Page 27 of The Bookshop Ladies

‘So, you’re thinking of opening a cake shop, are you?’

‘No, no. Not at all, but I thought it would be a way to open up conversation with customers.’

‘Ah, so it’s acarrotcake?’ Albie laughed at his own joke.

‘No, it’s definitely strawberry.’ Joy took her slice and sniffed it, then realised what he meant. ‘Ah, yes, it is a carrot for the customers, I’m doing…’ she didn’t get the chance to finish because Albie put his finger in the air to stop her.

‘Market research?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Well, that’s wonderful. But you don’t want to get too busy, my poor grand-niece has hardly been outside the door since she opened the place, the last thing she needs is to be busier.’

‘Show me a businessperson who does not want to make more money?’ Joy smiled at him.

‘I don’t know. I mean, I thought Robyn would want to… well, you know, she’s young and energetic and it’s all ahead of her, but…’

‘Ah, maybe she’s more like a jumbo jet, Albie.’

‘Hah, what’s that?’

‘A jumbo jet, it’s big and powerful and wonderful, but it needs a much longer runway to take flight. Robyn is only starting out, but she will be magnificent when she finds her wings.’ Joy meant it and she realised, suddenly, that she would very much like to give Robyn those wings, she really would.

‘You sound as if you’ve already become fond of her.’

‘Maybe I have, it’s easy to like Robyn.’

‘Aye well, I can see that. She’s always been a good girl, but you know, she’s easily hurt too, not one to make friends quickly or lightly. It’s good if she has made a friend in you.’ He reached over and squeezed her hand. ‘I feel you are a genuinely lovely woman.’ He looked at her, his eyes filled with a sort of fatherly love she knew she didn’t deserve. It made her want so badly to tell him the truth about why she’d come here.

‘And you are a lovely man, Albie Keeling.’ It was the truth and that alone made her feel a hundred times worse for being here under false pretences. She sipped her tea. She thought it might choke her. It was the least she deserved for lying to them both. ‘Urgh. Cold,’ she said. ‘Shall I make us a fresh cup?’

‘Oh, God, not for me, I’d be up all night, half a cup is my limit these days, once the six o’clock news is over, I’m only on half measures. Speaking of which, I must be getting back. I came to ask if you’d take Dolly for a walk tomorrow, it’s just that I have an appointment at the hospital.’

‘I hope everything is okay?’

‘Ara, sure everything is grand, but at my age, they like to keep an eye on things,’ he said. ‘So?’

‘Dolly? Well, of course, if it helps.’ God, she didn’t know the first thing about tortoises and even less about giant ones. ‘Perhaps I could take her to work with me in the morning?’

‘She’d like that, I think, she used to enjoy being in the bakery, ambling about among the customers, but Leo hasn’t time to look after her these days.’

‘Great, well then, I would love to, Albie.’ And she wondered if perhaps Dolly really would enjoy the bookshop. She’d certainly be a talking point.

‘Grand so, that’s just grand. I should be getting along, tomorrow is a busy day for me, early start and all that…’

‘Oh, Albie, you take care and don’t worry about Dolly,’ she said and leant in to kiss his cheek gently as she let him through the door. There was something about being given charge of the old tortoise that made her feel as if he was trusting her with more than just a pet. She knew how much old Dolly meant to Albie. It felt almost… well, as if he was treating her like family. It was all she could do not to cry as she watched him walk down the stairs, holding tightly onto the handrail. Family. It was more than she had in Paris at this point. Oh, God – what was happening to her?

Later that evening, as Joy walked along the beach with the waves lapping cold between her toes, she knew that the fizzing feeling in her stomach had more to do with nerves than hunger or excitement. It was the idea that if she stayed in Ballycove much longer, there was a very good chance she would come face to face with Fern Turner, the woman she had hated since she’d put two and two together.

In the space of a couple of weeks, she had begun to envy Robyn’s mother like she’d never truly envied anyone in her life. And now, she had a feeling that this jealousy had grown into something more. Fern was so lucky to have this place and these people to call her own, even if she only spent the summers here – Joy couldn’t help thinking, if she had come from here, she never would have left to begin with. It seemedthatwoman had everything – a family, a sense of belonging and yes, maybe those lost years with a daughter that should have been Joy’s to share with Yves.

Of course, jealousy does no one any favours, but she’d spent hours thinking back, she had even figured out when their liaison must have taken place. Robyn was twenty-two years old and now Joy could almost piece together the puzzle.

She had been in Boston, invited to work on a project with the university, the most junior of a small group of French marketing staff. The chance of a lifetime.

She knew it. As soon as she walked back into the apartment after that trip, something had changed. It was as slim as a hairline crack in the air, something that she couldn’t quite identify, but hanging invisibly between them. Neither of them wanted to recognise it. Perhaps they both knew that acknowledging it would be the end of them. She tried to put it down to the baby they’d lost. They were still in the deepest trough of grief, even if she hardly wanted to admit it. For Joy, her marriage was everything. Oh, the world believed that American career women were too independent to care about their husbands’ affairs, but that was not the case for Joy. In those weeks she battled with the fear of hearing a truth she knew she couldn’t bear and the agony of living a lie, walking on tiptoe as if to avoid waking a sleeping monster.

And then, because she had pretended that the monster wasn’t real, it began to withdraw, fading slowly at first, hardly even perceptible. It was there in little things. Yves started to come home earlier from work, weekends were free, plans were made. They began to entertain, his friends, her friends, their friends. Soon, it felt as if everything was the way it had been before.

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