The Stranding

by Karen Viggers

  Lex smiled and Mrs B reached down to run her hand along the peacock’s back like she was stroking a cat.

  ‘When do you want to go?’

  ‘I was thinking of Tuesday.’

  She nodded. ‘The Wallaces owned that house, you know,’ she said. ‘The one you live in.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘You want to know about them, don’t you?’

  Lex shifted. ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘Sue didn’t tell you? That I know about the Wallaces?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘She’s clever then, isn’t she? Set this up so I could fill you in.’

  ‘It was my idea,’ Lex said.

  Mrs B nodded without smiling. ‘All right, I’ll come.’

  ‘I’ll pick you up at eight then.’

  Mrs B’s pale eyes twinkled. ‘How about I come over? I think I can still walk that far.’

  Twelve

  Callista lay heavy on the bed, legs leaden, her eyes flitting with the shadows skittering on the ceiling. It seemed she had been lying there forever, bearing the weight of darkness.

  The phone rang out and stopped. Rang out and stopped.

  Time melted.

  Jordi appeared. His face swam in and out, intruded on the shadows.

  ‘I called you from the servo,’ he said. ‘I thought you needed help.’

  ‘Is that you, Jordi?’ Her voice sounded stiff and strange.

  ‘How long have you been here? When did you last eat?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Like a dream, she felt Jordi’s gentle hands undress her and lift her into the bath, swishing warm water over her. Then he wrapped her in a dressing gown and carried her to a lounge chair, combed out her hair. He gave her water and fed her. Put her back to bed. Asked no questions.

  Each day he came in the morning. On the porch he set her up with food and water and a book to read. She stared into the bush and read a few sentences at a time. She was so weary. At dusk Jordi came back. He fed her and helped her back to bed. Each evening he smoked a joint on her balcony and the sweet tangy smoke wafted back into her room.

  One evening, he brought his guitar and sat with her in the warm sun on the verandah. He played for himself, bent over the instrument, his eyes closed. Then he put down the guitar and looked at her.

  ‘It’s enough, Callie. You have to stop.’

  Callista barely heard him through the fog.

  ‘Listen to me,’ he said, louder this time. ‘This has to stop. I’m not watching you go through this again.’

  Tears squeezed out and ran down alongside her nose, dripped off her lip.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘We’re not doing this again. I know it’s hard, but sometimes you’ve just gotta pick up the load and move on.’

  Callista was so tired she couldn’t even think of moving. But Jordi was watching her. Delving into her. She tried to wade out of the fog.

  ‘You’ve got to keep moving,’ he said, voice low. ‘I know about these things.’

  He was right. He did know. Jordi knew, more than anyone. Callista stared at him, feeling a question take shape slowly within her. It was a question that would take them to a place they hadn’t been before. But today she needed Jordi’s strength. She needed to know how he had picked up the pieces when everything in his life had collapsed. It must be nearly eight years since Jordi’s girlfriend had suicided. He’d found her hanging in the shed behind the house they were renting. He had only gone down the street to buy some bread. But it was all the time she needed. She had it planned. She wanted to go. Even Jordi wasn’t enough to hold her here.

  ‘How did you manage?’ Callista asked. ‘After Kate?’

  Jordi looked out into the gully for a long time before he answered.

  ‘There’s no secret,’ he said, turning to her at last, eyes intense. ‘There’s no easy way.’

  He knew as well as Callista how a person could get lost in the mist. She watched him as her chest hollowed and fresh tears seeped.

  ‘You just have to hook a line into life and go with the tide,’ he said. ‘Otherwise you’ll drown.’

  Callista wiped tears on her sleeve.

  ‘The way opens up after a while,’ he said.

  She felt herself floating out towards the sky with the breeze. She watched the light playing in the canopy, dapples rippling over the grass as the trees moved.

  ‘What brought it on this time?’ he asked.

  She couldn’t answer.

  ‘It was that man, wasn’t it?’

  ‘It wasn’t his fault,’ she said, with effort. ‘He was here, and I sent him away.’

  ‘So what are you going to do about it?’

  Tears oozed again.

