Billy paced back and forth, ignoring the theatrical sighs of the woman behind the ticket counter. So close to leaving without a trace! Well, Bill and Sal and Thandie would have pieced something together themselves, some kind of story to explain it all. The fact that this story would now be the truth was regrettable, but probably the best of a number of bad options. At least by the time Thandie found out he’d lied to her (a white lie, under terrible duress), he’d be long gone.
Sal was still in the ladies’ – why did women always take so long in the loo? – so Billy called Sally, but she didn’t pick up.
Billy texted her: ‘Where are you? We need to go.’
But Sally didn’t text back.
Billy sent another text: ‘I’m waiting for you at the station. HURRY.’ He was about to add, ‘I’m here with Other Sally’, but at that moment Other Sally came out of the loo, and so Billy quickly pressed ‘send’ and put the phone back in his pocket.
‘I’m hungry,’ said Sal. ‘Shall we get something from the cafe?’
Billy never turned down food, particularly when someone else was buying, so he went into the cafe with Sal.
‘I don’t have any money on me,’ he told her.
‘That’s OK,’ said Sal.
‘And also, I’m not your brother. It’s important that you don’t buy this Danish pastry for your brother, William Evans. You should only buy it for me, William Anderson. And also a latte. Double shot.’
‘Yes, Bill,’ said Sal.
She bought the coffee and the Danish pastry, and a packet of cheese and onion crisps for herself. Billy noticed her checking out the magazine display, but apparently she didn’t see anything she liked the look of, because she sat down without picking any of them up. There were several celebrity magazines at the front, the type where a circle is drawn around the fat bit poking out of the top of a reality star’s bikini, and Billy wondered, not for the first time, what would happen if it got into the press that he – and Bill – were reproductions of Shakespeare. Would there be long lens photos of them hanging out on yachts? Not that Billy had ever been on a yacht. Quite aside from anything, he suffered from seasickness.
Sal picked out a table and sat down, and Billy joined her.
‘I know that you don’t believe me,’ he said, ‘but in a minute the other Sally – my sister Sally – is going to arrive, and I don’t want you getting too upset.’ Where the hell was Sally? Billy took his phone out of his pocket, in case he hadn’t noticed a message come through, but all there was was a banner alert from some app telling him that he hadn’t done a crossword in a while. ‘I probably shouldn’t have told you the truth at all, but I’ve tried lying and I’ve tried telling the truth. And they’re both rubbish.’
Sal opened her bag of crisps. Billy noticed that she ate her crisps the same way Sally did, looking for the biggest ones in the bag first and trying to fit them whole into her mouth without breaking them.
‘You’re eating the big ones first,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ said Sal. ‘They taste better than the broken bits. I don’t know why. And they’re more fun to eat.’
Which was exactly what Sally had said, when he’d asked her about it.
‘Tell me something,’ he said to her. ‘What’s Bill like?’
Sal didn’t like this question. He saw her chin begin to wobble.
‘Humour me,’ he said. ‘Pretend that I’m not Bill.’
Sal steadied herself. She put her packet of crisps down. Billy wondered whether he could have one – the Danish was far too sweet, and he could do with something salty to cut through it – but he decided that asking her right now wouldn’t be a good idea.
‘Fine,’ Sal said. ‘If you want to know, Bill is the best big brother in the world. He’s always looking out for me and making sure I’m OK. The thought that something bad might have happened to him really scares me. I just want him to be OK and to be my big brother again.’
Something in Billy’s chest lurched. She reminded him so much of Sally, not only in the obvious ways, but she was the same sweet, trusting, naive kind of girl that he had always tried, in his own imperfect way, to do his best by. Or at least he thought he had. He asked himself how much better his best might be, if he actually put a bit of effort into it.
‘Oh, Sal,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.’ He thought of saying: Of course, it’s me, it’s Bill, your brother. Everything is fine. But Sally might arrive at any moment. (Where in God’s name was she?) And then how would he explain?
