Read Online Doppelganger by Geoffrey West - Free Book Online Page A

of sheets of very thin timber and strips of metal, as well as metal
rods, shelves full of tiny boxes of screws and different kinds of adhesives,
tiny pins and screws and an assortment of miniature chisels and other small
hand tools.
    She showed me one of the special
chisels, demonstrating how to use it on a piece of hard black timber; its blade
was V-shaped in cross-section, specially made to slide through timber needing
only minimal hand-pressure. Quite a lethal weapon, I thought, if it fell into
the wrong hands.
    After eating in the living room
we relaxed on the sofa and she told me about her upbringing in the small
Hertfordshire village, an only child with doting parents who’d died in a car
crash when she was at university, studying Egyptology and archaeology.
    “Ridiculous subjects to study,” she
said, sipping red wine. “What’s the point of it? Mum and Dad dying like that,
it brought it home to me how ephemeral life can be. I’d had all these fantasies
about being an archaeologist and going on digs in ancient Egypt, writing
papers, giving lectures. But after only a year into the course I realised that
the reality was that the only options were teaching, which I didn’t want to do,
or finding a post in some dreary museum, here or abroad. I wanted to do
something practical. My father always liked tinkering with woodwork in his shed
and I used to watch him. There’s something I love about timber, the smell and
the feel of it. I decided to do a carpentry course. Then, after that, I taught
myself about this kind of tiny micro-joinery.”
    She showed me her books on
ancient Greece, her pen-and-ink drawings of the ‘backs’, a waterside area of
Cambridge, where there are quaint pubs by the river. I’m no judge but to me she
seemed to be a talented artist. She loved music, playing me some of her favourites,
Janis Joplin and Leonard Cohen, even some early Bruce Springsteen, artists she
deemed to be ‘timeless’, as well as modern musicians, most of whom I’d never
heard of. The evening zipped past. I didn’t want it to end, I just longed for
it to go on forever, because everything about her had hooked me. So when she
told me that a close friend was seriously ill, and she’d promised the friend’s
husband that she’d go up to York and look after her dolls’ house shop for her,
I couldn’t hide my feelings.
    “What’s the matter?” she asked.
    It was just after I’d kissed her
for the first time. She was in my arms, and I was looking into her half-closed
eyes. “I don’t want you to go. I want to see you tomorrow. And the next day.
And the day after that...”
    “Jack, you don’t even know me–”
    “I do. The moment I set eyes on
you I knew you, something about your face was already there, in my mind. I’ve
never felt like this before in my life. I knew your face before I even saw it,
and I was obsessed with you from the moment I saw you.”
    “I didn’t like you at first.” She
pulled me closer, speaking in an urgent whisper. “Yet there was something that
disturbed me about you. And I couldn’t forget you.”
    “York isn’t that far. Can I come
and see you?”
    “Of course.” A tear appeared at
the corner of her eye. “I want you to come and see me. I never dreamed
this could happen. So fast. And I’m so sure about how I feel. It’s mad, crazy.
Anyway, didn’t you say you’ve got to work on your book urgently?”
    “Yes, that’s true, I have. I’d
better leave you in peace. You’ve got to get up early.”
    She looked into my eyes. “Believe
me, I don’t normally do this. I swear that this isn’t like me. I usually get to
know a guy for ages before...”
    “What?” She felt warm in my arms,
her body was soft and yielding, melting against mine. “What are you trying to
say?”
    “I don’t want you to go home
tonight,” she whispered. “Stay with me?”
    That night, the first time we
were together, was the most amazing experience of my life. I remember waking in
the early