Page 23 of The Bookshop Ladies

‘Shh, it’s okay, all’s not lost yet. You’ve so much going for you, this is such a gorgeous shop and…’

‘Gorgeous doesn’t pay the bills.’ Robyn hadn’t touched her tea. Joy took her hands and wrapped them around the still warm cup. ‘I don’t think the people of Ballycove are readers and that’s the long and the short of it. If they are buying books, it’s not here.’

‘Oh, come on now, we both know there are so many things you can do to change that.’ But, looking at Robyn, Joy thought, she might as well be reaching for the moon. ‘Listen, why don’t you go upstairs and rest for a while or take a walk on the beach. I’ll look after the shop today and make a plan, then later, if you’re up for it, we’ll sit down over coffee and have a look at it, okay?’

Eventually, Joy managed to convince Robyn to go for a long run on the beach to clear her head. She reckoned she had less than an hour. It wasn’t really long enough to pull together a bespoke plan for the shop, but all the same she nipped back to her flat, picked up her laptop and pulled out a strategy plan she’d put together for a bookshop in Provence a few years earlier. Before she retired, this plan would have counted as a week’s work. Joy had promised herself she was finished with the marketing and PR world, but seeing Robyn so upset, well, it did something to her, pulled at some muscle previously dormant in her heart. She simply had to help in some small way. Yves would have wanted her to do this for his daughter and, even if Robyn ended up hating her, at least her own conscience would be clear.

When Robyn returned from her run, she looked a little better, although perhaps a bit embarrassed too; after all, they hardly knew each other and it had been a real baring of her soul.

‘Oh, next time, just send me for a run, ignore me, do anything but mollycoddle me. Honestly, I’m just being a baby. I shouldn’t have said anything about the shop. It’s really not your problem.’

‘Aye, aye captain,’ Joy mock saluted. ‘Duly noted. I’ll be pushing you out through the door with your running shoes on.’ She slipped the laptop screen across the counter. ‘Take a look at this.’

‘What is it?’

‘Sorry, I had to run it through Google Translate, it’s still a bit clunky.’ Joy had spent so many years hopping back and forth between two languages but now, it felt as if the habit was slipping away from her.

‘No, it’s good actually, but this? This is amazing…’ Robyn looked at her, and for a moment Joy was afraid she might begin to cry again.

‘Are you okay?’ Joy said softly.

‘Okay? I’m better than okay. I mean, if I’d set out to find the perfect person to help out with the shop, could I have actually found anyone better?’ She stopped. ‘You told me you were in public relations? I never thought it was anything like this though. It’s a far cry from Ballycove Bookshop, I’m sure.’

‘You sound as if you think it was glamorous, it wasn’t,’ Joy said drily. ‘I mainly worked for small businesses, getting them off the ground, coming up with ideas to lure customers through the door.’

‘Oh my God!’ Robyn breathed. ‘Are you serious? That’s actually what you did for a living?’

‘Yes, but…’ Joy stopped because now, without knowing it, she realised she had touched some sort of nerve. Automatically, she reached for the mezuzah pinned to her cardigan and knew she had done the right thing. She needed to help Robyn. ‘I’m so sorry Robyn, if I’ve said something to upset you.’

‘It’s not you, it’s me… it’s everything. You’ll see for yourself, every day is the same, hardly anyone ever comes in to buy a book.’

‘So, why on earth did you take on a part-time employee?’

‘Albie said it would be a good idea.’

‘Albie?’ Joy shook her head; she was fond of him, but this was the advice of a lunatic.

‘No, it’s okay, he was a brilliant businessman for sixty or so years. He started the bakery from literally nothing and managed to make a success of it against all the odds.’

‘Hmm.’

‘But it’s not as mad as you’d think though, is it? I mean, not if you’re prepared to help me get it off the ground?’

‘So you are promoting me on my first week?’ Joy laughed.

‘If you like,’ Robyn smiled with relief. ‘Titles don’t mean much around here when everyone has to help wash mugs, but I can promise to pay you every bit as much as I’ve been paying myself – which of course is not a penny so far.’ And they both laughed at that.

15

Sometimes, it’s the small things, Fern thought to herself. She was being remarkably calm, but it felt almost as if she was outside herself looking in. Shock. That was it, PTSD. She had come across the images by accident. The last thing she expected to see on their shared Google account when she looked up a file named ‘Woof!’ She had fully expected to see Bertie – their beloved whippet who had died two months earlier – not this absolute betrayal.

Well, it’s not what you expect, is it? To come across a photograph of your husband’s secretary in crotchless underwear and a doggy ears hairband.What is she? Fourteen? Stop it.Fern punched the button on her phone to black out the photograph, as the waiter left a tiny cup of coffee on the table.

‘Can you bring another one? Have you anything stronger than coffee?’

‘Espresso, this time?’ he said, smirking as he turned away from her.

‘Fine.’ In fairness, it would take more than caffeine to get her over the shock. God, such a cliché. An affair with his secretary. Oh, Luc.

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