Silver Bay(67)
Author: Jojo Moyes

‘Really,’ he said, kneeling down. ‘I’m sorry. I just lost my temper for a moment, but it was nothing serious.’

She didn’t look convinced, and recoiled from him.

‘It’s fine now. Really,’ he added.

‘I’m not stupid,’ she whispered, her face both furious and fearful.

We all looked at each other.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘I’ll show you.’ As I held her to me, he stood up and went towards the kitchen. ‘Greg?’ he called, and I felt her flinch in my arms.

‘Greg?’ He disappeared. A second later they both appeared in the doorway. ‘Look,’ he said, holding out a hand – I could tell that that gesture half killed him, ‘we’re mates, really. Like Kathleen said, the storm just made us a little cranky.’

‘Yeah,’ said Greg, as he took the hand and shook it, ‘nothing to be frightened of. Sorry, love.’

She looked at me, then at her mother. Liza’s smile seemed to reassure her.

‘Really. We’ll go now.’ Mike tried to raise a smile. ‘I’m sorry, okay?’

‘Me too,’ said Greg. ‘I’ll be headed off now. And, Liza,’ he said to her meaningfully, ‘you know where I am.’

I could tell she wanted to say something but the telephone started to ring. She strode past him into the hall to answer it.

‘Kathleen. Hannah.’ Greg was deflated now. ‘I’m real sorry. I wouldn’t frighten you for the world, sweetie. You know that . . .’ I squeezed Hannah’s shoulders, but she still didn’t seem to want to respond.

Suddenly Liza was back in the room, her oilskin already half on. The argument was forgotten. ‘That was Tom,’ she said, voice tight. ‘He says there’s ghost nets drifting into the bay.’

Eighteen

Mike

The room was a blur of activity. I stood in the midst of it, my handkerchief pressed to my bloodied face, wanting to ask what a ghost net was, but it was as if they were marching to a drumbeat I couldn’t hear.

‘I’ll come out with you,’ Kathleen was telling Liza, pulling on her gloves. ‘I’ll steer while you cut.’

Yoshi already had her jacket on. ‘Has someone rung the coastguard?’ she was asking.

Lance had a mobile phone pressed to his ear. ‘Signal’s down.’

‘You stay here, lovey,’ said Liza, to Hannah.

‘No,’ said Hannah, her previous fragility forgotten. ‘I want to help.’

Liza’s face was stern. ‘No. You stay here. It’s not safe.’

‘But I want to help—’

‘Then stay here, and when the lines are back up, field the calls. Ring the National Parks, the whales and dolphins people, anyone you can think of. Get them to send out as many people as they can, okay? The numbers are in the book on the hall table.’ She knelt and looked her daughter straight in the eye. ‘It’s very important that you do that, Hannah. We’re going to need as many people as possible.’

Hannah seemed mollified. ‘Okay.’

Kathleen came back into the room, oilskin on, a large torch under her arm. ‘I’ve put the wet-suits in the back of the car. Spare torch . . . Has everyone got cutters?’

Greg pulled his woollen hat low over his head. ‘I’ve got a spare pair in my lock-up. I’ll run down and get them. Lance, give us a lift down – we’ll be quicker.’

I looked at Liza, feeling as I had when I’d first come here: an outsider, useless. ‘What can I do?’ I said. I wanted to talk to her in private, to apologise for mine and Greg’s stupidity, to find a way to be of some use, but she was already somewhere else.

‘Stay here,’ she said, glancing at Hannah. ‘Best that there’s someone in the house. And don’t let the dog out. How’s the weather looking, Kathleen?’ She tucked her hair into her hat, and peered outside.

‘Been prettier,’ said Kathleen, ‘but there’s not a lot we can do about that. Okay, let’s go. We’ll keep in touch by radio.’

As they trooped out Hannah explained that vast fishing nets, some many miles long, with floats at the top and weights at the bottom, had drifted into the bay. Labelled ‘walls of death’, they had been declared illegal in Australian waters, but as a result many had been dumped overboard or had torn away from their ship and floated along until, weighed down by the bodies of those sea creatures they had caught and killed, they sank to the sea-bed. ‘We learnt about them at school,’ she said, ‘but I never thought they’d come here.’ She bit her lip. ‘I hope our dolphins’ll be okay.’

‘I’m sure your mum and the others will do everything they can to make sure they’re fine,’ I said. ‘Come on – haven’t you got some calls to make?’

The lines were back up, the mobile signals restored. I made myself a cup of tea while I listened to Hannah leaving urgent messages on answerphones and occasionally talking to someone who might have been an authority. She was astonishingly poised, I thought, for an eleven-year-old. Then again, I had never met an eleven-year-old who knew as much about dolphins as she did.

Outside, the thunder and lightning had moved on, but the rain beat down mercilessly, sending rivers down the panes and hammering an insistent tattoo on the flat roof of the porch. I put another couple of logs on the fire, then paced the kitchen, watching the dog’s eyes flicker from me to the door and back again.

‘You get them?’ I said, when Hannah came in.

‘Most of them,’ she said. ‘I think the coastguard must be out already. I wish I was helping.’ She peered out wistfully through the rain-spattered window.

‘You are – someone has to make the calls.’

‘Not proper help. You’re getting a bruise.’ She pointed to the side of my face.

‘Serves me right.’ I grinned.

Hannah reached out for the dog, who lifted her nose. ‘I looked out of the window upstairs and there are loads of boats in the bay with their lights on.’

‘There,’ I said. ‘I told you they’d be okay. Everyone’s out helping.’

But she didn’t seem to hear me.

It was then that I heard a shrill sound from upstairs – my mobile phone. ‘Back in a sec,’ I said, and leapt up the stairs two at a time, wondering fleetingly if it was Liza. She might have tried to call while Hannah was on the telephone.