Skios

35

“Thirty-two euros,” said Stavros.

He had to say it twice, because the first time Dr. Wilfred was standing on a dark hillside somewhere under the glittering night sky, explaining to Georgie how the apparently random distribution of the heavenly bodies was entirely consonant with a causality fully determined by the preexisting fundamental laws, and it was difficult to see how the sum of thirty-two euros came into the relevant mathematics at any point.

The stars faded. Oh, yes, Stavros. The taxi. They had arrived at the foundation. Dr. Wilfred got out and hoisted his flight bag onto his shoulder while he fumbled for his wallet. He couldn’t help being aware that there were gratifyingly large numbers of people arriving at the same time to hear his lecture. Over and over again the glass doors slid back to admit them. Surprisingly many of them were obese, and they were dressed in surprisingly informal ways, with bare bulging midriffs and sun-reddened knees and shoulders. A lot of them had brought their children, and they were all pushing baggage carts piled with suitcases.

The thirty-five euros Dr. Wilfred had got out of his wallet hesitated in the air above Stavros’s waiting hand.

“Hold on…” he said.

* * *

“Thirty-eight euros,” said Spiros, in the taxi pulling up outside Departures just behind Stavros’s.

Oliver didn’t get out, however. He checked all his pockets once again. No, he hadn’t got it. For a moment he thought he might try to talk his way through passport control without it. If so many people were prepared, without any effort on his part, to believe that he was Dr. Norman Wilfred when he wasn’t, surely a few simple officials would take his word for it that he was Oliver Fox when he actually was …

“No,” he said finally. “I’ll have to go back.”

“Back?” said Spiros.

He had left his identity behind. Put it down in the guest suite somewhere, when he had been taking off Oliver Fox and putting on Dr. Norman Wilfred, and forgotten to pick it up again.

They had to wait, though, because the man who had just got out of the taxi in front was also changing his mind and getting back into it.

* * *

Still Nikki sat gazing at the passport. Her first thought was that the passport office had made a mistake. It was so obviously Dr. Norman Wilfred in the photograph! But then it started to seem not quite so obvious after all.

She became aware that she was also still holding the phone. She put it back to her ear. There was silence. Georgie had evidently calmed down a bit. Which gave Nikki a chance to tell her that their roles were now reversed.

“Georgie,” she said quietly, “I think I’ve done something rather silly, too.”

Because of course Dr. Wilfred wasn’t Dr. Wilfred. How could he be? Dr. Wilfred would be somewhere in his fifties. She knew that perfectly well. He couldn’t possibly be an amiable young idiot with an engaging smile and hair flopping into his eyes. He was a self-important celebrity with a bald head and a lot of expensive meals built into him.

How had she ever for one moment thought that Dr. Wilfred was Dr. Wilfred?

Because — yes — it had happened at the airport, in the very first moment that she had set eyes on him. He had looked at her sign and smiled. She had said “Dr. Wilfred?” and he had said yes. It was as simple as that.

No, he hadn’t even said yes. She remembered exactly what he had said: “I cannot tell a lie.”

He couldn’t tell a lie. He hadn’t told a lie. She had made Dr. Wilfred into Dr. Wilfred all by herself, single-handed.

“This person I told you about,” she said to Georgie. “He isn’t who I thought he was. You told me, didn’t you. You said, wait till you’ve known him for a bit longer. Actually I suppose I really did know. Always. From the very first moment. Of course I knew. Everything about him was just too good to be true.”

There was no reply from Georgie.

“Georgie?” she said. “Can you hear me? Hello? Are you there?”

“Yes, I am here,” said a voice which was not Georgie’s. “And your filthy little friend isn’t, and nor is my suitcase. And if you were somehow also involved in stealing it then let me tell you that this is my phone and I now have the number of yours.”

Nikki put the passport carefully on the desk next to the suitcase and ended the call. Somewhat reluctantly. She felt so small and lonely that she was almost ready to confess herself even to the cleaning woman.