Determined not to let her mind stray to thoughts of Jack and the wedding plans she was drowning in, nor to the painful secret that pricked at her conscience like a splinter, she focused, kept her thoughts only of now, of this moment. The breeze tugged at her sleeve, encouraging her to do what she’d come here for. She inhaled—a deep, moment-defining breath—exhaled, unzipped her backpack, and removed the heavy package.
FOR OLIVIA KAVANAGH. TO BE OPENED ONLY AT THE TOP OF HOWTH HEAD.
So deliberate and precise. Just like him.
Opening the package, she removed a folded sheet of writing paper. It flapped frantically in the breeze, a fledgling eager to test its wings. Her fingers grasped it tightly as she turned her back to the wind, sat on a slab of granite rock, and began to read.
23rd June 2014
My dearest Olivia Mae,
They tell me I should put my affairs in order now that your dear Nana has gone into the nursing home, and as a result, I am writing the saddest of good-byes to you although I will actually see you on Sunday. Such are the curiosities that accompany the later years of one’s life.
I cannot bear the thought of you reading this letter alone in the stuffy solicitor’s office I have the misfortune to find myself in now, so I hope—when the time comes—you follow the instructions, choose a nice bright day, and enjoy your walk. You always loved it up here with the wind blowing and the secret tunnels through the rhododendron bushes that open up into such breathtaking views. You loved the romance of the place where Joyce set Molly Bloom’s proposal scene: “. . . the sun shines for you he said the day we were lying among the rhododendrons on Howth head in the grey tweed suit and his straw hat the day I got him to propose to me. . . .” You once said you felt closer to your Mammy when you were up high, which is why I brought you here, so you could read the letter together.
I know this will come as a surprise, but I have left you the bookshop in my will. Something Old (and Hemingway the cat, if he’ll have you) is now yours, my dear girl. You always said it was a special place, that there was something magical about all those old books on my dusty shelves. Well, now the magic is all yours and I leave it gladly in your care. Don’t be too alarmed. I know this will pose something of a logistical problem with you living in London, but a dear friend of mine—Henry Blake—and a clever nephew of his have agreed to be on hand, should you run into any difficulties (such as interfering old crows like Nora Plunkett. She is best ignored, by the way, but if you have the misfortune to run into her, please be sure to pass on my disregards).
I have also left you something I hope will be of interest. It is a memoir of sorts—a fascinating story. It was given to your Nana many years ago. She passed it on to your mother. I would have mentioned it to you sooner, only I’d forgotten all about it until I rediscovered it recently. You know my views on stories choosing the right readers at the right time, and now is not the right time. When you read this letter, it will be. Consider it a project in distraction, if you like. Your Nana had some other things connected to the events related in the memoir, but I can’t remember what, or where, they are. Have a good rummage around and you’ll hopefully find them.
So now, my dear, I must say good-bye—and look forward to seeing you on Sunday!
I suppose I should leave you with some words of wisdom, but find myself lacking when the moment demands. All I will ask of you is to remember that you can do anything if you believe in yourself. You don’t need anybody’s permission to live the life you desire, Olivia. You need only the permission of your heart.
All my love to you,
Pappy
x
PS The shop key is enclosed.
Olivia had always found good-byes and endings difficult, but this was the hardest of all. Harder than the wake, or the removal, or the funeral mass she’d endured in the past week. She read the letter again, then once more, her heart aching with grief for the dear grandfather she’d lost, and glowing with pride to know he had entrusted her with his beloved bookshop.
With salt tears stinging her wind-reddened cheeks, she took a heavy document from the package: hundreds of typed pages, bound together by a violet ribbon. The title page read, “Notes on a Fairy Tale, by Frances Griffiths,” the thin pages crackling satisfyingly as Olivia flicked through them, the fanned paper blowing against her face like a long sigh released. Her bookbinder’s instincts sensed a forgotten story in need of care and attention, her thoughts turning to sheet leather and awls, paper drills, seam stitching, and gold embossing—the familiar tools of her trade.
Untying the ribbon, she turned the page and read the opening lines.
In some ways, my story has many beginnings, but I suppose I should start on the April evening when I arrived in the Yorkshire village of Cottingley. That was when I first met Cousin Elsie, first heard the waterfall, and first became enchanted by the little stream at the bottom of the garden. So much has happened since, so many words and pages written about those summers and the things we saw, or didn’t, depending on whose version of events you believe. Even now, as I start to put my story into words, I’m not quite sure how it ends. Perhaps that will be for others to decide. For now, all I can do is write it down as I remember it . . .
Olivia’s interest was already captured. Cottingley was where her Nana had grown up.
With the wind tugging impatiently at the edge of the pages, she read on . . .
NOTES ON A FAIRY TALE
Cottingley, Yorkshire. April 1917.
An emerald locomotive delivered me to my new life in Yorkshire that cold April night. It had a brass plate, number 5318, and raced along the tracks, eating up the passing blur of green fields and soot-black towns, rocking me from side to side as I whispered the final words of the book I was reading. “‘But remember always, as I told you at first, that this is all a fairy tale, and only fun and pretense; and, therefore, you are not to believe a word of it, even if it is true.’”
I remember blinking back tears that sent the letters swimming about on the page until I was sure they would fall off the edge. I’d read The Water Babies a dozen times, and I cried every time I reached the end. But my tears that day weren’t just for the water babies and Tom, nor for the end of the story. My tears were for the end of so much more: my beautiful home in Cape Town, long walks by the ocean, seashells clacking in my pockets, rose-pink sunsets, my father’s hand in mine. That I was hurtling toward a new home in a strange country only made everything worse.
Mummy stirred in the seat beside me and opened a sleepy eye. “What are you saying, Frances? What is it now?”
“Nothing, Mummy. I’m reading. Go back to sleep.”