Whale Pot Bay

by Des Hunt

  There was a gasp around the lounge—we all knew that was not true. I was too stunned to gasp or do anything. My face was being broadcast all over the country, and this man was saying that I was responsible for it all; that I’d killed Pimi.

  The programme moved on to something else, leaving us sitting there staring at each other in shock. Eventually Dad asked, ‘So, what do we do about this pack of lies?’

  Everyone looked at Milt, waiting for a response. He seemed totally exhausted. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ he admitted. ‘In the end people believe what they want to believe. Any complaint we make will just reinforce their views. You fight against it, and you end up losing what little private life you have left.’

  ‘But what about Jake?’ pushed Dad. ‘I’m not happy with him being blamed for the whole thing.’

  Milt sighed, loudly. ‘Of course. You’re right. Let’s get some sleep and look at it tomorrow. I think we’re all too stressed to make sensible decisions right now. We’ll leave it until the morning.’

  As it turned out, we didn’t have to do anything in the morning—the newspaper did it for us. The main story had the true facts along with a strong criticism of the TV news. It seemed as if the paper’s editor was trying to make ammends for their role in the disaster: if they hadn’t published the tracking details the day before, then none of it would have happened.

  The article was supported with several photos. The main one was, as expected, a close-up of Pimi’s injury. However, beside it was another showing the full length of Pimi in the red-coloured water. It clearly showed that she was not injured at that time. The caption had a description about inking very similar to that given by Colin the evening before.

  There were photos of Milt’s boat at the shipyard before it was launched. These showed that there was no propeller, nor anything else hanging below the boat that could have caused the injury. There were also photos showing that the boat could be controlled from both the main and upper decks.

  But the most revealing part was a side-box on page three containing an interview with Scott Grey.

  Interviewer: Is it true that you are the one who first released the information about Milton Summer’s surfing?

  Scott Grey Yes.

  Interviewer And you lost your job because of it?

  Scott Grey: Yes.

  Interviewer: Do you have an axe to grind with Milton Summer?

  Scott Grey: No.

  Interviewer: Then why did you distort the truth on the television news?

  Scott Grey: I didn’t distort it.

  Interviewer: I have shown you photographs that clearly show that your version of events is not true. What do you have to say about them?

  Scott Grey: It was very difficult out there. Things were happening so quickly.

  Interviewer: Do you still think that the boy was driving the boat?

  Scott Grey: Yes. You might be able to do it from up on top, but the boy was definitely steering it.

  Interviewer: I have here three sworn statements from journalists who say the boat was always controlled by Milton Summer. Are you saying they’re liars?

  Scott Grey: Yes.

  Interviewer: Do you still maintain that Milton Summer’s boat caused the injury to the whale?

  Scott Grey: Yes.

  Interviewer: These same three sworn statements say that they felt their own boat hit the whale and they never saw Milton’s boat touch it at all. Are you saying they’re lying?

  Scott Grey: Yes.

  Interviewer: I say that you’re the one who is lying, Mr Grey. What’s your answer to that?

  At this stage Scott Grey swore and left the interview room.

  It was satisfying to have the truth revealed in such detail. But, as Dad said, it didn’t really change anything. It didn’t change any of the things that had happened. Nothing the newspaper could say would bring Pimi back.

  Chapter 18

  The new year had hardly begun and already it seemed as if the gloom of winter had settled over our house. Anyone studying our family at that time would have described it as dysfunctional.

  Steph was inconsolable. She spent a good part of each day lying in bed. When she did get up, she would burst into tears at any little thing that went wrong. And there were plenty of those, many of them caused by me.

  I’d always found some things the women did annoying; now, they became a major issue. The first was all the plastic bottles that cluttered up the shower. You couldn’t find a place to put the soap because of bottles of body wash, skin lotion, hair shampoo, conditioner, and so on, and so on. It might have been OK if they’d both used the same brands. But no, they had to be different, meaning there were twice as many bottles as there needed to be. I got so fed up one day that I threw them all out onto the bathroom floor. Steph was the first to find them, which led to another fit of weeping. That started Vicky and Dad yelling at me as if I was the one at fault. After being forced to put them all back, I decided that in the future I’d stay dirty.

