Page 12 of Oyster

“Honestly, Éti. Cross my heart and hope to be smothered in rotten raw oysters.”

She swore, then huffed a laugh, soft and throaty. “You know what? I might fucking believe you. Which could be the most stupid thing I’ve ever done.”

“It’s not. Because I won’t. I’m lucky, Éti. I have a good life here, and I’m not in the business of fucking up anyone else’s. I’ll still sign your form, though. If it helps you sleep better.”

She eyed me in that speculative way, remaining unsure. Who could blame her? “It’s a shame there aren’t more people like you in the world. But can I see you tomorrow anyway?”

“Why on earth would you want to?”

In her shoes, I’d like to forget we’d ever met.

“To double-check you haven’t changed your mind. To give you another twenty-four hours to reconsider. Because, to be blunt, Nico, you sound too good to be true.”

“I’m not. I’m… I’m just… not a dick, I guess.”

She barked a laugh. “In some ways, I’d have more peace of mind if you were. In my fucked-up world, trusting someone’s word is much scarier than a cold financial transaction. I do a lot more of the latter than the former.”

I shrugged. “Okay then, if it makes you happy, I’ll think about it. But don’t expect my answer to change.”

CHAPTER 5

Most of the next day, I was tied up sweating over paperwork while Max and my dad graded and washed oysters in the yard. On the radio in the background, newsreaders droned on about the latest series of strikes by rail workers and warned of heavy rains sweeping across the north, while football pundits attributed Paris Saint-Germain’s crushing four-nil home defeat against a strong Olympique Lyonnais to the absence of their star player.

So, nothing more than another routine, forgettable shift at work, right? Except that star player was holed up half a mile along the road, and I was meeting up with her later.

The last forty-eight hours of my reality would be imprinted in my brain forever. At every mention of the elusive Étienne Salvador, a jumble of contradictions buzzed through my head. She’d gone from that gifted and idolised soccer player on the telly to a pretty riddle wrapped in a home-sewn dress.

Who was the real petit danseur? Or, rather, the realpetite danseuse? Was she that sad drunk woman, lipstick bleeding from the corners of her mouth and wild hair matted with sick? Or was she the edgy, shuttered sports celebrity, sewing clothes as a distraction from media vilification and offering a bleakfinancial transaction in exchange for my silence? Did the world’s greatest soccer star buy her friends' silence that way too?

Or perhaps the real woman was none of those. Perhaps she was Éti, funny and charming, barefoot with a rare and cute chipped smile, finding simple delight in booting pebbles into the stratosphere.

My mum had walked down to the sheds for some fresh air; the short stroll tired her, although she brushed off my dad’s concerns, even as she let him shoo her into the cramped office and switch the two-bar heater onto full blast. Yesterday had been chemo day, so even getting out of bed this morning was an impressive feat. The proof of her bad night was writ large on her pale cheeks and wasted body. Her clothes had become two sizes too big.

While Max and my dad finished grading, I made her a weak cup of coffee.

“You’ve been quiet this last while, Nico.”

I had. Who would notice something like that after she’d gone? Not Max or my dad. And not Zoë, either. Florian, perhaps, but I was his old mate, not his boyfriend. I couldn’t go crying to him with all my problems.

Mon dieu, how I was going to miss her. Even this dulled, yellowed version. Corny maybe, but my mum was the glue that bound our family together. When she hummed, the whole family sang along. Whether cajoling my dad out of his curmudgeonly best, coaxing a smile from a sulky teenage Zoë, or throwing her arms around Max for a cuddle when every uptight bone in his body screameddon’t touch. But above all that, she was my friend and my mother, and a bloody decent one.

“I’m fine.” I placed a steaming cup at her elbow while pushing aside the temptation to share my extraordinary two days with her.

“Thank you, love. Just what the doctor ordered.”

After riffling in her handbag for a strip of pills, she counted out a couple in her palm. “Let’s see if these new anti-sickness meds do the trick.”

She flicked through a sheaf of health and safety updates both me and my dad had been avoiding and sorted them into piles. Ideally, we’d employ someone for a few hours each week to manage the paperwork, seeing as we both hated it and she had stepped back. And update our computers, perhaps invest in a streamlined accountancy package. That kind of software didn’t come cheap, although it wouldn’t make a dent in the money Éti had on offer.

“Most of this is rubbish,” she declared. “The ones you need to address are on the top.”

She pushed the pile aside. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched her gamely sipping at a drink she couldn’t taste in a room failing to warm her. Fucking chemo. Was there no better way than that medieval blunt instrument, hellbent on poisoning good cells as well as bad? Why couldn’t those thousands of scientists across the globe invent a cleverer drug that only did what it was supposed to, without ravaging every other part of her as well? Because where was the value in prolonging a life so unpleasant it became beyond worth living?

“I’ve been thinking,” I began tentatively. The sight of her made me wonder if I had said no too quickly, especially since Éti’s offer was still open. “We could make an appointment to go up to that clinic in Paris if this round of treatment doesn’t work. Or even the one in London we read about, running that new clinical trial?”

She offered me a tired smile. “Are you going to rob a bank to put me up at Le Bristol or the Ritz for a month so they can stick even more pins into me? No thanks.”

“We could, though,” I pressed. “Find somewhere nice to stay. Scrounge the money out of the business. We could even getin touch with that specialist in California if you think it might help.”

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