House of Spines

by Michael J Malone

  He focused on the first one and began to read.

  Dear Ma and Da,

  This is my very first New Year away from home, so I thought I would write to you and send you a little present. It’s not much, really, but I saw it in a shop when I was out with the young miss, and I thought you would like it.

  They do things different up at the big house. We like New Year better than Christmas, but here, they celebrate both. You should have seen the clothes I had to dress the young mistress and the young miss in! And the Christmas tree they had in the ballroom – it was bigger than our whole house. And the food on the table was a feast. It would have fed everyone on our street for a week! I kept my little brother a sausage roll. I folded it up in a napkin, hid it in the pocket of my pinafore and took it up to my room. Then I realised it would be mouldy before he got near it, so I ate it myself. It was delicious. Tell him sorry.

  I miss you all very, very much and I’ll write again soon.

  Your loving daughter,

  He struggled to read the signature. Where everything else was neat and tidy, it was like a rushed scrawl.

  Well, that was all very nice. A young girl off to work in service for the first time, writing home. But why would his grandmother save it? And then it occurred to him that it hadn’t actually been sent, had it, if it was still here?

  He scanned some others. They were all similarly written. A young woman excited to be working and able to contribute to her family income. It seemed every penny was crucial; from what he could gather, her father had been suffering from an old injury he got in ‘the Great War’ and couldn’t work more than three days a week.

  This was hardly earth-shattering stuff. But something in the tone caught him; in the voice of this young girl. There was an honesty in her prose and an engaging unaffected manner. He couldn’t help but feel sure this girl would have grown into a fine woman. But what was the link to his grandmother?

  He skipped a couple and chose another at random.

  Dear Ma and Da,

  I hope this letter finds you all well.

  How is my little brother? Getting bigger? Are you still giving him bother for climbing that tree in the park? I used to love that tree. I’d hide in among the leaves and pretend I was a bird.

  The trees in the garden around this house are just like those in the park. The garden itself almost feels like a park, it’s that big. They have two men and a boy working on it all day, every day. I climbed one tree up the back, where I hoped I was out of sight of everyone in the house. I found a branch that could be my perch, where I would be safe. But I forgot to put my coat on and it was so cold I had to go back inside.

  Cook saw me and I thought she would give me a skelp, but she laughed and gave me a warm scone just out of the oven, and now every time she sees me she calls me little birdie. It’s nice to have a friend.

  I miss you all very, very much and I’ll write again soon.

  Your loving daughter

  Ranald found himself smiling as he read this letter. He was getting more of a sense of the girl. But a word or two stuck in his mind. She needed a break away from someone – or everyone perhaps. She was glad to have a friend. And that word ‘safe’. Why would it take hiding up a tree to make her feel safe? Somehow he felt like that was the point of the letter. In her quiet, straightforward way, she was trying to communicate something – something beyond the regular. Was this why the letters had not been sent?

  He flicked through them. There were perhaps another half dozen before he came to the last one. Starting to read, he hoped the girl, whoever she was, had indeed found her safety.

  Dear Ma and Da

  There is so much I want to tell you all, so much I am unsure of, but I don’t know where to start. The big news is about the war. It has got everyone up here all of a tizzy. Some of the younger ones are excited at the thought of adventure, but the older ones remember the last war and are afraid. I never thought I’d say it, but I’m glad Da was injured and won’t be asked to fight again.

  The young master is being sent to London. I heard his parents talk about it when I was in the garden with the young miss. They were relieved that he was getting an easy posting.

  When I have a bit of free time – not that I get much – I love to explore the garden. There’s a quiet corner I found up the back, where even Cook can’t see me. I know I’m too big for such things, but when I’m there I go up a tree and pretend I’m a bird – a homing pigeon, and all I need is for someone to open up the coop and let me out. Then I’d come flying home to be with you.

  I miss you all very, very much.

  Your loving daughter,

  Ranald stood up and went over to the desk He studied the inside of the open drawer to satisfy himself that this was indeed the last letter. Whatever had happened to her? Again, she was talking about hiding. He read one line again – ‘all I need is for someone to open up the coop and let me out’. Did the girl feel she was in a trap?

  He tried to read the signature again, and got nothing. Poor girl. What had happened to her? Who did she need to get away from?

  Something occurred to him, and he scrolled through all of the letters to confirm it was true. Every letter ended in the same way, except for the very last one. The words ‘I’ll write again soon’ were missing.

  Mind full of the young woman in the letters, Ranald left the sitting room and continued his exploration. Who was she, what happened to her, and why were the letters there? He shook his head, resigned to the fact that he’d never know. More to wonder about in this place of shadows and wide-open spaces. His anxiety quelled now somewhat by the thoughts of this young woman who’d inhabited these spaces he turned back to the staircase and climbed up to the next floor to see what it held. Here the furnishings were much more basic. Looking left and right he saw that this corridor was much narrower than the one below and ran the full length of the house. He could see bare floorboards either side of a narrow carpet runner. Less money had been spent up here. These must be the old staff quarters, then. He counted the doors lining either side. All this space. What a waste when there were families struggling to get decent homes. He tried the first door he came to, turning the handle. But the room was locked. He frowned and tried the handle again. Gave the door a push.

