Singing Home the Whale

by Hager, Mandy

  ‘My school dean tried to tell Dad that — he even called him in to try to talk him round.’

  ‘No luck?’

  Hunter laughed. ‘Yeah, like that was going to work.’ He pointed to his eye. ‘You think this looks bad, you should’ve seen me after that.’

  ‘So, why do you put up with it, man? I’d leave.’ Thank god his parents didn’t believe in physical punishment.

  ‘My mother made me promise I’d stick around.’

  ‘Why? He treats you like shit.’

  ‘She said the farms were my inheritance and I had to promise to stay until Dad passed them on to me. It was just before she died.’

  ‘She died?’ What was it with this place? First Pania, now him. ‘Sorry to hear that, man.’

  ‘I was eight,’ Hunter said. ‘She drank herself to death.’

  ‘Jesus! That’s terrible.’ He didn’t even want to imagine how Hunter must have felt.

  ‘To be honest, my memory of her’s a bit patchy — though I can remember a few brutal fights.’

  ‘I don’t mean to sound harsh, dude …’ Will swallowed. He wasn’t quite sure how to word it. The poor bastard was being beaten by that prick and he needed an out. ‘But you were only eight. I don’t think she’d hold you to that promise now.’

  Hunter picked at a scab on his foot. ‘It’s complicated. There’s Dean to think about too. And, besides, it’s one of the only conversations I still remember. If I backed out now I’d be betraying her.’

  It was clearly such a messy, personal thing, Will realised, it didn’t matter how illogical it was. ‘What’s Dean got to do with it? Wouldn’t he just be pleased you’d got the hell out?’

  ‘If Dean can stick it out then so can I.’ There was a decisiveness in his voice now. It was clear he wouldn’t budge. ‘Where are your parents?’

  ‘Australia.’ It sounded like bragging after Hunter’s tragic tale. ‘They’re in the shit financially.’

  ‘You miss them?’

  What was he supposed to say? His loss was nothing compared to Hunter’s. ‘Sometimes. Mostly my mum.’

  ‘Dad’s sister tries to mother me. You know her? Selma Taylor. She runs the store.’ Hunter rolled his eyes.

  ‘Gabby’s mum?’

  Hunter smiled. ‘You’ve met my cousin Gabby, then?’

  Will crossed his index fingers to avert the evil eye. ‘Afraid so. Looks like you really lucked out on the family stakes!’

  Hunter let rip with a belly-laugh. ‘Dude, Gabby’s a wicked witch.’

  ‘D’you know my cousin Pania?’

  ‘She’s your cousin?’

  ‘Second cousin, apparently.’

  ‘Sweet. She’s really brainy. Nice too — even if she does hang out with Gabby.’ He tossed a stone into the sea. ‘You met her friend Simone?’

  Will pictured the three girls from the night before. ‘Is she blonde and giggly?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s the one. She’s okay when Gabby’s not around.’

  ‘You fancy her?’

  ‘Stupid, eh? When we were young we used to get on really good. Now every time I try to talk to her I screw it up.’

  Now it was Will’s turn to laugh. ‘I know the feeling, man. I used to sing in front of hundreds of strangers, but when I’m near a girl I freeze.’

  ‘Dean says you could’ve won that competition if they’d given you another chance.’

  Gratitude filled Will’s chest. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Give us a song then!’ Hunter turned to him, all expectant.

  ‘Forget it, man.’

  ‘Come on. It’s only me and the orca.’

  ‘I don’t want—’

  ‘Go on. I dare you! Sing one of them fancy-arse opera things. My mother used to love those Amici dudes. She played a CD of them all the time till Dad threw a spaz one day and broke it.’

  Oh great. Nothing like playing the dead mum card. How could he refuse that? He hadn’t sung in front of anyone for months. Though, maybe it was good. He had to start somewhere … and Min would like it, even if it made him look a dick. He walked over to the water and placed his feet squarely on the sand. Drew in a grounding breath. The light was silvering as he released the first note.

  ‘Che gelida manina …’ He sang the whole aria through, his back to Hunter as Min joined in. At the end there was total silence; even the birds were hushed.

