Alec snapped the book closed. He held it in thought, brushing his palm over its binding, listening to the passage of time – the measured beat of the grandfather clock, its weights and pendulum a model of routine and tradition. His eyes had moved from word to word, and pages had turned, but the man’s thoughts were elsewhere. He laid the book on his lap and looked to the logs, never so alive than as they were now in death, ablaze and blackening. Coal burned better, of course, and it fathered more heat. But it was by far too quiet and Alec liked to hear the wood crack.
His high-backed chair was set at a comfortable range from the hearth, with its cabriole feet sunken deep into the rug. Undisturbed since it first found its footing. Over the years its burgundy leather had dulled, especially across the arms where Alec’s hands were prone to fidget.
The study was the largest room in the house, and the one where Alec spent most of his days and all his nights. As the leather of his chair had shaped itself around him, he had moulded himself around the world as best he could. He understood its parameters, their reasons, and ramifications. In much the same way that a house cat comes to realise why it’s called a house cat and why it will never be like the other felines outside its window. Different lives, different rules. From his solitary perspective, Alec’s life could, in private, masquerade as normal. He gleaned some pleasure from this. To fantasise that he lived and enjoyed his days as other men might have had wont to do.
Lara had learned to see past the oddity of his routine, having visited him almost every day for five years. A quietly charming woman now in her early thirties, she relieved the role from her mother – the original housekeeper – when she fell ill. On each encounter, without fail, Alec still asked after the woman’s health. Naturally, she had long since recovered from the common cold. Their family was of Italian origin. Dark hair, brown eyes, bronzed skin; all the colours that Alec was not.
It was nearly nine o’clock; the hour – or more accurately, the number – that Alec held above all others. The beginning and the end. Lara had already prepared him his evening meal and delivered him a single brandy. Provided that he abided by this tried-and-tested practice, then Alec was always occupied. Otherwise, he thought too much and his hands began to fidget. And that wasn’t good for the chair’s leather.
The window shutters had rolled down before nightfall, as programmed. There was a time when his home had to be locked down manually like a fortress besieged by the stars. He still recalled his father setting those wooden boards into each frame. No easy feat given their length and the man’s weakness for the drink. Thankfully, owing to new technologies, those days were no more. Mankind’s affection for comfort inspires all manner of invention. The technician who installed the system set it so that it adapted to the seasons, always activating at precisely the right time. Alec didn’t need to know how it worked. He was content to simply know that it did.
On Sunday, the clocks would fall back. This was perhaps an insignificant day for most, but not Alec. His days were short enough without trimming off another hour. The shutters would adjust accordingly.
His study provided adequate distraction to pass these long nights. The lion’s share of his time was occupied by the room’s library, aligned along the southern wall from the floor to the ceiling. New books populated its shelves each month. Good reads and old editions were kept, whilst others were removed.
Though its air of antiquity had been carefully guarded over the years, more contemporary means of entertainment now inhabited the room. Alec considered them an eyesore, similar in effect to a gaudy neon sign on an old Parisian street. Not that travel was ever an option for the man. At least the house cat never knew what it was missing.
A flat-screen television had been set at the far wall facing his desk; a needless addition that Alec oft considered removing. Any news from the world outside was sourced from the broadsheet that Lara delivered to him each day. Other popular programmes and feature lengths were of no interest to him. Alec felt an envious disconnect with their characters and dialogue. Even those dramatic pieces mimicking real life were too fictive and implausible to be enjoyed, leaving him feeling all the more alienated.
His laptop lived on the desk adjacent to the wall of book spines, where towers of documents and historical papers had grown around it like a fragile city. The tablet he had purchased on an inquisitive whim was discarded the day it arrived. It was too sleek, and its inner workings far too baffling. And though he thought its female voice to be quite mellifluous at first, the spell was quickly broken when she requested to know his location. That wasn’t information Alec shared without good reason for doing so.
Wooden speakers were set discreetly in the study’s four corners. Musically speaking, the man’s taste in the classical suited the ambience of the room. His interest was, however, entirely superficial. The music would play at a humble volume and he would hear it, caring nothing for the composer’s identity or the key to the piece. Music was a distraction, no more. And Alec could happily live without it so long as the flaming timbers cracked.
