by Peter Boland
Lena looked at Tanya, her eyebrows raised like a lifting bridge.
“Go on,” said Tanya. “I’ll wait here for you.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. Definitely.”
Lena thought for a second. “Okay, I’ll come.”
“Cool, I’m Vicks,” said the tracksuited girl.
“I’m Duff,” said the red hoodie, “and this is Seb and Mack.”
Seb and Mack didn’t say anything. They didn’t even smile, probably to preserve their hard exterior. Then he pointed to the girl and boy who were holding hands. “And those two are Liz and Si – they’re in lurve.”
“Shut up, Duff,” said Liz.
“Don’t be like that, I know you want me,” Duff said, holding his crotch.
Lena looked at Si for his reaction, to see if he’d start something with Duff for hitting on his girlfriend, but there was none. Duff was clearly the alpha of this gang.
“And the little one’s Gem,” said Vicks.
“I’m big in other ways,” he grinned. Out of all of them he looked the most dangerous. His eyes were small and too close together, like he was plotting something.
“Come on, let’s talk,” said Vicks, swiftly changing the subject.
The gang members led Lena to the front room of the flat, closing the door behind them. Tanya thought about following and listening, or putting her eye to the keyhole, but she’d seen that too many times on TV, the person always got discovered. It wouldn’t look cool. So she just sat there on the worktop feeling strange. Her best friend had been selected to join a gang and she hadn’t. She didn’t know whether to be happy or sad.
Joining a gang might make you cool or it might get you killed. She tried hard to make herself feel like it was the latter, and that she was better off where she was. Perhaps this was a lucky escape. But no matter how hard she tried she still felt like a reject.
A few guys nudged passed her, giving her the usual corny lines like “cheer up” and “might never happen.” At least she managed to bum a drink off one of them. It was an oversized beer bottle, Becks or something like that. The liquid was warm and felt like sickly treacle. She hated warm beer, but she drank it anyway.
By the time she’d sucked the last drops out of the bottle her head was lolling around like a puppet’s. She turned over on her front and eased herself off of the worktop. Then she took herself off to a dark corner like an old dog and squatted down with her back against the wall. A second later she passed out.
Chapter 3
Tanya came back to the real world when she felt someone trying to unpick the buttons on her jeans. She sobered up fast.
“Get the fuck off me,” she shouted. Her eyes were blurred by the alcohol and took
a while to focus. She made out the snakey shape of Tyrone who leapt off her like he’d been electrocuted.
“Sorry, sorry,” he said desperately. “I was just seeing if you were all right.”
“What, by taking my jeans off, you bloody perv.” Tanya stood up too quickly and
nearly fell straight back down again. Her head felt like it was full of porridge. Steadying herself, she gave it another go. Tyrone supported her by the arm. The second she was upright, she punched him as hard as she could. Tanya tried to follow it up with another but she moved in slow motion. Tyrone backed off clutching his bruised forearm.
“Sorry,” he said. “I’m really sorry.” The he turned and dashed out the door.
“Fucking creep!” Tanya shouted after him, the effort made her nearly fall back down again. She wanted to chase after him and make him pay but the chemical reactions in her body conspired against her. The alcohol that had been her best friend only a few hours ago was now her worst enemy. Every movement was agony. It was like having a million worms in her stomach and raw sewage in her blood. The room was a spin dryer going a thousand miles an hour and she could smell the stench of every fag butt and piss stain on the carpet.
Tanya shuffled delicately towards the door and out into the corridor. She got her bearings and made for the front door, scuffing her shoulder along the wall as she went. She had to find Lena. But the front room where she’d seen her last was now empty, apart from a few dozing spliff heads. The music still thumped away. It felt like her head was an anvil being pounded by a demented blacksmith. She had to get out. She made it to the front door and tried to open it but her fingers wouldn’t work. It was like they belonged to someone else. And she couldn’t figure out how to open the door. Was it locked or was she so pissed that it made this simple task too difficult? The harder she tried, the more frustrated she became. Her insides would explode if she didn’t leave immediately. She craved fresh air, if she could just get out it would be all right.
