‘No one must know what?’ says Nancy, standing with her car keys in hand.
Chapter Twenty-three
‘No one must know what?’ Nancy repeats.
‘Just talking tide times,’ Sean says, shoving his hands in his pockets like a boy just caught stealing sweets from a shop.
Nancy folds her arms and taps a black booted foot. Sean copies her body language and I can see he feels put on the spot. Nancy raises an eyebrow and Grace lies down, trying to make herself really small and pretend she’s not there.
‘No, really,’ Sean says, failing to pull off a good lie. ‘We were just talking about oyster pirates and tide times and …’ he waves his hand around.
‘And …?’ Nancy asks. I swallow hard, feeling Sean’s predicament. Does he own up to them or does he keep them secret like he’s just told me to do?
‘And … the native oysters growing in the second bay,’ he says very quickly, failing to skirt round the question any more.
‘So you’ve got native oysters and you didn’t tell me?’ Nancy starts pacing up and down the living room.
‘I’m going into town, anyone want anything?’ I try and lighten the mood, but they ignore me.
‘I wanted it to be a surprise.’ Sean’s trying to smooth things.
‘A surprise! It’s certainly that. Especially since I’m your oyster broker. When were you going to tell me?’
I slide out the front door and pull my hat down to avoid the midges. It’s a Monday night and the committee will be meeting in the pub.
‘Hey, when d’ya leave?’ Margaret throws open her arms when she sees me and makes me smile.
‘Change of plan,’ I say, pulling off my coat. ‘There was an accident at Sean’s place last night.’
The committee’s gathering, slowly trickling into the pub. Margaret grabs my arm and clutches it.
‘What happened? Is Sean OK?’
‘Oh, nothing like that, he’s fine, well, not fine exactly. It wasn’t that kind of accident, no one was hurt.’ She finally releases my arm.
‘You had me worried there,’ she says, and visibly relaxes, taking a large slug of white wine. ‘So what did happen?’
‘It was stupid. Some oysters got …’ I lower my voice, ‘… stolen.’ I keep it low. ‘And then some got damaged in seeing them off.’
‘Oh God, so what’s he going to do?’ She puts astraw in her wine and sucks through it.
‘Buy new stock,’ I answer as simply as possible.
The pub is beginning to fill up; that is, Evelyn and John Joe have come in, along with the two barflies and Frank.
‘I’ll get the drinks,’ I say, and squeeze out from the bench seat. I stand in between Frank and Padraig and Seamus.
‘Evening,’ they say in unison.
‘Nice evening?’ says Seamus. And then I remember that he saw Margaret and me on the bench.
‘Oh, quiet.’ I wave a hand.
‘Really? I heard there was a bit of a commotion up at your place?’ Padraig says, putting his hand on his waist.
‘Nothing we couldn’t handle,’ I say, but narrow my eyes, feeling like they’re laughing at me. I grab the bottle of wine and two glasses and make my way back to the table. I’m about to tell Margaret, but at that moment Evelyn and John Joe followed by Frank come and join us.
‘So, ideas! Anyone come up with anything?’ Margaret asks. The barflies are looking at me and I try and concentrate on what she’s saying. ‘A film night, maybe?’ she’s suggesting.
