Friends Like These: My Worldwide Quest to Find My Best Childhood Friends, Knock on Their Doors, and Ask Them to Come Out and Play (42 page)

Ah,
it read.

S
oon after.

It was hot where I was.

Far hotter than London had been. Far hotter than I’d been expecting.

I was standing outside the arrivals lounge, my phone in my hand. It seemed just as confused as I was. I wanted to dial Peter’s
number, wanted to tell him I’d made it over. But my phone was still adjusting to the time difference, and still trying to
find its new network for the week.

Finally, as I was fumbling with my sunglasses and trying to work out where I’d put my wallet, it went off.

A phone call.

I answered it.

“Hey, Dan…” said Hanne. “Are you out?”

“Well, sort of,” I said.

“Whereabouts? In town?”

“I’m actually in Australia.”

A beat.

“You’re…
what?
What are you doing
there?
”

I thought about it.

“I’m just meeting a friend for a pint.”

The moment I’d received Peter’s “Ah” text, I knew there was a problem. As we’ve already established, anything starting with
an “Ah” usually points in that general direction. I’d ended up phoning him.

“Where
are
you?” I’d said.

“I’ve moved to Melbourne,” he said, laughing, and my heart had dropped to my feet.

Melbourne.

“I hadn’t been planning it long, but the time just seemed right. I told you I was leaving work!”

“Yeah, but I thought you’d maybe be moving to Swindon, or something…”

“Never mind. I’ll be back in a year or two. We can meet then—we’ve waited
this
long. Or if you’re ever out here. I mean, let’s face it, we were never going to meet while we were both in London, were we?
That would’ve been
far
too convenient…”

*   *   *

And now here I was.

I hadn’t booked my ticket on a whim. I hadn’t just upped and left London. I’d considered all the options very carefully.

But none of them seemed as attractive and
necessary
as seeing Peter again.

Plus, I’d had good news.
Excellent
news. Akira had finally written back. Okay, so it wasn’t the heartfelt, I’ve-missed-you missive I’d been hoping for. If anything,
it was quite “professional.” But it was
something.

Hello Daniel,

I was in Sapporo Hokkaido, north in Japan, to participate Digestive Disease Week—Japan 2006 from 13th to 15th October.

This is an academic meeting of the Japanese Society of Gastroenterology and the Japan Gastroenterological Endoscopy Society.

I am a member of these society, and I presented rare case of the familial adenomatous polyposis.

I will make a study of Colonic cancer from this November.

How about you, Daniel?

Akira

I hadn’t really known how to respond. I couldn’t exactly say “me too,” could I?

But check it out: not only was Akira a medical doctor, he was studying
cancer,
probably with a view to
eradicating
it altogether! Akira was helping solve cancer!

Receiving this email had made my mind up for me about visiting Peter—because a plan had started to form…

But a plan like this needed backing. Support. Permission.

Since finding out about Andy, I’d abandoned the idea of Man Points. There seemed to be little purpose to them anymore. I’d
simply undertaken the necessary works on the house because I’d wanted to—I’d needed something to occupy my mind and time.
But now I’d realized maybe I needed something to fall back on. Especially if I was going to sell the idea to Lizzie.

Lizzie had, of course, been incredibly supportive of the whole endeavor. And she’d been there to quietly pick up the pieces
when it had all gone wrong. But jetting off to Australia—to
her
home country,
without
her—had seemed a little too much to ask with no payback…

And so I’d found the list that Ian and I had made that sunny afternoon in the garden. And I’d studied our thoughts, and tried
to work out what I’d need to do to make this happen…

I wandered around the house, reading it as I did so… but discovered that, strangely, most of the items on the list had already
been done…

Painting the skirting boards (3MP)

Sorting the table (2MP)

Cleaning the…

Fixing the…

Replacing the…

…
all
done!

The only thing left over, in fact, was mending that broken socket. And that was only worth 1MP!

“I’ve done most of it,” I said, almost in awe. And then I realized what that meant.

I
was
a man.

I was still a man who needed to get permission to go away, but I was a man nevertheless.

“I’ve
done
most of it!” I said, again, shaking my head.

Who needed
Paul?

“Done most of what?” said Lizzie, suddenly there. She was carrying a bag of shopping, and was sticking her headphones in her
pocket.

“This!” I said, holding up the list.

“Ah!” she said. “The List!”

“The Man Points list!” I said.

“Yes indeed.”

“So I was hoping I could trade these in. Because I need to go on another trip.”

“Another trip?” she said. “To meet an old friend?”

“Yes,” I said, handing it to her.

“Peter?” she asked, casting her eye down the list. I could see her looking from left to right, taking in all the ticks I’d
added.

“Hmm…” she said.

And then Lizzie looked at me, and looked again at the list. And then she did something remarkable. She tore it up.