Tanya dragged herself back into the front room, nearly tripping over the passed-out bodies. Over by the widow lay a mangled metal chair on its side. She managed to pick it up and hurl it at the window. It simply bounced off and landed at her feet. This time she held it up to her chest like a shield with the legs pointing out and half ran, half fell through the window. It broke, sending splintered glass everywhere, but she was too drunk to notice. The sudden rush of cool, crisp night air was like medicine. She dropped the chair and climbed through the window.
She had no idea what the time was. It was still dark, but in a small corner of sky morning spilled into night. All she knew was she had to keep moving away from this place.
Tanya stumbled along the concrete walkway, trying but failing to maintain a straight line. At the top of the stairs she nearly missed the top step and was only saved by grabbing the steel handrail. The metal felt cool and reassuring. Clutching it with both hands she used it to guide her all the way down.
At ground level she staggered like a zombie, barely managing to put one foot in front of the other. The world wouldn’t stay straight, her drunken mind kept making it tilt like a fun house. Her head got worse as the witch’s brew of whiskey, beer, wine and cider put her under a nightmarish spell. The only way to make it go away was to get it out of her body. She put her fingers down her mouth, but nothing came out except saliva. The poison stayed put, prolonging her agony.
Somehow she made it to the edge of the Thames. It was cold and deserted. The only sign of life was a tiny newsagents that was open for the early morning papers. The small one-storey building was wedged in between two larger shops. Tanya remembered what the two geeks had said earlier: salt and vitamin C prevents a hangover. As if on autopilot, her legs walked her over to the newsagent. The owner eyed her cautiously. With what little money she had in her pockets she bought some ready salted crisps and a carton of orange juice.
Back out on the pavement she stuffed the crisps in her mouth and then attempted to put the little straw into the hole in the top of the cartoon. It was harder than threading a needle. Eventually she gave up, ripped the corner off with her mouth and poured the contents down her throat. A moment later it all came back up again. The mess splashed on the pavement; a vile soup of orange, chewed potato and alcohol. Tanya spat and spat again. A second convulsion shivered up her neck. She ran over to the wall beside the river where she spewed the remaining contents of her stomach into the Thames. The river now had a little more pollution in it than it did before.
Tanya stood there, both hands planted on the wall, breathing like she’d just been
strangled. Her head hung low and a long string of puke dangled from her mouth. There was no energy left to bat it away. She waited to feel better, but better never came.
Tanya groaned.
From somewhere in the middle of the river, a groan came back, like an echo. Except this one was deep and powerful, as if it had come from the centre of the earth.
Tanya’s head snapped up.
She wiped away the dribble. The alcohol, it must be the alcohol, she thought.
The moan came again. Closer this time.
Tanya jumped back. It felt like the river itself was about to open and suck her down. She swallowed hard, then wished she
hadn’t. The acidic bile she’d brought up stung the back of her throat, making her wince. She felt it blaze all the way back down where it set fire to her stomach, making her want to cry. She prayed to God to take the pain away. He didn’t. But he did the next best thing and distracted her.
In the gloomy morning light, Tanya saw something out in the middle of the river. The river split open and something pushed its way up to the surface. At first she thought it was a large upturned boat. It was flattish, yet a little too bumpy to be a boat. The way it moved didn’t look right either. There was something surreal about it, freakish even. This strange shape was moving upstream against the current. She knew nothing about water, rivers or sailing, but she was smart enough to know that anything that fell into the Thames always went the other way, towards Gravesend and out to sea.
She watched the black shape pass her. Tanya began moving along the embankment, keeping pace with it. Often it would submerge for just a second and she thought she’d lost it, then it would reappear again. Was it a submarine? It looked too soft and completely the wrong shape to be anything like that. Perhaps a UFO?
