Advent Read online

  No one would have said the same about Tristram Uren. Gav remembered a photo from Auntie Gwen’s scrapbook. A formal portrait, black and white, in uniform, the picture of a dashing war hero. Its old-fashioned glamour had stuck in his mind. Not a trace of the confidence and energy of the handsome man in the old photo remained in Mr Uren now. He looked more akin to the inhabitants of the portraits hanging in the hallway, nameless faces captured looking hollow and remote and then forgotten, left to their inheritance of dust and soot. He addressed Gavin kindly, but still as if he was forcing himself to mind his manners.

  ‘We can at least warm you up. There’s a fire in the front room.’

  Gav couldn’t see what else to do or where else to go.

  ‘Nice, thanks.’

  ‘You managed all right last night, on your own?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, I was fine.’ Well, apart from the corpse moaning and banging on the door outside. ‘Aunt Gwen had everything set up.’

  ‘That’s something at least. She is an immensely capable woman.’

  Gav was about to give a sarcastic snort when it struck him, first, that Mr Uren had meant the comment completely seriously, and second, that he had never in his life heard anyone say anything nice about Auntie Gwen before, let alone call her ‘capable’. He was ashamed of his first reaction and took a moment to weigh his reply, so he could say what he was really thinking.

  ‘She’s great. Always been my favourite relative, by far.’

  Mr Uren must have registered the sincerity in his tone. He stopped and looked round at Gavin again. It was a bit like watching a tree bend in a strong wind.

  ‘She speaks very highly of you too, Gavin. You should have seen her when the letter from your mother arrived. I was almost offended to find out that she isn’t exclusively devoted to us.’

  This sounded like it ought to have been a joke, though nothing in Mr Uren’s expression suggested that it was; it was a face drained of levity. Gavin must have looked uneasy, and Mr Uren misunderstood his discomfort.

  ‘There’s no need to be anxious,’ he went on. ‘If she’s on the estate, my friend Caleb will find her, and if she isn’t, Reverend Jeffrey will track her down, or start the right people looking. We’re all used to her ways here, as she is to ours. Come and see some of what she wanted you to see, while we wait.’

  The hall widened at the other side of the house, at the foot of an uneven but grand staircase. Following Mr Uren’s gesture, a couple more steps brought Gav to the window and now at last he saw what the house saw.

  Pendurra looked down across an open field and a long wood below to the mouth of a river and beyond it, glimpsed as a horizon of luminous grey laid over the green humps and folds, the sea.

  Though he was a city child, Gavin wasn’t totally unfamiliar with trees and grass and water. Even around his home he knew where to find them. He knew they meant space, quiet space, places to escape into, and so he’d already learned to like them. This, though, was something altogether different. It was as if the little secret havens of nettle and bramble, the patches of unbuilt or overgrown cityscape he’d known all his life, were seedpods, and here, now, they had burst open, their tentative promise of solitude blossoming into a whole world of stillness. There was a rhythm and a completeness to the landscape: a pattern of wild and tame, the patch fields and the pockets of woodland dipping and rising around the riverbanks, the river itself closed among them, almost out of sight but still threading the land and the ocean together. He barely took in the details of what he saw. He was feeling like he’d discovered the magic wardrobe in the spare room, the rusty gate in the untrodden back alley that opened into another world.

  ‘A rather dreary morning, I’m afraid,’ Mr Uren said quietly. He too was staring out towards the sea. ‘I had hoped last night’s rain would clear it all away.’ He sighed and beckoned Gav towards an open door across the hall.

  The room they entered looked slightly less like something you’d have to pay to go and see, although only slightly. It was recognisably a living room, one that people actually lived in. Though it was big and (like everything else Gavin had seen in the house) impressive in an old-fashioned way, it was also shabby with use and age, corners dusty, surfaces dull. It stretched along the back of the house, the side that looked down towards the sea. Three deep windows let in the daylight. On the opposite wall a fire burned in a stone hearth big enough for Gav to have comfortably sat inside. In between was an assortment of the kind of furniture he associated with those fancy antique shops that never had any people inside: big, ornate, mismatched, dull-coloured things that had been made, by hand, solidly enough to endure even when they started to look decrepit, as these did. Mr Uren invited Gavin to sit at a table in front of the middle window, where two people had obviously just finished eating. He left him there while he went out through a door by the fireplace, promising to come back with more food. Gav didn’t much want to sit, or to eat, but to his surprise he wasn’t starting to feel trapped. All he did was stare out of the window. Nothing was moving but the occasional seagull.

