The Tale of the Too Close Twins

*

As it turned out, my pre-Christmas wish for 1989 came true and much sooner than I anticipated. By Friday, Shane, Karen and I were working hard at the discount store, all three of us wearing the white shirts and black trousers of the staff uniform, plus red Santa hats for the festive season, me showing them the ropes. Although this didn't take too long, with the twins having worked at the same brand of store back in Newcastle, plus Shane and Karen were quick learners.

Yesterday two guys had been fired. One was a surly slack boy who was on his last warning for being rude to customers, telling a woman to 'get stuffed'. The other was a much stranger case where one of the university-age guys who always seemed kind of creepy had been busted taking female underwear home with him overnight. Needing plenty of staff to cover the busy holiday period, and with Shane and Karen's resumes arriving just yesterday, the store managers hastily interviewed them and they were ready to go the next day.

We enjoyed working together and I went home with them after a Saturday morning shift, Shane, Karen and I relaxing by playing with their Atari games console, the twins having some great video games I had never played before. I got to meet the family's pet cat and dog, and then Shane and Karen's parents, Betty and Ray. Mr. and Mrs. Jones were as nice as their teenage son and daughter, a really pleasant family all around.

Christmas Day 1989 came and went. I didn't see Shane or Karen that day, they had gone to have lunch with their parents to Newcastle, but they were back in Sydney the next morning for Boxing Day and we made our way into the city to watch the start of the Sydney to Hobart Yacht race, while listening to the first day of the Boxing Day cricket test at the MCG down in Melbourne on Karen's portable radio. It was a beautiful sunny day, the choppy blue waters of Sydney Harbour reflecting the sunlight. We were among the crowds at Circular Quay not far from the Opera House, the Sydney Harbour Bridge in all its glory dominating the scenery to the West, while behind as the Sydney city skyline dominated the views to the South, the distinctive Sydney Tower higher than all the skyscrapers.

Lots of people were out and about for the start of the race, other crowds filling the Domain, the North Shore across the water and on Goat Island, before the yachts set off at 1pm, going out of Sydney Heads and into the Pacific Ocean to Tasmania, the rough waters of Bass Strait a formidable opponent.

"I'm glad I'm not on one of those yachts, I get seasick," Karen said.

"We're all glad you aren't Karen," said Shane. He turned to me and laughed. "You know last year Karen got sick on our Uncle's boat on Lake Macquarie? It was flat calm, but there's my sister as white as a ghost sitting in a chair, throwing up her guts into a bucket."

"You're kidding?" I asked.

Karen was unable to stop herself laughing as she protested. "Hey, that's not funny. I was really sick that day. I think it might have been something I ate rather than actual sea-sickness."

"It wasn't very pleasant for me either, remember I had to share your nausea too," Shane reminded his sister.

"Oh yes, of course, I was forgetting that," said Karen. "But I've had nausea before when I wasn't sick and you were throwing up."

I was puzzled. "So you can feel if each other is sick, or injured? I thought that was normally only for identical twins?"

Shane nodded. "Yes. It sounds far-fetched, but yes, and it can affect fraternal twins."

Karen put her mischievous smile on her pretty face. "Like when last year Shane was showing off on his skateboard to impress his friends, fell off and hit his head and had to be carted off in an ambulance. I had no idea what had happened, but I suddenly got this almighty headache from out of nowhere."

"Another time was when Karen and all the other girls had to go for their rubella shots a few years back," said Shane. "I was in class with the rest of the boys, when I felt this really sharp sting in my upper arm, like I'd been stung by a wasp. It was at the exact moment Karen had her injection."

"That's amazing," I said, very much impressed as we walked around the Sydney Opera House admiring the views before heading home. "So this happens every time one of you hurts yourself or gets sick?"

Karen nodded. "Yes, except of course for the one thing that only affects me every four weeks, which is something guys don't like to talk about so I think its best I shut up."

"Good advice, Karen," Shane quipped, his sister sticking out her tongue and giving her twin a good-natured push.