‘But you are frightening me, Bill,’ said Sal.
Billy looked out of the window of the cafe, hoping to see Sally and their luggage approaching so that he could put an end to all this, but instead he saw a car pulling up in the station car park and Thandie getting out. He watched as she put money into the pay-and-display machine and wondered whether there was any way that he could jump up now and start running. But where would he go? Besides, if it was a choice between being in the same room with Thandie again and not being in the same room with Thandie again, he was going to choose being in the same room as her, regardless of the fact that he was doing everything he could to get away from her. There was no logic to that, but it made sense to him all the same.
He lost sight of Thandie for a few seconds as she made her way round to the entrance to the cafe, soon to appear again, like the sun from behind a cloud, he thought, a totally clichéd image that Shakespeare would never use – though actually, Billy remembered, he did, in Henry IV Part 1, Act 1, Scene 2. And in ‘Sonnet 33’. Ha! What a hack.
‘Did you call Thandie?’ he said to Sal. ‘Did you tell her what I said?’
‘I thought she’d know what to do,’ said Sal.
Thandie hurried into the cafe and breathlessly made her way to their table.
‘I’ve been so stupid,’ she said. ‘You’re not yourself. I should have known.’
Billy’s heart leapt. ‘So you believe me? I mean, what Sal told you?’
‘Come with me,’ said Thandie. ‘I’ve got the car. We’ll talk.’
‘This is amazing. You’re not angry?’
‘No, of course I’m not angry.’
‘Even though I let you think I was Bill? When we – you know? I never planned to, but you can see why I didn’t think I could tell you the truth.’
‘Have you paid?’ Thandie asked Sal. Sal nodded.
The three of them walked to the car together and got in, Billy in the front with Thandie, Sal behind.
‘All my life I’ve kept this secret,’ Billy was saying. ‘My mother always said that I should never tell anybody.’
‘Your … mother?’ said Thandie.
‘Yes – she said that if anybody found out she’d go to jail. Human cloning is illegal, you see. Can you imagine, all through school, knowing who I was and not being able to tell any of my friends, my teachers, anyone?’
They were moving now. ‘What do you mean, knowing who you were?’ said Thandie.
‘Oh, of course, I didn’t tell Sal that part. Bill and I aren’t just any old clones. We’re clones of Shakespeare.’
‘Shakespeare.’ Thandie didn’t sound very excited about that. Maybe she wasn’t surprised?
‘William Shakespeare. I can’t believe I’ve said it. This is the first time I’ve told anyone. The relief! I mean, even if my mother hadn’t emotionally blackmailed me, I just assumed that anybody I told would think I was insane. I’m a clone of William Shakespeare! And it’s ruined my life. Bill – your Bill – is lucky. He doesn’t know, I think. There’s no way that he knows. Because imagine trying to live up to that! Imagine, every day, everything you do, or think, or say, let alone write – imagine comparing yourself to Shakespeare! He wouldn’t be able to write, he wouldn’t be able to do anything. Just like I haven’t been able to do anything. I’ve wasted my whole life! Until I met you, Thandie. I can see why Bill fell in love with you. But you can understand why I had to leave, can’t you? Don’t you? I couldn’t let you saddle your life to me. But you came back to me – Thandie …’
Thandie pulled the car up outside a building that Billy didn’t recognise.
‘Does that mean that you forgive me?’ he asked her.
Thandie opened the door. ‘Come on, Bill.’
‘Billy,’ Billy corrected her. He was beginning to suspect that things weren’t going quite as well as he had thought.
Nevertheless, he got out of the car and let her lead him into the building, Sal walking behind them. He realised almost immediately that he was in a doctor’s surgery. He loathed doctors’ surgeries, he was sure he always left them sicker than when he went in.
‘We need to see the doctor,’ Thandie told the receptionist. ‘It’s an emergency.’
‘We don’t,’ said Billy. ‘It’s not.’
