, and what I’d had to tell Hanne before, was a little difficult for me to go through.

It’s something that, until
you’ve
won twenty-five thousand pounds while sitting on a Tube train dozens of miles underground and surrounded by complete and utter strangers, you may find a little difficult to relate to. But this is what happened, and there’s not a part of me that wishes it hadn’t.

Ten minutes after winning twenty-five thousand pounds …

… I lost twenty-five thousand pounds.

The very second I’d won the money I’d wanted to tell someone. Anyone. But phones don’t work underground, and it wasn’t as if I could just run up and down the carriage screaming and dancing, as this is London, and even sneezing in public is illegal if you make eye contact. So I just had to bite my lip and sit there and try somehow to suppress my giggles and smiles.

Twenty-five thousand pounds!

I’d get off at the next stop. I’d get out of the train, head for the streets, and then phone the claim line. And then I’d go to Rio or Cuba or wherever the travel agent recommended this time of year, and I’d smoke elaborate cigars offered to me by dusty street urchins, and I’d … I dunno … I’d buy a panda. Yes! I’d buy a panda! For my mum! And a top hat for my dad! A top hat of solid gold!