Advent (20 page)

 
Marina had all but sprung out of her shoes in surprise; now she whirled to face the newcomer, half breathless, half laughing. ‘Horace!’ she shouted.

 
‘Bet you never saw me.’

 
‘Of course we didn’t!’

 
At the word ‘we’ the triumphant grin vanished from the boy’s face. He flicked a suspicious look at Gavin, who was still busy righting himself, brushing his hands on his trousers and kicking clods of wet leaves from his shoes. Though the boy was small, Gav guessed he was not far off Marina’s age, just a couple of years younger than himself. Unlike her (and unlike him) he’d grown into his body. Gav recognised his type from school: a neat, self-possessed, wiry kid. Give him a football and within minutes he’d have been impressing or embarrassing his elders. Noticing how deftly he slipped among the web of curving boughs, Gav thought of the slight figure he’d glimpsed running down the path into the woods as he left Auntie Gwen’s house. It was obvious from his manner that he didn’t want to be seen by anyone else. He had a dark cap pulled low over his forehead. He was an Asian kid – Gav thought maybe Chinese or Japanese. His eyes looked keen. When they met Gavin’s, there was a mixture of curiosity and defiance in them, the boy’s challenge to another, bigger boy.

 
‘So who’s this then?’

 
‘Oh, say hi to Gavin. Gavin’s my cousin. Well, close enough. He’s visiting.’

 
‘Saw you before, didn’t I? Walking down from the lodge earlier on. Bet you’d no idea I was there neither.’

 
Gavin closed his eyes. It had only been half an hour since he’d felt himself stepping out of his shell, speaking to Marina, but the sudden intrusion of this kid was already making him want to crawl right back in again.

 
‘No one ever sees you when you’re sneaking around, Horace,’ Marina said admiringly.

 
‘Followed him all the way down to the house. Bet you never saw a thing.’ Gav was pretty sure he had, for an instant, but it wasn’t worth mentioning. ‘Come to visit then?’ It sounded like an accusation.

 
Marina answered instead. ‘I just told you that. Anyway, what are
you
doing here this morning? Shouldn’t you be in your school instead of following us around?’

 
‘I weren’t following!’

 
‘You just said you followed me,’ Gav put in.

 
‘Yeah, well, that’s different.’ Horace glared at him before appealing to Marina. ‘Never seen him before in my life, have I? I see some bloke I never heard of coming out of Miss Clifton’s, walking down the drive, what am I supposed to do?’

 
‘Gavin is Gwenny’s nephew. That means his mother’s her sister. He’s allowed.’

 
‘Nice to meet you,’ Gav said, and this time he had the small satisfaction of seeing his sarcastic tone hitting its intended target, though Marina remained happily oblivious to the tension between the two boys.

 
‘I wish you wouldn’t jump out of the rhododendrons like that. You gave us a fright. What
are
you doing here today? Are you going to come exploring?’

 
‘Just on my way out,’ Horace muttered.

 
‘You weren’t going to stay? What’s wrong? You don’t look pleased to see me.’

 
The boy took off his cap and ran his fingers through his short hair. ‘Course I am. Got to go, though.’

 
She pouted. ‘Why? We were going down towards the lookout. Can’t you come for a bit?’

 
‘No. Not today, OK?’

 
‘Oh all right then. How about at the weekend? Gavin will still be here then. We can explore together.’

 
‘Yeah, maybe.’ Horace looked about as pleased with the suggestion as Gav was. He jammed his cap back on.

 
‘Good. So is today one of those holidays? Or are you being bad again?’

 
Horace blushed. ‘Course not.’ Now he was doing his best to pretend Gavin wasn’t even there. ‘Anyway, I got to go, innit.’

 
‘You’re acting very funny, Horace. What is it?’

 
The boy opened his mouth to dismiss the question, but stopped himself. He was, indeed, very fidgety; even Marina had noticed. He eyed Gavin, who thought it was pretty obvious what was wrong with the kid but certainly wasn’t going to try and explain concepts like competitiveness and jealousy to Marina.

 
Nothing in Horace’s look prepared him for the boy’s question.

 
‘You here with your mum then?’

 
‘Huh?’

 
‘Your mum. Miss Clifton’s sister, yeah? She staying here too?’

 
‘Er—’ Gav began, just as Marina chimed in, ‘No. Actually, Gavin’s mother doesn’t like him. It’s because he’s different. They sent him away on his own – was that it?’ Gav had no idea how to shut her up. ‘He told me earlier. That’s why—’

 
Fortunately Horace rescued him. ‘So there’s no one else staying?’

 
‘No. Horace? What’s wrong?’

 
It wasn’t just the grey light. The boy did look slightly pale.

 
‘Nothing’s wrong. Seen Miss Clifton this morning?’

 
Gav and Marina looked at each other. Her breeziness deserted her, all at once.

 
‘Why?’ he asked.

 
‘Just wondering.’

 
Marina gave no sign of answering, so, ‘She’s gone off somewhere,’ he said. ‘No one’s sure where.’

 
‘Yeah, well, I know, don’t I? Saw her down on the rocks just now.’

 
Gav’s heart lurched. Marina was stung too. ‘What? You can’t have. Where?’

 
‘Yeah, I did. Don’t tell me what I saw. On them rocks by the cove. Where that ledge is, going out in the water.’

 
‘When? Yesterday?’

 
‘No, I told you! Don’t you listen? Just this morning. Earlier on. I just come across, I tied the boat up, I was coming up the path by the shore and I saw her out there.’

