Advent (33 page)

 
‘I should never have left you on your own,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry.’

 
He hugged his hands under his arms to stop them trembling. ‘Not your fault.’

 
‘I don’t know what possessed me to do a thing like that.’

 
‘I do,’ Gav said.

 
The car twitched. Stubble in the hedge clattered against Gav’s window like claws. Hester pulled the wheel straight again, her hands suddenly tight.

 
‘Careful,’ Gav added.

 
‘What did you say?’

 
Why had he said it? Why hadn’t he just kept his mouth shut like usual?

 
Because, he realised, she really did understand. He thought of the newspaper clippings in Auntie Gwen’s weird scrapbook. Hester Lightfoot, the Nutty Professor.

 
‘I know.’ He kept his eyes on the ghostly white circle ahead, the dark skimming past. ‘What made you do it. So it’s OK. It’s not your fault.’

 
‘I’m sorry,’ Hester said, after a short silence. ‘I’m afraid I don’t follow.’

 
Perhaps it was all because of talking to Marina. She’d unlocked the part of him that had stayed silent about these things for the past four years, and now he couldn’t close it again. Or perhaps it was because he couldn’t any longer see the difference between saying it and not saying it, not after what had just happened to him. With a twist of pain he wondered where Marina was now. If she was anywhere.

 
‘“Let the boy go in,”’ Gavin said.

 
He was pitched forward hard as the car twisted crazily in the narrow lane. Hester braced her arms against the steering wheel as if she was about to tear it loose.

 
‘
What
?
’ she said, all mildness gone. ‘You heard that?’

 
He braced himself in the seat. ‘Watch it.’

 
‘Say it again.’ Her fingers flexed convulsively on the wheel. ‘Say the words again. Please, Gavin.’

 
‘“Let the boy go in.”’

 
She went so quiet he was afraid he’d turned her to stone. The car drifted worryingly.

 
‘Um.’ Gav stole a look across and saw her staring straight ahead as if seeing some other nightscape altogether. ‘Mind the . . .’ The word ‘hedge’ was lost in the abrupt scrape of twigs against the door. Hester jerked her head round as if she’d just woken up.

 
‘God, sorry.’ She got the car back under control. They drove up to a benighted village of dark houses and mournfully solitary streetlights. ‘I’m all right. Sorry about that.’

 
‘Not your fault,’ he said. ‘None of it is.’

 
‘None of it?’ she echoed him distantly, as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

 
Everyone had always told Gav it was his fault.
Stop being stupid, Gavin
.
You’re just making it up
. But it wasn’t, and he hadn’t been. He’d been right all along, and so had she.

 
‘You’re not crazy,’ he said. ‘You never were.’

 
She raised one hand to her mouth and whispered something inaudible into it.

 
‘The voices,’ Gav added. He was worried she’d go into a trance if he didn’t make her say something. ‘And all that. It’s not your fault.’

 
She turned to look at him. It was too dark to see her expression.

 
‘May I ask,’ she said, ‘how you know all this?’

 
‘There was a thing in the paper. Sorry about your job.’

 
A brief and unhappy laugh. ‘That’s not really the part I was asking about, but thank you.’

 
‘I got kicked out ’cos they thought I was mad too. Well, suspended. But I’m not. You aren’t either.’

 
They both kept their eyes ahead, on the shallow pool of light and the dark beyond.

 
‘You know that for sure, do you?’ she said eventually.

 
‘One of them’s real, at least.’

 
‘One of . . . ?’

 
‘Your voices.’

 
She turned again and looked at him for so long he was sure she’d drive off the road.

 
‘There’s only one,’ she said at last. ‘There’s only ever been one.’ She sounded steady, but Gav thought he could hear the depths of pain below the calm surface. ‘But you see, “I hear voices” sounded so much better than “I hear a voice.” Much easier to say. It’s almost a joke, isn’t it? “I hear voices.” Whereas in the singular it suddenly sounds so very . . . intimate. Not just hallucinations everywhere like, oh, you know, like mad people have. One particular conversation instead. With just you as its victim, and your tormentor almost like someone in the family.’

 
Gavin became acutely aware of the distance between them, though it was only half the width of a car.

 
‘Sorry,’ he muttered.

 
‘Oh,’ she sighed. ‘No. It’s all right now, anyway.’

 
They watched the road slide under them in silence.

 
‘Actually,’ she went on after a while, ‘I’ve always known I was sane.’ They’d come to a stretch of road Gav thought he recognised from the previous evening. It ran through a tall open wood, silhouettes of trees around them like pillars in a church. ‘I always knew it wasn’t actually a’ – her fingers made quotation marks in the air – ‘voice in my head. That’s what I tried to say, when it all became too much and I felt I had to say something. I’ve always felt . . . whole. In myself. I’ve always known she was . . .’ Hester sighed. ‘Someone else. Some other person or being or ghost or what have you who for some reason, or maybe for no reason at all, attached herself to me. I know, it sounds properly insane, doesn’t it?’

