He slapped the shark appreciatively.
'I brought it into the fish market and the guys there identified it and weighed it for me. I'm told it's not the only one that's been seen in our waters.'
The sight of that shark sent a chill down my spine. I kept thinking of Mike and Hannah in that dark, churning water, of the things he told me had bumped against his legs.
It's possible he felt the same: he reached behind my back for my hand and squeezed it.
Yoshi stepped forward and began to reel off information to the reporters. 'Tiger sharks,' she said, 'are known as the dustbins of the sea. This one may have been attracted into the bay by the ghost net and the sheer number of dead creatures attached to it. But that means there's a good chance this big guy wasn't alone, and others might be hanging around here for some considerable time. They feed on anything, fish, turtles, humans . . .' She let that word dangle long enough for people to glance at each other nervously. 'But don't just ask me,' she added. 'The Department of Environment and Heritage will tell you that they're not great creatures to have around.'
'We need shark nets,' said someone in the crowd. 'They've got them at other beaches.'
'How are you going to have shark nets in a bay full of dolphins?' said Greg, sharply. 'They trap whales too. There'll be shark nets in this bay over my dead body.'
'That'd be right.' Someone laughed.
'Sharks are smart,' said Yoshi. 'If we put them in the mouth of the bay they'll just swim over or round them. If you check out the figures, shark-death rates stay around the same whether the beaches have nets or not.'
'I reckon you're making something out of nothing.' I recognised one of the hoteliers. He wouldn't be happy, I knew, about this sort of publicity just as the spring season was about to take off. 'Everyone knows you're more likely statistically to be hit by lightning than killed by a shark.'
'You think this old fellow worried about statistics?' Greg leant against the shark's torpedo body. 'He probably reckoned he had a one in a million chance of swallowing someone's fishing line.'
The crowd laughed.
'You want to watch out for the tigers, because they'll come close to shore to follow the sea turtles,' said Yoshi, earnestly. 'And they're persistent. They're not like the great whites - they'll keep coming back to chew up whatever they've taken a bite out of.'
The hotelier shook his head. Greg saw him and raised his voice. 'Fine, Alf,' he said. 'You go swimming, then. I just thought it was my duty to let you guys know what's out there.'
'Shark attacks are on the increase,' said Yoshi. 'It's a well-known fact. There are some possible solutions. We can maybe mark off safe swimming areas with buoys and nets. I'm sure the coastguard can fix that up. They just won't be enormous.'
'In the meantime, as I said,' Greg had pulled his cap low over his eyes so that I couldn't see them, 'I'd advise you to keep your ankle-biters out of the water. We'll alert the coastguard if we see any others in the bay, and the fishermen will do the same.'
There was a murmur of concern. Several people turned away, mobile phones at their ears, and others moved closer to the truck, wanting to touch the shark. I thought about Hannah and the conversation we had had about me getting her a boat. I didn't think anyone would let their children take boats out around Silver Bay while there were sharks in the water. But telling her that after what I had promised wouldn't be easy. While I was mulling this over, Kathleen stepped forward and stared at the dead creature in the back of the van. 'Shark, eh?' she said, frowning, her arms crossed across her chest.
'You'd know,' said Greg, as he hoisted it up on the winch so that the photographers could get a better picture.
'Where did you say you--'
'This, gentlemen,' Greg said, gesturing towards her before Kathleen could continue, 'is the world-famous Shark Lady of Silver Bay, Kathleen Whittier Mostyn. This lady here caught an even bigger shark some half a century ago. Biggest grey nurse shark ever caught in New South Wales, wasn't it, Kathleen? How's that for a story, eh?'
Kathleen stared silently at him. The bald malevolence in her eye would have been enough to send me scuttling for shelter. She knew she'd been set up, and she didn't like it. But Greg rattled on regardless: 'So, gentlemen, you see? Once again Silver Bay has a shark population. The wildlife people will be delighted, but I do want to warn our good citizens not to go swimming or windsurfing or, indeed, to take part in any kind of watersports without great caution while the threat of shark attack exists.'