  Mr Uren had barely returned, rather shakily carrying a brown teapot which gave off a smell that didn’t seem much like tea, when he looked up from under his heavy brows, over Gav’s shoulder.

  ‘Ah, here we are at last!’

  His face lit up. Actually lit up: the light was rekindled in his eyes, and a mass of shadow somehow disappeared in an instant from his expression.

  ‘Here I am, Daddy,’ said a voice behind Gav.

  He turned.

  The dead girl had just walked in.

  Seven

  There was no mistaking her. Though her hair was dry and her eyes were open and her fingers were fiddling absently with the strings of her entirely unsinister pink pyjamas, he recognised her straight away, with such certainty that his heart gave a sickening leap of surprise at the sight of her come to life. He now saw that her beaky face was a softer echo of Tristram’s, and though she didn’t look older than twelve or thirteen, there was already a gawky, bony awkwardness about her that she’d also inherited from him, a slender child’s version of his tall stoop. He was sure he could see traces of earth and grime on her finger and toenails. It was her. She had wailed and clattered outside his door at midnight and now here she was, looking at him with a brightly curious expression and a funny lopsided smile.

  ‘You’re Gavin,’ she said.

  Despite the pink pyjamas, the image of her as a walking corpse was taking a while to clear out of his head and he couldn’t answer.

  ‘Gwen says that because I’m like a daughter to her, that makes us sort of cousins.’ She came and sat down next to him, picked up a crust of someone else’s cold toast and began chewing, leaning into her father as he bent to kiss the top of her head. Abruptly her expression turned anxious. ‘Should I have said that?’ she asked, through a mouthful of food. ‘You don’t mind?’

  ‘Sounds good to me,’ Gav said, and was rewarded by a visible outbreak of relief on her face. Her features seemed to catch and magnify every expression, like a much younger child’s. That was what had made her appear so lifeless in the night. Her face had been not just unmoving but entirely empty, switched off as thoroughly as it was now switched on.

  ‘I haven’t got a family, mostly,’ she went on, licking a fingertip to dab at crumbs on the plate. Gav saw that Tristram, who had started back towards the kitchen, stiffened. ‘Do you have lots of cousins already?’

  ‘Er, no.’ She appeared not to know what shyness was. This was an idea so extraordinary to Gav that he forgot to be surly himself. ‘Not a single one, in fact.’

  ‘Like me, then. Gwen said you mostly didn’t have a family too, but—’

  ‘Marina!’

  She dropped her eyes to the plate.

  ‘My daughter has a rather solitary life here, Gavin.’ Once again, Tristram seemed to be picking his words very deliberately. ‘Please excuse her manners. She’s very young for her age.’

  ‘No, it’s OK.’ He saw that sh
e was chewing her lip. ‘No offence at all. Anyway, you’re right,’ and as he spoke he realised it was true. He took defiant pride in saying it. ‘I don’t really. Not a proper one. So, yeah, cousins, I like that.’ She brightened instantly, raising her thin eyebrows and wordlessly mouthing sorry to him. He tried to think of something harmless to say, but he had no practice at it. He’d spent the past couple of years learning to stop conversations, not start them.

  Tristram let his hand rest on her shoulder and then frowned and peered downwards. ‘You should wash your hands, treasure. Look at your nails.’

  She did, spreading them all in front of her face. ‘I already did. What’s wrong with them?’ Now Gav could see that her left hand – the one that had been battering Auntie Gwen’s door – was bruised along the side. Tristram noticed it too: he took her hand in his and turned it gently in the light. His brow wrinkled again as he let it go, but he said nothing. Gav was quite relieved to see him shuffle back towards the kitchen, since Marina now reached down and pulled one of her feet up onto the table, looking at it quizzically.

  ‘I did get pretty filthy, didn’t I,’ she said. Gav had to agree. Her toenails were even more stained than her fingers. The skin on the sole of her foot was like an adult’s, hard and calloused. She stole a look over her shoulder and leaned closer to Gav, earnestly. ‘I go wandering out of bed when I’m asleep sometimes, and when I wake up, I don’t remember it. So they tell me.’

  Gavin lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘Hey, me too.’

  Her eyes went huge. They were grey-blue, like the patches of clearer sky above the horizon.

  ‘At least I used to,’ he went on, ‘when I was a kid, I mean, when I was younger. How old are you?’

  ‘Gwen says I’m thirteen.’

  He ignored the odd answer. ‘Yeah, that’s about how old I was when I sleepwalked. It’s fine. Won’t hurt you.’

  She looked over her shoulder again to be sure her father was still in the other room and leaned even further forward; floppy blonde hair fell over her nose. ‘My hand’s sore. And I got unbelievably wet. That’s why I’m late this morning. I’ve been trying to dry out my room before Gwen comes.’

