Writing for Fun
November 2016
What is it about twins?! - Vivian Burdon
‘So what you’re saying is that these twin boys were separated at birth, were both called James by their new parents and each one married a women named Linda?’
‘Yeah yeah. And that’s not all, they both named their son James Alan and both divorced and got remarried to a woman called Betty! Oh . . . and they both called their pet dogs Toy.’
Ben sat back and presented his ‘beat that’ smug look to his flat mates. They looked back at him contemplating the scale of their task. There was forty quid riding on this.
What followed was that noisy silence only adolescent and younger men can unwittingly generate. The overstuffed front room was animated with the cadent creaking of an old sofa under Ben’s vibrating leg, complimented by the syncopated thudding of Andy’s flicking foot against the makeshift coffee table, and the rhythmic clicking of Jonny’s finger nails as he ran scales down his half empty lager can. Only Art was still. This length of silence would be uncomfortable in female circles, but the boys were focussed, their energy honed on outdoing each other. ‘Topping’, as they called it, was their constant past-time and tonight it had their biggest wager ever, £10 each in the jam jar, winner takes all.
Art leant over and grabbed the Pringle carton and slurped his beer.’ Ok, right, I think I’ve got one.’ He paused to peer down the Pringle tube. ‘Who ate all the bloody Pringles?’
Andy snatched the empty carton and flung it back at Art. ‘Come on mate, stop stalling. Once started you’ve got to keep going. Rules is rules.’
‘Ok, ok . . . Right, there were these old geezers. Twins in their early 70s. They lived in one of those Nordic countries. Finland I think. They were both killed on the same road.’ He paused to take a gulp of beer.
‘Is that it?’ Ben scoffed. ‘Nothing unusual about that.’
‘Let me finish knob-head. The thing is they were killed separately, within two hours of each other. The first brother was killed by a lorry while riding his bike. They reckon he didn’t notice the lorry in a snow blizzard. The second brother was also killed by a lorry two hours later while riding his bike, and get this . . . on the same road.’
Jonny sat forward. ‘Well there’s nothing sinister there Arthur. I reckon it was suicide. The second old man probably didn’t want to live any more without his brother, being old and all that.’
‘No, no it couldn’t have been that.’ Art was excited now. ‘You see apparently the police hadn’t been able to tell the second twin of his brother’s death because they were still trying to identify the first twin. He must have been very mangled. Cycle versus lorry? Pretty messy I reckon.’
Ben’s confidence had ebbed, he knew Art’s story was better than his. He should have waited and thought about it more. It’s never a good idea to go first, not with these nerds. He called ‘time-out’ and went to the kitchen. Art followed, grinning and slapping him on the back saying, ‘Never mind Ben. Better luck next time.’
Ben returned with a fresh six pack and distributed the beer, followed by Art triumphantly holding high a bag of nachos. ‘These were way back in the kitchen cupboard. According to their use by date they are old enough to go to school but what the heck.’ Suddenly in one bound Art leapt the coffee table and clouted Andy’s hand with the nachos bag. ‘Hey, stop it . . . look guys, he’s using his phone.’
Googling is a cardinal sin, a complete no, no. You forfeited your go and you had to double your stakes. ‘I wasn’t googling, honest. Look, look at this . . . just got a text from that Amy. You know that gorgeous girl that hangs around the student union a lot. I got Red Trev to get her number and I just texted her.
‘Go on then, let’s have a look at what she has to say to a nerd like you.’ Art snatched the phone and squinted at the screen. ‘Well you jammy bugger, looks like our good friend Andy has got himself a hot date. Forty quid would come in handy for a flash night out eh?’ Andy was blushing, partly from embarrassment but partly from a rush of happiness he hadn’t felt for a while. ‘Yeah forty quid would be good. Take her somewhere nice. Unfortunately I’m not feeling it here guys . . . I can’t think of any spooky twin stories,’ he moaned.
‘Shall we resume gentlemen?’ Jonny was keen to have his turn. He had kept his cards close to his chest on this one because by a stroke of luck they had been studying the case of the Eriksson twins in his psychology class. It was such a great story. He was confident it would win him the money. He would use it to get a train ticket home so he can see his lovely wife and new baby. Amy was such a star letting him finish his degree. She deserved a treat and little Daisy needed a cuddle from her Dad.
‘Listen up you lousy lot. I’ve got a cracker.’ The room quietened. ‘So . . . there were these two Swedish twins.’ A raucous roar went up from the testosterone fuelled flatmates.
‘That’s cheating. No personal sex stuff otherwise Ben would never get a look in,’ Art laughed and got a punch in the side from Ben.
