Page 14 of The Bookshop Ladies

‘No. Margot, there’s nothing between us that could lead to a future.’ The last thing he needed was news of a baby when he was just trying to process the loss of the child he’d been expecting with his wife. ‘He’s madly in love with his wife. This thing between us, one night where we lost our heads; it meant nothing beyond comfort to either of us. I left him the following morning, only hoping the guilt of it wouldn’t kill him. If I have this baby, it will be my child not his.’

‘Surely he has a right to know,’ Peggy said.

‘Maybe he has, but he doesn’t wantthischild, I’m pretty sure of that.’ Fern thought of the baby Yves’s wife had lost. They had enough to tear them apart in their grief. Her stupid mistake was not going to be another lesion in their relationship. Fern cleared her throat. She needed Peggy to understand. ‘Perhaps he would step up to the plate and make sure we were well provided for, but at what cost? I don’t need his money and, if I am having a baby, I don’t want his interference from afar.’

‘We are still young,’ Margot patted Peggy’s hand. ‘A child won’t stop Fern falling in love with someone else if that’s what you’re worried about.’

So it was decided. Fern would move back to Ireland – she’d get a flat near the studio space in Dublin. It seemed like the sensible thing to do for now. She would stay here for another week and then set about starting the rest of her life in a new city far away from Yves and Paris.

‘I’ll be home for Albie’s birthday in a month’s time.’ She hugged Peggy before her aunt went through to the departure lounge for her flight home to Ballycove.

‘Promise. And you won’t do anything without letting me know?’ Peggy had been very clear. If Fern decided against having the baby, she might not agree with the idea of a termination, but she wanted to be close at hand to take care of her for a few days afterwards.

‘Of course, don’t worry, I’m looking forward to having time to think and draw.’

‘Well, don’t work too hard and don’t forget to book your flight in the next few days, otherwise they’ll absolutely fleece you on the cost of it.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’ Fern was making fun of Peggy, but she pulled her close and hugged her tightly. Peggy was the nearest thing she had on this earth to a mother and she loved her dearly. ‘I’ll see you soon.’

What is it they say? Tell the world your plans and somewhere God is laughing at you? It was as she emerged from the airport that same day that she bumped into Luc Tessier; literally, bumped into him. He was racing to pick up his sons from their Frankfurt flight, she about-turned too quickly in the crowd and, suddenly, she was in his arms. There was an embarrassing moment, when she took a step back and he waved his hands about to apologise. Everything about him was very French – his slightly too long hair, his vaguely creased jacket, that attractive appearance she couldn’t, even after more than twenty years of marriage, call good-looking – but in that one instant she fell completely under his spell.

‘Désolé,’ he said eventually and she knew he too had been struck silent for the first few seconds.

‘It’s okay, my fault,’ she smiled, couldn’t help the corners of her mouth curving upwards.

‘You are English?’ he said and she wondered if perhaps that would be a strike against her.

‘No, Irish.’

‘Ah, bien.I must take you for coffee, we can’t have the international relations suffering just because I almost ran you over.’

‘I… I would love that,’ she found herself saying and soon he was sweeping her along with him, towards the arrivals gate, to meet his two sons. She would learn, in that first afternoon, that they were here for school break. He shared parenting with their mother, a German woman who had remarried and now lived outside Frankfurt. First there was coffee, then lunch and, later that week, dinner, by the time they got to dessert, Fern knew that Luc Tessier might well have turned up at the worst possible time in her life, but she had no intention of letting him go. So there was only one thing for it.

‘I’m pregnant,’ she said as she waved away the wine.

‘Ah. It was, of course, all too perfect.’ His eyes searched hers.

‘Seriously. I only found out a few days ago. It’s why I’m here, to think about what I’m going to do…’

‘So, the worst possible timing for us?’

‘There’s anus?’ She couldn’t help smiling; something about him had transformed her into the sort of woman she had always dreamed of becoming. Margot would be so disappointed.

‘I had hoped so, hadn’t you?’

‘Dearly.’

‘Then, what’s to stop us? The father, is he going to be involved?’

‘He doesn’t know. And he’s never going to, so it’s just about deciding what I want.’

‘Look, we have just met, but I have two boys and an ex-wife in Frankfurt, we are both old enough to carry our baggage through life. If you decide to have this baby and if we are together, then what is the difference?’

‘Really?’ she asked, because she was just about getting her head around the idea of being pregnant, she certainly hadn’t factored a boyfriend into the equation.

‘Really. Let’s see how things go…’ He reached over and placed his hands around her face. ‘I am falling in love with you. A baby or no baby, it didn’t even come into it the first moment you fell into my arms.’

As the years went by, when she thought about it, she believed that it was at that moment she decided she was going to have the baby. By the time Robyn was born, Fern had made a life for them in Dublin and there was no mention of Yves. A few months later, their small wedding took place in the little hotel in Ballycove. And they had become a family, a modern, seamless family who went about their lives like any other. The Tessiers.

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