Cockatoo Pt. 01

I stood there not sure what to do. At that moment a very pretty Thai girl emerged from the back of the bar and with both hands together in a Wai, bowed and greeted me with Sawasdee Ka. Saswadee Krab, I replied and returned the Wai as I had been taught to do since arriving in Thailand. She smiled and asked in very good English if I were here to meet Alex. I smiled because she had pegged me as English straightaway. I said yes, my name's James.

Please follow me she said and led me to the back of the back of the bar and through a door behind the bar area. There was a bank of closed circuit TVs showing the bar and some other rooms. I guessed she had watched me enter and then came out to greet me. She was wearing a beautiful long dark blue silk dress in traditional Thai style and she moved with the grace and poise of someone who had been taught how to walk properly. She led me along a corridor and knocked at a door. Come in I heard from inside and she opened the door and allowed me to enter first.

I walked through the door and standing up from behind a desk and smiling broadly was a tall, very attractive blonde woman.

I must have looked very confused and said, 'I'm so sorry, I thought Alex was in here, I'm here to meet him.'

'James, it's me, Alex,' she had stopped a few feet from me and held out her arms. 'It's really great to see you here.'

'No, I mean, Alex, Alex Hassall, is he here?' I was beginning to feel a complete fool as obviously there had been a huge mistake here.

'James, it really is me, Alex Hassall, Class of '09, we shared a house on the Grimthorpe Road, remember?'

'No, no, it can't be. But you're a woman. It's not possible.' I began to think I was hallucinating. Was I ill?

'James, come and sit down, you look a little pale.' She moved forwards and took my arm and moved me to a chair and I sat down with a bump. My head was reeling and I felt as if I was going to faint. I must be ill.

'Do you want some water? Or something stronger, maybe?' She squatted down next to me and I could look straight into her eyes. It was then that I suddenly noticed something oddly familiar.

'You've got Alex's eye. Oh my God, it is you,' I squawked. Alex's eyes were hazel but in his right one there had always been a small dark brown quadrant in the cornea. It was genetic and only noticeable if you looked directly into the eye.

'I mean, you have the same thing in your eye as Alex,' I was babbling now.

'James, that would be entirely, natural, I think, as it is me.' She smiled even more broadly.

'How? I mean what's happened? How is this possible?'

She pulled her long blonde hair back from her face and it was then that the penny dropped. Everyone had said that Alex was good looking back at Uni and many of the girls had even said he looked quite pretty. As she held her hair back I could see that it was unmistakably Alex's face looking back at me.

'Oh my God,' I couldn't think of anything more original to say, 'It is you.'