Page 8 of The Bookshop Ladies

‘So, what did you do?’

‘Well, at the start, I went round to all the hotels and asked if they’d like me to deliver bread first thing in the morning, before the breakfasts were made or the guests were awake. I did that for four towns out in every direction you can name. It meant my working day started at midnight, baking bread, and by the time I opened the front door of the shop, I already had a full shift over me. But I had Peggy at my side and we knew it would be worth it. We couldn’t afford to go under. You see, there was no backup plan.’ He put his hands up as if making a long-awaited confession.

‘It sounds as if you just worked twice as hard as anyone else in the village.’

‘Maybe, but at the time we just got on with it. If you want to be something more than you are, you have to work a bit harder or…’ he smiled now, tapped the side of his head again. ‘Maybe a bit smarter.’

‘You might be onto something there.’ She raised her mug in a toast and they settled into a thoughtful silence while Dolly considered her lettuce leaf.

The problem was of course that Robyn couldn’t afford to pay someone to work in the shop. But what if Albie was right? Maybe it was exactly what she needed. Fresh blood or at least fresh eyes, or just someone who was popular enough to draw a crowd – although part of her believed readers generally only turned up forwhatinterested them, more thanwhointerested them. It was certainly the case with her.

God, though, she’d had such plans when she’d started out. She dreamed of having this shop full of beautiful books, of having literary events and a book club meeting here every week. She imagined hosting talks by interesting people who might not get a chance to be heard elsewhere. She planned to organise the whole children’s section with the rocking chair and a few ancient eiderdowns she’d had cleaned for children’s story times. She envisioned parents arriving and dropping their children off while the adults browsed the shelves in peace and quiet for half an hour, picking up something interesting to lose themselves in once they had tucked their young ones into bed at night.

Why on earth hadn’t she done any of that? Why indeed? Later, as she turned over the sign on the door to let the uncaring public know the bookshop was closed for the evening, she sighed. Maybe old Albie was right. Perhaps, taking on someone to help out would allow her time to think. At the very least, it might give her time to make some sort of action plan and get things moving in the right direction.

6

In the end, Joy decided to leave her car in Paris. Ursula, who had been thegardienneat their building for as long as she could remember, promised to turn the engine over every few days. She’d look in on the apartment too and let Joy know if there were bills to sort or post to open.

Instead she flew to Dublin and took a train to the beautiful west of Ireland. Of course, she hadn’t factored in hoiking the painting along with her. She was lucky, Jacques offered to wrap it for the journey and so, it was protected against any damage far better than she might have managed, but it still remained a worry when it was out of sight. As she raced for the train in Heuston, she wondered if she should have just booked the ferry and sucked up the time waste of the journey in return for the convenience of putting the damn thing in the trunk and leaving it there until she shoved it into Robyn Tessier’s hands.

Still, too late now, she thought once she was sitting in a carriage, the painting stowed safely in the bag shelves before her.

For the first time in her life, she had booked a little apartment in a place she didn’t know with Airbnb and even managed to make it down in time to pick up her keys from the bakery underneath the apartment before it closed for the day. It was with no small amount of satisfaction that she sipped a cold glass of wine on the evening of her arrival overlooking the village that tumbled down towards the distant sea.

In spite of everything, the auburn sun, the aroma of fresh flowers and that uniquely Irish moist air managed to lift her spirits as she gazed out her open window on the first evening. She could almost convince herself she was just like any other holiday-maker – well, perhaps it was a little early in the season for tourists. Still, in an unexpected wave of relief, it felt good to be away from the growing claustrophobia of Paris and her apartment.

‘Bon soir!’ She heard the greeting from the window beneath hers and looked down to see an elderly gentleman, looking up at her with a small glass of what looked like rum.

‘Hey there,’ Joy called down, already charmed by the attempt at French pronunciation that fell flat, but was accompanied by the friendliest smile.

‘Oh? You’re not French!’ The man smiled at her.

‘No, sorry,’ she laughed, ‘I’m American through and through, but I’ve come from Paris. I’ve lived in France for oh…’ she had to think about it, ‘almost thirty years now, if that’s any consolation.’ She smiled at him, knew she was wittering on, but it always felt important to make the distinction.

‘No need to apologise, we love Americans every bit as much as we love the French,’ his face creased up into a thousand lines as he laughed. ‘Have you been to Ballycove before?’ He had the most piercing blue eyes; they gave his appearance a disconcerting alertness.

‘No, never, and I am hoping to see it all in just two weeks.’ She laughed too now, because it was obvious there wasn’t much more to the village than one long winding street that climbed high over the sea and a small village square hidden behind it. ‘Will I manage it, do you think?’

‘Hard to say, maybe if you really pack it all in.’ He stopped then, rubbed his head for a moment. ‘I thought perhaps you might take on the place for longer.’

‘No such luck, I’m afraid.’ She hadn’t realised the apartment was a long-term let – that explained its reasonable price perhaps.

‘Well, you never know. There are worse places to end up,’ he said, raising his glass to her. ‘I’ve been here my whole life. I owned the whole building, spent a lifetime here. The bakery? That bakery downstairs? I worked there for sixty-three years, would you believe?’

‘I…’ she didn’t get a chance to let him know whether she did or not.

‘I handed the lot over to my son a few years ago. Hard to let it go, at the time, but now, I’m only sorry I didn’t do it years earlier.’

‘You’re enjoying your retirement, then?’ she asked. She was leaning over the windowsill, so he didn’t have to stretch so much. She could see now, he was exactly how she would imagine an old-fashioned baker to look. She could picture his cloud of white hair, his large fat nose, those striking eyes, fastened beneath a huge baker’s cap. Mostly, she could imagine him charming the customers – no doubt he made every housewife smile.

‘Yes, very much. I have time for my family and I meet up with old friends still living in the village for a badly played game of bingo far too often for it to be a good thing.’

‘Badly played games are the best sort, if you ask me.’ She smiled at him.

‘Ah, you’re being kind, but you’re much too young to settle for either.’

‘And you are much too charming to really believe that, no matter what you say.’

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