  Then there was the toilet deodorant. In the good old days, Dad and I used to joke about who created the worst stink when we went to the toilet. That stopped when the women arrived. Vicky soon had us using a spray deodorant. Every time we made a stink, we had to press the button for two seconds. This gave out a sickly, artificial smell that was much worse than any natural stink I might have created. Of course, one day I forgot to do it. Within a minute, Vicky was marching me back to the toilet, ordering me to use the deodorant. So I did. I held the button down until the can was empty. By the time I’d finished, the smell in the house was so bad we had to evacuate. This resulted in even more yelling and crying.

  After that episode, I decided that the less time I spent around the women the better. Early each morning I would go to Whale Pot Bay to take photographs. I had been given the job of official photographer for the dig—a job that I took seriously. I found that the light was best in the mornings. It was also a time when I could be by myself, and increasingly that’s what I wanted. I would get so involved in what I was doing that I’d lose track of time. Melanie and Colin usually came down around ten, and most times they would surprise me, as I was unaware that several hours had passed since I’d arrived.

  The dig was starting to get interesting. We had uncovered remnants of wood close to the cliff at the back of the mound. At first we thought that they might be part of a building. But it soon became clear that they were part of a boat, probably a wooden whaler. This confirmed what we’d suspected: Whale Pot Bay once had an onshore whaling station.

  I told Steph about the find, hoping it might pull her out of her state, and help get her back to normal. It didn’t. She thanked me for telling her, and then withdrew back into her shell. The situation was starting to affect Dad and Vicky’s relationship. Things finally came to a head one day when I arrived home earlier than usual. I found them in the garage pulling an engine out of an old van, Vicky covered in as much grease as Dad.

  ‘See,’ she said to me as I climbed out of the jeep, ‘I’m learning to do the things you used to do.’ It was said in a friendly way, and I should have responded in the same manner, but I didn’t.

  ‘Why?’ I asked, rudely.

  She stared at me for a moment, trying to decide whether to react or not. In the end she said, ‘Because, once you go away to school, I’m going to have to help Alan with some of these bigger jobs.’

  ‘Who says I’m going away to school?’

  ‘You have to go to school. You won’t get the education you need staying here. You’ll only waste the rest of your life.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with you?’

  She started to answer, but Dad put a hand on her arm. ‘Leave it, Vicky,’ he said.

  By then she was angry, and she turned on him. ‘No! I won’t leave it. We can’t let—’

  ‘I said leave it!’ Dad yelled.

  Vicky glared at him for an instant, before bursting into tears and running out the door.

  For a while Dad and I faced off a
s if we were going to hit one another. Then he grimly shook his head, turned, and went after Vicky.

  I stood for several minutes, calming down and trying to make sense of it all. Deep down, I liked Vicky. I remembered back to the time after her first visit when I’d caused things to go so terribly wrong. Dad had been so unhappy then, and so had I. That was not what I wanted. And, if I was honest with myself, the life we’d had before she came hadn’t been all that great either. Maybe she was right when she said I’d waste my life if I stayed in Hauruanui. I didn’t know what I wanted anymore; in my own way, I was just as confused as Steph.

  After that I spent even more time at the bay, not only taking photos but also doing some of the actual digging. Melanie had given me a rectangle measuring three metres by two, which was my own private little dig. It was fun and helped take my mind off the troubles at home.

  It was my job to work through the shell layer, recording all the different types of shells. I soon found that it wasn’t just seashells. There were fish skulls, starfish skeletons, sea eggs, and even a preserved seahorse. However, the shells were what Melanie was most interested in, especially the unusual ones that came from deeper water than the horse mussels. She was using my photos to identify them so that she could find out what depth of water they lived in. From that she could calculate the size of the waves that had caused the catastrophe. But so far it didn’t seem to have worked, as her results suggested waves much bigger than could’ve been produced by any storm. Either her calculations were wrong or the waves had been created in some other way.

