Chapter Twenty-Nine
The walk home is dark and a bit wobbly. Probably all that white wine sloshing around inside me.
Or maybe it’s the heels. My feet are killing me.
I shine the torch I’ve borrowed from the pub in front of me.
I just hope Dan’s plan works. This could be it!
Nancy’s restaurant will get all the publicity and I’ll have helped Sean pay back the loan.
All we have to do is keep the oysters safe.
Dan has come through for us – well, Mary Jo has.
Dan’s a good man, his heart’s in the right place.
As I think about Dan my mind immediately switches back to Sean’s smile. Had I imagined it? Had that smile been just for me in the pub tonight? Or was he simply pleased the festival was going to work?
I look up at the stars, remembering the silly names we’d given them the night before the inspection.
‘Hey, English!’ I hear his voice and shake my head. Way too much wine, I think.
‘English, wait up!’ I turn to see a figure jogging towards me. My heart begins to race.
‘Sean?’ I shine the torch right at him and squint as the familiar outline comes into view. ‘You nearly gave me a heart attack.’
‘Sorry.’ He’s slightly out of breath. ‘You nearly blinded me.’ He’s holding up an arm to cover his eyes.
‘I thought you were staying in town with Nancy,’ I say, shining the torch away from his face and back to the pavement. He drops his arm.
‘Change of plan,’ he says matter-of-factly. ‘Early start.’
‘For you or for her?’
‘Both of us,’ he says, and we fall into step beside each other.
Sean is walking in the road and I’m on the thin pavement.
The sound of our feet is the only noise against the backdrop of whispering waves from the sea.
Crunch, crunch, crunch; Sean’s boots march on.
Clip, clip, clippety-clip; I try really hard not to trip up on the stony path but it isn’t easy in Margaret’s heels.
‘So,’ he finally breaks the silence. ‘Whose idea was the new look?’ I can’t see his face but I can hear his smile. I bristle.
‘Actually,’ I begin, before catapulting into his side and making him break my fall. Suddenly I start to laugh too. ‘Margaret’s. Terrible, isn’t it?’ I say. He’s still holding my arm.
‘Take them off!’ he instructs.
‘What? I can’t walk home barefooted!’ I protest.
‘You’re not going to. Take them off and climb on.’ He turns his back to me.
‘A piggy back?’
‘We’ll be here all night otherwise,’ he says.
I think about arguing but my feet are throbbing. I don’t know that I can make it on my own. I slip off the shoes and quickly jump on to his back – not something I would ever have considered without the wine.
As he carries me up the lane, I can hear the noise of the waves as we get closer to the farm. The tide’s in. I’m telling him about Evelyn and the brownies, which he finds very funny.
‘Shh,’ he says suddenly and stops. We hear it at the same time.
He bends down and drops me with only a tiny oomph, then runs as fast as he can up the rest of the lane.
I slip on the shoes and stumble towards the farm as best I can.
Clip, clip, clippety-trip. Hop, stumble, clippety-clip.
Sean is there way before me and as I come closer I see there’s a light out on the water.
‘Get Grace,’ he hisses. He’s over by the boat, undoing the ropes.
‘Be careful,’ I say in a low whisper. It’s dark out there. How will he see where he’s going?
I run to the cottage and let Grace out. She bounds out, nearly sending me head over heels in her excitement.
‘Get them, Grace! Pirates. Pirates!’ I grab my waterproof and wellies from inside the front door.
I run down the stony bank to the shoreline, stumbling over loose stones as I go, but it’s an improvement on the high heels.
The ground gets wetter and my feet begin to sink in the soft mud, throwing up its familiar smell.
The torch light snaps up and shines right at me.
I hold up my hand to cover my eyes. I can hear laughter.
It sounds like more than one voice. I try and make out them out.
‘You feckin’ bastards!’ I hear a slap of sails and see a torch flashing around frantically.
Sean’s got the boat out and is heading for them.
‘You bastards! You sons of bitches! Thieving shites!’ He carries on his tirade, waving a hand in fury as the boat slaps through the water.
There’s a shout and another splash from near the pirate boat, like a bag of oysters being dropped and left behind.
There are muffled argumentative voices and then the other boat’s engine changes from its annoying little hum to a high-pitched whine as it shoots off into the dark night, whooshing through the water.
‘Bastards! I’ll feckin’ kill ya!’ Sean’s still roaring as the little boat phut, phut, phuts off into the night and suddenly it’s all silent again.
Sean has stopped shouting his threats. Grace has stopped barking. There’s just the sound of sails slapping in the slack wind.
