Free The Macbeth Prophecy by Anthea Fraser

would happen to Philip and me. We couldn’t survive without each other.”
    There was a brief, uncomfortable pause. Douglas Braithwaite cleared his throat. “Without wanting to sound pompous, I’m not too sure I approve of that philosophy. Each life is sacred; a completely separate being, however close one might feel to another. The fact that two people are born at the same time most certainly does not infer they must also die together.”
    â€œNevertheless, it does happen.”
    â€œVery seldom, I think you’d find, and for quite valid reasons. Good gracious, man, even at the rate of one in four thousand, there are vast numbers of identical twins throughout the world. Imagine their reaction, if someone suggested they should die simultaneously! It’s reminiscent of throwing a wife on her husband’s funeral pyre!”
    I put my hands up in mock self-defence. “Far be it from me to frighten anyone! I only said it has been known, and whatever you say I’m quite sure it will happen to us. I hope it does.”
    â€œYou won’t insist on it, will you Anita?” Eve queried humorously, and in the general laughter the conversation edged on to more comfortable topics.
    I recounted it to Philip the following week when he came over to see me, but the discussion took a turn I hadn’t expected.
    â€œYou know, I’d like to have another go at that mind-reading stunt,” he said slowly. “I know you weren’t too keen, but just consider the possibilities!”
    I frowned into my glass. “I’ve a feeling we could easily get out of our depth.”
    â€œIf we don’t experiment, we’ll never know what our depth is. Suppose it really is possible to read a patient’s symptoms telepathically. It would be an enormous advantage; people are so bad at expressing themselves.” He looked at me shrewdly. “Eve was right, wasn’t she, about your being slightly jealous over that demonstration we did? Surely you know there’s no reason to be?”
    We changed the subject then, but that he hadn’t forgotten it was made only too apparent a few days later. When Philip and I phoned each other, it was always in the evenings at each other’s lodgings. Yet suddenly, in the middle of one afternoon, I felt an urgent need to contact him. I tried to play it down – for one thing it was in the middle of a class – but the necessity became too strong for me. I set the children some work and hurried to the nearest phone. There was no reason whatever to expect Philip to be at home at that hour of the day, but he answered the phone on the first ring.
    â€œBless you, Matthew!” he said exultantly, before I’d even spoken. “Look at your watch, will you? I can’t stop now but there’s a letter in the post which will explain.” I was left standing with the dead phone in my hand, feeling flat and oddly frustrated. As instructed I looked at my watch. It was four minutes past three.
    The promised letter arrived the next morning. It had been scrawled hurriedly, but as Philip had said, provided an explanation, albeit a disturbing one:
    I’ve been thinking how often we use telepathy unconsciously, as when I phoned you in Crowthorpe, and I’ve thought up a little test to see if we can do it to order. This afternoon, at precisely three o’clock, I shall be signalling you to phone. If you don’t – well, we’ll have to work at it a bit harder. But if you do – and somehow I think you will – then Crowthorpe had better watch out!
    I was in a thoughtful mood for the rest of that day.
    A week or so later I received notification that my application to Crowthorpe Primary School had been successful, and when in jubilation I phoned Philip to report the good news, he had just received similar information from Dr Sampson. At last the stars were in their courses and our return to Crowthorpe doubly assured.
    The