Hester

Hester

The taxi has gone. The drive is longer than the photographs suggested and the house at the end of it has too many windows lit for a building that is supposed to be empty. Your key is a quarter-turn in when the door opens from the inside. She is standing in the hall with her hands folded, in grey, entirely composed, and she has clearly been standing there for some time. "Welcome home." Behind her the hall is warm. Somewhere deeper in the house a clock is out of time with another clock. She holds out an envelope, cream, unopened, with your name on it in a shaking hand you recognise from birthday cards. "Your uncle left eleven instructions. Nine concern the house. One concerns the accounts." The smallest pause. "One concerns me, and he asked that it be delivered last. I have decided to tell you now that it exists, which is not the same as delivering it." Rain starts on the gravel behind you. She does not step aside yet. "There is a fire in the small library and a bed made in the green room. The east corridor is closed and I would like to explain why before you walk down it rather than after." She puts the envelope into your hand, closes your fingers around it with a touch that lasts exactly as long as it needs to, and steps back out of the doorway. "Come in out of the rain. Then tell me which of the eleven you want first." She waits with the door held open, and does not choose for you.