Chapter 12
CHAPTER 12
Max disappeared. Everybody at work assumed he was elsewhere until somebody realised he wasn’t. A tractor went missing too. For the first few hours, we told ourselves going off grid to sort his head was fine. As best we could, my dad and I hid it from my mum—she was zonked on meds for great swathes of the day anyhow—and we told Zo? he’d gone over to a mate’s. But after twenty-four hours of more and more frantic texts and voice mails and trying not to imagine the worst, we were climbing the walls.
At the end of a second day, about to assemble a search party, he responded, a casual one-line text like he’d popped out for a quick beer and why were we all fussing so much? He just needed some alone time apparently, the fucker. And me and my dad were booked in for new coronary arteries, but the bugger hadn’t considered that.
“Okay, mate?”
Parked up on the edge of one of the bleaker beaches on the far side of the island, Max slouched in the cab, looking and smelling every inch a guy who had been there all night. “Yeah. You?”
I swung my leg up onto the step. “Budge up.”
“There’s only one seat.”
“I know. Thank fuck we’re both skinny, yeah?”
Big brothers: the gift that kept on giving.
Now I was here, I hadn’t got a fucking clue what to say to him. Half of me wanted to smack him round the head for making me and Dad freak with worry. The other half wanted to… yeah, do the same, except with an extra dollop of shouting. But he was cold and tired and fucking miserable, not to mention very young and about to lose his mother. And éti had promised me I was the right man for this.
Instead of yelling, I squashed up next to him and stared out at the empty grey sea lapping moodily at the pebbled shore, while he smoked a cigarette.
“Calm today.” I gestured out the window. “South-easterly getting up later.”
Did I mention my struggles to charm my baby sister? My brother sometimes had the same effect too. He gave my banal comment the answer it deserved: none. So I let my thoughts drift to éti, as they often did of their own accord anyhow. What if I had sent Max, that day we discovered her snoozing in the shallows? Would it be me unable to sleep and roaming the house and the beaches at night with no one to turn to?
“When do you think it’s going to happen?” He examined his fag end before flicking ash out of the window.
“What?”
“You know. You were at the last appointment with her.”
Both of us stared straight ahead. Hard to believe a sea like this one, flat and uninspiring, could callously strip away lives. Or create such a diverse wealth of them, either.
I shrugged. “How long is a piece of string? The doctors don’t know. Everyone’s different.”
“Yeah, but are we talking weeks, months, or years? Because carrying on every day like this is fucking shit.”
His voice cracked and caught in his throat. Putain. What did you say to that? He knew it wasn’t years—that was him clinging to false hope. Did I tell him months was optimistic, too? The pain of that last draining hospital appointment still lodged in my chest, like even my heart was tired. There was a reason my dad had gone straight to L’Escale afterwards. As the doctor recounted the problems with her failing liver and the golf-ball-sized lesions filling her lungs, my dazed mum sagged in her plastic seat like she almost welcomed the news. Like she wanted to board a plane in the hope it might crash, so it could all be fucking over.
How long was a piece of string? Too long, yet not long enough.
“I think we’ve got to take things a day at a time,” I offered diplomatically. Uselessly. More banal shit. I felt lumpen and pointless. A day at a time? Inch by inch felt more accurate. I wished éti were here; she’d be better at this than me. She’d have her arm around him for a start, offering some comfort, but if I tried, he’d tell me to fuck off.
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?”
Afterwards being 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 been please yourself types 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, or skipped altogether in favour of a pizza on the way home from L’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, Zo??” 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 Zo? 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, Zo?. 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.
Bless him, my dad had made an effort, though it would take a hell of a lot more than his best shirt and a squirt of aftershave to detract from misty eyes above cheeks hollowed out by sadness. He’d dredged up a colourful tablecloth too, spread out across the dining room table, which Max and I dragged alongside the sofa, so my mum didn’t have to get up. Far too big, the checked cloth hung down on all sides, prompting my mum to joke she could wear it as a cape.
With a flourish, my dad produced an iced platter of shucked oysters, interspersed with our neighbouring farm’s glorious fat crevettes, piled high and spread in a fan. With another theatrical gesture, he produced a little dish of the piquant mignonette sauce my mum swore he made better than anyone. As us kids pulled up dining room chairs, he sank next to her on the sofa.
“Tuck in,” he said brightly, leading the way.
La Forge oysters. The creamiest, most succulent, and best on the island. Award-winning, served at some of the finest seafood restaurants in France.
Maybe so, but you’d have had a hard time convincing me tonight. Their sharp saltiness stung my lips; my dad’s fiery sauce burned my tongue; the smooth meat snagged in my throat. With my eyes fixed on my plate, I attempted to eat. On my right, Zo? fought her own battle, while Max hunched over his plate like a savage, shovelling them down as fast as possible, sending the shells clattering into a bowl. His slurps cut through the silence, turning my stomach over. None of us dared raise our eyes from our plates as my dad tenderly fussed over my mum.
“All right, my love?” He wiped her mouth with a napkin. “Some bread to follow? Shall I butter it for you?”
I couldn’t imagine having a childhood sweetheart. I had been one of the disruptive boys at the back of class, chewing illicit gum and shredding erasers in pencil sharpeners. The kind of boy swotty girls delighted in telling tales on, not holding hands with. At least until they hit puberty, anyhow. But my mum and dad had been glued to each other since sharing a desk on their first day of school. And, as the teenage years hit, they had gone from making sandcastles to making a home and then making babies.