  One morning I decided to dig into the sand for a while, thinking I might find some human remains. I knew enough not to dig with a shovel, so I began scraping a metre square with the trowel. I’d found several small stones and a couple of shells before the blade hit against something bigger. With care I scraped the sand away to reveal a yellow horn-shaped object, which was covered with black markings. It looked like some of the markings might be writing. Although I was impatient to dig the thing out, I thought it best to wait for the experts.

  Half an hour later, Melanie and Colin arrived. Immediately, Melanie was on her hands and knees, examining the thing with a magnifying glass.

  ‘Get a brush out of the tent,’ she ordered.

  I did so. ‘What do you think it is?’ I asked handing her the brush.

  She didn’t answer until she’d brushed away the sand to uncover the full length of the object. Then she gave a delighted whoop. ‘Yes!’ she shouted. ‘Yes, it is!’

  ‘It is what?’ I asked, impatiently.

  She stood up. ‘Scrimshaw! That’s what it is.’

  ‘What’s scrimshaw?’

  ‘A carved whale tooth,’ replied Colin with a smile. He bent down to study it. ‘A sperm whale’s tooth, to be precise. It’s a beauty. From a big bull, I would think.’

  I leant over and could see that it clearly was a tooth, although a much bigger one than any I’d seen before.

  Half an hour later it had been excavated and cleaned. It was now more yellow than brown, and the markings were much clearer. On it was a drawing of a sperm whale blowing at the surface. You could see the entire whale, as if the water was transparent. In the background was the rock on which Tarquins stood. The view was almost the same as the one in Milt’s photo, except that instead of a house there was a whaler’s lookout hut. Below the drawing were the initials BCF, and alongside that the date, 1836.

  Melanie was excited about the date, because it told us that whatever event had caused the destruction of the whaling station must have happened after 1836. It was information that would help in her search for the cause.

  I was allowed to take the tooth home that night to show the others. I hoped that it might catch Steph’s interest, and maybe help her out of the depression. As dinner was finishing, I laid it on the table and said, ‘See what I found today?’

  ‘That looks interesting,’ said Dad, picking it up. ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s a sperm whale’s tooth,’ I explained. ‘The whalers would carve them in their spare time. Then they’d spit tobacco juice into the lines to make them show up. It’s called scrimshaw.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, holding the tooth out to get a better look. ‘I can see it now. Where have I seen that view before?’

  ‘Milt’s photo,’ I said. ‘Take the house away from the photo and it’s the same view.’

  Steph stirred at the mention of Milt. ‘Can I have a look?’

  Dad handed it over. She turned it around so that the picture was the right way up. ‘Yes,’ she said with the start of a smile, ‘it is, too.’

  Then she brought it in for a closer look. The smile disappeared, to be replaced with one of concern, which quickly changed to shock.

  ‘What is it, darling?’ asked Vicky.

  ‘Th-the whale,’ she stammered. ‘It’s got a baby inside, just like Pimi had.’ She dropped the tooth, threw her chair back and rushed from the room. A moment later we heard her vomiting into the toilet, with the retching interspersed by loud, gasping sobs.

  Vicky picked up the tooth, looked at it for a moment, then thrust it in front of me.

  ‘There!’ she said. ‘You must’ve seen that!’

  I looked, and sure enough, if you studied it closely, there was a baby whale, but to me it looked like it was beside not inside the bigger whale.

  ‘How insensitive can you be?’ she shouted, standing and leaning over the table towards me. ‘Don’t you have any feelings for others at all?’

  For a moment I thought she was going to slap me. Instead she spun around, and rushed away to comfort her daughter.

  Dad got up and started stacking the dishes, leaving me sitting at the table wondering what I’d done wrong. But that’s the way it is, I guess. When things start falling apart, even trying to do the right thing can be a mistake. The spiral down to total collapse was well underway.

