11. Daniel did bring forth bread, and cheese of kine.
12. And Daniel laid the cheese upon the bread, and placed them in the oven.
13. And presently out of the oven issued fire and brimstone, and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and verily, the kitchen did quake mightily.
NOW, I DON’T know if you’ve ever started a cult, but there are certain things you have to take into consideration when doing so.
The first is whether or not you refer to it as such. Others may have continually referred to Join Me in this way, but I was sticking with ‘collective’. Partly because I prefer it, and partly because that’s the kind of thing a cult leader does.
Secondly, you have to decide whether to use your powers for Good, or for Evil. I suppose in some ways this was the dilemma I had been facing, but now Raymond Price had made the decision for me.
I would be lying if I told you there wasn’t a part of me that wanted to use my joinees to spread mischief across the land. I would love to be able to tell you, for example, that myself and two hundred followers had arranged the largest-ever Post Office robbery, with 201 masked raiders invading some sub-branch in Tooting and making off with roughly a tenner each. I was also starting to daydream about booking every single ticket for the opening night of the next Ben Elton musical and then getting everyone to stand up and leave just as the curtain was going up for the first song. But alas, it wasn’t to be. Because I, Danny Wallace, was to be at the service of All Things Good.
Old men the length and breadth of this country wouldn’t know what had hit them. I was absolutely determined that overnight, their lives would improve. And why? Because the sheer excitement of the Raymond Price initiative was yet to die down. Maybe it was because I couldn’t really tell anyone, or share my excitement. I was hoarding it and, consequently, it was lasting bloody ages. I was as close to being giddy as it’s possible to be while still maintaining a fairly masculine air. A plan had formed in my mind. I’d already written a lengthy letter to Mr Price, explaining who those five joinees were and why they had done what they’d done, and even invited him to join me. I posted it off with a spring in my step and a whistle on my lips. As it turned out, the whole thing had been a handy trial scheme. A useful experiment. And all the signs were pointing to the fact that I could now do it on a much larger scale.
I really could improve the lives of hundreds – if not thousands – of old men.
But it would cost money. I’d already shelled out for all those leaflets and stickers. Surely it was someone else’s turn to pay? All this was kind of in honour of Gallus, though, I kept telling myself And let’s not forget – he was an old man himself. This is something he would love. It wasn’t about me. Not really. Just because I was enjoying it . . . well . . . that shouldn’t even come into it. It was just a by-product of the real quest; a bonus. If I was serious, I would have to be prepared to sacrifice a little something. In this case, some money. But, as I think you are beginning to understand, I was serious. In fact, I was becoming very serious indeed.
So I found a company, phoned them up, and ordered a hundred brand new disposable cameras.
‘A hundred?’ said the man.
‘A hundred,’ I said.
‘Big wedding, or something, is it?’
‘Nope. I’m going to send them all to strangers and make them take pictures of old men.’
‘Cool,’ said the man.
* * *
Two days later the cameras arrived in a big brown box, by special delivery. I lugged them upstairs and unpacked them carefully. I now had 100 Pro-Image Flash cameras. Oh yes. Pro-Image. I’d even gone the extra mile and paid for ones with flashes. Now it wouldn’t just be the daywalking pensioners we’d be making happy – we’d be able to make the hardcore, nocturnal ones happy, too.
It was all very exciting. The only thing that put a downer on it was a discovery I made a little later that morning. The only other mail to arrive that day, you see, was one that on first glance seemed very familiar to me. There was something about it I recognised. It had my handwriting on the front, for a start. And an official Join Me rubber stamp mark on the back. I realised with a growing sense of unease that it was the letter I’d sent to Raymond Price. This was odd. I studied it.
Someone had scribbled out his address and written ‘PTO’ on the front. I did as it said. I turned over and read. I was shocked and disappointed.
No one by the name of Raymond Price is known at this address.
I’d got the address wrong. Bugger. I went back to the original email sent to me by the joinees who’d met him and checked where I’d gone wrong. But I hadn’t. I’d written it out exactly as they’d sent it to me. Which was strange. Because they’d copied it straight off Raymond’s driving licence.
My joinees were intelligent people. They knew how to copy stuff down. Surely they couldn’t have got it wrong? Hang on . . . what if Raymond Price had . . .
No. It didn’t bear thinking about. Surely not.
But what if?
What if Raymond Price, our happy old man, had given us a false address? What if the cheeky old devil had nicked our money and legged it back to Teignmouth in Devon? If, indeed, that was where he was from in the first place . . . he could well be, right now, sitting in the finest restaurant in all of Hammersmith, smoking cigars and wearing a new silk top hat, lavishly tipping people left, right and centre – and all with our £38!
That surely couldn’t have happened, could it? If it had, then my faith in humanity, in the future of Join Me . . . it’d all be shattered in just one awful moment. It didn’t make sense to me. Who would do something like that?
Anyway . . . think about it from his point of view. What if Joinee Whitby and pals hadn’t come across as simple, trusting folk; Good Samaritans, bringing hope into this bleak and ever darker world? What if Raymond Price had thought they were some kind of happy-clappy extremist Christian group? What if he thought they were nutters? They’d certainly been very keen to help him – maybe overly keen. What if he’d felt bullied into accepting money from these ‘Joinees’ acting under a ‘Commandment’ from an unseen ‘Leader’? That poor bloke! He must have been cacking himself. His voice had certainly wobbled slightly on that recording, but I’d put that down to emotion; I hadn’t even considered it might have been sheer bloody terror.
Or . . . more likely . . . what if it had all been just a silly mistake? What if Raymond had shown them the wrong piece of ID? One with an old address on? We’ve all got them.
