House of Spines

by Michael J Malone

  ‘This way, Mr McGhie.’

  ‘Please, call me Ranald. I’m not one for formality.’

  Mrs Hackett pursed her lips then sounded his name as if it was on trial: ‘Ranald.’ With a tilt of her head she signalled she was satisfied and led the way out of the room.

  In the corridor, as Mrs Hackett moved back down to the left, Ranald glanced to the right and saw a bronze door with a small, head-height window. He shivered, as he felt a chill work up the length of his spine.

  ‘What’s that?’ he asked taking a step back from the door. At that moment, the light in the corridor seemed to dim. A cloud obscuring the sun, perhaps. Ran’s breathing deepened. Shortened. Sparks of energy fired in his thighs and fingertips. He clenched his fists, and bent his knees, not knowing whether to run or fight. A sane part of his mind questioned, What are you doing, McGhie? This isn’t a time for a panic attack.

  Mrs Hackett paused mid-step and looked back. Ranald pulled himself upright.

  ‘That’s the lift to what were your grandmother’s and great-grandmother’s rooms – and to the tower room,’ she said. ‘It’s broken. And locked. Mr Fitzpatrick never got round to getting it fixed.’

  She quickly moved on, but something in her tone had registered with Ranald. A warning?

  ‘Keep walking down the corridor past it and you’ll come to the fitness room,’ she added, seeming to make her voice intentionally lighter.

  ‘There’s a fitness room?’ Ranald asked, mentally giving himself a shake to try and rid himself of the feeling of fear he’d just felt. He didn’t want to come across to the help as totally crazy on his first day.

  ‘Well, more of a suite, actually. Mr Fitzpatrick had a conservatory built about fifteen years ago. Installed a twenty-metre swimming pool and a sauna. There’s also some exercise equipment. He must have had a rush to the head, because he never used it. But he did swim forty lengths every day. Almost right up to the end. Danny’s sure that’s why he lived so long. That and the coffee.’ She smiled and turned to march on, actually saying, ‘Come.’

  Feeling like he was already being trained, Ranald followed. They were going back the way they came and about twenty paces on, Mrs Hackett paused at a door and pushed it open. ‘If you’re anything like your uncle this is the room you’ll want to spend most of your time in. The library.’

  Ranald stepped inside.

  ‘Fuck me,’ he said.

  4

  The room was a feast of browns and reds. Ranald judged that the walls were at least twenty feet high, that each wall was covered with a dark wooden bookcase and that each bookcase was full. There were several wheeled ladders, spaced at regular intervals, to allow the resident bibliophile access to the books on the highest shelves.

  This was another floor space that could have doubled as a tennis court, but should anyone have been tempted to use the room for that purpose they’d have to have shifted the pine desk with a surface large enough to land a small helicopter, two red-leather Chesterfield three-seater settees and both leather wing-backed chairs. Then there were the numerous standard lamps dotted round the room, to ensure that wherever a reader might find him or herself, there was soft lighting available.

  The only spaces empty of books were the floor-to-ceiling three-panelled window behind the desk and inglenook fireplace opposite it – which also had seating inserted, should a reader need to get closer to the heat on a winter’s afternoon.

  Ranald sent Mrs Hackett an expression of apology after his expletive. ‘Wow.’ He moved over to the desk, leaned against it and surveyed the room. ‘I think I’ve died and gone to heaven.’ So far, as he walked through the house he felt as if the weight of the place was pressing down on him, as if the centuries of formal human habitation were pushing him into a huge responsibility. But this room had a different feel. This was a room he could live in.

  Mrs Hackett all but preened. ‘Mr Fitzpatrick would be utterly delighted to hear you say that.’ She looked around as if Ranald’s presence allowed her to see it all afresh. ‘It is quite something.’ She paused. ‘But just so you know, this is not a museum exhibit. Mr Fitzpatrick would want you to read as many of the books as you could. He never bothered if anyone turned down the corners or bent back the spine,’ she paused and shuddered. ‘But what did drive him crazy was hearing that people took their books into the toilet. The idea of any … matter … finding its way onto the pages…’

  Ranald laughed. ‘I’ve read many books that were full of such matter.’

