Page 28 of The Bookshop Ladies

Except it wasn’t. Not really.

There had been opportunities to travel again, which Joy turned down. There was a chance for promotion; again, the rise up the corporate ladder she knew required either a steadfast husband or a woman who didn’t care as much.

That was the price of her husband’s affair with Fern Turner. Ultimately, the cost of it was borne by Joy. It had taken almost twenty-five years to see it for what it was. Now she caught herself wondering, if Yves had told her, would she have left him? Would she have sacrificed her marriage to give Robyn a father? If Yves had been free, would he and Fern have married? But Robyn had a father; Fern had married and surely Luc Tessier had easily slipped into that void?

And later, after she closed up the shop for the day, she’d wrestled with the idea of bringing the painting down, leaving it in the shop, but how could she? How could she when she knew how upset Robyn was by the idea of this Kian – the man she believed to be the love of her life – having fallen in love with someone else?

It was with these thoughts running through her mind that Joy made her way back into the little flat again. It was getting late, the sun had tarnished to orange, rolling a rusty-coloured sunset across the ocean, but there was an hour left to fill and she didn’t want to lose herself in fiction just yet. Instead, she walked to the tiny kitchen at the back of the flat and poured a tall glass of water. She sank into the deep sofa facing the tiny fireplace. Leaning against it was the painting of the Seine.

Joy bit her lip now as the canvas caught her eye. She had to screw up her nerve to look at it, here in Ballycove. It seemed charged with so much more meaning and consequence; it had become far greater than a stark reminder of her husband’s secret. With each passing day, it got harder to tell the truth of why she’d come to begin with. She really had intended to invite Robyn back to the flat one evening and come clean. It was why she’d made the casserole.

Joy looked at the painting now and something struck her.

It was not the beauty of the brush strokes or the depths of despair created by the dark colours or even that one ray of hope that seemed to lift everything; rather it was the fact that she knew it had raised something up in her.

Was this what Yves had meant when he talked about his response to art?

No. It was not that, and if it was, Joy certainly would not admit to it. She drew a breath, held it for a moment, and looked instead towards the rusting sky beyond her window. This, she knew, was her response to another human being. A person she had come to like, in spite of herself. And that was a bitter pill to swallow because their relationship was not genuine, not truly authentic. How could it be when Robyn had no idea of who she really was?

And yet, here she was, sitting with Fern Turner’s painting, unable to hand it over and bring their relationship crashing down. She couldn’t do it, not now, not when Robyn was in the middle of having her heart broken in the worst possible way and not when it seemed as if the bookshop was still only teetering on the edge of financial viability.

Joy sat there a long time, half regretting that she hadn’t settled on a glass of something stronger than water. Her clear head didn’t help her make any more sense of why she was still in Ballycove. What had begun as a trip embarked on in the spirit of curiosity, and maybe even with some notion of setting scores, had all too easily slid into something else. She was still curious, but now, instead of wanting revenge for a crime she knew Robyn had never been a party to, she just wanted to put her arms around the girl and then knock some sense into Kian Lawson. Is this what it felt like when you had children of your own, this need to protect them so badly it was like a blistering ache?

It was all such a mess. What did she think she was doing here anyway? Playing stepmother to Yves’s adult daughter?

Hah! She wondered what the great Margot would make of that. Women’s misplaced guilt – that was what it was. After all, Yves should have done the right thing all those years ago. It was hardly up to her to do it now, was it? But then, if Yves had done the right thing from the start, there would have been no affair at all, would there?

18

In untypical weather for the time of year, Saturday afternoon saw the clouds gather and the rain pour down as if all of heaven was crying. It suited Robyn’s mood perfectly. She tried to tidy up a little before Kian came, not that he would expect it. Patrick Street had never been anything other than a rambling collection of dusty antiques, beneath a sea of half-finished books. It was, he told her once, why he loved coming here. ‘My parents’ house is so…’ he stopped and shook his head as if he could never quite explain what his own home was like. ‘Different,’ he said then, but Robyn remembered. She had visited once.

