Double Agent

‘In me didst thou exist – and, in my death, see by this image, which is thine own, how utterly thou hast murdered thyself.’

Edgar Allen Poe, ‘William Wilson’ (1839)

I cannot remember a time when John Johnson was not part of my life or I of his. Our earliest contacts are lost in the mists of memory. Although it is my belief that we met for the first time on the day I started school, it is possible I am mistaken and knew and even played with him before that date. But my first distinct recollection of Johnson is of a tall mousy-haired boy with a broad sallow face and full red lips sauntering into our classroom and – although several desks were empty – seating himself next to me. 

Not a word passed between us. In due course the teacher instructed us to introduce ourselves to one another. It was only then I learned my fellow pupil’s name: John Johnson. The teacher then passed round some paper and told us to draw a typical scene from home. Doubtless the intention was to put us at ease on the first day of our new lives at school by recalling earlier unfettered times. If so, the effect was directly contrary: several children seemed overcome by tender memories and the classroom soon filled with subdued sobbing. 

As for myself, I was – as I have always been – of an active, confident temper, and I immediately applied myself with gusto to the task in hand. I drew an evening scene in our kitchen with my mother bent over the stove, my father reading his paper, my younger sister playing on the floor with her dolls and myself in the centre, my nose as usual buried deep in a book. Pausing, I glanced at the work of my neighbour and was annoyed to see what seemed to be a copy of my own drawing in every detail but executed so wretchedly that it seemed nothing more than a mocking parody of my own work. Particularly grotesque was the central figure – a coarse caricature of my own person. Perceiving that my eye had fallen on his drawing, Johnson turned to me and whispered: ‘I wish I could draw as well as you. Your picture is wonderful.’ I hissed, ‘I cannot say the same of yours. You have simply copied my drawing – and very poorly too.’ Johnson gave that hateful complicit smile I was to come to know so well. ‘Then I have to say I don’t think much of yours either,’ he replied. How strange and absurd, I thought. Although I could not then so express it: how strange and absurd that admiration should be accorded in the expectation of reciprocation and retracted if not forthcoming. But at that point our teacher angrily told us both to be quiet, and there were no further words between us on that occasion. 

Johnson, however, continued to take a seat next to me. We kept pace generally with one another in our studies. We were both sharp-witted boys, assiduous and precociously advanced in our studies. Year after year we dominated the top two places in our class between us, sometimes he ahead of me and sometimes I of him, like two well matched horses running neck-to-neck in a race of stamina that left the rest of the field lagging in the rear. How long that contest was to last, I could not then foresee, nor its dire conclusion. Oddly, despite our physical and academic proximity, we rarely spoke. Words seemed unnecessary: we were both constantly and sensitively aware of one another, as if bound together by some invisible, unbreakable cord.

In due course we both sailed through the examinations enabling us to proceed to a higher school. In the normal course of events I would have gone on to the local grammar school, a respectable though not illustrious institution. However my mother had taken it into her head that I needed to lose what she termed my ‘common’ accent and should be privately educated, and she pursued that ambition with determination and at the cost of no little domestic friction. Relentlessly she badgered my father and – although they were not well-off (he a book keeper and she a cleaner) – the money was somehow found to send me to a small boarding school in the depths of the Dales, an ancient foundation originally established by Quakers. I omit its actual name and location as these details are of no relevance, apart from recording that the school’s almost monastic seclusion in its green bowl of hills, its traditions of open air athleticism and academic endeavour greatly strengthened the development of both my brain and my body. 

However I was astonished on my first day at my new school when, squirming in my new uniform and tie, I spotted Johnson walking by himself at the far edge of a playing field, an unmistakable figure with his lugubrious face and protuberant lips. At once I marched over and demanded to know what he was doing there. I was well aware that his father, being the owner of many mills and factories in the county, had the deep pockets to have sent him to a far more expensive institution. Johnson merely shrugged, muttering that the school’s proximity was convenient and that he would be among people he already knew – although I knew no other pupils from our former school who had taken passage to this particular institution.

