one

      It was an afternoon in late summer, Edward remembers, and they walked through a wood until they came to a circle of sunlit grass in the midst of tall ferns. The picnic was laid out on the scratchy plaid rug, and when their parents had fallen asleep Charlotte took his hand and they wandered off, along a path through the bracken. At the top of a hill they came upon a track of packed earth that had a ridge of matted grass and dandelions running down the middle. One side of the track was bordered by a high wall, which they followed. Walking two or three steps behind his sister, he dragged his fingertips on the blocks of stone. When a motorbike came along she stood beside him as it passed, and put a hand over his face to protect his eyes from the dust. At an angle of the wall there was a wide iron gate, and beyond the gate lay vast beds of scarlet flowers, on both sides of a wide white path that rose towards a pale yellow building. She left him by the gate and walked a short distance up the path, between child-sized shapes that might have been urns or animals. Her footsteps made a loud crunching noise, he remembers, and the building reared up like a castle in fog.

      He lets go of the iron gate and begins to walk up the gravel driveway, staying close to its edge. After half a dozen paces he strikes a heavy object. He reaches forward, and touches, at the height of his waist, a curved surface of pitted stone or concrete. His hand reads the grooves of a mane, protruberant eyes, a jaw of granular teeth. He walks on, up the shallow gradient, to a flight of three low steps which conducts him between columns of finely grained stone to a glass door, open. Standing in the doorway, he waits for someone to speak, but his querying cough receives no answer. He advances, treading on polished tiles. The sound of his shoes is absorbed by a space that sounds broad and tall, like the foyer of a town hall or law court. Twenty paces straight ahead, or more, bring him to the foot of a wide carpeted staircase. Plates are being stacked in a distant room, to his left. A sweep of his cane to one side finds empty floor, then an obstruction: a high desk, with a glass-cowled lamp and a bell. He folds his cane, slots it into a jacket pocket, and smacks the bell lightly. As the chime vanishes into the high ceiling he hears a hiss, the hiss of a door’s draught excluder, followed by footsteps, approaching rapidly on a wooden floor. High above him, at his back, a woman’s voice says: ‘Hello? Hello? Wait, please.’ Startled, he turns to face the source of the call, and the footsteps are coming into the hall. A man speaks his name.

      ‘Mr Morton?’ the man says, ‘I’m so sorry. I thought someone was at the desk.’

      ‘Not to worry.’

      ‘I do apologise.’

      ‘Only this instant arrived.’

      ‘It’s remiss of us. I didn’t hear the taxi.’

      ‘He left me at the gate.’

      ‘Really? That’s –’

      ‘At my request.’

      ‘Ah,’ says the man, and from the dragging of the vowel it is clear that he has scrutinised him and understood. A large sheet of paper is turned, and another. ‘Good journey?’

      ‘Not bad. On time, more or less.’