‘Yes, yes I will, won’t I?’ I can’t stop smiling.
‘You know there’s always a job for you back with me. You could move out front now if you like, Kimberly won’t mind,’ she says.
‘Oh, thanks, Betty, but you know, this is home now. But give everyone my love, Brian and Adrian too. Tell them I send them all the luck in the world.’
‘Will do, lovely,’ she beams back and rolls off to the bar.
‘How about some music?’ Patsy comes out with his mandolin. Padraig follows with a fiddle. Lily’s got a squeeze box.
‘Sean, you up for it?’ Patsy calls.
Sean checks to see I’m OK then goes off to get his guitar. I sit down at one of the tables outside the barn.
‘What you need is a nice cup of tea,’ says Rosie, and puts one down in front of me.
‘Thanks, Rosie.’
‘No, thank you. This is all down to you. You’ve given my kids their community back, something to bring their kids back to.’
I look out again at the children playing, the families walking across the bay. Freddie, Mercury and our newest arrival are enjoying their jobs, no longer redundant, and Grandad is feeling much the same, I’d say. If only there was a way to keep this going. The band strikes up and Sean is on stage playing with them.
Maybe there is—
‘So, looks like you’re staying,’ Nancy interrupts my thoughts.
‘Looks that way,’ I say, and sip the tea.
She sniffs.
‘Y’know what, Nancy? You need to learn that oysters are more than just a way to make money. They’re food and they’re fun.’ I grab a tray of oysters from one of the tables and thrust it at her. ‘Try one. And chew, don’t just swallow!’ I instruct.
Just then Seamus and Padraig appear with Freddie.
‘Nancy’s just leaving. Perhaps you could see her off. But I think she wants to see the oyster beds before she goes.’ I find myself smiling.
‘Righto,’ they say with a tip of the hat, not listening to any of her protestations and instructing her to roll up her trouser legs before lifting her onto Freddie’s back and trekking her across the wet, soft, grey sand to show her where the oysters are grown. I don’t think the sight of an ashen-faced Nancy being led along on a donkey, clinging on for dear life, will ever leave me.
‘So what do you think about Connemara lamb, see a market for it abroad?’ I hear Seamus and Padraig asking her as they lead her back up the shore, past a laughingaudience to her car. She has a face like thunder.
‘I hear Scotland has some very good oyster farms,’ I call after her as the BMW flies down the lane for what we hope is the last time.
Perfect. Everything is perfect, I think, as I stand and look out at the sight of the busy festival, just as my head starts to swim, spots appear before my eyes, I feel myself reeling, and then darkness descends.
Chapter Forty-nine
Bang, bang, bang.
I have no idea what’s going on but it’s making the whole barn shake. I stand up from bending over the red-and-white-check-covered tables that are spread out across the barn like a chessboard. I rub my big round pregnancy bump and retie my apron strings above it. I look out of the window. The sun always shines in April, according to Rosie. April and September apparently. And she’s right. It shone for our September festival and it’s shining again now through the windows of the barn. The light bounces off the newly whitewashed walls. At one end the big fire is crackling and spitting; despite the sunshine outside, it brings light and warmth inside.
‘Right, you, time to put your feet up,’ Sean comes in carrying a hammer.
‘But there’s so much to do before tonight,’ I say, but can’t resist sitting on the nearest bench.
‘It’s an end-of-season party, not a chance for you to have another fainting fit,’ says Sean. He’s right of course.
When I came round from the last one, I was in Sean’s bed.
Seven months earlier
