“On Howth Head?”
“Yep. Molly Bloom’s soliloquy. ‘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 . . .’” She stopped short of completing the passage.
“I never knew that.”
“There you go, then. You should read it. You might learn all sorts of things.”
He promised he would.
Ross was fidgety for the rest of the afternoon. He kept looking at Olivia as if he wanted to say something but kept changing his mind. She knew him well enough by now to pick up on his moods.
“Ross, is everything all right? You seem a bit distracted.”
He took a deep breath. “Did I ever tell you my family are originally from Kerry?” he asked.
“No. You didn’t.” Olivia sensed he was going to tell her something she wasn’t going to like.
“We’re going back. Iris and me. We’re moving back to Kerry.”
Olivia’s heart raced. “When?”
“Two weeks. At the end of the school year. I’ve been trying to find a place since Hannah died. Iris has no family here. She has cousins and aunts and uncles there. A Nana and a Grandad. I can’t deprive her of that. I’ve been looking for so long, I thought it would never happen, but I just had an offer accepted on my house, and I’ve had an offer accepted on a house in Kerry. The owners moved out months ago so it’s vacant possession. Everything’s happened really quickly.”
Olivia didn’t know what to say. She kept walking, one foot in front of the other, as Iris skipped ahead in her red wellies, oblivious to the drama playing out behind her.
“And do you know what’s mad?” Ross continued.
“What?”
“When I told Iris we were moving, she asked if you could come with us.”
Olivia stopped walking. “Did she?”
“Yep. She’s taken quite a shine to you. I told her she’ll still be able to write to you. I hope that’s okay?”
“Of course it is.” It would have to be okay. It would all have to be okay.
“Anyway, I wanted you to know. At least you’ll get your flat back. You can hang your knickers everywhere and run around naked!”
Olivia punched him playfully on the arm. “Bugger off to Kerry, then. See if I care.”
“Will you miss me?”
“I’ll miss your guitar.”
Ross laughed. “Is that all?”
There was so much she would miss. His smile. His silly coffee cup names. His company. His kindness. His belief in her.
“Of course I’ll miss you. Who am I going to moan to about everything now? Seriously though. You’ve been great. Especially the past few weeks.”
Ross shrugged his shoulders. “What are friends for?”
He held out the crook of his elbow, and Olivia linked her arm through his as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Perhaps it was the wildness of the scenery, or perhaps it was the way the sun wrapped itself around Olivia so that her entire body felt as if it were made of sunlight, but whatever it was, it felt right to be walking arm in arm with Ross Bailey, Writer.
When Iris and Ross started a game of hide-and-seek, Olivia let them run on ahead, but as she picked her way through the rhododendron tunnels, she could feel the weight of Ross’s arm in hers.
Without it, everything felt a little off balance.
AS THE SHOP became busier, Olivia struggled to find as much time as she’d like to visit Nana. Ross helped out by minding the shop as often as he could, and Henry was only too happy to visit Nana on the days when Olivia couldn’t. Old friendships had been easily rekindled at the fairy evening; Olivia had secretly watched Nana and Henry stroll together in the gardens, arm in arm. It was the first time she’d seen Henry walk without his stick.
St. Bridget’s no longer held the same sense of dread for Olivia that it once had. She’d stopped fighting her anger and frustration about Nana’s illness and focused on what she could do to love and care for her for as long as she could, and to make her remaining days comfortable and pleasant. As Henry said in one of his Henryisms, “We can’t always change the situations life puts us in, but we can change the way we respond.”
Olivia continued to read to Nana from Frances’s book, and listened with renewed patience to Nana’s invented stories. Sometimes she took red lemonade and they sat beneath the shade of a rowan tree, sipping the lemonade through straws and giggling as the bubbles went up their noses.
Olivia told Nana she would be traveling to England for a few days and that Henry would look in on her while she was away.
“I’m going to Cottingley, Nana. To see where you used to live.”
There was a flicker of recognition. “That’s nice, dear. If you see Aisling, tell her it’s time to come home now. Mammy is terribly worried.”
Olivia couldn’t hide her tears. Nana looked increasingly frail in recent days so that Olivia hardly dared hug her as she kissed her good-bye. “I’ll be back in a few days. I love you, Nana.”
She thought she saw the edge of a smile at Nana’s lips but couldn’t be sure.
That night, as she lay in bed thinking about her trip to England, Hemingway curled up on the pillow beside her, purring as Olivia rubbed behind his ears. Despite his initial haughty indifference, he’d realized she wasn’t going anywhere and had finally accepted her as his flatmate and, possibly, his friend.
Olivia picked up the final pages of Frances’s story, losing herself in the events that had happened in Cottingley so long ago, and in the people who had lived through them. Events and people that felt closer with every turn of the page . . .
NOTES ON A FAIRY TALE
Scarborough, Yorkshire. March 1921.
Mummy always said, “Beware the Ides of March.” I’d never paid much heed until that March day in 1921 when the second Strand Magazine article came out, blazing the sensational headline:
THE EVIDENCE FOR FAIRIES
BY
A. CONAN DOYLE
WITH NEW FAIRY PHOTOGRAPHS
Trouble was coming. I could feel it in my bones.