Page 10 of The Bookshop Ladies

A year later, as Fern sat drinking a beer with Margot, she knew the sadness she felt at saying goodbye to her friend was due as much to exhaustion and emptiness as it was to loneliness because Margot was moving to Marseilles. She was taking a job as editor of a small monthly poetry magazine.

‘Arrête ça!’ She was characteristically self-deprecating on the job offer. ‘Stop it. Those who can write, those who can’t… we simply decide what others should read.’

‘You don’t mean that,’ Fern laughed. The truth was that Margot had been slowly building up a reputation as a fiercely feminist poet. Her poems crossed the borders between English pragmatism and French passion. She had been published in some of the most distinguished poetry journals and she was openly admired by many of the leading critics on both sides of the Atlantic.

‘No, okay, I don’t, I am looking forward to the challenge and I know, they wouldn’t offer me the job if my own poetry was…’ she stopped, looking across at Peggy who hated foul language. ‘Merde.’

‘I do know what that means,’ Peggy said but she stirred her spoon in her tea cup. Fern loved having her here. She wished she would come more often, but she knew she was lucky to wheedle her out of Ballycove for even a short break. Albie, on the other hand, wouldn’t leave the bakery for anything less than an exhibition or, as he often joked, an execution.

‘Maybe when I come back for your next show you will have left this dump behind?’ Margot teased Fern. They were still in the same little flat in Paris – even though they could afford much better now, somehow, this felt like their home.

‘Maybe,’ Fern said, but she knew she would never fit in with the smart set, having grown up over her uncle’s bakery in Ballycove. ‘Or maybe I’ll follow you to Marseilles?’ She was joking, but these past few weeks, it seemed that everything in Paris had become a little greyer than it had been before.

‘No, not Marseilles, please,’ Peggy said quickly, ‘at least pick somewhere with an airport that I can fly into easily from Knock.’

‘Don’t worry, if I move, I’m definitely taking you with me.’ Fern put her arm around her aunt’s thin shoulders.

‘Hmm, I think Albie might have a thing or two to say about that.’ Peggy smiled.

‘You’ve been working too hard,’ Margot said softly in that way she did when there was something important she had to say. ‘All work and no play…’

‘I don’t think I can become any duller.’ Fern smiled, but it was true, all she had done for the last few months was work, sleep and eat.

‘I was going to say, it will make you ill.’ Margot threw a balled-up piece of paper at Fern, managing to hit the side of her head.

‘Hey!’ Fern said. She was too tired to throw it back.

‘Heyquoi?You need to take a break or else it will catch you up and then what will happen? Your fans can wait a while for their next fix. Book a holiday, just a few weeks, both of you, see some sun, you’re not going to miss much of Paris if you go while it’s raining ropes.’

‘Maybe,’ Fern said, but honestly, she felt as if what she’d like more than anything was to dive beneath the quilt and disappear from sight for about a month. ‘I’m meeting Yves later, so perhaps I’ll mention it to him, but it’s not a great time to take the foot off the pedal.’

‘Oh, my darling, but when is?’ Peggy rubbed her forearm lightly in that way she had always done when Fern was a small girl and upset by something that nobody but she could change.

‘We’ll see. Don’t worry Peggy.’ She smiled at the aunt she had adored for as long as she could remember. What would she ever do without these two women who meant the world to her? ‘For now, I think we should have more tea to sober our esteemed poet up before she takes off to start her dazzling new career as an editor.’

Yves was sitting at the counter in Alcazar, one of the nicest restaurants in Paris, when Fern arrived later that evening. It was sheer luck that she had been to the hairdresser that day and scrubbed off the oil paints she’d been using for the last week. She probably looked as if she had been put together, but the truth was, she had grabbed the first clean dress in her wardrobe, heels that would go with everything and thrown a heavy black coat over it. She had ended up looking a lot more glamorous than she expected.

‘My dear, how lovely to see you, you look just marvellous. Are you going on somewhere?’ Yves asked. He had already ordered a martini for her. She was never late. Tardiness was one of those things that grated on her, she might arrive with mismatched shoes or her hair still wet from the shower, but she always arrived on time.

‘And you, you look well, married life suits you.’ She was glad to see him. He had married Joie some time ago, in a quiet ceremony, away from the art world. There had been no pomp, no invitations. A little part of her was intrigued. It seemed no one had actually met the elusive Joie yet. Yves was keeping this part of his life all to himself for now. He was obviously still besotted with her.

‘I’m blessed in more ways than I could have ever dreamed,’ he said but, as he looked away towards the noisy bustle of a group of women greeting each other behind him, there was a passing sadness in his eyes and it caught Fern by surprise. ‘I’m spending more time in the gallery. I can walk there in the morning; drink coffee at my desk, life is… good, I suppose,’ he said and moved the martini across the bar towards her.

‘Is it?’ She reached out and touched the back of his hand. She owed him everything; at least she could provide a listening ear.

‘Things really are.’ But his voice held only the merest whisper of joy.

‘Come on, what is it?’ He should know her well enough to know she was discreet. She wouldn’t tell the art world if his business was in trouble or if he had made a mistake in marrying this woman.

‘It’s…’ he stopped and that was when she saw the torment that he had probably kept hidden behind that suave veneer. ‘We lost our baby.’

‘Oh, Yves, I’m so sorry.’ It was the last thing she had expected. Yves as a father somehow had never seemed real; for one thing, he just seemed much too urbane for parenthood. ‘I didn’t realise you were…’ trying, she wanted to say, but that seemed like such a personal remark, which given that he was now clutching her arm made no sense at all.

‘I know, I know. We had a miscarriage last year, just before we married, but you know, I thought then… maybe we could have a child.’ He shook his head, ‘I never thought I’d want a family, but then, with Joie… I…’ He stopped and rubbed his face roughly, as if it might somehow wipe away the sadness. ‘So we thought we’d try, you know, to have one when…’

‘Of course, what could be more normal. I mean, she’s young, isn’t she? Your wife, from what you’ve said, she sounds as if she’s around my age.’

‘Yes, but she hadn’t realised how much she wanted a child until… we lost it and then…’ he smiled sadly. ‘We got pregnant and everything was perfect, a completely normal pregnancy, that’s what they said, you know, the doctors and…’

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