  Jordi rolled a joint and dragged deeply on it several times. ‘Here.’ He passed it to her. ‘Have some.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You need it.’

  She took the joint reluctantly. She didn’t want to partake in this, didn’t have the energy for it. But he was watching her, waiting for her. So she took a few drags. Just for him. Then he sat back and sucked on the joint pensively.

  ‘What are you going to do about him then?’ he asked again, slowly releasing a puff of smoke.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Her head spun with the dope and she still felt as heavy as mud.

  ‘Yes, you do. You’re gonna go out there.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘To the Point,’ he said, a smile twisting within his beard. ‘Give it another week and he’ll be waiting for you.’

  At the wharf, Lex and Mrs B joined a small knot of people waiting for Jimmy Wallace to bring his boat in from its mooring. They could see the boat not far out, chugging slowly towards them, rolling lazily from side to side. The weather had been calm and warm early, but now a light wind had sprung up and Lex could see the occasional whitecap licking on the sea. He tugged a box of seasickness tablets out of his hip pocket.

  ‘There’s a bit of a swell out today,’ Mrs B said, eyes dancing in her crinkly face. ‘See how she’s rocking already?’

  Lex groaned. ‘I’m going to die.’

  The old lady was lively. She seemed pleased to be out, different from her sharp manner when Lex had introduced himself to her just a few days ago.

  They watched as the boat bumped up against the wharf and a wiry bearded man in shorts leapt off and tied her up. He skipped quickly back on board and lifted out another rope at the stern while the engines revved slightly to swing the rear of the boat in. The man tied the stern up as well, then he hooked a set of aluminium steps to the side of the boat so the passengers could climb aboard.

  ‘Hello, Jimmy,’ Mrs B called, waving a bony hand.

  Jimmy Wallace helped her up the steps. He was short but sprightly and a wide white grin flashed out of his grey beard.

  ‘Good to have you here, Mrs B,’ he said. ‘Welcome aboard.

  I’m surprised you haven’t come out with us before.’

  ‘I don’t get out much these days,’ she said, taking Jimmy’s hand and stepping carefully onto the boat. ‘I needed Lex here to invite me.’

  Jimmy’s eyes crinkled in the sun as he reached out a friendly hand to Lex. ‘Thanks for bringing her along.’

  ‘Lex is my new neighbour,’ Mrs B said. ‘He’s bought your father’s house at the Point. But he seems like a reasonable fellow.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ Jimmy said, without missing a beat.

  Mrs B had eased them through the introduction so tactfully there had been no opportunity for hesitation. She was a clever old woman.

  ‘Just take a seat over there,’ Jimmy said, pointing to a couple of seats near the stern. ‘All the punters tend to head up to the bow, but it gets cold and wet up there. You’ll get a good enough view from here till we get ourselves out a bit.’

  Padding barefoot around the deck, Jimmy checked his passengers and made a few adjustments to the controls. Then he sat down behind the wheel, pulled down a microphone from above his head and winked at Mrs B. ‘
Just have to give everyone a bit of a commentary. Fill them in a bit.’

  Lex watched him set the revs up and spin the wheel to head them directly out to sea, angled slightly across the swell. He hadn’t expected Jimmy to be so affable. He didn’t know what he had expected really, but not this openly friendly man with wavy grey hair.

  ‘Hello, folks,’ Jimmy said, as they gradually gained speed, bobbing slowly across the waves. ‘Glad to have you on board. We’ve picked a fine day to be heading out, although unfortunately we’re going to roll a bit once we get out beyond the heads. We’ve got about three hours’ sailing time ahead of us, and there’s a good chance we’ll get to see whales. It’s the best time of year for sightings.’

  Lex watched Jimmy’s face as he spoke. He’d have been through this spiel dozens of times before, but it still didn’t sound rehearsed. He had a warm and natural way of speaking. A comfortable way of imparting information. He didn’t look like the son of a whaler; the son of a man who had shifted west to hunt whales even when the industry was dying. How did Jimmy live with that, Lex wondered. How did he feel about taking people out on joy-trips to observe the very animals his father had killed? It was ironic the way life switched things upside down.

