Page 31 of The Secret Bookshop in Ireland

‘Had you?’ Ciara asked and lifted her face to look at her mother. ‘I always thought my arrival was a bit of a surprise and that I upset your perfect life.’

‘Whatever gave you that idea?’ Maureen asked.

‘Well, I don’t know. You had to give up your career and then you couldn’t go on your fancy holidays when I was small. And then the school fees and all that…’ Ciara’s voice petered out as she met her mother’s gaze.

‘I didn’t have to give up my career,’ Maureen argued. ‘I chose to take a break to look after my precious little daughter. That was a lot more rewarding than doing marketing and PR for a firm selling tractors, believe me.’

‘Dad always said I was a shock to the system,’ Ciara remarked.

‘You were. But in a good way. You turned our lives upside down and we loved it. At least I did,’ Maureen replied. ‘Frank was more worried about you and followed you around like some kind of mother hen, in case you would break.’

Ciara nodded, smiling. ‘Oh yes, I do remember. He hovered outside every time I was at a party. It used to drive me mad.’ She patted her mother’s hand. ‘Thanks for telling me. And thanks for all the things you did for me through the years. You were the best parents. Both you and Dad.’

‘That’s lovely to hear.’ Maureen patted her eyes with a paper napkin. ‘Oh, this has been quite a morning. I did have a feeling about Martha all along, of course. But I didn’t want to tell you until I was sure.’

‘But why did you never tell me Dad was adopted?’ Ciara asked, with a surge of resentment. ‘Why was that such a big secret?’

‘It wasn’t my secret,’ Maureen said. ‘And your father felt it was a kind of stigma to be adopted and not the biological son of the parents he had thought were his true mother and father.’

‘You could have told me after…’ Ciara stopped. ‘I mean, when he was gone. Why didn’t you?’ she asked. ‘Didn’t I have the right to know?’

‘I suppose,’ Maureen replied, looking sad. ‘But I didn’t think there was any point. Frank wanted you to feel the grandparents on the photos were your real ones. He thought it might cause you a lot of pain to know that they weren’t. He wanted you to feel you had a family.’

‘As I don’t remember either of them, that was a little strange,’ Ciara said. ‘But it wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t have known that Martha was going to leave me all this stuff in her will.’

‘That’s true,’ Maureen said. ‘But maybe I should have told you and spared you the sadness you feel now.’

‘It’s okay, Ma. It wasn’t your fault,’ Ciara soothed. She picked up the photo again and peered at it. ‘I wonder who my grandfather was. Someone local, do you think?’

‘Could be,’ Maureen said. ‘We’ll never know, though. The village was much more alive in the forties, I can imagine.’

Ciara put the photo on the table. ‘Martha must have been so young when her sister became pregnant. How brave she was to help Madge like that.’

‘They probably had to keep it from their parents,’ Maureen suggested. ‘I wish we knew more about her.’

‘Their parents must have been running the bookshop,’ Ciara mused. ‘I wonder who started it.’

‘Could have been here for generations,’ Maureen said. ‘This house is late Victorian and it was built with that shop downstairs.’

‘It makes me feel that I need to do something with it,’ Ciara remarked. ‘To carry on the tradition of what is now my family.’

Maureen’s eyes were suddenly worried. ‘That’s what I was dreading to hear you say.’

Ciara laughed and got up. ‘I know. Come on, Ma, let’s not worry about it now and get in the car and drive down to Enniskerry for that lunch. I’m hungry after all this.’

Maureen rose from her chair. ‘Good idea. We can discuss it while we eat.’

Ciara went downstairs to see to Brian and make sure there was water in his bowl, the conversation with her mother still fresh in her mind. She’d had no idea that coming here would help her discover a long-lost family… what else was she going to uncover?

FIFTEEN

They were both quiet during the drive. Ciara was still trying to get used to the idea that Martha’s sister, Madge, had been her biological grandmother. She had been shaken by the news that her father had been adopted and still hurt that she had never been told. It had changed her perception of herself and who she was. She had always thought that the couple in the old photo album from her father’s childhood had been her grandparents who had died before she was born. But now it appeared they had been her father’s adopted parents and her real genealogy was completely different to what she had believed. Her biological grandmother had been abandoned by the father of her child. Whoever he was had left her to cope on her own. What a terrible, dishonourable thing to do. It disgusted her to think she was related to such a man – whoever he had been.

Maureen seemed to feel how upset Ciara was. Later that afternoon, when they arrived in the charming little village of Enniskerry and they had parked the van near the square, she put her hand on Ciara’s arm. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said quietly. ‘I should have told you years ago. But it wasn’t my secret to tell.’

Ciara turned and met her mother’s gaze. ‘I suppose it wasn’t. But Dad should have told me instead of avoiding the issue of his parents.’

‘Your father, God rest him, kept his feelings to himself, you see,’ Maureen said. ‘If he was upset about something, he’d go for a walk or stay in his little study with the door closed. There was no way I could reach him or get him to talk to me. I left him alone and waited for him to get over whatever was troubling him.’