So once again our courses ran in parallel, for strangely enough we were both drawn to the study of history. As far as I could I kept him at arm’s length, rarely addressing him and doing my best to ignore him although I was constantly conscious of his presence and profoundly irritated by it. What was particularly galling was that no sooner would I throw myself into some interest than Johnson would also adopt it and often surpass me in his achievements. Equally maddening was that we physically resembled one another, which led many to think us brothers, even twins, and also led to our prep, after being marking, often being handed back indiscriminately between the two of us.

A strong agile boy, I excelled at sports, especially rugby – that being one of the traditions of the school. Unfortunately my exertions served only to sharpen my appetite, and I often found myself suffering severe hunger pangs, particularly in the middle of the night. Substantial though the fare at the school was, it did not suffice to satisfy me. Another of the school’s traditions was that each boy had his own personal cupboard in which to stow small possessions, which as a point of honour were left unlocked – theft being thought inconceivable in an institution that placed such an emphasis on individual conscience. Given my own parents’ poverty my own cupboard was generally lean but those of other boys were much more lavishly furnished. 

One night my hunger was particularly sharp, and I could not stop thinking of the heavy parcel that I had seen Hodgkinson stuffing that morning into his cupboard. I found myself creeping out of bed and racing down the stairs to the cupboard room. There I wrenched Hodgkinson’s cupboard open and tore open his parcel. Greedily I dug my fingers into the moist depths of a fruit cake and began cramming great chunks into my mouth. At that moment light flooded the room and I heard a shout. I turned and sped away as fast as I could through a door at the far end of the room. I made my way back to my bed by another stair and lay there unable to sleep, tortured by forebodings.

Next day the whole school was abuzz. The culprit, if identified, was sure to be severely punished, possibly expelled. Several boys including Johnson were summoned to the headmaster’s study. Quaking, I too awaited the inevitable summons. To my relief and surprise it never came. Instead, shortly afterwards the entire school was called into the assembly hall. Trembling with indignation, the headmaster, thundered at us from the platform. ‘A most disgraceful crime was perpetrated last night, one that violates the values in which this school grounds its very existence. Secretly in the dead of night a boy ransacked the property of another. Fortunately the perpetrator has immediately confessed his guilt. For this reason and this alone I shall not expel the miscreant as I was minded but simply flog him in front of the school. Step forward, John Johnson!’

Punishment was duly delivered, Johnson accepting his strokes without murmur. My mind was a whirl of relief and confusion. Evidently Johnson had taken the whole blame on his shoulders and had never once raised the possibility of mistaken identity or of my being the guilty party. But why?  Astonishment aside, my reaction however was not one of gratitude, rather resentment. His actions merely added to Johnson’s maddening mystery and bound more tightly the hateful bond between us. My rage against him continued to mount until it finally overcame me. 

Given my sporting prowess I had been appointed captain of the school’s First Fifteen. Johnson, though no mean athlete himself, had not attained that degree of distinction. Nevertheless I could not help noticing how hard he had begun to train, devoting hours of his own time to running through the surrounding hill country, practicing on the playing fields and heaving weights in the school gymnasium. Finally his performance improved to such a degree that I had no alternative but to include him in the team. 

A key date on our fixture list was the annual match played against that much more famous school in our vicinity. Generally we entered this contest as underdogs, but our performance had been so impressive that year that the outcome could not be predicted. The headmaster issued the equivalent of a three-line whip to attend, and on the day a cheering mass of boys, teachers, governors, parents, former pupils and local worthies crowded the touch-line. How clearly the sensations of that afternoon stand out in my memory: our panting gasps feathering the chill northern air, the slap of the ball against our bodies, the smell and damp clamminess of the mud dripping from our shins. 

