‘Blessed? What by?’ she asks, head tilted on one side, genuinely inquisitive.
‘By this place. By this life. By this mad old woman I know… and to answer your question, Brody should be back in a couple of days, so all will soon be well.’
Brody moved to Bonnie Bay last summer. He’s American, built like a Navy SEAL, one of those hyper-practical guys who can restore motorbikes and plaster walls. He’s become one of my best pals, and he’s helped me get my bikes into grand shape, as well as overhauling my boat’s engine. A former cop from Chicago, he turned up here when Moira was at her absolute lowest. He and his now-partner, Kate, both found cards that she’d apparently sent out into the world hidden inside books, and ended up coming to visit. It was a very Moira thing to do.
Kate and Brody found each other, and they also found a way to save both the bookshop and Moira – giving her the hope and determination she needed to come back from the pit she’d found herself trapped in. We’d all tried, but none of us could quite reach her, give her what she needed. Until they turned up, and everything changed. For that alone, I will always love them – they are the living embodiment of Hopeful Hearts.
Kate is now the manager of the shop, and Brody is supervising its extension through into next door. At least he was before he set off for Chicago, to introduce their baby to his family back home.
‘Can’t come a minute too soon,’ Moira says in a stage whisper. ‘These clowns are neither use nor ornament!’
She winks at me to show she’s joking, and then bobs her head into the new building. It’s going to be a gallery and exhibition space, as well as having accommodation upstairs. It’s a great thing to be happening here in our sleepy little village, and I’m excited to see how it all works out. I’m also excited to see Moira so full of energy and ambition – she needs something to fight for, that woman. The fact that the first exhibition will include Angus’s photos has given her extra determination.
‘Jimmy, Robbie… lads, time to call it a day, I think!’ she calls. ‘Thanks for all your help. Your wages are in the post.’
‘Oh aye?’ says Jimmy, emerging with a sheen of sweat on his weather-beaten face, grey hair sticking out at all angles beneath his cap. ‘You’ve been saying that a while, Moira. I think maybe you’ve got the wrong address.’
There are, of course, no wages. This whole project runs on a combination of investment from a local businessman, and the sheer goodwill that Moira has earned over the years. If Moira McLeod asks for a favour, you don’t think twice. We’re all willing to do what we can, but I know she’s worried about something – she’s made a few comments recently about the paperwork getting on top of her, about feeling a bit too stretched. Like there aren’t enough hours in the day to achieve everything she wants to achieve.
‘Maybe I have, Jimmy. I’ll get right on that. See you tomorrow?’
He nods, doffs his cap in farewell, and trudges away down the cobbled street. The street itself is almost as pretty as the view – a long row of pastel-painted houses, blends of pinks and blues and pale greens, stretching off past the harbour. If you squint your eyes, it’s like an abstract painting, blasts of colour blending into one.
Robbie, in his twenties now but still looking like the teenager he was when I first moved here from Dublin, wipes sweat from his eyes. ‘Can I go now, Granny M? Or do you have some salt you need mining? Maybe a chimney needs sweeping?’
‘Get away with you,’ she says, playfully punching his shoulder. ‘Cheeky devil! Off ye go, son. I believe Joanne was making apple cake as I left this afternoon.’
His eyes light up at the thought of his great-auntie’s apple cake, but he pauses and asks: ‘What about you though? How will you get home?’
The three of them share a house up at the top of the hill that overlooks Bonnie Bay, and it’s a steep climb. Moira has made a lot of progress, but I know he worries about her being out on her own. She did once fall off the side of a cliff, after all.
‘I’ll drive her,’ I say. ‘Assuming I’m not too drunk. Your granny seems to think I’m a bit of an eejit, Robbie.’
‘My granny thinks everyone is a bit of an eejit.’
‘Aye, and your granny’s usually right!’ she says. She gives Robbie a hug and says goodbye, then turns back to me. She reaches up and tucks my hair behind my ears. It’s longer than it should be, as she keeps reminding me.
‘All that welding equipment you have at your place,’ she comments. ‘All those hacksaws. All that stuff! And not a pair of scissors to be found? I’m not sure we should be opening a gallery here, Rory Callaghan. I think we should be opening a barber shop for all you long-haired louts… now, will you be coming in for a drink or what?’
‘I’ve just promised you a lift home.’
‘I don’t want a lift home – I’m enjoying the use of my legs after all that time without. Maybe you could just walk me home instead, like a proper gentleman?’
I nod. It’s a good night for a walk, and I might get some free apple cake for my troubles. Outside the memory of my nanny’s home-made soda bread as a kid, it’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted.
We close up the windows and doors to the budding gallery, and I follow Moira up the steps that lead inside the bookshop. I smile as the little bell tinkles when we open the door, and feel a familiar sense of comfort once we’re inside. She disappears off into the kitchen, and I stand and look around.
When I first arrived here in Bonnie Bay, this place was a haven. I knew nobody, and I’d just abandoned my career as a barrister. I ran away from a life that looked successful on thesurface, but was killing me slowly. Everyone I knew, including my family, told me I’d lost my mind, that I was having some kind of breakdown, that it wasn’t normal. Maybe they were right, but it was the best thing I ever did. And I came to exactly the right place – Bonnie Bay, I soon discovered, is full of people who are only on nodding terms with the concept of ‘normal’.
Finding a bookshop in this tiny speck of a dot was the first surprise. Finding Moira was the second. She created such a warm, irreverent space here that I felt immediately at home. It was slightly shabby, crammed with books, every available surface stacked with them. There was no organisation, no logic to the way the shelves were filled – nothing as dull as the alphabet allowed. There was no need for it. Moira knew where every single book was, and she had an uncanny knack for knowing exactly what book would suit you best.
That first day, I asked if she had a copy ofThe Silver Darlingsby Neil M. Gunn. I’d googled ‘books set in Scotland’ and found it recommended as a gritty look at rural Scottish life in the nineteenth century. With hindsight not the most cheery of options, but I was trying to find a way to connect with my new home on a deeper level than just buying a house. Moira had taken one look at me and shaken her head.
‘Och no,’ she’d said, sadly. ‘That’s not for you, son. It’s a grand book, an important book even, but it’s not for you. Not today. What you need is this…’
She’d disappeared off around a corner, and returned brandishing a battered paperback copy ofWhisky Galoreby Compton Mackenzie. ‘This is what you want! It’s not as daft as the wee film was, mind, but it’ll give you a giggle or two. You look like you need a giggle. Fancy a cuppa? I was just about to make a brew. And it’d be rude not to add a Glenfiddich to it, in honour of the book now, wouldn’t it?’
And just like that, I knew I’d found one of my favourite places in the whole world. The bookshop was my way into the community that I now call home, to the people I call friends, to the life I have built here. Since that first visit, a lot has changed. Moira lost her husband Angus; Robbie moved away to Australia and came back again; Moira had her accident and almost lost the shop as well.
