“Have you ever thought about working over here for a while?”
“Sorry?”
“We’ve got a space on one of our teams. We need someone like you, I think. Someone who can come in and bring a sense of positive energy to the room.”
Wow! Positive energy!
“Can you send me your résumé?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Good. You’ve proved you’re a natural developer. You can take an idea and run with it. I mean, okay, you ran in a pretty weird direction with that How to Get Fat idea, and what you got out of it wasn’t brilliant, but …”
“Hey,” I said, raising my finger. “There’s no such thing as a bad idea!”
“Precisely, Danny. Apart maybe from that one case. But all I’m saying is consider coming on board.”
“Okay,” I said, “I will.”
“So where are you off to now?” said Tom.
“I’m off to meet a man about a bus,” I said.
The New Clifton Bengali Restaurant is on Whitechapel Road, just a stone’s throw from the Blind Beggar pub—the place I’d last met Brian and learned all about how aliens had built the pyramids while those lazy Egyptians just sat there worshipping cats and drawing on the walls.
I wasn’t sure what information Brian had managed to glean about my man on the bus, but he was local to the East End as, I assume, was the man I met that night, so I was hoping for some positive identification at the very least.
Brian was already there when I arrived.
“Hello!” I said, happily taking a seat.
“Danny, hello,” he said, “thanks for coming. I assume it’s because you’re still saying yes more?”
“No, no,” I said, because I didn’t want to be rude and make him think that was the only reason I’d shown up. “Well … yes.”
“That’s fine. Because it would appear you are doing the right thing.”
“Am I?”
He nodded.
There was a brief silence. I wasn’t sure whose turn it was to speak next. But Brian didn’t say anything, so I decided it was probably mine.
“So … what’s up? Shall we order something?”
Brian caught the eye of a waiter, and we ordered some curry.
When the waiter disappeared, Brian tapped his fingers on the table and then, slightly coy I thought, said: “Danny, over the weekend I did a little research … just a few Internet sites and so on, but I thought it was worth sharing the information with you.”
“What kind of research?” I said, knowing all too well that when grown men use the words “research” and “Internet” in the same sentence, a court case usually follows soon after.
“I was reminded of something, that was all. When you told me—us—about the man you met on the bus that night, Laura made reference to the Maitreya … and I followed it up.”
“Yeah, but that’s not real, though … I mean, you said it yourself …”
“Yes, but I also said it is good to keep an open mind on things. So … could you just run what happened by me again?”
This was all a bit odd. What I’d told them about the man on the bus seemed pretty clear. A man on a bus said something to me. And that was it. But nevertheless, I obliged …
“Um … well, I was sitting on a bus, next to this man, and …”
“What did he look like?”
“He was an Asian guy. And he had a beard.”
Brian turned over a small piece of paper that had been facedown on the table and held it up to me.
“Is this him?”
I couldn’t really tell. The picture had been printed from the Internet and was black-and-white and rather blurry. It was of an Asian-looking man with a beard, wearing a white robe, and standing in a large crowd of people. It was subtitled “Kenya, 1988.” I was amazed. Brian had brought props!
“I’m not sure …,” I said, and I could see faint disappointment in Brian’s face, so I took another look, keen to be as helpful as possible. “I suppose the beard looks quite similar.”
Brian closed his eyes and signalled for me to continue.
“Anyway … we were talking about this and that and about what we’d done with our weeks, and I mentioned how I was basically staying in all the time and turning things down, and he said, ‘So say yes more,’ or words to that effect, and that was that, really.”
Brian frowned.
“And that was that? You just started saying yes more after that?”
“Yes.”
“And is it working? What’s happened?”
“Well … I’ve been having fun. I’ve been out a lot more, and I’ve met new people, and I’m off to a party later, and I nearly won twenty-five thousand pounds. I bought a steam cleaner, and my career seems to be benefiting too, so … yes.”
Brian folded his arms and leaned forward in his chair.
“This may sound a little outlandish to you, Danny, but what if I were to tell you that there is a school of thought which suggests that Jesus himself is alive and well and living not five minutes from here in Brick Lane?”
There. He’d said it.
To be honest, I didn’t know quite how to react. I decided that the best way to react was to just sit there, with my mouth slightly open, and a general look of bewilderment about me. I hadn’t had Brian down as a religious activist before now, and this seemed a slightly eccentric and ineffectual way for him to be spreading the good word—particularly as I was struggling to see the relevance of that particular statement to what we’d just been talking about.
“Er … I don’t know what I’d say to that,” I said. “I suppose I’d say: Is he?”
Brian sat back in his chair.
“Jesus. The Christ. Boddhisvata. The Iman Madhi. Krishna. Maitreya. Call him what you will. But yes, he is. According to some, anyway.”
“And … what’s this got to do with me?” I said as politely as I could, because it suddenly appeared you never knew where Jesus might be sitting.
“Maitreya, as we shall call him, has been living among the Pakistani-Indian community of Brick Lane since the 19 of July 1977, according to my research. He is what they call a master of wisdom, come here to oversee and to teach. He is a spokesman for justice and sharing.”
