‘I wish I could be convinced,’ I say softly. ‘I wouldn’t stress so much about my life. If I knew there was a plan, that it was all mapped out, meant to be.’
‘The legend of Castlemoon is real but I’ll let you be, I won’t try influence your story. I don’t need to.’ Dan drums his long fingers on his left hand on the gear stick.
‘You do know I’m dying to ask about Denise right now. It’s the writer in me.’ It seems the perfect time to ask, while he’s on about fate.
‘Aha, I walked into that one. Well, sometimes fate can work in the opposite way. It protected me. She was pretending to love me when all she really loved was the idea of being a Lady, in name.’ He indicates, checks his wing mirror. ‘She pretended to have the same interests I have which, I won’t lie to you, are mainly the castle, the village and my dog.’ A side glance to me again. ‘Butwhen she realised that Castlemoon is only rich in its very being, she ran a mile.’
‘I’m sorry. Really sorry. No wonder you find it hard to trust,’ I sympathise.
‘You?’ He steers the wheel with the palm of his hand, the wipers move the snowfall.
‘Cooper Dwight. Two years. I thought I was in love with him .?.?.’ I want to say but now I’ve met you I don’t know what that was! ‘But when he dumped me it was how he did it – he said he’d fallen in love with this girl, Tanya. They worked together and he said he loved her in a way he’d never loved me. It cut me. Really deep. Now though, I realise it was the way he did it more than the fact it was.’
‘Ouch.’ He makes that heart clutching move again he likes to do.
‘Funny thing is, I hadn’t seen him in two years and a few days ago, by complete coincidence, he knocks on the door of the house I have a room in to deliver something and asks me to unblock him so he can text me, tells me he’s single now. I never blocked him, he never even tried once to text me. He’s a liar.’
‘Sounds like a prick.’ Dan’s hands grip the wheel now and I see the white of his knuckles.
‘Yeah.’ I nod. ‘But I have a plan now to text him a few home truths, then block him.’
‘You know what I do when things like that happen to me? When a past life sounds complicated in my head?’ Dan pulls up at a red light, his leg stretched out as he hits the brake. He’s definitely changing the subject for me.
‘What?’ I sigh but only slightly.
‘I turn off the complications in my mind and listen to music.’
Dan turns the dial and the familiar soft beats of ‘Last Christmas’ by Wham! play out. Dan drums those long fingers on the steering wheel as he hums along. I feel the weight ofhappiness wash over me. The connection with George Michael’s lyrics.
Dan sings them under his breath. Ain’t that the truth, I think, listening to the line about giving your heart away as we drive on through Heartwell village, past Cosy Reads and the library, past the organic market and the pub, past the post office, and just before we reach Heartwell Hall, Dan pulls the jeep up outside a small cream brick building to the side. But he doesn’t kill the engine.
‘Here you go. I’ve a few errands to run that Terry reminded me of when you were getting your coat but Marina is expecting you.’ He revs the engine gently.
‘Oh? You’re not coming in?’ My disappointment that he’s leaving rings through in my voice.
‘I’ll be back shortly, I’ve a bit of business at Heartwell Hall first.’ And with that I step out and he drives away again, his aura lingering all over me. What is it about him? I ask myself for the umpteenth time. It’s howIfeel when I’m with him, I recognise as a large group of carol singers set up in the square. He makes me feel good. He makes me feel so alive. He makes me feel confident and I’ve never felt that way before, I think. Plus, I’ve never been as physically attracted to a man as I am to him. Ever.
‘Oh, this is getting heavier. I don’t ever want to leave him but I have to!’ I mutter before I push open the door and walk in.
* * *
Two hours later, in the genealogy archives room, I’m utterly mesmerised as I sit at an old school desk, complete with a disused inkwell. I’m still scanning the marriages and deaths in Dublin from the last hundred and fifty years with the Grace name. My phone beeps in my pocket. I glance and it’s a messagefrom Jill. I slide it onto silent mode – I can read it later.
‘More water.’ Marina, a shapely woman in her thirties with a soft German accent and a wonderful warmness to her, puts the jug and a paper cup in front of me.
‘Thanks, Marina. God, it’s fascinating, isn’t it?’ I heave, winding my hair up into a top knot and securing it with an elastic band I’ve just found on the desk.
‘Totally,’ she agrees. ‘So I also found this, a birth certificate in Holles Street Hospital up in Dublin for a John Grace in 1879. I’d be pretty sure this is your great-great-grandfather, and this is his death certificate in Dublin in 1899.’
‘Stop! Oh, no way? Oh, he was so young? Too young to have a family surely?’ I fight for a breath, I’m so excited.
‘Four children, two sets of twins, I see. People married young in those days and with no contraception, well, you know yourself.’ Marina winks as she sits in beside me and begins clicking through documents, black and white slides rush past. ‘See, now I have the family. Look here? Tom Grace, Noel Grace, Brian Grace, Barry Grace, Phyllis Grace, Helena Grace, Mark Grace, Mandy Grace! John! John Grace.’ Marina’s nose is almost touching the screen. ‘Let me delve deeper .?.?.’ Marina hits various keys expertly.
‘Oh, this is wonderful, thank you.’ Biting my bottom lip, I feel strangely emotional about this whole thing. ‘I mean I aways knew I had Irish ancestors but seeing it in black and white is a whole different experience.’
‘So, we have a birth registered in Boston, a Lawrence Grace. Parents: John and Patricia Grace; and I see a birth in New York, a John Grace, parents: Lawrence Grace and Mary Grace.’
‘What was the date of birth?’ My hands shake as slowly I mouth my dad’s birthday at the same time Marina says it.