She had been surprised; it was hard to connect Kian with the austere surroundings of his home. His mother hardly spoke two words and his father had an opinion on everything, to the point of being arrogant. Over dessert, Robyn felt as if she was being interviewed by the Stasi.

For his part, Kian ate his dinner in resigned silence. As soon as the meal was finished, he dragged her off for a cigarette. It was the only time she’d ever seen him smoke.

A roll of thunder overhead pulled Robyn back to the present moment. She looked out of the sitting room window. The sky was almost black, even though it should be light for hours yet. She looked around the room once more. It would have to do. She wasn’t tidying for Kian anyway, rather, some part of her wanted to make a good impression on his mystery guest. God, how crazy was that?

‘A penny for them?’ Joy asked when she went back down to the shop. She was putting the finishing touches to a bed for Dolly. Apparently the tortoise was going to be their mascot on social media, of course Albie was over the moon –Dolly was going to be an internet sensation, he was telling anyone who’d listen. Joy had taken what seemed like a million photographs of the old girl next to various books. Brilliant, Robyn had no interest in having her own photograph out there. Already, this morning the shop account on Instagram had gained a hundred followers and two orders for books in the comments section after Joy posted a photograph of the tortoise next to some books about tropical adventures.

‘I’m afraid my thoughts aren’t even worth that,’ Robyn said, placing a box of children’s books on the counter to sort out.

‘She might have a great-looking brother, you know…’ Joy said peering into the box.

‘She might have a whole soccer team of them for all I know or care.’ That was the truth, Kian had told her absolutely nothing about his mystery girl. ‘I just want to crawl into a shell and never come out.’

‘Come on, don’t be like that. I bet you’ll feel very differently when you’ve met her.’ Joy held out the bag of toffees she’d bought earlier and when Robyn didn’t seem interested she took one out, unwrapped it and placed it in her hand. Dolly craned her neck towards them, her little face full of interest. She wondered for a moment if Albie had been sneaking her the occasional mint over the years. A streak of lightning lit up the shop. Robyn felt her nerves were even more on edge than before. It was as if she were waiting for the worst possible scenario, while knowing already what it was. There surely couldn’t be any more unpleasant surprises, could there?

It was almost seven o’clock when the doorbell clanged out Kian’s arrival. Terrible timing, of course, Robyn had just been painting her toenails. There was nothing for it but to gamely hop downstairs, abandoning polish and emery boards on the sofa. It was only as she neared the door that she pulled the neon-pink rubber from between her toes and stuck it into the back pocket of her ripped jeans.

‘Kian,’ she breathed.

Even though she had been waiting for him to arrive with almost equal amounts of longing and dread, actually seeing him standing there made her ache for him. His untidy hair was plastered against his head from the rain, his brown eyes were flecked gold in the light and he was smiling in that way he did – as if he might be laughing at her.Get a grip.It’s Kian, upbeat, brilliant, funny and yes, unfortunately, drop-dead gorgeous Kian, who still thought she was just another chum. She felt the colour rise to her cheeks.

‘Come in, come in,’ she stood back, allowing him into the hallway. ‘Did you lose your key again?’ Honestly, some things never changed. Her mother had given him a door key years ago so he could let himself in.

‘Of course not, I just couldn’t find it.’ He moved past, dropped his old rucksack on the floor near the stairs and then carefully left an expensive-looking tan valise next to it. Robyn found herself staring at it. It was the most chic bag she had ever set eyes on, both beautiful and intimidating in its elegance. How on earth could a weekend case make her feel inadequate? Somehow everything about it did; from the shape – almost feminine in some indefinable way – to the leather, which looked like doeskin, to the golden clasps and locks gleaming amid the dull and faded colours of the hall. Most of all, she was struck by the thought that it didn’t belong in this welcoming, shabby hallway.

‘Come here to me.’ Kian grabbed her in a bear hug.

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