Page 14 of Oyster

“Waouh. How do you keep the oysters there? Don’t they swim away to avoid being eaten?” She clapped a hand over her mouth. “That’s another stupid question, isn’t it?”

As a matter of fact, it was a very sweet one. I smiled down at her. “No comment. They’re trapped in pouches, basically big sacks with holes in them and laid out in organised rows on tables. And oysters can’t swim beyond about three weeks of age—in the wild they have this narrow window to find a suitable spot, then settle there for life. The sacks keep similar ages and sizes together and protect our livestock from predators, like crabs. Our farm is like an oyster library but with all the books filed according to size and age. You should come back at low tide. It’s much easier to understand.”

“I’d like that. So, the oysters just sit there on their library shelves, waiting for someone to check them out?”

I hummed. “It’s a little more complicated than that.” Putain, was I really going to bore a megastar with this shit?

“We grow them from what is known as a seed and then move them around the farm according to their size and the growing conditions required at a particular age. From the time we start to cultivate them, it takes three to four years for oysters to reach the restaurants. Only about 25 percent, the lucky ones, make the grade.”

“The best sellers.”

She fingered the damp pouches on the rack next to her. Max had emptied them out this morning and brought inside formending. Maybe I was merely comparing them with my own, but she had elegant slim hands, with nice nails. Her movements were elegant too, which shouldn’t have been a surprise considering her nickname.

“Do you like it?” she asked. “Being an oyster farmer?”

I shrugged. “Yeah, I suppose? I’ve never given it much thought. It’s what my family has done since 1921. Over a hundred years. La Forge blood, sweat, and tears run down these walls. I’m not sure I ever considered doing anything else.”

“It’s very cool. I’d like to come back at low tide and ask some more stupid questions.”

Mon dieu, she was polite. I’d give her that. “Will you tell me what car you drive if you do?”

“Sure,” she laughed, “but it will take a while. I have… several. I check those in and out like library books too. In some respects, I’m a soccer player cliché.”

Tipping her head back, she drained her coffee. “Not all respects, obviously.”

Handing me her empty cup, she folded her arms across her chest, contemplating me. The other Éti was back, the cool collected one that didn’t take any shit. “So, Nico, my offer is still on the table. And you’ve had time to consider and reflect. On all the expensive things you’d like to buy. On all the wonderful places you’d like to visit.”

On the life you’d love to be able to save but never could, no matter how much money you threw at it.

I thought of my poor mum soldiering on. Even though I fucking detested all the battle analogies associated with cancer treatment, I couldn’t deny her that one. Getting through the days as the clock wound down was all we had left. Like a punch to my stomach, that message had hit home today. Her death no longer something abstract, alluded to in conversations with doctors oreach other behind her back, but very real and creeping over the horizon.

Maybe if I’d met Éti a year earlier, when there was still a chance of cure, then my response would have been different.

“Keep your money. Donate it to a cancer charity. Do something good with it. Make a real difference to people’s lives. It won’t make a difference to mine.”

Silence stretched between us as we regarded each other. Éti weighing up whether to trust my words, and me trying not to fidget under her steady gaze, to appear trustworthy. Day-to-day sounds normally smothered by noisy work activities pierced the void. The wind whistling through a split in a corner of corrugated roofing I should have fixed months ago. In synch with the window rattling. Gulls cawing, diving down to pick at detritus in the yard, no doubt dropping bird shit all over the tractor. A dripping tap in the kitchenette. The relentless rhythmic roar of the tide.

Éti, motionless, breathing slow steady breaths, like she was focusing on lining up the perfect free kick. “Okay.” She nodded, just once, decision made. “I’ll have a non-disclosure form ready for you to sign tomorrow before I return to Paris. Come over to the house.”

“Fine, no problem.”

With business settled, she turned as if to go, then hesitated. “If you like or have the time, Nico, we could go for a walk along the beach afterwards.”

“Why on earth would you want to do that?”

She seemed startled. Her offer would thrill most folk.

“Sorry, that was rude. Yes, of course, I’ll come to the house and sign it. What I meant was—don’t you have anything better to do?”

A flush bloomed on her cheeks. “Um… not really, no. I don’t have to be back in Paris until early evening. And… no one knowsÉti, except you. It’s weird, but, as well as frightening me half to death, being myself with someone is kind of cool. We could take a stroll. You could show me your oyster beds and explain the work you were doing the other morning when you found me.”

What did I have to lose? As long as everything was status quo at home with my mum, I might as well milk the most bizarre episode of my life for every drop. “Sure, okay.”

“Don’t knock yourself out, Nico.” Teasing Éti was back, the one I liked. “Chaps out there would sell their grandmothers for an exclusive interview with me. Not that they’ll ever get one, of course.”

Alarm zipped across her face, and she held a hand up to her mouth. “Unless, merde, you’re not married or something are you? I don’t want to tread on any toes. I should have asked first. I mean, not that I’m, like, coming on to you or anything.”

Mon dieu, now it was the turn of the most famous footballer in France to be flustered. And she wanted to spend time with me. How crazy was that? Even better that I’d already decided I enjoyed her company. Her potpourri of reactions puzzled me, too: eager like a child one minute, then closed off, world weary and suspicious the next. Of course I wanted to delve deeper. Who wouldn’t?

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