Similarity in appearance ran strong in the McKinney Family. Terrence was the latest bearer of the rumpled brow, and square chin. Where his father had been cheerful, Terrence was taciturn. The Black McKinneys were considered a force to be reckoned with, and were known throughout County Tyrone for their stubborn independence.
“What can I do for you?” Terrence’s Irish baritone boomed from across the counter.
“Marian? Would you like a coffee?” The handsome man consulted his companion. The sun made lace shadows on the wooden surface. She smiled.
“Thank you, Lance, my love. That would be perfect.”
They took the table against the picture plastered wall. There must have been over two hundred snapshots pasted on the bland, teal wallpaper. Some were intensely hued and focused, some were grainy, black and white, others had the yellowed sepia of a different century. Lance and Marian browsed through them, pausing every now and then to point at some or other person, or garment, or pose.
Suddenly, Marian froze. “Look, Lance. That face. That’s you. And his partner. That’s me.”
When Terrence delivered the sturdy mugs of fragrant coffee, they pounced on him. Who were their doppelgangers, where were they from, where were they going?
After an extended pause, Terrence pleaded ignorance, and marvelled at the coincidence. Laughingly, the couple asked him to take a snap of them and the photo on Lance’s smartphone. Lance texted a copy to the Tavern email address “to put on the wall, too”.
Asking direction to nearby Loch Neagh, they finally left, happy and smiling. Watching them go, Terrence was profoundly disturbed. Going to the wall, he plucked off the photo. Turning it over, his Grand-father had inked ‘October 1936; Lance and Marian Graham, drowned Loch Neagh in boating accident,’ and then Grand-father had pencilled in ‘2016.’
300 Word Stories ©Kim Magennis 2016
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