He chose a pair of dark jeans, a cream shirt and a check jacket. He finished with a pair of tan brogues. Regarding himself in the mirror, he wondered if the clothes would be enough to distract people from his haunted face.
Downstairs, he made for the kitchen and surprised Mrs Hackett as she was on her way to the pool carrying a pile of freshly laundered towels. Hearing him coming, she turned to say hello. But her mouth dropped open and the towels fell to the floor. She almost gave a little scream but caught herself before the sound issued from her throat.
‘My, Mr … Ranald … for a moment.’ She held a hand to her mouth. ‘For a moment I thought you were your Uncle Alexander.’
Ranald was disappointed. ‘Really? Last time you saw him he was an old man.’ He looked down at the clothes he was wearing. ‘Maybe I should change into something younger-looking.’
‘It’s the hair. The clothes are very smart. I’m so glad you’re wearing them after all the time it took to select them.’ She gave him a small smile, tinged with memory. ‘You look like a much younger version of the man I met when I first came to the family.’ She stepped closer, studying his face. ‘Don’t know why I didn’t see it before. The resemblance is…’
‘Aye, aye,’ interrupted Ran. ‘You said already.’ He felt uncomfortable and tried to disguise it by getting down on one knee and picking up the scattered towels. He looked like the man. He wrote like the man. He was even beginning to talk like him. It was helpful when he was working himself up to defy Marcus, but did he want to be affected by it permanently?
‘I hope I haven’t offended you. Your uncle was a fine-looking man in his day.’
Ranald put the towels on the table and began to fold them. He shook his head. That anyone should think he was bothered about his handsomeness quotient, if there was such a thing, was ludicrous. When it came to looks he was completely oblivious. It came from a lifelong desire to be invisible, he supposed.
‘The clothes are okay?’ he asked Mrs Hackett, smoothing down the lapels of his jacket.
‘Very smart, young man.’ She smiled her approval. ‘So much better than those shorts and the t-shirt you were living in for the last few weeks.’ She gathered up the freshly folded towels and walked away.
Moments later Mrs Hackett came bustling back into the kitchen and walked over to a cupboard where she pulled out some cleaning materials.
‘Mind if I ask you something, Mrs Hackett?’
‘Yes?’
‘I’ve been hearing some gossip. That my great-uncle was involved in some kind of scandal way back.’
‘Don’t listen to gossip, Ranald.’
‘I just want to know more about my uncle. What was he like? What kind of man was he?’
‘Everything you need to know about Mr Fitzpatrick is in that library there.’ She held a bucket of cleaning materials in front of her is if they helped form some sort of barrier against Ranald’s questions.
‘Where are all the photographs?’ Ranald asked. ‘I haven’t seen any at all in the house. Isn’t that a bit weird?’
‘Not really,’ Mrs Hackett said and gave a small shrug. ‘Mr Fitzpatrick was more concerned with words than images. He was on his own for most of his adult life. Who takes photos of themselves?’
‘Ever heard of selfies, Mrs H?’ He surprised himself by managing a grin.
She gave a small huff of disapproval. ‘Thankfully your great-uncle was never that vacuous. Anyway,’ she managed to look at her wristwatch without overturning the bucket of cleaning materials. ‘I best be off. Work to do et cetera.’ She began walking out of the room.
‘What about my grandmother?’ asked Ranald. If Mrs Hackett didn’t want to talk about his uncle, maybe she would be more willing to talk about her.
She stopped and turned, her expression a request to clarify.
‘What can you tell me about her?’ Ran sat in one of the chairs round the kitchen table – a signal to Mrs Hackett that he wasn’t going anywhere. ‘I never met my gran; I don’t know the first thing about her.’
Mrs Hackett moved closer, her features softened a little. What was that, sympathy?
‘I was always blessed with good family ties. I can’t imagine life without them.’ Her eyes narrowed as she considered Ranald’s situation. ‘All I can say is that Mr Fitzpatrick was the best of them. You’re lucky you take after him.’
