Page 54 of The Bookshop Ladies

Later that evening, Joy was making her way back to the flat after a long walk on the beach when she spotted Elizabeth O’Shea making a beeline for her. Joy smiled. Albie said that Elizabeth had taken to widowhood like converts take to good deeds, with a zeal far outweighing the necessity. There was no doubt, the woman had an appetite for life that drew you to her; Joy liked her from the first moment they met.

‘Hey,’ she said. ‘It’s gorgeous out there, if you’re going for a swim, although, I think I’d definitely plump for a wetsuit.’ She laughed because Elizabeth had set up the ladies’ midnight swimming club with her friends a few years earlier. It was a wonderful way of bringing women of all ages together. Every year, all the women in the village dived into the water in the nip to raise money for the local cancer services.

‘Ah, that’s what they all say, but you have to try it before you decide.’ Elizabeth laughed. ‘Anyway, I wanted to talk to you about the bookshop. Albie was in the surgery this morning and he mentioned that you had plans to theme different parts of the shop?’

‘Oh, Albie!’ Joy laughed. ‘That was meant to be a surprise to be unveiled on the big celebration night!’

‘Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me, but here’s the thing, my husband was the doctor in Ballycove for over forty years and there’s a whole heap of old charts and paraphernalia lying about in cupboards. You’d be welcome to them if you were putting together a health and wellness corner?’

‘Really, that’s such a kind offer. I’ll have to mention it to Robyn, but of course she’ll be thrilled to take you up on it.’

‘Great, well, then, maybe one of you could call up some evening and have a look, you can take what you want. I’ve been meaning to do something with it for the longest time, but there never seems to be enough hours in the day these days,’ she said and then she inclined her head slightly. ‘Sure you won’t join me for a dip?’

‘Not tonight, but I’ll definitely take you up on it one of these evenings,’ Joy said as she watched Elizabeth head off towards the waves that looked way too cold for swimming for her liking.

Of course, Robyn was delighted with the offer from Elizabeth, but by the time Joy arrived into the shop the following morning, she was already looking exhausted.

‘We’ve had customers!’ Robyn exclaimed.

‘Not all that surprising…’ Joy smiled.

‘And a whole raft of orders online – those old comics that we put up yesterday, it turns out they are way more popular than we realised.’

‘Great, I’ll get packing those up and you can...’ Joy waved her hand about, because Robyn appeared to be on a crusade to cover every available space in bright pink love hearts.

‘They arrived today,’ Robyn gave her a lopsided smile and Joy remembered now that a local woman who supplied the shop with homemade cards had promised to make them.

‘Well done, they look great.’ And they did, they really brightened the place up, even if they’d left poor Robyn completely frazzled.

‘I feel like it’s last minute dot com, but they do look good, don’t they?’ Robyn said just as the front doorbell rang again with another customer arriving.

36

It was completely irrational, but for days before the big celebration Robyn had started to wake in the middle of the night panicking about things she was meant to do and hadn’t got round to.

It didn’t help that Joy shooed her out of the shop any day that she hadn’t managed to get a run on the beach.

‘You’ve got so much done, you’re only human and it will be fine,’ Joy kept reassuring her.

‘But there’s so much to do…’

‘Maybe, but there are two of us to do it and no one will notice if you don’t have that toy train running through lit or unlit signals on the night.’ Joy laughed and of course she was right. Robyn had put together the train set a few weeks earlier to chug around the tops of the shelves in the transport section of the shop. Worst luck, some of the tiny lights in the crossing signals had blown and they were driving Robyn demented with the idea that everything was not as perfect as she wanted it to be.

‘Oh get over yourself,’ Fern said one evening. ‘Why don’t you ask Leo? He’ll sort it out for you in a heartbeat.’

‘I don’t think he likes being in the shop with Joy.’

‘Are you sure about that?’

‘Okay, maybe it’s the other way round.’

‘Actually, if anything, I think he really likes her, but then she’s probably completely takenhimin too,’ her mother said under her breath and Robyn just rolled her eyes because it wasn’t so long ago that Fern was all the go for Joy.

‘Stop it, she’s lovely…’

‘Oh, please,’ Fern sighed.

‘You know, I think Albie was right.’

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