in on Ronny’s face. His gaze was like the pure sweep of a bowling green; it was flat and it was plain and it went on and on. Ronny was alarmed. He began blinking rapidly. A nervous tic.
The other Ronny looked crestfallen. ‘I’ve brought back some bad feelings. I’m sorry.’
He curled his hand around the watch so that Ronny was no longer obliged to look at it. Ronny said nothing but he kept on blinking. If he stopped blinking he’d start crying and that wouldn’t do. He’d never cried.
But he remembered the watch. Very clearly. And mixed in with the memory was the scratch of rough hessian and the pungent taint of cider vinegar. Something acrid.
‘Is he dead?’
‘Who?’
‘Big Ron.’
‘Yes.’ Ronny nodded.
‘The way you spoke earlier made it sound like he was still living.’
‘He is living,’ Ronny struggled. ‘I mean, in my head.’
Again he put his gloved hand to his face.
‘Actually,’ the other Ronny intervened, ‘you have a rash. On your cheek. You should stop touching it.’
Ronny took his hand from his cheek and swore softly. ‘My gloves might have chemicals on them.’
‘You should’ve taken them off then.’
‘They’re attached to the suit. I was in a hurry to return the car. It isn’t mine.’
The other Ronny craned his neck to peer over at the car.
‘Green Volvo,’ he mused, unhelpfully.
‘Yes.’ Ronny spun around and jogged to the edge of the island. His nose was still running. His eye began stinging. He’d been clumsy. He hated himself for it.
The other Ronny watched impassively as he jinked through the traffic.
Back at the car, Ronny unzipped his suit and unrolled the top half down to his waist. It was a complex manoeuvre that took several minutes, during which time the pain in his cheek intensified.
He scrabbled around in the side pocket on the driver’s side of the car and located a bottle of water which he unscrewed, sniffed and then poured on to his hand and dabbed over his cheek. He repeated this process several times and then inspected his face in the side mirror. His cheek, nose and left eye were slightly puckered and swollen. He applied some more water.
‘Do you want the watch back?’
The other Ronny had deserted his island and was now standing behind him, holding out the watch.
Ronny prickled, like he was full of static. ‘Not at all. You’re welcome to it.’
‘How’s your cheek?’
‘It’ll be fine.’
‘You must be cold. Here …’
The other Ronny took off the old brown cardigan he was wearing and proffered it.
‘Actually I have a change of clothes in the boot.’
As he spoke Ronny noticed the other Ronny’s arms. They were skeletal. He put his hand to his mouth. He felt an unexpected combination of deep alarm and lurching nausea.
‘What?’
The other Ronny inspected his cardigan with some confusion as though Ronny’s distress had been generated by it and not by him.
‘Your arms,’ Ronny managed, through his fingers.
The other Ronny looked down at his arms, grimaced, and then put his cardigan back on again.
‘I can’t keep the watch,’ he said quietly, ‘I would feel beholden.’
Ronny was shivering. He went and grabbed his clothes from the boot of the car and began dragging them on. He felt sick. His mouth was drowning in a sweet saliva. Was it poison or was it pity? He couldn’t tell.
‘Pawn the watch,’ he said thickly, ‘and get something proper to eat.’
The other Ronny didn’t appreciate this suggestion. ‘I would never consider selling it,’ he said and then turned to go, patently wounded.
Ronny panicked, he didn’t know why. ‘Where are you going?’
‘To my island.’
‘How long will you stay there?’
‘I have no idea.’
He left him.
Ronny bundled his white suit into the back of the Volvo and then sat down in the driving seat. He adjusted the rear-view mirror, initially to inspect his cheek and then to try and catch sight of the other Ronny.
The other Ronny was back on his island. Ronny sat watching him for a while. He wanted to go. But something stopped him. An unfamiliar impulse. He was late. He wanted to go, he wanted to, but he couldn’t.
He dabbed at his eye with the cuff of his sleeve. He felt terrible. His stomach was rollercoastering.
‘Jim!’
Like a voice in his head. Ronny started and glanced up in alarm. As if by sorcery, the other Ronny had rematerialized next to him.
‘Pardon?’
‘A gift. From me. In exchange for the watch.’
‘I don’t get it.’
‘A new name. Jim. It came to me in a flash.’
Ronny laughed nervously. ‘I don’t need a new name.’
The other Ronny was visibly galled. ‘Big Ron is dead,’ he said, matter-of-factly, ‘so why not bury him?’
Ronny was surprised. He was confounded. But above all he had the strong feeling that it was ill-mannered to reject a gift so freely given.
‘Jim’s a nice name,’ he said gently, ‘but I don’t ever hide from things.’
‘You’ve got nothing to hide from,’ the other Ronny insisted, as though he really understood everything. ‘You have an honest face. I have an instinct for honesty. In faces.’
Ronny was taken by surprise. He was quiet for a while. The other Ronny misconstrued his silence. He decided that it might be best to return to his island. He took a few steps back. He never pushed things. He was a piece of chaff. A dandelion seed. He floated and landed, floated and landed.
He took several more steps. The wind was behind him. A gust of it touched him and defined his outline against the streetlights and the headlights.
Ronny took it all in and felt his gullet fracture.
