Silver Bay (11 page)

I opened an email and began to type: ‘
Dennis. Hope you’re feeling OK. Went to the planning dept yesterday and met Mr Reilly, as you suggested. He seemed to like the look of the plans and said the only possible problems were—
’

I jumped at a knock then slammed my laptop shut.

‘Can I come in?’

I opened the door to find Hannah, Liza McCullen’s daughter. She was holding out a sandwich on a plate. ‘Auntie K thought you might be hungry. She wasn’t sure if you wanted to come down.’

I took it from her. How could it be lunchtime already? ‘That was kind. Tell her thank you.’

She peered round the door and caught sight of my computer. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Sending a few emails.’

‘Is that connected to the Internet?’

‘Just about.’

‘I’m desperate for a computer. Loads of my friends at school have them.’ She hovered on one leg. ‘Did you know my aunt is on the Internet? I heard her telling my mum.’

‘I think lots of hotels are on the Internet,’ I said.

‘No,’ she said. ‘
She
’s on the Internet. Herself. She doesn’t like to talk about it now but she used to be famous round here for catching sharks.’

I tried to imagine the old lady wrestling with some
Jaws
-like creature. Oddly, it wasn’t as hard as I’d imagined.

The child was hovering in the doorway, plainly in no hurry to leave. She had that light, gangly look that girls get just before they burst into adulthood; the opaque quality where, for a couple of months, or even years, it’s impossible to tell whether they’re going to be great beauties, or whether hormones and genetics will conspire to pull out that nose a little too far, or make that chin a bit heavy. I suspected in her case that it would be the former.

I looked down, in case she thought I was staring at her. She was very like her mother.

‘Mr Dormer.’

‘Mike.’

‘Mike. When you’re not too busy – if you’re not too busy – one day, can I have a go on your computer? I’d really like to see that picture of my aunt.’

The sun had cast the whole bay in radiance, the shadows shrinking, the sidewalks and sand bouncing reflected light back into the air. Since I’d arrived at Kingsford Smith, Sydney’s airport, I’d felt like a fish out of water. It was nice to have someone ask me to do something familiar. ‘Tell you what,’ I said, ‘we could have a look now.’

We were sitting there for almost an hour, during which time I decided she was a sweet kid. A little young for her age in some ways – she was much less interested in her appearance than the London kids I knew, or pop culture, music, all that stuff – yet she carried an air of wistfulness, and a maturity that sat awkwardly on such a young frame. I’m not usually great with kids – I find it hard to know what to talk to them about – but I found myself enjoying Hannah McCullen’s company.

She asked me about London, about my house, whether I had any pets. She found out pretty quickly that I was due to get married, and fixed her big, dark, serious eyes on me as she asked, with some gravity, ‘Are you sure she’s the right person?’

I was a little taken aback, but I felt she deserved to be answered with equal gravity. ‘I think so. We’ve been together a long time. We know each other’s strengths and weaknesses.’

‘Are you nice to her?’

I thought for a minute. ‘I hope I’m nice to everyone.’

She grinned, a more childish grin. ‘You do
seem
quite nice,’ she conceded. Then we turned to the important business of the computer. We looked up – and printed out – two different photographs of the young woman in the bathing-suit with the shark, and a couple of pieces about her by people she had evidently never met. We visited the website for a well-known boy band, a tourism site for New Zealand, then a string of facts and figures about humpback whales that Hannah said she already knew by heart. I learnt that a whale’s lungs are the size of a small car, that a newborn calf can weigh up to one and a half tons and that whale milk has the consistency of cottage cheese. I have to admit that I could have done without knowing that last one.

‘Do you go out with your mum much to see the whales?’

‘I’m not allowed,’ she said. I heard the twang of an Australian accent, noted the way that her sentence lilted upwards at the end. ‘My mum doesn’t like me going out on the water.’ Suddenly I remembered the fierce exchange between Liza McCullen and Greg when I had arrived. I do my best to stay out of other people’s private business, but I vaguely remembered that it had been something about Hannah and a boat.

She shrugged, as if she was trying to convince herself she didn’t care. ‘She’s trying to make sure I’m safe. We . . .’ She looked up at me, as if wondering whether to say something, then apparently changed her mind. ‘Can we find some pictures of England on your computer? I sort of remember it, but not very much.’

