Chapter 3
THREE
Ronan’s words rang through Ciara’s mind as she drove slowly up the Enniskerry road in her rented car almost one week later.
She had been handed the keys to her property at the solicitors’ office a few days ago, along with the deeds and a bank draft for thirty thousand euros.
More money than she had ever owned in her whole life.
Thirty thousand seemed like Monopoly money to Ciara, who had never been interested in what other people yearned for.
As long as she could pay the rent and put food on the table, she was happy.
She loved browsing in charity and vintage shops for clothes, and finding a nice outfit for a bargain price was the ultimate challenge.
Her quirky style of dressing reflected this and she was proud of having her own style, even if it didn’t always fit in with what was fashionable.
Her parents had brought her up to be frugal, teaching her what truly mattered in life, which was not about showing off with designer clothes or a fancy car.
Having suddenly come into this amount of money was quite nerve-wracking and she didn’t know how to handle it.
Ronan hadn’t been in the office when she called in the second time.
An older, stern-looking woman had handled her case and wished her luck with her windfall.
Ciara had thanked the woman and walked to the bank with that draft in her handbag and had it lodged to her account straight away.
Then she had hired a car and practised driving yesterday – around her neighbourhood, and then a quick, but exceptionally scary jaunt on some busier main roads.
She had passed her driving test years ago, because her mother had thought it might come in handy.
Not being very adventurous, even the thought of driving down country roads had always seemed daunting to Ciara.
Now here she was, on her way to Wicklow to inspect the house she had inherited from a woman she’d never known in a village she had never been to.
How strange my life has suddenly become, she thought.
She had managed to drive along the motorway even though she had been shaking with nerves, gripping the steering wheel with clammy hands, praying she wouldn’t bump into anything.
But she calmed down once she reached the exit that would take her along country roads that allowed her to drive more slowly, and she told herself sternly to get a grip and not be a wimp.
Once she was going through a little village called Stepaside, she felt more relaxed and was able to enjoy the beautiful countryside with rolling hills and valleys, past gardens with apple trees in full bloom, and then down little roads lined with huge oaks and beech trees, the dappled sunlight shining on old walls.
Wicklow, known as the garden of Ireland, was truly wonderful and if she hadn’t been in a hurry to get to Cherrywood, she would have stopped at one of the small inns along the way just to get a chance to breathe in the smell of trees and flowers.
But she had to get to Cherrywood and the house.
They keys were in her handbag and she couldn’t wait to put them in the lock and walk inside.
‘The key to some kind of mystery,’ she said out loud. ‘What do you think of that, Brian?’
The dog, who had been asleep on the back seat, lifted his head and made a little whining noise as if to say he was just as excited as Ciara.
‘Maybe it’s our new home?’ Ciara suggested. ‘But this would be quite a long commute.’
Brian emitted a sound of agreement and put his head down on his paws again. Ciara smiled thinking that nobody would believe her if she told them her dog could talk. But he did sometimes make sounds as if he was trying to say something to her: soft growls and whines, which always delighted her.
She passed a wooded area with a sign that said, KNOCKSINK WOOD NATURE RESERVE, and then into Enniskerry, a charming village that had been built around the famous Powerscourt Castle, the gardens of which had been named as the second most beautiful in the world by Forbes magazine, so a quick google last night had informed her.
She remembered visiting it a long time ago with her parents and it had seemed magical to her at the time.
She had heard then that Enniskerry had been built to house the tenants who worked the land in the area.
Now the little houses had been modernised by people with money who wanted to live in the countryside but still close to Dublin.
The clock tower in the centre of the village was a famous landmark, and Ciara admired the Victorian facades of some of the houses as she slowly made her way to the crossroad.
She spotted a market further down the street, where people gathered around the many stalls and vans.
She would normally have parked the car and gone to see what was on sale as she loved country markets, but she was anxious to get to her destination.
She drove past the market and then up another narrow country lane with a signpost that said, CHERRYWOOD.
It was the first signpost with the name of the village and it gave her a thrill to see it.
The narrow road took her up a steep slope and then there were sharp bends and suddenly, Ciara found herself in another world.