‘When did gran die?’
Mrs Hackett thought for a moment before she answered. ‘It would have been about 2006.’
‘That was the year my parents died,’ Ranald thought out loud.
‘Cancer,’ said Mrs Hackett, her mouth a cold line of judgement. It was the first time Ranald had seen any hint of a breach of her self-imposed stance of confidentiality. ‘At her autopsy the doctors said her body was riddled with it. She must have been in enormous pain, but she never sought treatment, not until very near the end.’
‘When in the year did she die?’
‘As far as I remember it was the autumn,’ Mrs Hackett said, her eyes clouded, looking into the past. ‘I can remember the piles of leaves on the paths through the graveyard.’
‘My parents died in September. Could have been only a matter of weeks before my grandmother died.’
‘The minute, no, the second your mother walked out of that door, she was dead to your grandmother.’ Mrs Hackett shook her head. ‘I can’t understand how a woman could be so uncaring about one of her children. She had a formidable mind, but I don’t think her body could cope with the amount of poison it produced.’ She gave a little cough. ‘Sorry.’ She immediately looked ashamed – disappointed in herself, as if she had broken her own rules. And without another word, she walked out of the room.
Minutes later, Ranald found himself upstairs, again, in his grandmother’s wing. He sat in her lounge and was again struck by how different this room was to her bedroom and bathroom. They were austere, Victorian, and held little that softened the hard line of function.
Remembering what Donna had said, he sniffed the air for camphor, but failed to find it.
He was in an armchair by the inglenook fireplace and surveyed the room. It was like this space had been lifted from a generously proportioned country cottage and planted here inside the mansion. Was this her favourite chair? A standard lamp by his shoulder would have provided necessary light for her to embroider by, when daylight from the window was no longer sufficient.
There was not a book in sight. In that, clearly, she was nothing like her brother. But in the absence of photographs their tastes were apparently shared. He closed his eyes, trying to get a sense of her. Why was she so determined to close his mother out of her life? Surely marrying an artist wasn’t all that bad? And if his father had been an artist he must have locked down his creative impulse to become a provider to his new wife, because he couldn’t remember any evidence of it whatsoever.
There was an old chest by the window. A couple of embroidered cushions sat on top of it, which, upon first glance, had made him think it might be a small window seat. But from here, he could see that, in fact, the top was a lid.
He stood up, walked over to it, removed the cushions and lifted up the lid. Inside it held a small storm of paper. He rifled around. It was notepaper, of the kind he remembered using for letters. There were also packets of envelopes, brown and white, and two small packs of postage stamps. The image was not the queen. It was a robin peering out from the slot in a red letterbox and it cost nineteen pence. Only two stamps had been used.
He dropped the stamps and carried on searching. Next he picked up an instruction pamphlet for a television and a couple of unused birthday cards. They were of a generic feminine design: pink and flowery.
There, at the bottom, was a small, brown plastic wallet. He judged it to be about five inches by seven. His pulse rate raised. It was similar to a photograph wallet his mother had once owned. He pulled it out, carried it over to the armchair and sat down. He felt the rough edges with his fingertips. The seams were torn here and there,
which suggested that it been regularly handled.
With a feeling of trepidation, he placed his thumb under the plastic ridge and lifted the folder open. The first photograph was black and white: a somewhat formal study of a woman and child. The woman was seated, wearing dark clothes. Her face was a blank, giving nothing away about her thoughts. The girl was wearing a white dress. Her blonde hair was in ringlets and one of her eyebrows was slightly raised, as if questioning the photographer. She looked – although he acknowledged he was a poor judge of a child’s age – around ten. One thing he was sure of, however: it was his mother. It was there in her eyes. Unmistakeable. He felt his throat tighten. His longing for her was a dull weight on his chest, despite the terrible knowledge that she’d almost certainly killed his father. How could he still love her knowing what she’d done?