But for some reason I felt unusually out of sorts on that day. The ball, slimed with mud, slithered repeatedly from between my fingers, and I failed to achieve a single try even when easy opportunities opened up. But as my star sank, Johnson’s rose. We were lagging well behind in the second half when he seized the ball and scored spectacularly, then proceeded to score several more, converting each with triumphant ease. I meanwhile hung back in the rear, glowering at my victorious rival. My opportunity came when in the course of a scrimmage Johnson fell winded to the ground. As I lumbered leadenly up from the rear of the field I realized that, with play continuing, the faces of all the players were now fixed forward. Pretending to stumble, I stamped down with all my might on the angle of his leg. I heard a distinct crack and a simultaneous gasp of pain from Johnson. Writhing in agony, he eventually attracted the attention of the referees, play was suspended, and he was lifted on to a stretcher and carried off the field. As he was borne away I remember he turned his face towards me, and once again I recognized that familiar hateful smile of his – mingling contempt with something might almost be characterized as compassion. 

Johnson was absent from school for a long time in hospital and thereafter convalescing. The structures of his knee had been severely damaged and, despite the surgeons’ skills, he never fully recovered, walking thereafter with a slight limp, frequently having recourse to a cane and always, I believe, suffering some degree of pain. Yet in fairness I must record that no hint of accusation ever passed his lips. He continued stoutly to maintain that the incident was nothing more than an unfortunate accident. I however knew otherwise and was fully aware that I had behaved both meanly and vindictively.

When Johnson eventually returned to school I saw much less of him. His absence seemed to have diverted our once parallel trajectories. While the arc of my career rose, his – whether on account of the injury or some other cause – was correspondingly depressed. I went on in my seventh term to win a scholarship to read history at Oxford while he, having enjoyed only indifferent success in his final examinations, left to pursue a fashionable – but to my mind scholastically questionable – interdisciplinary course at one of the then loudly trumpeted new universities. I lost sight of him, and I must admit that his disappearance brought with it a powerful sense of relief.

Oxford was my making. I plunged avidly into the life of the university, going to parties, joining clubs and societies, rowing, speaking at the Union and running with the college beagles. To support my expenses my parents sent me regular generous remittances. In due course I easily took a First in my Finals, was successful in winning one of the coveted research fellowships at All Souls and shortly thereafter a full fellowship at —- College.

The morning the announcement was published in The Times I strolled into that unofficial Oxford common room, The King’s Arms, carefully registering the range and depth of nods levelled in my direction. Then a thunderbolt hit me: sat behind a glass of beer, his cane at his side and smiling that hateful smile, was none other than John Johnson. In my triumphs I had almost completely forgotten his existence but once again my old nemesis had mysteriously re-surfaced!

Concealing my dismay as best I could, I went over and feigning carelessness enquired what had brought him to Oxford. He too had done well at his university, Johnson told me, had taken a First and stayed on to do research. By chance he had stumbled across an unworked seam of coroners’ records and, mining these, he had published an account of the savage daily struggle for survival in eighteenth and nineteenth century London. Although it had not come to my notice, the book had apparently been well received, and he had been offered a junior lectureship at Oxford, albeit at —-, one of its less historic and distinguished colleges. 

I was, I must admit, greatly disconcerted by Johnson’s sudden re-emergence into my life but decided it was no great matter. I was still safely ahead of my former rival and in no danger of being overtaken. Indeed I could afford to extend the hand, if not of friendship, then of superficial reconciliation. It so happened that very evening I had been invited to a rather grand party in one of the tall grey houses that line Merton Street. It was an event that at all costs I was determined not to miss: prominent members of the university would be present at the event, at which a young lion’s mane would have ample opportunity to glisten at its most lustrous. At that time I was seeing a great deal of Eileen Underhill, a pretty, sharp-tongued girl who was a graduate student working on some obscure area of the history of medicine. As Eileen was eminently presentable I had already asked her to accompany me. Making something of a joke of it, I described Johnson’s sudden re-emergence to Eileen and suggested he join us. To my surprise she leapt at the idea. She had already heard of Johnson’s book, indeed had made a point of seeking out and reading his publications. So in a show of generosity I extended an invitation to Johnson, which he smilingly accepted.

