Free Skios: A Novel by Michael Frayn Page A

stopped moving. For a moment it remained motionless. Then the long softness pressing against his back abruptly removed itself, the bed bounced violently, and there was the sound of the mosquito netting ripping as a body rocketed through it and away into the darkness.
    He was too stunned to understand, then too blinded to see as a light came on, then too deafened to think as the room filled with screaming. It seemed to be coming, he slowly made out through the pink dazzle in his eyes, from somewhere in the midst of a scrabble of torn mosquito netting pressed back against the wall near the light switch.
    He struggled to sit up, so as to think more clearly. At once the bundle of mosquito netting screamed louder than ever, picked up various pieces of clothing scattered around the floor, and ran into the bathroom. There was the sound of a bolt being slammed home.
    He remembered that he had uttered two words, but not, in his state of shock, what they were. What could they possibly have been? Never, surely, in the history of traveling lecturers had two words produced such an abrupt and total reversal of fortune.

 
    14
    Somewhere in the world, perhaps in America or India, inside one vast electronic machine among a bank of others, an inaudible voice was saying, “Hi! I know it sounds like me. But it’s not me. It’s just my phone, pretending.…”
    And then, inside perhaps the same machine, perhaps a different one, on a different continent even, another inaudible voice was saying in a desperate whisper, “Oliver, will you please answer your phone! I’m locked in the bathroom! He’s hammering on the door! I thought it was you ! He nearly raped me! I don’t know how to phone the police in this country! Oliver! Please help me! I’m all on my own! In the bathroom!”
    And then, a minute or two later, perhaps inside one of the same machines, perhaps not: “Hi! I know it sounds like me. But it’s not me…”
    Followed by a voice that had risen to a hysterical scream: “Oliver! Where are you? He was in bed! He was pretending to be you! He hasn’t done something to you, has he? Tied you up? Murdered you…?”
    *   *   *
    And inside perhaps once again the same machine, perhaps another one in some completely different part of the world, two inaudible voices talking simultaneously. A man’s:
    “Listen, I don’t know what’s going on here—some woman has broken into the guest quarters—she’s having hysterics—she’s locked herself in the bathroom—can you send someone—or call the police—or tell me what to dial? What did you say?”
    And a woman’s:
    “You have reached the Fred Toppler Foundation. There is no one here right now to take your call…”

 
    15
    As the night wore on Nikki’s worries about the future of the directorship began to change their shape, in the way that worries so often do in the darkness. What was keeping her awake now was a memory of the past. A past only a few hours old, but as lost to her as childhood. Once again she saw that tousled blond head slowly turning, and those rueful dark eyes coming to rest on the sign she was holding up. Once again she saw the summer dawn of that slow smile. And the smile becoming the full sunrise of his laughter.
    She kept hearing the name. Dr. Norman Wilfred. She turned onto her other side and pulled the pillow over her ears, but the name spoke through it. “Dr. Wilfred. Norman.”
    She might manage to go to sleep, she thought, if she could get some air into the room. She could quite safely unbolt the window now, surely. No one was going to be trying to get in at this time of the night. She jumped out of bed and had her hand on the bolt when her phone rang. She ran back and snatched it up. “Yes?” she said breathlessly. Too late she remembered the tone of voice she used for answering the phone, the one that went with the pleasant expression and the crisp white shirts. “Hello? Yes?”
    “Nikki, I know I’ve woken you up,” said Georgie,