Michael Frayn - Skios

Down there by the water he could see blue umbrellas, with white mess-jackets moving among them and bending to take orders, offer trays, pour juice and coffee. Breakfast! Yes! He had eaten nothing since the economy-class sandwich on the plane, and he had swum fifty lengths in the darkness. He was suddenly seized by a huge hunger — for breakfast, for the world at his feet, for being who he had elected to be. He had a clean shirt on, white and perfectly laundered, even if it was a couple of sizes too big, and clean silk underpants under his chinos, slyly insinuating their luxurious softness, even if they were held up by the paper clip from the foundation’s brochure. His hair, after his nocturnal swim, was more tousled than ever.

He swung down the path with long strides. Nikki had told him that he was expected to mingle. He was happy to oblige. He was Dr. Norman Wilfred. Everyone would be pleased to see him. There might be people there who had known him in the days when he was Oliver Fox, or who knew a rival claimant to the title of Dr. Norman Wilfred. He didn’t care. He would face them down. And when the pretender to his identity turned up, Oliver would face him down, too. This morning he felt himself to be so solidly established as Dr. Norman Wilfred that no other Dr. Norman Wilfred, however freighted with passports and credit cards, could take the title from him. Somewhere in this shining blue world Nikki was waiting. Together they would laugh over the misunderstandings of the night. And even when things went humiliatingly, flesh-crawlingly wrong, as sooner or later they inevitably would, he would laugh about it, and she would laugh with him.

The easy gradient ushered him eagerly on down into the picture. The world was bright, the world was downhill, the world was good again.

* * *

When Dr. Wilfred came out of the villa that morning the unsatisfactorinesses of the night had faded, and he stepped into a new and better world. Just beyond the road he found the promised path, zigzagging enticingly downhill into a pale green sea of olive groves, with the tiled roofs of the foundation’s buildings like red-rocked islands among them, though from up here there was still no sign of the sea. He started down the path with long strides. The sun was already hot, but it was still perfectly bearable, and as the valley opened out below him, he felt his spirits begin to return.

He had found it difficult to get back to sleep after the incident in the night; he had been painfully aware that the woman, who seemed to be seriously deranged, was still concealed behind the bathroom door, only feet away from where he was lying. He was now also ill prepared to face the day ahead. He had had to put yesterday’s shirt, socks, and underpants back on. He was unshaven and his teeth were uncleaned, since he had no razor or toothbrush. In any case, the woman was still locked in the bathroom, so he hadn’t even been able to have a shower.

He had done his best in the night, once he had recovered from his initial shock, to establish rational communication with her. He had suggested, as calmly and temperately as he could through the woodwork, that he would help her find her way to wherever it was she supposed herself to be, but there had been no response. He had tried once again this morning. He was going out, he had told her, to find someone who could help her, though she might prefer to avoid embarrassment by slipping quietly away before he returned. Still no response, and a picture had come into his head of her lying dead on the bathroom floor with her wrists slashed, or an empty pack of pills clutched in her hand, followed by another picture of his name prominent in the resulting headlines. He had very cautiously tried the door. It was locked, but he had been reassured to hear a little cry of alarm as the handle turned.

His problems, though, paled in the bright light of the Mediterranean morning. Sooner or later, obviously, normality would resume. He had his flight bag on his shoulder, and his lecture inside it — that was the main thing. Someone at the foundation would get rid of the woman in his bathroom. Someone would take charge of locating his luggage for him, and in the meanwhile provide him with everything he needed. He would presently be sitting down, shaved and showered, at a table beside the water. Breakfast! Yes! Freshly squeezed orange juice, certainly, and sugary Greek croissants, with perhaps a crisp rasher or two of bacon. He had eaten only a pizza out of the guest-quarters freezer since he had got off the plane. His breakfast would be interrupted, of course, by people coming up to introduce themselves in the usual tiresome way. “Dr. Norman Wilfred? Such an admirer … so looking forward…” This, though, he would bear, philosophically, with breakfast in front of him and clean socks on his feet.

The path was rough underfoot, but so steep that he was striding towards the coffee and the socks with wonderful swiftness. It was a remarkably long way down, though. He had been going for twenty minutes or more before he reached the first of the foundation’s buildings.

It was deserted. The windows were broken, and the front door leaned wearily forward on its one remaining hinge.

The sight was curiously disheartening. The foundation was evidently less well endowed than he had supposed. The sun was getting noticeably hotter as he set out again down the path. He could see another glimpse of tiles among the trees below him, but ten minutes later, as he got a little closer, he discovered that they were a jumbled heap, with no walls left to support them.

He had allowed himself to be inveigled into lending his prestige to an organization that was plainly on its last legs. Or could he possibly have taken a wrong turning somewhere? Perhaps he should retrace his footsteps to check. But at the thought of how much time and effort he had invested in getting to where he was, and how much more still he would have to invest to negate his initial outlay, and to do it uphill instead of down, he hesitated. He looked uphill. He looked down. He could feel the coffee and sweet croissants calling out most eloquently to him. But where was the voice coming from?

He caught a brief glimpse of people moving about among the trees below him. The decision had made itself.

He hurried down the path to catch whoever it was before they disappeared. He found himself going even faster than he had expected, because the ground had somehow alarmingly removed itself from under his feet, and got itself bouncingly and painfully under his bottom and the back of his skull instead. His flight bag came tumbling down the hill behind him, like Jill after Jack. The people he had glimpsed lifted their heads abruptly to watch him, startled by the speed of his approach.

Except that they weren’t people. They were goats.

Slowly and silently Georgie eased back the bolt. Slowly and silently she turned the handle and edged the bathroom door open a few inches.

No one. She tiptoed out into the bedroom and listened.

Nothing. She crept out into the corridor, and looked cautiously into each of the rooms of the villa in turn.

Yes, she was alone.

She went back into the bedroom to fetch the intruder’s belongings and put them out in the garden, but he didn’t seem to have any. She bolted the front door, and another door at the back of the house that gave access to the pool. She checked that all the windows were fastened.

She switched on her phone. It glowed a dull and recalcitrant red at her, but it seemed to have recovered its spirits a little all the same, and managed to utter a grudging little acknowledgment when she pressed Oliver’s number.

“Hi!” said his voice. “I know it sounds like me…”

She ended the call before it taxed the phone’s limited goodwill any further. At once it rang. “Patrick,” said the screen. She ended the call. The phone rang again. “Patrick,” it said. She ended the call. It rang again. “Nikki,” it said.