Page 29 of The Secret Bookshop in Ireland

‘Didn’t Oisín say something about Martha and a few women who had this mission or something?’ Ciara said. ‘Could be the same group Paul Murray was talking about.’

‘Probably.’ Maureen took the broom that Ciara was holding and started to sweep the floor. Then she stopped sweeping and looked at Ciara. ‘I know you’re dying to look into that box. Why don’t you go upstairs and go through it? I’ll be fine here cleaning and sorting.’

‘I’d insist on helping you if I didn’t know how much you love it,’ Ciara said, smiling at her mother. ‘Give me a shout if you need me.’

‘I will,’ Maureen said and resumed her task.

Ciara nodded and left her mother to it while she went upstairs to look through the box of dreams, her heart beating at the thought of what she might find. Martha’s identity had been a mystery until now. Would the contents of the box reveal the truth?

FOURTEEN

Ciara sat down at the kitchen table and opened the box with shaking hands. There was a faint musty smell from the contents as she lifted the first item: a black-and-white photo of two girls with dark hair sitting on a bench in a garden full of flowers. The older girl looked to be about fifteen, while the younger one couldn’t be more than ten. They both wore frilly party dresses and Ciara surmised it had been taken at some special occasion, like a wedding or a christening. She turned the photo around and peered at what was written there in letters that had faded with time.Madge and Martha, June 1937.It was the very first image of Martha Fitzgerald that Ciara had seen and she studied the face of the younger girl intently. All she could see was that Martha and Madge had had dark hair and that they were both very pretty.

Ciara put the photo on the table and delved further into the box. The next few items were cards and clippings from old magazines with photos of the film stars back in the nineteen thirties and forties. Martha seemed to have been a romantic girl, dreaming about Clark Gable and Gary Cooper and perhaps listening to Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby, thinking about love and passion , which explained the name of the box. Then Ciarafound a small leather diary from 1942 with appointments and birthdays written on some of the days. The second of May was marked with a big X, but there was no explanation of what that meant. There wasn’t much in the little diary that revealed anything, except the name and address written on the first page:Martha Fitzgerald, The Book Nook, Cherrywood, County Wicklow.So the bookshop had been run by the Fitzgeralds for a long time. It must have been started by the family a long time ago.

The Book Nook, Ciara thought.What a cute name for a bookshop. Must have been a cosy place to go to look for a good book to read.She tried to imagine what it would have looked like back in the day, with logs blazing in the old stove and people browsing among the shelves. It might have been a meeting place as well, where people discussed books and perhaps authors came to do book signings… She wondered if this could be recreated somehow, if the little shop was done up, the stove repaired and the shelves restocked. Then she shook her head. No, that was just a dream that would never come true. Reading wasn’t as popular as it used to be. Selling books wasn’t a feasible business these days.

There were three little boxes, two of them full of necklaces made of beads and a big brooch with sparkly stones shaped like an orchid. The third, smaller box contained a bracelet made of semi-precious stones in blues and greens. Ciara slipped it onto her wrist and admired its delicate design, deciding to wear it from now on, like a talisman or good-luck charm. The stones were smooth and felt good against her skin, as if it had been meant for her, somehow. The rest of the items were birthday cards and more photos that were so blurry the faces in them were impossible to see.

Ciara had come to the bottom of the box of dreams, where she found a scrunched-up piece of paper with a short text written in a spidery handwriting that said:

If I had known then that it would be the last time, and there would be no next time, I would have spent more time saying goodbye.

Such a sad little sentence that resonated with Ciara. She felt tears well up as she thought of that last moment with her father.It’s so true, she thought.The last time I thought I’d see him again.I wasn’t there during his last moment; I was at a birthday party while Ma had to sit there on her own. But she told me to go and said she would be fine.I thought I’d see him the following day. How many times have people missed that last goodbye? But perhaps that’s more important for the person left behind than the one who was dying…

The last time she had seen her father he had been quite bright, sitting up in his hospital bed, smiling. She had thought she’d see him again and that he was going to live for a long while yet. Maybe it was a better memory than having to watch him slip away? Ciara shook her head to clear her mind from the sad thoughts. That was then, and now she had to find out what lay behind her strange inheritance. But what had been in the box hadn’t told her much.

The last item was a letter, dated 19 May 1942. Ciara blinked and read the short letter. Her heartbeat quickened as she read on, realising that this was what she had been searching for.

Dear Martha,

My baby boy has been born and now I feel I have done my duty and will leave the hospital. The baby will be given to his new parents who will be able to give him the start in life that I could not. It breaks my heart but it’s the only way. I couldn’t live with the shame that I would bring on you and our family. The sisters in this little convent have been so kind to me and never judged me for what happened to me. All thanks to you, dearest Martha, because you went to Sister Assumpta and asked for help. That took a lot of courage.

I’m planning to go to England and I have the ticket for the boat bought already with the money you managed to get from the person who cannot be named. I will take the boat to England on the first of June. I know this will make you sad, but it’s the best way for me. I will try to get a job somewhere in one of them big cities over there. I’m a trained nurse, so I will have no trouble getting a job in a hospital.

Don’t fret about me, I will survive as I always do. I will write to you once I’m settled and then you can write back to me. I will miss you very much, dear little sister. You have been such a strong support to me during my trying time and saved me from one of those horrid mother and baby homes run by nuns. I’ve heard they are horrible places where the nuns punish you for your sins. But what about the fathers of those babies born out of wedlock? How are they punished for the sin of seducing a young girl? I hope they will burn in hell, especially that young man who told me he would marry me if I became pregnant with his child. Of course he didn’t mean it for a second. I thought he loved me as much as I loved him, but I was wrong. That’s in the past and now I’m looking to my future, which, I hope, will be bright and full of excitement.

Until we meet again, I am your loving sister.

God bless and love,

Madge

Ciara’s mind whirled after reading the letter and she tried to put all the pieces together. So Martha’s sister had had a child out of wedlock, which would have been a huge sin in those days. And then this sister, a young girl just out of her teens, had had to give her baby up and go to England to escape the scandal. What had happened to her after that? Ciara wondered. She thought about Martha and how she must have helped her older sister but in what way? Did she try to keep the pregnancy secret and had then helped her sister get to some kind of hospital to give birth? That must have been a nearly impossible task back in the early nineteen forties. But what had happened to Madge in England? The sad lines on the scrunched-up piece of paper – were they Martha’s thoughts about her sister? Or about someone else in Martha’s life? All these questions made Ciara feel nearly dizzy and, except for the first photo and the letter, she returned the items to the box just as Maureen arrived upstairs waving an envelope.

‘Look what was just pushed under the door,’ she said. ‘An invitation to tea at the vicarage at the end of May. I didn’t know there was such a thing as tea parties around here.’ She drew breath and looked at Ciara. ‘What was in the box? Did you find anything exciting?’

Ciara closed the box and then handed the photo to her mother. ‘This picture of Martha and her older sister. And then a letter.’

Maureen sat down at the table and studied the photo. ‘Two sweet girls. How do you know Martha was the younger one?’

‘Because of this letter.’ Ciara gave it to Maureen. ‘Madge was the older one and if you read it, you’ll see what happened to her.’

Maureen read it and then put it on the table. ‘How sad. I wonder what happened to Madge?’

‘We might never know. But I have a feeling they never met again because of this.’ Ciara slid the piece of paper across to her mother.

‘Oh,’ Maureen said when she had read the sentence. ‘So tragic. But we don’t know who it was about.’