This could work well for both of us, the second man says. You could take a holiday, as it were, the first man says, while our friend, well, while our friend moves in and, as it were, draws the heat. I thought it was ridiculous, Davy says, a sleeping fox impersonating me, a sleeping fox pretending to be me. I have regulars, Davy says to them. I have close friends that are customers. Sure, he’s a cousin, a brother, in that case, the first man says. He’s a family member. But the resemblance would be enough to convince anybody that might ask questions. Besides, the second man says, he can look after himself, this sleeping fox, you would have no need to worry about that. He has his own story. We know what we’re doing, the first man says. Think about it, he says, as just a subtle sleight of hand.

Counterparts, I says to Kathy. Do you think that everybody has their counterparts out there? Not like their double exactly, but like their opposite number?

That’s what Davy says, Kathy says to me. That’s what Davy says but only he calls it his alter ego. My fucking alter ego is out there, he says, and then he brings up the story of Ms Marvel, which was this comic book that he always went on about. I says to him, what the fuck does your favourite comic book have to do with a sleeping fox? and he says to me, shut up and listen, shut up and wait till I tell you, he says:

*

Carol Danvers is investigating her own alter ego. She is trying to track down Ms Marvel and find out her true identity. But Ms Marvel’s true identity, her alter ego, is Carol Danvers. Only she’s forgotten or suppressed it somehow. She starts to having these blackouts. There are gaps in her story. Ms Marvel does not know her true identity. Ms Marvel is trapped in a place of no memories. Carol Danvers’s shrink puts her under and while she is hypnotised she recalls memories of Ms Marvel and her superpowers. But her shrink dismisses them as ludicrous or as shadow fantasies personified. It’s just a complex, he says. Think about it, Davy says.

What if your complexes are not in here but out there?

What if you could come face to face with your own alter ego?

What if your alter ego has forgotten it’s your own invention?