Advent (15 page)

 
Standing in the doorway was a man who looked at first sight like a cross between a gardener and a pirate. The gardener half had gnarled hands and wellies and muddy clothes and an obvious discomfort at finding himself inside the house. The pirate half was dark-eyed and dangerous-looking, with very long, very straggly black hair, and a general impression of belonging somewhere far away and lawless. He glanced at Gav and nodded awkwardly, without smiling.

 
‘This is Guinivere’s nephew, Gavin.’

 
‘Hi.’ Gav thought about standing up, twitched stupidly and stopped. Caleb did not look welcoming.

 
‘’lo.’

 
‘Gavin, my friend Caleb, without whom we would all be lost. And speaking of lost . . .’

 
‘She isn’t here,’ Caleb said. He had a strong West Country accent, which chimed perfectly with both halves, the gardener and the brigand.

 
‘I thought not,’ said Tristram. He obviously felt that Caleb had settled the question. ‘Well, Gavin, your aunt must have been caught up in one of her outside interests. There’s nothing to be concerned about. She’ll be back later today, I’m certain. Perhaps she remembered too late that she was supposed to meet you and is looking for you in Truro.’

 
Oh God, no, Gavin thought. It hadn’t occurred to him. What if she hadn’t got Hester’s message? What if she tried to call Mum and Dad?

 
‘Do you know when she left, Caleb?’ Tristram asked.

 
‘’fore dark yesterday.’

 
‘Did you see her go?’

 
‘No.’ Caleb shook his head.

 
If Gav had been paying attention he might have found this exchange odd, but he wasn’t. Sick to his stomach again, he was imagining his parents cutting their holiday short, getting a flight home. His father wouldn’t say anything at all. He wouldn’t need to; his silence would just make Mum feel worse, which would be all he’d want. When they found him and brought him home, he’d be able to enjoy weeks of twisting her guilt tighter anytime he felt like it.

 
‘But she told you she wanted to see Reverend Jeffrey today?’

 
‘Ah,’ Caleb muttered, a curt affirmative. ‘Asked me yesterday to find him an’ let him know. Took a while to track him down.’

 
‘She didn’t say what she wanted to see him about?’

 
‘No. Don’t mind, though. Good walk.’ Caleb was clearly edgy. His glance flickered around the room.

 
‘And you told her when you got back?’

 
‘Didn’t see her. Still here, though.’

 
‘Thank you,’ Tristram said quietly. ‘Then we must leave Reverend Jeffrey to sort it all out.’

 
‘Alrigh’y.’ Clearly relieved to be going, Caleb nodded. ‘Morning, Marina.’ He winked at her, piratically, an unexpected puncture in his surliness; she blew him back a kiss as he disappeared into the hallway.

 
Despite Mr Uren’s reassurances, they all looked uneasy. Reassurance wouldn’t have come naturally to him, anyway. Marina concentrated on eating; he watched her silently, oblivious to Gavin, who had the feeling that Tristram’s dulled eyes were taking in nothing at all.

 
Marina looked up, holding her knife in mid-air. ‘If Gwen’s not coming till later, why don’t I take Gavin out to the point?’

 
Tristram blinked. ‘Why, yes, my sweet. Or wherever you wish, if he agrees. I had hoped you would. As long as you’re careful.’

 
‘Yes, of course.’

 
The knot in Gav’s stomach loosened. Thinking about his parents had suddenly made him dread the coming day, as if a phone might ring somewhere in the house at any moment, summoning him back. The exchanges between Owen and Tristram and Caleb had made it worse. He couldn’t help feeling there was something they weren’t saying in front of him. He’d vaguely assumed Marina would go off to school, leaving him adrift in the dark old house. The prospect of getting outside – Gav had no idea where or what the ‘point’ was, but she’d said ‘out’ – made everything a little better. He certainly wasn’t going to ask why she wasn’t going to school. No one had put the same question to him; the least he could do was return the courtesy. Plus, whatever kind of place this was, he could tell – he could feel – that it wasn’t meant for questions from outside. It held its secrets, as he held his. He understood what that was like.

 
‘That’d be great,’ he said.

 
‘Good!’ She hopped out of her chair, dropping her knife so that it clattered on the plate. ‘Then let’s—’

 
‘Marina! Let Gavin finish, please.’

 
‘No, it’s OK,’ Gav said quickly, taking a last bite and pushing back his chair. ‘Thanks very much, but I’ve had plenty. I had some toast at . . .’ and he realised he didn’t want to say Auntie Gwen’s name in case it made them solemn again ‘. . . at, um, earlier. Thanks anyway.’

 
Marina bounced on her tiptoes and spun behind her father’s chair. ‘I should get clothes, shouldn’t I?’

 
‘Yes, you should.’

 
She leaned round to kiss his cheek. ‘Just a minute, then,’ and she ran out. Gav heard her feet on the stairs.

 
She was back in the time it took Tristram to wave away Gavin’s perfunctory offer to help tidy up breakfast and direct him to a bathroom. He’d somehow expected the kitchen and bathroom to be different from the rest of the house, like when you visited a cathedral or a castle and found a modern toilet block hiding inside stone walls and arched doors, next to a café where everything was plastic and stainless steel. But the kitchen was completely in keeping with the rest of what he’d seen, thick with smoky warmth and streaked on its rough white walls with soot. There was wood stacked against a wall between great antique stoves of blackened bricks; iron pans and kettles hung above. It looked more like a historical recreation of a kitchen than a place where anyone could actually cook food, and, alarmingly, the same kind of surprise met him in the bathroom, although after a period of embarrassing indecision Gav had found a handle that made something a bit like flushing happen. Better than anywhere else? Was that really what Auntie Gwen thought? It was a useful reminder that she was in fact crazy.

