Skios

26

The two moles on Georgie’s left shoulder blade kept disappearing and reappearing, like two bright stars among shifting clouds. She was slowly pursuing Dr. Wilfred’s phone around the bottom of the pool with the net for fishing leaves and insects out. She had only one hand free, though, because she had taken her T-shirt off again to sunbathe, and was using her other hand to hold the towel round her. Every time she tried to get the net under the phone either the phone slipped away from the net or the towel slipped away from her shoulders and she had to hoick it up again.

Dr. Wilfred closed his eyes, then looked at the view, then closed his eyes again.

“I shouldn’t bother,” he said. “The phone’s not going to work.”

“No, it’s just going to leak poisonous chemicals into the water. We’re both going to end up radioactive.”

His eyes seemed to be open again, and the two elusive dancing dots were just reemerging.

“So, this friend of yours,” he said. “Oliver. Oliver? Where is he?”

“No hurry. Your things aren’t dry yet.”

“Yes, but why isn’t he here, if he’s supposed to be?”

“I don’t know!” She flung the net down and turned on him, suddenly furious. “Why aren’t you wherever you’re supposed to be? Why don’t you have a sun hat of your own? Why’s your phone at the bottom of the pool? I don’t know! But you do, do you? There’s some rational explanation for it all, is there? It all goes back to that thing that was half an inch wide twenty million years ago? It was all in there, all in that little thing, was it? Your head, your phone, you, me — you ending up in some place you’re not supposed to be — me getting stuck with you?”

He said nothing. There was never any point in replying to this kind of nonsense. Except to make one small simple point. “Thirteen point seven billion years ago,” he said.

He suddenly went blind. Something soft but stinging had hit him in the face. Her towel, he saw, as it fell off and the world returned.

“And that?” she said. “You saw that coming, did you? Thirteen point seven billion years ago?”

He tried not to look at her as he threw the towel back to her. Or not for longer than was strictly necessary.

“And yes,” she said, “why are you here? If you know so much, why didn’t you know where you were going? And even if you didn’t know where you were going, why didn’t you park yourself on somebody else? Why here?”

Yes, indeed, now she had raised the point, why, out of all the places on the island that were not where he was supposed to be, had he ended up in this particular one? There was an answer to this, of course. It was because the taxi driver had brought him here. So why had the taxi driver brought him here? Because … And in a sudden flash of illumination it came to him. Everything fell into place at last. A eureka moment — though of course just as rationally prepared for as every other eureka moment.

“Phoksoliva,” he said. “Fox? Yes? Oliver? Oliver Fox?”

“Oh,” she said, in a rather different tone, “you know him, do you?”

For everything there was always a rational explanation, a perfect causal ancestry, if only you could find it.

“Know him?” he said. “I am him.”

* * *

More tables had been dragged across to join up with Dr. Wilfred’s in the shade of the great plane tree. The faces around them craned forward over the coffee and green tea so as to catch every word he was saying.

And gradually, as he spoke, he felt the adrenaline beginning to drain out of his veins. It was all getting too easy. The insubstantial fingerholds and crumbling toeholds on which he had been balancing his way up the cliff so far were broadening out from one moment to the next. It was becoming more and more like walking up a staircase. He saw another route opening up to one side with intriguing new dangers.

“Why are you sitting here listening to all this? I’ll tell you. It’s because you believe I’m Dr. Norman Wilfred. But why do you believe I’m Dr. Norman Wilfred?”

There was a silence. They gazed at him, waiting to be told. Sitting waiting on her chair behind him, Nikki gazed at the back of his head, also waiting.

“Because it’s in the brochure,” said Chuck Friendly eventually. “‘The Fred Toppler Lecture will be given this year by Dr. Norman Wilfred, the distinguished etc., etc.’”

“But perhaps Dr. Norman Wilfred, the distinguished etc., etc., is someone else. Perhaps I’m not Dr. Norman Wilfred.”

Various people laughed.

“Nikki goes to the airport to meet Dr. Norman Wilfred,” said Dr. Norman Wilfred. “She holds up her sign—‘Dr. Norman Wilfred.’ And I see it. I’ve just got off the plane. I’m looking for my taxi. I’m not Dr. Norman Wilfred at all. I’m someone called … I don’t know … Fox, let’s say. Oliver Fox.”

“I’m confused,” said Morton Rinkleman. “Who’s Oliver Fox?”

“Oliver Fox is me,” said Dr. Norman Wilfred. “Only as I stand there, looking round for someone holding up the name ‘Oliver Fox,’ I see this sign saying ‘Dr. Norman Wilfred.’ And the name catches my fancy. So I take a look at the person who’s holding the sign…”

He looked round and saw Nikki.

“Oh, and here she is.”

She smiled at him.

