Excerpt: Breakfast with Bill Gates by Edward Docx

The email from Richard drops into my inbox on Monday at 08:47. Can I go and have breakfast with Bill Gates and get his best piece of advice? I am in a rush as usual but there’s no way I’m going to pass up such a request so I put ‘breakfast with Bill Gates’ in my diary for Thursday morning without a second thought.

I’ve known Richard for twenty-five years and he’s one of my closest friends. I would do anything he asked, no matter how improbable. He would do anything I asked, no matter how improbable. I know this because we’re constantly asking each other to do improbable things and then . . . well, doing them. Our shared motto is ‘there’s always a way’ and we have an unspoken understanding that we’ll never let each other down. He’s asked me to interview Bill Gates because he’s going to the Grand Canyon with his dad. This is definitely one of his better requests.

Thursday arrives. I get up at 06:00. I have an unforeseen hangover. I check my diary . . . It’s bad.

Today is the last day of the tense negotiations to sell my family home – we’re supposed to be exchanging contracts later this morning. (I have not found us somewhere else to live, which the rest of the family feel strongly is an issue.) Also, today is publication day of my new novel – the first in four years, on which a hell of a lot rides: money, career, sanity. I am therefore due on the radio in an hour or so to talk about fathers and sons – a theme of the book. Additionally, I am late on two unnecessarily complicated pieces of journalism and am expected at a couple of book-store signings before noon. At lunchtime I’m being interviewed by a newspaper about my mother turning out to be Russian. Further, I’ve promised ten really funny ideas by the end of the day for the political party that I am helping try to keep the UK in the EU. Right now, though, I have four children whom I must now feed, dress and take to school and . . . Oh, Christ – no! I have totally forgotten that today I am having breakfast with Bill Gates.

My wife is already leaving for work. I think she said in Lisbon, if I heard her right, but it’s simply too embarrassing not to know this. So I nod. She casually recites from memory a (to me, additional) to-do list for the next two days – none of which I process. Then she asks what my plans are for the day. I’m seeing Bill Gates, I say, for breakfast. Computer guy. Richest man in the world. She frowns indulgently. She thinks I am a fantasist. Great. Who’s taking the children in, she asks? Matthew, our neighbour, I say. I am a fantasist – because in my diary it says that I am taking in his children. Have fun, she says. See you Saturday . . . Deep breath. It’s all do-able. I’m just going to have to drop the kids at school ninety minutes early – that will surprise everyone – and then leave the car in a nearby supermarket to save traffic-time on the way back and then bus, tube, cab, somehow . . .

Outwardly serene but inwardly levitational with anxiety, therefore, I arrive ten minutes late for breakfast with Bill Gates. But the first thing that hits me is that my being late for Bill Gates doesn’t matter. Why? Because they are neither waiting for me nor expecting me. Why? Because there are two hundred other people here. Maybe two hundred and fifty. This is not the intimate breakfast I had anticipated. I try to find Richard’s email. Somehow I have deleted it. My phone is my enemy.

And now it starts pinging. It’s the estate agent. The buyer is dropping his price. What do I want to do? Urgent.

Obviously, Richard has not concentrated on the emails any more than I have. His tone (as far as I can recall) had suggested a cosy breakfast – maybe a table for six; Bill and I exchanging ideas with regard to the future of humanity. I take notes. Bill takes notes. A few deferential middlemen nod along. That kind of thing. But this is not what we’re looking at here. No: this is several hundred heavyweight business and political leaders talking global strategy and purposefully sipping fruit smoothies amidst the oligarch-chic of the Four Seasons Hotel.

My phone pings again. Can I go on the radio earlier . . . I wince and delay responding. This, I realise, is my own business strategy.

Not to worry. All I have to do is track down David, the organiser. Richard will have briefed him. So I go back out to the cloakroom. I find someone who finds someone who finds someone – each more attractive than the last – who can take me to David.

Away we go. I recognise several MPs. Some are in the cabinet, or used to be, or want to be. I see some ex-Labour ministers. Where’s David? Ah-ha – he’s there . . . With Bill. Bill Gates.

My phone now vibrates every twenty seconds. Security is heavy. If they have thermal imaging, they’re going to wonder what the hell is happening in my pockets.

