Michael Frayn - Skios

And then the lecture itself. The faces raised expectantly towards him. The fulsome introduction with the record of his career paraphrased from the CV that Vicki had sent them and edited down to manageable length by omitting, always, the most important publications and appointments. His head modestly lowered as he listened to it all once again, revealing the way the years were beginning to extend his high forehead up over the top of his head.

The applause as he goes to the lectern and opens the text of his lecture …

His lecture! Had he got it? He felt in his flight bag once again, just to be sure. Yes, there it reassuringly was. He always kept the text of his lecture with him on his travels. He and his luggage had become separated too often over the years for him to take any risks. Toothbrushes and pajamas could be replaced; the lecture was part of himself, flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone. He took it out of the bag, just to be doubly sure. The same scuffed old brown binder that had traveled so many thousands of weary air miles with him, personalized by the red wine stain it had acquired in Melbourne, the smeared remains of some small tropical insect in Singapore. He would add a few introductory remarks, as he usually did, to make clear the special relevance of the lecture to this particular time and place, but the body of the text was the material that had slowly taken its present form, like his scalp, over many years. A whole lifetime of thought and study was concentrated in these pages, its expression gradually refined and adapted, like all human knowledge, to current circumstances. The carefully crafted phrases were as familiar and reassuring as the wine stain and the dead insect. “Perhaps foremost among the challenges facing us today … The hopes and fears of mankind … Within an overall framework of social responsibility…”

He saw the words as they would look up at him from the warm pool of light on the lectern, like well-behaved children at their fond father. “These problems must be squarely faced … And here a note of caution must be sounded…” He heard the accomplished but still apparently spontaneous delivery. The little extempore variants and asides. The laughter. The reasonably prolonged applause at the end. The words of appreciation from his host—“thought-provoking, insightful, fascinating”—not all of them perhaps entirely insincere …

Why did one go on doing it, though? When one could be sitting in one’s office at the institute and doing real scholarly work. Struggling to understand the latest research by younger rivals who had invented some incomprehensible new vocabulary of their own, or to master the institute’s draft accounts before the next meeting of the committee of management, or to sort out the muddle into which the manuscript of one’s new book seemed to have descended.

And instead, here one was again, five miles up, glass of champagne in hand. Why, why, why?

It was true that there was also some satisfaction to be derived from being Dr. Norman Wilfred. Purely as a consequence of his being who he was, seriously worded documents drafted by the labor of others were placed in front of him to be signed. His advice and his skills as a chairman did not go unappreciated. As soon as people heard the name they knew exactly what they were going to get. They were never disappointed. Dr. Norman Wilfred was what they expected, and Dr. Norman Wilfred was what they got.

And if there were benefits in being Dr. Norman Wilfred, he thought, as the cabin attendant refilled his glass, then God knew he had earned them. He had arrived at being who he was only slowly and with sustained application, thought by thought, opinion by opinion, appointment by appointment. There had been many letdowns along the way; many failures, rebuffs, and slights; many mornings when he had looked in the shaving mirror and seen someone he didn’t much like the look of gazing back at him. He had his problems even now. His blood pressure had to be kept under control. He had developed a serious allergy to onions. He suffered perhaps from a slight tendency to take himself too seriously.

Also from this apparently incurable propensity to find himself on planes with a glass of champagne in his hand, and the prospect of yet more debilitating comfort and flattery in front of him.

Nikki walked slowly through the green territory of the foundation, up and down the winding hilly paths, looking out at the bay and the piled summer clouds. The light was softening as the afternoon slipped into evening. There was a suggestion of gold in the air.

She loved this place. Everything was so at ease with itself, so delicately balanced, like the works of a good watch, or nature itself. The web of pipes and sprinklers that kept everything so green was discreetly concealed. So was the flow of money that kept the sprinklers sprinkling. It was a complete world, a miniature model of the European civilization that it existed to promote, and she could almost feel it sitting in the palm of her hand, its clockwork quietly humming. The only piece of the machinery that stuck a little, that threw the whole clock slightly out of true, was the bit that was concealed behind the closed shutters of Empedocles, the villa high above all the others, where the emaciated and failing director was hidden away. Though perhaps for not much longer …

From the fishermanless fishermen’s cottages along the waterfront, and from suites in villas hidden among the trees all over the headland that the foundation occupied, from Leucippus and Anaximander, from Xenocles, Theodectes, Menander, Aristophanes, and Antiphanes, more and more of the House Party guests were emerging, looking for food and drink. Two hours or more had gone by since they had last been fed and watered.

She imagined that she was seeing it all for the first time, as Dr. Wilfred would shortly be seeing it. How would he feel it compared with all the other foundations and institutes that he had spoken at around the world? She imagined him at her side, looking and listening appreciatively as she explained it all to him. He might be a more sympathetic person than she had supposed as she transcribed his CV. He was, she could feel it. He was someone you could talk to.

“Most of our guests are from the States,” she found she was telling him, her words as inaudible to anyone else as he was invisible. “All horribly rich, of course, or they wouldn’t be here. But awfully nice people, or they wouldn’t be interested in the kind of things we do here.”

She waved to an elderly couple with apple-cheeked smiles. “Hi, there!” she called. “Oh, Nikki, honey,” called the woman, “we’re having the best time! All thanks to you, of course! And we know you’ve got a treat in store for us tomorrow!”

“Mr. and Mrs. Chuck Friendly,” murmured Nikki to the disembodied treat, walking beside her. “I understand they’re the second-richest couple in the state of Rhode Island. They’ve been coming to Skios every year since the House Party started. Sweet! Most of the guests are couples, others are hoping to be, so watch out!”

Two men were strolling thoughtfully together in the shade cast by the Temple of Athena. One of them took the pipe out of his mouth and raised it to her like a glass of wine, the other salaamed.

“Alf Persson,” she explained to Dr. Wilfred, “the Swedish theologian. Quite well known, I believe, in the theological world. And V. J. D. Chaudhury, the great authority on comparative underdevelopment. Two of our embedded intellectuals! You’re not the only distinguished visitor, you see!”

They crossed the ancient agora, where men were unloading caterer’s tables, gilt chairs, carpets, and bales of linen from electric trucks. “That stone floor is three thousand years old,” she reminded the foreman. “You will make sure the carpets are down before anything metal touches it?”