The Alphabet Project, Part 9: "Highest"

My father was rather eccentric in his own way. Some people thought he was a hermit as he kept himself to himself for most of the time, avoiding the company of others, particularly after Mum died. Over time people apparently left us to our own devices and stopped calling, so we left them alone and they left us alone in an impasse of sorts.

After Mum went Dad converted their bedroom into a study. He loved reading and filled the longest continuous wall in the room with books. The bookcase he bought was rather special - almost as tall as the room was high, the shelves made of tempered glass inside a wooden shell, glass doors keeping the motes of dust away from his beloved volumes within. Just to one side of the room a doorway opened to a small bathroom, the en-suite for the old bedroom, so when he locked himself away - and the room did indeed have a mortise lock - he could remain in there all day if he wanted. He even fitted a cat flap on the door after tiring of the cats scratching to come in to wind around his legs, and I would sometimes pass sandwiches to him through this, along with mugs of tea and notes. He'd spend hour after hour in there, sometimes days, reading his books, calling down for drinks and sandwiches.

I was ten years old when he called me to his room and told me I wasn't going to go to school again. Of course I felt a mixture of confusion and excitement at the prospect, and some regret that I would no longer see my friends during the day. He knelt before me, placed his hands on my shoulders and smiled, promising he would teach me everything I needed to know, and that everything would be fine. Then, after placing a kiss upon my forehead, he stood, walked through the door and turned the key, locking me inside.

"It's the best way," he said through the cat flap. "Everything you need to know is there on the bookshelves. You won't need anything else, apart from food, water and clean clothing, all of which I'll pass through the flap." Then he was gone, leaving me imprisoned in the room.

For a while I thought he was joking and that he would return after a few minutes with a smile and a laugh, but he didn't come. I looked out of the window and saw him walking around the garden, his hands clasped behind his back. He stopped and turned at one point, seeing me banging my small fists on the window, and he waved his fingers at me in something of a “get back to your work” gesture rather than a friendly greeting. I remained, watching him complete his circuit of the lawn before returning to the house.

I sat on the sofa in the study, still hopeful that my father would return. Had I been naughty in some way, forcing him to decide to imprison me in this manner as a punishment? I thought about the situation and couldn’t recall anything I may have done to offend him in any way. Surely he would return soon and unlock the door?

As the sun started to set the room darkened and I switched the lamp on, still waiting for my father. Then I heard his feet on the stairs. I dashed over to the door and waited for the handle to turn, but instead the cat flap opened and a bowl of soup was passed through, along with a cup of tea, before I heard him descend the stairs once more.

I didn’t eat. I lay on the sofa and cried myself to sleep.



The next morning I woke to find a toaster had been passed through the cat flap, along with a loaf of bread, a block of butter and a jar of jam, as well as a flask of coffee and some clean clothes. I made myself some toast, went for a shower in the bathroom, and dressed myself.

I turned to the bookshelves, remembering what my father had said. The shelves were very tall – too tall for me to reach any higher than half way up the case, and it appeared that my father had arranged the books in a particular way so that the books gradually shifted to more mature topics the higher they were. On the lowest shelf I found stories I loved as a child, along with many books containing pictures I had always enjoyed looking at, such as volumes on horticulture and faraway lands, plus a thick dictionary and an atlas. I started to read, initially sticking with those childhood tales, occasionally turning to the dictionary to define certain words, then gradually moved to the other books. Sometimes I would just sit and look through the dictionary, my eyes alighting on a particular word as I flipped through the pages, and I would learn its pronunciation and meaning before moving on to another, or I would lie on the carpet, gazing at the maps in the atlas, trying to imagine those wonderfully named places before looking for photographs in the other books on the shelves.

One day I was standing on the window ledge, looking into the garden, when I turned and faced the cabinet. There, on the top of the cabinet above all of the shelves at the highest point of the cabinet, I saw a wooden box, far from my reach, a thick book lying upon it. The box appeared to have a small keyhole on its face. What was in the box, I wondered, and what was the book?

I tried to step onto the shelves but they squealed and creaked beneath my weight, web-like cracks suddenly spreading from my toes. I removed some of the books from the shelves I could reach, arranging them into a pile I could stand on, but no matter how hard I tried the books would topple, sending me to the floor. Clearly I would have to wait, more precisely to grow.



The weeks became months, the months years. Food and clothes were passed through the flap but my father remained elusive. I slowly grew, and after passing a tape measure through the door I returned it with my new measurements and my father provided new clothing. Every day I would stand by the shelves and try to reach newer, higher books but I had to remain patient, spending my time reading those I could take and learning about the world, language, etiquette and cookery in the process. A book on exercise helped me to remain fit, teaching me how to do various stretches and other physical drills, and I used heavier books as weights, lifting and lowering them in my hands over and over again, feeling my muscles grow. There were novels to broaden my vocabulary and also keep me entertained, but I loved those reference books most of all. The mysterious box on the top shelf however still eluded my straining fingers.



By the time I was eighteen I had learned to speak French, Italian, Spanish and German thanks to some audiobooks I found on the shelves. I had also devoured a few books on how to get published, which helped me to express this tale in a suitable way to bring it to you now. A book on DIY helped me repair the bathroom one day when the toilet developed a fault and the tap started to leak. I was learning every day, and learning more than I surely would have done in school, although volumes on mathematics, English and science found on the shelves also helped me to develop.



It was the morning of my twenty-first birthday when, having read all of the other books, a final stretch of my arm allowed my fingers to brush against the front of the box. I carefully built a small pile of books and this allowed me to reach the hidden book and the box beneath. Tingles ran through my body as I pulled them from the top of the cabinet, my mind racing, wondering what I would find within. I crossed to the window and placed the book down, then turned to the box, finding it securely locked with no sign of the key. In frustration I brought the box down onto the window sill three, four, five times, hoping that it would spring open but to no avail. Then I turned to the book, its plain binding revealing nothing, and opened the cover.

Practical Lock Picking, it read. Taped to the inside of the cover I found a set of picks, and a message from my father.

Open the box, son.



I read this final book slowly, turning the picks in my hand, wondering what my father had placed inside the box. I was tempted to use the picks on the door to the room but that Open the box, son reverberated in my mind. Slowly I learned the architecture of locks, their history and their types, and how they could be picked. As I finished the book I took the box in my hands and carefully started to pick the lock. Eventually I heard a click, and I found the box was finally open.

Inside the box there was only one item: a key. I instinctively knew that the key would unlock the door of the study, and I took it in my hand, feeling the warmth of the metal against my skin. From the floor below I could hear my father moving around in the kitchen. I took the key and crossed the study to the door, then inserted the key and turned it, hearing the click of the lock. For a moment I paused, head bowed, before turning the handle and seeing the hallway outside the study for the first time in so many years, this strange yet familiar environment, and then with some hesitation I crossed the threshold and went to see my father.

*

Written by Peter Lee in lots of places, 13th April - 14th July 2011.
(C) 2011 Peter Lee. A Nasal Hair Production. For Neil Marr.