by Terry Fallis
“Could you tell me how to get to the London Bridge Tube station?” I asked. “I assume it’s closest.”
“Yes. It’s very close, about a two-minute walk. Jeremy, our concierge on the front door, can show you the most direct route when you’re ready to go.”
“Thank you.”
“My pleasure, Mr. MacAskill,” she replied, handing me my key card and Wi-Fi log-in instructions. “And our full buffet breakfast is served each morning in the Londinium restaurant, from seven to ten.”
I don’t think I can stay for the full three hours, but thanks.
“Thanks.”
I wasn’t too concerned about the cost of the four-star accommodation. While London hotels are notoriously expensive, I was fine, financially, and this trip was worth it. Besides, this location meant only a short public transit trip to my final destination.
My flight had left Toronto’s Pearson airport at 8:30 Sunday night. I’d spent the weekend repacking my suitcase, removing and adding items each time. I was restless. I wanted to go while I still had my nerve. But I couldn’t find a seat on a Saturday flight. I’d slept in until about ten Sunday morning and felt alert and excited as soon as my eyes opened. I’d packed a final time late on Saturday night, so I was ready to go with several hours to spare. To kill the time until my flight to Toronto, where I’d connect through to Heathrow, I jumped back on my computer, determined to learn more about my identical twin brother. I’d already exhausted the first few pages of Google search results on Friday, so I ventured deeper. I was glad I did.
After wading through a raft of Matthew Patersons online who weren’t my identical twin brother, I finally found a hit on my Matt Paterson that wasn’t related to Innovatengage. It was a 2011 article in the Guardian. I then quickly found several more media stories about the same thing. In late 2009, Matt’s parents, Eva and George, had been killed by a drunk driver in a collision on the M25. Matt would have been in university then for his undergraduate degree, before he’d gone to Oxford. How terrible. I felt a strong pang of pain and sympathy for him as I read the articles. I sat back in my chair for a moment and thought about how I’d feel if Mom had been taken in the same fashion.
The stories were not so much about the collision itself, though there were a few news photos of the aftermath at the crime scene, but about the eventual court case. The impaired driver had been charged, tried, and convicted of what British law calls “causing death by careless driving while unfit through alcohol/over prescribed limit.”
What was interesting about the story was that even though the driver was immediately charged, the whole thing was dropped when some key evidence went missing. That must have been crushing for Matt at the time. Curiously, about eighteen months later, the charge was reinstated. This time they proceeded to court and won. A few media stories noted that Matt was an only child and had attended each day of the trial. There was one photo in the Daily Mail of my twin brother leaving the courts after the driver was convicted and sentenced to four years in prison. So Matt had no family left…except me.
After I’d unpacked and put my clothes in the dresser and closet, I took a shower. Then I coiffed my hair with the blow dryer provided. Despite my long hair, I seldom used a hair dryer. But it was right there. When in Rome, etc. Then I clipped my nails. After that, I got dressed, turned on the TV, and proceeded not to watch it for a time. I used the shoe-shine kit in the bathroom to do a number on my loafers. A first for me. There was also a sewing kit in the bathroom, but my clothes were in pretty good shape. I checked out the mini-bar in the room, but took nothing. Finally, I lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling for about fifteen minutes. It was then about 11:20 a.m.
When I could think of nothing else to do – and believe me, I tried – I took a few deep breaths and headed out the door. I got to the elevator, pushed the down button, and then spun around and returned to my room. I sat on the bed and hyperventilated for a few minutes.
I couldn’t just show up at Innovatengage. I didn’t even know if Matt was in the country, let alone at his office. And even if he were there, what would he say? What would he do? Would he even agree to see me? Would he believe my story or think I was just some freaked-out plastic surgery–loving stalker? And I couldn’t avoid meeting at least some of his work colleagues. I loathed meeting strangers, particularly when I feared one or two of them might recognize me for something other than looking strikingly like their boss. This idea didn’t seem quite so perfect any more. Now that I was just a short Tube trip away from pay dirt, it seemed there were suddenly a whole lot of cons and only one pro. On the other hand, the one pro was quite compelling. I might just find my long-lost identical twin brother.
