I leave the institute on the back of a motorbike. Driving — my rescuer, my lifeline, my hope — Uncle Dervish.
“Hold on tight,” he says. “Speed limits were made to be broken.”
Vroom!
THE GRAND TOUR
DERVISH drives like a madman, a hundred miles an hour. Howling wind. Blurred countryside. No chance to talk or study the scenery. I spend the journey with my face pressed between my uncle's shoulder blades, clinging on for dear life.
Finally, coming to a small village, he slows. I peek and catch the name on a sign as we exit — Carcery Vale.
“Carkerry Vale,” I murmur.
“It's pronounced Car-sherry,” Dervish grunts.
“This is where you live,” I note, recalling the address from cards I wrote and sent with Mom and Gret. (Mom didn't like Uncle Dervish but she always sent him a Christmas and birthday card.)
“Actually, I live about two miles beyond,” Dervish says, carefully overtaking a tractor and waving to the driver. “It's pretty lonely out where I am, but there are lots of kids in the village. You can walk in any time you like.”
“Do they know about me?” I ask.
“Only that you're an orphan and you're coming to live with me.”
A winding road. Lots of potholes that Dervish swerves expertly to avoid. The sides of the road are lined with trees. They grow close together, blocking out all but the thinnest slivers of sunlight. Dark and cold. I press closer to Dervish, hugging warmth from him.
“The trees don't stretch back very far,” he says. “You can skirt around them when you're going to the village.”
“I'm not afraid,” I mutter.
“Of course you are,” he chuckles, then looks back quickly. “But you have my word — you've no need to be.”
Chez Dervish. Three storeys. Three floors. Built from rough white blocks, almost as big as those I've seen in photos of the pyramids. Shaped like an L. The bit sticking out at the end is made from ordinary red bricks and doesn't look like the rest of the house. Lots of timber decorations around the top and down the sides. A slate roof with three enormous chimneys. The roof on the brick section is flat and the chimney's tiny in comparison with the others. The windows on the lower floor run from the ground to the ceiling. The windows on the upper floors are smaller, round, and feature stained-glass designs. On the brick section they're very ordinary.
“It's not much,” Dervish says wryly, “but it's home.”
“This place must have cost a fortune!” I gasp, standing close to the motorbike, staring at the house, almost afraid to venture any nearer.
“Not really,” Dervish says. “It was a wreck when I bought it. No roof or windows, the interior destroyed by exposure to the elements. The lower floor was used by a local farmer to house pigs. I lived in the brick extension for years whil
e I restored the main building. I keep meaning to tear the extension down — I don't use it anymore, and it takes away from the the main structure — but I never seem to get around to it.”
Dervish removes his helmet, helps me out of mine, then walks me around the outside of the house. He explains about the original architect and how much work he had to do to make the house habitable again, but I don't listen very closely. I'm too busy assessing the mansion and the surrounding terrain — lots of open fields, sheep and cattle in some of them, a small forest to the west that runs all the way to Carcery Vale, no neighboring houses that I can see.
“Do you live here alone?” I ask as we return to the front of the house.
“Pretty much,” Dervish says. “One farmer owns most of this land, and he's opposed to over-development. He's old. I guess his children will sell plots off when he dies. But for the last twenty years I've had all the peace and seclusion a man could wish for.”
“Doesn't it get lonely?” I ask.
“No,” Dervish says. “I'm fairly solitary by nature. When I'm in need of company, it's only a short stroll to the village. And I travel a lot — I have many friends around the globe.”
We stop at the giant front doors, a pair of them, like the entrance to a castle. No doorbell — just two chunky gargoyle-shaped knockers, which I eye apprehensively.
Dervish doesn't open the doors. He's studying me quietly.
“Have you lost the key?” I ask.
“We don't have to enter,” he says. “I think you'll grow to love this place after a while, but it's a lot to take in at the start. If you'd prefer, you could stay in the brick extension — it's an eyesore, but cozy inside. Or we can drive to the Vale and you can spend a few nights in a B&B until you get your bearings.”