1. It came to pass that the words of Daniel were heard by a second Daniel, son of Ander.
2. And Daniel – nay, but the other one – was mending a chariot brought out from the land of the Ikeans.
I AWOKE IN the morning because my head appeared to be vibrating. My phone was under my pillow, for some reason, and a text message had arrived and wouldn’t go away.
It was from Joinee Saunders, my priest up in Inverness.
LOCAL PAPER HEARD ABOUT MY GOOD DEEDS FOR JOIN ME. THEY MAY CALL YOU FOR QUOTE. IS THAT OKAY?
I texted him back to say that it was, and within an hour I was talking to a journalist from the Inverness Courier. I answered his questions to the best of my ability, while at the same time upholding an air of mystery.
‘So what’s your full name, Danny?’
‘Oh, I’d rather just be known as Danny, if that’s all right.’
‘Er, okay. And how old are you?’
‘25.’
‘And what do you do for a living?’
‘Um . . . well . . . I don’t really want to say . . . but I used to work at Argos.’
It was true. I did. When I was 14. It was all I could think of to say. Anyway, the journalist seemed happy enough and told me he was off with a photographer to take a few pictures of Gareth now, and wished me good luck with it all.
The next day I was in the minimarket on the corner buying a few groceries when I got another text message from Gareth.
IT’S IN TODAY’S PAPER, it said.
Wow, I thought. That’s good. Joinee Saunders was definitely doing his bit throughout Scotland.
I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE IT . . ., I wrote back.
Moments later, he replied.
. . . AS THE ACTRESS SAID TO THE BISHOP.
All vicars should be like this man, I thought, and plonked my groceries on the counter. I was cooking for Hanne tonight, and I was making a little extra effort because of being so preoccupied of late. And extra effort for me means actually buying some fresh vegetables and cutting them up all by myself. I did it once in the late 90s, and it worked out quite well. Tonight I would recapture that vegetable-based magic for the benefit of my girlfriend.
I looked up to see that the girl behind the counter was having a little trouble. She’d taken the rather small onion I was buying out of its bag and was comparing it to little pictures she had on her till. She didn’t seem to be able to find one to match.
‘S’cuse me,’ she said. ‘What’s this?’
‘That’s an onion,’ I said, wondering whether this girl harboured any real ambitions for a long-term career in the minimarket business.
‘Right,’ she said. ‘Only it’s not on here. I don’t know what price it is.’
‘Oh,’ I said, looking at the onion in her hand, like that would give any clues as to its price.
‘So it’s an onion?’ she asked. Well, it was worth asking again, just in case I’d got it confused with a box of Coco Pops or a copy of Front magazine.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It’s an onion.’
‘But what would it be called on here?’ she asked, indicating the price list Sellotaped to the front of her till, as if they’d have provided her with a list written in Spanish, or something.
‘Well . . . probably “onion”,’ I said. I wasn’t being very helpful, but to be honest I shouldn’t have needed to be.
‘Right. Yeah, it’s definitely an onion,’ she said. She rescanned the list. ‘Nope. I’m sorry, I don’t know how much this costs, so . . .’
She shrugged her shoulders and raised her eyebrows in a what-can-ya-do? way, and put the onion to one side.
‘Hang on,’ I said. ‘I need that onion. You can’t not sell it to me.’
‘I’ve no way of knowing how much it is, sir.’
‘Well . . . take a guess, or something. I can’t be the first person to buy an onion in this place. You’ve a whole bag of them over there.’
‘Tell you what,’ she said, glancing from side to side even though we were completely alone, ‘have this one on me.’ She chucked the onion in the bag, smiled, and continued packing my bags.
‘So . . . are you cooking tonight?’ she said.
Apparently the fact that she’d saved me about 12p in onions meant that we were now bosom buddies, and would presumably be going out clubbing together later.
‘Yes, I am, I’m afraid.’
‘You’re probably a much better cook than me,’ she said.
‘At least I know what a fucking onion is,’ I said, and headed home.
I didn’t say that really. I mumbled something about not being very good really, blushed, and then headed home.
Once there, I gave Joinee Saunders a call.