I pulled out my cellphone and thought about sending Abby a text, until I realized it was only 5:15 a.m. in Ottawa. But just thinking about Abby and her enthusiasm for my mission made me feel a little better. I rose and left the room a second time.
I walked southeast to the London Bridge Tube station. After figuring out how to pay my way onto a train, I travelled three Tube stops north to the Old Street station. I was headed for what is called East London Tech City, the third-largest tech start-up cluster in the world, after San Francisco and New York. In fact, there were plenty of rumours at our office that Facetech would soon open a London office in the same part of town. Sitting on the train, I reviewed my carefully conceived, detailed, step-by-step plan and attendant contingencies. Here goes. I would hang around Matt’s office building until I spied him. Then I’d just walk up and stand in front of him. Yep. That was it. That was the plan. That’s what I had. And yes, I’m quite aware that it’s not really what an observer of sound mind would ever call a plan. It was more of a loose notion than a plan. More of a hazy inclination. All right, it made ad hoc seem anally retentive. I know. But I’d come this far. I’d figure it out.
It was 11:50 when I walked out of the Old Street Tube station and west along Old Street. As was my habit, I pulled the Ottawa Senators ball cap down low on my head. It held my long hair in place, partly obscuring my face. I did not want to be recognized. It was a short walk to the Innovatengage office, housed in a reasonably good-looking building known as Classic House. I recognized it from having studied it on Google Street View the day before. It was, more or less, on the southwest corner of Old Street and a strange little road called Martha’s Buildings. No, I’m not making this up. There really was a street called Martha’s Buildings. I know. Just the kind of confusing nomenclature to make navigating a gigantic metropolis so much easier for a London virgin like me. But I’d made it. And I’d found it necessary to speak to only a couple of strangers thus far.
There was a pub on the first floor of Classic House called the William Blake. I’m not making that up either. I know there’s this romantic notion that London has a pub on every corner. Well, from my observations since arriving earlier that morning, pubs aren’t quite that ubiquitous, but conveniently, there really was one in Matt’s building. I’d checked it out before my flight and learned it enjoyed a solid online reputation. I slipped in and snagged a two-person booth in the front window with an unobstructed view of the main entrance to Classic House. It was quite a nice little pub – dark hardwood floors, comfortable seating, old fox-hunting prints on the walls, and a long bar with multiple taps presumably offering multiple draught beers. The lighting was dim enough for atmosphere and just bright enough to prevent collisions. I liked the place.
Innovatengage was five floors directly above me, but I figured every employee, Matt too, had to enter through the front doors directly in my line of sight out the window. I felt good about my prime position. Think of it as a stakeout, but without the unmarked police car, dysfunctional partners, bad coffee, and doughnuts.
Despite common courtesy, I kept my cap on my cranium while seated in the pub. I kept my head lowered but my eyes raised to the passing pedestrians outside.
“What’ll you have, luv?” said the older woman who materialized next to my table, startling me. “Oh s
orry, luv, I didn’t mean to sneak up on you. Usually customers come up to the bar to order.”
You didn’t surprise me. That strange high-pitched noise in my throat was to signal that I’m ready to order a drink.
“Oh, right. Just a pint of Guinness, please,” I replied. “Thank you.”
“Coming up, luv.”
Then she did a very understated double take and turned back to look more closely at my face. She scrunched up her nose a bit as if trying to place me. I looked back down at the table and tried to avoid further eye contact. Gabriel? Probably. Or maybe hanging out in a pub likely frequented by my identical twin brother was not one of my better ideas if I wanted to avoid attention.
She was dressed neatly, but casually, in green corduroy pants, a cream-coloured turtleneck, and a green vest of some kind. She moved and spoke with the weary authority of an owner. Never once in my life had Guinness crossed my lips. I’m really not much of a beer drinker. But, you know, the Rome thing, again.
