Lost in Manchester - 11. Winter Festival. December 2009. Ali.

“Wait, wait, wait”

Ali watched affectionately as Daniel swished his hands to quieten the others, his eyes ablaze with interest.

“So your first instinct on coming across your doppelganger was to ask him out on a date?”

Adam, who was sitting on the far side of the train table in that tight fitting Tintin tshirt that made him look about 12, shrugged and nodded.

Ali grinned. “So, just how much like you was he?”

Adam smiled, clearly loving this attention. “Well if I saw him from about five metres away, I’d think I was looking in a mirror. I mean, close up you could see differences. But he was weirdly alike”.

“How close up did you get?” Carl jumped in excitedly. Ali half smiled. Carl had been staying over so she’d had no choice but to invite him along today too.

“And how about personality” Daniel asked, ignoring Carl, “was that similar too?”

Daniel was staring at Adam with that look of boyish wonder. Never mind that his boyfriend was sitting right opposite. He had the same look that night when he and Adam rolled back into the flat after meeting at the Loom Inn. The boy just couldn’t control his mini-obsessions.

“Not really. It was purely physical”.

“I bet it was” Ali said, laughing.

“Exactly” Carl jumped in, “so how was he then?” He emphasised the life out of the was.

Carl was one of Daniel’s mini-obsessions that had outlasted her expectations. He was really little more than a cardboard cut-out gym junkie. Nice body of course, and pleasant enough, but Daniel was always going to want something more.

Adam played along, dipping his head in mock shame at Carl’s implied accusation.

“Oh my god, you did actually sleep with yourself!” Ali said. She was only slightly surprised, given the other antics he’d told her about.

“Tell us then”, she said, lowering her voice a little, “how were you?”

“Well, I don’t know if I can take all the credit. I mean strictly speaking he is a different person”

“Sure you can” Daniel said smiling.

“Well, in that case I would describe myself as a passionate, energetic, sensual lover…”

“So you’re going to see him again then?” Ali asked.

“Nah” Adam said scrunching his face up. “Come on, I’m not a total narcissist”.

 

The train chugged its way on towards Chester. Ali had seen an advert for the Winter Festival last night and convinced the others to come along. It was nice just getting out of the big city.

It was around nine in the morning and the fields that rolled past the window were still icy from the previous night’s frost. She sat and stared out for a while. It was one of those winter mornings where you weren’t sure it was actually going to get light at all. A delicate mist hung in the air over the deserted countryside as the low sun tried in vain to push its way through. There was a beauty and a pinch of horror film to it.

 

The train pulled into Chester station and the four of them mummified themselves in woollen scarves and hats before alighting and heading towards the centre.

Carl and Daniel walked on, leaving Ali and Adam sauntering behind.

“So tell me about your airport protest. Did you get many turn up?” Adam asked.

Ali thought back to the eclectic group gathered on a patch of grass, 100 metres from the main office of the airport bosses. They’d flyered the University, local affected villages and various spots in the city, so the group was a mix of green-minded students, moralistic parents with their young children, and loads of older people from the villages. All good people, but the kind of people that everyone ignores. They’d stood there waving banners, banging drums and shouting for almost three hours, and they didn’t get so much as an acknowledgement from the airport owners.

“It was mostly a waste of time. The local radio station came down but that was it. We got ignored by anyone that could influence things.”

“You were on the radio?”

“Yeah, me and this other guy that came along, Irish guy, local Councillor. He gave a good interview.”

She thought of the Irish guy; he had stepped in just at the point she had started fumbling. He had spoken clearly and eloquently, totally saved the interview.

“Oh really?” Adam said, skipping past the point, “a handsome man helped you out?”

She slapped his arm. “Piss off. He was old enough to be my dad.”

 

Just saying the word dad felt strange. She never talked about her dad, or her mum really, not even to Daniel. She had looked up to her dad so much, and he was the one who had encouraged her interest in the environment. He seemed to really get it. “Fact is Alicia”, he used to say, “it’ll be down to your generation to save it. My lot don’t know have a bloody clue”.

