Yes Man (32 page)

Something had caught my eye.

A silver, shiny, gleaming credit card.

A new
type
of credit card.

A virgin, unsullied, never-before-used type of credit card. With a substantial credit limit. And six months at 0% APR.

I took it out, and I looked at it.

Edinburgh crept up on me outside the window of the train. I packed away my book and notes and tucked myself into my jacket
.

The book, which arrived that morning, was called
Embrace Yes: The Power of Spiritual Affirmation
and had been sent to me anonymously by, I guessed, the Challenger in a bid to encourage me to stop my Yes-related nonsense and come to my senses. My heart sank as I’d opened it up. There had been a note with the book, saying, simply “Maybe you can pick up some tips.” I’d read as much of it as I could without going insane—the back cover describes it as “a journey to the very heart of acceptance and aliveness through affirmation,” and “an opportunity to meditate and reflect on the aliveness of affirming reality and to live with the attitude of Yes.” I figured that was an attitude I was already living with rather nicely, thank you, and stopped reading to concentrate on who might have sent it to me.

I’d compiled a list as we’d trundled through Berwick-upon-Tweed.

Suspects

Ian (he may have been cleverly bluffing)

Brian and the Starburst Group

The man on the bus/Maitreya/the Baby Jesus

Elias Brown (if he is psychic or something)

People who
might
have it in for me

Hanne’s new bloke, Seb (?)

The man I beat up (sort of) in that club

Hanne (for ruining her date)

Wag (who may think he’s copyrighted the mullet)

Ian again (chance for him to punish me, if he ever comes up with something)

But try as I might, I couldn’t quite see any of them fitting the bill.

It was a crisp and brisk August afternoon as I stepped off the train and into a
taxi. I stared out of the window as we drove from Waverley Station to the Travelodge I’d book myself into for the next couple of weeks.

I tutted to myself. The Challenger was clever, wily. The Challenger was using psychology to intimidate. The Challenger was vindictive and bitter and was taking an active stand against my behaviour. The Challenger had knowledge and was using that knowledge to gain power over me. The Challenger liked Stonehenge.

It was, all in all, a puzzling case, but one that I was determined to solve. It just didn’t seem fair. I’d only been doing this about two months, and already I’d picked up a mortal enemy.

But I also had far more on my mind.

What
had I done where Lizzie was concerned?

Well … I’d bought her a ticket, of course. I had to. A ticket from Melbourne to Edinburgh via London. It was there for her, if she wanted it. It was up to her, now. Up to Lizzie. I was taking no more responsibility for having no responsibility. I had simply forwarded her the airline confirmation e-mail, attached a short note saying “Here y’go, then …,” locked the flat up, and headed for the train, my neck prickling with awkward British embarrassment. Another foolish foray into level five completed.

Yes, I’m well aware it was stupid. In fact my trip to see Dr. Molly Van Brain aside, it was perhaps the stupidest thing I’d ever done. The thing is, it would almost have been romantic, had I done it of my own volition. But I knew me and Lizzie were doomed. I knew it from the start. And now I’d spent five hundred and forty-five pounds just to prove it. But a yes is a yes, and in some ways, by saying that one little word, I’d rid myself of a problem. By saying yes to that ticket, I’d made it not my responsibility anymore. I didn’t have to think about it. Now it was
her
problem to deal with. Now
she’d
have to sit there and worry about what to do … whether to get on a plane or ignore me forever or break it to me gently or ridicule me to her friends for the rest of her natural Australian life. Getting that credit card out wasn’t as brave as I would like to think it was. If anything, it was typically male—push the problem to her side of the fence. The way inept, immature blokes one day decide to treat their girlfriends badly in the hope that they’ll get dumped before they have to do the dumping.

And as well as cowardly and embarrassed, I felt slightly … I dunno …
creepy
about having done it. I’d definitely lost any semblance of cool, now. I’d bought a ticket to Britain for a girl I hardly knew. She would now either think I was some
kind of misguided man of means or an
incredibly
lazy stalker. The kind of stalker who’d say to his stalkee, “Um, look, I’m a bit busy at the moment—any chance you could come to
me
this time?”

It was a ludicrous situation.

But the fact remained … It was
her
situation.

The thing to do now was forget about it.

So here I was in Edinburgh, in a black cab on my way to the hotel, and for a while, at least, I could pretend my troubles were behind me. Maybe without Ian on my case, without Hanne and Seb to bump into, with no Wag to clash hairstyles with, no Elias or Pete to claim Jesus had been spotted in the Pilau bloody Palace and—fingers crossed—no Challenger to breathe down my neck, I could treat yes just as I had in the beginning. I could start afresh in a whole new city.

“Danny! Take a seat, mate!”

I was in the courtyard of the Pleasance Theatre, and I was with Tom. There was a buzz in the air. The festival was still in early days, and all around us were theatre-goers, journalists, comedy fans, actors, artists, and—mainly—drunkards. The weather had lifted, slightly, and the air was warm.

“So the plan is this: We want to find the next generation of entertainers. You know? But not the obvious ones that there’s already a buzz about. People we can work with. Develop. So see as much as you can. We’re looking for …
quirky”

“Quirky. Right.”

“See things you wouldn’t normally see. Shows that no other broadcasters will be looking for. We want to find talent in the hidden places, and then see what we can do with them. Have you got a brochure?”

“No, not yet …”

“Here’s mine … Have a look through it, see what grabs you. I’ve got to go to a show now but you’ve got my number …”

“Yep.”

“Okay. See you in a bit.”