‘Danny! Hello! I’m just scanning the front page of the Inverness Courier in to email to you. Join Me’s front page news!’
‘Front page?’ I said in disbelief.
‘Well, like I told you, the paper heard about the good deeds I was doing in the name of Join Me, and wanted to interview me. They sent a photographer round and took a picture of me in front of the cathedral wearing my Join Me T-shirt under my dog collar! I had a bit of explaining to do today. It took me by surprise a bit, because I walked into Safeway and there I was – all over the place! I look like a fat Gary Barlow. Not that there’s any other kind. Anyway, the Bishop thought it was fantastic. Ooh – hang on, I just got a text message.’
The Bishop thought it was fantastic! Brilliant. I waited while Gareth fumbled with his mobile.
‘It’s from my mate Johnny. It says “CLERGY BRAINWASHED IN CULT SCANDAL!” He’s a joker!’ And then we both laughed and said goodbye.
I virtually skipped to the kitchen, chopped my onion up and heated a pan to fry it in. But then curiosity got the better of me and I went to my computer to see if Gareth’s article had arrived in the sixty seconds I’d been in the kitchen. It hadn’t, so I kept pressing ‘Send & Receive’ until it had.
There he was, proud, noble Gareth, staring into the middle distance in his Join Me T-shirt, with the magnificent cathedral towering over him.
SIGNING UP TO ‘KINDNESS’ COLLECTIVE
A CLERGYMAN serving at Inverness Cathedral has been recruited into a new flock.
Rev Gareth Saunders, a curate at the cathedral, is now a man with a double mission, spreading the word not only about the Church, but about ‘Join Me’ – an informal group which started almost as a joke but is now bringing people together from across the world.
Join Me was created when advertisements appeared in London newspapers asking people to ‘Join Me’ by writing back with a passport-sized photograph.
The person whom respondents found they were joining is Danny, who prefers not to give his surname although he does reveal he used to work for catalogue sales firm Argos.
Surely it couldn’t be long before the Argos people got in touch with some kind of big-money sponsorship offer? But the article continued . . .
Danny (25) is encouraging his joinees to carry out ‘random acts of kindness’, but insists Join Me is not a religious organisation. ‘I’m not religious in any way, but funnily enough I’ve had two vicars join me,’ he said.
One of Join Me’s two vicar followers, Gareth (30), says: ‘It seemed like a good idea and could lead somewhere positive, so I said “Yes”, although I didn’t know much about it then.’
Heavy-metal fan Gareth, who has been at the cathedral for three years, has been undertaking missionary work on Danny’s behalf, not only wearing his Join Me T-shirt, but distributing leaflets about the group.
Fantastic. Join Me was indeed front-page news! Gareth revealed in the accompanying email that he had further plans. In the days that followed, news of Gareth’s involvement in Join Me had made it to local radio stations, church websites, cathedral newsletters, and even the Daily Express.
I was inspired by Gareth’s efforts. And I thought back to our time together. He’d been so insistent I listened to his advice, and although I’d met the fantastic Dr Spacetoad off the back of it, I hadn’t done as much meeting and greeting as I’d thought was appropriate, since I’d given my word to a man of the cloth. There just hadn’t been time to do it. But that’s what Gareth does every day in his job. And that’s a big part of why people believe in what he does, and what he stands for. The personal contact.
I had to continue to apply that to Join Me. There was a chance that people not as dedicated as Gareth would begin to lose interest. I couldn’t allow that to happen. Before, I hadn’t wanted to go out and meet too many people, because it was easy to be mysterious from behind a keyboard. And I had to be mysterious, because I hadn’t known what to tell them; we didn’t, after all, have an aim. But now, now we had a purpose. We had a mission. I felt far more able to go out and meet people, to tell them about the way of Join Me, and urge them to do their good deeds on each and every one of our Good Fridays. I was going back to basics, taking the message of the Karma Army on the road. I worked out a route that would take me past the home towns of several joinees, and ordered my tickets. I phoned joinees in the areas I’d be visiting, and arranged times to meet. It all happened in less than thirty minutes. It was remarkably easy. This was going to be good.
