Page 17 of The Bookshop Ladies

Joy couldn’t remember a time when she’d slept so soundly. She could put it down to the melody of the waves in the distance rolling rhythmically; the sound soothed her as it lingered beyond her open window when she drifted off to sleep at night. Perhaps it was the surprisingly firm mattress on the big old double bed, but she suspected it had more to do with the fact that she felt at ease here in a way she hadn’t felt for quite some time. Earlier, the old man downstairs, Albie said it was the air, fresh and salty; it gave you an appetite, not just for the breakfast they’d shared earlier, but for living, for simple abundances and for sleeping well too. The first dull thud made Joy stir drowsily from her sleep, but it was the series of ominous bangs as if someone was hammering on the stairs that finally propelled her from her bed. If she had thought about it before she raced down the stairs, she might have stopped to pick up a weapon, in case it was someone up to no good. Instead of grabbing the sweeping brush or the large urn that held an umbrella, she shivered in her cotton pyjamas more from the cold floor beneath her feet than any kind of fear.

‘Oh my God, what happened, are you okay?’ The old man was bundled into a ball at the turn of the staircase. He must have fallen down the last four steps. ‘Oh, Albie come on, come on, let’s get you up, can you move or is there… it’s okay, you’ll be okay,’ she said, but she really wasn’t sure he would be. Even from here, halfway up the next flight, she could smell rum. ‘Oh, you silly man, you’ve been drinking and then, these stairs, they’re an accident waiting to happen, even if you were as sober as the Pope.’ She didn’t say he should have more sense, but it was what she was thinking. She wouldn’t have put him down for a drinker, but then maybe that was half the problem. If he could hold his liquor, he wouldn’t be folded up like an accordion on the stairs in the early hours of the morning.

‘I’m okay, really, there’s nothing broken, I didn’t want to disturb anyone… how silly is that? No one’s going to notice a light switched on, are they?’ he laughed, but it was a brittle sound and, even though she didn’t know him very well, it made her heart creak just a little.

‘Are you crazy, you climbed up here in complete darkness?’ Joy had squeezed down past him now and she tried hard to keep the disbelief from her voice.

‘I know, I know, Peggy is probably up there rolling her eyes and sighing like an idling steam engine.’

‘I’ll bet you’re right, how on earth did she put up with you?’

‘The simple answer is that there was no divorce in our day,’ he smiled at Joy, that twinkle in his eye was even brighter here. ‘You know, when we were younger, there were probably a few times she might have wanted to take the frying pan to me, but back in those days when she was young enough to see she could find better, there was no getting out of marriage in Ireland.’ He shook his head and smiled at Joy now. ‘Lucky me, eh?’

‘Lucky indeed. You’re even luckier that you haven’t ended up with a broken leg or a concussion.’

‘Ah, with a head like mine, it’d take more than a little toss down the stairs to do me much harm.’

‘You’re incorrigible, you know that.’

‘I know. But will you give me a hand to get into my flat? I think I dropped my keys when I fell and, even if I can make it to the door, I feel as if going all the way to the bottom of the stairs and back up again would be like a pilgrimage to the top of Croagh Patrick.’

‘Of course I’ll get your keys. Stay here and when I have them, you can link my arm,’ she said, but he was already trying to stand. ‘Seriously, don’t move.’ Thankfully the keys were at the bottom of the stairs, sitting on the floor just inside the door, she picked them up before racing back up to him again.

‘Now, I’m well able to walk up my own stairs, just so you know,’ Albie said, although there was no denying he was leaning heavily on her arm and breathing hard with every step. Once they were inside his flat, Albie stood for a moment to catch his breath. It gave her time to get her bearings. She figured the layout here was very similar to the flat upstairs, but it took a moment to see it, because this flat was crammed with a lifetime of memories and mementos. The ceilings were higher, the chairs a little shabbier and probably more comfortable for it, it was homely and lived-in and, even in the dead of night, seemed to ring out with a symphony of happy memories. She led him to a high-backed armchair with a dressing gown thrown across it.

‘I’m not sure whether to offer you sweet tea for shock, or coffee to sober you up, or if perhaps all I should do is get a blanket and make sure you don’t have concussion?’

‘Well, first off I don’t need to be sobered and second I can’t drink tea at this hour of the night, it’ll have me up at all hours. Maybe, I’ll settle for a blanket and put my feet up where I am for a little while.’

‘Will you be comfortable there?’

‘It might be a bit late to worry about that now, don’t you think?’ he managed to smile at her and she was struck by how someone who had just had such a horrible fall, could still manage to remain so light-hearted. She went in search of a blanket and found a soft warm woollen cover in the hot press next to the bathroom. She slipped the heavy check dressing gown around his shoulders too.

‘Here,’ she said, tucking him in as much as she could. ‘You won’t get much cosier than this.’

‘Ah, that’s good,’ he said and his eyes were closing. Joy began to think of all those stories she’d heard from women she’d worked with over the years about not letting children fall asleep if they had a head injury, because… well, perhaps she wasn’t sure why because, but it seemed to be important enough for them to talk about it.

‘Maybe I’ll just sit here for a while.’ She settled onto the sofa, afraid to leave him, in case something terrible happened to him.

‘There’s no need, you should be getting your shut-eye too…’ he said, but his eyes were closed.

‘For my beauty?’ she was trying to joke, to keep him awake.

‘Ach, you don’t need beauty sleep and anyway, who even believes all that, my Peggy hardly ever slept more than six hours in a night and she was the loveliest sight I’ve ever clapped my eyes on.’

Joy found her gaze drift towards the wedding photograph on the mantelpiece. ‘You were very happy, I think.’

‘We were.’

‘You must really miss her, I mean if she was here now…’ and then it dawned on her, surely she should tell someone that he had fallen. ‘Actually, perhaps I should ring your son; let him know you’ve had a fall.’

‘Why would you go doing that?’

‘Well, because he’s your son and he might want to check that you are all right and that…’

‘That’s just interfering, now, listen to me, I don’t want anyone called from their bed in the middle of the night, just because I’m a stupid old man trying to walk upstairs in the dark.’

‘Please, don’t get upset, I’m not telling tales, it’s just, we don’t know what sort of injury you might have sustained and if you were my father, I’d want to look after you.’

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