In 1980, I applied for a job with the Stafford office of a firm of Chartered Quantity Surveyors. My application was successful and with that the die was cast for the next twenty-two years.
All through the eighties and well into the nineties, times when everyday monetary transactions involved actual notes and coins and felt as real as the currency in your hand and wallet, as opposed to the virtual reality of today’s card transactions, I would after every monthly payday walk from the office into town, head for the HSBC bank and collect an enveloped wad of notes, most of which would later the very same day disappear into the increasingly large pot of a growing family.
Over the years, the faces of cashiers and customers became as familiar to each as regular casual acquaintances might, and brief by-the-way conversations often ensued.
One such conversation has stayed with me ever since. As I approached the counter, the familiar friendly face behind the screen looked at me, but with a clear expression of surprise.
The conversation went something like this:
“Hello… back already?” she asked.
“Back already?” I replied, a touch bewildered. “It’s been at least four weeks since I was last in here.”
“But you’ve just been here… not five minutes ago.” She turned to a colleague who, having just completed a transaction, had tuned herself in. “He was here, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, definitely,” said her colleague, who then turned to me. “You were, honestly.”
“Well, it wasn’t me, I assure you.”
“Then you must have one of those… what are they called?”
“Doppelgängers?” I supplied.
“Yes, that’s it. I often see you in the town, usually at lunchtimes. Pretty well every day, actually. Unless,” she paused, I think for effect, “it’s not you.”
“I can confirm… it’s not me.” And it certainly wasn’t. Most lunchtimes were a sandwich at my desk, chewed through constantly looming deadlines.
As I couriered my cash back to the office, and on pretty much every walk thereafter to and from town until I eventually left Stafford, I was on high alert, half-expecting, maybe half-hoping, to clock this other ‘me’.
I never did see him.
But I have often wondered how it would be to confront someone who, on the outside at least, is the absolute spit of oneself.
How would it be to engage with them, hear them speak, watch their expressions, see one’s own expressions in use?
Could the temptation to draw comparisons be resisted?
Would jealousy creep in?
Would friendship be possible?
Would substitution, one for the other, ever be entertained, or engineered?
I have no idea, but the idea of playing around with these questions by writing them into a story became irresistible.
So that’s what I did, in A Neat Execution… and what a wheeze, in the writing, it turned out to be!
Until next time,
Robert