Silver Bay(55)
Author: Jojo Moyes

And then there was Dennis, and I had no chance to think of anything at all.

‘What’s going on, then? Feeling good about your big coup? The VCs are happy boys, I can tell you. Happy as pigs in the proverbial.’ His time immobilised had brought him extra weight, and he was oversized, florid, compared to the lean, wind-whipped figures with whom I had spent the past month.

‘You look like crap,’ he said. ‘Let’s organise some coffee. I’ll get one of the girls to go out and get us some. Not that instant swill they make here.’

In the brief moments after he left the boardroom, I sat down next to Vanessa. She had failed resolutely to meet my eye, and was now sitting in front of a blank foolscap pad. She was wearing what she called her power suit.

‘I’m sorry,’ I murmured. ‘It’s not what it seems. Really. Meet me afterwards and I can explain.’

‘Not what it seems,’ she said, doodling on the pad. ‘That little welcome home seemed pretty self-explanatory to me.’

‘Nessa, please. You wouldn’t answer my calls. At least give me five minutes. After this. Five minutes.’

‘Okay,’ she said eventually.

‘Great. Thank you.’ I squeezed her arm, then braced myself for the task ahead.

He listened carefully as I outlined what I had done while I had been out there. He and Darren, our accountant, and Ed, the head of projects, scribbled notes as I outlined my considerations with regard to the ecological impact. I told them why I had been wrong to go for the S94 option, and why the planning process could still backfire on us if it went to a public inquiry, as it had with the pearl farm.

‘The upshot,’ I said, ‘is that while I think the idea of our development, the idea of its USP –’ here I glanced at Vanessa ‘– is still the right one, our existing plan is wrong for all the following reasons.’ I handed them the pages I had photocopied that morning: the list of alternative sites and the breakdown of incurred costs that altering our proposal would take. ‘We have already identified the new sites, have spoken with the local agents, and I think, having done the research, that these are by far the better options in terms of both potential adverse publicity and in terms of our new, added USP, which is that of responsible, community-friendly development.’

I gestured towards the table. ‘Vanessa has been out with me. She’s seen these creatures in the flesh, she’s seen the whales’ habitat, and the strength of feeling about them. She’s in agreement that the best way forward for this company is either of the two alternative options. I know there will be time penalties, I know we’ll have to sell the existing site, but I believe that if you were to take me along to Vallance, I could swing them round to the same way of thinking.’

‘Bloody hell,’ said Dennis, studying the figures. ‘That’s some change you’re proposing.’ He sucked his teeth, flicked through the two bottom pieces of paper. ‘That’s going to cost almost twenty per cent of the total budget.’

He had not, I noted hopefully, dismissed it all out of hand. ‘But we lose the costs of the S94 by building on an existing site. If you look at column three, you’ll see there is very little in the final figures. This is a less risky option. Really.’

‘Less risky, eh?’ Dennis turned to Vanessa. ‘Ditch the whole thing, eh? You really think we should move the whole development to this second site?’

She looked at him, and then she turned slowly to me. Her eyes were cold. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’ve considered this carefully. I think we should go ahead with what we’ve got.’

Fifteen

Liza

I saw a whale today, one of the last of the season. She came right up to the boat with her calf and they sat there starboard side in the clear blue water, looking at us, as if they had nothing better to do in all the world. She was closer than she should have been, close enough for me to see each little cut of the mother’s ‘fingerprint’, the pattern on her tail fluke, close enough to see the calf lie still and happy, half protected under the belly of its mother. The customers were thrilled – they squealed, took pictures and video footage, and said aloud it was an experience that had changed their lives, something they would never forget. They said they’d heard I had a way of finding the whales, and now that they’d seen it was true, they’d recommend me to all their friends. But I couldn’t smile. I wanted to shout at the whale to take her baby far from here. I kept seeing that calf, washed up on the shore, covered with tarpaulin. I didn’t want her to trust us like she did.

I suppose I shouldn’t have been shocked at what Mike had done. But I was. I’d really thought that, after everything I’d been through, I could spot someone like him a mile off. And the knowledge that I’d failed gnawed away at me, woke me up from what little sleep I ever had. It sat over me and mocked me when I woke, joined the chorus of other voices that told me much of what I had ever done was wrong.

I suppose the raw anger I carried with me in those early days was directed at myself; for what had been my stupidity. For allowing myself to sleepwalk us all into danger. And, perhaps, for allowing myself to think, even briefly, that my life might be allowed to take a different course from the one I have long since resigned myself to.

But I was angry with pretty much everyone; with Mike for lying to us, with the planners for considering his proposal without considering the whales, with Kathleen for letting him stay on so that I’d had to live with his perfumed accomplice floating around my house flashing her engagement ring and pretending none of it mattered, and then with Greg for – well, for being such an idiot. He was round every day, half furious with me, half wanting my forgiveness. We seemed to end up shouting at each other every time we met. I think we were both all over the place for a while, and neither of us had the energy to be kind.

I don’t know why – I hadn’t felt like that for some time – but for several days during that first week while Mike and his girlfriend remained in the hotel it had been an effort to get myself out of bed. Then he had gone. And somehow that didn’t make it any better.

Hannah had picked up on it. She had told me, a little defiantly, that Mike had paid her for her photographs, showed me the brown envelope packed with notes, and before I could say a word she had announced that she was donating the money to the National Parks to help rescue stranded sea creatures. She had spoken to them, she said, and there was enough to buy another dolphin stretcher and some over. How could I refuse her? I knew there was some small part of my daughter that wanted to defend Mike, and for that I hated him even more.