The Solitary Twin
Page 10
“That I did.”
“Surely, Sergeant, you’d seen worse during the war — in Burma, if I’m not mistaken?”
“Oh, yes, sir, what with fragmentation shells, shrapnel, rifle grenades. But that was impersonal damage. This was deliberate — years of embottled fury being vented. He didn’t do it with no old board, neither. Not to tear up skull bones. I did later manage to jimmy the onion out of his mouth. As big as a small grapefruit.”
The Captain: “A number of bystanders had gathered on the strand to watch. Sergeant Kerr walked towards them and waved them back. He explained, ‘Please leave us space to do our work. We’re bringing a man ashore. The man is laid flat — he’s bung.’ I admonished the Sergeant, ‘In plain English, please.’ ‘Forgive me, sir. I fear it’s the situation’ — meaning that for that one dramatic word, he’d slipped back into Australian lingo. Turning back to the crowd, he clearly cried, ‘The min is did.’ I then called Jerry to drive over with his beach van, and I bought them all ice creams.
“We then followed a hunch and kept to the Hawing Drift as it headed seawards. We spotted Paul’s craft foundering on the eastern edge of The Droppings. Our boatman pulled alongside it and we secured it fore and aft to our longer vessel. Kerr and I then boarded Paul’s boat.
“It was awash almost to the gunwales. There was nothing in the stern space but seagoing gear. Not much in the cabin. A low door in its forward bulkhead had been bolted shut on the far side, closing off the bow. The Sergeant found a large chisel and prised it open. The bow had sunk lower than the rest of the boat; the compartment beyond the door was flooded up to its roof. Sergeant Kerr crawled into it and quickly found Paul, who was completely submerged. He had tried weighing himself down with the light anchor and its chain — by whatever means, he’d succeeded in drowning. I helped the Sergeant drag him into the cabin and onto the deck, whence with a pair of ropes advanced by our boatman, we succeeded in transferring him to the patrol boat.
“There was next to nothing in his pockets — a few low-denomination bank notes, a pair of wire-rimmed reading glasses, two maroon bandanas, faded and now sodden — but Sergeant Kerr had found a small metal box in the cabin and brought it with him. We easily broke open its lock and in it found some informative documents — ones concerning his employers, two notes from his mother, educational certificates, including several from a place called Newell Academy. These prompted me, once I was back on land and at our headquarters, to put through a call to the said Academy.
“You may well ask, What? On a Sunday night? Well, thanks to the way the shifting time of the world has been sliced into zones, when it is eight in the evening here on Sunday, with every office in the land closed down, in bonny England it is (quite wonderfully, when you think about it) nine o’clock of a Monday morning with every soul in the land starting the working week! So I phoned Newell Academy. It was buzzing with wakefulness. I was switched to a lady in the department of records — a Mrs. Banyard — who sounded thrilled when I asked her to find information about one of their former wards. I was sure only of his surname as it appeared in the documents — Shanks, to be sure. I suggested Paul as his given name, but there had been no such person. Still I knew that it was Paul because in his school pictures he was perfectly recognizable (at least as one of the twins), something not at all the case in the photographs affixed to his last job applications.”
Margot had grown more and more agitated throughout the policemen’s account. At the mention of Newell Academy she started sobbing. She now said, in a weepy bark, “The given name is Timothy.” Long before this Geoffrey had moved her to a comfortable settee, where she now sat between him and me in cruel distress that sharpened no matter what we said to her or how tenderly we held her.
The Captain told us that Mrs. Banyard had summarized all the information about Timothy Shanks in the Academy’s files, including a detailed history of his long-suffering mother’s role. She promised to send him the complete files overnight.
Geoffrey excused himself to step outside for “a breath of open air.”
When he returned, Sergeant Kerr quietly suggested, “I think we all need a drink.”
A coffee table appeared in our midst. On it were soon set a tray with six small tumblers, a carafe of cold water, and a bottle of Talisker. We mixed our own draughts.
After a while, in the silence that followed, Margot groaned, “What have I done?”
Geoffrey, again at her side, said to her, “My darling, I’m sick with shame. I still don’t understand.” Into her nearer ear I softly growled, “He must never know!”
Another long silence was broken when one of Margot’s earrings fell to the floor. The proverbial pin. I felt a tear congeal under my left eye; it was at that moment that I noticed the lambent gleam emanating from the Sergeant’s pate.
“Margot — Mrs. Shanks —” Captain Kipper began, “I’m not sure how to address you. My question is essentially an official one. If Timothy Shanks is Paul, what was John’s given name?”
“John?”
“His twin. He’s disappeared — without a trace, as one says. I found Wicheria, even she hasn’t a clue as to his whereabouts.”
“His twin? Charley, you spoke to this woman at the school. She told you all about me. You know I never had but one child — my darling Timmy.”
Geoffrey must have forgotten to close the front door after his breath of air; it now slammed shut. Beyond it a warm north wind was rising, reminding us that as April ends, autumn begins: a time of mists and moister winds, and a few chilly snaps; of local wines, cooled a long age; of early nights by electric light; inventing names, and guessing games; and your soft laugh.
key west, may 15, 2015
paris, august 1, 2016
Copyright © 2018 by the Estate of Harry Mathews
All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in a newspaper, magazine, radio, television, or website review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.
Manufactured in the United States of America
New Directions Books are printed on acid-free paper
First published as a New Directions Paperbook (NDP1420) in 2018
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Mathews, Harry, 1930–2017, author.
Title: The solitary twin / Harry Mathews.
Description: New York : New Directions Publishing, [2018]
Identifiers: LCCN 2017041783 (print) | LCCN 2017045132 (ebook) | ISBN 9780811227551 | ISBN 9780811227544 (softcover : acid-free paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Interpersonal relations—Fiction. | City and town life—Fiction. | Twins—Fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3563.A8359 (ebook) | LCC PS3563.A8359 S67 2018 (print) | DDC 813/.54—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017041783
eISBN: 9780811227544 1
New Directions Books are published for James Laughlin
by New Directions Publishing Corporation
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