She wished she had been able to spend more time with him. Talk to him more about it. That was the thing with a big family though. Dad’s time was split six ways.

 

“Paul wasn’t very supportive of the protest” Adam said half smiling.

“Well your flatmate is a cock”.

Adam laughed.

“Seriously though, don’t you think there’s something odd about him?” she continued.

Adam shrugged. “I don’t know. He had a very different upbringing. I’m not sure he’s so different though, underneath it all.”

 

The foursome quickly found their way up onto the city walls and walked round to the bridge across Eastgate Street, looking down over the tourist brochure view of Chester. They stopped and leaned on the railings soaking up the view before them.

The street below was alive with snowmen ice sculptures basking in blue light, performers dressed as ice queens, and a mini ice-rink starting to fill up with nervous looking five year olds. The classic black and white Tudor buildings of the city were the perfect canvas for a festival. Further up the street the polished pipes of a steam calliope were pumping out nostalgic fairground music as an older man stood proudly by its side, soaking up the attention it brought him from passers-by.

                           

They spent the day happily exploring the city and hitting all of the dumb tourist spots, circumnavigating the Roman walls, dressing as gladiators in the city museum and window shopping along the Chester Rows.

By late afternoon they found themselves back in the main centre in an underground bar that had once been a huge wine cellar. The bar stood in a large atrium in the centre, between giant stone pillars holding up the building above. Off to the sides were a series of smaller rooms to sit. They ordered drinks, then found a free side chamber and sat around a long wooden table under a low arched ceiling.

The four of them sat in silence for a few seconds as the heat from the bar gradually thawed their fingers. Ali followed Adam’s gaze upwards through a window at the top of the wall, which looked out onto the street. Being below ground, they could only see the bottom half of passers-by, but Ali saw him follow a pleasant posterior framed by a brown belt with a Superman logo on the back. By the time his eyes returned to the others everyone had caught on to where he’d been looking.

“It is all about your love life today.” Daniel said, grinning.

Adam shook his head disapprovingly at the three of them. “Moving on…”

“So how do you actually know these two?” Carl asked Adam.

Ali saw the frustrated look on Daniel’s face.

“He lives two floors up from us babe, I told you that” Daniel answered.

“With an evil lawyer” Ali added.

“Evil?”

“Well, he works for a tobacco firm. And he’s a cock.”

Carl raised his eyebrows, then a thought seemed to strike him. “Oh, not Paul…something…thick rim glasses, sarcastic bastard”.

Ali sat forward, intrigued by this turn.

“That does sound like him” Adam said chirpily. “Griffiths. You know him?”

“Yeah”. Carl’s face clouded over. “He fucked over a friend of mine.”

“Oh”, Adam said, pausing. “Sorry. That’s awkward”.

Ali raised her eyebrows, looking towards Adam. “I don’t want to say I told you so, but…”

Adam shrugged. “Well, we’re not exactly best friends, but he’s ok as a flatmate. He cleans and stuff.” Adam took a gulp of beer and glanced back up to the window.

“He still take a lot of drugs?” Carl asked. The hung in the air.

Adam returned his gaze to the table. “I could tell you about the date with the four-inch guy?”

“You know he had a heart attack last year from all that coke” Carl said, clearly keen to keep on subject.

“What?” Adam said, looking highly sceptical.

“Yeah. Minor heart attack. That’s what he said anyway. He’s a fuck-up mate.”

Ali felt vindicated, but was starting to feel sorry for Adam.

“He’s away quite a bit though, right?” Daniel asked, breaking the silence.

“Yes” Adam said, seizing on the positive.

“Well that’s cool. You get the place to yourself a lot”.

It wasn’t a great surprise that Daniel had come to the rescue. Those puppy dog eyes were back.

“He’s working down in London this weekend in fact. Texted this morning to say I’ve got the place to myself until Monday”.

Ali grinned and raised her eyebrows. “Proper bachelor pad for you then…”

Adam shook his head. “Everything is about sex with you people.”

 

“Alright boys” Ali said, checking her watch as they were reaching the ends of their drinks, “are we going to go see this fairy queen dance thing? We’ve got 15 minutes”.

