Silver Bay (5 page)

It’s a terrible thing to watch the face of a child who knows she is asking the impossible.

‘I could help out with my savings if it costs too much.’

‘I don’t think it’s possible.’ Liza reached out a hand. ‘I’m really sorry, lovey.’

‘Everyone else is going.’

She was too good a child to get angry. It was more a plea than a protest. Sometimes I would have preferred it if she had got angry.

‘Please.’

‘We don’t have the money.’

‘But I’ve got nearly three hundred dollars saved up – and there’s ages to go. We could all save up.’

Liza looked at me and shrugged. ‘We’ll see,’ she said, in a tone that suggested even to me that she clearly wouldn’t.

‘I’ll make a deal with you, Hannah.’ I put down my darning. I was doing a terrible job anyway. ‘I’ve got some investments that are due to come in around spring next year. I thought I might pay for us all to take a trip up to the Northern Territory. I’ve always fancied a look round Kakadu National Park, maybe a wrestle with the crocodiles. What do you think?’

I could see from her face what she thought: that she didn’t want to be travelling round Australia with her mum and an old woman, that she would rather be headed for a foreign country, flying on an aeroplane with her friends, giggling, staying up late and sending homesick postcards. But that was the one thing we couldn’t give her.

I tried, Lord knows I tried. ‘We could take Milly too,’ I said. ‘Perhaps if we’ve got enough money we could even ask Lara’s mother if Lara would like to come with us.’

Hannah was staring at the table. ‘That would be nice,’ she said eventually, and then, with a smile that wasn’t very much like one, she added, ‘I’m going next door. My programme’s on in a minute.’

Liza looked at me. Her eyes said everything we both knew: Silver Bay is a beautiful little town, but even a stretch of Paradise will become ugly if you’re never allowed to leave it.

‘There’s no point blaming yourself,’ I said, when I was sure Hannah couldn’t hear. ‘There’s nothing you can do. Not for now.’

I have seen many times over the past few years the doubt that flickered across her face. ‘She’ll get over it,’ I said. I laid a hand on hers, and she squeezed it gratefully.

I’m not sure either of us was convinced.

Three

Mike

Tina Kennedy was wearing a violet brassière, edged with lace and four, possibly five, mauve rosebuds at the top of each cup. It was not an observation I would normally have made in my working day. Tina Kennedy’s lingerie was not something I wanted to think about – and especially not now. But as she paused by my boss’s shoulder to hand him the file of documents he had requested, she bent low and looked straight at me in a manner I could only describe afterwards as challenging.

That violet brassière was sending me a message. That, and the moisturised, lightly tanned flesh it contained, was a souvenir of my promotion night two and a half weeks previously.

I do not scare easy, but it was the most terrifying thing I had ever seen.

In an involuntary gesture, I felt in my pocket for my phone. Vanessa, my girlfriend, had texted me three times in the past half-hour, even though I had told her that this meeting was of vital importance and not to be interrupted. I had read the first message, and tried to ignore the insistent vibration of those that followed:

‘Don’t forget to get Men’s Vogue re suit on page 46. You would look great in the dark one XXX’

‘Swtie pls call me we need 2 talk about seat plans’

‘Imp U call b4 2pm as I hv to give Gav answer about shoes. AM WAITING XXX’

I sighed, feeling the peculiar mix of nagging anxiety and stasis that two hours spent in a stuffy boardroom surrounded by other men in suits can bring.

‘The bottom line, as with all such ventures, is unit capacity. We think we have put together a development plan that will give us the growth potential of the longer-term luxury-stay market, with the benefits of a more fluid short-term market, both designed to maximise revenue streams not just throughout the summer months but the whole year.’

The phone buzzed against my thigh, and I wondered absently if it was audible over the sound of Dennis Beaker’s voice. I had to hand it to Nessa. She wouldn’t give in. She’d seemed barely to hear me this morning when I explained that leaving work mid-afternoon or, for that matter, calling her would be difficult. But, then, she didn’t seem to hear much these days, except ‘wedding’. Or, perhaps, ‘baby’.

