Page 17 of The Secret Bookshop in Ireland

‘It all smells delicious,’ Ciara said. Then she looked at him and returned his smile. ‘What a lovely place you have.’ She knew she was repeating herself, but she was so flustered by his good looks that she kept gushing.

‘Ah sure, it’s grand,’ Oisín said as Brian bounded up on the deck. ‘We’d better mind your dog or he’ll steal the steaks.’

‘He won’t,’ Ciara protested and looked sternly at Brian. ‘Sit,’ she ordered and Brian immediately sat, his tongue hanging out while he panted loudly. ‘He’s dying to eat them, but he wouldn’t dare.’

‘You have him well trained,’ Oisín said admiringly.

‘It wasn’t me, I sent him to a schooling place,’ Ciara explained. ‘I needed him to be very obedient, or he’d wreck my place. He’s such a big dog.’

‘And very handsome.’ Oisín ruffled Brian’s shaggy fur, which made him close his eyes in ecstasy. ‘You like that, don’t you, boy?’ he said in his soft voice.

‘He loves attention,’ Ciara said. ‘If he were a cat, he’d purr.’

‘Don’t we all love a bit of attention?’ Oisín said with a wink. ‘But hey, I forget my manners. Help yourself to wine or water or whatever.’ He pointed at a crystal carafe with red wine and a jug with water on the table beside him. ‘The wine is homemade, so try it at your peril. The water is from the tap, but it’s actually very nice. That’s the one thing we have up here: nice drinking water.’

‘I think I’ll risk the wine,’ Maureen said. ‘I’m curious to taste the homemade kind.’

‘I laid the table behind the deck with plates and cutlery,’ Oisín said. ‘It has a nice view of the river and the mountains.Maybe you could put the drinks there for me and then help yourselves.’

‘Of course,’ Ciara said. She went up the steps to the deck and got the carafe and the jug. Then she carried them to the table at the other side of the deck, which had a long bench facing the beautiful views. She poured wine into two glasses and handed one of them to Maureen. ‘Try this, but if it’s too strong, just have a sip.’

Maureen drank from the glass and declared the wine ‘delicious and not too strong at all’. She sat down on the bench and gestured at Ciara to join her. ‘This is wonderful, isn’t it?’ she muttered in Ciara’s ear. ‘That divinely handsome young man cooking us dinner and this heavenly view. It’s like a dream.’

‘Yes,’ Ciara said. ‘That’s the feeling I have too. And this tower, isn’t it fascinating?’

Maureen looked at the place settings on the table that was covered with a white linen tablecloth. ‘That’s very old china and the carafe and jug are Waterford crystal. And the cutlery…’ She picked up a fork and studied it. ‘Sterling silver with some kind of monogram. How elegant in the middle of this wilderness.’

‘Not exactly what you’d use at a picnic,’ Ciara remarked, with a feeling of being in some kind of other dimension. The tower, Liz and her handsome brother, the table laid with exquisite china and crystal were all so unreal and she wondered if her mother was right when she said it was a dream.

‘Oh, it’s just old stuff we have in the tower,’ Liz said as she walked towards them with a large bone on a plate. ‘We use them because that’s all we have. But they’re too nice to leave in some cupboard, so we decided to enjoy them when we’re here.’

‘Good idea,’ Maureen agreed. ‘Why not use things you love? That’s a big bone you’ve got there.’

‘I got this from the butcher the last time I was down in Enniskerry,’ Liz said. ‘I thought of Brian and put it in the freezerfor the next time you’d be here. I thawed it after I met you this morning.’ Liz put the bone on the grass. ‘Here you are, Brian. A nice juicy bone for you.’

Brian, sitting by Ciara’s side, looked at the bone, licked his mouth and whined. Then he looked at Ciara, who nodded and told him to ‘go on, boy, get the bone’. Brian bounded ahead and took the bone and then lay down and started to chew on it.

‘Wow,’ Oisín said as he arrived at the table with a huge platter. ‘That’s one well-trained dog.’

‘He just wants praise,’ Ciara said. ‘Good boy, Brian,’ she called to the dog.

‘Must say he’s behaving very well,’ Maureen said.

‘He’s fabulous,’ Oisín said as he put the food on the table. ‘But us humans must eat, too. Please dig in.’

They didn’t have to be asked twice. Maureen and Ciara helped themselves to steaks, roast potatoes and grilled courgettes and aubergines, with an assortment of sauces in little bowls that had already been put on the table. The evening sun sank lower in the blue sky while they ate and a thrush serenaded them from the top of a huge oak further down the lawn.

‘So,’ Oisín said, ‘have you discovered your connection to old Martha? Or are you still wondering why on earth she left her house and shop to you?’

‘We’re still wondering,’ Ciara said as she met the gaze of his green eyes. ‘How well did you know her?’

‘Oisín knew her better than I did,’ Liz said between bites of roast potatoes.

‘Did you?’ Maureen asked, looking at Oisín. ‘How come?’

‘Oh, she helped me a lot when I was starting my career as an artist,’ Oisín replied. ‘But she said she did it despite her aversion to the O’Tooles.’

‘Her aversion?’ Ciara asked. ‘Whatever did the O’Tooles do to her?’