  Her answering look was the reprimand of a stern school headmistress. ‘Read as you wish, but don’t take books into the loo and don’t give them out to people. He hated it when people didn’t return his books. He was a real hoarder.’

  ‘I get that,’ said Ranald.

  ‘Just one more thing I need to tell you,’ Mrs Hackett said. She looked at her wristwatch. ‘Almost noon,’ she murmured, then looked back at Ranald, her lips twitching in an almost-smile. ‘The master bedroom is the first door on the right as you walk up the main stairs. The bedding is all brand new, as are the pillows and the mattress. Mr Fitzpatrick was bedridden for the last few weeks of his life and he was worried you might not want to sleep in a dead man’s bed, so he left instructions that everything should be replaced.’

  ‘Really?’

  She walked to the doorway and out of the room. Ran followed to hear what she was about to say.

  ‘Mr Fitzpatrick has been preparing for this day for some time, Mr Mc … Ranald. He respected your mother’s decision to remove herself from the family, so he was sure never to intervene in your life, no matter how much he wanted to. But he felt that anything that happened when he was dead was beyond that … sensitivity.’

  Ranald shook his head slowly. ‘I really don’t know what to say, Mrs Hackett.’ He felt a surge of affection for the deceased man. His throat tightened and he felt his eyes smart. ‘I wish I could have met him.’

  Mrs Hackett studied him. ‘You two would have got on, I’m sure. He was a lovely man, although he could be an irascible old so-and-so from time to time.’ She rubbed her hands together. ‘Right, I best be off, I have a husband who’ll be looking for his lunch. As I said earlier, I took the liberty to put some food in the fridge, but if you need to go out to the shops, they’re not that far down the hill.’ She stretched to her full height, as if she was standing on tip-toe, then looked him up and down. ‘You’re a Fitzgerald, Ranald. Don’t ever forget that.’

  With that pronouncement, delivered as forcefully as any judge might pass sentence, she turned away and walked away down the corridor. Ran followed her with his eyes. Her large figure seemed to diminish in the poor light at the far end until she all but disappeared into shadow. What was that about? he wondered: Don’t ever forget you’re a Fitzgerald?

  Ranald walked back into the room and sat down in the large, and of course, leather desk chair. He felt the give of the suspension and the chair rolling back a little. Then he put both hands on the polished wooden surface and examined the desk.

  Apart from a bronze lamp on one corner, an old-fashioned phone with an answerphone on the other and a large leather blotter in the centre, the desk was clear of clutter. He stretched. Picked up the phone and listened. Yes. A dialling tone. A way to reach the world if required.

  He took yet another look around the room.

  This couldn’t all be his. This was wrong. What had he done to deserve it all? His mind was drawn back to the taxi driver and his mother’s fatalistic attitude: ‘We’ll pay for it tomorrow.’

  Fate, destiny, providence – whatever the hell you liked to call it – had provided Ranald with this house. It was too much. Too much for the likes of him. And there was bound to be a cost.

  He gave himself a mental shake. Chrissakes, McGhie, he thought. Get a grip. It’s just a house.

  Enjoy yourself.

  Take a breath.

  Savour.

  But, before he knew it, he was on his feet, out the door, along the corridor and into th
e main hall. Then he was pulling open the heavy front door and darting out onto the drive, panting like he’d just run a marathon.

  He leaned over, hands on his thighs, took a deep breath and tried to ignore the rapid beat of his heart. It was all just too much.

  Fresh air, that’s what he needed, he thought, closing his eyes and then opening them again. It was a lovely sunny day. He should go for a walk. He remembered Mrs Hackett talking about the village shops. That’s where he could go. The shops.

  As he walked towards the road, crunching over the gravel, he noticed Danny hacking at a bush of some sort with a large pair of shears.

  ‘Awright?’ Ranald asked him as he approached. ‘Just need … just need a breather. This…’ He turned back to the house. ‘It’s all a bit much to take in, you know?’

  Danny nodded, but said nothing, his sombre eyes set deep in the tan of his face.

