Silver Bay by Jojo Moyes Page B

imagined.
    The child was hovering in the doorway, plainly in no hurry to leave. She had that light, gangly look that girls get just before they burst into adulthood; the opaque quality where, for a couple of months, or even years, it’s impossible to tell whether they’re going to be great beauties, or whether hormones and genetics will conspire to pull out that nose a little too far, or make that chin a bit heavy. I suspected in her case that it would be the former.
    I looked down, in case she thought I was staring at her. She was very like her mother.
    ‘Mr Dormer.’
    ‘Mike.’
    ‘Mike. When you’re not too busy – if you’re not too busy – one day, can I have a go on your computer? I’d really like to see that picture of my aunt.’
    The sun had cast the whole bay in radiance, the shadows shrinking, the sidewalks and sand bouncing reflected light back into the air. Since I’d arrived at Kingsford Smith, Sydney’s airport, I’d felt like a fish out of water. It was nice to have someone ask me to do something familiar. ‘Tell you what,’ I said, ‘we could have a look now.’
    We were sitting there for almost an hour, during which time I decided she was a sweet kid. A little young for her age in some ways – she was much less interested in her appearance than the London kids I knew, or pop culture, music, all that stuff – yet she carried an air of wistfulness, and a maturity that sat awkwardly on such a young frame. I’m not usually great with kids – I find it hard to know what to talk to them about – but I found myself enjoying Hannah McCullen’s company.
    She asked me about London, about my house, whether I had any pets. She found out pretty quickly that I was due to get married, and fixed her big, dark, serious eyes on me as she asked, with some gravity, ‘Are you sure she’s the right person?’
    I was a little taken aback, but I felt she deserved to be answered with equal gravity. ‘I think so. We’ve been together a long time. We know each other’s strengths and weaknesses.’
    ‘Are you nice to her?’
    I thought for a minute. ‘I hope I’m nice to everyone.’
    She grinned, a more childish grin. ‘You do seem quite nice,’ she conceded. Then we turned to the important business of the computer. We looked up – and printed out – two different photographs of the young woman in the bathing-suit with the shark, and a couple of pieces about her by people she had evidently never met. We visited the website for a well-known boy band, a tourism site for New Zealand, then a string of facts and figures about humpback whales that Hannah said she already knew by heart. I learnt that a whale’s lungs are the size of a small car, that a newborn calf can weigh up to one and a half tons and that whale milk has the consistency of cottage cheese. I have to admit that I could have done without knowing that last one.
    ‘Do you go out with your mum much to see the whales?’
    ‘I’m not allowed,’ she said. I heard the twang of an Australian accent, noted the way that her sentence lilted upwards at the end. ‘My mum doesn’t like me going out on the water.’ Suddenly I remembered the fierce exchange between Liza McCullen and Greg when I had arrived. I do my best to stay out of other people’s private business, but I vaguely remembered that it had been something about Hannah and a boat.
    She shrugged, as if she was trying to convince herself she didn’t care. ‘She’s trying to make sure I’m safe. We . . .’ She looked up at me, as if wondering whether to say something, then apparently changed her mind. ‘Can we find some pictures of England on your computer? I sort of remember it, but not very much.’
    ‘We certainly can. What was it you wanted to look at?’ I began to type in the words.
    Liza McCullen appeared. ‘I was wondering where you were,’ she said, standing in the open doorway. She looked from one of us to the other, and the way she did so made me feel vaguely