The Affinity of Oysters

A short story.

Elody is at Borough Market on a Saturday. There are oysters, and cappuccinos, and a salt beef sandwich at least half a foot thick. And then, unexpectedly, her father, who has been dead for two years, turns up.

This is a story about liminal grief: the kind that arrives in dribs and drabs rather than floods, that gets misunderstood by others, that doesn’t always know what it is. It’s also about complicated love, and the strange ways the people we’ve lost find their way back to us.

Elody turned one corner and she could smell fresh coffee. Another and it was the peppery scent of street food. Turn again and it was the briny smell of fresh seafood. Borough Market on a Saturday.

It had been a long time since she’d been to Borough Market. They used to come a lot when they lived in London. Now they go when they decide to hop on the train from Stroud to see a show, concert or exhibition.

Elody missed the West End, the music, the art galleries and the museums of London but she didn’t miss the hustle and the way that the city seemed to ask you for money every time you walked out of the front door.

Borough Market had a special place in Elody’s heart. There was bustle she didn’t like: football matches, January sales and nightclubs. But Borough Market was a bustle that caused her to feel a welcome buzzy aliveness.

Friends meeting up for coffee and cakes. Kids wide-eyed at the sweet treats. Busy bakers stacking loaves and loaves of sourdough bread. Laughter. The contended sighs of the first bite.

Elody and Jack had cappuccinos first. Cappuccino always tasted better at Borough Market. Then it was what she and Jack lauded ‘the best sandwich ever.’ At least half a foot thick. Salt beef. Pickles galore.

They bought some glasses and ale: a gift for a friend’s birthday, and they wondered what else their tummies had space for. Cornish oysters caught Elody’s eye.

Her late dad had introduced her to oysters on Osea Island when she was sixteen. It was one of those times when he’d turned up to take her out after not seeing her for a long time. She always went begrudgingly, but despite their distance he was able to introduce her to something new or surprise her in some way.

‘It doesn’t make up for everything else though, does it?’ she always said afterwards.

She could still remember her first oyster. The somehow pleasing grittiness. The way it slid down her throat.

Years later when she lived in London, her dad would come to stay sometimes, and they’d go to Borough Market. One of those visits was the first time she tried Tabasco with her oysters. She didn’t think she liked Tabasco. It turned out she did.

Elody thought about her dad while she ordered her oysters, took them off the man in a hygiene hat and added lemon juice and Tabasco. Her mouth watered.

The memory gates opened. One time her dad visited, they’d gone to listen to live jazz in the back room of a pub in Brixton after going to Borough Market. The dark, seedy sultriness grew to be something she sought out in life.

She hadn’t considered them close as father and daughter. They weren’t close. But they shared a love of food and wine. Music. Poetry. Maybe that was enough.

Rioja

Oysters

Spike Milligan

Kind of Blue

Elody couldn’t work out if thoughts of her dad were intrusive or welcome as she grabbed an oyster shell and poured the contents into her mouth. She threw her head back, the way her dad had shown her the first time she’d tried one.

Her grief for him over the past two years had been liminal. Private. Misunderstood by others. A slow, occasional drip rather than a flood. Sometimes she didn’t know if she was avoiding it or if there wasn’t much there.

The oyster slid down her throat. It tasted rich and soily. Citrusy. Sharp. Dull. Spicy. Her eyes smarted. Her fingertips tingled with aliveness. And then something strange happened.

‘Elody, I’m sorry! I’m sorry for everything. I’ve been trying to reach you. I haven’t been able to reach you until today.’

She froze. The voice was unmistakably her dad’s, but what he said was unlike anything he would say. She didn’t think she’d heard him say sorry while he was alive.

The psychic Elody saw once in a while had told her that her dad (who showed up as the King of Pentacles) was starting to learn in the Space In Between. It was a moment when she was more dubious than usual about her psychic readings.

She didn’t know if she wanted to risk another oyster. She wasn’t sure she wanted her dad piping up again, but there was no way she was wasting the other two (and Jack certainly wouldn’t eat them). She braced herself and managed to enjoy the silky, soily citrus of the oyster.

Elody believed that the separation of the alive and dead was porous. She always knew that if her dad was going to reach her it would be through feast, melody or poetry.

It was when she was thinking about this that she realised something else was going on.

‘That’s so good!’ she could hear her dad whisper. ‘Mmmmm!’ She could see him licking his lips in her mind’s eye. There was some sauce dripping off his moustache.

‘How bloody rude!’ she thought. ‘He’s only bloody enjoying earthly pleasures through me!’

She wanted to cry. Was nothing sacred? It was a painfully familiar scenario: being the vessel for the pleasures or goals for someone in her family of origin.

Then she heard him crying. A faint whining sniffle.

In life he’d cried in front of her a few times. Twice when she was too young to realise what was really going on but old enough to think she needed to fix it. The last time was the day before he died: he didn’t want to. She thought about how he was probably shocked to find himself in the Space In Between. He’d been a-spiritual and an atheist. She felt sorry for him in that moment. She didn’t know why.

‘I didn’t mean to be rude. I know it’s not fair of me to tap into your pleasure. Lots of things haven’t been fair for you. I realise that now. It’s just….’ He sniffed. The tears were drying up, Elody could tell. ‘It’s just, I really miss the taste of things,’ he said. ‘Your brother lets me tap in with him sometimes. But you know him: he only eats bloody rabbit food.’ Elody could imagine him tutting and throwing his head back in disgust.

‘What the fff…. You can hear my thoughts?’ Elody asked.

‘When you eat oysters apparently, yes. I’m hoping it might work with other things too. Maybe I’ll be able to hear live jazz again or watch Shakespeare with you. I go walking with Adrian and the dogs in the hills all the time.’ Adrian, Elody’s older brother, had enjoyed a much closer relationship with their father.

‘I don’t fucking care what you do with Adrian,’ thought Elody.

‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.’ He sounded truly regretful.

Elody glanced towards Jack who was perusing some tubs of spices at a nearby stall. He peered at her quizzically. She turned away from him and placed the cardboard container with the remaining oyster on a nearby shelf, there for convenience for those consuming oysters, coffee or sweet treats on the go.

‘I’m losing you a bit,’ her dad said. ‘I’ll let you get on with your day in a minute,’ he said sadly, ‘but are you going to have that last oyster now?’ ‘Okay then…’ she said, although she was in two minds.

‘Mmmm,’ they both said.

That evening, Elody and Jack went to listen to jazz in the back room of a Soho bar.

Sultry Saxophone

Wailing trombone

The lights down low

A good Rioja

‘Do you mind?’ her dad asked her. ‘Okay, go on then. Can we just be quiet though? I don’t know how I feel about this yet.’

‘Of course.’ She could hear her dad sigh softly with pleasure as she closed her eyes, listened to the music and took a sip of the fruity Rioja