House of Spines Read online

  House of Spines

  MICHAEL J. MALONE

  Prologue

  Someone was singing his name.

  A pebble skittered off his bedroom window and his name was repeated in a harsh whisper.

  Pulled from sleep, he opened his eyes on a thick darkness leavened only by the weak light from his Bart Simpson lamp.

  He heard his name being whispered again. It was coming from the back garden, and he recognised the voice.

  ‘Mummy?’ What was she doing out in the garden in the middle of the night? He jumped out of bed, pushed his feet into his Ninja Turtle slippers and raced over to the window. Pulling open the curtain, he pressed his forehead against the cool glass and searched for her below.

  There she was, in the middle of their back lawn, stepping from side to side with a graceful hop, her right arm trailing a sweeping arch to each side, her nightdress a slump of cotton in front of her feet.

  Looking up, she spotted him and waved. ‘Come, sweetheart,’ she mouthed. ‘Come and dance with Mummy.’

  He waved back, but kept silent. He may only have been six and three quarters but he knew this was one of those occasions he should not wake Daddy. The thought of his father stilled him for a moment. If he did join his mother outside, might Daddy be disappointed in him? If there was one thing he hated most in the world it was the look his father gave him when he did something silly.

  But Mummy looked like she was having such amazing fun. So, without further thought, he raced down the stairs, across the kitchen and out the back door.

  ‘Aha,’ she beamed as he skipped across the cropped grass towards her. ‘The little faerie child is here.’ She held her hands out to grasp at his. ‘Have you travelled far? I hear the moon is a wonderful place at this time of the year.’ With that she looked up towards the hook of moon tucked into a far corner of the glittering night sky.

  Then her attention returned to him. ‘You look cold, little faerie boy. We should dance to warm you up. Do you want to dance?’

  He nodded. The part of him that desperately wanted to be a grown-up was not so sure, but this was one of those occasions when she was giving him her full attention. And that was something he craved. Often – too often – she was distant and sad, and acted like he wasn’t really there. He’d stand in front of her and say, ‘But Mummy, it’s me’, and she’d look at him, head cocked to the side. ‘I have a son?’ she’d ask, and he would feel tiny and invisible, and all the way back to his room he’d pinch at his arm, intoning, ‘But I’m real, aren’t I?’

  So now, when he felt the warmth of her grip on his hands, he revelled in it.

  ‘We do this…’ She stepped to the side, and he followed. ‘…And then this…’ She held his right hand up in the air and sent him into a spin. Then she showed him a couple of other movements, which he duly copied. As he did so he couldn’t help but giggle; this was silly and fun. He loved it when he met this version of her.

  And so, with the pattern of movement established, they danced and whirled across the lawn as light as moonbeams, to the music of a waltz that sounded deep in his mother’s head.

  They spun and stepped and danced until his breath grew ragged, until he looked up at his mother, begging her to stop; until his father’s voice boomed out into the night.

  Then all heat was taken out of the summer air and he felt a chill breeze stippling the skin across his back into goose bumps.

  ‘Go to bed, please, son,’ his father said.

  ‘But, Dad,’ he said trying to read his father’s expression. ‘Please don’t be angry. Mummy only wanted to have fun.’

  ‘Bed.’

  He trudged back to the house. When he reached the door he heard a cry from his mother and turned. She was on the ground, and his father was on his knees behind her, gathering her to him, holding her nightdress against her breasts. Her head was thrown back, long hair trailing in the grass, the pale of her neck exposed to the sky and the beasts that lived there.

  The boy’s heart tightened with pain and sorrow. He wanted nothing more than to run to her and bring back her smiles, but his father looked over at him with an expression that stopped him.

  ‘Bed … please … son,’ his father said.

  Even though his father’s eyes were hidden under the shadow of his forehead, the boy could read his look. He’d seen it so many times. His father’s greatest fear was lurking there. Would the boy become as mad as the mother?

  Contents

  Title Page

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Copyright

  1

  Ranald McGhie wanted to slap the lawyer sitting across the table from him. Acutely aware of his threadbare cuffs; he pulled at the sleeves of his charity-shop tweed jacket in a vain attempt to disguise them.

  The lawyer, who looked like he’d just stepped out of a shop window – Harrods or some other temple to consumerism – had hardly glanced at Ranald since he’d sat down. In fact, the man’s whole demeanour was of someone keen to scrape a lump of shit from the sole of his shoe and hurry onto his next task

  ‘…the library was Mr Fitzpatrick’s chief concern. And given the paucity of his living relatives, he was most anxious that you understand the enormity of the task it represents.’

  ‘Mr…’ Ranald began, pretending that he’d forgotten the man’s name.

  ‘Quinn.’

  ‘Mr Quinn, how about you get to the point and save us both a lot of time?’ Ranald took pleasure in pricking the man’s pomposity. He was probably from Pollock and had managed to get himself a law degree and a cushy number working with the elderly relics at one of Glasgow’s oldest law firms, thinking this meant he was more important than everyone who didn’t work at the Bar.

  ‘I’m explaining’ – he huffed – ‘Mr Fitzpatrick’s last wishes, Mr McGhie.’