It had been the condition; it wasn’t her, he told himself. And who could appreciate that more than him?
But still.
He closed his eyes and leaned his head back, feeling a dull, heavy spread of sadness throughout his body. Somebody please take this all away from me, he groaned. There was only so much of this he could take. A spine can only bend so much before it snaps.
He pushed out, away from his own head and returned his attention to the photograph, and his grandmother. She appeared formidable. Her lips did have a slight upward curve, but there was no real smile. And where his mother’s eyes appeared to be questioning the photographer, his grandmother’s eyes were sending a challenge. Who was behind the lens? Uncle Alex?
Then it occurred to him there was a physical distance between the two figures. No touching; enough space between them for a column of ice.
From what he was beginning to learn about his grandmother, he was surprised his mother had turned out the way she had. She could be stern, but she was also a lot of fun. She even joined in the kickabouts he and his dad had in the back garden, often forgetting to check the dinner in the process and serving up burnt potatoes with a grin and a challenge.
How much pain must she have been in to then do what she did?
And there, a memory of Dad at the dinner table, spooning some soup into his mouth, making pleased noises as the flavour hit his tongue.
Loving. Accepting.
Trusting.
The next photograph must have been from the same sitting: his grandmother and mother were both wearing the same clothes and in the same poses. If anything, they were slightly further apart.
Then came a picture of a couple at a church, taken from a distance. It was a bride and groom. He instantly knew who they were: his mum and dad. He even recognised the church door behind them. He’d seen plenty of similar photographs when he was a kid. They were standing facing someone. In the corner of the image, Ranald could make out an arm and leg, and the way they were positioned made him think these might belong to an official photographer. He frowned and held the photograph away from him. Did the scale and distance it was taken from suggest the person who took this picture was not part of the official party?
The next few photographs were also of the wedding, and also seemed to be taken from somewhere just beyond some official cordon.
He flicked through some more.
Here was a photograph of his mother. She was carrying a tiny bundle. To her right, on the wall, was a sign that read ‘Maternity Ward’. Again, the image looked like it was a stolen rather than shared moment.
Something flashed across his memory.
Had he seen these images before?
He shook his head. How would that be possible?
The next to last photograph convinced him. It was taken from the rear. A couple walking, a small boy in the middle of them, holding both their hands. He was wearing a school blazer. Both of his feet were off the ground as if he was skipping in his excitement. Ranald couldn’t remember the moment, but he could remember the blazer and the school in the distance. His first day at primary.
A sudden sense of sorrow weighed down on him. He imagined his grandmother looking through these photographs time and time again. For hours and hours. Tenderly touching his and his mother’s faces.
What a waste. She obviously pined for them. Why hadn’t she been in touch?
He looked at the last one.
Wait.
Who was this?
This was clearly from a much earlier time, judging by the formality of the pose and the clothes being worn. A man and a young woman sat on separate seats. Another woman stood just behind them, on the same side as the man. The seated couple wore dark clothes and both their faces bore sombre expressions. The woman was his grandmother, looking like she might be in her teens. The man by her side must be his great-uncle. He had a short back and sides. Thick curls on top. Ranald studied him. So this was Alexander Fitzpatrick. Even he could see that their resemblance to each other was strong.
Then he looked at the woman behind his great-uncle. She was young, late teens perhaps. Her hair was long and black around her pale face, and she was wearing a dark dress with a white pinafore over it. She had a hand on his uncle’s shoulder and, judging by the faint smile in his expression and the slight angle in his shoulders, the touch was welcome.
However, her expression suggested she was placing her hand there under silent protest, almost as if her skin might burn if it was held there for a second longer. Her eyes leaked pain, and it was clear her smile was costing her considerable effort.
Ranald drew in a deep, quick breath as recognition dawned. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. He looked closer. He knew this girl.
She was the woman in the mirror.