That night over dinner (I burnt the onion) I told Hanne that the following day I would be popping back to my parents’ house in Bath to say hello to my mum and dad. And I would be. But I would also be going in order to meet two of the founding members of the Bath Collective: Joinees Sansom and Jones. They’d written to me requesting an audience. They wanted to collaborate to do good deeds, but they wanted my advice on how to do it. A trip to Bath was the least I could do to guarantee their loyalty and help stir up some goodness in the South West. But I wouldn’t just be in Bath. Oh no. I’d be working hard on the campaign trail, meeting as many joinees as I could in a day and ensuring their continued commitment to the cause.
The next morning, I jumped on an early train out of London and an hour and a half later I’d arrived at Bath Spa train station. I walked the five-minute walk to my parents’ house, said hello, had a quick cup of tea, and then headed into town. I met Sansom and Jones outside Bath Abbey. We headed for the Pump Room to have a cup of tea and a sit down. I chatted to them quickly and efficiently. Sansom works in web design. Jones works for a Labour counsellor. I gave them some extra leaflets and stickers to aid their word spreading, and they thanked me as if I’d just given them each a cheque for two hundred quid. Then it was time to be off. I had a long day ahead of me.
Joinee Jonathan and I met after a twenty-five minute train journey out of Bath, in the small town of Chippenham. We sat in a café near the station and he revealed to me that he wanted to play a bigger part in the world of Join Me. In many ways, he wanted to be the Watson to my Holmes.
‘I think it’s great that you meet your joinees,’ he enthused. ‘It’s inspiring. I think more people should know about it. I want to chronicle your journeys. I want to chart them. All this good that’s happening – it should be told to the wider world. There could be a book in it!’
‘Trust me,’ I said. ‘There’s not.’
‘You never know! I’d like to write a kind of modern-day Bible about what you’re up to. The Book of Joinees. I’m fairly sure we could get a publisher interested. If you could spare me just a few minutes every week to tell me what you’ve been up to I could write it up for you.’
I told Joinee Jonathan I’d email him when I could, and he should feel free to send me his interpretations. I had a feeling he would anyway. And then it was time to get back on the train and leave Chippenham far behind.
Well, several miles behind.
My next stop was Swindon. A joinee named Ms Taylor had been trying to convince her friend Rachael that she should join . . . but Rachael wasn’t sure. I agreed to stop off at Swindon not only to meet Joinee Taylor – an English teacher – but to help badger her mate into signing up, too.
‘The only thing I don’t understand,’ said Rachael, ‘is what any of this is about.’
‘Yes,’ she said.
I pulled out a small box full of passport photos.
‘It’s about this.’
‘Passport photos?’
‘Yes. Passport photos. Would you have sent me a passport photo just because you saw a small ad asking you to?’
‘No.’
‘Or if you read about it on the Internet? Or someone gave you a flier?’
‘No.’
‘Well, these people did. They had faith in a thing they knew nothing about. They took a chance on something. And it turned out to be something they liked. All I’ll ask you to do is perform one random act of kindness to someone who’s not expecting it, each and every Friday.’
Rachael looked unsure at first, for a moment I thought I’d lost her. Joinee Taylor clearly saw my concern, and nudged her friend, who finally, thankfully said ‘okay’, and smiled. I marched her to the photo-booth at the station, she had her picture taken, and she presented it to me. I popped it in the box and thanked her from the bottom of my heart. Job done. Another one in the collective. Another vessel for good deeds created. Another step closer to my 1000th joinee.
Joinee Taylor and new Joinee Rachael waved me off as the train moved away, and I sat down and awaited my arrival at Didcot Parkway.
There, I stood in a thin rain until I was met by an unsure looking man with a wispy moustache, who turned out to be Joinee Anderson, a part-time mechanic who’d travelled to meet me from Banbury.
We sat in his car in the car park and he offered me one of his sandwiches. I was told I could choose between ham and pickle or cheese and Marmite. I chose cheese and Marmite. He’d also brought ‘two cartons of drink’. I chose blackcurrant and apple. I can’t remember what he chose.
‘So, I must say, Danny, I didn’t really know what I was getting into with this whole Join Me business. But I’ve been trying to do my bit for you. Last Friday I repaired a car and didn’t charge for the oil change.’
