The Oyster Catcher (17 page)

‘Bit hard if it’s just three people in the shuck-off and a bottle of flat fizz. No offence mate, but this is going to make you look a bit of a prat,’ Sean says fiddling with a bar mat. Dan takes a deep breath and then says,

‘Not with a 10,000 euro prize for the shell-shucking contest it isn’t, and no offence taken,’ Dan shoots back at Sean. ’

‘What?!’ Margaret’s hands shoot to her face and holds her cheeks.

‘Say that again?’ I ask in shock.

‘The TV company is putting up a 10,000 euro prize for the winner of the Dooleybridge Oyster Festival Shell-Shucking Contest,’ he beams at me. For a moment  no one says a word and then Margaret screams and throws herself on Dan.

‘Oh my God!’ I shout and hug Margaret. The whole group is on its feet in excitement, chattering, shouting and hugging, like we’ve won the Eurovision song contest. We haven’t. But we have got ourselves an oyster festival. Margaret whips out a phone and the flash of a camera goes off. We all cheer and order more drinks. Sean even manages a smile in my direction and the butterflies perform a quick unscheduled fly-by in my stomach again.

‘Looks like this festival has got legs after all.’ Dan raises his glass to Sean who warily raises his pint back. 

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 out 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 thought about Dan my mind immediately switched back to Sean’s smile. Had I imagined it? Had that smile been just for me in the pub tonight? Or was he just pleased the festival was going to work?

I look up at the stars, remembering the silly names we’d given them the night before 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 me 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, clipity-clip. I try really hard not to trip up on the little stony path but it isn’t easy in Margaret’s heels.

‘So,’ he finally breaks the silence. ‘Who’s idea was the new look?’ I can’t see Sean’s 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 at this rate 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 up 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 Freda 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, clipperty-trip. Hop, stumble, clipperty-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 out Grace. 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 shore line, 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 the light from 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 a torch flashing around frantically. Sean’s got the boat out and his heading for them. ‘You bastards! You son of bitches! Thieving shites!’ Sean 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 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.

The boat’s disappeared into the dark night. 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 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,’ and my heart does a silly skip.

Inside the cottage we slip off our wet clothes quietly and hang them up.

‘Pass me your clothes, they’re soaked,’ he says in a low voice.

‘What?’

‘Your tights, 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 them 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 with the 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 round 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 were 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 already. 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 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 loudly 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 were 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. I hadn’t heard her arrive.

‘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 hands 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. I don’t want to spoil her fun but something is nagging me. ‘Just one thing Margaret …’ She turns to me and frowns. ‘Where are they all going to stay?’ I say. Her mouth drops open.

‘Oh my God! What are we going to do? I never thought of that. We weren’t expecting this amount of people into the town!’

‘We’d better get some bed and breakfasts organised,’ I say putting down the tea. ‘We’ll print off flyers and deliver them to every house in the town suggesting they take in B&B guests for the oyster-festival weekend and contact us to make a list of accommodation in the area.’

‘Right,’ Margaret agrees and we get to work fuelled by tea and brownies.

Before we leave the little row of shops I call in on Maire at the art shop.

‘Wondered if these were any good to you, Maire?’ I call to her in the back room and put down the box.

She’s wearing a cloche hat with shiny buttons all over it. She peers into the box and looks back at me grinning.

‘Perfect!’ she says. ‘Oyster shells!’

‘Well, there’s plenty more where they came from,’ I say and swing out of the door with my flyers.

‘That’ll put presents under the tree from Santa this year,’ Rose holds the flyer tightly in her fat fingers and beams.

‘Hope it does well for you, Rose,’ I say and move on to the next house until all the flyers are gone.

I stop off to tell Dan the good news and discover that Nancy has already beaten me to it on her way back into town.

‘Seriously, it’s great,’ says Dan, who’s wearing joggers and a T-shirt and has obviously been working at his small computer on the coffee table.

‘How’s the book going?’ I ask making small talk and thinking I wouldn’t have bothered to come if I’d known Nancy had already been.

‘Great.’ He’s dipping a tea bag on a string up and down in a cup and spilling it everywhere.

‘Say, I was thinking, how about we go out and celebrate, have dinner? There’s a great little restaurant near Galway in a place called Barna. Does great seafood. O’Grady’s. I could book us a table for this evening?’ He opens the little fridge and takes out a small carton of milk.

‘Well, I don’t know, I’ll see if Margaret’s about.’ I suddenly feel put on the spot and I look around for a distraction. He laughs, twisting open the milk lid.

‘I didn’t mean you, me and Margaret. I meant you and me, a date.’ He puts way too much milk in the tea and hands it to me. ‘I’ve really enjoyed working with you, Fi.’

‘A …date?’ My mouth goes dry. My toes are curling upwards and I’m getting that chest rash again. I down the milky, weak tea. ‘Um, that’s really nice of you, Dan, but I’m afraid I’m not really … dating, just now.’ I think that’s how they say it in America.

‘Not dating?’ he says loudly. ‘There’s someone else, right?’ He sits down by the coffee table with his own cup of coffee.

‘No, there’s no one else,’ I shake my head. ‘I’m single, and I plan to stay that way,’ I say. There, I’ve said it. No tears, no panic attacks. I’m not a long term girlfriend, fiancée, Mrs Goodchild (although I don’t know if I ever officially was), I’m just single. I take a deep breath and smile.

‘You and Sean, you’re an item?’

‘No. Definitely not.’ I put the cup down firmly on the work top. ‘He and Nancy are very much together.’ I don’t know who I’m trying to convince more, him or me. ‘No, I’m just happy being single,’ I say. Maybe it’s true, maybe I am happier than I’ve been for a long time. Maybe I’m actually enjoying my independent life … as an oyster-farmer’s assistant.

‘Well, if you change your mind, I’m here.’

I wonder if Kimberly, back home at The Coffee Shop, would think he was ‘out of my league’, too, just like she’d said about Brian. And as I step back into the drizzle, I realise I don’t care what Kimberly would think. It was nice to be asked.

Back at the farm Sean’s packing up folded washing into a battered brown leather holdall.

‘Something I said?’ I joke, as I let myself into the cottage.

He looks up from pushing some T-shirts in the bag, which is on the pine table.

‘No. I just need to go away for a few days, if you’ll be OK?’ he says straightening up. ‘Going to visit Nancy’s parents in Arcachon. We haven’t been for a while, and Nancy has some business contacts she wants to invite to the festival. It’s just for a couple of days. Do you mind?’

‘No, of course not. Why would I mind?’ I feel myself blushing.

‘Well, it’s just with the oyster pirates.’ He zips up the bag.

‘The oyster pirates, yes, of course!’ I’m blushing some more. Of course he meant the oyster pirates. What else? I put the kettle on.

‘Make sure you don’t tell anyone I’m away. But it’s the spring tide and by the looks of it they’re not that interested in coming when the tide’s low, or I wouldn’t feel comfortable going.