‘We certainly can. What was it you wanted to look at?’ I began to type in the words.

Liza McCullen appeared. ‘I was wondering where you were,’ she said, standing in the open doorway. She looked from one of us to the other, and the way she did so made me feel vaguely guilty, as if I had been caught doing something wrong. A second later, I felt really pissed off.

‘Hannah brought me a sandwich,’ I said, a little pointedly. ‘Then she asked if she could look at my computer.’

‘There are twenty-three thousand one hundred web pages for humpback whales on the Internet,’ Hannah said triumphantly.

Liza softened. ‘And I suppose she wanted to check out every one.’ There was the hint of an apology in her voice. ‘Hannah, lovey, come and leave Mr Dormer alone now.’

She was wearing the same outfit she had had on the last two times I had seen her: dark green canvas jeans, a fleece and a yellow storm jacket. Her hair, as then, was scraped back into a ponytail, and the ends had been bleached white, although her natural colour was much darker. I thought of Nessa, who, for the first year of our relationship, used to get up half an hour earlier than me to do her hair and put on her makeup before I could see her. It had taken me almost six months to work out how she had slept in lip gloss without leaving it all over the pillows.

‘I’m sorry if she’s been bothering you,’ she said, without fully meeting my eye.

‘She hasn’t bothered me in the slightest. It’s been a pleasure. If you want, Hannah, I’ll bring the computer downstairs and set it up for you to use when I’m out.’

Hannah’s eyes widened. ‘Really? By myself? Mum! I could do all the stuff for my project.’

I didn’t look at her mother. I’d guessed what her response would be – and if I didn’t catch her eye, I couldn’t acknowledge it. It was no big deal, after all. I unhooked the computer, having first closed all my password-protected files.

‘Are you going out now?’

A thought had occurred to me. Something Kathleen had mentioned earlier that morning.

‘I am,’ I said, placing the laptop in Hannah’s arms. ‘If your mother will take me.’

Given that Silver Bay’s meagre economy relied almost entirely on tourism, and that, according to local-government figures, the average monthly wage was equivalent to less than a thousand pounds, you’d have thought that Liza McCullen would be glad to take out a private charter. You’d think that a woman whose boat had just cost nearly two hundred dollars in repairs, who had no trips lined up until Monday and whose aunt had stated several times that she was much happier on the water than she was on land would jump at the chance to take a commercial trip out to sea. Especially when I offered to pay the equivalent of four people’s fares – the minimum the boats needed allegedly to make a trip economically viable.

‘I’m not going out this afternoon,’ she said, hands deep in her pockets.

‘Why? I’m offering you almost a hundred and eighty dollars. That’s got to be worth your while.’

‘I’m not going out this afternoon.’

‘Is there a storm coming?’

‘Auntie K said it was set fair,’ said Hannah.

‘Have you got some special knowledge about the whales? Have they gone on a day trip somewhere else? I’m not going to ask for my money back if they don’t show, Ms McCullen. I just want to get out on the water.’

‘Go on, Mum. Then I can use Mike’s computer.’

I couldn’t quite suppress a smile.

She still wouldn’t look at me. ‘I’m not taking you out. Find someone else.’

‘The others are big boats, right? Full of tourists. Not my scene.’

‘I’ll ring Greg for you. See if he’s going out this afternoon.’

‘Isn’t he the one who loses people off the side of his boat?’

At this point Kathleen had arrived and was standing on the landing, watching the scene in my room with quiet surprise.

‘I’ll give you a ticket for Monday,’ Liza said finally. ‘I’ve got three other people going out then. You’ll have a better time.’

For some reason I had started to enjoy myself. ‘No, I won’t,’ I said. ‘I’m antisocial. And I want to go this afternoon.’

Finally she looked directly at me and shook her head, a little defiantly. ‘No,’ she said.

I was aware that something about this scene had struck Kathleen. She was standing behind Liza, saying nothing but watching intently. ‘Okay . . . three hundred dollars,’ I said, pulling the money out of my wallet. ‘That’s a full boat, right? I’ll pay you three hundred dollars and you can tell me everything there is to know about whales.’ I heard Hannah’s sharp intake of breath.