I watched as she pulled the Guinness herself behind the bar – I think “pulled” is the correct term, isn’t it? Then, when I just stayed in my seat, she walked it back to me, placing it on a cardboard Guinness coaster in front of me.
“Will you be joining us for lunch? Everything is up on the blackboard there,” she said, pointing.
All of a sudden I was quite hungry. I hadn’t noticed it until she reminded me about the midday meal and our daily need to ingest nourishment. I scanned the blackboard.
“Yes, thank you. Shepherd’s pie, please.”
“A very wise and popular choice,” she said.
Yeah well, I really have no idea what a ploughman’s lunch is or Welsh rarebit, so shepherd’s pie was an easy call. I have at least some faint notion of what it is.
“I’m glad,” I said.
“American?”
How should I know? You’re serving it.
“I don’t think so. I just assumed shepherd’s pie originated over here.”
“No, no, luv. I meant, are you American?”
Nice. Here I thought we were getting along so well and then you insult, defame, and malign me. I’m Canadian. There’s a big difference. Huge, in fact.
“Canadian.”
“Oops. So sorry, luv. No offence meant. But you somehow look familiar.”
Then she turned and disappeared into the kitchen just behind the bar.
I tried my Guinness. To my palate, unburdened as it was by much draught beer–swilling experience, Guinness felt like a milkshake in my mouth. I wished it had tasted like a milkshake or had actually been a milkshake. Still, I sipped it slowly, as I had no idea how long I’d be sitting there. I devoured the shepherd’s pie when it arrived. It was really quite good, but it also didn’t hurt that I was hungry enough to eat a horse between two mattresses. I think the ground meat, peas, and mashed potatoes helped settle the Guinness sloshing around in my gut.
With the lunch crowd starting to arrive, I broadened my surveillance zone from the main entrance of Classic House to include the interior of the William Blake itself. Over the course of the next few hours, people streamed in and out of the front doors of the building and the pub. Twice I recognized faces I’d seen on the Innovatengage website as Matt’s colleagues. They knew him. They worked with him. They saw him every day. I know I’d probably already seen many of the company’s employees, but they only posted photos of the leadership team on the website. One of them, the chief technical officer, entered the building around 12:30. I kept my head down as I watched her approach. She was smiling. I decided she looked like a good person. Then she was in through the doors and gone, presumably to the elevator, or rather the lift. The chief marketing officer then appeared quite suddenly at the bar and ordered a sandwich, not “to go,” as we would say in Canada, but “to take away.” When he turned around towards me as he waited, I buried my head in my shepherd’s pie and didn’t look up until he was gone, his wrapped-up ham and cheese in hand. All he would have known was that an Ottawa Senators hockey fan with a fierce focus on his food was in the pub, provided he knew what the logo on my hat signified.
And that was it for the rest of the day. No Matt. He never showed up. I stayed and watched faces all afternoon and into the early evening. Nothing. After the CTO and CMO left the building around 6:30 and the flow of weary workers dwindled to a trickle, I thought it was safe to call. I pulled out my iPhone and dialed. I wasn’t worried about my name showing up in the caller ID window. Alex MacAskill was a name that would mean nothing to anyone over here. I made my way through the company directory and selected Matt Paterson. It rang three times.
“Hi, it’s Matt Paterson and you’ve reached my voice mail on Monday, September 22. I’m out of town today on business but if you leave me a message, I’ll return your call Tuesday morning. Cheers.”
Cheers. How English. I hung up without leaving a message, and then called three more times just to hear his voice. I somehow sensed there was something gentle, even kind, in his tone. It’s hard to explain, and perhaps I wasn’t particularly objective about it. But I liked his voice. Not just that it was my voice with a lovely English lilt. It went deeper than that. Knowing that he wasn’t upstairs but that he’d be there the next morning, I got up and left the pub. Then I immediately turned around and returned to pay for my Guinness and English culinary staple. I had a lot on my mind that night.