Below, the grey, lead-tarnished length of Liverpool Street stretched away towards the City. I could just see, if I tilted my head, the figures on the pavement: men and women dressed in blue, black or grey, marching smartly along below the sooty masonry to get plastic-boxed lunches that they would gobble at their desks. Some people thought of it as a rat-race, but I had never felt like that: I had always felt comforted by the uniformity, the shared sense of purpose. Even if that purpose was money. On quiet days, Dennis would point out of the window and demand, ‘What do you think he earns, eh, or her?’ And we would value them, depending on such variables as cut of jacket, type of shoes and how straight they stood as they walked. Twice, he had sent the office junior running downstairs to see if he had guessed right, and both times, to my surprise, he had.

Dennis Beaker says that nothing and nobody on God’s earth is without a monetary value. After four years’ working with him, I’m inclined to agree.

On the slickly polished table in front of me sat the bound proposal, its glossy pages testament to the weeks Dennis, the other partners and I had spent clawing this deal back from the brink. Nessa had complained last night, as I checked it yet again for errors, that I was devoting far more energy to that one document than to what she considered our more pressing concerns. I protested, but mildly. I knew where I was with those pages. I was far more comfortable with revenue streams and income projections than with her amorphous, ever-shifting desires for this flower arrangement or that colour-coordinated outfit. I couldn’t tell her I preferred to leave the wedding to her – on the few occasions I’d got properly involved, as she had requested, I’d reduced her to hysterics with things I’d apparently got wrong. I couldn’t help it – it was as if we were speaking different languages.

‘So, what I’d like to do now is get my colleague to make a short presentation. Just to give you a flavour of what we consider a very exciting opportunity.’

Tina had crossed to the other side of the boardroom. She stood next to the coffee-table, her stance deceptively relaxed. I could still glimpse that violet strap. I closed my eyes, trying to force away a sudden memory of her breasts, pushed up against me in the men’s toilets at Bar Brazilia, the fluid ease with which she had removed her blouse.

‘Mike?’

She was staring at me again. I glanced up, then away, not wanting to encourage her.

‘Mike? You still with us?’ There was the faintest edge to Dennis’s voice. I rose from my seat, shuffling my notes. ‘Yes,’ I said. And, more firmly, ‘Yes.’ I raised a smile for the row of Vallance Equity’s flint-eyed venture capitalists around the table, trying to convey some of Dennis’s own confidence and bonhomie. ‘Just – ah – mulling over a couple of points you made.’ I took a deep breath and gestured across the room. ‘Tina? Lights?’

I took hold of the remote-control device for my presentation, and as my phone vibrated again, wished I had thought to remove it. I fumbled in my pocket to try to turn it off. Unfortunately, glancing up through the dimmed light at Tina, I realised she thought this had been for her benefit. She responded with a slow smile, her eyes dropping to my groin.

‘Right,’ I said, letting out a breath and refusing resolutely to look at her. ‘I’d like to show you lucky gentlemen a few images of what we modestly consider to be the investment opportunity of the decade.’ There was a low rumble of amusement. They liked me. There they sat, primed by Dennis’s raw enthusiasm, ready for my sonorous list of facts and figures. Receptive, attentive, waiting to be reassured. My father often said I was ideally suited to a business environment. He meant business in the grey-suited sense, rather than the hyper-sexy mega-deal sense. Because, although I had somehow ended up at the latter end, I had to admit that I was not a natural risk-taker. I was Mr Due Diligence, one of life’s careful, considered deliberators, who researched everything not just to the nth degree but several degrees beyond.

As a child, before I spent my carefully saved pocket money, I would spend hours in a shop, weighing up the benefits of Action Man against his compatriots, fearful of the crushing disappointment that came when you made the wrong choice. Offered a choice of puddings, I would pit the potential infrequency of lemon meringue pie against the solid comfort of chocolate sponge, and double-check that raspberry jelly wasn’t among the options.

None of this meant I was unambitious. I knew exactly where I wanted to be, and had long since learnt that taking the quiet path was the key to my success. While colleagues’ more incendiary careers crashed and burnt, I had become financially secure, due to my dogged monitoring of interest rates and investments. Now, six years into my tenure at Beaker Holdings, my promotion to junior partner apparently nothing to do with my engagement to the boss’s daughter, I was valued as someone who would accurately assess the benefits of any choice – geographical, social or economic – before making it. Two big deals and I would be senior partner. Another seven years until Dennis retired, and I would be ready to step into his shoes. I had it all planned.