Liza looked at her aunt. Kathleen raised her eyebrows. I was aware that the atmosphere in the room had become a vacuum. ‘Three fifty,’ I said.

Hannah was giggling.

I wasn’t about to let go. I’m not sure what had got hold of me by then. Perhaps it was boredom. Perhaps it was her reticence. Perhaps it was because Greg had attempted to warn me off, which had made me curious. But I was going out in that boat if it killed me.

‘Five hundred dollars. Here, cash in your hand.’ I pulled out the other notes. I didn’t wave them at her, just held them in my closed hand.

Liza stared at me.

‘And I’ll expect a lot of coffee and biscuits.’

Kathleen snorted.

‘Your money,’ said Liza, eventually. ‘You’ll need soft-soled shoes and a warm jumper, not that townie get-up you’re wearing. And I’ll be leaving in fifteen minutes.’ She took the money from my fingers and stuffed it into her jeans pocket. Her sideways glance at me said she thought I was insane.

But I knew what I was doing. As Dennis always says, everyone and everything has its price.

Liza’s boat was the only one on the jetty. She walked a couple of steps ahead of me, not indulging in small-talk, except with the little dog so I had a chance to look around as we approached it. There was little in Silver Bay, even around the jetty: a café, a souvenir shop, whose turnover was obviously slow – the window display was dusty – and a seafood market, situated towards the main town and housed in the most modern building in the bay. It had its own car park, and was a short walk away, which meant that the customers who stopped for fresh fish were unlikely to walk back to use any other facilities – a poorly thought-out decision. I would have insisted they place it right opposite the jetty.

Although it was a Saturday, few people were about. The tourists, if there were any, must be out on the water in the other whale-watching boats. The few motels I saw dotted along the main road out of town forlornly advertised their available rooms, breakfast included, but the bay had the air of a place that did not expect much out of season. That said, neither did it look particularly troubled. It lacked the peculiarly sullen, abandoned aspect of an English seaside town in winter; the bright sunshine lent it a jovial air, while its inhabitants seemed uncommonly cheerful.

Except Liza.

She had ordered me aboard, made me stand and watch while she ran through a safety checklist in a flat monotone, then rather grudgingly, I thought, asked me if I wanted her to put on the coffee. ‘Point me towards it, and I’ll do it,’ I said.

‘Bend your knees when you walk round, and when you come up,’ she said, turning her back to me. ‘Don’t feed the gulls. It encourages them to dive-bomb the passengers, and they mess everywhere.’ Then, bounding up the steps, she was gone.

The lower deck had two tables and chairs, some plastic-covered benches and a glass case, with chocolate, whale videos and tapes and seasickness tablets for sale. A handwritten sign warned customers that it was wise not to make their drinks too hot as spillages often occurred. I found the tea and coffee area and made two coffees, noting the raised edges of the sideboard, the secured tea and coffee holders, presumably to stop the pots tipping off in high seas. I did not want to think too hard about the kind of seas that might send boiling coffee-pots flying, the kind that apparently kept Hannah ashore, but then the engines started, and I had to hold on to the side to keep steady. We were headed out to sea at some pace.

I made my way unsteadily up the flight of stairs to the back of the boat. Liza was standing at the wheel, her little dog draped across the helm behind it; obviously a favoured post. I handed her a mug and felt the wind on my face, tasted the faint tang of salt on my lips.

This is just part of the job, I thought, trying to justify what I had done. But it would be an interesting one to put through on expenses.

Liza’s gaze was fixed on the sea, and I wondered why she had been so determined not to take me out. I wasn’t aware that I had offended her in any way. Then again, she seemed like the kind of woman who instinctively rebelled against being corralled. And I had been pretty determined.

‘How long have you been doing this?’ I had to shout to be heard over the engine.

‘Five years. Getting on for six.’

‘Is it a good business?’

‘It does for us.’

‘Is this your own boat?

‘It used to be Kathleen’s, but she gave it to me.’

‘Generous of her.’ I can count the times I have been on a boat on one hand so I was interested in everything. I asked her the names of a few parts of the boat, which was port and which starboard (I’ve always mixed them up), what you called the various instruments. ‘So what’s a boat this size worth?’