Page 45 of Oyster

Silence yawned between us. I wanted something to break it: the cab radio, a crashing wave, cawing gulls. Max had begun to cry, and I knew he didn’t want me to see. Instead, I counted the spatters of bird shit on the tractor bonnet and imagined Éti, going about her day at PSG, pretending to be solemn, intense Étienne, and hugging her secrets close.

Trying to find some room in the cramped cab, Max shifted in the seat and wiped his nose on his sleeve. “What are you going to do afterwards?”

Afterwardsbeing code for the motherless future we couldn’t voice aloud. I frowned.

“What do you mean?”

He lit another cigarette “Are you going to fuck off to Paris?”

“No.” I swivelled as much as the small seat would allow. “Why are you asking me that?”

With a moue, Max took a huge drag, tilting his head so the smoke streamed out of the cracked window.

“Now you’ve got your fancy girlfriend. Who you can’t stop texting and talking to, late at night. I’ve heard you. Are you going to fuck off up there? Afterwards? Because you know me and Dad can’t do the farm without you. Not now. Dad’s not capable.”

Merde, at last we were getting to the bottom of it.

“Mate, I don’t know what you remember from school geography lessons, but last time I checked, there wasn’t much sea around the Champs-Élysées. Of course I’m not going to fuck off to Paris! I’ve got a bloody hundred-year-old family oyster business to run here, haven’t I?”

“But you like her, don’t you? She’ll persuade you eventually. Women always get what they want in the end.”

Said the lad who never spoke to women unless they were his mum or his sister. Me and Flor had always suspected he was gay. Now he was a mini expert.

“Listen to me, Max. Yes, I like her, but I’ll never be moving to Paris. It’s a big fat no. As simple as that. Although I’m travelling up to see her next weekend if Mum’s well enough. But only for a night. I’ll be straight back here on Sunday afternoon.”

“Will you ask her if she’s got any more of those free tickets?”

I exhaled a sigh of relief. We were talking. “Will you promise not to disappear again? Or at least give us some warning first?”

Friday evenings in our household had always beenplease yourselftypes of affairs, and my mum’s illness hadn’t changed that. Dinner was a plate of cold meats and cheese on your lap, to be eaten as early as five-thirty, as late as eleven-thirty, orskipped altogether in favour of a pizza on the way home fromL’Escale.

Which meant this Friday was out of the ordinary. Even more unusual was my dad’s sobriety, and his request we all ate together. As his pleading eyes both threatened and braced for defeat, I had never craved alcohol more.

“Are you going to come and join us for half an hour, Zoë?” I hung in my sister’s bedroom doorway like I was too scared to enter. Perhaps I was.

“Wasn’t planning on it.” She lounged on the bed, tapping on her phone.

“Have you eaten already?”

“No. I’ll get something later.”

“Max is downstairs,” I offered, as an enticement.

“Good for Max.”

I’d had a long day poring over office paperwork, and a headache was brewing. Her gel nails pecking hungrily at the phone screen weren’t helping. I rested my head against the doorframe, and a long minute passed as Zoë pretended that I wasn’t there. Massaging my temples, I waited it out before deciding it was time for the passive-aggressive guilt trip.

“Mum and Dad would like you to join us, seeing as we’re all here together.”

“Don’t try and shame me into it, Nico.”

My tone softened. “Come on, Zoë. I know all this upsets you, but let’s make them happy. Just for half an hour or so. I’m not asking much.”It might be for the very last time.

“For fuck's sake, Nic.”

Her teenage huffing and puffing as she flounced out of the room, combined with an evil snarl aimed squarely in my direction, were the only bright points in my tedious, never-ending day.

With Max, I let my eyes do the talking, shooting a fierce glare at the computer game on the TV screen until he threw aside the controller and lumbered to his feet, like his presence bestowed a huge favour.

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