My double scrapes the last traces of his hair from my face as I do his and then he turns his back on me as I do on him. The relief I feel in not looking at the grim face of my doppelganger is echoed by the sigh that we both give as we step out of our separate doors.
As I begin the waiting, the constant tedium of waiting until I next have to stare out of a mirrored surface at him, I wonder what my double is doing at that point. Is he thinking about his woman as I do? She was there in most of his reflections for almost every day in his life and then all of a sudden she was gone? After all, I haven’t seen her since I stared out of his reflection in a hurled wine glass. The one which shattered when she shouted at him and threw it with all her strength. I wonder where she went. Maybe he does know why she was there and then was not. I suppose he must do, since he does more than wait for the next reflection when we must both stare at each other. He can do something while all I ever do is wait.
I wonder if his is a more fulfilling life than mine?
I briefly appear in the well polished door knobs of the motel, his face curved and warped almost beyond recognition, before skipping out ahead of him to stare from the glass windows of the cab that waits for him to get in. Once inside he winds the window down to catch the breeze of the moving vehicle. The old relic from the fifties has no wing mirrors and I can once again take myself away from the sad face I mimic.
I think back to Rome and the time there, peering out from over sinks, gazing up from ancient polished brass and gold and the constant appearing in car windows. He was much happier then, smiled more, when she was still with him. But even then there was something wrong. Perhaps he’s somebody who was born to be miserable. He does always seem to look at things the wrong way.
“They don’t appreciate it,” he said as I sat next to him in the café window, the huge, slowly dying monument to an ancient architect’s skill towering over him and me like a huge half-eaten cake, and she sat opposite him and her double opposite me. “If I lived here,” he said, “I would treat every day as a reason to see something new. The buildings, the churches, the sheer history of the place with its Emperors, conquerors and Popes!”
She laughed, that high pitched giggle of hers, and asked him, “Do you sit down and watch the waves and the sunset every night? Do you go out to find a new rock pool every day and find new crabs and new shells and new seaweeds in them?”
“No,” he said.
And she said, “Well? Their Colloseums are our waves and sunsets, their churches are our rock pools and their Emperors, conquerors and Popes are our crabs, molluscs and kelp.” He scowled as he does when proved wrong and I did too which just set both of her laughing and they put down the money on the bill and left leaving me to do the same.
I make a brief appearance in a man’s pair of mirrored sunglasses and then disappear as he walks past.
Of course Rome was just temporary. So was Ithaca and New York and Stratford. And always back here. To the beaches and the parasols and yes, to the rock pools and the crabs and sunsets over the sea. But now he’s always alone as I stare up out of still bodies of water. And he is always alone when he shaves and clips the moustache with the little scissors. And the rare smile on his face and mine has gone. Sometimes I think he might be sad. He might be lonely.
I know I am.
I miss her. She knew him well. Probably better than anyone except me. And much better than he did. She knew why he kept coming back here. She knew the place you come from has a pull, a force all of its own. Force of habit. Much stronger than any other force, she used to say. The force of gravity is nothing to force of habit. She was like that.
And she was right.
He argued that you can always leave somewhere. That nobody has to stay anywhere. And that travelling does change you. That if you travel beyond the places you know then more of the world stretches out before you. And you know you have to see that too.
He said a place can feel like a net and that the urge to travel is a desire to break out of the net. But instead of living in the small net, by travelling you find the net is huge. And no matter how far you travel you won’t see it all. Which is why it’s still a net, no matter how big it is.
And he’s right too.
There’s lots of ways to be right.
I appear in a shop window as he walks past. He doesn’t look at me and there is nobody else there to see me. Still I appear. We always do whether anyone cares to look or not.
We don’t have to appear. There are plenty of times when nobody would notice our absence but we have a duty and we do it. We are beyond the mirror and we are the key to hope and despair. Many stare into our eyes and see despair beyond. They see their face and know just how much and who they are. And many see the same and see all they need to encourage themselves onwards.
We walk together through an airport. I must be everywhere. Everything is polished, shiny, reflective. Except the floor which is dirty and covered in cigarette ends despite the signs telling people they will not smoke for their convenience. I appear in sheets of glass, buckles on suitcases, the pen he signs a cheque with to buy his ticket. I am everywhere, often at the same time.
He pauses by a window, pretends to look at the contents, pretends to check he has everything, but spends his time gazing into my eyes, seeing the empty void of despair beyond. He is so intent on me that he misses her as she walks past.
She stops.
She stands there, takes a step towards us, stops again.
She turns and walks away. She doesn’t look back.
We turn and walk towards his plane.