“I agree with Ian,” she said. “I think Man Points represent an oppressive regime which removes the fundamental human rights
of the adult male.”

She hugged me.

“Go and see Peter. And say hello from me.”

It was 2 p.m. and I was in Sydney with almost a day to kill.

In my nineteenth hour on the plane, cramped and pushed up against the window, with a baby crying behind me and a man next
to me who’d annexed my foot space, I’d begun to lament the fact I hadn’t pounced on Peter when he’d been in Tooting.

But now, here, in the blazing sunshine and with happy-faced Australians all around me, I was excited.

More so, since I’d had a text from Lizzie.

Off to bed. Call me in the morning, baby. PS. Some messages for you at home. One is from a guy named Chris saying you should
call him… could it be?

Could
it be?

It
had
to be! Christopher Guirrean had got my letter! You see? Everything was suddenly working out. And being here, in Australia,
demonstrating my commitment to the cause, was all part of the fun.

Yeah, so me and Peter would have had a nice evening in a Tooting pub, talking about London, and living in London, and how
different London is to where we’d grown up… but I now realized that
this
was where Peter’s life was now. And I was here, right at the start of it. A whole new chapter in his life. Plus, he’d been
right. Just as Londoners never see all the things that London has to offer precisely because they can, it’d been too easy
to see Peter there. Now that there’d been the chance that we’d never meet again—with him as far away as it’s possible to be
without starting to come home again—I had to see him. It was an address which, more than ever, needed updating.

I grabbed a cab, and headed into town.

I love Sydney.

It’s the way cities should be. Historic and futuristic, wide, bright and beautiful. The last time I’d been here I’d had a
strange conversation with a girl who, because I wear glasses, thought I was perhaps more intelligent than I am, and attempted
to get me to pontificate on her city in quite a poncey way.

“What’s the first word that pops into your head when I say ‘Sydney’?” she’d said.

“Poitier,” I’d said, in response.

“Hmm,” she’d said, leaning forward onto the table, fascinated. “And what would you say is particularly
poitier
about Sydney?”

Now, here I was again, down by the harbor, taking in the Opera House and sipping a frappacino, trying to convince my body
not to give up the fight by using sunshine and caffeine.

I watched the news on a TV hanging outside the café.

“We’ll be back after the break,” said the anchor.

The break started. A man shouted incredibly loudly about a new CD that was not available in the shops. “BUY THE GREATEST BEER
SONGS EVER!” he yelled. And then it was straight back to the news.

I headed towards George Street and the city center, and began to walk around the shops. My flight wasn’t until 7 p.m., and
it would only take me about…

Hang
on.

I turned around, and saw a man with a small entourage walking past me. One of them had a headset on, and there was a woman
with a clipboard, looking nervous. And the man at the center of it all, the man they were clearly all worried about, looked
strangely familiar.

But no. It
couldn’t
be.

You don’t just turn up in Australia and immediately see…

Bloody hell. It
was.

The man had been stopped by someone with a camera and obligingly had his photo taken with them. And then signed an autograph.
And then someone else was upon him, apologizing for the intrusion but immediately videoing him on his phone… was
that
…

It was
Shane Warne!
Perhaps the most famous Australian in… well… in Australia. Even on a global basis, there are only a few more well known than
him. Kylie. Jason. Mick Dundee. Dame Edna. Wolverine. And that’s almost half the country.

Here he was—Australia’s cricket captain. Media darling. Devil of the tabloids, with his sex scandals and his straight-talking
and his blond highlights. A sporting hero, right here in the middle of a shopping center in Sydney. Surely he’d shop online?
Surely he’d get everything for free, anyway? What was he
doing?

Suddenly, I realized it was a pity I’d stopped collecting autographs as a kid. Getting Shane Warne’s to go with my Barbara
Windsor, Phillip Schofield and Emlyn Hughes would have been a real boost to my collection. My grandchildren would never have
had to worry about money again.

But alas, I am not an autograph hunter. Not anymore. I had my three, and that was fine by me. I decided to move on, but as
I turned around, I saw a giant poster.

COME AND MEET SHANE WARNE!

Shane will be signing copies of his new book at 2 p.m. at Angus & Robertsons!

I looked at my watch. It was ten to two. I suppose I
could
get an autograph. I’d probably be first in the queue!

*   *   *

The queue stretched pretty much all the way back to Britain.

I’d decided I would get Shane’s autograph, not for me, but for Peter Gibson. Because it had suddenly struck me what a fine
gift that would be. A proper Australian gift. A welcome-to-your-new-life gift. If Shane Warne would agree to condone Peter’s
decision to move here, surely his stay in this fine country would be blessed forevermore? It would be like being in a Travelodge
in Reading, finding a copy of the Bible and seeing it had been signed, “Enjoy the stay! Love, God!” You’d think, “I’ve chosen
the
right
hotel here.”