Michael Frayn - Skios

In the shadows nearby Nikki was lurking, waiting for the conversation to end so that she could show Mr. Papadopoulou the abducted Dr. Wilfred’s passport.

From the shadows, too, a pair of glittering eyes looked out from a face as motionless and austere as a skull beneath its veil of gray hair, with an orange-trousered stomach twitching in anticipation beside it.

“Also,” Mrs. Fred Toppler was saying to the current Dr. Wilfred, “if you were the director here, you could exercise that other amazing skill of yours, and give me a little massage whenever I need it.”

Dr. Wilfred leaned a little closer to her and discreetly slipped his left hand under her silken top, then down inside the waistband of her trousers. It was now completely dark. Only the candlelit front sides of people still existed. “Just there ?” he said.

“Oh my God,” she said, “that is so blissful! And so calming! If only you could keep your hand on my butt while I make my speech! You’re like Dieter, Dr. Wilfred — you give me confidence! We could do such great things together! We could make all the wonderful dreams he had for this place come true at last. He wanted to see the foundation reach out all over the world! South America — India — Russia! House Parties on every continent! Civilization spreading out over all the hurts of the world like oil on troubled waters!”

Dr. Wilfred looked up at the candle flames swaying in the warm darkness, and knew that everything was possible. He could do it. He could deliver the lecture. Then all the rest would follow. After the lecture Nikki would be waiting for him. Tomorrow Georgie would turn up. He would find a way to get rid of Annuka Vos. No, he would win over even Annuka Vos. Then he would become director of this delightful place. He would spend the long summer days and short summer nights rubbing Mrs. Toppler’s back, and making Mrs. Skorbatova laugh.

With the fingers of his left hand still deep in the bulge of flesh around the base of Mrs. Toppler’s spine, he took another sip from his wineglass, then put his right hand on Mrs. Skorbatova’s wrist.

“This is what every man needs,” he said to her. “To be Norman Wilfred to the lady on one side of him, and Oliver Fox to the lady on the other.”

Mrs. Skorbatova let her wrist remain under his hand, and laughed again. At last she spoke.

“No!” she said. “No, no, no, no, no, no!”

“No?” said Oliver Fox.

She gently detached her wrist, seized the end of his nose, and waggled it from side to side. “No!” she said. She pointed to the heavy gold ring on the third finger of her left hand, then waved the index finger on her right warningly from side to side.

“No focks!” she said.

* * *

Right, thought Reg Bolt, the director of security, watching from the shadows opposite the top table, as everyone finally settled back into their rightful places. They were all assembled. The guests, the hosts. The speaker. Nikki and Eric. The waiters, bodyguards, and personal security advisers. He checked each of their dimly lit faces in turn. The director was shut away in his darkened villa and everyone else was here on the agora, and settled for the lecture. The darkness around him deepened as a pool of bright light lit up the lectern on the top table. He eased himself carefully back, deeper into the shadow, and slipped quietly away into the night.

For the next hour at least he and the lads had the rest of the foundation to themselves. There would be just time to do the job. The big one. The one that was so big that even the least curious bystander might begin to ask questions. The one that could only be done in the darkness, when all eyes and ears were safely here, and bent upon Dr. Norman Wilfred.

* * *

“OK?” said Mrs. Toppler. Dr. Wilfred nodded. She rose and hammered with the olive-wood gavel. Beyond the little pool of brightness in which they were bathed he was aware of the darkness being softened by the indistinct paleness of faces turning towards them. The reassuring static of conversation subsided into an unnatural calm.

Mrs. Toppler looked down through a pair of folded spectacles at her script.

“Our guest of honor tonight,” she said, “needs no introduction…”

Everywhere beyond the agora a soft nocturnal peace descended upon the grounds of the foundation, as upon a little town where everyone was indoors celebrating Christmas or watching the football. The warm darkness of the night was made more profound by the flecks of silver floodlight glimpsed through the branches of the trees, the quietness made more palpable by the scribbling of the cicadas and the faint amplified echoes of Mrs. Toppler’s voice off the ancient stonework.

Outside the kitchens little collapsed white heaps began to become visible in the darkness, as Yannis and the kitchen crew emerged from their stainless-steel hell and sank down onto the ground, too tired even to eat the leftovers.

In the harbor the dark water slapped tenderly at the moored yachts. The landward-facing windsock by the helicopter pad sank as the light daytime breeze off the sea died away, then lifted again to face seawards.

Chris Binns, the writer in residence, gazed out of the window of Epictetus, murmuring to himself over and over again the first stanza of his poem— The goddess, looking wise, / Whisky sour in hand, / Nibbling the excellent local cocktail olives / And pushing the stones down the back of the sofa / In the most civilized manner . What he hoped was that if he repeated it often enough, it would prove to be the run-up to an effortless leap into the still undecided-upon main verb and the still unwritten second stanza. No leap had so far occurred.

He was, however, becoming slowly conscious that the silence was not quite the usual silence, or the darkness the usual darkness. Some of the trees had a faint silvering of light among their branches. Someone somewhere was speaking. He couldn’t distinguish the words, only an occasional North American vowel, and an electronic timbre. Yes, something was certainly going on out there. He had forgotten what it was, but at least he now remembered that he had forgotten.

“The goddess,” he murmured, “looking wise…”

* * *

Back on the agora Mrs. Toppler’s voice came and went, came and went, according to the varying closeness of her acquaintance with the microphone.

“… public bodies far too numerous to list here…” she said, very audibly, and then somehow let the relationship lapse again. “… mention only the Board of Governors … the Joint Standing Committee … the Council for the Preservation … for the Abolition … the Expansion … the Limitation…”

It all came back to Dr. Wilfred, sitting modestly beside her as she spoke. The boards, the committees, the councils. The books and papers. The prizes and fellowships. What an astonishing amount he had packed into his life.

“… and last but by no means least … his keen interest … his lifelong devotion … never spared himself … somehow found time for … an avid follower…”

The shadowy faces in front of Mrs. Toppler gazed respectfully up at her out of the half-darkness. Here and there eyelids and heads sank in sympathy with her sinking voice, but often rose again as the voice returned. Behind the faces thoughts were thought: memories and regrets, plans and hopes, reasonings and computations.

V. J. D. Chaudhury, for example, was regretting that he had not taken the opportunity to relieve himself when it had been offered. Davina Smokey was worrying about her grandchildren’s table manners. His Excellency Sheikh Abdul hilal bin-Taimour bin-Hamud bin-Ali al-Said was trying to calculate the proceeds from a rise of 0.073 percent in the royalty on 4.833 billion barrels of light crude. K. D. Clopper was absorbed in the Yankees-Orioles game on his phone behind the tablecloth. The bishop of the Hesperides Archipelago was reexamining the Orthodox Church’s position on original sin in the light of recent advances in neurology. Wellesley Luft was fast asleep, deep in yet another dream about Jackie Kennedy. Mr. Papadopoulou’s personal bodyguard was checking the safety catch on his gun. Norbert Ditmuss was waiting patiently for a chance to ask his question.