At work the next day - things busy due to sales between Christmas and New Year - marked a week since I met Shane and Karen, and it was fun working with the twins and their playful banter, the Wednesday flying by. Thursday was another busy day but unremarkable until we were on our lunch break and heard some terrible news.

Up in Newcastle, a powerful earthquake struck the steel city mid-morning, causing a fair amount of damage all along Hunter Street and throughout the CBD. The worst damage at a worker's club which was completely destroyed. Upon hearing the news on TV in the staff room, Karen's big blue eyes began to well up, and she burst into tears, sobbing that their grandparents were members of the club and at Christmas had expressly said they planned to visit today for the birthday of one of their friends.

Shane had taken his distraught sister in his arms, sitting Karen down and getting her some tissues to use and holding her as she cried, reassuring her that he was sure their grandparents were safe and well. It was really touching to see a brother putting aside his own worries to reassure his upset sister, and with the distressed state Karen was in, the manager gave him her permission to take her home.

Fortunately nothing bad happened to Shane and Karen's grandparents - the birthday party had been cancelled when the guy whose birthday it was and his wife got food poisoning so they had gone on a picnic near the Hunter River instead - so Karen was back to her usual bubbly self for New Year's.

We went to Sydney's famed New Year's Eve fireworks display as the year of 1989 changed to the year 1990 and the decade of the 1980s was consigned to the past and a brand new decade - the 1990s - took its place.

Throughout that wonderful summer I enjoyed spending time with my new friends Shane and Karen, and introduced them to my existing circle of friends from high school, the two young Novocastrians proving popular with them and fitting in well by the time school went back in late January.

Our friends were very impressed by Shane and Karen's twin telepathy, but while I had to admit that they did seem to sense and feel things about each other, I wasn't totally sold on telepathy in general.

"Come home with us, and we'll prove it to you, Andrew," said Karen one afternoon after we got off the bus after high school finished for the day.

"Okay, I said, going into the house with Karen and Shane, where Karen took a pack of playing cards and shuffled them.

"Be prepared to be amazed," said Shane, as he sat on a chair across the room from Karen, me sitting beside her.

Karen drew a card from the pack, so she and I could see it but her brother could not. It was the Three of Spades, and Shane immediately said, "Three of Spades."

"Correct," said Karen, holding up the card and drawing another one.

"Nine of Diamonds," said Shane. This time he wasn't right, but he was very close, the card Karen drew was the Nine of Hearts. A similar thing happened with the next card, Shane guessing that his sister held the Ace of Spades, when she had the Ace of Clubs, and the next time Karen had the Six of Hearts, Shane saying she held the Five of Hearts, again very close, before Shane correctly guessed that Karen had a Joker in her fingers.

All the time I looked for trickery between the siblings, such as Karen discretely showing her fingers to reveal the card value to Shane, a mirror so her brother could see the card's reflection or her mouthing the answer and him lip-reading but there was no evidence of this.

"Okay, you two are counting cards," I said uncertainly, after Shane guessed three cards correctly in a row.

"No, definitely not," Karen assured me, shuffling the deck and her brother's hot streak continued when he guessed correctly his twin held the Queen of Hearts.

This was amazing, and when Karen and Shane swapped places so he would draw the cards and Karen would guess what he was holding, her accuracy was just as good as her brother's. Again there was no visible trickery by the twins, and Shane like his sister shuffled the deck every few minutes to eliminate the possibility they were counting cards.

At least 60 percent of the time the brother and sister could guess which card the other was holding exactly right, and most other times they were close, like a card of the same rank - most usually the same color suit - or very close, like the Six of Clubs instead of the Nine of Clubs. Occasionally they would bomb out and be completely wrong, but this was rare.

However, when we changed things around so I drew the cards, Shane or Karen could only guess which card I had drawn or get close if one of them was next to me; if the brother or sister moved away then their twin could not guess correctly. And when it was my turn to guess the cards drawn by Shane or Karen I was absolutely hopeless. I got none of them right and only once was I close, guessing that Karen had drawn the Jack of Diamonds when she in fact drew the Jack of Spades. It wasn't even the right color.