 
‘You can’t have.’

 
Horace obviously didn’t take contradiction well. ‘Oh yeah? Why not?’

 
‘Caleb said she’s not here.’

 
This was the wrong thing to say. Horace threw his hands in the air, fists smacking against branches. ‘Caleb! Bloody hell, what does he know about it?’

 
‘Caleb knows whenever someone’s here.’

 
‘Don’t be stupid! Doesn’t know when I’m here, does he?’

 
‘Of course he does, Horace.’

 
‘Oh yeah? Well in that case why—’

 
Gav interrupted. ‘Is that why you asked about my mum?’ A faintly uneasy feeling was stirring in him. Horace and Marina stopped arguing. The antagonism slowly drained out of the kid’s expression.

 
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘That’s right.’

 
‘I don’t understand,’ Marina said.

 
‘You saw someone who might have been Aunt Gwen or might have been someone who looked a lot like her.’

 
‘Yeah,’ Horace said, suddenly grateful. ‘See, that’s what’s weird. I was sure it was her . . .’

 
‘It can’t have been,’ Marina put in.

 
Horace ignored her. ‘. . . but then she didn’t look quite right, know what I mean? And she was . . .’ The sentence trailed off. Horace looked back and forth between Marina and Gavin, unsure now which of them was his ally.

 
‘She was what?’ Gav prompted.

 
‘It wasn’t her!’

 
But Horace had made his choice. Something was weighing on him and he’d decided to confide in Gavin.

 
‘I dunno. It was weird. She was like . . . bending over the river.’ Horace mimed the action, crouching low and forwards, his hands waving strangely near his feet. ‘Like she’d dropped something in the water and was looking for it, but in slow motion. And then . . . Yeah. Well.’ Gav must have failed to look sufficiently impressed by whatever the kid wanted to tell him. Horace swept his cap off again and rubbed his head. ‘Look, I got to get going.’

 
‘Then what?’

 
‘I know,’ Marina said. ‘You must have seen someone else who looks a bit like Gwen. Anyone can go along that bit by the shore. And whoever it was dropped something by accident and was looking for it, and that’s what you saw.’

 
‘You think I’m stupid or something?’

 
Marina flinched.

 
‘You think I don’t know what I’m looking at? I got perfect eyes, me. And I know everyone round here. And OK.’ His temper was up. He straightened his shoulders belligerently, as if he was now coming out with something he hadn’t meant to say but could no longer hold back. ‘I know Miss Clifton’s been acting weird recently. Yeah? Really weird. Bet you never noticed, did you? You never notice stuff like that.’

 
‘Hey,’ Gav said. Marina’s head hung so low her chin looked like it might bruise her breastbone.

 
Horace now ignored him, talking fast and angrily. ‘Saturday
and
Sunday she asked me to go see her. Bet you never realised, did you? You don’t know everything goes on here. You nor Caleb. Something weird’s going on with her, I’m telling you. You need to keep your eyes open like I do. I know lots more than anyone thinks. Lots more.’

 
‘I know you do, Horace,’ Marina mumbled from her chest.

 
Only seconds earlier Gav had been about to tell him to shut up and leave her alone, but now he was thinking of the empty house, the voice outside in the dark, the room littered with crackpot books and demented notes. The winter rose.

 
‘What do you mean, something weird?’

 
‘Dunno,’ he began, sulky but superior. ‘Hard to describe, innit.’ He waited a moment to be sure he had their attention. ‘But, OK, couple of days ago, Sunday. She said would I stop at the lodge before I went home. And when I did, she’s, like, mental. Really mental. I mean, nice and everything, friendly, like usual, but she’s so excited she can’t hardly speak. Really wound up. I thought she was pretty freaky in the morning, but by the time I went up to say bye—’

 
‘Wait,’ Marina interrupted. ‘In the morning?’

 
‘Yeah. I stopped in at hers before I come and see you, and then on the way back as well in the afternoon.’

 
‘You never told me you’d done that.’

 
‘Yeah, well, you don’t know everything I do, do you? And anyway, she’s, like, all secretive. Kept smiling at me and going like this,’ and he touched a finger to his lips. ‘Weird. She wouldn’t say why she wanted me to do all that stuff for her, but she—’

 
‘What stuff?’

 
He looked at her exasperatedly. ‘Let me finish, all right?’

 
Gav would have been happy to point out that Horace hadn’t even started, at least not to any intelligible purpose, but he wanted to hear about Auntie Gwen.

 
‘So look, on Saturday, the day before, yeah? She grabs me before I go home and says will I go check the post for her in Falmouth.’

 
‘The post?’

 
‘Yeah, she’s got that mailbox there. Gave me the key and all. She said she’s expecting a letter and it’s really important. And she wants me to bring it when I come Sunday, the next day. She said that like fifteen times, like I’m some kind of moron. So anyway, she gives me the key to the box, yeah, and that evening I go and check for her and there’s her letter. So I bring it over for her Sunday morning, like she asked.’ Marina was nodding. ‘I stop by there before I come down to see you, like I said. And when I give her the letter she . . .’ He shrugged exaggeratedly as if lost for words. ‘She looks at it like she’s almost afraid to open it. Like it’s a bomb. And then like I told you, OK, she says will I come by again in the afternoon before I go. So I did, and as soon as I open the door, she gives me this big hug and kiss and she’s, like, totally off her head. Asking crazy questions. Over and over again. Mental.’