‘Did the car belong to quite an attractive woman?’ I asked, having met mechanics before.
‘Well . . . yes,’ said Joinee Anderson, and we laughed.
Joinee Anderson – first name Daniel – had heard about Join Me while listening to BBC Radio Oxfordshire in his garage. He’d been repairing a grey Volvo 340 when he heard it being talked about, and abandoned his work for a moment to check the website on the computer in the back office.
‘And that was that. I had an old photo of myself lying around so before I knew what I was doing I’d sent it in. I almost forgot about it until you sent me an email telling me to go out and do good deeds. I’ll admit to you I didn’t bother the first week. I was too embarrassed. But then I saw what other people were doing, and I thought “sod it”.’
‘So you started giving free oil changes to women you fancy?’
‘Among other things.’
I felt good. Thanks to me, fit birds in Banbury were getting free oil changes. Not many people can say that.
It was soon time for my next train, and I bid Joinee Anderson good-bye, telling him to spread the free oil changes around a bit, and not just give them to girls he fancied, and he promised he would.
‘The next minger I get in the garage won’t know what hit ’er,’ he said. ‘First-class service all the way!’
At Reading Station, I’d arranged to be met by Joinee Thomas, a student at Reading University. I say ‘arranged’. She obviously thought it was a far more casual agreement, because she didn’t bother turning up. Either that, or she’d told one of her friends that she was planning to meet some bloke she’d met on the Internet.
‘That’s nice,’ her friend would have said. ‘And how very modern of you. I assume it was through some kind of secure, official dating service?’
‘No,’ Joinee Thomas would have said, ‘He is a sort of cult leader and I have agreed to do his bidding.’
Her friend would have then called the relevant university authorities and had Miss Thomas sedated.
I kicked about Reading Station for half an hour or so, studying the various student-types as they walked past, but no one seemed to be looking for me, so I bought myself a Mars bar and sat on one of the benches waiting for the next train to London. I knew I had to be on the 18.34 train in order to make it back to London in time for my final appointment of the day.
As I sat there, though, I had time to think about my next joinee visit. I was supposed to be meeting Joinee Benjamin, a man who, for various reasons, had made me feel rather uncomfortable each time we’d emailed. He’d been incredibly insistent that he wanted to meet me, though, and that was one of the reasons I’d decided to go out and meet others, too. While Joinees Anderson, Taylor, Rachael, Jonathan, Sansom and Jones had been a delight to meet, I had the feeling Joinee Benjamin would be rather more difficult.
His emails were always slightly cryptic, for a start, and his attitude sometimes rather suspicious, but I kept telling myself not to be silly. He’d joined me, after all, and if that wasn’t enough to recommend a chap, what was?
I’d printed out his questionnaire in order to bone up on him before we met, and I read it on the train back into London. It was strange. While most people were inclined to give me their life stories, Joinee Benjamin had chosen to leave many questions blank and answer other questions with questions. It was all very odd, and I learnt virtually nothing from it.
In addition, there was his photo. Now, this was puzzling. On his questionnaire, Benjamin claimed to have been bom in the 60s, making him around 40 or so. The passport photo he’d sent me, however, was clearly taken in the 70s. It was old, and slightly yellowed, and showed a man already in his fifties, wearing an orange shirt and a large kipper tie. I couldn’t quite work out what was going on here. Was I being played? I was intrigued.
I dashed through the slanting rain, out of Paddington station, and across the road, where I found the tiny café we’d agreed to meet at. There were about six people. A couple, two men on their own, and a pair of Italian students. I couldn’t see Benjamin anywhere, so I took a table at the back and ordered a cup of tea.
Five minutes passed. Then ten. I was sitting in a prime position – no one could miss me if they walked in, and I could see anyone approaching the café for quite a distance. Surely I wasn’t going to get stood up again? Was someone bumping off my joinees before I got to meet them? Unless the person I was going to meet was already here? I looked around. The couple and one of the men had gone, which only left the two Italian students, and the bloke who looked like a bored commuter, eating a baked potato and reading the Evening Standard on the other side of the room. I thought about leaving. But moments later the man I would come to know as Benjamin walked into the café, brushed the rain off his shoulders and strode purposefully towards me.
