Advent (13 page)

 
The first impression was a brown dimness, like the inside of a chest. As in Gwen’s house, the smell of woodsmoke came at once, but here it seemed part of the walls, the floor; the air was saturated with it. It was mixed with something else Gav couldn’t put a name to, except that it smelled
old
. Not musty or fetid, but old as if from another age: odours of stone and straw and cloth, materials and fabrics that time had outgrown. Or perhaps it was just the effect of what he could see, which was nothing like any house he had ever been inside before, except maybe some old historic place near his other aunt’s, which they’d all gone to visit one Sunday after lunch, years ago, because his mother had wanted to. There was no everyday household stuff in sight. He faced a hallway that stretched back through the house, wood on all sides including the ceiling. There was no light except the illumination from a triple-arched window at the far end.

 
‘Tristram? Your guest is here.’

 
The hall darkened even more as a tall, bent figure stepped in front of the window.

 
In silhouette, Tristram Uren looked like an emaciated wizard. He leaned on a walking stick, a strong jaw jutting from a shaggy head that braced itself against the stoop of his back and shoulders. His clothes didn’t seem to fit very well. A jacket hung around him like a half-finished cloak. Gavin felt as if he’d been admitted into the presence of Merlin, just escaped from the tomb where the stories said he’d been trapped since Arthur’s time.

 
‘Ahh.’ The voice was full of effort. ‘Come in, come in.’

 
‘We met outside,’ Owen explained, raising his voice a bit. ‘Gavin here must be an early riser. He was walking down on his own.’

 
‘Up with the sun, like me. But not, I imagine, down with it.’ He came slowly forward, switched his stick to his left hand and extended his right. ‘Hello, Gavin.’

 
Even stooping, he was much the taller. Gav looked up into a face of outcrops and shadows: the bones broad and strong, hollows between them. He had the oldest eyes Gav had ever seen apart from Miss Grey’s. Their light had gone out. His hair was bone-white, though there was plenty of it, reaching almost to his shoulders. Gav saw what Owen had meant, now. It was hard to imagine this man making conversation. The Merlin thought stayed in his head. Mr Uren did look as if he’d spent a very long time shut away by himself.

 
‘Hi. Sorry – I hope you didn’t mind me wandering around?’

 
‘Not at all. You shall have the freedom of Pendurra, while you’re here.’ He turned and waved towards the window with his stick. ‘Do come in. Come and see your domain.’

 
‘Actually, I was just coming to tell you something.’ He blurted it out to stop anyone taking him further inside and now found himself groping for words. ‘I mean, I thought I ought to tell someone. Aunt Gwen, she’s . . .’ Missing? Vanished? Gone? ‘She’s not around. I haven’t seen her yet.’

 
They both looked at him. Mr Uren’s brow creased into a slow frown.

 
‘Perhaps she didn’t expect you up this early. She often walks down to the river in the mornings.’ At first Gav didn’t understand and only stared at his toes, wishing as usual that he hadn’t spoken.

 
Owen chipped in to relieve an embarrassing silence: ‘You might run into her if you go on down that way. It’s a lovely walk. Through the oldest woods.’

 
‘Or make yourself comfortable here,’ Mr Uren added. ‘There’s bacon. Guinivere will follow soon.’

 
‘Probably wondering where you got to,’ Owen said.

 
The dimness hid Gav’s embarrassed flush. Two people had now told him that Auntie Gwen was about to turn up. He felt stupid, as if he’d made some obvious mistake about what she was doing. ‘No, I mean I haven’t seen her at all yet. Not just today.’ Had he gone to the wrong place? He’d had no control at all over his journey. He’d got caught up in it somehow, like a stowaway. The thought reminded him of the one fact he was sure of. ‘She was going to meet me at the station but she never turned up.’

 
Now both men were looking puzzled: Mr Uren blank, Owen slightly concerned.

 
‘But then how did you get here?’ Owen asked.

