Lynne Truss - Going Loco

Jago was nearly hyperventilating. What a great story! What a madly dangerous scheme to take the identity of a famous dead scientist and, moreover, pretend to be Swedish. Jago’s mind raced, as he scanned the obituary that had just arrived on his screen. Key words leapt out at him. ‘Cloning … brilliant … Swede … pseudogenes … Sweden … reckless … only in the mind of Robert Louis Stevenson … Human Genome Project … very, very mysterious … Malmö.’

Jago couldn’t read it properly, because he never did read anything properly. But he got the idea. The man they knew as Stefan – who was he? ‘Unless, unless—’ he muttered. He scrolled to the end, scrolled to the top again. More key words leapt out. ‘Gene sharing … Malmö … foolhardy experiment … replica … Frankenstein … condemned by scientific fraternity

… Church … offence against God … mutation … Abba … Malmö.’

But then he looked at the picture, and everything changed. It was Stefan. Stefan was dead, yet alive. A great shiver of excitement went up his spine. He heard again Stefan saying, ‘Gosh, hey, this is very original one-off copy!’

The conclusion was staring him in the face.

‘Oh my God. The man we know as Stefan Johansson … is a clone.’

Running from the Gemini café, Maggie choked on tears of humiliation. Good grief, if this was what happened when you just popped out for a bacon sandwich she’d become a vegetarian immediately. For someone with Maggie’s particular invisibility complexes, here was a triple calamity: (a) the man she’d condescended to sleep with had entirely failed to recognize her the next lunch-time; (b) he was a bastard and was the partner of her therapist, to whom she now couldn’t talk about it; and (c) after all that Michael Schumacher nonsense, it turns out he’s really interested in classical dance! ‘They’re all the same,’ she sobbed openly, as she ran home. ‘All the bloody same.’

‘Margaret?’ Leon was now calling after her and, from the sound of it, running. His feet were slapping the pavement, and he was gaining on her. Why was he calling her Margaret? ‘Bastard, bastard, bastard,’ she muttered as she ran.

‘Margaret, could you stop, please?’

She turned into her own street. Nearly home. Her heart was pounding as she picked up speed to escape him, and saw – emerging sheepishly from her flat, with hair slightly dirtier than it had been last night – Leon. He stopped and lit a cigarette, then started ambling in the opposite direction.

‘Aieee!’ she cried. ‘Stop, stop, stop!’

Looking back, she saw Leon running towards her; looking forward, she saw him walking away. What an irony, she thought, as she staggered against the wall, clutching her chest. To spend all your professional life practising double-takes. And then, when a double-take would really come in handy, just fainting away on the spot.

‘Well,’ said Linda, ‘I had no idea doubles could be so interesting!’

As Linda boiled the kettle and opened some biscuits she’d thoughtfully brought, Belinda found herself feeling spectacularly happy. What an intelligent and intuitive woman Linda was. Everyone else scanned the ceiling for flies when she talked about The Dualists, or fiddled with a dinner napkin. It had the same turn-off effect as Stefan telling people he came from Malmö or, indeed, from Scandinavia. In both situations, her mother would say, ‘That’s nice,’ then steer the conversation to the new range from Dolce and Gabbana. Linda, however, was of finer empathetic stuff. She had seen instantly not only that Belinda’s book urgently needed writing but that it needed writing well.

‘So do people meet their doubles in real life?’ Linda asked.

‘No. Not that I know of.’

‘Shame. Because, as you say, most of us are leading double lives, aren’t we?’

‘At least double, yes. Or we wish we had two lives, just to deal with everything.’

It felt odd to talk about it. Could Linda truly be interested?

‘So is it that one person is really two people? Or two people are really only one person?’

‘Both. The main thing in most doubles stories is that the hero has his life taken over by a dark, malevolent force that shares his identity and implicates him in misdeed. Or sometimes the double just gobbles him up. I’ve got lots of theories about it. That’s why I’m writing the book.’

Linda made the tea, as if it were perfectly normal to potter in Belinda’s kitchen. With airy confidence, she gave Belinda Stefan’s favourite mug, and opened a new packet of tea-bags because she didn’t know the system with the old brown jar.

‘Well, I think you’re right,’ Linda decided, putting the milk away in the fridge in the wrong place. ‘You mustn’t feel guilty about making time to write your special book. Our special work is what we’re put on earth to do. I firmly believe that.’

Belinda nodded. Should she ask what Linda’s special work was?

‘And, as you said before,’ Linda continued, ‘men have always shut themselves away to write books, without anyone accusing them of neglecting the household chores. I mean, Tolstoy didn’t write Crime and Punishment in between trips to Asda.’

‘You say the best things, Linda.’

‘Thank goodness you don’t have any children.’

‘Mm.’

Linda reopened the fridge and ran a professional eye over its contents. She took a deep breath. ‘I feel very good about this,’ she said, folding her arms. ‘I am absolutely sure that, between us, we’re going to write that book.’

Belinda looked at the new cleaning lady and marvelled. What a formidable ally to have. She had a silly schoolgirl urge to tell Linda she was lovely. She had such a fruity firmness about her, plus the easy elegance that is often found in people who, at a crucial moment in their teenage development, chose hockey club over Georgette Heyer. Paths divide at every moment of the day, of course. But Belinda believed in the universal hockey–Heyer divide most strongly. In her experience, those who at puberty chose solitary reading over group exertion may (oh, yes) have grown up to be brainboxes earning more money, but they could never quite catch up again in self-confidence with those hearty, practical girls, despite all their well-meant gym subscriptions in later years.

Outside in the hall, Mrs Holdsworth ran her Hoover into a coat-stand, and said, ‘Shit,’ as it crashed to the floor.

‘I can’t sack Mrs Holdsworth,’ Belinda said.

Linda shrugged. ‘I can leave her a patch of hall carpet. Where are the phones, by the way?’

‘What?’

‘The phones.’

‘One in my study, one in the hall.’

‘When I’m here, I’ll field your calls. Completely uninterrupted time is what you want, isn’t it? Shall I throw those newspapers away?’

Belinda nodded. It was like a dream.

‘Okey-dokey.’ Linda smiled. ‘Well, the best thing I can do this afternoon is get some shopping and prepare the dinner. I’ll give you a bill at the end of each week. You’re in tonight? What time does Mrs Holdsworth finish?’

‘Four.’

‘I’ll return at four ten. And I’ll finish at six thirty. What are you working on this afternoon?’

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