Silver Bay by Jojo Moyes Page A

presentation. We’re definitely interested. When you’re out of hospital we’ll talk more about the site.’
    ‘Mike will send you a copy of the site report. Won’t you, Mike?’ Dennis spoke through clenched teeth, his face grey with pain.
    ‘Sure.’ I tried to look as confident as he had sounded.
    As he was loaded into the ambulance, he beckoned me closer. ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he whispered. ‘You’ll have to compile one.’
    ‘But the timing – the wedding—’
    ‘I’ll square it with Vanessa. Best you’re out of the way for most of the planning anyway. Book yourself a flight this afternoon. And for God’s sake, Mike, come back with a plan that’s going to make this site work.’
    ‘But we haven’t even—’
    ‘I’ll stall them as long as it takes for you to pull it together. But this is our biggest ever development. I want to know I was right to promote you, that you can bring it in.’
    It didn’t occur to him that I might refuse. That I might put my personal life before the needs of the company. But, then, he was probably right. I’m a company man. A safe pair of hands. I booked the flight that afternoon. Business class in one of the Asian carriers was cheaper than economy in both my initial choices.

Four
     
    Greg
     
    What’s an okay time of day to start on the beer? According to my old man, any time after midday. He used to sink them like my mother sank cups of tea, cracking open a Toohey’s every couple of hours or so when he took a break from whatever house he was building.
    He was a big bloke, and you’d never have known he was drinking that much. My mum reckons that was cos he was permanently drunk; cheerful in the afternoons, ebullient at tea, a little muzzy in the mornings from the night before. We never had the misfortune to deal with him stone-cold sober.
    I believe the right time is around two p.m., unless I’m working, in which case it’s whatever time I bring Sweet Suzanne back in. You wouldn’t catch me drunk at the helm – whatever my faults, I’d never put my boat or my passengers at risk. But a cold beer at Kathleen’s, with the sun high in the sky and a few chips on the table, that’ll do me. Can’t see how anyone could object to that. Apart from my ex.
    According to Suzanne, there’s never a good time for me to drink beer. She said I was a mean drunk, an ugly drunk, and drunk too often to make up for it. She said that was why she could no longer stand the sight of me. She said that was why I was losing my looks. She said that was why we’d never had kids – although she’d refused point-blank when I suggested she and I head for the doc to see if he could work it out. And I told her – I might not be an angel and I’m the first to admit I’m not the easiest bloke to be hitched to – there’s not a lot of men in Australia would volunteer to have their tackle tampered with, especially by another bloke.
    But that was how bad I wanted kids. And that was why, as I left my solicitor’s office at eleven twenty-five – amazing how you keep track of time when you’re paying by the hour and it’s Saturday rates – I decided that, as far as I was concerned, eleven twenty-five a.m. was the perfect time to crack open a cold can of VB, even though it was chilly enough for me to be wearing my sweater, and the wind was too high to sit outside without turning blue.
    I guess that beer must have been a two-fingers to her, as much as anything. Her and her bloody fitness-instructor bloke and her half-share of everything and her stupid demands. Because, to be honest, it didn’t taste that great. I was going to drink one at the pub but somehow, when I thought about it, sitting in a pub by yourself at eleven twenty-five in the morning seemed a little . . . sad. Even on a Saturday.
    So I sat in the front of my truck, drinking my beer with a little less speed than I might have done, waiting for the point when it would stop feeling like an effort, and start