‘You’re Danny?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Benjamin,’ he said. I was slightly taken aback. He certainly looked very different from how I’d expected. He looked nothing like he did when his passport photo was taken. He had a different hairstyle, for a start, and he had an ear-ring, and he’d even gone to the trouble of having a completely different face. I began to suspect he’d tried to dupe me with that photo of someone else.
A waiter took his coffee order, and Benjamin started to drum his fingers on the table nervously. He had very clean fingernails. The rest of him was very neatly turned out, too.
‘I watched you, er, walk in,’ he said. ‘I was in the, er, café opposite.’
‘Oh. Am I in the wrong one?’
‘No. I was sitting there, just watching, just watching.’
‘Oh.’ I said. There was an awkward silence. I didn’t really want to ask him why he’d been sitting there, just watching, just watching.
‘So . . . it’s nice to meet you,’ I said.
‘Mmm. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you too.’
Another awkward silence.
‘You’re not quite as I imagined you,’ said Benjamin. He had a bloody cheek. He’d sent me a photo of some pensioner from the 70s.
‘Well . . . you’re not quite the same as you look in your photo,’ I said.
He laughed.
‘That’s not a picture of me. I’m not a complete idiot!’
I imagine I looked quite confused at this stage, but Joinee Benjamin continued.
‘I’ll cut to the chase. I’ve been keeping my eye on your Join Me thing. I keep an eye on a lot of things, and Join Me is one of them. I applied to join you, I answered your questionnaire, and I’m fascinated. I thought it was important we meet face to face, so you know that someone is . . . let’s say “interested” . . . in what it is that you’re doing.’
I nodded, but was still confused.
‘What is it that I’m doing?’
‘You know exactly what you’re doing.’
I bloody wished I did.
‘No, tell me.’
‘I was suspicious as soon as I heard about you.’
‘Well . . . how did you hear about me?’
‘Your website was mentioned in the Mirror. Why is he getting people to join him? I thought. What’s in it for this guy? Politics? Religion? Money? Then I found out some more from you and other joinees I emailed, and they said you used the term “New World Order” in one of your advertisements, is that not the case?’
‘Yes.’
‘And what does that mean to you?’
‘Well . . . I just wanted to start my own thing. You know. Like a collective.’
‘Because to me . . .’
The waiter arrived with the coffee, and Benjamin fell silent while it was placed on the table, followed by a bowl of sugar, a spoon, and a napkin. The waiter left and Benjamin felt it was safe to continue.
‘Because to me, and to my friends, it means something very different. It means eugenics. The elimination of what some deem the useless.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘The useless are more than welcome. I’m useless myself.’
‘The New World Order is something They want to instigate with the ultimate aim of reducing those who are left on the planet to a near pre-industrial state. It’s about the creation of a one-world oligarchical government.’
I think my eyes were about as wide as they could get at this juncture.
‘I can’t even say “oligarchical”,’ I said, disproving my point. ‘That’s not what I’m about at all.’
Who the hell did this bloke think I was? What did he think I was up to? He was a joinee . . . and yet he didn’t seem to be into the idea of Join Me at all. Why had he given me a false photo? Why couldn’t he have been like all the other joinees I’d met today? Or at least had the decency not to turn up, like Joinee Thomas? I couldn’t take it all in . . . and then he started to get a little odder.
‘What would you say if I said the words: “The Process”?’
‘I’d say “What’s that?”’
Benjamin was studying my eyes for any glimmer of recognition or fear.
‘What about The Children?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘The Finders?’
‘I’ve never heard of The Finders. What did they find?’
Benjamin paused. He wanted to tell me, but instead continued trying to catch me out. His eyes narrowed.
‘The Sovereign Order of the Solar Temple?’
Jesus . . .
‘Dunno.’
‘International Chivalric Organisation?’
‘I don’t know, but I don’t mind the sound of them. Chivalry is dead in this country.’
Benjamin looked like he was about to agree, but remembered who he was and instead barked: ‘The Moon Child?’
‘Never met him.’
‘The Golden Way Foundation?’
‘No.’
‘The Luciferians?’
