Page 69 of The Bookshop Ladies

‘Robyn, seriously, you were going to just give it away, donate it to some library or museum, when it could have completely changed your life.’

‘My life or your life?’ she said, because as much as she’d wanted to pretend this wasn’t happening, suddenly it felt as if a small screw had tightened up somewhere in her heart and her spine galvanised and there was no unseeing Kian for exactly what he was. ‘Well?’

‘You know what I mean, our lives… our lives could have been completely…’

‘My life is alreadycompletely– as you say. I am already happy. I’m not a multi-millionaire. I most likely never will be and I’m okay with that. I have a business I love, people who care about me. I always thought you were one of them,’ she said, but her heart had hardened and she could hear it in her voice.

‘I am, oh Robyn, I’ll always care for you, we’ll always be close, I mean, I couldn’t imagine life without you and Fern and Albie…’

‘Well, you’re going to have to start imagining it,’ she said, reaching towards the copy ofAliceand moving it closer to her.

‘Please, I’ll do anything, we could go anywhere if you sell that book, open up a bookshop in paradise, if you like, just the two of us…’

‘Don’t you see, I’ve already found my own paradise, Kian?’ and next to her, she thought she could feel Will smile.

‘So, that’s it? All those years, when I came down to Ballycove, all those times when I bolstered you up and called you because you needed a friend?’

‘Our friendship went both ways, Kian, it wasn’t a one-way street, not ever,’ she said stubbornly, because over the last few hours, she’d realised that, actually, she had invested a lot more in it than he had.

‘I know that, of course, I didn’t mean you weren’t… I mean, you’ve been the most important person in my life for so long and…’ He stopped because maybe he knew, Imogene had changed that and stealingAlicehad finished it off. ‘All of that, it means nothing now?’

‘Not nothing, no.’ She stopped. ‘Because of that, I’m not going to press charges.’

‘Oh, Robyn, thank you, thank you. I can make everything perfect again between us, just give me a chance, please.’ He was begging her now.

‘Kian, listen to me. I’m not going to press charges, but things will never go back to the way they were. When we walk out the door of this station, we go our separate ways. I don’t ever want to see you in Ballycove again, nowhere near my family, and I never want to set eyes on Imogene Norton again either,’ she said and saying it felt almost like she was casting off a stifling overcoat on a summer’s day.

‘But we’re not even together any more… I’ve ended it with her…’

‘She’s parked outside, Kian, I spotted her sitting in her car across the street.’So much for love’s young dream.Robyn stood up, picked upAliceand left the room with Will. As she closed the door softly behind her, she heard Kian begin to cry and she had a feeling that even if he hadn’t gone to court for this, in every other way, he knew he had lost far more than he’d ever stood to gain.

‘Ready to go home?’ Will asked when they walked out of the station.

‘More than ready,’ she said and she turned to wave goodbye to Imogene for a final time.

‘That’s the girlfriend?’ Will asked.

‘Yep, that’s perfect Imogene. They are welcome to each other,’ Robyn said and she meant it.

‘My grandmother would say,as God made them he matched them.’ They both laughed at that. ‘Sure you’re all right?’ he asked when they got into the car.

‘I’m fine,’ she said, he had taken her hand and it felt as if she’d been shot through with a volt of electricity. ‘Really, fine.’

‘Good,’ he said and then he leant across and kissed her, long and slow and exactly the sort of kiss that pushed everything else from her mind.

47

Sometimes, Joy felt as though she had lived in Ballycove all her life. It was hardly a week since the bookshop party and although so much had happened, she couldn’t quite shake the feeling that life in a small village was meant to go at a slower pace than it would in Paris.

She found herself thinking about this often, comparing the life she might be living if she hadn’t come here. It would be a lot more solitary – she was sure of that. She imagined she would have met friends for coffee occasionally – other widows, divorced women who like Joy suddenly found themselves with more time on their hands than they knew what to do with.

Here Joy still made time for coffee but, far from being the main event, she had to squeeze it into her already packed week. Aside from helping out in the shop most days, she had joined a book club – the gingernut ladies had insisted she stay on last Monday evening and she had really enjoyed it. At the end of her first meeting, she realised her face actually hurt, because she’d laughed so much.

Yesterday, she’d agreed to go on a cycle with Lochlainn and Fern. Neither she nor Fern were ever going to do the Tour de France, but it didn’t matter, it would be fun. Fern confided she hadn’t sat on a bike in well over forty years, but Joy was looking forward to it.

And then, added to all of that, it turned out she had family here. To her own amazement, this proved to be the most anchoring thing for Joy. When Albie had announced she was family at the launch, she’d found herself overcome with tears – emotionally it had flicked a switch inside her.

He was right of course, they were family. Okay, so admittedly the biological connections were tenuous to say the least. ‘Ara don’t be minding that, don’t you know at this stage that every Yank that ever strode a pavement has Irish blood somewhere in their veins,’ he laughed later. It was so much more than that though. She knew Albie had seen something in her – that disconnected core of her that hadn’t really belonged anywhere or with anyone after her mother died all those years ago. She had belonged, for a time, with Yves; that was undeniable, no matter how much he had hurt her by hiding the truth of Robyn from her. She would always love him. He had been her world for such a very long time.

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