Page 26 of The Bookshop Ladies

‘What?’ Because there was nothing to say, other than she needed to get over Kian Lawson and this silly crush she’d been carrying for far too long.

‘Well, I’m not sure what, but… I suppose, I look at you and you’re young with your whole life ahead of you, you have way more than I did at your age and, even with half of that, I know I wasted so much time, thinking and waiting…’

‘Margot did not approve of waiting…’ Robyn said in her best Margot voice.

‘Yes, so I’ve seen, I’m working through her poems slowly…’ Joy shook her head. ‘I’m sure I would be a terrible disappointment to her, if we ever met.’

‘No, not at all. I think she’d have really liked you.’ Robyn stopped, realising it was the truth. How could you not like Joy? The truth of it surprised her. ‘Actually, I am famished.’ A faint aroma of fresh herbs and lamb casserole was wafting across the room. ‘Haveyoueaten yet?’

‘Oh, don’t worry about me; I have more back at the flat.’ Joy looked around the room, but there wasn’t a spare inch on which to leave a warm dish. Every surface was covered with books or papers.

‘I didn’t ask you that.’ Robyn pulled herself up from the sofa and took the dish from Joy, leading her through to the kitchen where there was a feint aroma of toast burned earlier in the day. She hadn’t had the inclination to see to fixing anything more to eat since. ‘You’ll join me, here…’ She handed Joy a glass of wine and popped the dish in the oven. She pulled out some soda bread her grand-uncle had dropped off the previous day. ‘It smells divine.’ She described her mother’s cooking, and how Fern was the only woman she knew who could make a feast out of two ingredients thanks to the small herb planter she kept on the kitchen windowsill in Dublin.

‘Your mother must be very special,’ Joy said a little sadly.

‘She is, but she doesn’t realise it.’ Robyn stopped, because she wasn’t sure how to roll her mother up into one sentence – talented, funny, fiercely loyal, warm-hearted and vulnerable and so very much more. Her mother – a thousand contradictions. Robyn adored her. ‘Actually, she has struggled with self-esteem for years. People never see it, but it’s in her work. She talks about it when she’s had too much champagne.’

‘Let’s hope I don’t spill all my dark secrets with too much champagne,’ Joy said lightly.

‘Let’s hope you do,’ Robyn laughed. ‘It’s much more fun that way, but don’t worry, this is only white wine, a glass isn’t going to make you lose the run of yourself.’

‘Don’t be so sure,’ Joy said, taking another sip. She wasn’t lying; it went straight to her head. Whatever it was they said about the French being great drinkers, after almost three decades in France, Joy still couldn’t hold her wine past a glass and a half. Soon, they were tucking into casserole and, much too soon, the clock on the kitchen wall was pointing towards one o’clock in the morning. Robyn realised that the evening had flown by, thanks to Joy’s funny stories about the people she had worked with over the years.

Somewhere, during the course of the evening, Robyn had told her about Kian and the seagull and how he had told her not to worry and how it felt as if her life had started again that day. Later, when she woke up in the night, thirsty and still a little drunk, she remembered Joy taking her hand and telling her that it was time to let him go, to make room for someone else in her life. When her alarm clock woke her the next morning, Robyn didn’t feel nearly as hungover as she deserved to, given the kitchen table had three empty bottles of wine on it. She had polished off half of one of those before Joy had arrived. She moved gingerly, fearing one of those awful headaches that creep up on you when you think you’re in the clear. Later, as she organised the morning papers with a cup of coffee steaming by her elbow, she realised the reason she felt so much better today had everything to do with the fact that, somehow, talking to Joy about Kian made the looming visit seem not quite such a thing to be dreaded – even if it was still hardly something she could look forward to.

17

Joy fiddled with the columns on the plan she’d drawn up for the bookshop. It was a good plan. She’d noticed there wasn’t a huge political section in the bookshop and most of it was taken up with biography or autobiography. The philosophy section was non-existent – so different from the bookshops in France.

Robyn’s shelves were stocked with some poetry, some uniquely Irish interest books, and then the shop ran into a number of little recesses, each of them home to a particular topic. There was a vast world-war-themed alcove, another anteroom was filled with books about the Cold War. Trains, planes and boats filled up a room for which Joy already had some other ideas.

She took a ladder and inspected the top of the shelves – it was a perfect space for a train on tracks to run right around the whole room. It would be a focal point, something quite original. They could do the same with each of the other areas – source interesting, inexpensive objects to transform the shop from the mundane to the magical. There was a whole section on wildlife with a particular focus on birds of the northern hemisphere.

A great many of the books were signed and dated and Joy wondered if they would ever figure out their true value. She was surprised at how strong the online trade really was. Joy could see great potential in the internet sales alone and she was convinced there were treasures hidden among some of the less fashionable titles. The children’s section, Joy had to admit, was her favourite. She was looking forward to working on it.

Later that evening in the flat, it surprised her that she was tired, her back ached, but they had worked hard all day. She massaged her neck. It was ridiculous, of course, she knew that. She had come here to deliver a painting and get some answers. That was why she’d travelled over, when she could as easily have had the damn thing couriered.

And it should have been easy when she got here, but somehow she hadn’t summoned up the courage. Now she knew Robyn Tessier had no idea that her father was Yves Bachand. She looked across at the painting, remembering what Robyn said the evening before, and she wondered if Fern Turner really was somehow repressed. She clicked on Google, searched her name and easily found examples of her later work. Of course, she was no art critic and certainly didn’t have Yves’s eye for subtlety, but yes, perhaps she could see it. It was understated, subtle. There was less confidence in the brushwork, less courage with the use of colour and perspective. Everything was just a little safer, more restrained, as if she was afraid to speak her mind in the work.

A knock at the door interrupted her thoughts. It could only be Albie. She closed the laptop and opened the door to see the old man standing there, slightly out of puff after the extra flight of stairs.

‘You shouldn’t have come all the way up here,’ she scolded him. ‘I would have gone down to you.’

‘Are you thinking I’m not able to climb my own stairs, young lady?’ he was puffing with exhaustion as he flopped onto the sofa and she loved that he called her a young lady. ‘I climbed those stairs all my life, my bed was up another flight again, when I was a youngster, but…’

‘I’m not saying you can’t, I’m saying, you shouldn’t have bothered,’ she laughed. ‘I could have run down to you just as easily.’

‘Well, in fairness,’ he smiled at her sheepishly now, ‘I probably wouldn’t want to be doing them every night, certainly not if I’d just had a glass of rum beforehand.’

‘Indeed,’ she said and walked to the fridge. She had a bottle of chilled wine there. She was having a cup of tea herself, the previous evening with Robyn had been enough alcohol for her for a week at least. ‘Like a drink?’

‘Oh, God no. You don’t want to believe all they say about us Irish. I’m as happy with a cup of tea,’ he said, eyeing her mug on the table.

‘Perfect.’ She made him a cup and cut a slice of the strawberry shortbread she’d made for the bookshop.

‘You’re baking?’ he asked as he bit into it.

‘Yes, well, you see, I thought maybe if we cut it into small squares, we could give them out to the customers.’

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