 
‘Not to me,’ Gav said. ‘So that was her before as well?’

 
‘Before?’

 
‘On the train.’

 
Both her hands jerked up from the wheel. Gav lunged to grab it, terrified, as the car veered wildly to the edge of the road. One set of tyres ran into soft earth on the verge, sending them bumping and skidding sideways, thrashing wet undergrowth. He shoved the wheel over and managed to keep the car clinging to tarmac as it ground to a halt.

 
Hester clutched his arm with both hands.

 
‘Tell me,’ she said, hoarse, frantic. She appeared not to have noticed nearly killing them both. ‘Tell me why this happened to me.’ Her grip was beginning to hurt. ‘Please tell me why. Please.’

 
The car had stalled. The only sound was her breath, racing.

 
He tried to tug his arm away, unsuccessfully. ‘Um. I think we’re on the wrong side of the road.’

 
For a few seconds he thought she hadn’t even heard him. Then her grip unclenched.

 
‘My God,’ she whispered.

 
‘I think’ – he withdrew his arm carefully and put as much calm in his tone as he could muster – ‘maybe it would be better if you just got home.’

 
She gazed at him as if he’d suggested going to Mars.

 
‘I can drive if you like,’ he added, which wasn’t strictly true, but he’d watched other people do it and always thought he could probably work out the motions. Plus he doubted he’d be any more of a danger to their lives than she was.

 
‘What? No. Sorry.’ She rubbed her hands on her legs, pulling herself together. ‘I can manage. Yes. Home.’ She started up again and eased the car back onto the road. Gav kept himself ready to lunge for the wheel again.

 
‘How much further is it?’

 
‘Is what? Not far.’ She expelled a shaky breath. ‘It’s all right. Honestly. Look, this is the head of the river now.’

 
Another village had appeared at the end of the wood. Gav saw signposts with names unknown to him, bright for a moment in the headlights and then lost. He watched Hester out of the corner of his eye. She held herself straight and tight, forcing herself to concentrate.

 
Miss Grey’s other victim. Never in a million years would he have guessed there was anyone else in the world who shared anything like his torment, let alone that it would be someone like this, an ordinary middle-aged woman.

 
When she at last broke the silence, it was as if she’d been sharing his thoughts.

 
‘You really heard all that, then.’ Gav thought it was safer to say nothing, though she seemed to have recovered herself. ‘Oh, don’t worry,’ she added, catching his eye. ‘I won’t run us off the road again, I promise. It’s just . . .’ He watched her shake her head slowly. ‘An extraordinary thing. All that shouting on the train, in the tunnel. You heard it all too?’

 
‘Yeah.’ No swerving yet, but he thought he made out a wet gleam in her eyes. ‘Yeah, I did.’

 
‘So . . . have you always . . . ?’

 
She couldn’t bring herself to say it aloud, but he saw what she was asking.

 
‘Actually,’ he said, ‘that was the first time.’

 
‘The first?’

 
He stared into the dark, remembering Miss Grey. ‘I’ve never heard her shout like that before. Never heard her say anything really.’

 
He only realised what he’d said when the car began to slow down.

 
‘You mean . . .’ Hester began, and an edge had come back into her voice.

 
Gav cleared his throat. ‘Actually, would you mind pulling over for a sec?’

 
‘What?’

 
‘Just for a sec.’

 
‘Promise you’re not going to jump out and run away?’ She appeared to be serious.

 
‘Promise,’ he said.

 
‘Because I couldn’t stand that.’ There was a spot where the lane widened; she nudged the car against the hedge. ‘I couldn’t bear to come so close to the answer and then never know.’

 
‘I don’t have any answers.’ They came to a stop, idling in the empty road.

 
‘Right.’ She pulled up the handbrake. ‘Safe as houses. Now you can tell me about it.’

 
‘About what?’

 
She took a careful breath. ‘You said you’d never heard her speak before, which means . . .’

 
He waited.

 
‘How long?’ she asked, finally.

 
‘All my life.’

 
She clasped her hands tight and wiped at her eyes with the knuckles. Gav looked away, embarrassed.

 
‘So, she was . . .’ The tremble in her voice sounded desperately like hope. ‘She was there, on the train. My voice was . . . actually . . .’

 
‘Told you you’re not crazy,’ he said, and then he had to pretend to study the tangled shadows in the hedge for a while, as though he hadn’t noticed the tears.

 
‘Oh, look at me,’ she said at last. ‘Pull yourself together, Hester. I’m sorry. I’ll stop in a minute.’

 
‘Don’t worry about it.’

 
She found a tissue in some compartment and blew her nose loudly. ‘There. Oh goodness. I’m all right now. You did the right thing asking me to pull over.’

 
‘Maybe we should change the subject.’

 
She laughed. ‘Let’s get going at least.’ Very deliberately, she released the brake. ‘There. See? I’m all right. I can’t quite stop crying, but I’m all right. It’s not far, anyway.’