‘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?
Chapter Nineteen
OPALINE
Dublin, 1922
My first few weeks at Mr Fitzpatrick’s Nostalgia Shop were punctuated by a string of strange occurrences. It seemed the building itself did not exactly welcome me with open arms, but I was determined to prove myself a worthy custodian. I ventured up the spiral staircase that led to the attic, where he had kept the overflow from the shop. At the top was a tiny door that required me to bend a little and when I pushed against it, I found that the wood seemed to push back. I stood back in order to take something of a run at it and on the third go I burst through and fell flat on my face.
‘I see,’ I said aloud. ‘Like that, is it?’
I got up and dusted myself down, trying not to take the idiosyncrasies of an old building personally. A tiny window with a circular pane, opaque with green lichen, was the only source of light. I found a Victrola gramophone and immediately set it aside to bring downstairs. At first glance, it looked like an old museum with glinting treasure peeking out from under dustsheets. There was a telescope in the far corner behind bits of old furniture and lots of boxes. On a shelf I spotted a pair of workman’s trousers and looked down at my impractical skirt, covered in dust and worn in places. Decision made, I slipped it off and pulled on the tan-coloured trousers. They weren’t a bad fit and I pulled the belt through the loops, securing it around my waist. Mr Fitzpatrick must have been a rather slender man, as well as being a conscientious one, as they were neat as a new pin. Slightly too long in the leg, though, so I turned up the hem once and then twice, until I could see the heel of my boot. Catching sight of myself in a cheval mirror, which was amusingly strung with feather boas, I smiled at my reflection.
‘Hello, Miss Carlisle,’ I said, turning from side to side. I ran my hands through my hair and held it back, giving myself an androgynous look. My blouse looked remarkably well, tucked into the trousers, and I only wished I had a cravat to finish off the look, like the Parisian author, Colette. Perhaps I could also be known purely by my Christian name and conceal my identity. Opaline, however, was not a very common name. ‘Hello, Miss …’ I spotted a book lying on the dusty floor. The Picture of Dorian Gray. ‘Hello, Miss Gray.’ Not bad.
Keen to investigate the rare book dealers in Dublin city and see what could be picked up, I set out and walked across the humpbacked Ha'penny Bridge, like the spine of a whale decorated with lamps, to visit Webb’s bookshop on the quays. Sylvia had mentioned the name to me before I left, and the only way I could retain the information was to picture a spider’s web. I took a moment to lean against the iron railing and looked up at the green domes of the cathedral and the Four Courts. My eyes followed the River Liffey as it flowed down towards The Custom House, which had only recently been burned out by the Irish Republican Army. Joyce had neglected to mention that the country was in the middle of a civil war when he suggested I escape here. From the frying pan into the fire, as they say.
Wearing a man’s trousers and using a pseudonym, I felt like I was playing the part of an actress. Mr Hanna was one of those rare types who took absolutely no notice of my appearance and instead filled a box with some popular titles to ‘keep me ticking over’， as he put it. At the mere mention of James Joyce, it seemed my good reputation was sealed. I had a quick scan through his Dickens collection, just in case my father’s copy of David Copperfield was among them. It had become a little habit of mine, a way of keeping him close to my heart. It was a rare edition, and I could tell with a glance that it wasn’t there. No matter, I said to myself. I will find it one day.
Armed with my new books and a list of distributors I could call on, I arrived back at Ha'penny Lane with renewed purpose. I looked around the shop, at the rich green walls and the little Tiffany lamps shedding their colourful glow on all the treasures that had held their breath, waiting for the doors to reopen after Mr Fitzpatrick’s death. It almost felt like Sleeping Beauty’s room in the tower and I needed to find the spell to waken her. I had insisted on keeping all of Mr Fitzpatrick’s stock, for the shop would have looked bare with only my small bookcase of titles to furnish it, yet I had no idea how these two ideas would merge. I first looked at the window display, which hadn’t changed in all the time the shop had been closed. If I wanted to entice customers inside, I had to use my imagination. There was a carousel with a winding mechanism which played a jolly fairground tune while the horses elegantly turned around and around. A string of pearls and other costume jewellery were draped artfully over a coffret, and overhead, various multi-coloured hot-air balloons with baskets were strung from the ceiling. That was when inspiration struck.