The receptionist glanced at Billy. ‘Is he still mad?’ he asked, scratching his neck tattoo.
‘Still mad?’ said Thandie.
‘He was in earlier.’
‘No, I wasn’t,’ said Billy. ‘I’ve never been here before in my life.’
‘Bill,’ said Thandie, ‘this is our local surgery.’
‘I’m not Bill,’ said Billy. ‘I thought you believed me.’
‘Blimey, he really is mad,’ said the receptionist. ‘I’ll let Dr Patel know.’ He typed something into his computer. Then he winked at Sal, and grinned. It was the first time any of them had seen him smile. One of his teeth was gold. ‘How about you, love?’ he said. ‘Anything I can help you with today?’
‘I’m just here with my brother,’ said Sal. ‘I’m very worried about him.’
The door to the examination room opened and a man came out with his young daughter. Moments later, the doctor emerged and looked around the waiting room, before hurrying over to where they were standing.
‘Hello, Thandie, Sal, Bill,’ he said. ‘Bill, you’re back already?’
‘I’ve never been here before and I don’t know who you are,’ Billy said.
The man turned to Thandie. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘He came in earlier and told me that he thought he was going mad – his word, you understand, it’s not a medical term – and I sent him home. I thought he was dehydrated.’
‘It’s all right, Dr Patel, he can be very plausible when he wants to be,’ said Thandie.
‘I’m not “plausible”,’ said Billy. ‘I’m telling the truth!’
‘Perhaps we should step into my office,’ said Dr Patel. ‘Sal, please could you wait outside.’
‘But—’ started Sal.
‘It’s really best we have this conversation with Bill’s next of kin only.’
‘Thandie’s not my next of kin,’ said Billy. ‘I only met her today.’
But Thandie took Billy’s arm and began to guide him towards Dr Patel’s office, and short of wrestling her off him, Billy didn’t know what to do.
‘Excuse me, is that man jumping the queue?’ said an old lady at the back of the waiting room.
‘I’ll make you a nice cup of tea, love,’ said the receptionist to Sal. ‘Don’t worry, your brother will be just fine. Dr Patel will look after him.’
‘I’m in here every week and you never offer to make me a cup of tea,’ said the old lady.
‘I might even have a biscuit for you somewhere,’ he said. ‘You relax, everything is going to be OK.’
‘He’s giving her biscuits, now,’ announced the old lady. Everyone else in the waiting room pretended to be deeply absorbed in whatever they were doing.
‘There’s nothing you can do now but wait. Best to think about something else,’ the receptionist told Sal.
‘I like your tattoo,’ Sal said shyly. ‘Was it featured in Skin Deep magazine?’
‘It was!’ said the receptionist with another smile.
The old lady rolled her eyes.
Meanwhile, in Dr Patel’s office, Billy was trying to explain. ‘I’m not mad,’ he was saying, ‘it’s just that the situation is so unusual that anybody hearing about it would conclude that me being mad is likelier than the situation being real.’
‘In that case,’ said Dr Patel, ‘why were you in my office earlier telling me that you are mad?’
‘To repeat,’ Billy said, ‘that wasn’t me. That was Bill. William Evans. Thandie’s husband. He isn’t mad either, he’s just not fully apprised of all the facts.’
‘The facts?’ said Dr Patel.
‘He doesn’t know that he’s a clone.’ Billy knew that he had picked the wrong moment to start telling the truth, but now that he’d started he didn’t know how to stop.
Dr Patel turned to Thandie and sighed. ‘I think we’d better take him in for assessment.’
‘In?’ said Billy.
‘Once he’s in, we’ll get a better sense of what we’re dealing with. He’s obviously moving in and out of lucidity in quite a volatile way.’
‘I am here,’ said Billy. ‘You can speak to me directly. What do you mean, “in”?’
‘I’ll have to call the crisis team,’ said Dr Patel, still addressing himself to Thandie, ‘but you can wait here until the intake is processed.’