The press gathered around Kathleen, their notepads and microphones in front of her. Several flashbulbs went off. Greg continued to pose beside his shark. After the horror of the ghost nets, the local newspapers had their second good front-page story in a fortnight, and you could hear the delight in their questions.
'I forgot to add - this little beaut's for sale, if anyone fancies him,' he called. 'He's fresh as you like. Make a lovely bit of sushi.'
'I thought you didn't get sharks and dolphins in the same place,' Mike said, as he and I strolled back to the hotel. The afternoon was clear and bright, the sea glinting benignly in the distance. I had had a couple of beers, and had eaten an unusually large amount. Half a mile ahead I could make out Hannah and Lara, performing some dance routine for Nino Gaines, and collapsing, giggling, on to the sand. Occasionally, on days like this, I could convince myself that the world I inhabited was a good one.
'Sometimes I think the whole planet is topsy-turvy,' I said, pushing my hair off my face and glancing up at him. I wanted to kiss him, then - I wanted to kiss him most of the time.
I must remember this, I told myself, and wished I could be like Mike's little mobile telephone, stacked full of moments that I could replay with perfect clarity far, far into the future.
'Don't go,' said Mike, that night. He was standing in the bathroom brushing his teeth, a towel wrapped round his waist, and I had walked in behind him to get a glass of water.
'Go where?' I said, sticking the glass under the tap. I had been thinking about the jobs I needed to do the following day. Stupid things I now had to think about, like making sure Hannah had enough school uniform to last several seasons, signing over power of attorney, sorting out a joint account for me and Kathleen. The solicitor had said I would be wise to get all personal matters in place before I talked to anyone, and the list of things that needed sorting out made my head spin.
'Don't do this. It's madness. I've been thinking about it, and it's madness.' His reflection was staring at me from the mirror, and the rigidity of his naked back told me the tension I had thought I saw in his face that evening had not been imagined.
He had hardly spoken for several hours, although Greg had been so garrulous and the whalechasers so drunk it would have been hard for him to get a word in edgeways. I had thought Greg, doing his best to bait him, had prompted it. 'No offence, mate,' he would say, after each barb, and Mike would smile tightly at him. Only I saw the tic in his jaw. We could still hear them downstairs, although Nino, the true focus of the party, had long gone home to bed.
I sighed. 'Mike, I don't want to go through this now,' I said. I wanted to enjoy the day for what it was, to savour it and go to bed in peace.
'Nothing's going to stop the development,' he said, pausing to spit out toothpaste. 'I know what Beaker's like. They see big money in this, and when Dennis Beaker sees money, nothing stops him. It's gone too far. And you're about to ruin your own life, and Hannah's, for no reason.'
'What do you mean, no reason? Is mine and Hannah's peace of mind worth nothing?'
'But you're fine,' he said. There was toothpaste on his chin, but something told me he wouldn't thank me for pointing it out. 'You're both fine. Maybe you can't do everything you'd like to do - but, then, who can? Hannah's safe and happy, surrounded by people she loves. You're happy - the happiest I've ever seen you. This guy - Steven - is still alive and married with kids, which suggests that even he's happy. No one's going to recognise you, especially after all this time. We could be a couple
, and stay here and . . . see how things go. Why risk all that for something you might not be able to pull off?'
'Mike, we've been through this a million times. It's our only hope for the whales. And I'm not talking about it now. Can't we just go to bed?'
'Why? Every time I mention it you say the same thing. What's wrong with now?'
'I'm tired.'
'We're all tired. It's the human condition.'
'Yes, well, I'm too tired to talk.' I was irritated that he was speaking the truth. I didn't want to talk about it: talking about it made me dwell on what I was about to do, and I was afraid that if someone challenged me too hard my resolve might vanish.
Downstairs Greg had broken into song. I could hear the others cheering him, Lance's piercing whistle.
'It's not just you this affects.'
'You think I don't know that?' I snapped.
'Hannah barely leaves your side. She was glued to you this evening.'
I glared at him. 'I don't need you to tell me anything about my daughter, thank you very much.' My blood was up. I hated him for pointing that out. I hated him for seeing Hannah's fear.
