Page 16 of The Bookshop Ladies

‘At least you don’t have student loans,’ he said and she imagined him pushing his glasses further up his nose. Sometimes, she wondered why he didn’t get them properly tightened at the opticians.

‘It helps that I only did a degree and I had a part-time job for most of it,’ she said absently. She’d never truly admitted to anyone that the shop was struggling financially, least of all to Kian – she figured there was room in any friendship for only so many financial woes. ‘Anyway, it’s nothing like that, I’ve just given a job to a complete stranger, not just a stranger, but an American, and to top it off, I can’t even be sure she wanted the job in the first place.’

‘That’s a lot?’ he spluttered what she assumed was coffee, she just hoped he wasn’t poring over some precious text. ‘Is there even one good thing about her?’ His stint in Michigan with a lady research partner from hell had put him off all Americans.

‘Well, I liked her, I mean, from the moment she stepped into the shop, there was something about her, a sort of unassuming familiarity.’

‘Sorry, I have Schelling brain, too much German realism for one morning.’ And she could hear him push away whatever papers he was working on to concentrate. ‘So, let’s cut to the chase, another lame duck?’

‘I’m not sure. It took her two goes to build up the courage to come through the front door and, when she did, she was like a deer caught in headlamps.’

‘I didn’t know you were thinking of taking on someone to help, business must be really picking up.’ He paused. ‘Hang on, has business picked up that much?’

‘Ha! That’s right, I forgot to mention, I’m on course to turn over my first million by the end of the month – I wish. No, it’s a voluntary position.’ She still couldn’t admit the place was just not working. ‘I want to make more of the place, you know, get the locals in, make it feel like a proper bookshop.’

‘I can really see how that might be the dream for an introverted loner like yourself,’ he said drily, making fun of her as usual, ‘to organise things for local readers, make the place more of a hub than just somewhere to drop by and pick up the latest bestseller?’

‘Albie suggested it, to give me time to organise things that I haven’t got round to yet.’ Although, as she looked round the empty shop now, she realised there had been nothing really stopping her.

‘So, what’s the harm?’ He stopped for a minute, then his voice dropped a little, taking on the velvet tone that always made her feel as if she was somehow the only person in the world. ‘Surely, it’s something to celebrate – your first employee, sort of?’

‘I’m not sure, I just feel as if I missed something?’ Robyn finished for him. ‘Kian?’ she heard her voice as if from very far away.

‘Yeah, no, I’m still here.’

‘Anyway, it’s probably just me being silly, overthinking things as usual. I should be over the moon, right? I mean, I’ve managed to hire someone I have a good feeling about and that’s important.’ She stopped. ‘Do you fancy coming across and meeting her at the weekend?’ she asked. It wasn’t just an excuse to see him, really it wasn’t, she told herself. But the fact was, when he was here, she felt somehow as if there was hope – she wasn’t entirely sure of what, but of something more. Just more.

‘Not this weekend, I have… something on,’ Kian said and he sounded distracted.

‘You have something on?’ Kian never had anything on. An uneasy silence settled between them for a moment. ‘Seriously?’

‘Don’t sound so surprised, I do get out occasionally.’ He was being secretive and for the first time Robyn wondered if he was keeping something from her. ‘But soon, yeah?’

‘Brilliant, I’ll hold you to it and you can tell me what you think.’ She put down the phone after she heard him hang up. God, she was pathetic, utterly pathetic, wasn’t she?

The fact was, even if she wouldn’t admit it to another living soul, Robyn had been in love with Kian Lawson since she was fourteen years old. She could remember exactly the day she realised it. They had come to Ballycove for the summer holidays – they always did, her mother loved staying in the old house her parents had left her years before. Robyn loved it too, how could she not, in the centre of the village, downstairs was a bookshop and just a short walk away, her grandfather’s cake shop. It felt like their real home, even though they’d lived in Dublin since before Robyn was born. That first time she met him, she was sitting in the huge sitting room in Patrick Street, reading a book that belonged to Margot, probably not suitable for her age. Margot always felt books came to you when you needed them and it was not for anyone to put a limit on a child’s reading progress. The sound of the door creaking slowly open made her raise her head, reluctantly, but it was too unfamiliar not to look. They were a family who moved through doors swiftly, closing them rapidly in their wake. There was something in the creaking slowness on this occasion that seemed to make everything stop in the house.

Kian Lawson was lost, on this first occasion of their meeting; he was lost in terms of having no clue if he was even in the right house.

‘I rang the bell, but there was no answer and the door was open. I’m sure the address is correct.’ He held out a piece of paper with her stepbrother’s uneven blocky letters scrawled across it. ‘Niklas said he would be along later.’ This was hardly a newsflash, Niklas, her stepbrother, was always running late. Neither was it unusual for him to arrive for holidays with more than one schoolmate either following on his heels or pitching up in advance. Her mother had moved a futon into Niklas’s room because there didn’t seem to be any better place for it. ‘You must be Robyn?’ he said then, still gripping his bags as if fully expecting to be sent packing again.

‘Yes,’ she said and then returned to her book. Really she wasn’t sure what else she could do or say. Her mother would be back soon, she would know what to do with him.

‘So, should I…’ he faltered on the threshold and when she looked at him again, something in her heart tweaked. It wasn’t that she knew instantly she was in love with him, but his very presence made her feel a little better.

‘You can…’ she sighed, unsure whether she should offer him something to eat or show him to Niklas’s room. And then, thankfully, she was saved by her mother bustling through the front door downstairs.

‘Ah, Kian. I can’t believe Niklas just abandoned you and went off to Trieste.’ She leant over and hugged the strange boy who had arrived from nowhere and Robyn watched as his expression ranged from deep embarrassment to something close to relief. Her mother had that effect, the ability to say the right thing, do the right thing, just to put other people at ease. Robyn had a feeling it was something she would forever admire but never quite achieve. ‘Trieste? He’s gone to Trieste?’ Kian looked panic-stricken.

‘Don’t worry. It happens all the time. I’m going to put you into Niklas’s room anyway, but first, food. You must be hungry.’ Robyn watched as he followed her meekly towards the kitchen.

Later, she would remember that year as the summer when everything about her life started to feel as if it no longer fitted her. Her crooked bottom teeth and oddly spaced top teeth were being crushed and divided by braces that made her self-conscious every time she smiled. Her feet had grown two sizes in the spring – how was that even possible, when she was still the shortest girl in her class? And her hair: there were no words; it was just a complete disaster! It felt as if she could wash it ten times a day and it would be greasy before she had a chance to comb it through. Nothing in her wardrobe fitted, or at least, nothing fitted the way she wanted it to. She had small pointy breasts and legs hardly as thick as knitting needles. Everything, it seemed, had gone wrong with her. It was bloody miserable and her only escape was the floor-to-ceiling wall of books in the old sitting room where she could curl up most days without anybody or anything annoying her.

A few years later, when she looked back at that time, she would remember all of those books, how she had found within them the escape she craved, and she would remember her mother, choosing her words carefully, tiptoeing around her and, somehow, managing to make those awful months more bearable.

And later, much, much later, she would remember Kian Lawson and how badly she had treated him that first time he had come to stay.

11

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