‘Sean?’ Mine’s a lone voice in the dark. I hold up my hand and strain to see.
There’s a sloshing noise and the hooker appears in a streak of silver moonlight.
Sean’s shoulders are drooped with disappointment.
I have a sudden urge to hug him, to tell him it’s all right, but I don’t know if everything will be all right and I certainly can’t hug him.
He looks up at me and tosses me a rope, which I catch and help tie up the boat.
‘Good work, English,’ he says casually, slinging his arm around my shoulder as we walk back to the cottage, ‘let’s get to bed.’ My heart does a silly skip.
Inside the cottage we slip off our wet clothes and hang them up.
‘Pass me your clothes, they’re soaked,’ he says in a low voice.
‘What?’
‘Your tights, leggings whatever you call them, take them off,’ he says firmly. ‘I’ll put them by the fire.’ He tuts at my reluctance. ‘OK, I promise not to look, but just take them off,’ he says firmly, and turns his back to me. He’s still in his wet joggers too.
Feeling very self-conscious, I slip my leggings off and hand them to him. Then I shoot into the bathroom, grab a towel and wrap it round my waist. When I come out the fire’s blazing and there are two glasses on the table, a bottle of whiskey beside them.
‘Something to help you sleep.’ He picks up a glass and hands it to me.
Sleep? I might just keel over at this rate!
‘Who do you think it was?’ I ask, watching the orange glow from the fire light up the little room and sipping at the whiskey. It still burns but it’s nice. Sean sits by the fire on the settee. I pull up a chair from the table.
‘Someone who wasn’t expecting me to be here.’ He sips his drink.
Whoever it was certainly didn’t seem to be put off by me being here, but they’re scared of Sean. I have a damn good idea who it is. But if I tell Sean he’ll just charge into town, confirming what everyone already thinks of him. I just need to work out how to stop them.
The next morning I’m up early, baking. The radio’s on quietly. I hear a car on the lane and run to look out of the window, just in case the cheeky buggers are coming back for more, by road this time. But it’s Margaret’s little Fiesta. Sean appears from outside, hair messed up from the wind.
‘Oysters, great for a hangover!’ He grins.
‘I haven’t got a hangover,’ I smile back, but my headache says different. ‘And you are never going to persuade me that eating them is a good idea!’
‘Fi!’ Margaret raps on the door and lets herself in.
She’s practically bubbling over with excitement.
‘You wanna see the entrants we’ve had for the competition, they’re coming from all over and ticket sales have gone mad!
Grab your coat and come down to the café.
You have to see the website. Oh. Morning, Sean.
’ She stops to flirt as he heads to the kettle.
Sean does a good job of hiding how pleased he is at the news, but the fact he’s not frowning means something.
‘A big success then?’ I say, loud enough for Sean to hear, and give him a smile of satisfaction. He tries not to smile back as he puts coffee into his mug.
‘You were right, I think is the phrase you’re looking for,’ I tease.
‘Well, if we’d left it to you it would’ve been a disaster.
’ The atmosphere in the cottage suddenly turns chilly.
Nancy has followed Margaret into the cottage.
This woman seems to have a habit of turning up without being heard.
‘All that rustic nonsense. Thank God the TV company want to invest in something with some class.’ Nancy looks around at the clothes drying on the chair in front of the fire and looks sideways at me, then out to sea. ‘God, this place is hell.’
‘It’s feckin’ busy,’ Sean says, heading into his bedroom.
‘So can you come and see the website?’ Margaret’s like Tigger, jumping up and down.
‘If that’s OK with Sean,’ I shout in the direction of his room.
‘Fine!’ he shouts back.
‘I have these to deliver too.’ I pick up the box of brownies. ‘Wait,’ I tell Margaret as we head for the car. There’s something I want to take with me, and I grab another cardboard box from the shed and fill it with oyster shells from the pile by the front gate.
‘You see, they’re coming from all over. This one’s coming from Sweden,’ Margaret points at the screen in Gerald’s café.
‘Fi, love, that last lot went in a flash,’ Gerald grins as I hand over the batch of brownies. He gives me a steaming cup of tea and holds up a hand when I offer to pay for it. I thank him, take off my coat and join Margaret at the screen.
‘It’s great.’ I sip the tea.
‘Isn’t it?’ She’s beaming, still looking at the screen and all the emails from people wanting to take part in the competition, the Pearl Queen night and buy tickets for the event. ‘This is bigger than we ever expected!’
‘Yes,’ I agree, and she’s right. But something is nagging at me. ‘Just one thing, Margaret …’ She turns to me and frowns. ‘Where are they all going to stay?’ I ask.