  ‘Aye. But who exactly is Mr Fitzpatrick and why exactly have you dragged me in here?’

  The lawyer sat back in his chair, a note of surprise on his face. ‘Mr Alexander Fitzpatrick of the Fitzpatricks. One of the oldest merchant families in the city. Your mother, Helena McGhie née Fitzpatrick, was his niece.’

  ‘She was what?’ Ranald sat forwards in his chair. ‘I think someone’s been selling you a load of shite, mate. My mother’s name was Helen.’ Ranald was a young man of considerable education and intellect, but, when faced with snobbery, he always found himself reverting to his working-class, Anglo-Saxon roots, reacting in an in-your-face, take-me-or-leave-me, kind of way.

  Quinn opened a file and leafed through some papers until he found what he was looking for. He pushed the file across the desk towards Ranald.

  ‘She dropped the “a” from her name. She thought “Helen” was better suited to her more…’ he struggled for the right word ‘… prosaic circumstances.’

  Ranald resisted the impulse to tell the man to shut up with his ‘prosaic circumstances’; in fact he was more struck by the suggestion
that his mother was from money. He opened his mouth, but the lawyer was handing him another document.

  ‘This is her birth certificate. She was born on the 8th of November 1952. At the age of nineteen she met and fell in love with your father, an unemployed artist, Gordon McGhie. She became pregnant and, against the wishes of her family, went to live with McGhie.’

  My dad was an artist? thought Ranald. Where the hell did Quinn get that notion? His father was a bricklayer, displayed no artistic tendencies whatsoever and decried – with a good deal of swearing – the notion Ranald had, as a teen, that he wanted to be a writer. But he and Mum went and died when Ranald was eighteen, so couldn’t exactly stop him.

  Ranald took a moment to think through the timeline of events. Mum met Dad when she was nineteen and fell pregnant. But he wasn’t born until 1988. What happened to that first pregnancy? As if Ranald had asked the question out loud, Quinn answered:

  ‘That first child was stillborn, Mr McGhie. And your mother distanced herself so thoroughly from the family that we have no idea why she waited so long to have you.

  ‘Mr Fitzpatrick kept a keen eye on you as you grew up. He often talked about you as the one that got away.’ The lawyer grew thoughtful. ‘He envied you your simple life, Mr McGhie.’

  ‘Got away? My simple life?’ Ranald was roused from his confusion. ‘Living for months at a time with no income? Eating nothing but tins of beans and plain bread because my parents left me with nothing?’ He was angry now: all that time he’d had a relative who was loaded – knew the difficulties he was in and did nothing to help.

  ‘Still. You were safe. Dry. Not on the street.’ Quinn raised an eyebrow.

  ‘How the hell do you know that? How do you know any of this?’

  ‘From time to time, Mr Fitzpatrick would … ah … check in.’

  ‘Check in? What the hell does that mean?’

  ‘He was delighted that you resisted the allure of a steady income and instead, followed your compulsion to work in the arts.’

  ‘I write educational textbooks. That’s hardly the arts.’

  ‘You write for a living, do you not? And you had that poetry collection published: The Unkindness of Crows. 2012 wasn’t it?’

  ‘It was a pamphlet. And, again, how do you know all this?’

  ‘Mr Fitzpatrick would ask us…’

  ‘…to check on me.’ Ranald ran his right hand through his hair. What the hell? Had he just dropped into the pages of a Dickens novel? Was there a camera crew hidden behind those oak panels? He needed to make some sense of all of this.

  ‘He was saddened that you went off the rails slightly when your parents died, and he was concerned about your subsequent mental-health issues.’ Quinn paused. It was clear that this wasn’t because he worried he was being indelicate; he was simply checking his memory for the facts. ‘Have you continued with the medication?’

  ‘None of your business.’ Ranald bristled. ‘You mentioned a library?’

  ‘Yes.’ Quinn sat back in his chair as if relieved the conversation was back on a track he had rehearsed. ‘He has … sorry, had, an extensive collection of books. One of the finest in the city, and he wanted you to look after it.’ He placed his hands on the oak desk in front of him. ‘It’s a real treasure trove. Worth a fortune, I believe.’

  Ranald thought about his one-bedroom flat above a chip shop in Shawlands. The aromas that would soon coat this ‘treasure trove’ of books, reducing their value considerably. As if reading his thoughts, Quinn continued.

  ‘The library is not to be moved from the house. Mr Fitzpatrick was explicit in his instructions. Therefore, he has also left the house to you. He set up a trust fund to ensure that the utility bills would be paid. And the council tax. And there is an old couple who have been tending to the house and the gardens. Money has been set aside to pay their wages. But I’m afraid there’s no extra for you personally, Mr McGhie. You will have a house, entirely free of cost, but you will have to continue in your endeavours as a writer.’

  ‘I have a house?’

  ‘You have a very large house.’

  Ranald exhaled, his mind a whirl. He tried to picture his mother. To his shame, all he could see was her long dark hair and the point of her chin. She was from money?

  ‘I have a house.’

  ‘The fact may bear repeating, Mr McGhie,’ Quinn said with a half-smile.

