I ran longer and harder than I generally do, shedding layers of clothing as I went, but did not feel noticeably more exhausted. I needed the physical effort, the time to think. As I ran along the dirt track that split the pavement from the beach, I pictured the new resort, perhaps some low-cost housing to accommodate the staff. Australia, I had discovered, had the same problem as England with housing affordability. Perhaps we could offer some watersports-related shops and cafés. Maybe, if the returns were great enough, a medical centre. As I headed back, I tried not to look at the Silver Bay Hotel. It the development were to go ahead it would be at best overshadowed, at worst demolished.
Twice, people whose faces I now recognised – dog-walkers, fishermen – lifted a hand in greeting, and as I waved back, I wondered what they would think of my plans. To them I was not the English stranger, the fish out of water, the proposed fiancé, the stickybeak, the thief of other men’s women. As I ran through a list of urgent phone calls I had to make – to Dennis, to the financial department, to Mr Reilly to arrange another meeting – I thought again about those waving people and asked myself, Who the hell are they waving at?
Somewhere along the Silver Bay coast road I had had a revelation. For months I had been obsessed with this development, had thought about it only in terms of what it meant to my career and my company. Now I had been confronted with the potential cost. And I saw that my first concerns were no longer money and ambition, but something infinitely more difficult: successful compromise. I wanted Kathleen and Liza to be as happy with this outcome as the flint-eyed venture capitalists. I wanted the whales and dolphins to continue their lives, unaffected by it. Or, at least, as unaffected by it as any creature can be when it lives in close proximity to man. I hadn’t worked it out yet, but with my head full of conservation areas and commemorative museums I felt I might at last be grasping towards something.
I returned at eight thirty, wet with sweat, brain numbed with effort, half hoping I could fetch myself breakfast without bumping into anyone. I had timed my return, I am ashamed to say, to coincide with Liza and Hannah’s school run and it was my best chance of finding an empty house.
But Kathleen was still sitting at the kitchen table, her own breakfast long finished, her grey hair tied back and a dark blue sweater announcing the arrival of winter. She had set me a place, with coffee and cereal. Another place setting sat ostentatiously beside it. ‘Kept that one quiet,’ she observed, from behind her newspaper, as I sat down.
How could I tell her it was as if I had forgotten?
Twelve
Greg
You’d never have noticed the scar on Liza McCullen’s face if you hadn’t been right up close to her, never run your hand down her cheek and pushed her hair behind her ear. It was pretty faded now – a good few years old, I reckoned – about an inch and a half of slightly raised pearl-white skin, a little jaggedy as if she’d never had it fixed up properly when she hurt herself. Half the time she wore her old baseball cap so that that part of her face was always in shadow. When the hat was off, her hair was always in strands round her face, whipped by the wind out of her ponytail. When she laughed, you could barely notice it because of the creases the sea and the sun had blown into the corners of her eyes.
But I saw it. And even without the scar you’d have known there was something a bit off-key about Liza.
The first time I met her she was like a ghost. This may sound a bit fancy, but I swear that you could almost see through her. She was like sea mist, like she wanted to vaporise into air. ‘This is my niece,’ said Kathleen, as we all waited for our beer one afternoon – like, that was all that would be said about the arrival of someone most of us had never even heard existed. ‘And this is her daughter, Hannah. From England. They’ll be staying.’
I said g’day – a couple of the other whalechasers echoed me – and Liza nodded this weird hello, not looking anyone in the eye. She was about as done in by jet-lag as it’s possible to be. I’d seen the kid a couple of days before, hanging on to Kathleen’s hand, and I’d guessed she belonged to one of the guests. It was a bit of a shock to discover not just that she was Kathleen’s family but that someone else had been there all along. I checked her out a little (she was blonde and leggy – just my type) but there was nothing much to her then. She was pale with big old dark circles round her eyes and her hair hanging in curtains round her face. I was more curious than, you know, interested.
But Hannah – I loved Hannah the moment I saw her, and I’m pretty sure she liked me too. She stood there, tucked behind Kathleen, with those big brown eyes as wide as a possum’s, and she looked like if anyone said boo! to her she’d fall over and die of fright. So I knelt right down – she was a tiny kid then – and I said, ‘G’day, Hannah. Did your auntie Kathleen tell you what’s right outside your room?’
Kathleen looked sharp at me, like I was about to say the bogeyman or something. I ignored her, and carried on: ‘Dolphins. In the water out there in the bay. Smartest, most playful creatures you can imagine. If you look hard enough out of your window, I betcha you’ll see them. And you know what? They’re that smart they’ll probably stick a nose up to check you out too.’
‘The bay’s full of them,’ said Kathleen.
‘You ever seen a dolphin up close?’
She shook her little head. But I had her attention.
‘Beautiful they are. They play with us when we take the boats out. Jump around, swim underneath. Just as clever as you or me. Nosy, but. They’ll come and see what we’re doing. There’s pods of them that have lived in this bay thirty, forty years. Isn’t that right, Kathleen?’
The old lady nodded.
‘If you want, I’ll take you out to see them,’ I said.
‘No,’ came a voice.
I stood up. Kathleen’s niece had come to life.
‘No,’ she said, her jaw set tight. ‘She can’t go out on the water.’
‘I’m safe as houses,’ I said. ‘You ask Kathleen. Been doing dolphin tours for nearly fifteen years. Hell – me and the Mobys are the longest-running operators here, next to Kathleen. And the kids always wear lifejackets. You tell her, Kathleen.’
But Kathleen didn’t seem quite like herself. ‘Everyone needs a little time to settle in. Then we’ll think about nice things for Hannah to do. There’s no rush.’