Mistaken Identity

I'm always being compared to my Mum, I mean in terms of likeness. Relatives, friends, or comparative strangers - it doesn't really seem to matter. People appear to be readily struck by our supposedly similar looks. Of course, I don't especially see it, but I have grown used to it. You get to know the signs, people's eyes moving back and forth, their lips starting to quiver enthusiastically before confirming their all too familiar insight. Yet one recent encounter took even me by surprise. 

Mum and Dad used to work in a west Devon school. It was over thirty years ago. They were half their present age, as they enjoy reminding me. Then, not long before I changed their lives, they moved away from the west country, and set up home in rural Oxfordshire. They only returned to their former moorland haunts when they retired. Naturally enough, they used to get on well with their former colleagues at the school. One couple still live in the same timeless town, actually in the same house. 

Dad and I usually take Bramble out for an afternoon walk. The particular instance that I'm describing was that rarest of occasions, a dry, autumnal day. We habitually wander along the back lanes towards the western fringes of Dartmoor's National Park. We like the airy feel, the lack of traffic and the same occasional, unhurried faces which we know well. The dog just likes the changing scents and any opportunities to pull hard on the lead. 

On this occasion across our path we unexpectedly encountered a grey saloon car with its boot yawningly wide open. At first, there was apparently nobody about. However, within a few moments Dad's former colleague, Malcolm and his wife Pam, appeared through an adjacent five bar gate, laden with armfuls of firewood which a friend had invited them to take from her field. We stopped, the dog took an interest in the wood for a minute or so, and the exchange ran predictably enough like this,

'Very good to see you. How long has it been?' 

'Malcolm, you look so well. Years...'

'We've been asked to help ourselves. The winds brought down a tree...'

At which point seventy year old Malcolm breezed around the side of the car and warmly enveloped me in an exaggerated hug. The sort you might impulsively find yourself caught up in with a long lost friend or relative who has arrived unexpectedly. Having never met the man before, I was a bit taken aback. I suppose I must have felt rather rigid and unresponsive, a bit like hugging one of those condescending-looking shop mannequins. After the hug, Malcolm immediately turned, while I simply stood rather awkwardly, and then shuffled off a few steps half smiling, half looking away. Dad went on to explain that Malcolm was his former colleague and, more than that, a former teacher of Maths. Their conversation resumed, lamenting the flurry of recent named and anonymous storms, while they verbally inaugurated a former staff reunion. 

The dog impatiently pulled and so after a cheery farewell we headed off towards the western beacons. We heard the car boot quietly slam its supplies inside. 

It was a couple of weeks later that Mum and I were meandering our way into town before an epic bus ride to Plymouth, a trip for which considerable passenger stamina is an essential. Heading up the pavement towards us was the wonderful Marina, another retired teacher, though from a different school, the same friend of Pam and Malcolm who had generously shared her chopped supply of winter logs. She is always jolly, although by her high standards that morning she was exceptionally so.

'I hear that you met Malcolm and Pam! They did make me laugh, describing his acute embarrassment. You see, it was just after he had rounded the side of his car to envelop you, arms outstretched, that it dawned on him he was hugging the wrong woman! He was momentarily transported back over thirty years. After all, you are the spitting image of your Mum all that time ago. Even Pam was surprised how forward her husband was, until afterwards when he confessed his mistake. He must be fifty years older than you, mustn't he? Anyway, they popped in for some tea, having filled their boot. He was the most sheepish I've ever seen him. He was more or less holding his head in his hands, red faced and suitably horrified!'

'Marina, you mustn't worry, I guessed as much. Mum's actually planned my revenge. We'd like to know what you think. You see, next time we bump into them, she wants me to brazenly stroll straight up to Malcolm, and give him the biggest hug and, if the mood takes me, a kiss on the cheek. What do you think?' 

Marina dissolved into fits. Suddenly I felt empowered. Gone were any lingering, self-conscious doubts. And so, emboldened by Marina's endorsement, I am presently biding my time, waiting a little like that firmly wound watch spring, feeling strangely emboldened ahead of the next school staff reunion along the back lanes. In fact, to my surprise, I'm quite looking forward to it!