‘I made you this,’ I say to Sean, who barely acknowledges me. Right, that’s it! ‘Look, if you want me to cancel the oyster festival I will,’ I say with all the boldness I can muster, which isn’t a lot, and it comes out as a bit of a squeak if I’m honest. But I’ve said it. I can’t live like this and if it means cancelling the festival then so be it.
He stands up, his hair flopping round his face. He uses his forearm to push it back but it keeps falling into his eyes. He spots the coffee.
‘Thanks.’ He takes a sip and pulls a face.
‘Cold?’
He nods and gives a little laugh. It’s the closest he’s come to talking to me since the mention of the festival.
‘Did you mean what you said?’ He takes another sip of the cold coffee.
‘Yes,’ I say, my nerves subsiding. ‘If you hate the idea of it, I’ll tell Nancy we’re cancelling it. Tell her it was a ridiculous idea.’
He raises his eyebrows and works at cleaning his dirty hands. ‘I don’t think Nancy would agree with you. In fact, I’d say she’s pretty set on the idea now.’
The thought of trying to stop the force that is Nancy fills me with dread. ‘Look, maybe I should’ve talked it over with you fir—’
‘Yes,’ he cuts across the end of my sentence, ‘you should’ve.’ He throws the rag onto the bonnet. ‘Start her up, will you?’ He nods to the tractor seat. ‘You can remember how to start her up, can’t you?’
‘Yes,’ I say, like a teenager back-chatting a parent. Why can’t he just say he hates the idea and doesn’t want anything to do with it? I climb into the tractor seat. God, he can be so irritating at times.
‘I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you first. I just thought it was a great way of getting the oysters sold and getting a really good platform for them. I thought I was helping.’ I check the tractor’s not in gear and that the accelerator isn’t stuck down by pulling it towards me with the toe of my welly.
Sean is looking at me, deep in thought. ‘There’s a lot of history.’ He throws the cloth down angrily.
For a moment I think about saying nothing else, but my mouth seems to be working independently from my brain. ‘And this is the way to put it right, for your uncle. If you have native oysters here, your waters are clean. Everyone should know.’ I want to put everything right, but Sean is just so bloody hard to help.
‘Start her up,’ he says, picking up the oily rag again. Frustration is building inside me; he may not like the idea but he doesn’t need to sulk. The engine turns over, but only just.
Sean used the engine noise to block out the conversation. He was finding this really hard. The memories kept flooding back to him. His uncle had died thinking everything he cared about, everything he’d worked for, had been a failure. But it wasn’t just that.It was all the other memories it had brought back, about his arrival here in Dooleybridge. He’d arrived a week after being released from prison, but only days after being released from hospital. He’d come back alone, and that was never how it was supposed to be. He and Emily had talked about coming back here together one day, once they’d seen the world. But they hadn’t seen the world and he’d come back alone, arriving in the village just before the festival. The locals had put two and two together and come up with seventeen. It had all come flooding back to him and he didn’t seem to be able to find the words to explain. Fi was doing her best. He wanted to tell her but he found it so hard. Nancy knew, of course, but never mentioned it.
‘Try again,’ he called to her.
Rrrrrrr,Rrrrrrrr,Rrrrrrrr. The engine groaned.
‘Ah, come on!’ he shouted at the tractor, and banged at the bonnet with his fist. Without the tractor he couldn’t even work with the few oyster bags he had left. He turned away and wiped his damp curls from his eyes with the crook of his elbow. He looked at the sea, grey and moody. The thing was, he realised, as painful as it was to remember, he needed Nancy’s restaurant to take off in order to sell the oysters. If he didn’t let this go ahead now, what the hell else was he going to do?
‘Try once more,’ I shout to him. I can see he’s frustrated. The accelerator seems to be working much more freely now. I wiggle it up and down again with the toe of my welly. He turns back to me as if he’s got the weight of the world on his shoulders.
‘I don’t think it’s going to work,’ he shakes his head as he turns to me.
‘We can’t just stop trying,’ I say. ‘We don’t have any other choice.’
He looks at me for a moment and I wonder if he’sgoing to explode, but his face suddenly changes expression, as if all the air has been let out of a balloon about to burst.
‘OK,’ he says, suddenly very calm. He turns back to the engine and pulls a face as he works away.
‘Now!’ he shouts, and I turn the key and stand on the accelerator.
Suddenly the tractor roars into life, sputtering and gasping as if it’s been electrocuted. Sean takes a couple of steps back. He gives me a satisfied nod and the engine settles down into a rhythmic hum.
I stand up and jump down from the tractor.
‘Good work, English,’ he says. ‘You’re a trier, I’ll give you that.’
I feel myself swell with pride. I turn to go back to the cottage. I may have been able to persuade him to keep going with the tractor, but it doesn’t look as if I’ll be able to do the same about the festival. I can’t keep going with it if he hates the idea.
‘English! About this oyster festival …’ He stops me in my tracks. I turn round slowly. I have no idea how I’m going to tell Nancy and Margaret that we have to cancel it. I decide to make one last attempt to persuade him.
