Page 44 of The Bookshop Ladies

Dinner with Albie was at seven thirty. It gave her plenty of time to get things ready and have a shower before carrying everything to the flat downstairs. It would take two or three trips up and down the stairs. She was bringing everything – candles, wine and dessert – so once they sat down to eat, they could relax.

‘Posh meals on wheels, is it?’ Albie said as he watched her set up the table.

‘Not that posh, not really,’ Joy said. It was just salmon and pasta in a white wine sauce.

‘Well, any day I get a tablecloth under my dinner, it feels like a celebration.’ He smiled.

‘Having good friends is always worth celebrating,’ Joy said easily. They sat down to eat together, the conversation slowing down the proceedings so dinner took much longer than it should have. Joy told Albie about her life in Paris and how different she had found it when she first arrived in France from America all those years ago.

‘It makes me think I was very lucky indeed, my life was so straightforward, I’ve only ever lived in Ballycove,’ Albie said with the easy gratitude for everything in his life that made him one of those people you wanted to be around. ‘And what about you? Do you intend to make Ballycove your home now?’ Perhaps he sensed how much she had grown to love it here.

‘I still have my apartment in Paris, I will have to go back at some point. Remember when I arrived, this was only meant to be a short visit.’ She found herself smiling fondly.

‘Ach, I wouldn’t be heeding that, best laid plans, isn’t that what they say? There’s no harm in changing your mind. At any age, a change is as good as a rest.’

‘You are a terrible influence, but I think the time will come when I have to go back.’

‘Nonsense, you don’t have todoanything.’

‘Oh, I will have to do this, for everyone’s sake.’ She smiled at Albie, the sadness she felt in her heart was in danger of spilling out. ‘Dessert? I’ve made old-fashioned pecan pie.’

‘Joy,’ Albie reached across and touched her arm as she cleared away her plate. ‘Whatever you think you know about us or about this place, you need to remember that family isn’t always about the blood in your veins, sometimes it’s just a feeling in your heart.’

‘That’s…’ God, was she going to cry? For once, she wished he wasn’t always so bloody decent to her.

‘I don’t mean to upset you, but I’m sure Fern will have told you about Margot?’

‘Yes, of course, the poet, she sounded wonderful.’

‘She was very talented and she might have been known the world over, but, she was one of us too,’ Albie smiled sadly. ‘She was not a Keeling or a Turner, but she and Fern were as thick as thieves and, apart from an old aunt down on the Riviera someplace, we were all the family she had and, to be truthful with you, I loved her like a daughter and I have a feeling that you…’

‘Oh, Albie, you are sweet.’

‘Listen to me, I must be going soft,’ he shook his head again and looked up at the photograph of his wedding day. ‘Anyway, you know what I mean, even if you go back to Paris, there is always a place for you here.’

‘I…’ She leant down and threw her arms around his shoulders and began to cry, but her tears were a mixture of love and happiness as much as sorrow at the inevitability of having to tear herself away once Robyn and Fern realised how she had deceived them.

It was after ten when they called it a night and Joy took the dishes and glasses back up to the flat and popped them into the sink to let them soak overnight. She selected some Elgar to play softly and decided she would sit, just for a short while, and look across at the lighthouse with a half a glass of wine. She must have closed her eyes for a minute, because she didn’t hear anyone on the stairs. She had forgotten to shut the door of the flat after her last trip back up from Albie’s with the dirty dishes.

‘Joy.’ Robyn’s voice woke her in the darkness.

‘Oh, I must have dropped off. Switch on the light and have a glass of wine with me…’ she said, but she was still half asleep. It was only when the light went on that she realised her mistake. Fern and Robyn were standing there, but it was Fern’s expression that made Joy’s heart plummet.

‘Oh my God, that’s… that’s my painting,’ Fern said. ‘What on earth? How did it end up here?’ She looked so happy to be reunited with it, while Joy felt as if she had just dived off the end of the lighthouse.

‘How do you mean, that’s your painting?’ Robyn flopped down next to Joy on the sofa, with two glasses and the bottle, ready to top up Joy’s glass. ‘Oh, Joy, after you left today, I had an email from a sales rep, they are going to come and visit to discuss what we can do to carry a small range of new books in the autumn…’ she was still talking, on an excited high from the success of the afternoon at the bookshop. Joy couldn’t hear her words, not properly, instead she had locked eyes with Fern.

‘It’s not what you think,’ Joy managed, after what seemed like forever.

‘What do you mean?’ Fern asked, but she was picking it up now. ‘I thought I’d never see it again, it was my first big sale. Robyn, this is what started it all…’ Joy recoiled. How could she say what needed to be said now?

She had to though, and as if her words were being spoken by someone else, she whispered, ‘It’s for Robyn.’

‘It’s for Robyn? Really, but how on earth did you come to have it here? I mean, I never knew who bought it, I…’

And then, maybe some penny dropped, somewhere, but there wasn’t a sound, it was the loudest silence Joy had ever heard. Robyn had no idea that Yves was her father. And the keeping of that single truth from her could, they both knew, be enough to make the close relationship between mother and daughter implode.

‘What’s for me? The painting? It’s beautiful, but I couldn’t possibly…’ Robyn was looking from one to the other – a confused rabbit in the headlights of two oncoming juggernauts.

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