Page 15 of The Bookshop Ladies

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It was more than twelve years later when Fern was sitting in the V&A coffee shop that she spotted the unmistakable figure of Yves Bachand. She had taken Robyn to the museum to fill a few hours on a wet afternoon while Luc attended a wine fair nearby. They’d come to London for a rare treat, what were the chances of bumping into Yves of all people here?

‘Fern, I can’t believe it’s you.’ Yves Bachand clapped his hands together and leant across the table. He kissed her cheeks and then stood back for a moment, as if forgetting that on one night only they had come together illicitly. It had been the finish of them, of course. After that, they had drifted apart, so when he proposed a new agent for her, she had readily agreed. He was stepping back. She was taking time. Neither of them could face the fact that things had somehow broken between them.

That day, in the V&A, when he looked at her, perhaps he suddenly remembered. ‘It’s been so long…’ he said. ‘You look marvellous and your career, I’ll be honest, there have been times I have felt so proud of you, although I have no right to.’

‘You have every right,’ she said and she nodded to allow him to sit with her, silently praying that Robyn would become absorbed in something long enough to avoid meeting him. Her little girl was twelve now, a delightful, precocious twelve-year-old, who Margot described as theportrait crachéor the spitting image of her father, with her stepfather’s love of books. Mostly Fern could cover over the fact that she was Yves’s daughter. There had never been a right time to tell Robyn the truth, or so it seemed to Fern, but it weighed on her mind in the small hours and she knew she couldn’t put it off forever. ‘And how has life been treating you?’ she asked, although she knew well enough that his gallery was still the toast of Paris art lovers. Jacques, his long-standing business partner, had taken over as her agent. Occasionally, he let slip that he had caught up with Yves and those little pieces of information, she had stored away jealously. He was still, biologically, her daughter’s father. She would always be thankful to him for that.

‘And you are married, living in London now?’

‘No, this is just a flying visit, I live in Dublin, but we spend every free moment in Ballycove, so it almost feels as if…’ She would live there permanently, but there was no way round Luc’s job. He needed to be based close to an airport with international flights.

‘Ballycove? It always seemed so idyllic.’

‘Really?’

‘Your paintings, I told you, I still keep an eye out on my favourite artists and your work has brought the west of Ireland to life for me. So different to our little corner of Paris. I think, one day, I will take Joie there.’

‘You should, it’s very beautiful,’ she managed, although the idea of him bumping into Robyn at any moment was beginning to make her heart pound and her stomach churn. As if on cue, her daughter materialised in the doorway opposite.

‘Mum, you have to see the…’ she was red-faced, lovely, her darling Robyn.

‘Ah, and who is…’ Yves stopped, as if someone had thrown a basin of ice over him. He turned towards Fern. ‘Fern, I…’ The resemblance had only become more striking as the years had passed.

‘This ismydaughter, Robyn, and we should really be going.’

‘Your daughter? But she’s…’ He stopped, looked from mother to daughter. Of course he knew immediately. There was no need for a DNA test, she was his daughter.

‘Come along Robyn, put on your coat.’ Fern gathered up her belongings quickly. She hardly knew what she was doing. She raced out of the café, vaguely aware that she had paid for her coffee, knowing she had another hour or two to fill before they met Luc for dinner.

‘Fern?’ Yves had followed her. He managed to catch her arm. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? I could have…’

‘No. Yves, no…’ She handed a five-pound note to Robyn, told her to have a quick browse around the gift shop, even though she knew five pounds would not stretch very far. ‘Look, you and I, it was one night. One night, that was all there could ever be, and when I decided to keep Robyn, I knew I wanted to raise her on my own terms. She’s my daughter and she has a father – Luc is the only father she has ever known and she adores him. Would you want me to tear her world apart now?’ She couldn’t meet his eyes because, the truth was, Luc was her husband. He was a stepfather, but she had always been clear with Robyn that her biological father had been a man she’d met briefly, he was wonderful, mysterious and – crucially – untraceable.

‘No. No, of course not, but Fern, you must see that…’ His hands clutched his head as if he was trying to stop his thoughts spinning. ‘I can’t think, it’s such a shock.’ Suddenly, he looked like an old man and she realised he must be in his mid-sixties now, but looking older.

‘There is nothing to think about, we are happy and I hope with all my heart that you are too, but I don’t want to see you again.’ Fern had never imagined she could say something like that to Yves. It could only be a mother’s courage or, perhaps more accurately, desperation. She had her family to think of and Robyn presumed her father was some wonderful stranger that Fern had no way of tracking down, she was not going to change that unless she had to.

‘I…’ Yves had started to cry, and Fern knew she couldn’t just stand there and watch. She had to go, quickly, while she could. She raced into the gift shop.

‘Who was that man, Mum?’

‘Oh, he was someone I knew years ago, he…’ Fern smiled then, because she still had so much to thank him for, ‘he’s the reason I’m here with you today, probably. He was my first real agent. Without him, I might never have sold a painting to begin with.’

And then they were hurrying along through the lashing rain, making plans to get to the restaurant before Luc and maybe pick up a gift for their auntie Peggy before they flew back home to Ireland.

10

‘Kian, I’ve done something crazy.’ Robyn still couldn’t believe Joy Blackwood had volunteered to help out in the bookshop. She’d come in early this morning to dust some of the shelves and open the door wide so the place smelled fresh and airy. The call from Kian was the first time she’d sat down since breakfast and because the shop was empty, she had curled up on the huge old chair that sat in the corner of the children’s section. It was comforting here, the lazy creak of it as she rocked over and back, one shoe balancing on the end of her toe, the other lay where it fell on the floor next to a pile of books she’d taken down to dust.

‘It can’t be that bad. I’ve just eaten two croissants, only because they were the last ones left and I really didn’t want to dip into my loan payment account for anything that might be vaguely healthy.’

‘God, you so have to stop being a student and start being an adult.’ She was only half-joking. He had struggled to clear his student loans for the last few years. It seemed every time he came close to finally being free of debt, some unforeseen emergency would crop up and he ended up almost further back than where he’d started. Her mother still made sure she packed his car with enough food to tide him over in case of a famine every time he came to stay. ‘That poor boy,’ she would say each time, ‘is he still wearing that same T-shirt since the first time he came here?’

‘I had convinced myself I couldn’t be more pathetic.’ He was making fun of himself; the one way he knew to make her feel better.

‘Well, if it’s any consolation, I think I might have surpassed you this time.’

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