 
Gav’s mouth dried. There was no way he was going to tell them that he’d got a lift from a woman he’d met on the train, especially one nationally known as ‘the Nutty Professor’.

 
‘Taxi,’ he mumbled. ‘I waited ages, then got a taxi.’

 
Fortunately they didn’t seem interested. ‘And there was no one at the lodge?’

 
Just in time to prevent another idiotic silence, he remembered that those gatehouse places on the fancy estates were called lodges. ‘No, the lights were on and everything, and the door was open. Unlocked, I mean. So I just went in.’ He didn’t know whether he sounded more like a criminal or a halfwit. There were things that had happened yesterday that he couldn’t possibly tell anyone.
I don’t want to hear it, Gavin, do you understand?

 
‘And no one was there?’ Owen was asking all the questions. Tristram Uren might as well have turned to stone.

 
‘Well, there was a fire lit and . . . So I thought, you know, with the taxi gone’ – he felt a little tingle of relief at this plausible-sounding detail – ‘I’d just go in and wait. But no. No one.’

 
‘The car was there,’ Owen said to Mr Uren. ‘I saw it when I came past earlier. Did you happen to notice it when you arrived, Gavin? When was this?’

 
In his memory the clock chimed. ‘About six. Yeah, it was – the car, I mean. I saw it. And everything looked, you know, like she was there. The lights and the fires, and everything was just lying around, like normal. I mean it looked normal. So I just thought . . . I’d wait.’ Don’t try and explain, he told himself furiously. Never try and explain. It only makes everything worse.

 
‘And you haven’t seen her since?’

 
‘No.’

 
‘Well, that’s odd. I wish someone had known.’ He and Mr Uren were looking at each other now, something unreadable passing between them. ‘It must have been a lonely night for you. Not a proper welcome at all! How strange. Tristram?’

 
‘I haven’t seen Guinivere since yesterday afternoon.’ He spoke slowly. ‘Though I wasn’t expecting to. She did tell Marina she was going to the station, I believe.’

 
‘She sent that message for me yesterday,’ Owen said. He rubbed his chin. ‘Wanted to see me today. I’d wait for her if I could, but I need to be going. I got the message from Caleb. I gather she sent him up to the village to look for me.’

 
‘Yesterday?’

 
‘Yes. I was at the parish meeting. Poor chap had to go round the houses a bit. I’m not sure what Gwen thought she was doing sending him off like that. Maybe I should go and ask him about it.’

 
‘If you would,’ Tristram said. ‘Gavin, I’m sorry. You must be hungry at the least, and worried too. Here we were assuming you’d already had your introduction to Pendurra. Please come in, sit down.’ His manner had become very deliberately courteous, almost too deliberately, as if the courtesy was meant to conceal the fact that his attention was on something else.

 
Owen had put on his appealing smile again. ‘Your aunt does have a bit of a reputation,’ he said, ‘if you don’t mind me saying so. Easily distracted, let’s put it that way. Though she was so looking forward to your arrival, I must say I’m surprised she managed to get distracted from that. It’s all she’s been talking about these last few days. Especially the last day or two. I thought she was going to explode with excitement. I must go. I’ll find Caleb on my way out, shall I?’

 
‘Thank you,’ Mr Uren answered, over his shoulder. He was leading Gavin slowly down the hall, past pictures whose faces and figures were lost in the gloom, around unnecessary chairs jutting out from the walls like rocks in a shipping lane. ‘I will take care of my guest.’

 
Owen nodded at Gav encouragingly. ‘Then I’ll see what else I can do. Gavin, good to meet you. I’m sure I’ll see you again. I’m the local bad penny, I keep turning up. Don’t worry about Gwen – she won’t have gone far.’ He headed back towards daylight. ‘Tell Marina I’m sorry I missed her,’ he called.

 
Mr Uren answered only with a wave of his stick. The door thunked shut.

 
‘You were lucky to meet Reverend Jeffrey first,’ Tristram said. He seemed to be choosing his words carefully. ‘He’s a . . . reassuring presence.’

 
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.