During the year I also got to see the way the twins could feel each other's pain. One Friday afternoon Karen was playing netball with the girls at school, when she fell and hurt her right ankle. It wasn't serious, just a minor injury to be treated with an ice-pack, but at that moment Shane and I were on the adjacent football field training for Rugby League, and Shane got a sharp pain in his own right ankle, with no means of him being injured at that moment.

Then a few weeks later Karen and I were in calculus class together while Shane was having one of his teeth filled at the dentist. The whole time her brother was in the chair, Karen squirmed in her own chair at school, in discomfort in her mouth from what was happening to her brother. It was distracting and the teacher asked Karen what the problem was. To avoid further distraction and embarrassment, Karen said she needed to use the toilet and asked for the lavatory pass, only returning after her brother finished his dental appointment.

All in all, 1990 was a great year and a significant part of this due to my new friendship with Shane and Karen. I was so pleased I met them last Christmas and that they had become part of my friendship group at school, everyone seemed to love them and it was like they had been at our school all along.

Year 11 was of course had its challenges; there was a lot of study to be done and fitted in around our part time jobs and chores at home, but we worked hard and made it work, and there was a lot of fun to be had as well. Like most active teenagers, we played sports, went to the movies, games arcades and sporting matches, spent time with friends and went to the beach.

And living in Sydney, we were spoiled for choice in this regard. Being from Sydney's north, we mainly went to Manly or Dee Why, but other times would travel to Bondi in Sydney's eastern suburbs, or if we felt like making a day of it, to Cronulla in Sydney's south. Not to mention getting our driver's licenses, which Karen, Shane and I attained early in the year.

It was actually quite funny when we were still learning to drive, I was with Shane and Mr. Jones at their house helping them with some pruning when Karen returned home with Mrs. Jones having had some driving lessons, L plates displayed on the car. Shane had feigned horror and terror at his sister driving, running away and climbing a ladder to escape, all of us having a good laugh, Shane a natural at comedy.

With regards to the year 1990, the adage about time flying when one is having fun definitely applied, and before I knew it Year 11 was finished and Shane, Karen and I were working hard in the lead-up to Christmas, in our black and white shop uniforms and wearing red and white Santa hats dealing with the busy crowds flocking in for Christmas shopping.

In a rare quiet moment, I reflected that it was now exactly a year since I had met Shane and Karen. While I still had a crush on Karen, I could see that she saw me as a friend, and asking her out on a date would be a really bad idea, so I thought it best to keep my thoughts to myself and not say anything to anyone, which I did accordingly. Whether Karen knew about my feelings for her I could not say, it was best not to go there.

I also thought about the upcoming year 1991, Year 12, the year we would complete our HSC and graduate high school. What sort of year would 1991 be? My optimistic side told me it would be as good as 1990, and maybe even better. I had not the slightest clue about what really lay ahead for me in the coming year.

*

In the past, I had taken pride in the fact that I had been able to sense something wrong was about several people, and my suspicions proven right. One was an older woman who had moved to our street with her granddaughter and grandson of whom she had guardianship. She appeared to be a kindly grandmother and nice neighbor and people liked her, but something about the woman just set my teeth on edge.

Some months later, I came home from school to see police and child protective services at the house. It turned out not only did this woman not have legal custody of her grandson and granddaughter and had taken them from her daughter by force and blackmail, she was spending the child support payments on gambling and behind doors inflicting terrible abuse on the kids, such as hidings with a belt, holding their heads underwater and locking them in cupboards and dark rooms for hours on end.

Several years after this in my later years at primary school, we had ballroom dance classes introduced and they were mandatory. I thought it would be a lot of fun to learn ballroom dancing and eagerly anticipated the classes. However, I was to be disappointed when I met the dance teacher, an instructor who came from a local dance academy.

A man clearly gay by his effeminate demeanor and speech patterns, he was cutting, sarcastic and rude to students who were not picking up the steps as fast as he wanted, such as me. Mostly he was rude to the boys and more positive with the girls who took his classes more seriously, although this could be altered. He told an overweight girl already lacking confidence that if she didn't lose weight then she would spend her life being useless at everything not just dancing, reducing her to tears.

