Silver Bay(43)
Author: Jojo Moyes

‘You don’t know that.’

‘And you don’t know whether a few waterskiers are really going to affect a whale migration that’s gone on for centuries. There’s got to be consistency about this.’

‘I’ll discuss it,’ he said. ‘But don’t be surprised if it goes to a public inquiry. People are getting wind of these plans, and a few are already antsy.’

I had arrived home in a foul mood and rung Dennis, perversely glad when I worked out the time difference and discovered how long he had been asleep. After I’d outlined the results of my meeting, I was disconcerted to find that he could spring into life from a deep sleep with virtually no sluggish in-between. It was as if he had been processing it all as he slept. ‘It’s complicated, Dennis. I can’t pretend it’s not. But I’ve had a radical thought. What if . . . we shut down the watersports angle, made it more of a spa experience? We could really go for it, make it a Vogue-type thing. Where celebrities go.’

‘But the watersports are its bloody Unique Selling Point,’ Dennis barked. ‘That’s why the venture capitalists are interested. It’s meant to be about sport, about keep-fit. It’s about a total body experience, targeting men as much as women. A luxury leisure experience. Is this the bloody whale crusties again? What have they said?’

‘They’ve not said anything. They still don’t know.’

‘So what’s your bloody problem?’

‘I want this to work on all levels.’

‘You’re not making sense.’

‘Dennis, we’d have a lot easier ride from the planners if there was no risk of anything happening to the sea creatures.’

‘We’d have a lot easier ride from the planners if you did your job properly and stressed what a fantastic opportunity it is for a depressed area, how much money everyone stands to make.’

‘It’s not just about money—’

‘It’s always about money.’

‘Okay. But it’s just that when you’re out here, you also get a sense of the . . .’ I ran a hand through my hair ‘. . . the importance of the whales.’

There was a pause before he spoke again. ‘The. Importance. Of. The. Whales.’

I braced myself.

‘Mike, this is not what I expect to hear from you. This is not what I promoted you for. This is not what I want to hear when I’m stuck on my arse in England waiting for news of a one-hundred-and-thirty-million-pound luxury-hotel development that you’ve still not secured the planning permission for even though you’ve been in Australia three weeks. Now, we need the permissions secured, and we need them superfast. We have to start building in a matter of months. So, you talk to your bloody crusty whale friends and go sing your whalesong, throw some money at Mr Reilly or get his picture taken with some Lithuanian lap-dancer – whatever it takes! – but come back to me in the next forty-eight hours with a concrete plan I can present to Vallance Equity when they turn up on Monday. Okay? Or the whales won’t be the only things blubbering.’

He took a deep, shaking breath. I was glad that so many thousands of miles separated us. ‘Look, you wanted to be a partner – prove you’re up to it. Or, even though I love you like a son, you may find your arse imprinted with my metaphorical left boot. Along with your employment prospects. You get me?’

It certainly didn’t need spelling out any more clearly than that. I sat back in my chair, shut my eyes and thought about everything I’d worked for over the past years, everything I’d looked forward to becoming. Then I thought of what Hannah had told me about her school bus. The lack of a library. ‘Okay . . .’ I said. ‘There’s one possible way through this. Do you remember me mentioning a thing called an S94?’

As Mr Reilly had explained it to me, it worked like this: for every tourist development in the Silver Bay area, the council generally expected a fifty per cent financial contribution from the developers towards the extra strain on local services – roads, car parking, recreational facilities, firefighting and emergency services, that kind of thing. It was not unfamiliar to me: we had come across similar provisions in other developments, and I had found there was usually some clause, as there was in the case of Silver Bay, that allowed for a waiver if the development was deemed of sufficient benefit to the community. I had usually wangled it on the basis of my research. Dennis had also achieved it – but hinted at palms being greased and companies receiving lucrative building contracts. ‘More than one way to skin a cat,’ he liked to say, smacking his hands together. And everyone had their price.

The council document was a thorough piece of research, detailing not just the population projection for the area, but the cost of all the amenities likely to be needed to accommodate it. I began to plough through them, calculating the cost to our development, trying to highlight those that would have the most favourable impact on the public.

Continuing growth in the development of Tourist Accommodation, which is occurring over the whole council area, as well as the traditional coastal fringe, will create an increase in demand for the provision of council facilities . . . the level of demand on the facilities varies with the category and stay time at the Tourist Accommodation provided, but there is an increase in demand, over that of the permanent population . . .

I had sat up staring at the paper, thinking. But studying the S94 document, I had seen that we could turn this one on its head: what if our company offered over and above the contribution level, and brought with it, for example, a new library for the Silver Bay School or a new school bus, or a regeneration of the Whalechasers Museum?

During our meeting, Mr Reilly had worn the expression of a man well used to hearing it all before. He had probably had many such approaches over the years, and turned down as many as he had approved. But Beaker Holdings would not, like most developers, try to provide the minimum material public benefit to build its resort. Instead it would show itself to be a model for responsible development. It would provide over and above what was needed; it would be generous and imaginative and, with luck, we could use this development as a model for the next. It is fair to say that local-government projected spending does not generally make the most exciting reading in the world, but that afternoon, before Hannah had come upstairs and disturbed me, I had been as excited by a municipal financial document as it’s possible to be.

Vanessa slept till after eleven the next morning. I lay beside her for some time after daybreak, glancing at her face, watched her shifting unconsciously under the sheet. Eventually, when my thoughts became too complicated, I got out of bed without waking her. Some time after seven thirty, I crept downstairs, let myself out and ran five miles along the coast road and back, enjoying the damp chill of the morning air, the sense of quiet and isolation that only running provides.