I considered what Brian was telling me.
“He’s been quite quiet,” I said. “For a spokesman, I mean.”
“No, Danny, he hasn’t. Apparently, he has been actively working among us these twenty-five years and lives in the world today along with several other masters of wisdom. And those masters are training people, and touching their lives, and changing the world.”
“And … how do they do that?”
“I’ll get to that. But according to those in the know, around eighteen and a half million years ago, a group of beings from planets like Venus were brought to Earth to help us get started …”
“Can I just stop you there for a moment,” I said, but as it turned out I couldn’t.
“I’m not saying I believe this, Danny, I’m just saying this is what is believed. They have lived among us for a millennium in some of the most remote areas of the world—the Himalayas, the Rocky Mountains, the Gobi Desert, the Andes, for example—and they have taken care of us from afar. But now, masters like Maitreya are said to live among us. There’s a master in New York, one in Geneva, one in Darjeeling, and another in Tokyo. Along with Maitreya in London, of course.”
“Right,” I said although I wasn’t really sure that it was. “And you’re saying that I’ve met him?”
“No,” he said. “I am saying some would say it is possible you met him.”
“But why me?”
Brian shrugged.
“Why not? Now, again: I’m not saying I believe all this. But to show you how seriously he is taken, in 1984 it was promised that Maitreya would show himself to the world’s media. Reporters from all over the world turned up to hear what the great one had to say. The Telegraph, the Observer, the Sun, they were all there.”
> “Where?”
Brian raised his eyebrows and opened his arms.
“The New Clifton Bengali Restaurant.”
Huh?
“Here?” I said, utterly amazed. “It was here?”
“Well, no. The New Clifton Bengali Restaurant used to be on Wentworth Street.”
“Oh.”
“But it’s here now.”
It wasn’t quite the same.
“Why did he choose to reveal himself in a Bengali restaurant in the East End of London?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” said Brian, slightly testily, batting my question away like it was the first thing people always asked. “Anyway, the journalists were assured that Maitreya would make his entrance, and then announce his message to the world.”
“And what was his message?”
“Well … he never showed up, so no one knows.”
I was starting to wonder why Brian had insisted we meet at the New Clifton Bengali Restaurant—a restaurant that wasn’t even the same New Clifton Bengali Restaurant as the one that a man hadn’t shown up in twenty years earlier. I mean, there were millions of places that weren’t even the same place as the one that a man hadn’t shown up in twenty years earlier. There was my flat, for example, or Bristol.
“Anyway, it was announced later that despite not appearing at the New Clifton Bengali Restaurant because the time wasn’t right, he would be continuing his work here on Earth of overseeing the evolution of”—he pointed at me—“lesser people.”
I didn’t know whether to be grateful or annoyed. On the one hand it’s quite nice to think that if he does indeed exist, Maitreya chose me to oversee that night. But on the other I can’t help but feel a little peeved that out of all the people living in London today, I’m the one he decided was that little bit less evolved than all the others. But I was finding it all a little hard to believe. I decided to call Brian’s bluff.
“Well … if Maitreya lives on Brick Lane, why don’t we pop around? We could go there now and say hello, and I could see if it was the same bloke after all.”
“I don’t know where his flat is,” said Brian, shrugging and ripping a piece of naan in two. “I know it’s above a shop, and I know it’s near a temple, but that’s all I know. To be honest, I’m no great expert. But … I’d like you to meet someone who is …”
At this point it would have been brilliant if Brian had pointed at the door behind me, a jaunty tune had started up, and Maitreya himself had walked in waving, like we were all on some kind of very spiritual chat show. But he didn’t, and I felt a little bit like how I imagine those journalists must have felt in 1984.
Instead Brian just said, “Pete.”
“Pete?”
“Pete. He’s a sometime-Starburster and an expert on this kind of thing. What I know about Maitreya I learnt from Pete.”
“I suppose you think I should meet with Pete, then,” I said.
“Yes,” said Brian.
I left the restaurant that night rather confused. I wasn’t entirely convinced that the man I’d met on the bus that night had been Maitreya. Fair enough, he’d had a beard just like Maitreya. And fair enough, he was a teacher just like Maitreya was the “World Teacher” (which seems rather ambitious—the marking alone must be a job in itself). But there must be thousands of bearded teachers in London, so why Brian was so determined that the wisdom the bloke on the bus had passed on to me was divine wisdom I just didn’t know.
Still, I’d given Brian the go-ahead to give my details to Pete, and I was told to expect a call within the next week or so, once Pete had “checked me out.”
* * *
I arrived at Robert the technician’s party at eight on the dot.
Amazingly it was already in full swing. There were people in the kitchen, people on the landing, people already leaving. This just wasn’t right. Whenever I’ve organised a party and told people to turn up at eight, the first ninety minutes have usually consisted of me and a bowl of nuts. But no. Here we all were. In quite a swanky apartment.
“Nice place, Robert,” I said, impressed. I’d always imagined Robert living on the set of Robot Wars. But no. He had taste. And style.