I sighed.
‘No. No, I’ve never heard of any of this lot. They’re nothing to do with me. I’m doing something called Join Me, and it’s about good deeds. That’s all. No Moon Children, Luciferians, or Finders.’
‘You’ve heard of The Finders?’
Benjamin’s eyes were filled with horror.
‘You just mentioned them a minute ago,’ I said. ‘Look, do I look like someone who’d be in one of those things?’
‘Cult leaders take all forms.’
‘It’s not a cult. It’s a collective. And cult leaders very rarely take a form similar to mine.’
‘Why aren’t you more open about what you do, if it’s all so innocent? Why the secrets, Danny? The evasive answers? Why don’t you have a picture of yourself on your website?’
‘Because I don’t feel I look like a particularly inspiring Leader,’ I said. ‘Look at me. I’m just a scruffy bloke with specs. I don’t want people going to the site and saying, “Oh. Look. We appear to have joined one of The Proclaimers”.’
Benjamin considered this. I continued.
‘And anyway, I am being more open. You know what Join Me’s all about now. Good deeds. Nice things. And I’m meeting people face-to-face precisely because I’ve nothing to hide.’
‘The fact that you took out the advert worried me. The Heaven’s Gate cult did something similar when recruiting for new members. They placed an ad in USA Today saying something along the lines of “This is your last chance to advance beyond the human”.’
‘Mine’s about just being human,’ I said. ‘Not about advancing beyond it. What have I asked you to do since you joined me? Just nice things. Have I ever tried to control your mind? Have I ever once asked you to kill the president? Even the president of a small country, like Antigua? No.’
‘So why do you ask people so many questions? Why send out a questionnaire?’
‘I want to find out a little about them. I want to know who’s joined me. It’s natural. And anyway, you’ve asked most of the questions today.’
Benjamin looked at his fingers, drummed them on the table again, and then looked back at me.
‘Are you sure you’re nothing to do with The Finders?’
This bloke had to be winding me up.
‘I promise you. I know nothing about them.’
Benjamin looked around the room, decided it was safe, and whispered conspiratorially, ‘Since 1987, The Finders have been active, mainly in America.’
The words ‘mainly in America’ translated to me as ‘this is bollocks’ and I sat back in my chair with a sigh.
‘There are roughly forty of them, all adults. They have no visible means of support for their activity, and they appear to be worth over two million US dollars.’
‘What’s the problem with them?’
‘Well . . . their activities are worrying in the extreme.’
I sighed again. ‘Go on . . .’
Benjamin looked around again. Apparently, ‘mainly in America’ didn’t mean that one of the forty Finders mightn’t be in this tiny café near Paddington, just by chance.
‘They constantly walk the streets. They follow people about all day, and they take extensive notes and pictures of everything.’
‘Why?’
‘No one knows. But that’s what they do. Always writing notes. scribbling things down. Keeping a record. They’re part of the global vision. Heralds of the coming world superstate.’
I didn’t really know what to say to any of this. It’s not often you’re sat with a complete stranger, in a café in London, discussing heralds of the coming world superstate. Not unless you’re Benjamin, anyway, who I imagine spends much of his time doing just that.
‘Are you sure we’re not wandering into the realms of fantasy here, Benjamin?’ I asked. This was all very peculiar, and I was slowly coming to the realisation that this increasingly fidgety man was a complete and utter cockney nutjob. You may have realised this for yourself a page or two back, but remember: I still had my tea to finish, and I find concentrating on two things hard enough at the best of times. Nevertheless, I was fascinated by what he was saying, though some way from convinced. And I was still trying to work out how he thought Join Me fitted into all of this.
‘Let’s look at how you’ve recruited people for your cult,’ said Benjamin.
‘It’s not a cult – it’s a collective. And all I did was invite them to join.’
‘Yes, but let’s look at what we’re going to do now we’ve got them.’
I didn’t like Benjamin’s use of the word ‘we’ there.
‘We’re not going to do anything. Apart from good stuff. And what’s with the “we”?’
‘I’m just saying. You obviously have plans. And it’s very interesting that you chose to mention killing the president a few moments ago. Why did that pop into your head?’
‘It just did.’