The party duly delivered on all its glittering promise, and you can be sure I made the most of the opportunities to put myself about. Contacts and sources are, after all, the life-blood of any historian! As I flitted from group to group I occasionally caught sight of Eileen and Johnson engaged in earnest conversation in a corner, apparently utterly absorbed in one another, but as I was otherwise preoccupied I gave the matter no thought. Just before nine Eileen stumped up to me and announced that she was leaving.

‘Leaving? Whatever for? I am not yet ready to go. You must be patient and wait.’

‘Oh, don’t give me that, Adrian. I’m off. But there’s no need for you to go too. John is going to see me home.’

‘Whatever are you thinking of, Eileen? Really, this is too much. We had an arrangement: you came with me, you leave with me.’

‘With you! It’s always with you, isn’t it? Everyone has to be at your beck and call. Well, I’ve no desire to bask in your reflected glory for a moment longer,’

‘But why Johnson of all people?’ The man’s a complete nonentity.’

‘Oh no, he’s not, Adrian. But he’s not like you. He doesn’t always want to be in the limelight. He’s sensitive, he watches and he listens. He pays attention. You never pay attention.’

I was flabbergasted. Never pay attention – I who paid the most sensitive heed to the tiniest archival detail!

‘You’re utterly self- absorbed – blind to reality,’ she added, ‘You don’t even see what’s going on right under your nose.’

With that Eileen turned on her heel and strode back to Johnson who was already waiting by the door, cane in hand. They left, and as he closed the door behind them he flashed in my direction one of his familiar hateful smiles. Then there was only the tip-tap of his stick descending down the street. 

Of course for me the party was ruined. I was no longer in any mood for polite chit-chat and stormed back to my rooms in high dudgeon. Admittedly, I had little claim on Eileen: we had only just started seeing one another. And, truth to tell, there were plenty more candidates for my attention. But that wasn’t the point. Johnson had taken advantage of my invitation to humiliate me, probably to avenge the injury that I had inflicted on him. One part of me wanted to have nothing more to do with either of them, another to track them both down relentlessly and exact a savage revenge – although I knew not how. Time, however, was to provide opportunity, for our careers, as before during our schooldays, once again resumed their parallel courses.

The mirror game between Johnson and myself, though, was conducted thereafter at a remove, for Johnson not long after betook himself to the Fens, having obtained a fellowship at Cambridge. Sometime later I also heard that Johnson and Eileen had married but by that time I had marital fish of my own to fry. I was wooing – and eventually won the hand of – Lady Arabella Fitzherbert, a woman distinguished as much for her taste and beauty as her wealth and lineage. Though perhaps not of the same intellectual calibre as Eileen, Arabella was herself something of an amateur historian and indeed at my prompting later published Hound on Hearth: A Short History of the English and Their Dogs, a slim and beautifully illustrated volume that graces the shelves of many a country house.

As for myself, I re-applied myself energetically to the early modern period and two years later published my Rise and Fall in the Age of the Tudors. Regrettably, such was the scope of my argument, the mass of evidence I had to cover and the speed with which I worked that a tiny number of insignificant statistical errors remained in the text, none of which however significantly undermined the soundness of my argument. Johnson, though, made great play with these in a captious and hostile review. Subsequently he brought out his own Family and Fortune in Elizabethan England, which I in turn comprehensively demolished in the same journal. Although forced to tone down my review by the editors of the journal, it is cited to this day as a classic of forensic dissection.

For some time I had heard rumours that my old undergraduate tutor acted as an unofficial dragnet for the secret services, discreetly recruiting suitable candidates from among his pupils. No doubt discerning that my ambitions were solely academic, he had made no approach to me – something which I had perversely resented. But when he died I was to my surprise summoned to an office in Whitehall and invited to take over his role – an invitation I found most gratifying and, given my historical interest in connections and concealed motives, was delighted to accept.

