The Lost Bookshop(100)

I was crying, but he kept on.

‘I suggested an orphanage, but Father, being the weak-willed man that he was, insisted on keeping you. I wanted nothing to do with it. I had my career in the army. So they brought you up as their own and you have been the thorn in my side ever since.’

I had stopped struggling and so he let my arms go, then walked back to the sideboard and poured two large glasses of brandy from a decanter. When he handed it to me, I drank it down in two large gulps.

‘Father wasn’t my real father?’

We stood in silence for a time, the dust settling on our words.

‘What was her name?’

‘Who?’

‘The woman. My … mother.’

‘How the devil should I know? It’s over forty years ago. Celine, or some such. Or was it Chantal?’

I threw the crystal glass at him, but it hit the sideboard and shattered.

‘You really are despicable. You have no feelings for anyone but yourself. You locked me up in that … that place for all those years. Did Dr Lynch know that you were my father? My God, it all makes sense now.’

‘I did you a favour. I could see you were heading the same way as your mother, getting pregnant without a ring on your finger. So I got rid of it for you. And what thanks do I get?’

I was so angry and overwhelmed that it took several moments before I could process what he was saying.

‘How did you know I would lose the baby?’

‘What’s that?’

‘The baby. She was stillborn. You said you got rid of her, but there’s no way you could have known that would happen.’

He poured himself another drink.

‘Lyndon, what have you done?’

‘I should have put her in a bag and drowned her like the unwanted kitten she was.’

I felt a rage inside of me that almost blinded my sight. I dug my nails into the palms of my hands. I wanted to kill him.

‘What in God’s name are you talking about?’ I said in a low voice I hardly recognised as my own.

‘But she was worth more to me alive. A boy would of course have earned more, but as it was, she made a tidy sum.’

He looked up at me and smiled. Laughed at my ignorance. Just as he had when we were children and I, the younger sibling, always slower on the uptake.

‘You had no idea, did you?’ He took a swig of his drink, looking victorious. ‘Good old Paddy kept that secret to himself.’

I grabbed a knife off the dresser and lunged for him.

‘God help me, Lyndon, if you don’t tell me the truth right now I will carve your eyes out.’

‘Steady, old girl, you could injure someone with that.’ He casually sat back down in his carver chair. ‘I sold her. To a couple who were desperate for a child. Lynch arranged the whole thing. Done it before, apparently.’

‘She’s alive?’ I could hardly breathe and leaned on the back of one of the dining chairs for support.

He made no reply. Something was not playing out as he had predicted.

‘You sound relieved.’

‘God, you really have no clue, do you?’

‘About what?’

‘About what it means to love!’ I steadied myself for a moment, then realised the extent of his inhumanity. ‘You sold your own granddaughter.’

I threw Mr Turner’s copy of the article on the table, then turned to leave.

‘Aren’t you going to ask me where she is?’

‘Would you tell me if I did?’

He smirked to himself.

‘You know me well, little Opale.’

The term unsettled me. Only Armand had called me that.

‘After tomorrow, everyone will know you for exactly what you are.’

I walked out of the room and somehow, kept myself upright. I passed the housekeeper in the hall, who gave me a queer look. I was lost in an endless maze of emotions and memories that no longer seemed to fit anywhere. My daughter was alive. That was all I needed to hold on to.

On reaching the front door, I heard the loud report of a gunshot. I halted. Then I heard a woman’s scream. I didn’t turn back. I commanded my feet to move, one in front of the other, until I was out in the street, taking the air into my lungs. I knew I had a choice. I could let this awful series of events become my new story – a story I would be condemned to carry with me for eternity – or I could let it die with him. It was a choice I would have to make every day for the rest of my life.





Chapter Fifty-Three





MARTHA





It had grown dark. I felt safe in our little cocoon. It felt like such a relief, letting Henry in, sharing all of the things I no longer wanted to carry on my own. We knew that we had both been drawn here for a reason – something special that gave a shimmering magic to every kiss, every caress. I could hardly believe that he was mine, that those eyes were for me only. He whispered silly things into my neck, searched my skin with his fingers and, most sweetly of all, fell asleep in my arms.

Madame Bowden had not returned, and with some strange prescience, I no longer expected her to. Call it intuition, but I guessed that she had always known more about this building than she had let on. She knew more about me, also. Who was she? What had she been testing me for? Had her friends from the dinner party been in on it? Was it all some sort of act? I did not have all of the pieces yet, but I could no longer delude myself that my arrival in Ha'penny Lane was purely happenstance.