She couldn’t take her eyes off it. And though her skull throbbed and her legs ached, her brain was charged with curiosity. She had to find out what it was.
An early morning jogger ipodded his way past. Tanya pointed wildly.
“Look at that. Look,” she slurred, but the sickly alcoholic fumes on her breath told him to keep running.
She looked back at the strange object. A streak of water fired up into the sky like a fountain. She knew instantly.
“It’s a whale. Oh my God, it’s a fucking whale.” Tanya laughed and jumped and clapped her hands. She turned and shouted, “It’s a whale, it’s a whale, it’s a whale.” But nobody was there to hear. Then Tanya did something that she thought she’d never do. She pulled out her mobile and called the police.
Chapter 4
Tanya had been told to stay put and that someone would be with her soon. She was in a state of shock. Firstly, because she’d just seen a whale and secondly because the police had believed her. Tanya had braced herself expecting the operator at the other end to laugh in disbelief and start taking the piss or at least give her a bollocking for wasting police time. Instead the operator had calmly taken down some details and politely asked if Tanya wouldn’t mind waiting until they could get someone there. It was the first time a grown-up had taken her seriously.
Tanya kept her eyes pinned on the river in case the whale appeared again but she couldn’t stop jerking her head around to look for the police car. She was eager to tell someone, anyone, what she saw, even if it was a pig. As Tanya was checking up and down the empty street, she heard the sound of an engine but no car appeared. It was higher pitched than a car and slightly whiny. Then she realised it was coming from the river. An orange rigid inflatable boat headed towards her. In it were two men dressed in bright red waterproofs and life jackets.
As they got nearer, they cut the engine and let the boat drift towards the embankment, where they tied it to a metal ladder that was set into the concrete retaining wall.
Tanya staggered back, she felt slightly odd and surreal, and it wasn’t just the alcohol. This was possibly the most bizarre end to a night she had ever had.
A smiley-faced man with gingery hair climbed over the top of the concrete wall. Tanya could see that his waterproofs were an all-in-one outfit. He squelched towards her looking like a giant hot water bottle.
“You must be Tanya Reece.” His voice was friendly and reassuring with a sing-song Scottish lilt.
“Yes.” Tanya was surprised at how croaky and weak her voice sounded.
“You sound like you’ve had a good night,” he replied.
“Not really.”
“Oh, feeling a wee bit worse for wear?”
“I’m fine.”
“Well, we’ve all been there. Did you know you’re bleeding?”
“What? No.” Tanya looked down and saw her left hand was leaking blood. She had a gash in the heel of her hand, probably from when she went through the window. “Shit.”
“Do you want me to look at that for you? I’m a trained medic, usually of the animal variety but I have been known to patch up the odd human.”
“I’m fine.”
“Okay, I’m sure you are but you’ll need to get it cleaned out properly, just in case.”
“Well, maybe you could take a look at it.”
“No problem. I’m Greg by the way. And that fellow over there is Roger.”
Roger was the size of Bigfoot and had a sprawling grey beard and hair to match. He’d just climbed over the top of the wall and was already out of breath.
“Rog, could you go back down and fetch me the first aid kit?”
Roger looked tired and grumpy, and after mouthing something under his breath, he disappeared back into the boat.
“He loves me really,” said Greg winking at Tanya.
“Aren’t the police coming?” asked Tanya.
“No, they contact us whenever they get an animal-related incident.”
“So who are you, then?”
“The BDRS,” said Greg.
Tanya stared back at him with hollow eyes.
“It stands for British Divers Rescue Service. Don’t worry, hardly anybody’s heard of us, we’re a small charity that rescues animals from the water.”
“What? You do this for free?”
“Certainly do,” replied Greg.
Tanya giggled.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
“Bit sad, ain’t it, doing this for free?”
“Hey, don’t knock it. I get to hang around with guys like Rog. It’s great isn’t it, Rog?”
