I decided to send an equally punchy reply:
Lost in research! Tomorrow ok?
I opened the second email. It was from a colleague in London who had been scanning Carlisle family archives for any mention of Opaline. There was nothing of note beyond her twenty-first birthday. It was as though she had dropped off the face of the earth. Her brother, however, was very well documented and had been quite high up in the army during the First World War. He’d earned himself a rather grim nickname, ‘The Reaper’。 It wasn’t very much to go on and brought me no closer to the lost bookshop on Ha'penny Lane. Or the elusive young woman who lived next door. The woman who had helped to find out Opaline’s real name. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but I had this weird sense that she was somehow the key to it all. Or perhaps that was the story I had to tell myself in order to stay close to her, no matter the cost.
Chapter Sixteen
OPALINE
Dublin, 1921
‘I’m afraid Mr Fitzpatrick died two months ago. We were going to put the place up for sale …’
These were the first words I heard on arriving in Dublin city after a long, uncomfortable train journey from Cork. I was standing in the parlour of a Georgian-style house, with long panelled windows looking out on to a busy street.
‘But I’ve come all this way,’ I said, rather desperately. ‘You received my telegram?’
The man I was speaking to seemed rather baffled by my sudden arrival into his life.
‘Yes. Mr Joyce telegrammed from Paris. He mentioned that you worked in a bookshop, Shakespeare?’
‘Shakespeare and Company.’
‘Forgive me, but I’m not entirely sure why he would have suggested’—he hesitated for a moment—‘that someone such as yourself should come to work for my father.’
I tried to overlook the implication.
‘Mr Fitzpatrick was your father? My condolences, sir,’ I said, shaking his hand.
He thanked me and it seemed as though our business was at an end.
* * *
‘I don’t suppose I could trouble you for some further information?’
‘Of course, if I can be of assistance.’
‘Can you recommend a decent hotel room, or perhaps somewhere that I could rent a room at a reasonable rate?’
‘You don’t have anywhere to stay?’ he asked, obviously perplexed that someone with my accent and appearance should find themselves in such a predicament. A middle-class woman, travelling alone with nowhere to stay and very little money.
‘I’m afraid I made my departure in something of a hurry.’ God only knew what he made of that explanation. I wanted to assure him that I hadn’t broken any laws, but that would have only raised his suspicions further.
‘Well, it’s not much,’ he said, before taking a set of keys off a hook by the door and leading me outside, then down the front steps. ‘There is a small flat in the basement of the shop,’ he explained, as he turned right and stood outside the shop.
I looked at the building with no small amount of incredulity. It was tapered, almost as if it had grown like a stubborn weed between the two houses on either side. He noticed my face, scrunched up in the evening light.
‘It shouldn’t really be here at all,’ he said, mumbling something about planning permission.
Neither should I, I thought to myself. It felt surreal and as though I were strangely removed from myself; a baffled spectator wondering what would happen next. The crossing to Ireland had taken all day and most of the night. As there was no passenger ferry, I’d had to travel on a mail and goods boat that took me to Cork. Once again, I was on a boat with my small carpet bag, running towards freedom. I tried to sleep on a makeshift bed that was in reality just a bench with a thin cushioning on top. I vomited into a bucket and cried into it too. It was nothing like crossing the Channel. This sea was rough and unforgiving. When the boat moored at the harbour in Rosslare, the rain pelted down and the wind threatened to separate me from my bag as it attacked in gusts. One of the boat hands guided me to a small bed and breakfast nearby where I was able to freshen up before taking the train to Dublin.
Matthew Fitzpatrick was a pleasant man who spoke few words, something for which I was grateful at that moment. I was not at my most sociable. I was tired and hungry and homesick for the kind of home I had never known. Any display of kindness might have resulted in an outburst of tears, so I was glad to keep things perfunctory. I gave the narrow facade another appraising look. On the ground floor there was just room for one panelled glass window, which bowed outwards, and an identical yet smaller window on the first floor and a tiny, diamond-shaped window on the top floor which seemed to taper into a point, like the hat of a wizard. The sign above the window was in the art nouveau style, so popular in Paris, with its swirls and flourishes. Mr Fitzpatrick’s Nostalgia Shop.
The door gave way with a sigh, followed by an elongated creak. Matthew turned to offer an apologetic smile and I waited on the threshold for a moment, giving him time to switch the lights on inside. I heard a click and caught my first glimpse of the shop by the warm glow of a yellow lampshade. The chequer-tiled floor welcomed my feet as I entered the topsy-turvy world of the nostalgia shop. The dark green walls gave one the impression of entering a thick forest, with wooden shelves stretching around the entire room like branches. There were all types of knick-knacks and ornaments, with everything from soaps and hand mirrors to toy soldiers and candelabras. Yet they were of a variety I had never laid my eyes on before – brightly painted and ornately decorated, the gold and silvers glimmering in the soft light.
‘It’s beautiful,’ I said, and meant it. ‘Like walking inside a fairy tale.’
He regarded me strangely and it seemed for a moment as though I were looking into the face of a young boy. Gone was the harried man with the hat and overcoat. It seemed he was wearing a disguise also.
‘I’m glad you think so.’
Such few words, yet they were imbued with so much meaning. It was as if I had passed some sort of invisible test for him.
‘Look, I know you came here to work for my father, but how would you feel about running the shop yourself?’
‘Me?’ I squeaked. So much for trying to impress him.
‘You could rent it. On a trial period. I had considered the idea, but couldn’t find anyone suitable. Until today.’
I looked around the shop and felt a ripple of excitement.
‘I’m not sure I could afford it, on top of my lodgings,’ I said.
‘Well, as it happens, the flat is included in the rent. Here, let me show you,’ he said, leading the way down the stairs.
I watched the back of his neck, where his blonde hair grew darker. He had to duck as we came to the last step to avoid a beam and he stood back to let me go first. His soft lilting accent as he pointed out the bed and the tiny kitchenette couldn’t conceal the myriad questions he must have had about my hasty arrival from Paris. He must have thought me strange; there was no doubting that. And yet, if anything, he seemed intrigued by my presence. It suddenly felt quite intimate, standing there with him, and so, as if in agreement, we both decided to cut the tour short.
‘It’s perfect. I’m sure I will find everything I need,’ I said with a competence I hoped would appear from somewhere in the very near future.