By this time I had decided to switch my focus to more modern times and, taking full advantage of my new position and the contacts it brought my way, I wrote Single Spies, a definitive account of the Burgess and Maclean affair. Given my relationship with the powers that be, securing official clearance was no obstacle, and the book duly appeared. It ignited no little controversy – and consequently large sales – on account of its identification of the spies’ treachery with the ultra-liberal, free thinking and largely homosexual Cambridge world of the Apostles, Kings, Forster, Keynes and the ‘Bloomsberries’ and their prizing of individual values and relationships over duty to King and Country. However the following year I was greatly piqued to see that Johnson – again as if in mocking imitation – had brought out The Battle for the Bomb, a not unfriendly account of the activities of the communist sympathisers like Fuchs who had leaked atomic secrets to the Soviets in the wake of Hiroshima.

It was around this time that Oxford’s Regius Chair in Modern History fell vacant due to the death of its occupant, dear old Arblaster. I was determined by hook or by crook to grasp this glittering prize, though I realized I would have to play a long and devious game. Nominally in the gift of the Sovereign, the Regius is of course in that of the Prime Minister or rather his or her advisors. To push oneself forward too aggressively would be automatically to disqualify oneself, and I need not describe the delicate manoeuvres that were called for – not least because they were subsequently revealed in regrettably accurate detail in a Spectator article, ‘The rise and rise of Mrs Thatcher’s court historian’. 

Johnson by this time had also been elected to a chair at Cambridge, an elevation which I was in no position to check. However I did have the satisfaction of blocking his election to a British Academy Fellowship (an honour to which I myself had been elected several years before), arguing rather speciously that we were overstocked with historians such as myself in the early modern period and should unselfishly make way for specialists in other centuries.

I now decided to try my hand at the sort of ‘big picture’ approach pursued – though to my mind to little effect by others of my colleagues and so once again put my rival firmly behind me. I had already been invited to give a series of lectures at one of the American Ivy League institutions. In them I decided to focus on four transitional moments in world history. I preen myself not only on the scope of these lectures but also the opportunity they offered to highlight the largely overlooked workings of coincidence and chance connection in the historical process – something which has always fascinated me. I eventually worked the lectures into book, The Four Pivots. Sadly, the imagination of the reviewers did not match the ambition of my theme. One roundly condemned it as ‘a bundle of ill-matched and mostly broken reeds’. This hostile and entirely unfair reaction, I am sad to report, was widespread. Johnson’s riposte – a feeble one in my view – was his From Columbus to Kabul: the Expansion and Contraction of Western Power.Annoyingly its publication coincided with the financial crash and the surge of interest in the rise of China and the East. His book not only garnered a sheaf of prizes but to my chagrin was reputed to sit on the bedside tables of several presidents and prime ministers.

This set-back apart, I felt I had now reached I felt the zenith of my career and now able to assess it, as it were, in extenso. I believed that it represented a contribution as notable for its eclecticism as for its depth. But I was dismayed to learn via roundabout hints and whispers that this view was not widely shared. The common judgement, I was furious to hear, was that, for all the superficial glitter and drama of my career, I had failed of my early promise, frittered away my talents and never delivered the really solid scholarly works that had been expected from me. Carefully unravelling the web of threads behind these views I found that at their centre, as I suspected, lurked a single sinister spider: John Johnson.

I resolved to meet his campaign of denigration head-on and to repulse it, as I had done all previous threats and challenges in my life, by dint of application and will. Since I was now approaching retirement I decided to devote myself to one last project. I had in mind a demanding multi-volume work whose execution would carry me to the uttermost edge of my life. Entitled from Mastery to Maturity: Superpower and its Sequels, it would study the impact on nations of losing their leading positions  and how they accommodate themselves politically, socially and psychologically to that loss. Straddling borders, centuries and disciplines, it would examine the post-great power courses of the British Empire, France, Germany, Japan and Russia, and, stretching even further back, Spain, Holland and Sweden. I would bring the analysis up-to-date with a critique of the waning of American power. With this swansong I intended to trump comprehensively the achievements of Professor John Johnson. 