  Hunter broke the spell. ‘Holy shit! Now that should be up on YouTube!’

  Will’s gut contracted as the moment crumbled. ‘Forget it.’ He snatched up Dean’s tent and sleeping bag and threw them towards Hunter. ‘I need an early night.’ He clambered into the kayak and paddled out to the yacht. Boarded and shoved the kayak back towards the beach.

  He folded into the gap between the seats and pulled the fly across to block out Hunter. There was no way to explain his panic. Even knowing it was a post-traumatic response compounded by the head injury didn’t stop that same old shit exploding in his mind. It was etched into his brain like hate graffiti. He felt exhausted. Drained.

  Min bumped around the hull while Hunter hammered in guy ropes. Will blanked it all out, humming scales to steady his breathing. Slowly the flashbacks eased. He was so sick of his brain ambushing him. Almost wished they’d give him shock treatment to wipe it all.

  He knew he should go back out there and make an effort to act normal. But that would mean an explanation and he couldn’t face the shame — not when Hunter was so staunch he could laugh off a beating from his dad. Right now, all Will wanted was to sleep; to switch his brain off before he blew another fuse.

  He woke again to darkness, the crackle of the fire loud in the night. He stood up, holding onto the boom for balance, and stretched, trying to work the kinks out of his back and neck, and rubbed his goose-bumped arms. It was freezing. Cold and clear. Min floated at the stern, relaxed.

  Beyond the embers Hunter was still hunched there, yet another can of beer in hand. His face looked ghoulish in the glow, features loose.

  ‘Yo!’ Will called.

  Hunter startled, slopping his drink. ‘Jeez, you nearly g’me a heart attack!’ He swayed, his head drooping on his bulldog neck.

  ‘Sorry about before. I think the sun got to me.’

  ‘N’worries.’

  ‘I’m freezing. Could you shove the kayak over?’

  Hunter stumbled up. Dragged the kayak down to the tide and shoved it out towards the yacht. It just missed Min, who rolled and stilled again. Will clambered into it, a blanket around his shoulders, and paddled back to shore.

  He fed the fire and huddled over it, willing more heat into the flames. A pile of crushed empty beer cans lay at Hunter’s feet.

  ‘You ever feel like you know what’s gonna happen before it does?’ Hunter asked.

  Random. ‘You mean like being psychic?’

  ‘Nah. Just feel it ’cause you know someone so well that you can guess.’ He chucked a log into the blaze and sparks ascended through the air like cartoon souls.

  ‘I can tell when Mum’s going to cry,’ Will said. ‘Though that’s not hard. She cries when she’s really happy — or when she’s angry — as well as when she’s sad!’

  ‘I got a bad feeling about the orca. When Dad gets aggro like this … I don’t trust him.’

  ‘You think he’ll hurt him?’

  ‘Nah, dude. I think he’ll fucking slaughter him.’

  Though Dean had said the same, to hear Hunter confirm it was a shock. ‘But there’s a law …’

  ‘You think he cares about the law?’ Hunter crushed the can in one slick move. ‘Our little friend has pissed him off. And if you piss Dad off, you’re dust.’

  ‘All the more reason to stay with Min.’ If that’s what it took then, damn it, that’s what he’d do. Bruce Godsill could go to hell.

  ‘You think you can stay with him every second of the day — and night?’ There was disdain in Hunter’s tone now.

  ‘I’m not going to let anyone hurt him,’ Will said. ‘Not your father or
anybody else.’ He spat the words out past the death-squeeze pressure in his chest.

  ‘Don’t ya see? That’s city talk. Down here, it’s dog eat dog. The government can come up with any fancy-arse law it wants, but down here we do things the way they’ve always been done. Down here Dad’s the law. He doesn’t even have to get his hands dirty; there’s plenty who’ll do whatever he says.’

  ‘What about you? What do you think?’ Will could feel his hands bunching into fists. Fought to slow his breath.

  ‘It doesn’t matter what I think.’ Hunter stared into the flames, listing at a drunken angle. ‘Dad kills everything he can’t bend to his will.’