  Then he heard it – a noise coming from beyond the door.

  Had it been him, pressing against it? His heart in his mouth, he held his ear to the dark wood. He could definitely hear a knocking, scratching sound. He shivered and took a step back. But this was his home, he should really investigate. It was probably the branch of a tree touching the glass of a window.

  But, what if it wasn’t? His former anxiety rose suddenly, engulfing him like a wave, and he all but ran back to the stairs. But instead of descending into the darkness, he headed upwards and found himself on a small landing outside another door to the lift. To the left of that was yet another flight of stairs, these almost as narrow and steep as a ladder. Where did they lead? His pulse racing, as if he were mindlessly fleeing some wild creature, he leaped up them, using his hands as well as his feet to climb.

  And with a feeling of immense relief he emerged in a space flooded with light.

  This must be the tower room that Mrs Hackett had mentioned, the windows of which he had seen from the road and from the drive below. He walked over to the nearest. The view was remarkable. All the terror he’d felt downstairs fell away, as he turned a full three hundred and sixty degrees. He could see for miles. One half of the sky was a clear sweep of brilliant blue, the other half covered in epic, monstrous clouds that thrust into the ozone. A storm was on its way.

  Looking down and to the left he saw an expanse of green fields sliced through with stubbled lines of tree and hedge, and here and there, like widely scattered jewels, golden fields of rapeseed.

  Over to the left was the massive grey, spiky, spread of human life and achievement: Glasgow. He’d never seen it from this angle before. He would have to come back regularly to study it. His s
tomach flipped: that would mean dealing with getting up here, climbing the gloomy, claustrophobic staircases. He shuddered at the thought of going back down. He frowned. Told himself not to be daft. The only thing he had to worry about was his vivid imagination.

  He lowered his gaze from the view and assessed the room. Each of the four walls was taken up by matching floor-to-ceiling windows, and in the middle of the floor sat four, large cushioned armchairs. Each of them positioned to face a different window. He sat in one and appreciated the view again for a moment. And then sat in each of the others.

  Is this what his great-uncle did when he came up here? Depending on the time of day, choose a chair that gave the best outlook?

  He sat down on the first chair again and stretched his legs out in front of him. He wondered what Liz would make of this. He should bring her up the next time they met. That’s if there was to be a next time. While he was walking home from the café, he’d half expected to bump into her on the road, or even see her standing at the top of the drive. But, no, she had completely vanished.

  Was she happy only with this sort of contact, or would she want or expect more from him? Either was fine, he thought. She was fun, very good looking. Good for him.

  He looked around the room again. Other than the chairs and windows, and the narrow staircase that allowed entry, there was nothing else in here.

  Then he noticed that the cushion he was sitting on felt a little bumpy, so he stood, turned, picked it up and gave it a shake. Before he set it back in place, something stopped him: a small black triangle poked above the springs of the chair’s base: the corner of a notebook.

  With a sense of excitement, he picked it up, replaced the cushion and sat back down. Why was it here? Did Alexander mean to hide it? But from what and who? Maybe it was simply one he’d left here for whenever he was up here reading and an idea occurred to him.

  Holding the book closed on the palm of one hand, Ranald traced the cover with his other, as if a light touch from his fingers might access some of his benefactor’s soul. He sent a mental note of thanks to the old man. It would have been nice if he’d got in touch sooner, perhaps when his parents died. Or at least when he was still alive, so he could explain all of this…

  He opened the cover and read the first page. There was no note to say that this was a commonplace book like the others, but, like them, there were scraps of what Ranald assumed were his great-uncle’s own poems, images and observations. As he read, Ranald grew sad. The overwhelming impression he was getting was that Alexander was a lonely man, someone who observed life from the edges but was rarely a part of it. At times he seemed to be relieved and almost taking comfort at that remove: unable or unwilling to join in. Other notes suggested this was a great source of loneliness.

  At that realisation, Ranald felt a surge of affection for the old man. For all his wealth and connection, he didn’t do well socially. He may have been able to deal well with money, but appeared to have failed in those small, daily transactions that human beings use to help form connections and mutual trust.

  He read some more and came to a passage about a father and son playing football in the park. The father trying to remember long unused skills, while the boy continually looked from the ball to his dad, tongue sticking out of his mouth, not caring that his dad wasn’t very good, happy only to have his undivided attention. There was a poignancy to the words. And envy, perhaps?

  The words snagged in Ranald’s mind, like cloth on barbed wire. Was Alexander’s father too remote? As a boy had he craved that sort of attention? Ranald searched the mental scraps of his own childhood. His father was a taciturn man, but made up for that by being tactile. He often reached out to touch Ranald as he passed him, in the house or garden. A hand on his head. A pat on the back. Reaching out to hold his hand when they crossed the road. He never told him he loved him – those words would have been locked behind the cage of his version of masculinity – but it was there, in those moments, as clear as a spring morning.