Thanks to Arabella’s resources (for the cost of such a property, alas, far exceeded a professorial pension) I was able to acquire an extensive and sequestered property on the slopes of Boars Hill – that comfortable semi-rural retreat southwest of Oxford – where I could devote myself undisturbed to my work while also remaining within easy reach of my coign of vantage in the Bodleian Library. Months passed in the deep green quietude of my new surroundings as I worked steadily away in pursuit of my grand plan. Bella for her part had acquired a horse which she stabled at a nearby farm and rode most days on the Berkshire Downs or – travelling with her new horsebox – even further afield. Imagine then my consternation one morning I casually scooped up the mound of letters and leaflets on the hall mat and my eye fell on a circular from the local residents association announcing its new chairman: one Professor John Johnson, late of Cambridge!

This was truly alarming. Would I never be free of this wretched man! I had so far held myself somewhat aloof from involvement with my neighbours, nevertheless intending at some point to enter more actively into the life of the suburb. That was clearly now out of the question. In the weeks that followed a veritable confetti of notifications and invitations, all of them bearing the name of my hated rival, showered through my letterbox.In the face of this siege I mewed myself up ever more closely amid my books. Nevertheless for health’s sake I forced myself to sally forth for a daily constitutional along the leafy lanes that crisscross the Hill. But even these gentle jaunts soon assumed the character of tense reconnaissances. No sooner would I head down one of my favourite haunts than I would hear the dread tapping of Johnson’s cane in the distance and have to conceal myself in one of the dense shrubberies that fortunately abound in the neighbourhood, crouching there until the awful sound receded. 

Nonetheless I refused to be intimidated. I pride myself that I have always defined myself by resisting adversity, and I re-applied myself to my studies ever more feverishly. One morning I experienced a particular surge of energy. I was now old, true but hale and tested, strong in will and in accumulated knowledge and experience. The world and all its prizes still lay before me. Buoyed by this feeling I left the house and made off in the direction of Jarn Mound, the local folly erected by that arch-charlatan of Cretan archeology, Arthur Evans. 

Through time and weather the stairs leading to the summit of that monument have fallen into the earthen walls of the mound. Their massive slabs, now slanted at a difficult angle and, made slippery with rain, were treacherous to attempt. Nevertheless I leapt up them, hatching plans and projects in my mind the while. Having gained the summit, braced by the March winds that were buffeting the clouds along, I surveyed the great metal dial at the top with its pointers to the great cities of the earth, and the sense of power redoubled within me, all the more intense for my lofty isolation. I saw myself as an aged but still mighty eagle perched on a remote crag gazing down on its realms and readying its pinions once more to pounce on its prey below.

But in the midst of these transports a fearful sound broke on my ear: the tip-tap of a cane. Faint at first, it steadily grew more distinct. My retreat, I realized to my horror, was cut off. Johnson was already climbing the stairs. The prospect of coming face-to-face in this narrow circle was intolerable, and I at once began to rush frantically down the steps, glimpsing below me Johnson’s upturned face, gleaming wetly in malicious triumph. Wordlessly, I thrust past him. But as I did he raised his cane, whether in threat or ironic salutation I do not know, and without thinking I instinctively threw up my own arm to ward off a possible blow. Our limbs collided, and reeling from the impact Johnson slipped and lost his footing. For what seemed an eternity he teetered back and forth on the step, seeming almost to float suspended in the air. I had only to stretch out my arm to steady him but I did not. Then with a hoarse cry Johnson toppled back and fell bouncing heavily down the steps, landing headfirst with a sickening crack at their foot. 