‘So the words “Kill The President” were just offered up by your subconscious? That’s interesting.’
This annoyed me.
‘It’s not interesting. And I’m not going to kill the bloody president, okay? That was just an example of one of the many things I haven’t asked my joinees to do. Do you want more? There are lots more. I haven’t asked them to make plans to leave Planet Earth on a big bloody spaceship hidden behind a ruddy great comet. I haven’t asked them to all do crazy little dances and dress up in orange and play the bloody bongo drum. Oh, and most importantly of all, I have not asked them all to be in a cult.’
Benjamin looked slightly offended. There was a tense five seconds of silence, as he looked to our left and right to see who’d overheard me banging on about cults. I’d raised my voice slightly at the end of all that, without really realising, and I calmed down, and felt slightly ashamed. It’s just a bit annoying when a man you’ve only just met thinks you’re planning to assassinate a world leader. It puts a downer on your whole day. You start wondering who else people think you’re secretly planning to kill.
Benjamin cleared his throat and continued. ‘What do you do when your “joinees” come together?’
The question was carefully put, and quietly spoken. Benjamin was now the one coming across as the sane party, and I the cult-obsessed nutter. He clearly thought he would have to treat me with kid gloves; I had just proved myself prone to unstable outbursts, after all.
‘I haven’t really met them as a group yet,’ I said. ‘Some of them like to make old men happy, that sort of thing.’
‘Chanting?’
‘What?’
‘Do they do any chanting?’ Benjamin was stirring his coffee but looking me straight in the eye.
‘Not that I know of. Maybe in their own time. But not on my watch.’
‘Because continual chanting is a common technique used to alter a person’s state of awareness. The same is true of swaying, or clapping, or just about any repetitive movement. Some leaders make their followers hyperventilate, to reduce the level of carbon dioxide in the bloodstream, which produces lightheadedness. You then tell them they’ve reached an altered state or had a spiritual experience.’
‘But don’t they just reply, “No, I’m just a bit dizzy because you’re not letting me breathe properly”?’
‘I’m just giving you the facts.’
‘Well, I won’t be telling people to hyperventilate. Because I’m not a cult leader, am I?’
‘Have you ever pressed anyone’s eyes in?’
I was getting annoyed again. ‘No I have not. Who do you think I am? I don’t go about pressing people’s eyes in.’
‘Because if you did, you’d be doing what They do,’ said Benjamin, flatly. ‘You pass along your line of followers and you press on their eyes until the optic nerve sends signals to the brain as flashes of white light. And then you tell them that you were “bestowing Divine Light” upon them. You can also push really hard on their ears—’
‘I don’t want to push really hard on their ears!’
‘I’m just saying. You can push really hard on their ears until they hear a buzzing sound and then tell them they’ve heard “The Divine Harmony”, which is like Jesus humming—’
‘Jesus never hummed,’ I said, moodily, despite the fact that He probably had, at least once or twice. I made a mental note to check with Joinee Saunders.
But Benjamin sensed my continued annoyance. He held his hands up and sat back, obviously trying to avoid confrontation.
‘I’m just trying to educate you, Danny. To let you know what it’s all about. I’ve been involved in certain things myself and I am aware of the techniques.’
I think Benjamin was trying to tell me – without actually telling me – that he’d once found himself in a cult. He gave the impression of being someone who was violently against them, but he talked about them with a strange sense of glee. Like he enjoyed their existence. The only thing I can compare it to is when someone is telling you about a particularly grisly scene in a horror film; their eyes are a mixture of enthusiasm and disgust, and they desperately want you to share in both.
My phone rang. It was Ian, who was actually ringing to ask me if I’d tape Die Hard 2 for him that night, but I made it sound like he was in town and demanding to meet me.
‘I’ve got to go,’ I said to Benjamin. ‘But thanks for . . . you know . . . some interesting ideas for Join Me.’
‘I’ll be in touch,’ said Benjamin, before, slightly sarcastically, ‘Oh, Leader!’
I nodded enthusiastically, gave him a little thumbs up (which he returned), said goodbye, and headed for the tube.
What a very odd man. And I’m sure he wouldn’t mind my saying that. Because that’s the kind of attitude odd people have.