  ‘What we’re most likely to see is humpbacks,’ Jimmy was saying. ‘They’re the most common species along the east coast. And right now they’re heading south to Antarctica. They breed up north off the coast of Queensland over the winter. And then this time of year they’re heading south on what’s called the southern migration. It’s absolutely the best time for seeing whales because they’re cruising slowly down the coast with their little ones.’

  Jimmy pushed the microphone away and let people settle into the rhythm of the sea for a while. The boat rode steadily over the swell and swayed as the waves rose and fell beneath them. Lex wasn’t sure whether he felt well or not, and tried not to think about it.

  As they moved further out, the air grew colder and the boat seemed to move faster. Everyone nestled into snug hollows around the boat and donned extra layers of clothing to protect them from the breeze pouring over the bow. Lex began to be certain about the beginnings of queasiness churning in his stomach. It was going to be hard for him to hold on in these conditions. He was glad when Jimmy started talking again to give him something else to think about.

  ‘Fifteen or twenty years ago you’d hardly see a whale along this coast,’ Jimmy said. ‘They were thumped pretty hard by the whaling industry and it’s taken a long time for them to recover. Most of the serious whaling was done offshore from factory boats in the Antarctic. But at one stage, there used to be a series of whaling stations up and down the Australian coasts as well. The closest one to here was down at Eden, further south. There’s a good whaling museum down there too. I’d definitely recommend a visit, if you happen to be passing through. Whaling finished up down there sometime in the 1920s, but they were still whaling at Albany over in Western Australia up till the late seventies. By then whale numbers had dropped right off . . .’

  Lex wondered if Jimmy would mention his family’s involvement in whaling. This might be a good opportunity to denounce it. But the commentary ended and Lex hunched in his seat, trying to ignore the foul sensation of seasickness throbbing in his guts. The wind had kicked up from the north-east and the boat was rolling in the increasing chop. He was past the stage of caring and knew he was going down fast. Watching the horizon only added to his nausea. The end was nigh.

  ‘Look up, sonny.’ Mrs B leaned towards him. ‘If you don’t look up, you’ll be sick.’

  Lex wallowed miserably in queasiness for an interminable length of time. Then Mrs B jolted to her feet.

  ‘Jimmy. Is that something out there?’

  Lex could barely lift his head. He tried to focus where Mrs B was pointing, but the sea was a sickening mishmash of whitecaps. He heard everyone yell and noticed a blast of spray a few hundred metres out. Jimmy spun the boat and it suddenly ran much smoother. But it was too late. Lex hurled over the side.

  ‘Fish bait.’ Jimmy laughed. ‘What are you trying to catch?’ He slapped Lex on the shoulder. ‘You’ll be right now. It helps to throw up. Now get up and look for signs. It helps to think about something else.’

  Lex staggered to the railing and clutched it. He did feel mildly better after vomiting.

  ‘There’s another spout,’ someone called, down at the bow.

  He could see the whales now, a pod of three or four, travelling. He could see their black backs sliding sleekly through the water and the small dorsal fin rising before they up-tailed, showing their flukes. Jimmy slowed the boat.

  ‘We could be following too fast, too close,’ he explained. ‘They’ve dived now and they may not show again for a few minutes. We’ll let them be, see what they do.’

  Time stretched slowly. Lex was surprised to find himself excited, full of anticipation. He thought his experience swimming with the whales off the Point might have dulled him to this. But he was right into it. And Mrs B was flushed pink, scanning the waves with her sharp blue eyes. She smiled at him and gripped his hand suddenly.

  ‘Over there!’

  There they were, not far off. Maybe a hundred metres. Jimmy had done the right thing cutting the motors. It must be noisy for the whales down there, with the amplified thrum of the engines buzzing in the water. Lex realised he was holding his breath, waiting.

  ‘Flipper,’ Jimmy called.

  They saw the white underside of a pectoral flipper raised above the waters like it was waving at them. There was a smashing spray as it slapped back down.

  Then it was calm for a while. The boat shifted with the swell. Lex noticed Jimmy keeping a steady hand on the wheel to hold the boat angled into the waves so the rocking wouldn’t get too fierce. Some of the passengers started grumbling and making snide comments to each other but Jimmy ignored them. He must be used to this.