‘I’m not going to be “taken” “in” anywhere. There isn’t going to be an “intake”.’
‘Thank you, Dr Patel,’ said Thandie. ‘I just want what’s best for Bill.’
‘If you wanted what’s best for me, you would talk to me. More to the point, you would listen to me.’ Billy looked from Dr Patel to Thandie and back again. ‘Are you putting me under section?’
‘That’s rather a dated term,’ said Dr Patel, finally speaking to Billy. ‘We prefer to say detained under the Mental Health Act—’
But Billy didn’t wait to hear what they preferred to say. He was out of his seat and running away from the doctor’s surgery faster than he’d ever imagined that he could.
Even now that evening had fallen, it was still so warm and humid outside that it was like running through soup.
‘Sally!’ Billy yelled into his phone as he ran. ‘Check your bloody voicemail!’ As he was yelling this into Sally’s voicemail, he knew that the advice was nonsensical. ‘They’re going to lock me up! Find Bill and tell him everything! They won’t believe us until they see me and Bill together!’ He hung up, and then, in case she wasn’t going to listen to her message, he sent her a text. It was hard to text while running, so he just typed, ‘Help they’re coming’ – apostrophe included, a man needed standards – and then accelerated as much as he could.
Where to hide, where to hide? He barely knew this town. He couldn’t head for the station, that was far too obvious. He had no friends he could shelter with, the beach was too open, they’d find him soon enough in any bar. And he couldn’t get a cab out of town, he didn’t have any money. Steal a car? How the hell do you steal a car? He’d seen people hot-wire cars on TV but that was hardly a how-to guide. Besides, he didn’t think adding car theft to his rap sheet was going to help his case much.
He ran hither and thither – hither, Billy vaguely thought, being towards the left, and thither towards the right – up one street and down another. If he got to the edge of town, it occurred to him, maybe he could hitchhike, which he had never done before because it was not safe, and now he would die, and it would be William Evans’s fault, for living here. Where was the edge of town? Anywhere other than the sea, he supposed. He picked a direction, more or less at random.
He wasn’t sure how long he’d been running when he heard a familiar sound, the chimes of an ice cream van playing ‘Oh, I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside’. When he’d been a kid he’d loved that sound more than anything. Now he thought, no, I don’t bloody like to be beside the seaside. I do not like to be beside the sea.
The chimes got louder and louder until the van itself was driving alongside him. The driver leaned over and rolled down his window.
Do I look, thought Billy, lolloping a flailing gallop along the street, sweat glazing his face like lard on a pie, like a man with time to stop for a Mr Frostee?
‘Fancy a lift?’ said the driver of the ice cream van.
He’ll probably murder me and put me in the freezer with the lollies, thought Billy. Probably turn me into a lolly, I’m more sweat than man. ‘Yes, please,’ he wheezed.
The driver pulled over and Billy crawled into the front beside him.
‘Thanks,’ he gasped. ‘You’re a lifesaver.’
He fell back into his seat, taking in huge lungfuls of air.
‘Running late, are you?’ said the driver as he pulled away. Just in case, Billy tried to figure out how he would describe him to the police. Above average height. Muscular build. Strong, murderer hands. He should have memorised the number plate.
‘Can you take me out of town? To anywhere.’ He plucked at his seatbelt but he was too exhausted to pull it across himself.
‘What’s the matter? Why were you running like that?’
‘I’d rather not discuss it.’
‘Bill, are you all right?’
Of course. Of bloody course. Small towns! Billy thumped the window with his fist. ‘Does everybody here know everyone?’ he howled. ‘Doesn’t it drive you all mad? I’m not bloody Bill! I just look like him!’
There was a silence, broken only by the tinny siren song of the van.
‘You’re the other one,’ said the driver eventually.
Billy slowly turned and stared at him. ‘The other what?’
‘Billy,’ said the driver, ‘I’m your father.’