  If ever a family needed a miracle, it was ours.

  Chapter 19

  The miracle came two days after the scrimshaw episode.

  I arrived at the beach soon after sunrise, as usual. In the beginning, I didn’t notice anything different. Then, as I was walking down the track, my eye was caught by something floating in the water beyond the wave break. I stopped and watched for a while, trying to make it out. That’s when I saw the puff of mist, which told me that a miracle was underway.

  A moment later I was in the jeep, screaming crosscountry towards Tarquins. At first the butler was annoyed at being disturbed so early, but when he heard what I had to say, he readily invited me in. I declined, saying I had another urgent call to make. I asked him to pass the message on to Milt, before getting back in the jeep and heading for home.

  Nobody was up when I arrived at the house. I was so excited that I rushed into Steph’s room without knocking. She was already awake.

  ‘How dare you!’ she yelled, pulling the bedclothes up tightly. ‘Get out!’

  ‘Pimi’s alive,’ I spluttered. ‘You’ve got to get up. Pimi’s alive!’

  She stared at me, unsure of what to do. She plainly wanted to believe me, but wasn’t sure whether to trust me or not.

  Vicky came in. ‘Is this another one of your sick jokes?’ she demanded.

  ‘No!’ I cried. ‘It’s true. She’s in the bay. I swear to God it’s true.’

  The intensity of my voice was having an effect—now Vicky was unsure as well.

  I turned to Steph and said in a quieter voice, ‘It’s true, Steph. She’s back. You’ve got to come. She’ll need you. You’re the one she trusts.’

  It worked! They finally believed me. However, it still took a valuable twenty minutes before we were all organized and on our way back to the bay. By then I was concerned that Pimi might have left again. What would I say if she had? I shuddered at the thought.

  I need not have worried. She was still there, although she’d moved into deeper water. For a minute or so we stood on the clifftop, looking down on her. I don’t know what the other
s were thinking, but I was thanking whatever guardian angels had kept her alive, and hoping that they would continue to think kindly of her. I knew she would need whatever help she could get, for she would not have returned to the bay unless she was gravely ill.

  As soon as we got down to the beach, I rushed into the tent and grabbed our surfboards.

  ‘We’ll take the inflatable,’ suggested Dad, pointing to the dinghy sitting upside-down on our boat.

  ‘You take it,’ I replied. ‘We need to get out there and comfort her.’ Actually, I knew it wouldn’t be me who would do the comforting—it would be Steph. But I wanted to be close by when we got out there, just in case the wound was too horrific.

  Pimi must have sensed us coming, for she moved in as we paddled out. We met where the waves were beginning to swell. She showed no fear as we came alongside. I’m certain that she knew who we were. Steph started talking to her, and I saw Pimi’s eye soften and close a little. There is no doubt in my mind that she was as relieved to see us, as we were to see her.

  While Steph talked and stroked Pimi’s head, I inspected the wound. It was bad. The whole of her back had swollen, causing the wound to open until it was a wide V across her body. Inside the V, I could see all the layers: the skin, the thick layer of blubber, and then the muscle. It was the muscle that looked the worst. It was bulging, with pink fluid squeezing out every time she moved.

  I heard the sound of an outboard, and looked up to see Dad approaching in the inflatable, with Milt and Colin onboard. He turned the motor off and let the boat drift the last few metres. Colin put his stethoscope to his ears, and leaned over to hand the end to me.

  ‘Reach under, Jake, and hold that firmly against her chest.’

  I did so. Pimi gave no reaction

  ‘Now a little closer to the head.’

  I moved it and he listened for a while longer. This went on for some time before he straightened up and gave his verdict. ‘Breathing seems OK,’ he said. ‘Her heart’s not as strong as it was before, but it’s still regular, so there’s no damage there.’ He studied her for a while. ‘It’s the swelling we need to worry about. That must make it very difficult for her to move, and has to be pushing down on her kidneys.’