“She seems to be smiling at me,” said Dr. Norman Wilfred. “So I smile back at her. ‘Dr Norman Wilfred?’ she says.

“And suddenly I think it might be fun to be Dr. Norman Wilfred for a bit. The idea just comes into my head. Out of nowhere.

“And next thing I know, I’m here talking a lot of nonsense, and everyone’s listening respectfully and taking it all seriously. Why? Just because they think I’m Dr. Norman Wilfred.

“So here we are — we’re making it all up as we go along. It’s like a random mutation in a gene. If I tell you the truth, that I’m Oliver Fox, then consequences follow from that. No one sits here listening to me. No one even lets me through the gate. So the world goes on its way without my being here saying all this.

“And if I say I’m Dr. Norman Wilfred, then the world goes another way. Oliver Fox — Dr. Norman Wilfred — what does it matter? Heads/tails. Strawberry/vanilla. But who knows what the consequences will be? It’s like the famous butterfly in Brazil. It just happens to flap its wings, and that sets off an escalating chain of consequences that ends up with a tornado in Nebraska. I say this — you say that — someone says something else — and there are consequences. The consequences will have consequences, and in three weeks’ time the Dow Jones will suddenly plunge forty-seven points.”

People laughed, and stirred uneasily in their seats.

“Or else the NASDAQ will gain fifty-three points.”

They laughed again, and looked happier.

“And it’s not just me doing this,” said Dr. Norman Wilfred. “We’re all in this together. I said I was Dr. Norman Wilfred. But you believed me. So between us we have determined the whole future course of the universe.”

He sat back, and took a sip of coffee. Everyone around the table did likewise.

“That’s so true,” said Mrs. Comax. “People take everything on trust.”

“Someone’s only got to say, ‘Hey, guys, I’m an expert,’” said Mr. Chuck Friendly, “and next thing he’s operating on the president’s brain; he’s running the space program.”

“Or no one says anything,” said Mrs. Chuck Friendly, “but people just think someone’s a genius, or whatever, and they don’t even know why they ever thought so in the first place!”

“We’re all such fools!” said Morton Rinkleman.

“How do you know I’m Harold Fossett?” said Harold Fossett.

“How do you know you’re Harold Fossett?” said Morton Rinkleman.

“Hey, how do I know I’m Harold Fossett?” said Harold Fossett.

“Who, indeed, am I?” said a distinguished Indian guest whose name and job description nobody had grasped, and got no answer.

“Are any of us, in fact, anybody?” said somebody.

They all sipped their coffee and green tea, and looked at one another with new interest and respect, delighted with the idea that they might none of them be who they said they were, their delight rooted in their absolute confidence that they were.

“OK,” said Mr. Erlunder. “I’m not Mr. Erlunder! I’m Mrs. Erlunder!”

“That makes two of us,” said Mrs. Erlunder. “Unless I’m you.”

“I’m George Washington,” said Russell Pond. “I cannot tell a lie.”

“I’m a freshwater crayfish,” said Alf Persson, the Swedish theologian.

“I’m a sunspot,” said Suki Brox.

“I’m Professor Norbert Ditmuss,” said Professor Norbert Ditmuss.

“And Wellesley Luft is Wellesley Luft,” said Nikki, before Professor Ditmuss could expand on this. “And Wellesley Luft is waiting to interview Dr. Wilfred for the Journal of Science Management.”

Dr. Wilfred got to his feet and inclined his head. Some of the others also got to their feet, and everyone else got to his or her feet and applauded, apart from the curmudgeonly K. D. Clopper, who still thought it was all bunkum, and Wilson Westerman, who was worrying about what Frankfurt had been doing since he last looked at his phone.

“He’s actually not arriving for ages yet,” murmured Nikki as she maneuvered Dr. Wilfred away from various people who rather pressingly wanted to continue the conversation.

“You were saving me from Professor Ditmuss again?” said Dr. Wilfred.

“Just in case you really aren’t Dr. Wilfred,” said Nikki.

He felt a sense of triumph. He had climbed the most exposed pitch yet and survived. If he could do that he could do anything. Except that there wasn’t anything left to do. Apart from the lecture. His sense of triumph began to fade.

“I’ll send Mr. Luft up to your room, shall I? You might want to have that little siesta of yours first while I’m fetching him.”

“You’re going to be holding up your sign again? Just make sure he is Mr. Luft, though, and not somebody else. One somebody else is quite enough.”

She stopped and looked round, then gave him a very swift kiss.

“Quite enough for me,” she said. “Anyway, you’ll know if it’s not him. He’s an old friend of yours. He’s interviewed you three or four times before.”

“Has he?” said Dr. Wilfred. The dark depths below him reached tinglingly up into his knees again. “So let’s see if he thinks I’m Dr. Wilfred.”