I rehearsed what I would say all the way there, but when I tapped on her window, all of my lines fell away, like a novice actor on opening night.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asked, opening the window and somehow managing to heave herself out of it by climbing on a stool.
‘Careful,’ I said, setting down the coffees I’d brought. I took her arms but there was really no need – for a slight woman she was incredibly strong. Dressed in old jeans and a sweatshirt, with her hair roughly pulled into a bun, she looked even more attractive than I remembered and I struggled to keep my focus on the task at hand.
‘I … I couldn’t leave things the way they were.’ ‘It’s fine—’
‘No, look,’ I interrupted, determined to be upfront and honest with her. It was the least she deserved after what she’d been through. ‘I didn’t get the chance to say it before and I want to say it now. What you told me … about your husband, I can’t imagine the courage it took and I wanted to say thank you for trusting me with it.’
She looked at me, as though slightly relieved.
‘And I should have told you about Isabelle. Honestly, I don’t know why I didn’t.’ I said this although, at that moment, it was crystal clear to me why I hadn’t wanted her to know. My feelings grew stronger every time I saw
her, but there was nothing either of us could do about it. She was vulnerable and I had made commitments. The end.
‘I hope we can carry on our friendship,’ I said, sounding like something out of a Jane Austen novel. Yet it was the best I could do and I really meant it. Her friendship meant more to me than I realised and if I couldn’t have anything else, it would have to be enough.
‘Are they doughnuts?’
‘What?’ Of all the things I had imagined she might say, that was not one of them.
She hunkered down on the rough ground with its patchy grass and weeds, crossed her legs and opened the box of doughnuts I’d bought, whilst taking a large gulp of coffee.
‘Of course we can be friends, you big eejit!’ she said between bites, sugar all over her lips.
I sat down beside her and leaned my back against the gable wall. I couldn’t think of anywhere I’d rather be.
‘I mean, besides Madame Bowden, you’re the only friend I’ve made since coming here.’
‘Oh, I see, so it’s more a lack of options thing?’ I said, taking the lid off my coffee and blowing on the liquid, which was already stone cold.
‘Beggars can’t be choosers.’ She shrugged and all but concealed a malevolent grin.
Banter. A safe harbour. I got stuck into a custard doughnut, grateful that we were back on a firm footing. I didn’t know why she had confided in me and I wasn’t sure why I had told her about the darkest times in my life, but perhaps the trick was not to question it. Not to put a label on it, as clichéd as it sounded.
‘Any luck with the manuscript?’
I made a mental note that whenever I showed up at Martha’s window, I should bring sugar. Her mood was positively upbeat.
‘Um, no, not really. A colleague found something about her brother, Lyndon. He was a soldier – a general or something – in the war. It’s strange,’ I said, tearing a chocolate doughnut into two halves and offering her one. ‘You’d think a woman like her who’d been rubbing shoulders with Hemingway and contacting one of the top book dealers in America would leave some sort of trace, wouldn’t you?’
She took her time to think about it and once she had satisfactorily munched the last of the doughnut and wiped her hands on her jeans, she looked me square in the eye.
‘You think it’s strange that a woman has been silenced? Forgotten about? Written out of history? Henry, what have they been teaching you?’
‘Okay, all right, that sounded completely stupid, but you know what I mean.’
‘Well, maybe your problem is that you keep looking at Opaline from a man’s point of view. Hemingway, her brother, the other guy—’
‘Rosenbach.’
‘Yeah, Rosenbach. Why don’t you find out more about Sylvia and the bookshop in Paris?’
Why hadn’t I thought of that?
‘You know, you really are quite good at this.’ ‘What?’
‘Research. What was it you were thinking of studying?’
Her whole demeanour deflated, like those inflatable men outside car dealerships when the air runs out.
‘Ugh, let’s not talk about it.’ She checked the time on her phone and said she had to get back to work. With one leg halfway in the open window, she stalled for a moment. ‘Madame Bowden told me something … a bit strange. About the bookshop.’
I felt the hairs on my arms standing straight up.
‘Actually, forget I said anything, you’ll think it’s ridiculous.’
‘Now, see, all you’ve done there is create a more captive audience. Spit it out—’ I wanted to use her surname, but then realised I still didn’t know what it was.
‘The thing is, Madame Bowden tends to embellish a lot of her stories, so I guess you have to take it with a pinch of salt or whatever …’
‘Just tell me.’
She pulled her leg back out of the window and stood beside me once again.
‘One of her friends, who was probably very drunk at the time, claims that she saw the bookshop. Not only saw it, but walked inside.’
I said nothing. I couldn’t risk opening my mouth to speak.
‘It was back in the sixties, so, you know … hallucinogenic drugs and stuff. But I figured you’d want to know. Anyway, I really have to go.’
With that, she slipped back inside and shut the window behind her. I stayed on the patch of ground where the bookshop should have been and walked slowly around in circles until my legs stopped feeling like jelly. I wanted to tell her, but just as she had said, it sounded ridiculous. My first night in Ireland, following a few too many G&Ts on the Ryanair flight, I took a taxi straight to Ha’penny Lane. I was fully expecting to find a bookshop, and that is exactly what I found. Even the taxi driver must have seen it. I think. I remember getting out of the car, handing him the money and walking up to the door. The lights were on inside and there was a golden glow from within, dispersed through the stained-glass windows. It was warm and comfortable inside, with that distinct bookshop smell of old musty covers and something spicy, like cinnamon. The walls were lined with shelves full of colourful book covers and I felt the tips of my fingers itching to touch them. But I wanted to speak to the owner first – show them the letter I had found and see if they could shed any light on its contents. I heard the bell ringing over the door and as I turned to see who had walked
in behind me, I found myself outside on the pavement again. Just like that. I hadn’t moved my feet and yet there I was.
I turned back to where the shop had been and found nothing but the darkness of night, as though it had swallowed the shop whole. For some reason I patted myself down, maybe to see if I was still there when the shop I was just standing in so clearly wasn’t. I did that ridiculous thing where you turn around and around on the spot, like a dog chasing its tail, in case the thing you lost is right behind you. But how could anyone lose a bookshop? The only logical explanation was that I had been very, very drunk. That is what I kept telling myself. A drunken haze, and the shop was a mirage. But I had been drunk many times before that and never conjured up a building, let alone walked into one. Now I had a corroborator. Someone else had seen the shop.
The question now was: what had caused it to disappear and how could I get it back?