25
Ranald was back in the kitchen. He put the photograph wallet on the table and thrust his hands into his pockets, as if that would stop them trembling. What the hell was going on here? Was he losing it? What could possibly explain the fact that he knew that girl’s face?
He sifted through memory and all of those dreams. She’d sat on his lap, head in the crook of his neck as if enjoying the deep rumble of his voice as he read. They’d walked hand in hand through shadow in the garden. At no point could he remember her face being clearly visible, so how did he know it was her?
Even though he was disturbed by all of this, he still felt a longing for her. He wanted to take that last photograph out, sit down and stare into her eyes.
But he dared not.
Despite this, he reached across the table. Allowed his hand to hover above the brown plastic. He retreated. He couldn’t do this. Shouldn’t be doing this.
Part of him recognised the displacement. He was lonely. His reallife relationships were all failures. He never failed to push women away, eventually. And that was why an affair with a dead woman – a half-face he’d imagined in a mirror – was preferable to flesh and blood, and certain disappointment.
But then…
It still didn’t explain the dreams, the lift and the fact there was a woman in the mirror.
He stood back from the kitchen table and the wallet, creating distance. That was the thing. Distance. Get the hell out of here and maybe the fog in his mind would recede and he would be able to make some sense of all of this.
He marched along to the front door, and pulled it open to see Marcus standing with his finger poised to ring the bell.
‘Ah, Ranald. Do you have a moment?’
Without waiting for him to respond, Marcus walked past and through into his usual space. Once there, he made straight for the drinks cabinet and poured himself a whisky.
‘Aye,’ said Ranald when he caught up with him. ‘Do come in.’
Marcus threw his head back and drank the whisky down in one. Swallowed. ‘Cousin,’ he said. ‘We need to talk.’
‘If you are going to try and change my mind, Marcus you’re wasting your time.’
‘You can’t do this,’ Marcus said, and slammed the crystal glass on the top of the cabinet, so hard Ranald was surprised not to hear the sound of breaking glass.
‘I’m sorry, Marcus, I can�
��t not see to my great-uncle’s wishes. I would feel awful.’
‘Oh, give me a break,’ Marcus said as he squared up to him. ‘You didn’t even know the old bastard. He ignored you for most of your life. Where does this ridiculous sense of loyalty come from?’ There was a tightness in the man’s face, the chords on his neck were standing out and his eyes were red.
‘Marcus, what’s wrong?’ Ranald asked. Again, Ranald had the impression there was an importance here. A desperation even. Was his cousin in deep financial trouble?
Marcus turned away for a moment, as if he was using that time to gather his thoughts, but he turned back to Ranald, hard eyed and mouth a tight line of anger, as if he was a mere breath from losing control.
‘You sanctimonious little prick … don’t pretend to care about me.’
‘What the hell …?’ Ranald felt a surge of irritation in response, and his hands form into fists. Words crowded his brain. Smart answers. Cutting answers. Alexander, where are you when I need you? he sent out.
Nothing came back.
His shoulders slumped. He looked over at his cousin.
Marcus stared at him as if building up for another insult. And sure enough it came. ‘You fucking inbred,’ he said.
Wait. Inbred?
‘What did you call me?’
‘There could be two different lots of Fitzgerald blood in your veins, Ranald.’
Ranald looked at his cousin. Wanted to punch the smug out of his face. ‘What the hell are you on about?’
‘Do I need to spell it out? I gave you enough hints before.’ His mouth stretched into a poisoned smile. ‘My loving father. Your mother. Couldn’t keep their hands off each other. It’s why she left. And it’s why she couldn’t stay away.’
Ranald was in his face. His breath a harsh pounding. ‘You’re full of shit.’
‘If only, Ranald old boy. Your mother’s first child was fathered by her brother, William. The stillborn thing was another family lie, she had an abortion. Couldn’t handle the guilt of fucking her own brother. I wouldn’t be surprised if you and I were brothers.’
House of Spines Page 18