And with that he was off. I ambled over to the bar to get myself a pint and sat down to make my way through the brochure and decide how I should go about my day. My mission was to see shows—and that wasn’t a bad mission as missions go. I cheerily opened it at a random page and took in a show’s blurb.

Death is death, but life is death—you are already dead! Or dying from so many things!! Life is a struggle, grief is a pool in which you drown. The insanity and violence of love abounds. The madness of struggle. The conquest of death
.

Now, there’s quirky, and there’s utterly bloody terrifying. I didn’t feel this show fitted with the former. I was sure, though, that I’d find something to fit the bill. I flicked to another page.

Together we are yet together we can’t be. Togetherness and the togethered—together they are as one, but Together seeks to explore not oneness, but twoness … a play in two halves, sewn together and shown as one. A physical and metaphorical exploration by Brendan Fealey
.

I decided to have a baked potato instead.

But before I could even stand up, someone had slammed a leaflet down on the table in front of me.

“Are you looking for a show?”

A girl with dreads in her hair and glitter on her face looked at me with hope in her eyes.

“Yes,” I said.

“Gilded Balloon, five thirty. We got three stars in the Scotsman”

“Oh,” I said. “Is it quirky?”

“It’s a play about hope, love, betrayal, rape, and death.”

“Right,” I said. “A bit of everything, then.”

“Well … mainly betrayal, rape, and death.”

“Hmm. I’m kind of looking for …
lighter
stuff.”

“It’s very light,” she said. “It’s very funny.”

“Is it?”

“Yes … but also …
not”

I looked at my watch. Five o’clock. That would give me just enough time to go and get my food. I could pop down to the Tempting Tattie on Jeffrey Street and be sitting, satisifed and alert, in what she had now decided to assure me was a frankly hilarious play minutes later. I folded the flyer and popped it in my pocket, thanked her, and was just about to stand up, when from another angle I heard the words: “Hello. Are you looking for a show to see?”

*   *   *

Oh my God.

Dear God, the leafletters.

I had managed to make it out of the Pleasance Theatre with only six new flyers stuck in my pocket, but now, approaching the Royal Mile, I saw them.

Leafletters. Everywhere. Like a wide and rampant pack of wolves.

I had forgotten what Edinburgh was like. For one month the entire world descends upon the city for the largest arts festival on the planet. There are literally thousands of shows to see, each one usually performing more than twenty-five times. That’s a lot of tickets that needed to be sold. And that’s a lot of leafletters trying to sell them.

The desperation in the air was palpable. And for miles around, all I could see were leafletters … leafletters with leaflets. There were leafletters dressed as dogs. Leafletters dressed as ballerinas. One leafletter who appeared to be dressed as a giant, grinning apple. And they were closing in. It was like the nightmare of the charity bib people in London—but without the oh-so-lovable excuse of “doing it for the children. Sorry, I mean the commission.”

“Are you looking for a show? Ten past eight at the Assembly Rooms. It’s about—”

“Looking for a show? Clowning and Russian dance! Six forty at the—”

“Would you like to hear about my play? It’s a powerful one-woman piece about—”

I was striding quickly down the Mile, my head down and my hands out, taking every leaflet that was offered to me, stuffing them in my pockets and watching any free time I might possibly have had disappear before my eyes. I was beginning to realise that if I wanted to get through this festival alive, I was going to have to be very, very careful about where I went and at what time of day. I could be the first person killed under the weight of a thousand leaflets. I decided I’d need to sit down with my diary and work out how to see as many of the shows I had leaflets for as possible. And then I would need to work out a system of not actually taking any more leaflets. And how was I going to explain my choice of shows to the BBC? Was this what they were paying me for?

Finally I made it to the Tempting Tattie. I had a baked potato with cheese. And then I went to watch a play about the lighter side of rape.

*   *   *

It was late. I was in the bar of the Assembly Rooms, catching up with Tom.

“Good day? What did you see?”

I took a deep breath.

“A disturbing play about betrayal and death; a powerful one-woman piece about the search for identity in an identityless world; a clown; and a late-night close-up magic show by an inept Dutchman. You?”

Tom counted in his head.

“Ross Noble.”

I had worked out my professional itinerary for Edinburgh fairly quickly, and I was feeling quite pleased with myself. I’d noticed in the
Scotsman
that they had a daily list of “Five Recommended Shows You Really Must See.” This, I decided, would be my system. I would see whatever they recommended, time slots permitting, while at the same time working my way through the leaflets I already had. And I’d also worked out my new system for avoiding the rampant terrorism of future leafletters. Sure, it wasn’t quite in the spirit of being the Yes Man, but neither was spending eighteen hours a day in tiny, black rooms, watching American students adapt Shakespeare to Bhangra. So what was my system? I bought a pair of cheap, black headphones from Argos and permanently had them in my pocket. Upon spotting a leafletter, I would pop them on, people would see me coming, realise I was immersed in a world of loud and inpenetrable music, and leave me alone. It couldn’t fail.

It did.

“What did you see today?” asked Tom the next night, once more propping up the bar at the Assembly Rooms.

“A play about famine, a ninety-minute monologue about a pension book, a Canadian dance troupe who were clearly hungover, a man who just sat there and said we should think, the ‘Oxford Revue,’ and a Bhangra version of Shakespeare by some guys from Nevada.”

I was tired, and I looked it. “How about you?”

Tom held a ticket up. “Adam Hills.”

Oh.

“How about tomorrow, Danny? Anything on?”

“Yep,” I said heavily. “I’ve got my tickets already. Seven shows. Five of them
Scotsman-
recommended. First one’s at ten.”

“Seven shows,” said Tom, under his breath. “Goodness.”

“And you?” I said.

“I dunno,” he said. “I thought I might have a night off.”