Benjamin had exhausted me. Knackered me out. And made me question what I was doing. Today had been so much effort. Sure, I knew that the first few joinees I’d met would go on, and spread the word, and probably do a few good deeds . . . but had it been worth getting so tired over? Especially when one of them hadn’t bothered turning up, and another had come close to driving me insane.
I got back to the flat, head low and shoulders heavy, to find Hanne in my kitchen.
‘Where have you been?’
‘Bath,’ I said. ‘I told you. I went to say hello to my parents.’
This was true. I had.
‘Yes,’ said Hanne. ‘And I thought it would be nice to phone them while you were there, but your mum said you’d turned up for about five minutes and then gone again.’
This was true. I had.
‘Well, you know what my mum’s like at exaggeration. I must have been there longer than five minutes.’
‘Five minutes, she said. From 9.30 to 9.35. She was horrified! So where did you go?’
‘I went to see some friends.’
‘More new friends, I suppose. Where are you meeting all these people? Why have I never met any of them? It’s getting really to me, Danny. We could have spent today doing something. I’m not sure how much more of this I can take. You’ve changed.’
I said I was sorry, but I needed to see my friends, and she said she just wished I could be honest with her. I’d never been so secretive, she said, and for a moment I was utterly desperate to come clean; to just tell her what I’d been up to. Would that really be so bad? To say that I’d been spending my days not earning lots of money writing film reviews or playing videogames, but instead creating a network of joinees across the world, who do my bidding every Friday for no real purpose or profit other than to be nice? How could a girl not like a boy who did nice things? I wanted to tell her, I really did, but there was something inside me telling me I shouldn’t. I knew that either I had to stop doing this completely, or carry on in secret. There was no middle ground. It was stop or be stopped, and neither option was particularly pleasant to imagine.
The truth of it was, I was enjoying myself I had found a purpose. And, in a horrible way, I’d gained a power. A power few people have. A power I was determined not to misuse, but a power that was as addictive as it was unexpected. And so, yet again, I didn’t tell Hanne.
She knew something was wrong, and I could tell that her attitude towards me was changing subtly, and it made my stomach chum every time I thought about it. I didn’t want to risk my relationship, but I couldn’t stop doing what I was doing. I had hundreds of people relying on me. Hundreds of good things happening as a result. If I told Hanne, I’d have to stop, and by stopping, I’d be risking preventing hundreds of good things happening in the future. Hell, hundreds of good things happening this week. Thousands happening in the months that followed. Maybe millions by the time I follow in Gallus’s clogs and they pop from underneath me. Could I really risk those things not happening, just to suit my own selfish needs?
I didn’t know.
Maybe?
Probably, yes.
No. No way.
I don’t know.
Hanne didn’t stay at mine that night. She said she wanted to go home and clear her head. I didn’t stop her. But it made me very sad.
Later, when I was utterly physically and emotionally exhausted and getting ready for bed and had just realised I’d forgotten to tape Die Hard 2, I checked my email. The first name up was Benjamin’s . . .
Danny,
Forgot to mention earlier: everything is in place for the creation of a nega-utopian society. Worldwide slavery is not so very far off, and narcohypnotics, water fluoridisation, mass observation, human robot production, microminiaturisation of mind control implants (etc) all have a little something to do with it! I’m sure you know what I’m saying......
More soon
Benjamin
PS. We are partners now. Let’s Make It Happen!!
Oh God. I’d hit a low.
What the hell was I doing with my life? My girlfriend was constantly and unfailingly angry with me, I was living the shady double life of a well-meaning cult leader, it was all costing too much money, I’d attracted the attentions of a lunatic who thought I was out to kill the president and now wanted to team up with me for God knows what dark purposes, and I was absolutely, dreadfully shattered by it all.
Don’t get me wrong, I knew that I was entirely to blame. But certain events had taken place over the past few weeks that couldn’t fail to spur me on; to draw me deeper into this world. Raymond Price sprang to mind. The Karma Army would never have happened without that chance meeting.
But it was that chance meeting that was about to change things.
Because the next email I clicked on shocked me a great deal.
It concerned Raymond Price.