David looks like a man under stress who is an expert at appearing like he’s not a man under stress. I empathise. He’s organised this breakfast and invited everyone significant in the First World – for him, as host, this must be a harrowing few hours: everything has to go right. You and me both, buddy, you and me both. The woman I’m with doesn’t want to interrupt him. We hover anxiously pretending not to be anxious or to be hovering. There’s a moment like a gap in the traffic that nobody thinks you’re going to shoot for. She shoots for it. My kind of girl.

‘Hello, David.’ I smile, ‘I’m Ed.’
‘Ed?’ He’s twisting momentarily from Bill Gates, grand-wizard of human modernity, the richest man in the world, philanthropist and saver of a million lives.
‘I’m here to do Richard’s thing.’
David’s face is unequivocally blank.
‘Richard’s thing,’ I say, eloquently. ‘One important thing. I mean, if you had to say one thing. To someone. Else.’

Now there is a flicker of not-quite-annoyance but dude-I-amso-busy-right-now-and-all-these-people-are-waiting-and-this- is-Bill-Gates-and-he’s-here-for-me-and-what-the-hell-are-you- talking-about?
‘One piece of advice.’
‘Oh,’ he says. ‘OK, right.’

I can’t be sure if he knows or remembers my name or Richard’s name or anything about us. And I feel like his one piece of advice for me might be a slightly stronger version of ‘go away’ but we’re both saved from that by someone ushering him to usher Bill into the breakfast room.

My phone rings. I have to pick up. Radio-wise, they want me to steer clear of King Lear and suicide – sorry, they mean assisted death. (Other themes from the book.) Can they call to discuss? It’s just that suicide – sorry, assisted death – might be the wrong way to go. On air.

Inside the intimate breakfast room, there are roughly twenty tables with a dozen or so people on each. I’m at one the furthest away from Bill. I’m next to someone who runs a bank that runs banks and a colossal paving stone of a man from Russia whose card says he is a masseur and . . . a medium. I need to get back to David somehow. But he has sat down near Bill and breakfast has started and they’re talking about the future of humanity. I feel a pulse of deeper apprehension. But I’m not going to let Richard down. It’s still all do-able.

During breakfast, I surreptitiously respond to dozens of emails while talking amicably about tarot and the collapsing pound. Texts arrive. My phone is backing up on voice mails. The school: can they be clear that parents are not allowed to leave children with security in the morning before early club starts? The estate agent – urgent – did I get the email? My wife at the airport – why are the buyers dropping the price? The Sunday Times: let’s talk about the family piece. Solicitor. Agent. Publicist. Producers. Publishers. Book store again. I sheathe the phone. Okay, I just have to get to Bill and then get out of here as fast as possible to the book-signings and then back to Westminster – I’ll do the interviews in the cab. It’s probably still all do-able.

Now we’re into Bill’s talk. There will be questions afterwards. Great . . . I can ask the big one then. I try to listen. Bill is fascinating. I should probably write an article for someone about what he’s saying but when am I going to do that? Meanwhile, I hit on a simple holding formula for the emails and start responding with the same line that I can copy and paste to everyone: ‘Having breakfast with Bill Gates. Back to you shortly.’

Questions. Hands go up. Mine first. David has the roving mike. (Hello, David, over here, over here . . .) But it’s the ex-ministers and the MPs and people from the House of Lords who seem to be invited ahead of me. I start straining – slightly madly – like a child at school who is desperate to impress the teacher. I have to get in. Have to. I’m sweating now. I catch David’s eye. My phone is ringing on the loudest silent-setting of all time. He looks at me, appalled. He’s passing me to get to some CEO. Not so fast, dude, not so fast. I’ve trapped him. He’s leaning in; he has the demeanour of a someone dealing with a drunk at the back of a church.

I whisper: ‘Shall I ask my question now or after?’
‘After,’ he says, confidently ‘At the end.’
Breakthrough! He knows! He has remembered. Maybe all along he’s just not wanted to remember. But he’s going to sort it. Finally. The formal questions end. I get up. I’m ready to meet Bill.

But . . .
Oh, Christ! WTF? Bill is leaving. That’s what. He’s leaving really fast. Richest-manin-the-world fast. He’s three deep in security. He’s being whisked away towards a side door. Has David forgotten his promise? He’s talking to someone in another corner of the room. There’s not going to be an introduction. No way! This does not happen. Not on my watch.