I decided that was the most likely occurrence of all, and that nothing would deter me from my mission. More old men would be made happy – whether they liked it or not.
And so I bought a hundred jiffy bags and printed out a hundred letters, then wrote a hundred addresses of a hundred random joinees onto each, and put a hundred cameras in them, along with their mission statement. Find an old man. Make him very happy. Take a picture as proof. Job done.
I took six plastic Tesco bags, each full of jiffy bags, to the Post Office down the road and bought seventy-eight pence worth of stamps for each. My arms were already tired from all the packing, but this was nothing compared with how tired my tongue became after licking three stamps per envelope for a hundred envelopes in a forty-minute period. I had so much glue in my mouth after that you’ll be glad to hear it put me right off the whole gluesniffing scene for good. I started to walk home and felt my mobile going off in my pocket but ignored it. You try licking 300 stamps of a morning and see how bloody chatty you are.
On reflection, I should have answered it. It was Hanne. She’d left a message, saying, ‘Hi, look, I thought you were going to give me a ring about the film premiere. Do you want to go or not? Let me know or I’ll give your ticket to someone else. I know that Steve from work would love to go. He likes Vin Diesel.’
Who was Steve? She’d never mentioned a Steve before. Surely I’d have remembered she worked with someone with a name as distinctive as that. And who the hell’s Vin Diesel? I called her straight back, but her mobile was off. She was probably on air. I should have left a message saying yes, of course I’ll be there, and I love Vin Diesel too, but I decided I should probably find out who Vin Diesel was first, just in case he wasn’t a film star but a mate of Steve’s and I’d just declared undying love for him.
I got home, stuck some cheese on toast in the oven and thought about Raymond Price some more. Paranoia set in again. Could he really have given us a false address? It seemed unlikely. In the pictures he looked very jolly about everything. There was even one in which my joinees gather behind him, and he crouches in the middle, with two thumbs-up. That was a very visual thank you, not a cry for help from a man overwhelmed by overbearing do-gooders. Plus, just look at his face. It’s round, and happy, with the soft, warm eyes of an old man either so kind he can’t help but radiate it, or so old he can’t focus his eyes properly. And I was sure Raymond could focus properly – he’d shown the joinees his driving licence. Here was the picture of him doing just that, to prove his address. And here’s the one of him accepting the cash – his face a picture of humility and gratitude. Nope, this was a mistake all right. And a mistake I was sure we could correct. I was certain I could track Raymond down . . . we had a last known address, after all, and we had his name, and job, and his voice on tape, and photographs of him. Hell, that was more than most people with a missing person have – and if Raymond had been a bank robber rather than an old man I could’ve caught him in no time with a bit of help from Crimewatch UK, and . . . shit. My cheese on toast was burning.
As I ate my lunch and contemplated my life, I reflected that this wasn’t so bad. Being your own boss. Sitting at home. Watching telly when you wanted. Going to bed when you wanted. Eating what you liked. Having to wade through passport photos to get to the fridge. Buying disposable cameras and posting them to strangers. Making random old men very happy. Oh, I can see why so many people work from home, I really can. You get a lot done.
I decided to leave a message with Hanne, asking her when exactly the premiere was, and telling her to give me a bell that night.
Boyfriend-duty done, I jogged downstairs to check the second post and was delighted to see that the PO box delivery, which always arrives slightly later than my normal mail, had made it through. And with it, a letter from a new joinee. My 201st.
The photograph enclosed was of a smiling man, with soft blonde hair and glasses, wearing a black T-shirt with a white collar. It made him look a little like a vicar until closer inspection . . . but in this case that was probably the point. What he was wearing could really be described as ‘vicar casual’. Because this man, my latest joinee, went by the name of the Reverend Gareth Saunders. I read the letter excitedly. Could it really be from a proper, bona-fide vicar? There was a website address for his own homepage, and I checked it . . . and yes. He was a vicar. A practising vicar. An assistant curate, no less, at Inverness Cathedral!
Now, the one thing I hadn’t been expecting was for a vicar to join me. They’re already part of quite a big club, so to speak, and it’s a club that’s famed for its strict belief system. Surely it wasn’t normal for the Church to let vicars go about joining things like this? Unless the Church was worried about Join Me, and Gareth was a vicar spy, but being a vicar he wasn’t allowed to lie about it? That would really get on people’s tits, being a vicar as well as a spy.
I was fascinated. Joinee Saunders’s letter was polite, and funny, and engaging. He’d simply found Join Me on the web and thought it sounded fun.
I emailed him immediately, just to touch base, and was surprised when, minutes later, he replied. We hit it off electronically, straight away. And he was full of good advice.
‘Regarding Join Me, the one thing I can tell you I’ve learnt from the Church,’ he wrote, ‘is that it spreads best through personal contact. That’s the one thing you really need.’
Personal contact. He was right. I’d been worried about revealing myself to my joinees en masse, but if they could look into my eyes, if they could feel the passion face-to-face, then surely that would be the way to enthuse them? To get them to spread the word even further? To let them know just how important it was to make old men happy? To really believe in Join Me – and make others believe? Wasn’t that what Jesus had done with his disciples? And there were only a few of those – I’ve got loads more than he managed.
And before any Christian readers get all offended – relax. I’m not saying that I’m the new Jesus. I’m just saying that there’s a very good chance that I might be.
I wrote back to Gareth to say that I agreed, personal contact was definitely the way ahead. And to prove it, with his permission, I would visit him. He said of course, and when was I thinking of? I told him I was thinking of that weekend. He appeared unfazed, and said ‘okay’.
So I booked my ticket to Scotland and packed my bag.