Which was why my behaviour that night had been so out of character.

‘I think you’re having your teenage rebellion late,’ my sister Monica had observed, two days previously. I had taken her to lunch, in the smartest restaurant I knew, as a birthday treat. She worked on a national newspaper but earned less per month than I spent in expenses.

‘I don’t even like the girl,’ I said.

‘Since when did sex have anything to do with liking someone?’ She sniffed. ‘I think I’ll have two puddings. I can’t choose between the chocolate and the crème brûlée.’ She had ignored my look. ‘It’s a reaction against the wedding. You’re trying unconsciously to impregnate someone else.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ I almost winced. ‘God! The thought of—’

‘All right. But it’s obvious you’re bucking against something.
Bucking
.’ She grinned. My sister’s like that. ‘You should tell Vanessa you’re not ready.’

‘But she’s right. I’ll never be ready. I’m not that kind of bloke.’

‘So you’d rather she made the decisions?’

‘In our personal life, yes. It works well for us like that.’

‘So well that you felt the need to shag someone else?’

‘Keep your voice down, okay?’

‘You know what? I’ll just have the chocolate. But if you have the crème brûlée I’ll try it.’

‘What if she says something to Dennis?’

‘Then you’re in big trouble – but you must have known that when you copped off with his secretary. Come on, Mike, you’re thirty-four years old, hardly an innocent.’

I dropped my head into my hands. ‘I don’t know what the hell I was doing.’

Monica had been suddenly buoyant. ‘God, it’s nice to hear you say that. You don’t know how cheering it is for me to know that
you
can cock up your life just like the rest of us. Can I tell Mum and Dad?’

Now, filled with a sudden picture of my sister’s triumph, I forgot where I was and had to glance at my notes. I breathed out slowly, and looked up again at the expectant faces around me. It seemed to have become uncomfortably warm in the boardroom. I let my gaze settle on their team – no one was even remotely flushed. Dennis always said that venture capitalists had ice in their blood. Perhaps he was right.

‘As Dennis has explained,’ I continued, ‘the emphasis in this project is on the quality end of the market. The consumers we’ll be targeting in this development are hungry for experiences. They are people who have spent the last decade acquiring material goods, which haven’t made them happy. They are possession-rich, time-poor, and are searching for other ways to spend their money. And the real growth area, according to our research, is in their sense of well-being.

‘To that end, this development will not just offer accommodation of a quality that will ensure it a slot at the top end of the market, but a variety of leisure opportunities suited to the surroundings.’ I clicked the remote control, bringing up the images that the artist had only delivered that morning, leaving Dennis turbo-charging what barely remained of his blood pressure. ‘It will have a state-of-the-art spa, with six different pools, a full-time therapeutic staff and a range of the newest holistic treatments. If you turn to page thirteen you will see the space itself in more detail, as well as a menu of the kind of thing it will offer. And for those who prefer to get their sense of well-being from something a little more active – and, let’s face it, that’s usually the men . . .’ here I paused for the amused nods of recognition . . . ‘we have the
pièce de résistance
of the whole complex – an integrated centre devoted entirely to watersports. This will include jet-skis, waveboards, speedboats and waterskiing. There will be game-fishing. There will also be PADI-trained instructors to take clients on tailor-made diving trips further out to sea. We believe a combination of top-class equipment with a highly skilled team will give clients a never-to-be-forgotten trip and offer them the chance to learn new skills.’

‘All while staying in a resort that will be a byword for service and luxury,’ Dennis put in. ‘Mike, bring up the architect’s pictures. As you can see, there are three levels of accommodation, to suit both the affluent singles and families, with a special penthouse for VIPs. You’ll notice we have avoided the budget option. We’ve already had interest from—’

‘I heard you lost the site for this.’ The voice had come from the back.

The room fell quiet. Oh, Christ, I thought.

‘Tina, bring up the lights.’ It was Dennis’s voice, and I wondered if he was about to answer, but he was looking at me.