All of a sudden, I’m barrelling across the room like an action movie hero in a war zone, hell bent on rescuing his children. There’s no way Gates is leaving without speaking to me. No way. Me and Rich, we never . . . But he’s getting close to that side exit. Bill, Bill, Bill – wait up, buddy. Here I come. William!

He’s at the door. If he leaves, I know with a sudden cold and terrifying certainty that I’ll never see him again. But I’m all distilled purpose now. I’m pure focus. They can’t stop me. These people don’t know what they’re dealing with. I’m elbows. I’m trample and barge. I’m a heat seeking missile. I’m coming through.

Coming through. I’m almost there when . . . Bam!
Security. I’m blocked. They’re afraid of me. No, no, no, no, no, no. I’m not a terrorist, bro, I am . . . I’m a novelist. It’s totally different.
Too late, Bill has gone.

But there’s another door. I’m through it. I’m in a corridor. Running. I can see him. Ten steps behind. Hang on, Mr Gates. Hang on, Bill. Richard, don’t worry. This is not not happening. Here I come, Bill. I’m closing. I’m closing . . .

Gates peels off. I peel the same way. He’s going into the gents.
This is it. This is my chance. I’m good with people in bathrooms. I put people at their ease in bathrooms. If I have to pop the question over the urinals, or under the cubicle door, then so be it. So be it. I got you now, Bill.

Blocked again! Totally blocked. Big, tall, serious security. Never been more serious. No way I am getting into that toilet, he says.
‘I’m really sorry, sir,’ I say, ‘I’m really sorry but I’m desperate for a pee-pee.’
I don’t know why the ‘sir’ – heat of the moment – and the ‘pee-pee’ just pops out because that’s what I say to the children.

But security is implacable. Okay, I’ll wait. I’ll wait. But I really need to pee here, buddy. And, this could all be your fault. I’m talking puddles. All your fault. Wait! Bill’s coming out. I don’t need a pee-pee. Ha! Ha! Wrong, buddy. Totally fooled you. I move so fast that the security cameras must have me now as a blur – some alien creature you can only see in slow motion.

‘Hello, Mr Gates,’ I say. ‘I’m writing a book in which I ask people like you if they had one piece of advice that . . . Well, I’m not writing it. My friend, Richard, is. You know – the just one thing book? Richard? David? Did he? Did they? Ok, no . . . But anyway, Richard can’t be here today. He’s with his dad. I think they’re in the Grand Canyon in . . . is it Colorado? Or Arizona? I’m never sure. Doesn’t matter. So, anyway, yes, I’m a novelist. I write books and screen plays and . . .’ We’re walking side by side towards the lifts. Oddly I can feel he is tolerating me. I can’t be certain but I think it’s the novelist line that’s holding him. ‘And I’m really interested in your answer. If you were talking to . . . If you had one piece of advice for a young man or woman . . .’ His security has to indulge me, because Bill is listening. Step back, suckers. I got the power. Twenty paces to the lifts. It’s enough.

‘Mr Gates, if you had one piece of advice to share with your fellow Homo sapiens about life – one thing you’d like to pass on – what would that be?’

Bill Gates stands still. Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, the richest man in the world, great philanthropist, de facto architect of much of our modernity, stands dead still and considers the question with his full concentration. Our eyes meet. Everyone around us is leaning in. They all want to know. Oh yes, you bastards, now you’re with me. This is interesting – no?

And then Bill Gates says something. Says something so surprising . . . and so personally gratifying . . . and so unexpected . . . that I have to fight the urge to kiss him.

‘If there’s just one piece of advice I could give, then I would urge people to foster a love of reading. It’s our core skill as human beings. It’s the gateway to everything else. It gets you involved. It allows your curiosity to follow its course. It connects us across time and space. Books and reading are the most important things. Yes, I would say above all else, I would urge people to foster a love of reading. Start as early as you can and keep on reading.’

There’s a moment. Human to human. He smiles at me. I smile at him.
‘Thank you,’ I say.

Then security envelops him and he’s gone. And then I remember that I am publishing my book today. And I stand on my own in the corridor and I feel as happy as I have felt for a long time. There’s a message on my screen that says simply: ‘Happy Publication Day’.

Copyright © Edward Docx, Richard Reed,
Canongate Books.