"downtime" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brown Eric)

Downtime in the MKCR

By Eric Brown.

First published in Interzone 83, May '94.


Sinclair left his villa and walked down the hill to the taverna. As ever, this early in the morning, his usual table was free. He sat down in the shade and stared out across the bay. The quayside was without its picturesque line of fishing boats; they would arrive back, in ones and twos, around mid-day. The water was blindingly blue - almost too perfectly aquamarine to be true. Directly opposite the taverna, the village of Mirthios climbed the hillside, a collection of square, whitewashed buildings among the hazy green olive groves.

The proprietor - an ancient, bewhiskered woman dressed in traditional black - shuffled out with his regular breakfast: a small pot of coffee and a bowl of yoghurt.
He thanked her. Despite the situation, he was determined to convey the usual courtesies to the locals. Last night he had met a group of fellow tourists whose pragmatism had almost made him ashamed of his old-fashioned manners.
He'd complimented the proprietor on his meal.

He became aware of the four young men across the table, staring at him as if he were mad.

"You don't for a minute think that it matters, do you?" one of the men - Eddie, a computer programmer from Watford - asked him.

Sinclair blushed. "Perhaps not... but that's no reason to be rude."

Eddie had turned to one of the others and laughed.

Sinclair finished his ouzo and left. Their muttered comments had followed him back along the quayside.

One of the young men - the quiet one, who had not stared or laughed at him - had made some excuse, left the others and caught up with Sinclair.

"I'm sorry about all that. I know what you mean. It's quite natural to be civil - in fact, I think they make an effort not to be. Anyway... good night."

And the boy, whose name Sinclair had not caught - did his eyes linger, his smile widen in invitation? - sketched a wave and ran back to his drinking companions.
This morning, Sinclair had awoken to an immediate and aching regret: he should have said something, invited the boy back for a nightcap.

Here on New Crete, he knew, he was free of the constraints that inhibited him back in London. He wondered how long it might be before he convinced himself of this fact, before he could let go and enjoy himself. Five years of living with death, of turning his mind away from the needs of his flesh, had made him insular, inadequate.

He looked up from his coffee, sure he had seen something flashing on the horizon. If it was the reflection from a boat in the morning sun, it had passed, and even the boat was not visible.

Then it flashed again. It was no boat. The corona exploded on the ocean's horizon, expanded east and west in two long, thin pincers, then vanished. He would have put it down to some natural effect - unknown to him - had he not experienced a similar effect, or anomaly, yesterday afternoon while swimming. Wading in from the shallows, the gentle tug of the undertow retarding his progress, he thought he had seen a patch of sand, up the beach beside his rattan mat, begin to swirl, the individual grains crawl in a neatly patterned spiral. As he approached the phenomenon, it had ceased. He had thought nothing more of it, putting the effect down to a trick of the sunlight and too much ouzo the night before.
Now, he began to wonder.

"You start early."

"Oh." He looked up. "Excuse me. Miles away."

"Andrew. Andy. We met last night-" This with some hesitation, as if afraid that Sinclair might not recognise him. As if!

"Of course. Nice to see you again. Won't you join me? Coffee?" He was talking too much. He was quite unused to such meetings, the possibilities that such meetings promised.

Andy wore shorts manufactured from cut-down jeans, a white tee-shirt that showed off his tanned biceps. A pair of sun-glasses were clipped by an arm to the neck of his shirt.

They exchanged meaningless smalltalk for a while, Sinclair's unease rising as he realised that he really liked the boy, was not merely infatuated by his physicality.
Andy had a gentle, unassuming manner and a sense of humour. Sinclair told himself that holiday romances never worked. And especially not here.