Advent

  Hester reached across the table and patted his clenched hand.

  ‘Miss Grey?’

  He blinked. ‘Just a name I made up. Stupid, I know.’

  ‘You kept a name for her?’ Hester asked, very gently.

  ‘Are you really sure she’s gone?’ he said, biting his lip.

  Her fingers closed over his. ‘Oh, Gavin, I’m sorry. I do know she isn’t looking over my shoulder any more. I can just feel it. But I don’t know anything about your situation at all. Please don’t think I have anything to tell you about your friend. All right? Gavin?’

  He nodded tightly.

  ‘I found you an hour or two ago running like the devil was at your heels. I left you by yourself in an empty house, just because she told me to and I was too cowardly and too tired to refuse. That’s all I know. I don’t know the first thing about you or your life or what she wants with you. So please don’t—’

  ‘What d’you mean, wants with me?’

  Hester let go of his hand.

  ‘You mean when she said to leave me at Aunt— at the house?’

  ‘Not just that.’

  My oldest friend, he thought. My only friend. Until now. Until today, when at last he needed her, when he’d finally discovered that he could stop trying to know better, that Mum and Dad were wrong, that Mr Bushy was wrong, everyone else was wrong, everyone but her. She’d tried to tell him something. She’d found her voice. And now she’d left him.

  Had she given up on him? Had he driven her away?

  ‘Look. I’ve known her a long time. If “known” is the right word. As long as you, probably. How old are you, may I ask?’

  ‘Fifteen.’

  ‘Just as long, then. Fifteen years, a month and, let’s see, thirteen days. And in all that time I’ve never known her do anything like this. Do anything at all, in fact. I mean, I’ve never seen a discernible motive. I’ve never known her act like a rational agent.’

  She waited for him to speak, but he couldn’t. She sighed, then got up and began clearing up again, stacking plates in the sink. ‘She told me to take that train, Gavin. She . . . Truth be told, it was one of the worst outbursts I’ve ever known. I’d only gone back to Oxford to turn in keys and finish up a couple of things. But I was planning to stay an extra day or two. You know, there were people I wanted to say goodbye to. That sort of thing. Dinner invitations. I’m supposed to be at one of them even as we speak, in fact. But on Sunday night . . .’ She heaved a deep breath. ‘Well. Why don’t we just say that I didn’t get very much sleep and that I was on my way to the station at the crack of dawn. It only . . . stopped when I left the college. And then when I arrived at Reading to change trains, it started up again. I had to go and lock myself in a stall in the ladies’. It was very clear to me which train I had to wait for. Very, very clear. It was very clear which carriage I had to sit in. Which seat.’

  ‘Miss Grey told you to sit opposite me?’

  Hester nodded. ‘Not in so many words. Believe me, nothing was ever that straightforward. But yes. In the seat, that is. Nothing was said about you. I thought you were just another passenger. I had no idea you were . . .’

  Ward of her you seek.

  What did Miss Grey want from him? What did it have to do with Marina, the house, the beast in the dark?

  ‘You see,’ Hester began, as if the silent interval hadn’t happened, ‘I would never have expected the things she said to have any particular point to them. This is the thing that worries me. Over all those years I’ve never known . . . her . . . do anything like that. I’m not . . .’ She hesitated. ‘I’m not sure how good a thing it is for her to have an interest in you. Do you see?’

  ‘She’s always been there for me,’ Gav said, but he was thinking, Until now. Corbo’s voice came back to him, its curt flat rasp: Gets killed. Was she dead? Was Miss Grey dead?

  He shivered violently.

  ‘Yes, I know. Forgive me.’ Hester had misunderstood his spasm. ‘I understand your story isn’t the same as mine. But you haven’t told me anything about what’s happened to you.’ There wasn’t the least hint of accusation in her tone; she was simply stating the case. ‘I took you to Pendurra, and then she left me, and then today, there, whatever happened to you happened. No’ – she raised a hand – ‘no, I’m not asking you to tell me. I’m just explaining why . . . Well, forgive me for saying it, but why I’m worried about you.’

  ‘I don’t know what happened to me today.’ She was about to interrupt him; he cut her off. ‘It’s true: I don’t know. Something weird’s going on. They’re all mixed up in it.’

  ‘All who?’

  ‘Aunt Gwen and the Urens and—’

  ‘Tristram Uren?’

  ‘Mr Uren and Marina I mean, yeah.’

  ‘Marina?’

  ‘His daughter.’

  He’d surprised her – not just surprised, but shocked her.

  ‘Daughter? Tristram Uren has a daughter?’

  ‘Yeah. I met her.’

  ‘Good God. How old is she?’

  ‘Said she was thirteen.’

  ‘Thirteen!’

  Hester looked completely dumbstruck. Apparently Marina’s existence was as astonishing to her as Miss Grey’s.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You’re certain this girl you met is his daughter?’

  ‘Yeah, the whole “daddy” business sort of gave it away.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry. Of course. Sorry. But how incredible. No one has ever mentioned her.’ Her fingertips drummed on the counter. ‘It’s different in London, you see, but down here everyone talks about everything. I’ve heard all the rumours about a wife and so forth, but no one so much as hinted at a child. Where can she have been all these years?’