I hadn’t realized how exhausted I’d been from the transatlantic crossing and attendant time change until my head hit the pillow. I managed to text Abby about the day’s events but shortly thereafter I was down deep for the night. No tossing, no turning, no dreaming. Just a full-on, deep sleep. So deep that I had no idea where I was when I awoke, though I figured it out eventually. My iPhone had logged in several texts from Abby demanding elucidation, elaboration, and clarification on my paltry summary from the night before. I spent a few minutes responding to her, expanding on my fruitless first day in London.
By 7:30 a.m., I was back on Old Street. I had no idea if Matt was an early riser, but I wanted to cover off that possibility. Of course, the William Blake didn’t open until ten, but there was a little boulevard park-like green space with tall trees and benches that circled the trunks of some of the larger trees where I could sit. It was directly across the street from the entrance to Classic House and the Innovatengage office. I settled in the lee of a large tree but on an angle that allowed me to monitor the entrance of the building. I didn’t think there was underground parking in the building so I figured he’d be coming from the Old Street Tube station along with the rest of the commuting crowd. Given the proliferation of start-ups in the area, it seemed a fairly young and confident crowd striding by, making their way to their offices. I’d bought a carton of orange juice at a little stand in the Tube station. I pulled it from my jacket pocket, rammed home the little pointy straw it came with, and drank. It was lukewarm and almost tasted like orange juice. Almost.
It was 7:51 a.m. I saw him from a distance. I knew it was Matt long before I could see his face. It was how he walked. It was how I walked. It was how we walked. I stood up but slid further behind the tree. I watched as my own facial features came into focus as he sauntered along the sidewalk towards Classic House on the other side of the street. So here we go. I took two deep breaths and sat down on the bench again, my back to the tree, my back to my brother. I peeked over my shoulder as Matt Paterson disappeared into the building. Was I really going to just dash across the street and leap in front of him? No, I don’t think so. But I’d found him.
He hadn’t seen me. I was certain of that. Clearly, no innate, brother-to-brother, telepathic proximity alarms had been triggered in his head. He hadn’t so much as looked my way. But it was my identical twin brother. No one could look quite so much like me and not be. There was no doubt in my mind. Oh sure, we may have doppelgangers out there roaming the earth. But they just sort of look like you from a certain angle. Vicki Lawrence and Carol Burnett. Or maybe Will Ferrell and Chad Smith, the d
rummer for the Red Hot Chili Peppers. But when you saw them together, you quickly realized they really just resembled one another. If my hair were short and I stood next to Matt Paterson, no one would say we “resembled” one another. We “were” one another.
I sat on that bench in a kind of trance, eyes on my feet, thinking about what to do next, for the next two hours and more. It was the sound of bells in the distance that seemed to break the spell. A church was chiming 10:00 a.m. I surveyed my surroundings. A few stragglers were still entering the building, but in general, the coast was clear. I stood up, strode across the street with purpose, and slipped back into the William Blake. They were still vacuuming – “hoovering” was what they told me – but I stepped over the cord and claimed my window booth for the second day in a row. I passed on the Guinness shake and ordered an orange juice, hoping it might taste a little more like OJ than what I’d purchased in the Tube station earlier. The same older woman who called everyone “luv” delivered my juice a minute or two later. Much better.
From my jacket pocket, I pulled the envelope Mom had left for me and extracted the half-photo of me cradled in the right arm of the person I assumed to be my father. I stared at it for a few moments. I snuck a glance at my watch: 10:23. I pulled off my cap and raked my hair with my right hand, a habit that came with longer locks. That’s when I heard my voice order a latté to take away. My eyes had been focused on the front entrance of Classic House through the window. In an instant I realized there must be a second entrance to the pub from inside the lobby of the building.
I looked up when I heard my, his, our, voice, just as Matt Paterson turned from the bar and looked in my general direction. I froze, my right hand still stuck in mid-hair-rake, pinning my soft and manageable tresses behind my ear. Our eyes locked briefly as he swept the room with his gaze. He turned back to the bar, stopped, then slowly swivelled his head to meet my eyes once more. His eyes widened. His eyes narrowed. He turned his body now to face me. He took a small step towards me and stopped, his head slightly tilted like a Labrador’s when you call his name.
