He let the suitcase go on its way. The cardboard box shuffled slowly back round the track, ashamed that no one wanted it … the ten-foot-long holdall … the alien suitcase … That seemingly endless spring of luggage behind the flaps had finally dried up.
Box again … holdall … alien suitcase … And suddenly all three of them became motionless, as if they had at last given up hope of ever finding owners. A great silence fell over the baggage hall.
The bastards had lost his suitcase. Of course. First you see your entire life’s work mocked by some nasty little nobody in Manitoba, and then the airline loses your bag.
The waiting glass of chilled white wine beneath the stars, the lightly tanned skin and the discreetly blond hair, had vanished as if they had never been.
Skios! He’d somehow always known it was going to be a disaster.
* * *
“I’m sorry,” said Nikki. “I had a great speech of welcome prepared, but somehow it all went out of my head.”
They were walking side by side to the car park through the beautiful heat of the night and the hot smells of subtropical flowers and herbs.
It wouldn’t last very long, this wonderful new life of his, realized Oliver. He would only need to say one wrong thing. How many bright paths he had seen opening in front of him before! How many times he had then suddenly found himself falling into the darkness! Sooner or later he would once again be talking himself out of his embarrassment. People thought he didn’t feel the embarrassment, but he did, he did! Did the climber not mind falling or the sailor drowning? Of course they minded! They dreaded it! That was the point — the risk! There was nothing that made you relish every moment of being alive so much as knowing that at the very next you might be dead. Or might somehow still, even as you fell, find some overhanging plant to grab, some passing piece of flotsam to cling on to. “I got a bit confused, etc., etc. Possibly by your being the most beautiful woman I have ever, etc., etc. I really thought for a moment that I actually was, etc., etc.” There was always some faint hope that it might work. It never had, so far as he could remember. But there was no logical reason why the future should always have to be like the past.
On the other hand, though — oh God! — she might suddenly realize that he was Oliver Fox! Had Oliver Fox’s reputation reached Greece yet?
And even if he got away with it, he had perhaps only one night before Georgie arrived. He was going to have to live this short new life of his with single-minded intensity.
Nikki unlocked a car with the body of a bus and the wheels of a giant excavator. She laughed.
“You don’t look at all the way I imagined!” she said.
The familiar first twinge of disequilibrium passed through Oliver as bracingly as a gulp of vodka.
“Why?” he said. “How did you imagine I looked?”
“Well … the way you do in your photograph. The one in your CV. But you’re much more … I don’t know…” She was going to say “more surprising,” “more handsome,” “more wonderful.” “Younger,” she said.
He thought about this. “Yes, well, that’s because I am,” he said. “Younger. Than I was then.”
She laughed, not understanding. He laughed himself. He couldn’t understand, either.
9
It was obvious what had happened. The owner of this single alien suitcase left on the carousel had taken Dr. Wilfred’s by mistake.
Yes, explained Dr. Wilfred to the third official he had been passed on to, his bag looked rather similar, it was also black with a red leather address tag, and no, he couldn’t precisely describe what the difference was, except that inside the tag on his suitcase it had his name, which was Wilfred. Dr. Norman Wilfred. W-I–L-F-R-E-D. Not “Annuka Vos,” which is what it said on this bag. There was also a flight label with his destination written on it.
Which was?
Which was … Yes — what? He hadn’t filled out the tag himself, it had been done by his personal assistant. It was the Something Center. Or the Something Institute. The Something Something. The Something Something for the Something of Something. He hadn’t thought he needed to have the address about his person, since he was being met. If he could just go through Customs and find the person who was meeting him … Yes…? But he wouldn’t be allowed back…?
It was ridiculous. He knew perfectly well what the place was called, or he had until all this business had started. Everyone in the entire civilized world knew! It was what people came to Skios for! He had come to give a lecture there! Look — here was the lecture! But, as he explained patiently to the man, he had had a very stressful day, and he had quite a number of other things to remember, and in the past few months he had been in quite a number of other Somethings for the Something of Something.
It was his personal assistant who had made all the arrangements. He was phoning her now, look. She would tell them at once.
There was no answer from Vicki. Unbelievable how she was never there when you needed her. So did he perhaps have it written down? Of course he had it written down! It was on the label of the suitcase! It was also written down about fifteen times on all the documents they’d sent him! Where were the documents? He had explained this several times already: the documents were inside the suitcase.
But never mind what it said on or in his suitcase. Whatever it was, it wasn’t “Annuka Vos,” because Annuka Vos was not his name!
No, she hadn’t put her destination on it, so they couldn’t get in touch with her on Skios. And yes, she had put her home address in London, so they could write to her there, certainly, but it might take a while to get a reply, particularly since she was presumably not there in London but here on Skios.
And no, he was not getting excited. He was perfectly used to losing his luggage. It was an inherent part of the way of life that he seemed to have committed himself to. This is why he always carried the text of the lecture with him. Here — in his flight bag. He did his best to promote the international exchange of ideas. He spent half his life sitting on planes and the other half gazing down at the dim faces gazing up at him, knowing that most of them were unable to understand English, or were asleep with their eyes open, or were plotting hostile articles about him in obscure journals. For days on end he would be stuck in places where no reasonable person would ever want to go, in Manila or Minneapolis or Minsk, while his one clean shirt was in Manaus, or Manchester, or Murmansk. So he took the loss of his luggage very much in his stride.
On this occasion, however, his bag was probably not in Manaus or Murmansk. It was almost certainly still here on Skios, not more than a dozen or so miles away, since the island seemed to be only a dozen or so miles long. He supposed that all he had to do was to walk up and down the island calling out “Annuka Vos.”
Unless some further clue to Annuka Vos’s whereabouts could be found inside the bag. A possibility which could be empirically tested, since it appeared not to be locked.
The official gazed at him distrustfully. The only thing that he had understood was that Dr. Wilfred was making trouble. He went away to have a cigarette.