Stunned by this turn of events, I rushed down and knelt over him. Blood was streaming from a gash in his scalp and from his mouth. Nevertheless his eyes locked on to mine and he seemed to be struggling to say something. I bent closer to try to catch his words but all I could make out was: ‘Another, other’. What on earth could the man mean? But I could pay his words no further attention, for at that moment a gush of blood spurted from his mouth, his eyes rolled and he shuddered violently and then was still. Try as I might thereafter, I could detect no breath or pulse.

Straddling Johnson’s lifeless body I immediately realized my own peril. I could well be facing a charge of manslaughter, perhaps even murder. The thought filled me with horror. Even if cleared, my name would be stained ineradicably by the scandal. At once I decided not to mention the physical contact between us, simply say that I had heard Johnson approach and fall, and had at once run down to see if I could assist him. My decision made, I ran to the nearest house and asked its occupants to call the emergency services. As I expected, I had to face some tough questioning, but I stuck undeviatingly to my version of events. I was lucky too in that there were no witnesses to our final fatal encounter. Eventually, and to my great relief, the coroner brought in a verdict of death by misadventure.

Nevertheless my reputation did not escape entirely unscathed. The antipathy between me and Johnson was well known, and my presence at his demise seemed, to say the least, a most unusual coincidence. I do not doubt that many donnish heads were shaken behind common room panels and over high tables. It did not escape my notice that on the rare subsequent occasions I ventured into Oxford I encountered dark glances and that whenever I entered a room it would quickly empty. Our circle of friends – never large – now fell quite away. Arabella, though, still had her horse.

Six months after Johnson’s death as I was working in my study one morning the doorbell chimed. On the doorstep was Eileen Johnson, older, greyer but still recognizably herself, standing with her lips whitely compressed.

‘Eileen, do come in,’ I blurted. ‘And please accept my sympathy and my apologies for not having contacted you before now to offer my condolences.’

‘Save your speeches, Adrian.’ she snapped. It was clear Eileen had not lost any of her old tartness of tongue. She shot me a hard look. ‘I don’t know what really happened on Jarn Mound and I doubt I will ever find out – especially from you. But that is not why I have come. I have a letter to deliver to you from John. I found it among his papers after his death together with a covering note asking that it be passed to you in the event of his death. I haven’t opened it but I have a fair idea what it’s about – John put me in the picture long ago. But you read it and find out for yourself!’

She dug into her handbag, pulled out a sealed white envelope and handed it to me. With that she turned on her heel and stormed off. I retired to my study and placed it carefully on the mantelpiece where it perched accusingly for several hours until I could stand the suspense no longer and snatched the envelope and tore it open. 

‘My dearest Adrian,’ the letter began.

If you are reading this it will mean that I have not succeeded in the purpose which brought me to Boars Hill and which indeed has propelled me throughout my life.

Let me explain. Nearly seventy years ago a young married woman – your own mother, Mrs Temple – was working in an office in one of the factories belonging to my – I should write our – father, Joseph Johnson. There they met, one thing led to another, they had a brief affair and she became pregnant. In due course she gave birth to twins – you and me. By this time the affair was over, and she made a clean breast of things to her husband. Mr Temple – who must have been a man of considerable understanding and forbearance – accepted the situation, forgave her and undertook to bring up the two boys as his own. So matters might have rested.

However a difficulty arose. Johnson was determined to bring up the boys himself and approached the couple in the hope of persuading them to allow him to adopt the twins. At first the Temples refused but he persisted, pointing to the greater advantages in life the boys would enjoy as his adopted sons and holding out the additional inducement of generous financial support for the Temples should they accept his proposal. In time he won them over, and an accommodation was reached: one of the boys he would adopt– me – while the other – you the Temples would keep and raise you as their son. Under the terms of the agreement Joseph undertook to support your education generously – which indeed he did both while you were at school and later at Oxford. It was decided that the arrangement would be kept as secret as possible and that to do so my father would fund your parents’ moving to Johnson’s own home town where they were not known. Above all, it was accepted by both sides that neither boy should be told the truth of the situation.