The landscape was harsher up here, with jagged peaks above her on one side and vertiginous grassy slopes dotted with sheep on the other.
Trees bent by strong winds leaned into each other forming arches that cast dark shadows over the tarmac.
There was a strange silence, and Ciara thought about the ancient clans like the O’Tooles and O’Byrnes who had settled here after being ousted from their lands further south by the Normans.
She could imagine how they built new castles and strongholds here in the wilds of the Wicklow Mountains and could nearly see the powerful men on their horses looking down from some windswept hill, ready to defend their new home.
She stopped the car for a moment to step out and feel the cold mountain air and hear the sound of ravens in the tall pines.
This was a truly magical and eerie place.
Ciara got back into the car and continued, wondering if she had missed a road sign somewhere. Then she rounded a sharp bend and saw houses in the far distance. That had to be Cherrywood village.
Once they were closer, Ciara saw that there was a row of buildings along what had to be the main street.
The house she was looking for would be in the middle of the row, she had seen on Google Maps Street View.
There was peace and quiet here. But unlike Enniskerry, where the houses had been lovingly restored, the buildings were in a poor state of repair, the paint peeling on the facades and the windows broken here and there.
There was a dark and sad feeling to the little village, as if the inhabitants had given up on trying to repair their properties – or had simply abandoned their homes instead of trying to sell.
Ciara wondered why this village was so sad and neglected in sharp contrast to Enniskerry.
It might be that it was so remote and not near any landmarks or historical buildings.
The land here, further up the mountains, might also be poor, contrary to further down the valley where the gardens were flourishing.
Ciara slowed down and then pulled up in front of a two-storey building where the large front window looked as if it had once been part of some kind of shop.
In fact, there was a sign hanging over the door that might have had the name of the premises but now it was impossible to make out what it had been.
There was a steel shutter over the window where the items for sale would have been displayed.
‘We’ll just have to go inside,’ Ciara said to Brian, and opened the door on the driver’s side of the car.
She got out and stood for a moment staring up at the house and then let Brian out of the car before she found the key she had been given by the solicitor.
She inserted it into the lock and pushed open the door to the house she now officially owned.
It was dark inside and hard to see anything at all, except the dust floating in the ray of light from the open door.
Remembering that she had been told that the electricity was still connected as the bills had been paid according to instructions from old Martha Fitzgerald, Ciara felt on the wall for a light switch.
Her fingers met peeling paint and some kind of wainscoting, but then just above that, there was a round switch, which she flicked and a dim light from a bulb in the ceiling lit up a large room with shelves covering the walls.
Ciara looked around, spotting books in ragged piles on the shelves and the floor and then knew what this was.
‘It’s a bookshop!’ she exclaimed with delight.
‘I have inherited a bookshop, Brian. What do you think about that, eh?’
Brian wagged his tail, looking as if he liked the idea.
‘Exactly,’ Ciara said and stared to walk across the floor to inspect the piles of books that littered the shelves.
The floorboards creaked and there was a smell of dust with a hint of mildew, but nothing that made Ciara think the building had a problem with damp or mould.
She picked up a few paperbacks and sniffed them but found that they only smelled a little damp and were mostly in good condition.
But it was too dark and the dust in the air made her sneeze, so she gave up on the idea of studying the books until she could see better.
The shutters had to come off the window for a start.
‘So,’ she said, wiping her hands on her jeans, ‘what else is there in this house? Maybe some kind of accommodation upstairs?’
Brian grunted and padded to a door in the far wall, pressing his nose against it and then lifting a paw to scratch it.
Ciara went to his side and pulled at the door that opened with a loud creak.
She used to torch on her phone and found a lobby with a steep staircase leading to the upper floor.
‘Aha,’ she said to herself. ‘The stairway to a flat over the shop.’ She peered up and saw light coming from somewhere and she started to walk upstairs, holding on to the wooden banister, looking out for broken steps, but found none.
Then she was upstairs on a bright landing with a door to the left and one to the right.
She opened the one on the left. It swung open easily and the landing was suddenly flooded with light from the afternoon sun.
Ciara took a step into the large, bright room and looked around, feeling as if she was dreaming.