Silver Bay(23)
Author: Jojo Moyes

‘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.