Page 19 of Oyster

So, in many ways, the news was almost a relief. It still fucking stung, though.

Discussions abruptly switched tack; the battalions of courageous battling soldiers marched off; their empty spaces taken up with less hackneyed words likecomfort care,syringe drivers,andpalliative medicines. And, whatever the fuck those were, she didn’t need them yet.

What struck the most, in the dark hours and days that followed, was how the crazy normalcy of life still drifted along. Standing in the hospital carpark, for instance, fumbling for loose change in front of an overengineered ticket machine and working out which button to press. Placating the impatient man behind us with a smile and a joke, like my mum hadn’t been handed down a life sentence less than a half hour earlier. Then grumbling about the queue at the temporary traffic lights on the way home. And, once installed, the mundane conversations about needing more bog rolls or who was going to put the bins out. Bills were still paid, laundry still piled up, dental appointments still came and went. My mum still switched on the lamp in our dingy porch towards the end of every afternoon because she preferred it that way. Because it made our home more welcoming.

Which of us, if anyone, would remember to do that after she’d gone?

“It feels like when we brought you home from the hospital as a one-day-old baby,” she remarked, scratching behind her ears. I’d become used to her wig. She hadn’t. She wore it nonetheless; I think she believed it was less upsetting for my dad.

I stared at her in surprise. “Does it? I know I haven’t been a model child, but I would have hoped that was a more upbeat occasion.”

Another odd thing. Even with this awfulness hanging over her, over all of us, we still shared a joke, because that was mine and my mum’s love language. We were still us, just dimmer, unlit, and less welcoming porch versions.

“Yes, but I remember plonking you on that rug over there, in your little Moses basket, and then me and your dad stared at each other, as if to say, what now? Because all the midwives and nurses and visitors had gone, and we were two clueless kids expected to get on with it.”

I often ended up alone with her in the front room. Not through obligation—she’d already insisted we didn’t hang around moping—but because I was the only one who hadn’t yet devised a workable grieving strategy. My dad's modus operandi after each carved slice of bad news was to head straight to L’Escale,our local bar, where no one would ask any questions because everyone had already joined the dots; his eyes said it all. Max always disappeared out on the tractor, chasing the tide and tossing oyster pouches until he collapsed with exhaustion. Zoë shut herself in her room, turning her music up very loud. Disconnected souls, all of us, our mundane conversations no better than silence.

“What did you do?”

She huffed a soft laugh. Even with death sniffing around, memories brought some comforting cheer. “Your dad made us both a cheese sandwich, and then he put the telly on, and we watched the news, just like any other ordinary night of the week. That’s how this feels too, except I'm too nauseous to eat a cheese sandwich. Cuddling a baby would be nice, though.”

I flapped at the collar of my shirt. She felt the cold a lot more these days, so I’d cranked up the fire and set the radiators blaring.

“I’d liked to have seen one of you settled,” she added.

The TV sat idle, as did her sewing machine; she struggled to concentrate on anything these days.

“There’s still time,” I felt obliged to point out.

“I’m not holding my breath. Max is too young, and anyway, he’s more interested in tinkering with tractors and that bloody Xbox than girls. And if Zoë wants to find herself a boyfriend, she’ll have to get off her phone and step outside her bedroom.”

Nothing short of a housefire would coax Zoë out. Like a toddler covering her eyes, as long as she couldn’t see it, then maybe my younger sister could convince herself, if only for a few hours, it wasn’t happening.

“Mind you, I was the same as a teenager.” Staring at the flickering flames, her eyes glazed over. “Drove my mother mad. Stewed in there for hours, taping the chart show on Oüi FM and experimenting with makeup.”

“Mmm.” We both knew Zoë’s behaviour was more complicated. Six months ago, she’d have been plumped on the sofa with us, bitching about the latest saga with her mates at school.

“I already had two kids when I was your age, Nico. You’re the one I’d really like to see settle down. But you’ve always been too busy playing the field. Your uncle was the same. Too handsome to pick just one.”

“He’s settled now, though,” I said, trying to appease her. This wasn’t the first time she’d compared me to her brother; from photos I’d seen when he was my age, we could have been twins. “Very happy, isn’t he?”

“Mon dieu, yes. If he’s anything to go by, when you fall, Nico, you will fall hard. You won’t know what’s hit you.”

Waouh, as Éti would say.

Now why the hell had she popped into my head?

A thick white envelope addressed to me and bearing a Paris postmark landed in the rusty letterbox nailed to the oyster shed door. Three tickets fell out, boasting the same red-and-blue Eiffel tower logo as the PSG calendar hanging above, triggering unexpected sensations in my belly. The loopy, girlish handwriting on the note accompanying the tickets did even stranger things to my insides. “A small thank youto my rugby-loving, oyster-shucking, guardian angel. Come and watch my alter-ego dance!”

The tickets were for the away game against mid-table FC Nantes, so an easy train ride from La Rochelle. Obviously, only one person could have sent them. A replay of that person larking about on the beach, in a flowing red dress and gold monogrammed running shoes, interrupted my thoughts several times a day.

Her timing couldn’t have been better. A break from work and home would do Max a power of good. Zoë would rather eat her own arm than sit through a soccer match, and asking my dad to stray further than a mile from my mum was a complete waste of time. Florian, however, would love the trip out, even if he did know bugger all about football. I, of course, pretended to myself that being sent a handwritten note and VIP tickets to a soccer game by Éti Salvador wasn’t a big deal.

“How the fuck did you wangle these seats?”

The longest sentence Max had uttered since we’d set off. I was pathetically relieved. The aftershocks of the latest bad news had hit us hard. Zoë had cried angry tears. Meanwhile, my dad oscillated around my mum like she was going to disappear in a puff of smoke if he took his eyes off her, until, irritated, she shooed him off to L’Escale.Whereas Max… did nothing, his deafening silence expressing his pain way more than words or floods of tears.

“More likewhothe fuck,” laughed Florian.

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