  ‘I don’t think she gets out much.’

  Hester studied him with her thoughtful eyes. ‘Well, well,’ she said.

  But he was thinking about Marina too. The one person who might know what he was talking about and he’d ignored her, dismissed her the way people had always dismissed him. I should be there, he thought. Something really bad’s happening. Miss Grey sent me there and I just ran away.

  ‘I should go back.’

  ‘No.’ Hester put down the plate she was drying with a decisive thunk, making Gav look up in surprise. ‘No. Gavin. Look. I haven’t the slightest idea what you saw or did today, but I can see the state of your clothes and your face, and I can see how tired you are. You need time, and strength. Trust me. I know a little bit of what this is like. I may know better than anyone. We shouldn’t even talk about it any longer. I know, it’s my fault. I have a thousand things I want to ask you. But they can all wait. Any idiot can see that you need some peace and a night’s sleep.’

  When she said the word sleep it was like casting a spell. The idea of lying down somewhere, not having to talk, not having to think, made him almost weep with longing. Did he seriously think he was going back out into the dark, back towards the chapel and what he thought he’d seen there?

  She tried to offer him the one bedroom upstairs, but when he saw the spare room – a space not much longer than he was, squeezed under the eaves and stacked to the ceiling with packing boxes – he absolutely refused. So he helped her shift boxes around until they found one with all the blankets and cushions, and together they piled them up until they’d made something like a fabric nest between cardboard cliffs. By the time that was done, Gav could barely hold himself upright.

  ‘I’m afraid there’s no light for you,’ Hester said. The room had a window, but the boxes completely blocked it.

  ‘’s fine.’

  ‘You’ll be all right, then?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Truth be told, he was glad of the barrier between him and the night. ‘Thanks to you,’ he added.

  She grinned. ‘I’d say, “You’re welcome,” but that wouldn’t be the half of it. I have a suspicion you’ve saved my life, actually. I’d never have admitted this to myself before yesterday, but I’m not sure how much longer I was goi
ng to be able to carry on.’

  Gav looked away.

  ‘I didn’t do anything,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, but you did. You did. You just don’t know what it was yet.’

  It sounded a bit like a joke, but her voice was all simple assurance.

  ‘Gavin?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘I don’t hate your friend. I never hated her. I’m only glad she’s gone because I’m old. I’m worn out. I’d rather have the easy life. I want to be like everyone else again.’

  He couldn’t think of anything to say at all.

  ‘You’re different.’ He felt her eyes on him and suddenly realised what made her look clever. It was that you could tell she hadn’t made her mind up about things before she looked at them. What was that thing Mr Bushy always said? She didn’t judge; she appraised. (Sleepily he remembered the instruction from so many English lessons: I don’t care whether you think it’s good or bad, Stokes. I want you to tell me how it works!) Her eyes took things in, generously. Like she’d taken him in.

  ‘You don’t have to be afraid of it, Gavin. It’s a marvellous thing. Don’t be afraid to find out.’

  Learn fast.

  ‘Good night then,’ she finished, closing the door behind her.

  ‘Night.’

  Horace had been sitting at the desk under the window in his tiny room, moodily pondering nothing in particular, when he saw the car pull up at the professor’s house opposite.

  He’d been about to shout something. Mum was in bed – Up early tomorrow. I have to go to Mrs Ambell and Mrs Standish in Falmouth and then come back in the afternoon to help the professor. I have breakfast all ready for you. Make sure you brush your teeth this time – but she’d still asked him to keep an eye out in case he saw the mad old bat come home.

  And then he thought, Why should I tell her?

  He knew exactly what would happen if he did. Mum would get out of bed, in her slippers. She’d come into his room and peer out through the net curtain to make sure the car was actually there, as if she couldn’t trust him to identify a car on his own. And then she’d go across the street and invite the nutter in. For a chat. And food. And he’d already told her he’d nearly finished his homework so he wouldn’t be able to get out of going down and being polite unless he came up with another excuse, really quickly.

  Except he didn’t need to think of an excuse. All he had to do was not tell her the old headcase had come home.

  What did it possibly matter anyway? He shouldn’t encourage Mum. Why should she care what the neighbours were doing? No. Forget it. He glanced at his wall clock. Mum wouldn’t get out of bed now.

  He watched idly as the professor got herself out of her car. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her. Everyone knew about her, though. The village idiot.

  Looks like she’s got a visitor too.

  Someone was getting out of the passenger side. Not another old person, surprisingly. Seeing anyone who wasn’t nearly dead was a major surprise in this craphole village. Some kid.

  Kid?

  Horace stood up from his desk as the boy straightened beside the car. Light from the streetlamp in the lane fell through the bushes of the cramped front garden, picking out the visitor’s face.

  Horace felt his secret turn to lead inside him.

