Bill had taken Dr Patel’s advice with a pinch of salt. Also some ketchup. He’d gone to the Boar’s Head and ordered a burger with fries and a pint of beer. Beer had alcohol in it, true, but it was also very refreshing and probably excellent for rehydration, and nobody ever took doctors’ advice completely anyway. They knew that when they gave you the advice, which was why it was always extra demanding – they expected you to only do half of it at most. Besides, if there was ever a day to ignore your doctor’s advice on alcohol consumption, today was it.
Sal was trying to phone him but he wanted to figure out his next move before he spoke to her. Did anyone ever pick up their phone any more? Next time he wrote a play, he was going to make it all about people ignoring their phones. Maybe there could be a story in which someone had to pass on a message about something really important, a matter of life or death, and the message is missed because that person doesn’t pick up their phone … There was definitely something in that.
On a dramatic level, Bill was disappointed to discover that he wasn’t mad – it was hard to make good art from dehydration and mild anxiety – but on a human level he was relieved. Of all the things he loved in the world, the inside of his own head was his favourite. Of course, he was saddened by the end of his marriage. Of course, he was grieving the loss of his relationship with Anthony. But he knew he would recover from both of these blows. The loss of his ability to think, his ability to write, that would be unendurable. Thandie had always accused him of loving his work more than he loved her. He should apologise to her for ever having denied it.
Now, though, he had more pressing issues to resolve. He couldn’t go home; he refused to go back to that mouldy-carpeted hellhole of a B&B. He had a brief, vivid fantasy of going and living in the forest by himself, but there weren’t any proper forests in the UK any more, just pretty little woods with nature trails and viewing platforms, or lifeless, regimented tree factories you weren’t allowed to trespass in anyway. And romantic as the notion of himself as an arboreal hermit was, it would make more sense to go and stay with his dad until he and Thandie figured out the terms of the divorce. He called his dad, but he wasn’t picking up his landline, and his mobile inevitably went straight through to voicemail. Bill’s father had never really adapted to mobile phones. He treated his as some kind of portable phone box, switched off unless he himself wanted to make a call. It never seemed to occur to him that somebody else might want to phone him. Bill decided to wait until later, when his dad was likelier to be home.
Wait until later. There was a seductive pull in that. Sometimes it made sense to put off all of life’s questions and retreat to the fat salt of a chip, the sharpness of beer.
And then Sal walked in. And then Sal walked in.
Two Sals.
Two Sals, or this was one of the delusions Dr Patel had asked him about.
No, the barmaid had seen them and dropped a glass. There were definitely two Sals. One of whom had her T-shirt on inside out. This explained everything. No. This explained almost everything, except—
‘There’s two of me too, isn’t there?’ he said, as he jumped up to meet them. ‘Two of you, two of me. Where’s the other me? Which one of you is Sal? No, of course, it’s you.’ He hugged Sal, the correct one, with her T-shirt on the right way round.
‘How can you tell?’ said Sal.
‘I just … you’re my sister. Although, I suppose, so are you?’ he said to Sally.
‘I’m Sally,’ said Sally.
‘It’s a bit more complicated than brothers and sisters,’ said Sal. ‘We’ll explain it to you, but we don’t have a lot of time.’
‘But I think you should probably sit down and drink your beer while we tell you,’ said Sally.
Bill sat down again and, for what it was worth, had a sip of beer. Sal and Sally exchanged a look, in which some wordless information also seemed to get transmitted.
‘OK,’ said Sal, ‘I’ll be the one who tells you. But we’re in a bit of a hurry, so I can’t do all the bits that prepare you for it like you do when you’ve got big news for me. You’re a clone of William Shakespeare, and—’
‘William Shakespeare?’ said Bill.
‘Yes. You know, the playwright.’
‘William Shakespeare,’ Bill said again. He found that he was standing up. He somehow felt that he needed to fill up more space. ‘I’m Shakespeare.’
‘Well, sort of,’ said Sal. ‘But—’
‘That’s right,’ said Bill. He felt dazed, and yet he was fast becoming suffused with a sense of certainty. ‘Of course, that’s right. It’s insane but it’s right. And it’s not like I knew, obviously not, but, now that you say it – yes. You know, reading his plays, I always felt this affinity – like he’d written them for me – like I could have written them myself. I always thought that there was a special connection between us. But I never said so because I would have sounded – I don’t know – pretentious – a lunatic …’ Bill felt as if he’d opened a hidden door in his mind, into a place where everything essential for his understanding of himself had been concealed. And not just his own understanding of himself, but everyone else’s understanding of him too. He barked a laugh. ‘So I’m not “derivative”! I’m the original! Ha! The Daily Telegraph can suck my balls.’
‘I’m sure they’d be happy to, later,’ said Sally, ‘but my brother Billy, who is also a clone of Shakespeare—’
This was less pleasing to hear. ‘How many of us are there?’ said Bill.
Sal and Sally shrugged with an identical gesture. ‘I don’t know. My mum never even said there was more than one of us,’ said Sally.
‘And what about you two? Who are you clones of? Jane Austen? Marie Curie?’
Sally shifted uncomfortably. ‘We’re the control group,’ she said. ‘But the thing is, we have to hurry, because Billy—’
‘Who else knows?’ said Bill.
‘Um … My mum and Billy, obviously. And today Billy told – er …?’
‘Thandie and Dr Patel,’ said Sal. ‘And then Dr Patel told the police.’
‘The police? Why did he tell the police?’
‘That’s what we’ve been trying to tell you,’ said Sal.
But before Sal could finish, two police officers came into the pub, and began to make their way over to Bill’s table.
‘I guess they can tell me themselves,’ said Bill.