The Lost Bookshop(78)

‘Based on your written assignments I think you’d be a perfect candidate,’ he said, ‘although I would like a little more interaction in class. I think it would benefit you.’

I still found it so hard to speak up in front of people. I had only just overcome my issues with reading. After the night I found the tattoo completed on my back, it was as though a spell had been broken. Books no longer troubled me in the same way and the stories they held within had become invitations rather than warning signs. It was like I’d been given the key to a locked door.

‘Here’s some material for you, entry requirements and such.’ I took them and packed them into my bag, feeling like I was living a completely different life, the life of someone who could do anything they wanted. Maybe there were second chances after all.

I never tired of walking through the grounds of Trinity and I felt more than a little pride in myself after every class I attended.

‘Now you have to promise me that you won’t become one of those Trinners people who always manage to get the fact they’ve gone to Trinity into a conversation,’ Logan said, buttoning up his coat. He worked as a chef but his real desire was to write comics.

‘Oh, I’m already working it into conversations,’ I said, thinking to myself how I would do that if I had anyone other than my classmates and Madame Bowden to talk to.

‘I’m thinking of doing the MA myself,’ he said.

‘Really?’

‘No need to sound so surprised!’

I could see in him then a boy who grew up reading comics and wanted to write his own. But a teenage romance had led to a teenage pregnancy and a job as a kitchen porter to pay the rent. He was now a chef in one of the top Dublin hotels, but his heart was still in storytelling.

‘Austen not your cup of tea?’ I said.

‘I’m more into graphic novels.’

‘I didn’t even know there were graphic novels.’

He looked at me with the wide eyes of someone who has been mortally wounded, but with just enough breath left to tell you why you were wrong to fire the shot.

‘Oh my God, you’ve never heard of Maus? Art Spiegelman?’

I shook my head.

‘Come on, Martha, you’re killing me here! What about Glass Town? You’re a Bront? fan, right?’

I was laughing and making a mental note to see if these books were in the library when, just as we rounded the corner, I spotted a familiar figure walking across the square. He was chatting happily on the phone and hadn’t seen me, but something made him look my way. Henry.

‘Hi,’ I said and gave him a small, awkward wave.

He raised his head and gave a tight smile.

‘How are you?’ he mouthed and I gave him a thumbs-up.

He pointed to the phone and I motioned for him to carry on, I was on my way out anyway. And that was it. He disappeared into the building and Logan carried on talking about an idea for a character he had – a superchef who fights crime or something. I felt so cold all over. It was as though we meant nothing to each other now.

I couldn’t help but think of a quote from Persuasion: ‘Now they were as strangers; nay, worse than strangers, for they could never become acquainted. It was a perpetual estrangement.’





Chapter Forty-Two





HENRY





‘So you’ll come?’ she repeated.

‘I’m sorry, how did you get my number?’

‘From Martha’s phone, naturally. Now, she’s invited some of her chums from university …’

I didn’t even know it was her birthday. There was still so much about Martha that was a complete mystery to me. She had built her defences so high, it made the rare occasions she had let me in all the more meaningful.

‘So you’ll come at seven,’ she ordered.

‘I’m not sure she’d want me there,’ I replied, looking out of the window at Nora’s husband pottering around the back garden. I still hadn’t forgiven him for telling Martha I’d left the country for good. It was easier to blame him than to accept that maybe she just didn’t want to be with someone like me. She certainly hadn’t invited me and I wasn’t sure why her employer was taking it upon herself to interfere.

‘Tosh! She will want to see all of her friends. It’s been something of an annus horribilis for Martha, wouldn’t you say? So I don’t think it’s asking the earth for you to put your own insecurities aside for five minutes and come and eat some cake! Men, honestly.’

With that final damning indictment of my entire gender, she hung up.





The weather was mild for the time of year and as I walked along the canal, daffodils created a golden path into the heart of the city. Dublin had started to feel like home to me. It wasn’t long ago that I had fully planned to move here. The thought embarrassed me. Love, in retrospect, makes one look utterly foolish. To make such sweeping plans based on nothing more than a feeling – a bunch of chemicals, to be technical about it – seemed nonsensical in the harsh light of day. But there was no denying that I had felt more alive and awake in those weeks with Martha than I had done in my entire life. I had the sense that I was sort of sleepwalking through my life until I met her, making decisions based on what I thought was expected of me. How was that method of plotting a course for one’s life any more correct?