The boys including myself derided the despised dance classes in the playground, and making fun of and impersonating the instructor and referring to him in terms of endearment such as 'poofter', 'faggot', 'homo', 'fairy', 'gay-lord', 'pansy' and 'woos'. However, I just sensed that something was off about this mincing sissy, and that behind the homosexual masquerade lurked something far more sinister.

When my cousin Jodie, a year older than me told me one day that the instructor had said she had amazing potential and wanted to give her some private lessons out of school, I had panicked and blurted out, "No Jodie, whatever you do don't go there. Get dance instructions from somewhere else, anywhere else, but not from him. Stay away from him Jodie, whatever you do. Promise me!"

Such was my reaction that Jodie did as I said, which proved a good thing. About six weeks later the dance instructor was raided by the police, arrested and charged with numerous very serious offences committed against young girls. The appearance of being gay was just a front for being a Humbert Humbert. It was a big story in the media, and I remembered watching the news as this evil predator was found guilty of all offences at trial, the judge throwing the book at him and sending him to jail for more than 15 years.

I sat glued to the TV, watching the prison van leave the Sydney Law Courts and weave its way through the city traffic to the south west of the city and the Hume Highway leading to the NSW Southern Tablelands and the city of Goulburn, the news crew following and filming it.

In Goulburn, one could find the giant ram statue which was much loved - and the maximum security prison - which was much feared, and it was to the latter that the van was heading. I felt much satisfaction that I had known something was off about the dance instructor from the start. He turned out to be a disgusting deviate, a predatory pedophile who was now going to find out the hard way what happened in prison to people who committed crimes against minors.

Years later though and when I was older and should have been much wiser, I seemed to have lost my ability to sense when something was wrong. For it took some 15 months of knowing Shane and Karen Jones to sense that something was amiss with the twins, and their relationship as brother and sister not what it should have been.

By now it was February 1991, the summer school holidays had passed and Shane, Karen and I had recently turned 18 and were in Year 12, our final year of high school. It was a year likely to be filled with much study for our HSC and part-time work away from school, but also time for fun and nostalgia as one part of our lives came to an end with new beginnings ahead next year.

The first two incidents were nothing strange on their own, taken in isolation. One was that Gareth, a handsome red-haired guy and one of our extended group of friends, asked Karen out on a date and she agreed. The date was simple enough and typical of many teenagers, Gareth and Karen went and had dinner at a Chinese restaurant and then to a movie within the same complex.

This was on a Friday night, and on Saturday some of us guys happened to run into Gareth and how his date with Karen went. Gareth frowned and shook his head. "Something funny happened."

"What happened on your date that was so funny?" another friend Michael asked, smiling and laughing, clearly anticipating an amusing story.

"No, not funny ha-ha, funny peculiar," said Gareth.

"What was so peculiar?" I queried.

Gareth frowned and shook his head. "I was all quite strange really. You know Karen, she's usually kind of bubbly and talkative, likes to make jokes. Well last night it was like she didn't want to be there. She didn't smile, she didn't laugh, she picked at her food and whenever I asked her something she just gave a one word answer and went back to staring at the walls."

"That doesn't sound like Karen," I said.

Gareth nodded in agreement. "Then before the movie, Karen said she needed to go to the toilet. I waited outside the cinema, five minutes went by, then 10, 15 and when she hadn't come back after 20 minutes I went to look for her, I was worried. I saw her on one of those blue pay phones, talking, smiling and laughing, and she wasn't too happy about having to finish the call to one of her friends and come back to me. I asked Karen who she was talking to, and she was very evasive, just a friend and wouldn't elaborate. In the movie, it was like a replay of the restaurant. Karen just sat in her seat, staring at the screen, she didn't laugh once, and when I dropped her home she couldn't get out of the car and back into her house fast enough."

"Sorry mate, I take it you and Karen aren't planning your wedding then?" Michael grinned.

"Ah, shut up Michael," laughed Gareth. "No, I don't think so." He shrugged his shoulders and continued. "Still very strange though, it just wasn't like Karen at all. Oh well, there's thousands of first dates around the world that don't work out every day I guess. And plenty more fish in the sea."