Silver Bay(22)
Author: Jojo Moyes

My room looked straight out across the bay with not even a road between the house and the beach. The previous night I had slept with the window open, the sound of the waves lulling me into my first decent night’s sleep for months, and I had been dimly aware, as dawn broke, of the whalers’ trucks, their tyres hissing on the wet sand, and the fishermen heading back and forth across the shingle to the jetty.

When I told Nessa about the setting, she had accused me of being a jammy bugger and said she’d given her father an earful for sending me away. ‘You wouldn’t believe how much I’ve got to organise,’ she’d said, her voice half accusing, as if my presence in London had been of any help.

‘You know, we could do this differently,’ I ventured, when she had run out of complaints. ‘We could fly off somewhere and get married on a beach.’

The ensuing silence was lengthy enough for me to wonder what it was costing.

‘After all this?’ Her voice was disbelieving. ‘After all the planning I’ve done you want to just fly off somewhere? Since when did you start having opinions?’

‘Forget I said anything.’

‘Do you know how hard this is? I’m trying to work and do all this and half the bloody guests haven’t even replied to their invitations. It’s so rude. I’m going to have to chase up everyone myself.’

‘Look, I’m sorry. You know I didn’t ask to be here. I’m working on this deal as hard as I can and I’ll be back before you know it.’

She was mollified. Eventually. She seemed to cheer up when I reminded her it was winter over here. Besides, Nessa knows I’m not a holiday person. I have never yet managed to lie on a beach for anything resembling a week. Within days I’m scouting inland, looking at the local paper for business opportunities. ‘Love you,’ she said, before she rang off. ‘Work hard so you can come home soon.’

But it was hard to work in an environment that conspired to tell even me to do the opposite. The Internet connection, routed through the phone line, was slow and temperamental. The newspapers, with the city pages, didn’t arrive until nearly noon. Meanwhile the beach, with its elegant curve and white sand, demanded to be walked on. The wooden jetty called out to be sat on, bare legs dangling into the sea. The long bleached table where the whale crews relaxed on their return spoke of ice-cold beers and hot chips. Even putting on my work shirt that morning hadn’t motivated me.

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.