 
Marina was waiting at the foot of the stairs. Her father had vanished. Gav got the impression that he’d been transferred to someone else’s care, and Mr Uren, released from his slow courtesy, was now free to ignore him. It wasn’t a resentful feeling. The man had been polite enough, but Gav was much happier with him gone. What was it he’d said?
You shall have the freedom of Pendurra. While you’re here
, but Gav was determined not to think about the end of his freedom, for as long as he could get away with it.

 
‘All right?’ Marina smiled. She’d tied most of her blonde hair back behind her head with a ribbon, but quite a few bits had been missed and were falling in random tufts around her ears and eyes. It made her look even younger, as did the brown jumper that was a size or two too big for her. She also appeared to be wearing slippers or moccasins; whatever they were, they were leathery and soft and didn’t look right for going outside. Nevertheless she led him down the dim hallway to the door and, lifting an iron latch – the grey daylight briefly dazzled him – stepped out onto the gravel.

 
Crows drifted in and out of the fringes of the wood. Marina led him through a gap in a low stone wall and into an enclosed area of the garden where paths of unkempt grass ran between mostly barren flowerbeds. She chatted happily as they went, always halting to make sure he was right behind her; he felt like she’d trip over her own legs at any moment. He’d have liked to slow down and look around, or at least have a chance to take in the strangely antiquated scene in silence, but trying both to keep up and not to bump into her as she started and stopped used up most of his concentration, and whatever was left over he needed just to pretend to follow her enthusiastic chatter. She seemed to want to show him and tell him everything at once. She named each clump of green or brown and each tangle of sticks as they passed, with the manner of a museum guide introducing much-loved paintings. The botanical names meant nothing to him, though he quickly realised that everything in her world meant everything to her, so he did his best to nod and ‘uh-huh’ on cue. As far as he could see, the garden was just a rather sad mess of droopy green and dead brown. There were other things he wished she’d start explaining, but she seemed to get stuck on whatever was nearest. He didn’t want to sound bored, though, so he made an effort to think of something he could contribute involving gardening. He remembered looking out of Auntie Gwen’s kitchen window into her little garden plot and seeing that bush with its incongruously luxuriant pink flowers.

 
‘Oh yeah. What about—’

 
‘What?’ she said, stopping abruptly on a narrow path; he nearly lost his balance pulling up short behind her.

 
‘I just remembered. You know in the garden at Aunt Gwen’s house? There’s a really nice something I saw there. Some kind of rose maybe?’

 
‘Yes! I know the one you mean. It is a rose. It’s called Madeleine. It’s got these outrageously pink flowers in summer. Pinker than pink.’

 
In the summer.

 
Of course.

 
She must have seen something in his face, because she stopped talking. They’d come to the far end of the walled garden, where an overgrown iron gate led out to a path between one side of the house and the edge of the wood.

 
What she saw in his face was not belated surprise at a rosebush blossoming on one of the shortest days of the year. No: the thing that stopped her short was the mingled fear and astonishment in his eyes as he realised he was about to tell her something; the unfamiliar effort of choosing to talk instead of keeping silent.

 
‘Is everything all right?’ Her oddly lopsided jaw had fallen half open.

 
‘That rose, it’s got flowers now. All over. I saw it this morning.’

 
She looked at him, head tilted.

 
‘But it’s winter,’ she said, in a tone of voice Gav knew all too well.
But there’s no one there, Gav. But that’s impossible, Gav. Don’t be stupid, Gavin.
He remembered again why he didn’t tell people things.

 
‘Oh yeah.’ He looked up at the sky. ‘So it is. Must have missed that somehow.’

 
‘Roses don’t flower in winter,’ she said reasonably.

 
‘They don’t?’

 
‘No.’ Apparently she was as immune to irony as shyness. ‘None of the bushes do. They need it to be warmer. They eat the sun, sort of.’

 
He watched her face, looking for veiled mockery, but she appeared to have been born without those veils. It was part of what made her look so much younger.

 
‘Oh right,’ he said.

 
‘So it can’t—’

 
‘I’ll show you.’

 
‘What?’

 
Anywhere else, with anyone else, he’d have let it go. Forget it. My mistake. Clam up. Silently add it to the long list of small humiliations with which he recorded his days.

 
But Marina didn’t seem to think he was stupid, or ridiculous, or lying. She just seemed mildly confused, as if she was in the middle of working out a not very complicated sum. To his surprise, he discovered that he wasn’t afraid of what she might say.

 
It occurred to him that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt that about any conversation with anyone.

 
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘I’ll show you. See for yourself.’

 
Her eyes twitched anxiously back to the house. ‘But I said I’d take you to the point.’

 
‘OK, we can do whatever afterwards. It’s just up the drive.’ It was an impossible thing, of course. He could only have missed realising it because he got so many other things wrong, all the time. Roses didn’t flower like that in the last days of November. But he’d seen it, it was there, and he was suddenly sure that Marina was also different enough from everyone else he knew that she ought to see it too. ‘It’ll only take a minute. Yeah?’