  Something snagged Ranald’s attention. Movement at a window on the first floor. Or was it? He stared. Nothing.

  ‘Thought I saw…’

  ‘A bit of a cloud. A breeze … and you think you’ve seen or heard something. Old houses will do that to you, Mr McGhie.’ Danny nodded as if this would add import to his words. ‘You’ll soon get used to it.’

  ‘The village?’ Ranald asked, taking another step towards the road.

  ‘It’s a bit of a trek. There’s a bike you could use, in the garage. But if you want to stretch your legs go out the drive and take a left. First right and just walk straight along that road. Half an hour at a good stride and you’ll come to the Cross. There’s a few shops there.’

  Ranald’s mobile phone pinged – a text alert. It was from Martie. She couldn’t make it over after all. A crisis at work. Could she come tomorrow? it asked.

  Disappointed, Ranald pocketed the phone without sending a reply.

  ‘Another thing about old houses – at least hereabouts; apparently you get a terrible signal on your mobile,’ said Danny. ‘Or so I’m told.’ His tone suggested he’d rather lose both his thumbs than have one of his own.

  Five minutes into the walk and Ranald regretted his impulse to escape. What had Danny said? Half an hour? Already his calves were beginning to feel tight, it was too warm, the road was too narrow and with too many bends, the hedges were too high and he was sure a car was going to rip round the corner and toss him high into the air.

  Get a hold of yourself, man, he thought. Remember what your therapist said: ‘Centre yourself in the real world every day, and every day push yourself out of your comfort zone.’

  Mindful that a car might be on top of him at any second he stepped off the road, his right leg almost in among the brambles, nettles and wildflowers that flourished in the lee of the hedge, and, as he focused on his breath – slow and through the nose – he turned round to look for his new home.

  At first he couldn’t see anything of it. The variety of trees before him was an arborist’s dream, and there, like a giant’s shoulder edging the hill, was a stretch of grazing land; but no house. In only five minutes’ walking it had all but disappeared from view. Driving along this road you might not even know it existed. All of that was concealed by a dip in the land and an assembly of tall vegetation.

  He shielded his eyes from the sun with his right hand. There. Above the trees was a tower, like a floating pavilion of brick and window. Cloud draped the sun and he was able to move his hand away from his forehead to study it better. And that’s when he once again saw something. Was there someone behind the glass? He squinted. It was too far away to see properly, but he was sure this time he had seen some movement. Someone looking out towards him? He shook his head. Maybe Mrs Hackett was up there doing some overtime.

  He wiped some sweat from his forehead with his sleeve and thought about his new cleaner and gardener. Pushing aside the thought that he had staff, he wondered what they made of him. After such a long time of looking after old Alexander they were in the middle of a period of uncertainty. Did they resent him? Danny had barely spoken a word and Mrs Hackett was as remote as the house now appeared to be. He frowned, thinking of his taxi drive from the city. Was the house really that far beyond Bearsden? It hadn’t seemed like it. But now…

  He began walking again, and, grateful for a breeze that greeted him as he rounded a bend, Ran’s thoughts moved to more practical matters. When he got to the village, he’d look for a coffee shop, and then find a taxi to bring him back up here. No way was he walking all that way.

  Eventually the road came to a junction. He looked to his left and saw nothing but farmland, turned to his right and was able to make out a cluster of red roofs. Civilisation. With the sight he felt a lift of energy. He lengthened his stride and increased his pace, and before long a row of large houses came into view. A car passed him. Then another, and Ranald realised this was the first traffic he’d seen since he left Newton Hall.

  He came to a busy crossroads, with a set of traffic lights, and as he turned, deciding where to go, he almost collided with someone. An old man in a light-blue raincoat and a brown tweed flat cap was standing right beside him, staring at Ranald as if he’d seen a ghost. Appearing to gather his wits, the man mumbled, ‘People should watch where they’re going,’ before turning to cross the road.

  The natives are friendly then, thought Ranald as he walked in the same direction as the old fellow in the cap. He was soon at the Cross and his eyes were immediately drawn to the War Memorial – a massive plinth on which stood a tall winged angel holding what Ran assumed was a fallen soldier.

