It was late afternoon by the time the cab took him back across the bridge and up Riverside Lane. He sat in the back and the driver didn’t seem much inclined to talk so Alex just looked out of the window, at the lit shops and houses and then at the velvet darkness of the woods.
When they got to the gate the driver pulled up so that he could lean out of his window to press the buzzer for the intercom. He looked at it expectantly, ready to speak, but the gates started to open without anyone asking who was there. He shrugged to himself and leaned back in.
‘Actually,’ said Alex, ‘I’ll get out here and walk up.’
‘Okay,’ said the driver, implicit in his tone that Alex could suit himself. Alex paid him and asked for a card but the driver said, ‘All the cards have gone. We’re in the book.’
‘Oh. Well I’ll call later then, when I’m ready to come back.’
‘You have a nice evening,’ said the driver, the sound of his voice suggesting again that he didn’t really care what kind of evening Alex had or whether he’d be calling later.
Alex walked up the drive, slowing to adjust to the darkness as he moved away from the lamplight of the gates. The rain had stopped and he could see patches of dark sky between the raggedly broken clouds, a couple of stars. The wind had dropped too, and he could hear the river again and the sound of rainwater still dripping from the leaves and branches of the garden.
As the drive swung back on itself he got his first proper view of the house. It was big, lots of brick and timber beams, a too-perfect interpretation of an English country house. There was a light on in the porch and a couple more lamps but the house itself looked to be in darkness.
Maybe the woman he’d spoken to was alone after all, or there with just one other person, Matt perhaps. He didn’t get the feeling somehow that his parents were there. It had the feel of a house that had been left in the charge of a caretaker, a closed-up and lifeless quality.
He was still a distance from the house when the front door opened, a deeper and warmer light spilling through it. A moment later a woman stepped out and looked down the drive towards him. All he could see at first was a tall slim outline, dark hair.
He thought she was wearing a short dress but as he got closer he saw that it was a long sweater over pale fitted trousers. He could see now that she was Matt’s sister too, the same startling blue eyes and pale skin, the same thick curls of hair, hers worn long and high-maintenance.
Alex was smiling but she looked slightly confused and spoke first, saying, ‘Where’s your car?’
He almost stopped and looked behind him, thrown by the question.
‘I don’t have one. I came in a cab.’
‘You should have said. I would have come over for you.’ She smiled now, putting out her hand as he got close enough. They shook hands like people being introduced for the first time but then she said, ‘I don’t suppose you remember but we used to write to each other.’
It was true, he’d forgotten but it came rushing back out of the past now, Matt’s younger sister, who’d started to write messages to Alex at the end of her letters to her brother. And a few times too, Alex had written to her at the end of Matt’s letters. She’d been eleven or twelve, something like that, a little kid far away.
‘I do remember. Martha.’ She smiled. ‘It’s a little strange though, someone I remember as a little kid being a good few inches taller than me.’
‘I wasn’t so little even then.’ She noticed the bruise on his temple but looked away as if embarrassed. She glanced around briefly, taking in the weather and the turn of the night, then back at him. ‘Come inside. You must be cold.’
He followed her into the house, lit by lamps but a long way from the dark interior he’d imagined. She led him into a large living room where a fire was burning and offered him a seat on one of the sofas.
‘Can I get you a drink? A Macallan?’ He smiled, trying to read her expression and decipher what she’d said. Did she know about him drinking Macallan, something Matt had told her, or just a coincidence perhaps?
‘That’d be great.’ She crossed the room and poured one for each of them. ‘I take it Matt isn’t here at the moment?’
‘I’m here on my own.’ She came back and gave him his drink, then sat on the edge of the sofa facing him, her long frame hunched over her drink, as if she wanted to make herself small again. She sipped at it and Alex followed suit, savouring the warmth of the whisky in his mouth. She looked pensive.
Alex said, ‘Is something wrong?’
‘No.’ She smiled again but more as reassurance. He could tell something wasn’t right but still couldn’t put his finger on it. ‘I’m sorry if I sounded a little odd when you called earlier.’