‘Perhaps something radical. Some kind of platform at the mouth of the bay, with an undersea viewing area.’
‘Too expensive. And the shipping people would probably object. We could build a new jetty with a restaurant on top and a viewing area below.’
‘What are you really going to see that close to land?’ She sucked the end of her pen. ‘We could try to work out some radical new spa idea.’
‘Your dad didn’t like the spa thing.’
‘Or we could scrap the plans altogether and find another site. I can’t see a way of using the hotel in its present form without the watersports. There’s just nothing else to mark it out from what’s available. Not for the luxury market.’
‘Tennis?’ I said. ‘Horseriding?’
‘A new site,’ she said. ‘We’ve got five days to find a new waterfront site for a one-hundred-and-thirty-million pound development.’ We looked at each other and started to laugh: saying it out loud made it sound even more ridiculous than it actually was.
But Vanessa Beaker wasn’t her father’s daughter for nothing. Within an hour of us deciding that that was the way forward, she had hit the phones with Kathleen’s old phone book, and within four hours she had spoken to probably every land agent between Cairns and Melbourne.
‘Can you email me some pictures?’ Between calls on my own phone, I heard the same request time and time again, then the other questions.
‘Can you tell me, are the waters designated a protected area?’
‘Do you have sea mammals or other indigenous creatures that are likely to be affected by a development?’
‘Would they be interested in selling?’
‘Might they be up for negotiation?’
By the end of the second day we had earmarked two possible sites. One was an existing hotel development an hour south of Brisbane. Its plus points included its own protected bay, which had been used without complaint for watersports. But it wasn’t half as beautiful as Silver Bay, and the area was already thick with five star hotels. The other, half an hour from Bundaberg, was more accessible but almost a third again in price.
‘Dad’s not going to like that,’ she said, then smiled brightly at me. ‘But everything’s doable, right? If we try hard enough? I mean, look what we’ve achieved already.’
‘You,’ I said fondly, pushing her hair back from her face, ‘are a star.’
‘Don’t you forget it,’ she said. Perhaps I imagined the edge to her voice.
That night we made love for the first time since she had come to Silver Bay. Given our previous physical appetite for each other, I can’t explain what had happened until that point – but the atmosphere had been too odd. Neither of us had felt our old confidence in the other’s response. We had hidden this insecurity under declarations of exhaustion, of too much wine. We had professed ourselves riveted by our books. I had found myself oddly conscious of the hotel’s thin walls.
We had gone out to eat in the town, and walked back slowly along the bay holding hands. The wine, the moonlight, and the fact that I might have saved Silver Bay from the fate I had almost inflicted on it conspired to smooth over the strange resistance I felt when Vanessa and I now held each other.
I had nearly messed it up, I told myself, as we strolled along silently, but not quite. We would save this development, we would save the whales and we would save our relationship. We understood new things about each other. I had been given a second chance.
In my room we had left the light off and removed our clothes wordlessly, as if we had determined by telepathy that tonight was the one. We moved closer to each other, me focusing on the voluptuous beauty of Vanessa’s silhouette, my mind locked only on physical sensation as we lay down on the old bed, skin on skin, her hands skilfully searching for me, her mouth emitting little gasps of pleasure. I ran my hands over her br**sts, her skin. I buried my face in her hair. I remembered the scent of her, the feel of her, the familiar way her curves felt under my fingertips. And finally I plunged into her, forgetting everything, allowing myself the despairing gasp of release.
And afterwards we lay quiet as something heavy and melancholy settled in the dark around us.
‘You okay?’ I said, reaching across her for her hand.
‘Fine,’ she said, after a pause. ‘Lovely.’
I stared up into the dark, listening to the waves breaking on the sand, the distant sound of a car door closing and the revving of an engine, thinking about what the core of me knew had been missing. Thinking about what I had lost.
We left on the Saturday. I went downstairs early and settled up with Kathleen. I paid her half in cash, guessing that would be more useful to her than credit cards. ‘I’ll be in touch,’ I said. ‘Things are happening fast. Really.’
She looked at me steadily. ‘I hope so,’ she said. She stuffed the money into a tin under the desk without counting it. I hoped that meant that, in some small way, she trusted me again. I felt buoyant with relief, and the confidence that something good could happen.
‘Is – is Liza around?’ I asked, when I realised she wasn’t going to volunteer.
‘She’s out on Ishmael,’ she said.
‘Say goodbye to her for me.’ I tried not to sound as awkward as I felt. I was acutely aware of Vanessa, who had come down the stairs and was now behind me.
Kathleen said nothing, but shook Vanessa’s hand. ‘Goodbye,’ she said. ‘I wish you luck with the wedding.’
There was more than one way you could interpret that, I thought, as I went upstairs for the bags, and none reflected well on me. I would have gone straight back down, but as I passed the family corridor, I heard music. Hannah was still there. She had barely spoken to me since the development had come to light and, more than anything, that child’s silence had convinced me of my failure.
I stood at the door and knocked. Eventually she opened it, a burst of music filling the air behind her.
‘I thought I’d say goodbye,’ I said.
She didn’t answer.
‘Oh . . . and I came to give you this.’ I held out an envelope. ‘Your wages. The pictures were very good.’
She glanced at it. Her voice, when she spoke, held the faintest hint of an apology. ‘My mum says I’m not allowed to accept your money.’
‘Okay,’ I said, trying to look less disconcerted than I felt. ‘Well, I’m going to leave it on the hall table, and if you really aren’t allowed to take it I hope you’ll give it to a charity for the dolphins. I know you love them.’