Page 36 of The Bookshop Ladies

‘I think I can definitely live without poitín.’ She laughed as she waited for him to open his flat door. He rarely locked it.

‘Oh, you don’t know, the right stuff could be as sweet as mother’s milk with the fire of all hell thrown in, but it’d go down so smoothly that you’d think you were drinking heaven itself.’ He lowered himself into his chair while Joy took two glasses from the kitchen and poured tiny measures for them.

‘Well, we’ll have to make do with sailors’ poison on this occasion,’ she tapped her glass to his in salute. ‘The company definitely makes up for anything I might be missing from mother’s milk.’

‘Ah, you’re too charming by far, you’d easily turn an old man’s head, if he wasn’t careful.’

‘Somehow, I think that’s highly unlikely.’ Joy laughed.

‘Well, I suppose, there’s still only the one queen in this house.’ And he looked up at the wedding photograph above the fireplace. In the distance the lighthouse started up, just as Joy was about to sip the last drops from her glass. In the armchair opposite her, she realised that Albie had fallen asleep and his gentle snores seemed to match exactly the pattern of the light stroking the walls of the flat. She took the glass from his hands. He’d hardly even tasted it, perhaps he’d just wanted the company, it must be lonely at times, she thought, sitting here with the woman you loved watching over you from a photograph at the chimney breast. Yes. It was good to have people around you that you loved, even if it was to sit quietly with them or to fall asleep while lost in thoughts and memories.

24

All sorts of terrible things raced through her mind when Robyn saw the state of her mother. From across the room she looked somehow broken, as if a vital part of her had been taken out, snapped in two and then replaced.

Robyn’s first thought was cancer. She felt a rush of jagged fear rip through her. ‘Mum, what on earth happened, what’s wrong?’ She didn’t want to ask straight out – are you dying or has something awful happened to someone we know?

‘It’s nothing.’ Her mother looked at her through tear-filled eyes. ‘It’s nothing, really, it’s…’ she stopped, gulped as if she didn’t know what to say next. Robyn ran to her, threw her arms around her and pulled her to the sofa.

‘It’s clearly not nothing. Are you all right, you’re not ill, are you, please tell me that you’re not ill.’ She heard the desperation in her own voice.

‘No, darling, no, it’s nothing like that, it’s…’ she took a deep breath. ‘It’s so much, I don’t know where to start, it’s Luc…’ she shook her head, as if the world was coming to an end.

‘Luc? What happened to Luc?’ Robyn felt that panic rising up in her again. They might not be close exactly, there had never been a falling-out as such, but there had always been a distance between them. She loved him of course, because after all, he was the nearest thing she’d known to having a father, although she had given up years ago trying to bridge the gap between them.

‘Nothing has happened to him, I just needed to get away, to think, things haven’t been…’ she was choosing her words and Robyn could see it, but her parents’ marriage was their affair.

‘So you’ve had a row?’

‘Yes. We’ve had a silly row and I just needed to come and breathe for a bit…’ Fern said, but it wasn’t convincing Robyn. There had been many rows before, Luc was French and her mother was a creative spirit, their relationship had always been tempestuous. There had been highs and lows along the way, but mostly, Robyn knew them to be happy with each other. Somehow, they seemed to work well, in spite of their differences. ‘That’s all.’ Fern looked away and something about the way she said it made Robyn think there was much more she needed to say.

‘Is there someone else?’ She just knew it. She didn’t know how, but suddenly it was as if there was no other explanation. ‘You’ve met someone else, is that it?’ She looked at her lovely mother. She hated to see her so upset.

‘No! Of course not,’ she shrieked, ‘God, what do you think I am…’

‘It’s only, you’re so upset and I thought…’

‘Luc has met someone else.’

‘Dad?’ She didn’t mean to sound surprised, but really, her mother was still beautiful, whereas her dad, well he was hardly God’s gift to women. ‘Oh, God, Mum, I…’ she stopped, trying to take it in for a moment. Then she looked at her mother and, of course, it suddenly all made sense. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Now, tell me it’s all right.’

‘I wouldn’t have meant it like that,’ Robyn said, but of course, if her mother had met someone else and fallen in love, she would have said exactly that. Would she have to do the same with Luc? ‘Come on Mum, you and me…’ there had always been a great bond between them. She would do anything for Fern. Anything. ‘You know I love you and I suppose, if the shoe had been on the other foot…’

‘Oh, darling, I’m sorry, I know.’ Her mother grabbed Robyn’s hand. ‘Forgive me.’ She sniffed, pulled herself up on the sofa and tried to pretend she was fine. ‘Actually better still, just ignore me while I indulge in the ugliest sort of self-pity you’re ever likely to see.’

‘I’m certainly not going to do that and you have every right to feel bad.’ She didn’t know the ins and outs of things, but she was sure her mother would tell her as soon as she was able to. ‘I’ll make us dinner, actually, no, I’ll order take-out, even better.’ Her mother deserved better than burnt offerings.

‘No, no, there’s no need, surely there’s something in the kitchen we can rustle up into a passable meal.’

Robyn found two bottles of Merlot at the back of a cupboard. After Fern had made omelettes for them, served up with some sourdough Leo had dropped in earlier, they sat at each end of the sitting room sofa sipping their red wine with the window open. The only light, apart from a few candles in the hearth, was the rhythmic search of the lighthouse from Silver Island in the distance. Her mother had talked until now she was hoarse but, somehow, her posture suggested that she might be feeling a little less miserable, as if sharing had made it more bearable.

‘Hello, hello…’ Leo’s voice at the top of the stairs caught them both by surprise. He poked his head around the door. ‘Anyone here… safe to come in?’ he said, looking around the room and finally making them out in the flickering shadows of the candlelight.

‘It’s always safe for you, Leo.’ Robyn got up and hugged her uncle before getting a third wine glass from the kitchen and pouring some Merlot.

‘Not driving.’ He put his hands up in the air; it was a joke between them. Leo lived halfway between the bookshop and the bakery, in a tall narrow house that was the same shape as its owner and every bit as deep.

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