She remembered running curious fingertips over the embossed lettering and fancy gilded flourishes of the old Gaelic script. She remembered the comforting warmth of Nana’s hand in hers as they’d watched Pappy hang the new sign, dressed for the occasion in his best three-piece suit. His dream come true. His very own shop for rare and secondhand books. “Special and much-loved,” as he preferred to call them. “Like my Martha.”
Nana had worn her favorite blue coat, her red hair whipping around her face like flames as she’d nagged at Pappy to move the sign to the left a bit and to the right a bit until he lost his temper and told her it’d have to shaggin’ well do. He wasn’t really annoyed. He adored his Martha too much to ever be properly annoyed with her. In any event, Nana had told him to do it himself so, and they’d left him to it while they bought cream cakes and red lemonade from the bakery.
The sign had hung there ever since. Lopsided. Perfect. Blackened now with decades of grime and dust, and yet still Olivia sensed it: the suggestion of something magical in that ancient lettering, the promise of wonderful things behind that old black door. She took the key from her pocket and faltered. The thought of Pappy not being inside was unbearable.
“You won’t sell many books standing there gawping at the place.”
Olivia turned to see Nora Plunkett standing behind her, arms folded in defiance, her face creased into her trademark scowl. Nora Plunkett was the self-appointed, self-important secretary of the local Society of Shopkeepers and always looked like she’d come prepared for an argument. She was a thorn in the side of several shop owners on Little Lane, not least because she refused to let anyone lease the cottage beside Something Old. It had once been her husband’s furniture shop but had stood empty for years.
“Hello, Nora.” Olivia didn’t have the emotional capacity to bother with Nora’s spite today.
Nora sensed Olivia’s defenses were down. “I hope you’ve come to give this place a good tidying up. Weeds and rubbish in the doorway won’t tempt many customers.” She cut Olivia off as she began to speak. “I’m surprised to see you’re still in Ireland. I’d have thought you’d be back to London and planning your wedding now that Cormac’s been laid to rest.”
She at least had the decency to cross herself as she said this.
Olivia looked up at the shop sign, drawing strength from its familiarity before turning her gaze on her inquisitor. “Didn’t you know, Nora? The shop’s mine now.”
A look of surprise. “Cormac left you this old place?”
“Yes. He left me this lovely, fabulous old place.”
Nora tutted. “Should have given it up when Martha went doolally. Bit off more than he could chew if you ask me.”
Nobody was asking her. People rarely did, but she offered her poisonous opinions anyway. There were so many things Olivia wanted to say to the interfering old cow, but she chose her words carefully, as Pappy had always reminded her to.
“First of all, my Nana is not doolally. She has Alzheimer’s. It’s a medical condition, and it’s bloody awful. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.” She hoped her pointed stare drove her point home. “And second, my grandfather—God rest him—would never have given up on this shop.” She felt an overwhelming surge of affection for the old place with its chipped paintwork and weeds. “And neither will I.”
Nora harrumphed and folded her arms even tighter across her chest. “How will you manage to run a bookshop all the way from London?”
And there they were, all the dull practicalities, waiting to trip her up. What about money? What about her car and her job? What about the invitations and the church and the deposit on the country house they’d booked for the reception? How could she ever unpick the tangled threads of her life in London?
Olivia took a deep breath, drawing courage from Nora’s spiteful disapproval. “I’m staying in Ireland for a while, to sort things out.”
Nora glanced at Olivia’s left hand and raised her eyebrows meaningfully. “I take it your fiancé won’t be joining you while you ‘sort things out’?”
Olivia bristled. What business was it of Nora’s, anyway? “No, actually. He won’t. This is something I’ll be doing on my own.” It felt reckless and liberating to say it out loud. “So now there’s something to gossip about with your friends. I’d say you’d be able to get some mileage out of that until Christmas, at least.”
Before Nora could reply, and with her heart galloping in her chest, Olivia turned the key in the lock and stepped inside the bookshop, leaving Nora Plunkett alone on the cobbled lane to wrestle with her conscience. Assuming she had one.
THE SHOP BELL jangled above Olivia’s head as she kicked aside the junk mail and closed the door behind her. The bell rang again before falling into a respectful silence.
It was like stepping back into her childhood.
The mellow scent of Pappy’s pipe tobacco still lingered in the air, as if he’d just popped out the back to put the kettle on. Olivia imagined him pottering about, dressed to the nines, a bow tie or a cravat at his neck, a silk handkerchief in his top pocket, his fingertips conducting the air as he hummed along to a sweeping aria playing on his ancient radio, that knowing twinkle in his eyes, silver-gray, like moonlight. Pappy was like someone from another time or place. Nana used to say it was as if the stories on the shelves had become part of him, so that it was impossible to know where the bookshop stopped and he began. Olivia thought of his tartan slippers and his habit of closing the shop on a whim, because it was a lovely Tuesday afternoon, or because his favorite concert series was playing on the radio and he didn’t want to be interrupted. He was one of a kind.
Was.
The awful reality of his absence hit her, ripping through the shop like a brick through glass, sending broken memories of happier times skittering across the creaky floorboards to hide in dark grief-stricken corners. He wasn’t there, and yet he was everywhere: in every cracked spine, on every dusty shelf, in the warped glass at the windows and the mustard-yellow walls. Something Old wasn’t just a bookshop. It was him—Pappy—in bricks and mortar, leather and paper. He’d loved this place so much, and Olivia knew she must now love it for him.
“I miss you, Pappy.” Her voice was a whisper, her words rushing away to hide between the rows of thick encyclopedic volumes and slim clothbound novels. “I miss you so much.”