‘Shush you silly little boys, you won’t be laughing when I take all your money.’ The room quietened again. ‘So . . . these young women, twins but separated at birth, had no history of mental illness and lived normal, happy lives with their respective families. Then, one day, Ursula travelled from America to Ireland to visit her sister. No one knows why but they caught a bus to London without telling anyone. On the bus they began to kick off, like football hooligans . . . so the driver kicked them out and told them to walk it off. Next thing they started to walk in the middle of the duel carriageway, not giving a toss about the speeding cars. And now here’s the first weird bit. They walk into a group of police officers being filmed for a TV Show. You know the kind . . . like Police Interceptors or something. So the cameras captured all of the crazy stuff that happened next. At first they were detained by the police and appeared to calm down. Then Ursula broke away, sprinted onto the highway and ran directly into the wheels of a lorry. Seconds later, Sabina did the same thing and was struck by a car. Despite the fact that a car had just hit her Sabina got up and attacked the police officers. It took six people to contain her. Ursula was raging mad too but couldn’t do anything on account of broken legs and generally being battered from the lorry. They took Sabina to the police station where she calmed down and was released the next day. Big mistake, a few hours after her release she murdered a man who offered her somewhere to stay. After killing him she threw herself off a 40-foot bridge and she survived!’ Jonny looked around, the lads were staring at him slack jawed. He continued ‘Sabina got five years for the murder. It was so lenient because the defence lawyers had no difficulty proving she was a loony. You see neither of them had any trace of drugs or alcohol in their bodies. Psychologists reckon one of the twins suffered from a form of temporary insanity, and because their bond was so strong the other one lost her shit too, sort of infected. By the way, they have both been declared sane since for heaven’s sake.’ He looked around the flat, yes he thought ‘it’s in the bag’ ‘Top that comrades,’ he said picking up his pint.
All eyes now turned to Andy. He had hardly been listening, trying to search his brain for more details linked to a faint memory he had, something he had read about in the 80s. He decided to start and see what he could recall. Slowly he began to tell them the tale of the Gibbons twins, Jennifer and June who at the age of 18 they had gone on a crime spree which resulted in both sisters being declared psychopaths and incarcerated in a high-security hospital for the criminally insane. ‘They had a long previous history though and this is where it gets really weird lads.’ Andy scanned his mates’ faces and wondered if this really was going to be his lucky night. ‘It better get weirder Andy because so far it’s not cutting it,’ sneered Ben.
‘So these twins when they were little were known as ‘the silent twins’ because as children they refused to speak to anyone but each other, and even then they used their own secret language that no-one else could understand. At school they refused to read or write but at home, they read all the time and wrote endless diaries and even wrote full length novels. They had bizarre rituals too, like they decided which one would wake up in the morning first or which one would breathe first, and the other one wasn’t allowed to do anything until the first one had done it. They were totally best friends . . . sometimes . . . At other times they tried to kill each other. Their odd behaviour escalated as they grew older and at 18 they had turned to petty theft and arson. Eventually their parents realized there might be something wrong with the girls and agreed to have them committed. I’m talking committed big time . . . to Broadmoor for fourteen years! Now it gets really weird. Towards the end of their stay at Broadmoor the twins told their only friend, some journalist women, that one of them wouldn’t make it out of the hospital alive. Jennifer just looked at this woman and said ‘I’m going to die. We’ve decided!’ Apparently they had realized that they could never be free or normal as long as they were both alive, so Jennifer agreed to be the one to die. And bang, on the day they were due to be transferred to a lower security hospital, Jennifer suddenly passed away apparently from a rare heart condition. They had been right though. June became considerably less creepy after she stopped being a twin, and went on to live a quiet life with her family. Now if that’s not weird I don’t know what is!’ Andy did a flourish and reached for the jar of money.
‘Not so fast.’ Art grabbed the jar. ‘The way I see it your tale and Jonny’s about our lovely Swedish twins can be explained by psychologists. Mine and Ben’s are just plain spooky. And I reckon my two old guys had a high probability of getting killed cycling on a busy road in a snow blizzard. Daft old buggers. So Ben’s story of the separated twins should win because there is a whole bunch of coincidences that are completely random – marrying women called the same not once but twice and calling their dogs the same and all that.’
Jonny and Andy slumped further down in their chairs and nodded begrudging agreement. Ben picked up the jar and pulled out the money. ‘So. I know you guys are thinking. ‘It’s not fair, the rich kid got the money again.’ So, what the heck . . . I’m such a great guy.’ He turned towards Jonny and grinned. ‘Here you go, brother-in -law, go and see my lovely twin Amy. You take her and my adorable niece out and spoil them rotten.’