  By Christ it does, thought Ranald. He could sell it. Buy that gîte he’d always fancied living in, over in Brittany. Write that novel he’d always promised himself he would write and say goodbye to all that educational crap.

  ‘You won’t be able to sell the house, Mr McGhie,’ Quinn said, interrupting his thoughts – once more appearing to read them. ‘It’s owned by the family trust, of which I am one of the trustees. We’re bound by law to ensure Mr Fitzpatrick’s wishes are carried out to the letter.’

  ‘But I can live there?’

  ‘That is one of the conditions of access to the library.’ Quinn’s slow nod added importance to his words. ‘It will be yours until you die, and then Mr Fitzpatrick hoped one of your issue would take over.’

  One of my issue, Ranald repeated to himself. At this stage having ‘issue’ was highly unlikely. He’d never managed to keep a woman longer than two years. His ex-wife, Martie, regularly told him he was an easy man to fall in love with but a difficult man to stay with. Apparently he’d always had a remoteness, making him unable to commit fully to a relationship. Women sensed that, Martie would say, and it made them feel insecure.

  Yeah, well, he would respond, when your wife has you sectioned, it kinda puts the spokes in the whole trust thing.

  To which she would reply: If you’re at the end of your tether and your husband is at the far end of an A-line roof over a twenty-foot drop, you need to do something.

  It was an argument they had replayed several times. He’d known he was in the wrong, that he needed help; but still, being sectioned … by his own wife?

  And because of this, Ranald was never able to completely trust Martie properly again, despite the fact that he was still in love with her.

  His mind placed him back there, in that moment when he was balanced on the roof. He was invincible, he could affect the weather, he could have taken on God. Just a few months of pull-ups and push-ups and he would have had the strength to fly, he was sure of it. Truth be told, he envied that guy, now. Wished he would turn up more often, instead of this whiny, worthless version most people ended up meeting.

  ‘Mr Fitzpatrick regretted that you never managed to stay married.’ Quinn interrupted his thoughts. ‘But he hoped that the medicine, and maturity might—’

  ‘What? He even knew about the state of my relationships?’ And about the drugs, he added silently.

  ‘As I said…’

  ‘He checked in.’

  ‘Quite.’

  Ranald studied Quinn’s expression. This was real. This was all actually real. He had a house. He had a huge library. It must be huge, right? If this old fella was making such a fuss about it.

  Quinn opened a drawer on the right side of his desk and pulled out a small brown envelope. He put it on the desk and pushed it across to Ranald.

  ‘The key,’ Quinn said, quite simply. ‘There is a small piece of card inside with the address of your new home written on it.’

  Ranald paused before picking up the envelope. Were the camera crew about to burst in now? The room remained still. The only noises from outside the room were the low hum of conversation and the clicks of a computer keyboard.

  He opened the envelope, expecting a fanfare of trumpets. But the key was a small, insignificant thing. Cold to the touch. He read the address: Bearsden. A posh part of town.

  ‘Everything you could want is in your new home, Mr McGhie. But if you want to move any of your…’ Quinn actually sniffed. ‘… Your belongings from your flat in Shawlands, we can arrange for a removal van for you.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you, Mr Quinn,’ Ran
ald said, emphasising the word ‘kind’ but meaning the opposite.

  ‘The house is ready for you, Mr McGhie,’ Quinn said with a note of relief. ‘You can move in today. You’ll find the housekeeper and the gardener – Mr and Mrs Hackett – have everything prepared. They’re a pleasant couple. Worked for the family for years.’

  Ranald sank into his chair, now weirdly reluctant to move. He even wanted the pompous old fool in front of him to keep on talking.

  ‘You mentioned a … “paucity” of relatives? I’m it, then?’ he asked.

  ‘Mr Fitzpatrick kept an eye on all of you. You were deemed to be the most suitable for the task.’

  All of you.

  ‘Will any of the others challenge the will?’ Ranald asked. He had a whole other family he knew nothing about. Should the fact that Fitzpatrick rated him his best option mean he should also discount them?

  ‘They have been adequately provided for by the trust, Mr McGhie. None of the others actually wanted the house. They are all well taken care of in the housing department. In fact, most of them see Newton Hall as a white elephant.’

  Newton Hall. The house had a name?

  ‘Can I meet them?’ Ranald asked.

  A buzzer sounded on Quinn’s desk and a look of relief passed over his face. ‘That’s my next appointment, Mr McGhie. I’m afraid I’m going to have to…’

  He stood up, and Ranald, with reluctance, followed suit. Quinn walked to his door and opened it. He held out a hand as Ranald reached him. His grip was tight, his hand cold. His voice low.

  ‘My advice: Enjoy the house. Forget your new relatives. Mr Fitzpatrick didn’t have a good word to say about any of them.’

  2

  On autopilot, Ranald found himself standing in front of the shiny aluminium door of the lift. He stared at his blurred reflection and then at the buttons on the panel as if unsure where they might take him.

  A tiny, elderly lady – powdered face, hair piled high on her head, large pearl earrings – stretched out her hand and pressed a button.

  ‘Going down, son?’ she asked, looking up at him with an expression of concern.