  Minutes crept by slowly. The sea rolled blankly around them, slapping against the side of the boat. Then an airy blast shattered the waiting. A spout shot up just fifty metres off the port side of the boat. They could smell the fishiness of the whale’s breath and see the curve of its back breaking the water. Lex’s heart thrilled. He shouted with Mrs B as the tail flukes lifted, water streaming from them, then glided back under the swell. Mrs B was hanging on to his arm, her face pale, eyes wide.

  They waited, scanning the waves.

  A little further off, a knobbled flipper wafted out of the water. It waved and wobbled, then dashed down.

  ‘Hey,’ Lex yelled. ‘What’s that?’

  Just near the boat, about fifteen metres off, a slabby black head mottled with white slowly lifted out of the water. The head emerged vertically, water running down the parallel pleats of the whale’s throat and dripping from the lumps along its jaw. Lex stopped breathing, took in the cluster of barnacles adhered to the whale’s throat, the white eye peering at them. Then the whale sank slowly out of sight again.

  ‘Spy-hopping,’ Jimmy said. ‘It’s called spy-hopping. You’re lucky. We don’t see that very often.’

  The head broke the surface again. This time Lex saw the downward-turning angle of the whale’s mouth, several small rings of white marking the top of its head. He wondered how the whale did it, how it lifted its head out of the water like that, whether it used those massive tail flukes to hold itself vertical. And yet the movement seemed so delicate, so controlled. Spy-hopping. What a wonderful way to describe an encounter with a whale. A whale’s way of watching humans. Lex smiled and the whale sank away slowly beneath the rolling swell once more.

  Beside him, Mrs B was shaking with excitement, so Lex sat down with her on a bench along the railing. She grasped his hand, wordless for long moments, and then she was laughing and crying, dashing the back of her hand against her eyes to brush the tears away.

  For twenty minutes or more, Jimmy guided his boat along at low revs, following the whales as they moved south, travelling slowly. From time to time, he cut the e
ngines and they watched the whales wallowing not far off the boat. There were more spouts with showering drops, and a few more flipper flags. Then, eventually, the whales slipped beneath the waves.

  The whales broke the ice for Lex with Mrs B. Over the days that followed, he stood with her often above the cliffs at Wallaces Point watching whales round the headland. They didn’t talk much, but in snippets she told him about the Wallaces. She told him how the first house at the Point had been built by Vic’s father, who had brought his family from Eden hoping for a better future than felling logs in the wet forest. Vic had been just a boy then, and for a while he had attended the same school as Mrs B, before he joined the logging gangs and disappeared for lengths of time cutting wood in the hills. By adulthood he tired of it and took his family west to Albany. It was unusual for families to shift long distances back then, but Vic had been lured by the call of the sea and the mysteries of whaling, based on his grandfather’s old stories of whaling down by Eden. Vic and his family had returned from the west just before the whaling station near Albany closed down. The old house had been in ruins after years of disuse and Vic had started all over again. He had resumed a normal life until retirement, but after his years at sea he couldn’t live away from the water. Hence all the effort to rebuild the house at the Point. There were few whales going by back then, the numbers had collapsed. But Mrs B remembered Vic sitting on the deck for hours, waiting, with his binoculars in his lap.

  Lex thought about the old man watching for whales. He understood now why the house was all windows embracing the sea. But he couldn’t rationalise the old man’s thinking. What went on in Vic Wallace’s head when he saw a sleek black back rolling through the swell? Was it a celebration of his past? Did it remind him of the thrill of hunting down a whale, the excitement of firing a harpoon? Or was he thinking of something else? Was he responding to a glimmer of regret, a sense of guilt, of waste, of loss? How could anyone not be moved by the majesty of seeing one of those great animals cruising down the coast? Within his own joyful observation of the whales, Lex couldn’t find any empathy for the old man. He felt only anger at a man who refused to see the imminent death of an irrelevant industry until its very end. What kind of passion for whales did that reflect? At best, Lex could only see it as a passion for killing.