I say, Not really, no.

He says, I suggest you look it up.

I tell him I’ll do that.

And I look out at that pretty neon again, and the piano music washes over me and out the window.

F

ORTY

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HREE

Akemi’s mouth makes the shape of an O when she does the thing. She’s swaying and she’s got her head tilted back and her eyes are closed and yeah, she is for sure feeling it.

I watch her performing this song that she wrote on the piano – kind of Lauryn Hill, kind of The xx – and I think how funny it is that this is exactly the same pained–ecstatic look she had on just a bit ago when we were having sex on the sofa I’m on right now: me struggling to get my trousers and socks off, so I just sack the socks off completely, sitting down so she can ease herself onto my cock while I also minimize the chance of being exposed as less than adequate in bed (I bet you a million pounds Other Me doesn’t have this problem), and as we settle into an irregular rhythm, her ragged breath in my ear, the sexual frenzy descends, I start losing myself – but not before I marvel at the fact I haven’t prematurely ejaculated or lost my erection – so much so that I think I might say something I don’t actually mean, because let’s face it, this girl has been the closest thing I’ve had to real intimacy, this girl whose body is taut and angular and warm, and she knows, somehow she knows, so she claps her hand over my mouth as the fucking turns desperate, eye contact that messes me up something crazy, her teeth on my lips and that’s it, I’m done, and she’s done, and we crumple onto the sofa, just lying there while we listen to the blood in our ears.

After a couple minutes, I ask her whether we should really be fucking in her father’s house, on her father’s sofa. Whether we should maybe go to her place in future.

On account of it being, you know, disrespectful.

She turns to me and scoffs. Since she refused to be what he wanted her to be, she tells me, her dad doesn’t care what she does.

The last chord from the piano floats out into the corners of the penthouse’s living room, before disappearing into nothingness.

I say, I didn’t know you were a musician. I thought you just worked at the reception in the hotel and that was it.

She swivels around to face me and says, Not everyone walks around flaunting their talent around their neck.

Well, you’re really good, I say. Like, record deal, playing-in-front-of-big-audiences good.

She laughs and she says, I guess that’s the plan. A bit crazy when you think about it.

I think about my own photographic fantasies – cover shoots, gallery shows – and I say, No. There’s nothing silly about that at all.

She says, It’s amazing how differently you see your dreams when people around you take them seriously.

Charles doesn’t approve? I ask.

She tells me about how her father would rather she went into medicine, or law. Something prestigious, yet lucrative. Or if she was adamant about the music thing, the least she could do was become a performer of classical music, not this pop malarkey.

She’s nearly done saving up to move to Tokyo, she tells me. The music scene there is better than it is in Taipei. And, more importantly, her mother is out there.

A few more weeks, and she’s on a plane out of here.

The information slaps me in the face. A few more weeks? What am I going to do when she’s gone?

Because, let’s face it, I like this girl.

I half-think about telling her she should stay, but instead I ask her why she doesn’t just ask Charles for the money, seeing as he clearly has enough to spare. Easy.

And she tells me she doesn’t want to take money from him, or anything else for that matter, because a) he treated her mother like shit, b) she wants to prove to him that she can make it on her own without his money, and c) she wants to be able to support her mum with her own money eventually.

I think about my own mum, and how she would guilt trip me for moving away to London, telling me how loyal and good her friends’ sons were because they stayed at home to look after their parents.

I ask Akemi what happened between Charles and her mother.

She tells me her mother needed to move back to Japan when she was little, because her father, Akemi’s grandfather, was in bad health. He needed looking after, and even though she begged and pleaded, begged and pleaded, Charles refused to move with her.

Because he was never going to leave Taiwan. His life was here, and if that’s what she wanted to do, fine, he wasn’t going to stop her.

So she left.

Akemi says, That was around seven years ago. And because my dad was the one who could provide for me better, I stayed with him. Even though I desperately wanted to be with my mother.

We visited her every school holiday, she says. Or she would come here.

Then she adds: But it’s not the same really.

We sit in silence for a bit, and the meaning of our conversation balloons.

Do you know that saying, every man has his double? I ask Akemi, as we sit at the breakfast bar in Charles’s kitchen, munching on some strawberries.

I think I’ve heard it somewhere before, she says.

I ask, What do you make of it?

She says, I read once that the universe is infinite. And if the universe is infinite, then there’s infinite possibilities that there are planets like ours out there – planets that developed exactly like ours, with people on them exactly like us, but with the tiniest differences.

She picks up a strawberry from the dish, plump and red, and takes a bite. Like, maybe that little scar you have in the corner of your left eye, maybe there’s a Sean in another galaxy that has that scar in the corner of his right eye. And maybe there’s an Akemi somewhere in space, that plays the guitar instead of the piano, and stayed with her mother instead of her father.

Interesting, I say. But what about on this planet. Do you think we all have a double on Earth?

There are around seven billion people in the world, right? she says. I suppose the chances of one of those people looking like you, or me, are pretty good.

Yeah, I say, but looking exactly like us? With another Sean that has that scar in exactly the same spot? And the exact same tattoo?

She looks at me, bemused. Why are you asking me all this?

And I say, Oh, no reason.

F

ORTY

-F