  He crossed another busy junction and spotted a wee coffee shop and mentally greeted it like it was an old friend. A pair of tables, each with two seats, had been arranged just outside the window. Ranald sped up, anxious that he should nab one before someone else got there first. The pavement was narrow, so the seat was a bit close to the traffic coursing past, but it felt like it would be a crime to sit inside on such a warm day.

  He pulled the door open, stepped inside, caught the attention of the server, and ordered a black coffee. Then he went back outside and claimed his place.

  With his back against the window, he turned his face to the sun and allowed his anxiety to dissipate a little. This was remarkable. What a library. And what a beautiful house. He couldn’t wait to investigate the rest of it.

  I should be doing that now, he thought. Why was he so intimidated by it all?

  But then he gave himself a break, as his therapist had so often told him to do. It was a lot to take in for anyone. Least of all a man with his history.

  He heard footsteps; a young woman was approaching the café. Loose, yellow, flowery dress. Long, straight black hair. She caught Ranald’s eye and smiled. Then pulled out her in-ear headphones and said, ‘You’ve got the right idea.’

  Ranald nodded.

  She’s gorgeous, he thought. Then: Better not sit down here; I’ve got so much nervous energy, I’ll talk at you till closing time.

  She went inside. But came back out moments later and sat on one of the pair of chairs on the other side of the door. She rested a large leather bag on her lap and pulled out a book. Ranald craned his neck to see what the title was. War and Peace. He wanted to say that he’d probably got the original back at his house, then thought better of it.

  ‘Good for you,’ he ventured instead. ‘I’ve tried that several times. Never got further than a third of the way in.’

  She smiled, displaying a row of perfect teeth. ‘This was my New Year’s resolution. It’s now, what, May? – and I’ve only got this far…’ She held the book up and Ranald guessed she was about a hundred pages in.

  ‘That’s actually good going,’ he said. ‘I’m giving myself an easier reading time these days. I’m reading one of those “Girls on the Train and the Bus with the Red Coat and the Cat Tattoo” books.’ He was aware that he was speaking too fast, and thought he should force himself to slow down the next time he spoke.

  She laughed. ‘Sure you are. Show me a literary bandwagon and I’l
l go elsewhere.’ She held up Tolstoy’s offering. ‘Hence this…’

  ‘Anyway,’ said Ranald, ‘don’t want to intrude on your reading time.’ He pointed at her book. ‘You want to be more than halfway through when it comes to next year’s resolution.’

  ‘Very true.’ She offered him a smile and moved her chair so that she would be sitting with her face straight to the sunshine.

  ‘We should take advantage of the weather while we can, eh?’ he said needlessly. And then clamped his jaw shut. Had he misread the situation? Why was he always so clumsy?

  He was saved from further embarrassment by the arrival of the waitress, who placed a large cup of black coffee in front of him and a tall latte on the girl’s table.

  He pulled out his phone in order to disguise his awkwardness and read the text from Martie again. He thumbed out a reply: ‘No worries. Let me know when you can come over tomorrow.’

  He sipped at his drink, leaned back in his chair, tilted back his head and stretched his legs out in front of him, just as a woman with her three kids and two dogs walked past.

  ‘Some people,’ the woman said, as she took evasive action.

  One of her kids wasn’t quite so quick. He tripped and stumbled into one of the dogs, who gave out a yelp.

  ‘Really sorry,’ said Ranald. ‘I didn’t see you there.’

  ‘Clearly,’ the woman said, before she gathered her brood and set off again at a clip.

  The young woman beside him giggled. ‘Couldn’t have done that if you’d tried.’

  ‘Just call me Captain Chaos,’ he replied.

  ‘Okay, Captain, my name’s Suzy.’

  Ranald nodded. ‘Nice to meet you, Suzy. I’m only a captain on weekends. My real name’s Ranald.’

  ‘Think I prefer Captain.’ She squinted her eyes against the light.

  ‘Come back on Saturday, then.’

  She laughed again and then picked up her drink for a sip.

  ‘So how come you’re not doing the wage-slave thing then? Student?’ Ranald asked, feeling emboldened.