Time Laid Up In Store (Extract from novel now called In The Secret Places of the Stairs)

Victor put his spoon down. ‘Malcolm. Do you have someone waiting for you at home while you work up here?’
The question came from nowhere and I didn’t know the answer. I didn’t have a wife, if that’s what he was asking. And I couldn’t be sure whether Jack would still be there waiting for me after I had left him to come up and spent the month here. And I didn’t feel like explaining any of it to Victor.
Peter came to my rescue, answering a different question. ‘Malcolm’s doing a splendid job up here. Fixing languids, polishing windchests, tuning vox humanas,’ he said, inaccurately.
My eyelids grew heavy with a peculiar afternoon weight. I wanted to languish in my Sunday afternoon nap, cocooned in my caravan, door and curtains closed. If anyone but Peter approached, I’d stop breathing and pretend to be out. I wanted to hold onto that sleepiness, so I took a raspberry from Peter’s plate and experimented with not saying goodbye; I stepped out the back door, as if for some air, and instead of going back inside, I slipped through the pine trees into the soft afternoon and the sanctuary of my caravan.