Page 25 of Oyster

“No, I… I just thought we hadn’t talked, you know, properly in a while. You don’t spend as much time with us downstairs as you used to.”

“I prefer being in here.” With a brisk, circular motion, she rubbed cream into the side of her nose, then frowned. “To hanging around death’s waiting room.”

“Hey, don’t be like that.”

“Like what?” She swivelled on the chair to face me, shrewd blue eyes narrowed, challenging me. The spitting image of my mum. “Honest, you mean?”

“That’s not honest. It’s just…”

“It’s just what? Too close for comfort? I’m sorry. You want me to be more like you, do you? Carrying on as if nothing’s wrong? Going to football matches, having a beer with your mates, getting up and heading in to work like everything is fine and fucking dandy?”

“We’ve still got to pay the bills, Zoë.”

“You and Dad do that across the bar at L’Escale, do you?”

Her words might have been angry, and her body language was fucking livid, but I wasn’t so many years beyond being a teen myself. Hot tears weren’t far away. At her age, I’d been up one minute and down the next, brittle moods swinging like a pendulum. The prickly bundle of hormones, now twisting away from me again and furiously dabbing at her face, was navigating all the emotional shit that came with being seventeenandassimilating the fact that she was soon to be motherless.

In that moment, more than anything, I wished I was better equipped to cope.

“What else can I do, Zoë?” I asked, resisting the urge to yell back. “None of it feels normal for me either. Nor Max. Not for a second. But we can’t just… she doesn’t want us to sit around… I don’t know… moping and waiting. I’m trying to get through the days, like you are. That’s all. Why don’t you see if you can go out, arrange to do something with one of your friends?”

“What do you suggest?” She jabbed her finger into the pot of cream. “Because it’s a bit of mood killer going over to Sabine’s or Isabelle’s and slipping into the conversation that no, you’re not going on holiday this year because your mum’s dying of cancer. And no, you can’t come back to mine, because there’s a pharmacy and a day bed set up in the fucking lounge. And, oh yeah, that cancer thing? It’s due to a gene apparently. So, I’m probably going to fucking die of it too. But yeah. Let’s go and watch that new Marvel film. Sounds fucking fantastic.”

The tears flowed after that, straight from the heart and brimming with all the pain and fear her head needed to offload but couldn’t put into words. Though no consolation, I knew too well how she felt. And sometimes, an annoying big brother had his uses. Like providing two strong arms built for hugging.

“It’s okay, ma chérie,” I soothed, rocking her. A fucking fat lie if ever there was one. As I said, I was ill equipped to cope. But my shoulder would always be available for her to sob into; as a big brother, I could at least offer her that. “It’s all going to be okay.”

“No, it’s not, Nico. She’s going to die. And I don’t want her to.”

“I know, sweet. I don’t want her to, either.”

Communicating with Éti through hand signals and blown kisses on national television was not a wooing strategy I was keen to pursue. Therefore, I popped my mobile number into her letterbox prior to the Champion’s League match and waited. Andno way did I check for messages at approximately five-minute intervals from the moment the players left the field. In triumph, too, because they won a tough match one goal to nil, the winner scored by Ruiz, with Éti providing the cross.

Watching Éti from the sofa, with my arm around my teary sister, was a hell of a lot less stressful than in the stands. Or maybe I’d become a little better acclimatised to going on a date with the world’s finest soccer player.

Regardless, I was still a bag of nerves when I picked Éti up on my motorbike the following lunchtime. I told myself my anxiety was down to Éti being Éti and not, like, because of feelings or anything. Which didn’t fully explain the tug in my chest as she launched herself at me, throwing her arms around my neck like I was rescuing her from a desert island.

“Ça alors,Nico! This is so exciting! I’ve never ridden on the back of a motorbike! Show me where I put my feet. And my hands. And how do I fix this strap on the helmet?”

Anxiety felt redundant when the subject of it unceremoniously hitched up her long flowing skirt and tucked it into her underwear. Chunky boots, another floral (home-made, she informed me in a rush of words) floaty thing, and a fitted soft leather jacket (which I guessed cost more than my bloody bike) was super cute. My sister’s pink helmet squashed onto her head was even cuter. When she finally stopped circling the bike and bombarding me with questions, she climbed up behind and clamped her arms around my middle, making sure to give my belly a friendly tickle.

“Are you sure you’re not Étienne Salvador’s younger, more annoying sister?”

She banged her helmet against mine, pinching my belly again. “I’ll let you off, Nico, but only because you said younger. Now, where are we headed? And I’m an adrenaline junkie, bythe way. So you are going to need to show me how fast this thing goes.”

Having already decided the gossipy patrons of L’Escale didn’t need to be kept abreast of my romantic habits or peer too closely at my date, I’d phoned ahead and reserved a corner table at an out-of-the-way seafood place on the north of the island, in the village of Les Portes. The swankier atmosphere guaranteed I wouldn’t run into anyone I knew. An added bonus was the large heated outdoor seating area overlooking the ocean, which meant Éti could legitimately hide behind her giant sunglasses. Playing it safe, I parked her with her back to the other diners.

“I’m starving,” she announced, rubbing her flat stomach and perusing the menu. “Are these your oysters?”

I shook my head. “No, but don’t let that stop you. I won’t be offended. They’re still locally grown here on the island.”

“Absolument, non.” Éti wrinkled her nose. “I’ll pass. I’m nothing if not loyal.”

Another brief perusal, before her eyes lit up and she leaned forward to whisper at me. “Hey, why don’t I order them and then pretend to be violently ill, like horribly poisoned by a… a seafood poison, and we could complain massively and then the restaurant would stop buying from that supplier and buy from you instead. Why don’t I do that?”

“Two goat’s cheese souffles, please,” I said to the approaching waitress.

“Spoilsport. How about we just share six oy…”

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