'Well, someone's got to talk to you. You haven't even discussed it with Kathleen.'
'I'll talk to Kathleen when I'm ready.'
'You don't want to tell her because you know she'll say the same as I have. Have you thought about what prison really means?'
'Don't patronise me.'
'Being locked up twenty-three hours a day? Being labelled a child-killer by other inmates? You think you could survive that?'
'I'm not talking about this now,' I said, starting to gather up my clothes.
'If you can't cope with me saying those words, how are you going to cope with it in court? From the police? From people who want to hurt you? You think they'll care what really happened?'
'Why are you doing this to me?'
'Because I don't think you've thought it through. I don't think you know what you're letting yourself in for.'
'I can look after myself.'
'How do you know? You've never had to.'
I squared up to him. 'This is about Greg, isn't it?'
'It's got nothing to do with Greg. I want you to talk about--'
'It's all about Greg. He sat there and riled you all evening, which reminded you that you're not the only man I've ever been with.' He sat down opposite me, his eyes closed as if that helped him not to hear me. But I carried on: 'So now you're taking it out on me. Well, if you're going to pick a fight, I'm going to--'
'Run away again? You know what? I don't think this has anything to do with the whales any more.'
'What?'
'You're determined to punish yourself for Letty's death. This development has forced you to look at what happened, and now you feel the need to atone for it by sacrificing yourself.'
Downstairs the singing had stopped. The window was open, but I no longer cared.
'And it's pointless. You've already paid for what happened, Liza. You've paid a million times.'
'I want a clean slate. And we need to--'
'Save the whales. I know.'
'Then why are you going on like this?'
'Because you're wrong. And you're doing it for the wrong reasons.'
'Who the hell are you to judge my reasons?'
'I'm not judging you. But you need to think about this, Liza. You need to know that by--'
'You need to butt out of my business.'
'--that by going through with this, you'll take Hannah down with you.'
My blood ran cold. I couldn't believe he would attack me like that. If his words hadn't sunk into me, like a knife, I probably wouldn't have said what I did: 'Who the hell landed us in this situation, Mike? You ask yourself that the next time you start judging me. As you said, we were fine here. We were happy. Well, if Hannah and I end up spending the next five years separated, you ask yourself whose bloody fault it really is.'
There was silence, both inside and out. All that could be heard was the sea, and then, after a few moments, the low scrape of a chair as someone beneath us began quietly to collect glasses.
I stared at Mike's grey face, and wished I could take back what I'd said. 'Mike--'
He held up his hand. 'You're right,' he said. 'I'm sorry.'
And I understood, with a painful lurch, the truth of it: that he hadn't wanted to hurt me. He just couldn't bear the thought of losing me.
Twenty-three
Monica
My brother's behaviour had been pretty surprising over the past few months. At this time last year if you had offered me a bet on the progression of his life I would have said that by March he'd be married to Vanessa, she would be in the process of getting herself pregnant and he'd be sliding his way up the greasy pole of his property-development company. A smart flat, perhaps a new house, maybe a holiday home somewhere hot, another flash car, skiing, expensive restaurants, blah-blah-blah. The most radical thing Mike would do was change his aftershave, or maybe the colour of his tie.
I no longer had the slightest idea where he'd be in March. He might be in Australia, or New Zealand, or boat-building in the Galapagos. He might be growing dreadlocks. He might be protecting a fugitive woman and her child, and saving the whales. When I told my parents the half of it (he'll have to forgive me, I couldn't resist) Dad nearly spat out his false teeth. 'What do you mean he's left his job?' he spluttered, and I could hear Mum in the background telling him to think of his blood pressure. 'How long is he planning to stay in Australia?' And then: 'A single mother? What the hell happened to Vanessa?'
I had thought perhaps Mike was having an early mid-life crisis, that maybe Liza really was his first love - people do weird things when they fall in love for the first time. Perhaps property development wasn't all it was cracked up to be.
And then he had rung me last week and told me this story. I can't lie. My first thought was not, as he put it, how do we protect her? It was too good a story: the battered girlfriend of a political wannabe who fled the country after accidentally killing their child. It had everything: violent crime, long-buried secrets, tragedy, a dead child, a beautiful blonde. It even had whales and dolphins, for God's sake. I told him all we needed was Skippy and we'd have a full deck. He didn't laugh.