Their marriage hadn’t all been a bed of roses, of course. At best, my dad was a grumpy sod and, at worst, a bit of a loner. Everyone said I was a chip off the old block, and I daresay they weren’t wrong. Unlike me, though, he was stuck in a time warp; he liked his dinner on the table after a day at work and his wife to keep a tidy house and bring up the kids. Lucky for him, my mum had been on the same page. Mind you, like any other couple navigating a long-term relationship, they knew how to argue. Until my mum’s illness, they’d had some right humdingers. The walls of the house had shaken. When he was particularly obtuse, she threw things.
But when childhood sweethearts bickered, they didn’t need to bring up old photo albums or go on date nights to rekindle the love. They simply chuntered about the other under their breath for half an hour, then swallowed their pride.
What they didn’t know how to do, of course, was carry on alone.
Silent tears trickled down Zo?’s face, and an empty shell dropped from her hand. I slipped my arm around her back. With grim determination, Max sawed slice after slice from a baguette before starting on a second loaf, far more than any of us could eat.
My mum cleared her throat, triggering a breathless cough, and held out a hand for Zo? to take.
“It’s okay. I’m okay, Zo?. Don’t be upset.”
Guaranteed to make my sister cry even more. I slipped from the table, returning with a box of tissues. Another stilted silence, except for Zo?’s sniffs.
“So, anyone got any good news?” My mum attempted a bright smile. “Any joy to share? Nico?”
Her yellowed eyes implored me to say something. Anything to keep my siblings and me in her presence for a little longer. To sprinkle a tiny piece of joy into her own evening, to distract her from her pain. Any second, Max would shuffle his chair back and have some urgent oyster sacks to toss, and Zo? would dash back to the fortress of her bedroom. My dad would open a can of beer and turn on the telly, and my mum would doze on the sofa next to him, waiting for death.
I remembered the conversation about settling down. And I remembered, too, the last time I’d shucked a few oysters, sprawled next to éti on a checked blanket, salty water dribbling down her chin. I recalled her carefree laughter, a sound I’d grown to love. The sound of pure and unadulterated joy.
“I’m heading up to Paris for a night tomorrow.” I smiled at her. “Does that count? To see éti.” I hesitated. “If that’s okay. Unless, I’ll stay if…”
“Of course it’s okay. You haven’t seen her for a couple of weeks, have you?”
“No. She’s been busy with work.”
“Oh. Well, that will be nice.”
The exchange petered out. The mound of oysters lay mostly untouched. Pink-bellied crevettes stared at us out of cloudy, dead eyes. Another stilted silence threatened. My headache beat an ugly tattoo against my skull. Zo? sniffled.
“We’re serious about each other,” I said.
Max smirked. Heat rose from under my collar. I ploughed forward anyhow, because… fuck it. She’d asked for some joy; the least any of us could do was fucking give her some.
“I’m going to bring her over soon, for you all to meet. Perhaps after the football season ends—she works for PSG and doesn’t have a lot of time.”
“What does she do for them?” asked my dad, buttering a piece of baguette. He offered it to Zo? and then prepared another for himself. “Big clubs these days are massive money-spinners, aren’t they? Is she in the marketing side of things?"
“Humm… sort of.” éti would decide when she came out and to whom, not me. Buying myself thinking time, I tipped my head back and swallowed an oyster. The meaty morsel slipped down much more easily. “She does play an important part in club promotion, but most of her time, she’s involved with the matches themselves.” I pictured éti, arms open and perfectly balanced, jinking between defenders with the grace of a ballerina. “Making sure PSG win.”
“Have you asked her yet about getting your hands on some more free tickets?” Max questioned around a mouthful of cheese. “In the VIP stand again would be great.”
Cheeky bugger. I could have ten tickets to every single match and my choice of seats, but Max didn’t need to know that. “I’m working on it,” I promised.
“Well, you need to get her over here soon,” said my dad. “It’s only fair she meets the good-looking men in the family.”
He winked at my brother. Even Zo?’s mouth quirked up at the edges. My dad dribbled a liberal amount of mignonette over an oyster before popping it in his mouth. “How did you get on with that bed up at the north end today, Max?”
“Finished the whole section. I’m doing the one at Ars tomorrow.”
I zoned out, feeling hungry after all. Across from me, my mum rested her head back against the sofa cushions and closed her weary eyes. Zo? nibbled on a corner of bread, and Max steadily demolished a slab of Comté cheese. Ribbons of conversation flowed around. Zo? chuckled, and my dad teased Max, while my mum had the most peaceful expression on her face I’d seen for a very long time. I stared at the rapidly diminishing heap of shellfish.
All of a sudden, I craved a second course. Of fillet steak, oozing with blood. And langoustines. And lobster and honeyed pancakes. And a side order of frites, éti's forbidden treat, a golden layered Jenga pyramid of them in the centre of the table. A cheese platter, too, boasting the finest selection France had to offer: half a wheel of brie, melting off the plate; a pungent, aged camembert, so smelly it made your eyes water. Followed by a dish of caramel ice cream as big as a grapefruit, sprinkled with Florian’s fleur de sel and guarded by a precarious mound of profiteroles, dripping in chocolate so rich and velvety that, Medusa-like, they added kilos to everyone’s weight just from staring at them.
Because I’d wanted this meal to never happen and now, I wanted it to never end. I wanted our plates to stay full, our bellies to still be empty. I wanted Zo? to carry on bitching and whining about her friend Isabelle until well into the night. I wanted Max to needle me about lifting bigger pouches and then demonstrate by stripping off his top like he used to and proudly flex his growing biceps. I wanted my mum to stop gazing at my dad like no one else mattered, and I wanted my dad to stop pretending everything was all right when we knew his heart was screaming in pain.
And as much as I wanted any of that, I wanted my beautiful éti, my rock, my joy, by my side. My love that came without warning.