At that moment Roger appeared with the medical kit and handed it to Greg, who started cleaning out Tanya’s wound.
“How did you get that?” asked Roger.
“I fell through a window.”
“Really. Have you been drinking? How old are you?” Roger’s questions had swiftly turned into an interrogation.
Tanya took an instant dislike to him. “Fuck you, Gandalf.”
“Okay, that’s enough,” said Greg, “Rog, give her a break. Tanya, button it and hold still while I get this dressing on.”
Greg finished bandaging her hand. “How does that feel?”
“Fine,” said Tanya.
“You’re welcome. Now why don’t you tell me what you saw.”
“A whale. I saw a whale.”
“Right, start from the beginning,” Greg said calmly.
“I was feeling sick,” said Tanya.
Roger gave her a disapproving look but she ignored it.
“I puked over the wall and heard a groaning, then this big shape appeared, I thought it was a boat, an upturned boat. I followed it for a while. I couldn’t make out what it was. Then it squirted a load of water up in the air. That’s what whales do, innit?”
“You don’t believe this do you?” Roger barked. “She’s clearly drunk. And it’s steam that comes out of their blowhole, not water.”
“Whatever,” said Tanya.
“Roger, please. Just let her talk. Carry on, Tanya”.
“That’s it really.”
“How big was it?” asked Roger.
“Big, I mean, longer than your boat. Nearly twice as long. ”
“That’s ridiculous. The boat’s 14 feet long. That makes it nearly 30 feet. A whale that big would never make it up the Thames.”
“How do you know? You weren’t there,” said Tanya.
“I don’t need to be, The Thames is far too shallow.”
“Roger, shut up,” said Greg. “Tanya, could you describe its shape.”
“Yeah, it was kinda flat on top. It had bumps and it had fins, big fins. They were more like wings, like the wings of a plane and it dived under the water and, like, this mental tail flipped up.”
“This is crazy.” Roger went off on one again. “We don’t get whales like that in London, darling
. Certainly not ones that big. You’d know that if you went to school.”
“Steady on, Roger, there’s a first time for everything. It could have been a juvenile.”
“Come on, Greg, get real, you’re not going to believe some binge drinker are you? It’s a wind up.” Roger turned his attention to Tanya, “Do you know how much it costs to launch this boat? It’s not free, you know.”
Tanya ignored him, stuffed her hand into her pocket and pulled out her phone. Roger carried on ranting while Greg tried to calm him down. Tanya started thumbing the buttons on her mobile, then without saying a word held it up in front of Roger’s face.
Roger fell silent and so did Greg.
There on the screen was a video playing. It was dark and a little fuzzy, but they could clearly see a very large dark shape moving across the surface of the Thames. It submerged and then the tail appeared pointing up into the air, large and distinct. And then it was gone.
Tanya enjoyed the sight of two grown men standing with their mouths open.
“I don’t believe it,” said Roger,
“Play it again,” Greg urged. The men watched, closer to the screen this time. “Look at that tail. Unmistakable.”
“It’s impossible,” said Roger.
“Clearly not,” said Greg. “Do you know what that is, Tanya?”
“A whale,” Tanya replied.
“Not just any whale. That’s a humpback whale.”
“A humpback? Sounds deformed,” said Tanya.
“Not at all, quite the opposite. Humpbacks are the most beautiful, playful creatures on this earth, and you found it. I mean, a whale in the Thames is amazing enough, but a humpback. People pay money to see them.”
“Is there a reward, then?” Tanya asked hopefully.
“Tanya, if you knew how rare that creature was, you’d know you’ve already had your reward,” Roger said.
“Well done,” said Greg, “You’ve made our day. Now which way was it heading?”
“That way.” Tanya pointed upstream.
“If you’ll forgive us we’ve got to go. We’ve got to alert the Port of London and try to find it before it gets in any trouble. Well done, Tanya, you’ve done brilliantly.” Greg climbed back over the wall, followed by Roger. A second later and the engine squealed into life.