Except it didn't add up. I looked at all of the guy's cuttings, even with the change of name. I cross-checked that information with every database I could find. I spent almost a week doing nothing but looking up the facts of the story, and irritating the hell out of my newsdesk because I couldn't tell them what I was doing. And it still didn't add up.
Twenty-four
Mike
Milly had gone into a decline. She hardly ate, and slept only sporadically. She was watchful, anxious and snappy, twice disgracing herself on Ishmael by baring her teeth at passengers, and once soiling the lounge carpet - an act of depression that even she had the good grace to seem embarrassed about. Everywhere that Liza went, she was glued to her heels, a little black and white shadow. With canine intuition, she had picked up on the fact that her mistress was planning to leave, and was afraid that if she dropped her vigil Liza might disappear.
I knew how she felt. The anxiety. The impotence. Since the night of the party, we no longer discussed Liza's plans. I worked harder, partly because that was the only way I could think of to stop her, and partly because I found it increasingly painful to be with her. I couldn't look at her, touch her, kiss her, without thinking of how it would feel to be without her. If you want to put it in crude financial terms, I couldn't make any more investment in something that was about to be withdrawn from me.
Kathleen evidently knew now what she planned - they had had a conversation - and her way of dealing with it, as with so much in her life, was merely to plough on, being practical. I hadn't talked to her about it - I didn't feel it was my place - but I saw her paying extra attention to Hannah, making plans for trips and special treats, and I knew she was engaged in her own form of preparation. Mr Gaines came mos
t days now, and while Hannah was at school the two could often be found at the kitchen table, in whispered conversation or peaceably reading the newspaper and listening to what they both still called the wireless. I was glad for them, glad that Kathleen would not face this alone, and a little envious, too, of their happiness. Liza deserved that kind of contentment, after everything that had happened, and instead she was about to be punished again.
She had forgiven me for my outburst. She was gentle with me, occasionally running a finger down the side of my face with sympathetic eyes. At night she was increasingly passionate, as if she, too, was determined to glean every last bit of happiness from what remained of our time together. Sometimes I had to tell her I couldn't - I felt too sad and angry about what would soon take place that I couldn't make it happen.
She never commented. She would just wrap her thin limbs round me, rest her face against the back of my neck and the two of us would lie, in the darkness, each knowing the other was awake, neither knowing what to say.
Several times she had asked when my sister was likely to call, when she was likely to do the interview. She tried to make her enquiries sound casual, but I knew she needed to set things in motion, to know exactly how much time she had left. I had stalled at first, then tried several times to reach Monica, but always I got her voicemail. Each time we failed to speak I felt nothing but relief.
My despondency was not helped by the seemingly unstoppable momentum of the hotel development. I was running out of ideas and energy, and despite my best efforts, I hadn't managed to get a demonstration going on the day the architectural model went on display. The owner of the Blue Shoals Hotel rang to tell me that, sympathetic as he was to what I was doing, he 'didn't want any aggro' as there was a christening party in the back room that lunchtime, and surely I understood. He sounded like a nice guy, and I didn't feel I could ruin a family's special day, so I called it off. Kathleen had laughed drily when I told her, and said some revolutionary I would have made. I didn't like to tell her that only a handful of people had shown interest in joining the demonstration as it was.
Liza was out on Ishmael, and Hannah was at school, so after I'd tried and failed to continue the fight from my desk, I had headed down to the Blue Shoals, relishing, despite myself, the bright blue sky, and the warm breeze. These days, with the onset of warmer weather, Silver Bay seemed the most beautiful place on earth. Its landscape had become familiar, the volcanic horizon restful to the eye, the rows of bungalows and holiday lets no longer jarring, the pie and bottle shops along the coast road now regular stopping-off points. Everything a person could need is in this small corner of the world, I thought. One of the few certainties I employed to console myself was that I had decided to stay. I would help Kathleen in her fight to keep afloat, and look after Hannah until Liza came home.