Downtime - Marc Platt [12]
‘You must miss him very much,’ said Victoria.
Mrs Cywynski stirred the chutney vigorously. ‘Sometimes.
Even when it’s so familiar that you want to scream, it’s difficult to let go. Still, I have poor Andrzej where I want him now. And for the first time in his life, he’s tidy! So that leaves the rest of the place to me and the cats.’
There was a key hanging above the dresser – the only key Victoria had seen, and by default it must go with the only inner door in the house that was always locked. ‘Just Mr Cywynski’s odds and ends,’ Mrs Cywynski had said. And Victoria knew that it was a sanctum, a shrine, where she would never presume to intrude.
She suddenly realized that Mrs Cywynski was watching her with a look of surprising affection. ‘Poor kochano, just look at the shadows under your eyes. How gloomy! They work you like a Trojan at that museum.’
Victoria stopped searching through the bottled fruit in the cool pantry. ‘I like it there.’
‘Surrounded by all those fossils.’
‘That’s at the Natural History. Not the British Museum.’
‘I meant the professors.’
Victoria giggled. ‘They’re not so bad. Or so ancient.’
‘Harrumph.’ Mrs Cywynski heaved herself onto the kitchen stool and wiped her hands on her apron. She clearly meant business, so Victoria said, ‘I wish I could remember the ingredients for that lemon flummery.’
Mrs Cywynski wagged a finger, the same gesture she reserved for an errant cat. ‘You don’t look after yourself. What am I to say to Mrs Harris the next time she rings? For a start-off I can give you something to help you sleep.’
‘Sleeping isn’t the problem.’
‘But you don’t sleep well. I hear you calling out in the night.’
‘Do I?’ That flustered her. ‘Are you sure that’s not the cats?
Or the ether?’
Mrs Cywynski nodded. ‘That’s possible. The ether is very turbulent at the moment. Gives me no peace.’ She sniffed.
‘Come. If you like, I will read you the cards.’
Victoria flinched. ‘Oh, no. That’s very kind, Roxana, but not now. The future can be complicated enough without knowing it in advance.’ Besides which her father, and the Doctor too, had always insisted on a scientific approach to everything. ‘Fiddle-faddle’ father had called it once, when he had caught the maid consulting the tea-leaves.
‘How unadventurous. Still, if you don’t have expectations, you can’t have disappointments,’ retorted the landlady. ‘How are you getting on with the book on astral projection I lent you?’
‘Well, it’s quite interesting,’ floundered Victoria. ‘But I don’t think I really believe in out-of-body experiences.’
‘Not scientifically proven?’
‘Not yet, anyway.’
‘Of course, dear. Nothing exists until it’s discovered.’ Mrs Cywynski shrugged. ‘So you must find other means of travel.
It must be a holiday then.’
‘I don’t need a holiday. Who would I go with anyway?’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, there must be someone. Some nice young man... or professor.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘No excuses. I can’t think why you’ve never travelled.’
‘Well, actually...’
‘A holiday for you must be something cultural. Italy or Greece?’
‘Oh no, not the Grand Tour. Everybody goes on that.’
‘Then where would you really like to go?’
Victoria lifted one of the saucepan lids and stirred the rich brown chutney. ‘Tibet,’ she smiled. ‘That’s where I want to go.’
When she had glided up to Lukla, the village had looked no more than a few houses bunched on the green mountain slopes around the airstrip. A high cluster of white buildings with blue and green windows. But today was the day of the bazaar and the place was suddenly alive with Sherpa in coloured hats and dealers with bamboo baskets selling rice and fruit.
It had taken a night to recover from the bumpy flight from Kathmandu. The little Twin Otter craft had been tossed about in the air as if the clouds were playing tennis with it. Victoria felt as if her stomach was still somewhere over