  After a few numb seconds he reached under the lampshade and turned off his desk light. Carefully, so Mum wouldn’t hear anything, he sat on the desk and pressed his nose to the glass, just in time to see the two of them, the woman and the boy, go into the house opposite. As they opened the front door they were caught in a box of brightness, made unmistakable. Just for a second or two, but long enough.

  Horace sat in his room with his light turned off for a long time, and when he finally went to bed, it was hours before he managed to sleep.

  Sixteen

  Evensong complete, and the usual handful of attendees sent back off into the night with sufficient good wishes, Owen decided to drive up to the lodge to see if Gwen had found her way home yet.

  He knew he ought to have walked, really. The cold was no worse than any other overcast winter night, and he’d have warmed up anyway going up the hill to the crossroads. It wasn’t all that far. But it was very dark, the kind of dark that presses around the edges of a torch’s beam. Some of the villagers would be out walking their dogs in it, perfectly undisturbed, but even after all his years of living in the parish he’d never become used to being outside on his own in that kind of pitch black.

  So, rather guiltily, he took the car.

  He was swinging right at the crossroads on top of the ridge when a swathe of the impenetrable night above detached itself with a sound like the sky gasping and flew in front of the windshield. Owen cried out and swerved the wheel away. With a terrible crumpling noise and a bruising jolt his car ran into a hedge, throwing him against the seatbelt, crushing the breath out of him and filling his eyes with a chaos of shooting stars. His head spun.

  Silence fell around him apart from a small hiss, steam leaking from the wrecked engine.

  After a while he shoved the door open groggily. He couldn’t quite remember what had made him do something so stupid. His skull throbbed. He ran his hands over his legs. They felt shaky but intact. Cold air gusted around him.

  He staggered out. One headlight was bust, but the other still shone, embedded in the hedge, making strange shadows. He had no other light. He cursed himself for his carelessness. Leaning in the door, he tried the ignition a few times, but though it scraped and rattled, the engine wouldn’t catch.

  He patted his pockets with one hand, steadying himself against the car with the other. No phone. He’d left it at home. Half a mile away at most, but that half-mile was as black as the seabed. He opened the boot and felt around for a torch, but he knew there wasn’t one there. Carrying a light in the back of the car was something else he’d never learned to do, even after two decades of country life.

  The lodge at Pendurra was only a couple of hundred yards eastwards along the lane. He didn’t like to bother Gwen at this time of the evening. She might not even be there, he reminded himself, though in the woozy aftermath of the crash he found himself wondering why he thought that was so. But borrowing one of her endless candles would help light his way home.

  The darkness reminded him of something. He looked up, nervously.

  It must have just been a big bird, he thought. It must have flown down against the windscreen somehow. Gave me a fright. Ridiculous.

  He set off towards Pendurra.

  He went slowly. His shoulder hurt more than he realised. Each step seemed to jog it. After a little while the lane made a gentle bend, and the faint illumination from the car vanished from the tarmac in front of him. Without it there was nothing in any direction but a few distant spots of light from houses beyond the high fields.

  He was busy persuading himself to start walking the last thirty yards when he heard steps, and a small, flickering, bobbing light appeared ahead. From out of the gate of Pendurra someone came into the road, holding a lantern in which a single fat candle burned. The lantern was shaded so that it shone only ahead, towards him.

  ‘One comes, master,’ said a rich warm voice.

  The lantern wobbled, its chain clinking. Then it swung sideways and for an instant its dim light flowed across something beside it. Something huge, something that should not have had the power of motion. Something that should not have had anything resembling a face.

  Owen dropped to his knees in the road.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ he said.

  The lantern settled again. Now everything was shadow behind it, dark, like the dark that had plunged towards the car and made him crash. Not a big bird.

  The silence was broken by another voice, a woman’s, but cracked, harsh, tight. It said, ‘He takes me for his saviour.’

  The arm that held the lantern raised it higher to cast its light further along the road.

  ‘Is this a holy man?’ the same person sa
id.

  ‘I cannot tell,’ murmured the first voice, the beautiful one, invisible behind the lantern.

  ‘You!’ A grotesque bark. ‘Do you have power of speech? Do you understand me?’

  Owen pushed himself unsteadily to his feet. The only thing he was aware of was fear. He’d never known what the word really meant before. It washed all over him in one merciless flood, driving everything else out.

  ‘Beware, master,’ hummed the invisible voice.

  ‘Jesus,’ said Owen, without knowing he’d spoken. His feet were backing away, tiny trembling steps. ‘Jesus.’

  ‘He welcomes me.’

  ‘It may be, master.’

  ‘You.’ The lantern twitched. ‘Do you welcome me?’

  Owen stopped. The fear roared in his ears.

  ‘An imbecile,’ the harsh woman’s voice said, after a moment. ‘Drive him away. Guard this gate afterwards. Let no one enter.’

  There was another noise, abrupt and loud, a hollow thrashing in the air. Owen flinched away from it, raising his hands. The light vanished. Something scratched on the road ahead.

  The darkness spoke to him, a third voice.

  ‘Go.’

  His legs wouldn’t move. Nothing moved.

  ‘Go,’ it said again, toneless. ‘Now. Back.’