“It’s my brother’s pad.”
Ah.
Robert and I walked into the living room, and now there were more people, sitting on dining-room chairs in a near perfect circle.
“Everyone, this is Danny.”
“Hello, everyone,” I said.
“Hello,” said everyone back.
Robert sat down and so did I.
“Right,” he said. “Facts.”
Oh, bollocks. I’d forgotten to bring my fact with me. What did I know? What did I know that no one else knew? How was I supposed to stump a stranger? I hadn’t realised this was going to be so … formal.
“Here’s mine!” said a girl called Rosie. “The call of the Howler Monkey can be heard at a distance of up to ten miles.”
She looked very pleased with herself, and the group made appreciative noises. One person said, “I did not know that,” and shook his head. Gripes. Mine was going to have to be good to compete with that one.
“Okay, my turn,” said the man to her right.
Shit. What was I going to say? What did I know? I’ve got loads of great facts … facts about lions, facts about helicopters … but what were they?
“The national flag of Italy was designed by Napoléon Bonaparte.”
A couple of people said, “Really?” and the man nodded enthusiastically as if he’d discovered it through a detailed research expedition of his own.
“Who’s next?” said Robert.
Oh, God, this wasn’t fair. Why did we have to break the ice at the start of the party? Why couldn’t we all just ignore one another until midnight or so, and then drunkenly make friends just as the taxis were arriving?
“I’ll go …” said a girl in a pink top. “Right … If a statue of a person on a horse has its front legs in the air, then the person died in battle. If the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle. Finally if the horse has all four legs on the ground, then the person on top of it died of natural causes.”
This bloody stormed it. The girl was suddenly the most popular person in the room. And all through knowing a bit of otherwise useless trivia. I was amazed. And I wanted a part of it.
“Danny?” said Robert. “What’s your fact?”
Right. Quick. Come up with something. But my mind went blank. I would have to make something up. But what?
“Danny?”
Think!
“Since, er, since the first McDonald’s restaurant opened … in, er, 1969 … in a diner just off … California Beach …,” I said, adding extraneous invented details in the hope that it would give an air of confidence to wherever this was going. “The, er … McDonald’s corporation has sold … in excess of”—I pointed my finger in the air to add a feeling of gravitas—“one million hamburgers.”
The group looked at me in stunned silence.
And then a couple of them wrinkled their noses, and someone said, “oh” with a hint of disappointment in her voice.
“A million hamburgers?” said the girl in the pink top. “Doesn’t sound like very much.”
“In excess of,” I said. “Which means more than.”
There was an awkward pause. The girl in the pink top looked at me like I’d really let her down.
And then my saviour came.
“The first ready-to-eat breakfast cereal was Shredded Wheat in 1893, beating Kellogg’s Corn Flakes by a full five years.”
The heat was off. The group was impressed again.
The man gave me a wink.
The man who had saved me went by the name of Gareth.
“Thanks so much for that,” I said. “To be honest I made that McDonald’s fact up. I mean, it’s probably true, so I wasn’t technically lying….”
“Yes,” said Gareth. “I imagine the fact that they’ve so
ld more than one million hamburgers probably is true.”
“It’s a lot, isn’t it?” I said, still trying to make it seem more impressive than it was.
“Yes,” Gareth said, slowly. “Anyway, how’s it going? Where have you come from tonight?”
“Bow,” I said. “You?”
“Forest Hill. Just moved in with my girlfriend.”
Gareth worked in TV as someone big in forward-planning for Richard & Judy on Channel 4.
“Oh!” I said. “That’s a great show! I was on that once!”
And I had been. When I’d started my own cult—the cult that Hanne hadn’t taken too kindly to—I’d been invited on to the Richard & Judy show to explain what had happened. I’d had a brilliant time, and it was one of the highlights of a very odd year.
“Yes! I saw that one!” said Gareth, which was only to be expected, seeing as he worked on it. “I thought I recognised you. Yes … I remember Richard saying afterward, that was such an … odd edition of the show.”
Let’s just say that quote won’t be making it onto my résumé.
And then someone new had arrived at the party and informed the room with great gusto that in Hartford, Connecticut, you can receive a five-dollar fine if you transport a dead body using a taxi. He received a round of applause and an admiring glance from the girl in the pink top.
Gareth and I looked at each other, and I mouthed the word “bastard.”
My new friend and I talked about all manner of things, and I was finding out that since I’d started my Yes experiment, I’d become a fascinating human being with new experiences to talk about and opinions on all manner of things. I told him in great detail about how men actually can have babies and about how I’d hung out with peace activists and come up with both the War Is Bad slogan and the Geese for Peace campaign that he’d probably heard about by now and about how aliens built the pyramids and how earlier that evening I’d had curry just down the road from where Jesus lives.
And he nodded and took it all in and seemed to be thinking something over in his head.
“Danny, do you have a number where I can contact you?”
And I said I did and gave it to him.
And then he said he had to be up early, but would give me a call soon about something, and he left. Maybe I wasn’t as fascinating as I thought.