Time passed, and as it did old Johnson, who – whatever his lapses – was a deeply pious man, became increasingly agitated about the pretence to which he had consented. Eventually, the strain proved too much and he broke down and confessed the truth to me. Having done so – and out of concern for the Temples – he made me swear most solemnly never to disclose it. He further laid on me the duty of watching over you, making sure that you came to no harm and providing guidance and, if need be, correction for any faults that might develop in your nature, for he was deeply conscious of his own shortcomings and greatly dreaded your inheriting their seeds.

The promises which old Johnson extracted from me I have faithfully tried to keep and I might have been assisted in this by the fact that our academic interests developed in the same direction, had you not misinterpreted my motives and conduct and responded with coldness and indeed hostility. However, as time passed and especially after old Mr Johnson and the Temples died, I too became uneasy about the pretence into which I had been forced, feeling not only that it was wrong of me to keep you in a state of ignorance but also that it was in some degree warping my own character. I resolved to make the truth known to you. In part I hoped that the revelation would help dispel the enmity that had sprung up between us and that seemed to deepen with the years.

But when? I felt such a momentous disclosure could only be made face-to-face, and it was with the intention of securing such an opportunity that I decided to retire to your neighbourhood. Sadly, if you are reading these lines, it will mean that I have gone to my death without fulfilling this goal, and this letter will have to serve, however belatedly, to make the true facts of our relationship known to you. If this proves the case, then all I can do is assure you of my deepest regret and of my hope that these revelations, however painful in the reading, will engender a spirit of lasting understanding and forgiveness. 

Your loving brother,

John Temple-Johnson

The letter dropped from between my fingers. Its truth could not be doubted: our close physical similarity, the strange psychic bond I felt with Johnson, the mysterious funding of my education: all these served to bear it out. I found myself sobbing bitterly. Then I felt a terrible chill. The meaning of his final gurgled words dawned on me: he not been meaning to say ‘Another, other!’, but trying to say ‘I am your brother!’ In his very last moments Johnson had been trying to reach out to me. My twin and only brother! I had spurned him all those years and now would never have the chance to make amends. He was dead. Worse, I had been the agent of his death. The mark of Cain was upon me. I thought of writing to Eileen or of going to see her, but what could that achieve? What could I possibly write or say to her without disclosing the grim truth of the events on Jarn Mound that day? Nor, I vowed, would I – could I – ever speak of the incident to Arabella. I crumpled the letter and threw it on the fire. Then I shut up my books and put them away – for good. That which before had seemed so vital and all-important now seemed utterly pointless. I walked out to Jarn Mound and climbed it for one last time, looking down from the summit as the autumn dusk descended and wrapped me in its embrace.

*

Many weary years have passed since these events. I have utterly given up my schemes of research and publication. I no longer have the energy for them or, more importantly, the will. Now I never leave the house and I shun every living thing, even Arabella – who mostly keeps to her own rooms. Sometimes we glide past one another in the corridors and the kitchen like silent ghosts. The house itself is steadily sinking into dilapidation. But that means nothing to me. I have no doubt my end draws near, for such a shuttered and shuddering existence can hardly be long endured.My spirit has been broken. I start at every sound and every passing shape. I am but a faded palimpsest of my old self. How odd that when one copy is destroyed the original should also lose its force!

One question, though, still torments me: was Johnson entirely driven throughout by brotherly affection and solicitude as his letter claimed, or was his behavior at least in part a programme of persecution? Even if his intention had originally been benign, had it in time been twisted and perverted by envy? These are riddles to which, however hard I ponder them, I cannot find answers and doubtless they will accompany me to my grave. In death, as in life, I fear I shall never be free of the shade of John Johnson and his long and enigmatic embrace.