I like to get straight to the point so first I’ll tell you what I found. I went to my favourite 2nd hand bookshop in Dublin called “The Winding Stair” which has shrunk and no longer carries the range of books it used to. I gathered a few books, ordered coffee and sat down to “read before I bought” (I really love that shop!).I liked them all so I bought them but just as I was about to leave the shop I spotted “Love For Lydia” by H.E.Bates & got that as well.
When I got home, I decided to read it first.
I have a ritual before I read. I kind of feel the book, smell it and check out the illustrations and cover details before I read. As I was doing this with, out fell a jewellers receipt for a “Full Sovereign pendant”, 6000 Turkish Lira, 2 £1 Irish punts and 1 £1 Scottish pound. I was amazed that 6 separate sheets had stayed together and not slipped out of the book but I was more interested in the story behind it. Why this title? Who put them there? How did it end up in a bookshop?…of course i had to tell myself the story and here it is:
Once upon a busy Dublin street a man met a tourist from Turkey. She was looking for directions to Christchurch and he was happy to help. A good deed done, they went their individual ways. Later on that same evening they bumped into each other again and only half in jest decided destiny had played a role. They went for a drink which turned into 2 and before long, language was dispensed with and they had the first embrace. As so often happens in Dublin, the tourist and her friends were leaving for home the very next day so they exchanged personal details and vowed to communicate.
Vahide did write to Miceal and he wrote back and this being the days before mobile communication destroyed the art of love letters, they grew steadily more skilled at the composition of beautifully written missives and fell in love all over again. Miceal decided that he could no longer bear to live apart from Vahide and started to discover employment in Turkiye that would be suitable. He was aware that Vahide came from a background where nothing less than marriage would be acceptable if he wanted to spend his time with her and he was prepared for this and even relished the idea of making her his wife.
He booked a ticket to Istanbul to arrive just before her birthday. Then he went to Breretons Jewellers on Capel Street and bought a traditional gold sovereign pendant on a chain for Vahide. Finally he went into the Bureau de Change to get some Turkish notes for his trip and he was ready. He went into Easons to pick up something to read and saw “Love For Lydia”. It struck him that Vahide sounded like Lydia (he was so very in love) and bought it.
It was while in this romantic reverie that he stepped out into the road without noticing the speeding taxi. Bank notes flew everywhere, and whilst some people were concerned at grabbing these, a few folk called an ambulance and tried to collect his belongings. Someone stashed whatever paper there was into the back of a book he had been carrying. This book, the only remaining evidence of his love, travelled with him to the hospital. Then travelled onward without him and into a second hand bookstore where I picked it up for a song.
ulfatak 