Gregory Benford - Timescape

A departing back, going down the stairs after a trip to the loo. Peterson waited until the man had vanished across the marble foyer. He shouldered open the door and carried the bags to he head of the stairs. Christ, they were heavy. He’d never allowed for the possibility that he might be ill when he had to make his move.

He went down the stairs with soft thumps, taking the weight solidly and checking his balance before attempting the next step. He had to watch the footing intently. The stairway was immensely long. He began puffing. Latin music started abruptly, brassy and rich, flooding his ears and throwing off his concentration. Out of the corner of his eye he sensed movement. A man and a woman, approaching from the drawing room. He took the last three steps rapidly and nearly slipped on the slick floor.

“Ian! My, don’t you look the traveler. I thought Sarah said you were in hospital.”

He thought rapidly. Smile, that was it. “I still am, actually,” he began, at the same time walking round the corner to a small tucked-in closet. He had to get the bags out of the way before anyone else came along. “It’s filling up, however, so I thought it best I get out of the public’s way. Go to a suburban place to recuperate, you know.”

“Oh Christ yes,” the man said. “City hospitals are the worst. Can I help you with those?”

“No no, just a few clothes.” He had scooted them into the closet and now closed the door firmly.

“I say, we were looking for a place to, you know, be private for a time.” The woman looked at him expectantly. She was one of Sarah’s friends, one of the sort he could never remember from one time to the next. She turned to gesture upstairs, no doubt thinking he had a thin imagination and needed a diagram. Her eye caught the door of his bedroom, standing open. “Oh, that would be perfect! It has a lock, hasn’t it?”

Peterson felt a cold anger. “I’d rather think there might be—”

“I shouldn’t think we’d be long. You don’t mind, do you? Yes, you do mind. He minds, Jeremy.” She put one foot on the lower stair and looked at the man with her, clearly turning this difficult chap over to him.

“I, it really would be most, most obliging of you if you would give us some help here, Ian.”

Peterson felt suddenly hot and weak. He had to cut through all this, get free. He had reacted automatically to the idea of anyone using his bedroom for some stupid rutting, but now he saw that was pointless. He had just now kissed the place goodbye, after all. “Yes, I see, go right ahead. I don’t mind.” He was able to say it almost cheerfully.

The couple thanked him and moved up the staircase with what seemed to Peterson deliberate slowness. He glanced at the drawing room and took several deep, clearing breaths. He could get the bags and be gone without arousing comment, if only—

Sarah. She had seen him as she passed by a knot of chattering people. She tugged at a man, nodded towards Peterson. They crossed the squares of the foyer, like chess pieces advancing. Knight errant and queen to the attack, he thought. He noted remotely that she was wearing one of her own sleek dresses, a jungle-print creation with a matching silk scarf tied round her head and hanging artfully to the left. He looked at the man with her and felt a cold shock. It was Prince Andrew. Jesus, she couldn’t be starting that up again, could she? Well, it would hardly matter now.

“Ian! You’re out already? Squisito!” Sarah exclaimed, taking his hand.

“Just getting some things. They’re transferring me to a place in the country.” He extended a hand to Andrew. “Good evening, sir.”

“For heaven’s sake, Ian, you don’t have to call me sir here.”

“Andy’s, getting us invites to the Coronation Ball—the small one. Isn’t that lovely of him?”

“Yes, very. How is your brother faring, Andrew?”

“Oh, I haven’t seen him for a week myself. He’s always busy now. Glad I don’t have that job. He’s better suited to it than the rest of us, anyway.”

“Oh, I’m sure you could do magnificently,” Sarah murmured.

Andrew shook his head in a wobbly way. “No, I doubt it. I’ve often wondered whether it was just luck that the heir turned out that way or whether he turned out that way precisely because he was the heir.”

Peterson suppressed a fidgeting motion with his hands and tried to think of something to say. Was this conversation unreal or was it just him? “He takes his work very seriously,” he said blandly. “The times I’ve consulted with him, he’s gone right to the point.”

“Got a sense of humor, though, you know,” Andrew replied, as though apologizing for his brother’s seriousness. He blinked owlishly.

Peterson realized that Andrew was drunk, in precisely the degree that royalty can get drunk without arousing comment. That was to say, quite a bit. Sarah tugged at Peterson’s sleeve, beckoning him into the party. He considered for an instant and then followed. He wanted no one to notice the size or weight of the cases he carried as he left. Best to get Sarah and Andrew back into the mob and slip away later. He allowed Sarah to parade him around, introducing him to a few new people he could spot as being potentially useful to her. He smiled, nodded, said little. Gradually it dawned on him that everyone there was addled in some way—drunk, high on drugs, or simply hysterical with frenetic energy. And they were all talking the most superficial rubbish, as well. He had expected a barrage of questions on the bloom or the clouds, but absolutely no one asked. He found himself watching them from a distance. As elegant and ignorant as swans. Yet he knew some of them must have doubts. Again, the sensation of unreality.

It took well over an hour before he saw his chance. He wanted to be damned sure Andrew didn’t see the bags, so he waited until Sarah was clinging to Andrew’s arm and had just set into one of her stock outrageous stories. Then Peterson slipped through several babbling groups, seeming to be among them but in fact listening to nothing, watching only to see if anyone important saw his exit. At the right moment he moved quickly into the foyer. Out came the bags. As he turned, his own bedroom door opened and a bleary, reddened face appeared. Before the woman could hail him he wrenched open the outer door and fled. Not the smooth departure he had envisioned, but good enough. Ahead lay Cambridge and then, by God, he could rest.

MARJORIE SAT IN THE MARKHAMS’ SMALL RENTED house and watched Jan. She had come expecting to play the gentle, efficient helper to a distraught and grieving friend, but found their roles almost reversed. Jan was packing systematically. Marjorie had offered to do it for her. She felt that Jan should properly have the freedom to sprawl face down on her bed, face into her pillow, if she felt like it. Jan had refused her help, saying she wouldn’t be able to find things if she didn’t pack them herself. Marjorie had offered to make her some tea. Strong sweet tea soothed anyone. But Jan hadn’t wanted that either. She went on working. Marjorie, slightly offended, thought she might even start humming a tune as she worked. Marjorie wished Jan would offer a drink. Abruptly she clamped down on that thought. God, it was still only the morning.

“Isn’t there anything I can do?” she asked with a thin tone of desperation.

Jan stopped and pushed a strand of hair back from her eyes.

“Well, come to think of it, you could pack up Greg’s clothes. Why don’t you take this big box and go upstairs? Just his clothes and shoes. I’m going to try to sell them to the secondhand shop on Petty Cury. Oh, and check the hall closet. I think his raincoat is in there. And his robe is on the back of the bathroom door.” She gave a sideways smile. “You may as well check all the rooms. I never broke him of the habit of dropping his things wherever he happened to be.”