“Definitely.” Daniel replied. “It’s the whole reason I got up at the crack of dawn for your fun day out.”

They donned their warm clothes and headed out again to the now dusky evening. A surprisingly large crowd had gathered and they had to fight their way through to get to a point where they could see the show. The minutes counting down to the start of the performance passed bitterly slowly, but just as she was losing feeling in her fingertips again, the ethereal opening to the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy started to play, and the square was suddenly full of young dancing fairies with painted faces and glittering outfits.

Looking up she saw something from the corner of her eye, someone on the far side of the crowd that looked just like Paul. She saw his thick rimmed glasses, a red hoodie she’d seen him wearing last week, and that general look of superiority he has. It was him.

The music got so loud that they couldn’t hear each other, so she nudged Adam’s arm. He didn’t respond so she nudged harder. She saw a glimpse of the figure again, more clearly this time. It was definitely him.

She leaned in to speak directly into Adam’s ear.

“Paul is on the far side of the crowd.”

He leaned back and looked her in the eye, trying to catch her meaning, despite the deafening music.

“What?”

She tried again. “Your flatmate Paul. He’s right over there. You said he was in London.”

Adam still didn’t seem to hear. “Yeah, he’s in London all weekend, he texted earlier”.

Ali leaned in closer.

“Adam, I’m fucking telling you, Paul is standing right over there.”

Adam leaned back again and saw the steely look in her eye. He glanced across and scanned the crowd opposite.

He leaned back in. “I don’t see anyone who looks like him.”

She looked up again and saw him. He was backing out of the crowd.

She grabbed Adam’s wrist hard. “Come on”.

She pulled him back through the throng of people now four or five deep, then started to circle round the crowd.

“There” she said, pointing to a figure disappearing round a corner. “He’s wearing that red hoodie.”

“Everyone has a red hoodie” Adam shouted from behind her.

“Just come on” she said, starting to run.

“Why would he lie about being in London?” Adam called ahead.

“Fuck knows. He’s sinister.”

She sped up, unintentionally barging past people walking by. “He must have seen us.”

Behind her, Adam was apologising to the people spinning out of her path.

She turned the corner onto another main shopping street and seeing the red hoodie up ahead, raced on without even looking across at the upcoming street on her left.

The next sound was Adam’s voice screaming at her, before she saw what he’d seen. A silver Volkswagen Polo raced out from the side street. It was only metres away and she couldn’t stop for it. Her insides turned to ice, it was coming too fast. The sound of screeching brakes echoed loud in the air, and she just pushed her body forwards and on.

Not quite knowing where her head would be the next second, it was quite a relief that it was still travelling quickly on. She glanced back to see steam from the tyres, and Adam, now further behind.

The figure ahead reached the corner of a narrower street and disappeared down it. Ali was only a few seconds behind him.

She emerged at the end of the narrow street into an open square by the Cathedral. A few seconds later Adam was by her side, both of them with hands on hips and breathing hard. She looked around every corner of the streets around them but there was no sign of the hooded figure.

“Where the fuck did he go?” Ali uttered between huge breaths.

 

The train back to Manchester was warm and the four managed to get a table seat again for the return journey. Daniel had picked up a bottle of white wine and some plastic glasses and Ali filled the others in.

“I can’t believe we missed all the action.” Daniel was saying.

She had recovered and was smiling at her flatmate’s excitement.

“Oh yeah, you really missed out” Adam answered, “Chasing a random guy in a hoodie and almost being mowed down by a Volkswagen.”

“I don’t get where he went. I swear I was only seconds behind him” she said, ignoring Adam.

“But what was he doing here when he said he was in London?” Carl asked, clearly keen to support the conspiracy theory. Carl was definitely growing on her.

“Come on, it can’t have been him” Adam said, trying to play it down. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“So why would he run away from us?” Ali countered.

“Well, we saw a guy running. Not necessarily running away. He could have been running for the bus.”

“It does seem a bit unlikely that it was him” Daniel said, siding with Adam.

“But he did look exactly like Paul” Ali persevered.

Daniel’s face suddenly lit up.

“Maybe this was Paul's doppelganger!”