  Something began to sizzle in the next room.

  ‘Did you ever go outside?’ she asked. ‘When it happened to you?’

  ‘Yeah, I did.’ Gav remembered with horrible vividness the plummeting of his heart when he woke to smudges on the sheets and the carpet of his bedroom, and his impotent efforts to hide them: remaking his bed as quietly as he could, dropping clothes on the floor to cover the stains. During one bad spell he’d got in the habit of sneaking a damp cloth into his room before he went to sleep, so he could scrub away any evidence in the morning. Gavin, for God’s sake, what are you doing in there?

  ‘I don’t think I’ve ever gone out of the house before. I’m afraid to tell anyone.’

  ‘You’re telling me.’

  ‘You’re not a grown-up. Are you? How old are you?’

  ‘Fifteen.’

  ‘Is that grown up?’

  She wasn’t teasing. The seriousness was plain on her face.

  ‘No, course not.’ Her eyes dropped again and her mouth scrunched up. ‘Well,’ he added hurriedly, ‘I mean, I’m still growing. Like, getting taller. But I’m not a kid, so . . .’

  When people spoke to each other at school, it was all about trying to make each other laugh, and at the same time making sure you weren’t the one being laughed at. Even with friends, when you wanted to be serious, you kept your guard up. Marina was already making him think of the time before his world had turned against him, when all you had to do was say what was happening, and that was fine.

  ‘The grown-ups keep an eye on me,’ she mumbled, not looking up. ‘You don’t have to, though, so it’s different.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s right,’ Gav said, though he didn’t know what she meant. ‘So Aunt Gwen’s kind of like an extra parent here?’

  ‘Ever since I was a baby, she says, and until I’m a woman. I wonder where she’s got to.’ An odd frown twitched over her face, as if she’d surprised herself by remembering something. Gav suddenly didn’t want to be the person to tell her that Auntie Gwen was gone, but fortunately it didn’t occur to Marina to ask him about it. She peered vaguely out of the window. ‘Do you wish she’d looked after you instead?’

  ‘What?’ he said, and immediately wished he hadn’t. Her eyes went anxious again.

  ‘Gwen told me . . . or maybe I’m not supposed to say this.’

  ‘No, no, it’s fine. I know what you mean, actually. Actually, yes, I do. Wish she had. And’ – he started blushing with the effort of saying it – ‘you know, it’s OK – you can ask anything you like. Most people don’t bother.’

  ‘Gwen said that too. She said I have hardly anyone to talk to, but at least they listen, but you have lots of people but they don’t listen, which makes me better off.’

  Gav was pretty sure he remembered what thirteen-year-olds were supposed to be like, and this wasn’t it. But then, wasn’t Mum always worrying that he wasn’t acting like what she called a ‘normal teenager’? Was this what it was like for adults when they met Gav? No, it couldn’t be, because although Marina didn’t make very much sense, he knew straight away that he liked her company, and adults didn’t like his company. Not any more.

  ‘Yeah, you probably are,’ he answered. And all at once he could just say what he was thinking. It seemed simple, as natural as breathing, but he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been able to reach into himself and pluck out the words as easily as picking berries from brambles. ‘My mum and dad don’t like me much, especially Dad. I’d have loved it if Aunt Gwen had been around. But then, she was happier here, you know?’

  ‘She told you she liked looking after me better?’

  ‘No. I mean, I just know. Actually, she never told me anything about—’ He was going to say ‘you’ but could see her face falling already. ‘This place.’

  ‘Really? Odd. What do you think, then? Do you like it?’

  ‘It’s . . . amazing. Living here, I can’t imagine that.’

  ‘Gwenny’s always saying it’s better than anywhere else.’ She stared out of the window, into the grey distance. ‘Though sometimes I think she just says it to make me not mind.’

  Her father was coming back, a plate of bacon and fried bread tilting in his hand. She skipped quickly out of her chair and took the plate to the table, where she picked up a piece of bacon in her fingers before putting it back quickly with a muttered ‘Whoops’ and a nervous smile.

  ‘Gavin has explained about Guinivere?’ Tristram settled creakily into a chair. ‘No? Well, sweetheart, it appears she may be a little late this morning.’ He poured out some greeny-brown version of tea; it smelled suspiciously like grass. Gav was immediately much less hungry than he thought.

  ‘Where’s she gone?’

  Tristram looked at Gavin; Gavin looked at his plate.

  ‘No one seems to know yet. Ah, Caleb.’

  Again Gav had to turn round to see who had come in.

  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 Cal
eb 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.