‘Keep going, love, you’re doing grand,’ her mum calls back. ‘Ya have to crack a few eggs to make an omelette.’
I remember nearly saying something similar myself. I think about the mess I’ve made of Sean’s farm. That was more than a few cracked eggs. Mortification burns my cheeks and I wonder whether to just disappear into the crowds. Leave without a trace.
I look up and down the street. There’s a jeweller’s on the other side of the road.
‘Have yer any change?’ A woman shakes a pot at me. She’s wearing gold sling-backs and red fingerless gloves, and smoking a cigarette with a long length of ash hanging off the end of it. She looks about eighty. Her thin dyed black hair hangs either side of her face. ‘I can tell yer fortune,’ she says, rattling her pot again. I shake my head. She nods and drags on the cigarette, the ash falls onto her knee and she brushes it away. ‘Be lucky anyway,’ she says.
Sean comes out of the bank much quicker than I was expecting. The young girl is still crashing her way through her play list. I look at him. He sucks in his top lip and then shakes his head.
‘They won’t lend me any more money.’ He begins to walk and flicks a coin into the girl’s violin case. ‘In fact … they want some of what they’ve already lent me back. They want me to start repaying the overdraft.’ He lights another cigarette. ‘Anyway, like I say, not your problem any more. Let’s get you sorted out.’
He heads off down Shop Street. My head is spinning. Do I go or stay? Would he want me to? Did he mean it when he said everyone was allowed one mistake? Besides, I seem to keep making mistakes. First the camper van, then not mentioning about me being scared of water, and now this.
‘Oh God,’ I say, following him. I made this mess, I have to help put it right in whatever way I can. I have to keep trying. ‘Wait!’ He’s striding out and I have to break into a run. ‘Sean, wait!’ I shout. And he stops and turns to me. I take a deep breath and rummage in my pocket.
‘Come on or you’ll miss the shop.’ He’s back to being his irritable self.
I open my hand and hold out the ring. ‘Here, take it. It should cover the cost of the damage, maybe get some new spat as well. I hope. Maybe it’ll be luckier for you than it was for me,’ I try and joke.
He frowns. People are passing on either side of us. Young men in hoodies, smoking, are holding up signs pointing to restaurants and tattoo parlours. There’s a woman playing the tin whistle to a backtrack on CD. Beside her there’s a man on a chair all dressed in silver, as if he were a statue, waiting for someone to put money in his pot before he’ll move.
‘But that’s your …’ Sean looks gobsmacked.
‘Yes, I know, just take it.’
‘I can’t,’ he says, looking at me and frowning.
‘You can and you have to. I made the mess. Now I’m going to pay for the damage,’ I say firmly.
‘Are you sure?’ He looks from me to the ring. I take hold of his hand and put it there and close his fist.
‘Why? Why would you do this for me?’ he says quietly.
‘Because I need to put this right. Because …’ I say, trailing off. Because I care, I realise, and not just about the oysters and what I’ve done. I care about him. I turn him towards the jeweller’s. ‘Just make sure you get a good price for them.’
He turns back to me, his head bent over his fist.
‘Thank you.’ He quickly and briefly kisses my cheek and without thinking my fingers fly up to touch it where it landed.
Chapter Twenty-one
‘I need a drink,’ I say as we come out of the jeweller’s.
‘Me too.’ We stand side by side on the busy street. Sean puts his hand on my shoulder and guides me into the crowded street. Five minutes later I’m in a noisy pub with music playing and a large white wine in front of me. Sean has a pint of the black stuff. We both take a large sip and say nothing. Then another and finally I speak first.
‘Fakes?’ I look into my wine.
‘I’m sorry. That can’t have been easy to hear.’ Sean turns his cold pint glass.
I shake my head slowly.
‘Do you know, I don’t think I even care any more. I should be angry, but in a way I’m not surprised.’ I take another gulp of the wine. ‘But that’s it. I have nothing now.’
‘You’re in shock.’
‘I never doubted they were real. Brian had everything planned – when we should buy the ring, buy the flat. He wanted everything to be right. I trusted him.’
‘Love is a risky business, a bit like oyster farming.’