  And then he was gone.

  An image slammed into his mind. Walking into his parents’ bedroom that fateful evening. Their still forms on the bed. Too still.

  He shook his head violently as if that might remove the memory. He was not going there. Not now. Not ever.

  But a boy needs his father. Ranald felt his eyes sting with emotion. For those short years he had had his dad by his side, a safe anchorage, a quiet but solid point of reference; and, in early childhood, a figure of respect, almost of veneration.

  Then Dad had blown all of that up with his act of ultimate betrayal. Choosing death with his wife, rather than life with his only child.

  As had been his habit for years now, he acknowledged the old hurt while simultaneously pushing it to the side of his mind. There was no benefit in going back over all that.

  He turned back to the notebook. It was clear from his great-uncle’s words that he didn’t have much of a bond with his father. Nothing like Ranald had with his.

  Something shifted in his mind. Softened. He’d been so resentful for so long that his parents died while he was struggling to find his place in the world that he hadn’t taken time to realise that when they were with him, they were with him.

  But still, how could his dad…?

  Enough.

  Ran dipped back into the book. With a sense of relief, he found some lines that were less introspective: an excerpt from a poem:

  There was a woman from the north,

  who danced till the lights slept, and then

  when the world emptied its heart into her eyes

  she wept till the lights re-gained their colour.

  Where did that come from?

  Then:

  ‘This morning I watch from here. You are there. Unseeing, behind a curtain of quiet while within your mind’s ear dances a discreet miracle of words.

  Your silence unnerves me. Makes me want to prod, extend a finger and pick at that space under your arm where nerve meets laughter.

  I see you from the counter as I collect my coffee. I approach your table. Cough, apologise, smile. Cough again. You motion absent-minded assent with casual arm and flicker of smile. I sit in the empty chair opposite and sip.

  And watch. And find myself needing to share in your content.’

  Wait. What the hell is happening here? He knew these words. He wrote some of them just a little while earlier.

  He pulled out the notebook that was still in his pocket, opened it and read:

  I watch from here. You are there,

  unseeing behind a screen of silence.

  Your quiet disturbs me.

  Makes me want to intrude.

  Reach with a finger and prod in that space under your arm,

  where nerve meets laughter.

  No.

  It was like he’d written an early version of Alexander’s words.

  He closed the notebook. Crossed his arms against a sudden chill. This can’t be real. Some odd dreams he could handle. After all, such a big change in circumstances was going to dislodge something in his subconscious. But this – finding words that he’d written earlier that same day, in a notebook of his great-uncle’s?

  They weren’t just similar words. They were pretty much the same. Identical thoughts and observations. What the hell was happening here? He threw the notebook away from him as if it burned, sat back in the chair, and pulled his knees up to his chest.

  He forced himself to breathe more slowly. There was an explanation. There had to be. But how could this happen? He got up and scuttled over to the notebook, picked it up and read the words again.

  Almost identical.

  He fell into a crouch and began rocking back and forwards, knocking his forehead with the fist of his right hand. What was happening here?

  Then he caught himself and stopped. This was the very behaviour Martie had described him as showing the first time she came to see him at the hospital. With trembling legs he moved over to the nearest chair and sat on its edge,
desperately trying to control his impulsive movements.

  This wasn’t his imagination. He wasn’t dreaming. The words were there in black and white. Was the house somehow affecting him? Was he beginning to adopt his great-uncle’s … what? Mind? Memories?

  Oh, come on, Ran, you’re being ridiculous.

  And then, once more, came the worry that had haunted his mind since that first moonlight dance all those years ago: Was he as mad as his mother?

  13

  Randall remembered wanting to speak to his father about his late-night dance with his mother, but in the days that followed it he didn’t get the chance to be alone with him. The expression of disappointment on his father’s face stuck with him though, and eventually, unable to bear how much it troubled him, he sought his father out.

  It was a Sunday afternoon and Dad was out in the garden pulling up weeds. Ranald watched what he was doing for a moment then fell to his knees and began to copy him.

  ‘None of your pals about, son?’ Dad asked, pausing in his task and looking over at Ranald.

  ‘John’s got the mumps and Stuart’s mum and dad are taking him somewhere.’

  Sitting in his present, Ranald could bring no further detail to mind concerning either of these boys. When he pushed at his memory for more there was nothing but a vacuum.

  ‘Don’t pull on that one,’ his dad had chided next. ‘That’s a flower.’

  ‘And flowers are good, right?’

  ‘Right,’ Dad smiled.

  Ran looked down at his father’s hands and forearms. Saw the strength coiled in their leanness; the soil clumped around his short dark hairs and embedded under his nails. He turned his attention to a piece of grass among the dark loam and pulled it out. There was just a tiny amount of resistance and then it lifted as easily as a bird’s feather.