The study’s every aspect was warm and comforting, like a candle in a crimson room. Lighting was soft and a glossed mahogany prevailed throughout its fixtures and fittings. The shutters were hidden behind heavy burgundy curtains. Their lustre had faded over the years, but they were far too tall and too many to merit replacement. The framed artwork adorning the walls had not been changed since before Alec was born, and so he neither saw nor appreciated them, but they filled the blank spaces.
The clock chimed nine times, ringing in the hour. Lara would leave once his bedroom had been prepared and the windows inspected. The crackle of logs on the fire would then constitute his only company: the welcome delusions of a lonely man. He would sit for another hour before retiring.
A gentle knock came from the door, audible only to the expectant ear. Lara entered, closing it behind her. Alec turned in his chair to bid her a good night, as was customary, but knew from the lost expression on her face that something was awry. Any digression from the norm was overtly conspicuous in Alec’s life.
‘I’m afraid we have a problem, Doctor,’ she said, her voice like that of a child.
He had asked Lara countless times to call him Alec but her mother wouldn’t allow it. With a frown and a nod, he urged her to explain.
‘One of the window shutters in the master bedroom has not come down. There must be a fault in the security system.’
‘A fault, you say?’ he replied, his fingers gripping into the leather.
‘Yes, I believe so.’
‘All of the other shutters are working correctly, yes?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
Lara waited patiently for further instruction. There had never been such an issue in the past. Although she couldn’t have understood the reasons behind the doctor’s odd aversion to the night, she knew that he wouldn’t set foot inside any room unless the shutters were locked in place.
‘Shall I prepare another bedroom for you?’ she asked.
‘Would you mind? I’ll see to it that you’re compensated for staying on so late.’
‘It’s no problem,’ Lara said, retreating quietly. ‘It won’t take me a moment, Doctor.’
She truly bore the most wonderful likeness to her mother, standing by the side – metaphorically speaking – of a man who had no one else; no remaining family, no friends, not even a hound hard-wired to sit by his legs like a painted ceramic. Such loyalty, he liked to believe, was not evoked by salary. That’s partly why he never spoke to Lara or her mother about their genuine regard for him as a person rather than their employer. Some hopes, especially ones so desperate, were best left unexplored.
He would make a phone call first thing in the morning. Such malfunctions were unacceptable. It had cost Alec a small fortune to upgrade every window in his home. The technicians had thought him strange. Why would someone wilfully imprison themselves in their home night after night? They misunderstood the man’s motivation. The purpose of the shutters was never to keep anything in.
After another timid rap on the door, Lara returned, wearing her yellow raincoat, and holding a woollen hat in her hands. Alec rose from his chair and looked to her for some report. So seldom did the doctor speak to another person that he never quite knew what to say. He was aware that he came across as old-fashioned. Speaking informally was a skill he had never mastered. The same could be said for smiling.
‘I’ve prepared the room at the end of the hall,’ Lara said. ‘And I’ve closed the door to the master bedroom. You might wish to lock it before retiring. Is there anything else I can do for you before I go?’
‘No, no,’ he replied, ‘you’ve done more than enough, thank you.’
Alec walked over to the large door leading from the study to the main entrance. His legs were stiff from sitting too long. It was as though they cracked in complaint whenever carried away from the fire’s warmth. Lara stood patiently as he opened the inner door and gestured her to step through. This was how they bid each other goodnight. She would stand in that room, between two doors, and only when Alec closed the one adjoining the study would she open the main door, leading outside. This she would lock behind her.
‘Goodnight, Doctor,’ Lara said, pulling her hat down over her head.
‘Goodnight, Lara,’ he said, before closing the door behind her. ‘Do pass my wishes on to your mother when you see her.’
Alec waited a moment, allowing the silence to resettle around him.
He had sat for quite long enough and his thoughts were too harried to return to his reading. A nightcap might best calm his nerves. Just the one. First, however, he would lock the master bedroom as Lara had suggested. Alec had inherited so much from his father, but not the old man’s carelessness.