  The darkness seemed to thicken around them, conspiring, as Hunter’s words tolled. ‘What if he finds out you’re with us? Will you be in trouble for staying out?’

  ‘Don’t care. I’ve had a gutsful of him. Let him try.’ He punched his fist into his palm. ‘But watch it: Dad’ll take it out on Dean if you’re not careful.’

  ‘What? Physically?’ This was like a bad movie.

  ‘Not straight away. First he’ll fire Dean’s arse if you don’t toe the line.’

  Will shuddered out a breath, seeing its mist. Hunter clearly looked out for Dean, just as Dean looked out for him.

  This was all getting far more complicated than he’d bargained for. Bad enough he had to sneak around behind Dean’s back but what if he really was putting him at risk? And as for Hunter … how could he keep living with such an arsehole as Bruce? Will’s skin crawled just to think of it. He fought against his nausea. This was ridiculous. He had to find a way to function. If he wasn’t there for Min, day in, day out, that bastard just might kill him.

  He glanced over at Hunter, who stared into the flames as if they’d risen from Hell. ‘Any chance you’d help me?’ Will said. ‘To keep Min safe?’

  Hunter blinked, before a smile slowly cracked his face. ‘That’s what I came for, dude. I thought you’d never ask.’

  When, back then, the Broad Boy came again, that thick tree-trunk of nerves, I did not shy away. I met him without fear, so sure was I. The Song Boy’s singing had paled my pain, his welcome warmed, his touch brought back the tender times. Oh yes, we thirst for touch the way a bird seeks sky. Without it we are not fully formed. All I can say is that the tug towards them eased my grief. And more: without them there I surely would have died.

  Know this: We, The Chronicles, have shared our lives, losses, and loves since light first lapped our skins. But in the Days of Blood, the Hungry Ones wanted to wipe us from the waves. We lost our age-old wisdoms, our sea-bound sagas that sang of seasons, stillness, souls, once passed from clan to clan, tribe to tribe, to teach the workings and the wonders of our world. These shared songs linked us to our lores and tied us all together; shaped us into who we are. They whispered warnings, pled for peace, and preached of goodness and goodwill.

  But in those deadly Days all our connections crumbled, understandings loosened, stillness lost. Survivors called a great Convergence — a meeting of the only old ones left to lead each tattered tribe. And, thus, a whole new fellowship of Chronicles was founded, to save our stories — and to prod our painful pasts. We have to know the knots and knocks; must not repeat them. Nor forget. Dear friends: a Being without a story is a shapeless shell.

  At first their new retellings focused on our foes, our need to understand them foremost in our mind. But as our tribes bounced back, boldness reborn, The Chronicles served up the shallows and depths of each outstanding life. Their goal? To find a pathway where we Warm-bloods and the Hungry Ones could live on, side by side. Alive.

  These days, with more blighted Beings brought back from the brink, we need to take the time to weigh the lessons learnt; not only to home in on the hollow inside them, but to test the hunger in ourselves.

  Deep down where water burrows into black, lone licks of light glow ghostly in the gathered gloom. Strong streamlined squid spark silver as they prey on stragglers; deep-sea shrimps spew out shining spit-clouds to warn others off. Way down, wrapped in that wintry womb, it feels like wending back through time. We learn to master our own make-up, how to tap the thoughts that truly shape our souls.

  In the black Below, bubbling spouts split sulphurous seabeds, water whirling, air arising, heating tiny lives that float within its wake. This welcome warmth soothes all the senses. Mulls the mind.

  The ice of White World, by the by, works otherwise. Its chill sharpens our understandings, wisdom, wit. There is a cleanness there, a spotless, stainless sanctuary from the muddy world of Men. We slide beneath thick slabs of ice, amid spiked frozen shards; anemones wave in the water’s weave, jellyfish fly, and in its depths we find the thickened sea soaks up all sound. Unbridled bliss!

  But do not doubt there is a darkness in the White World’s wild reaches too — a blackness in the hearts of those of us who hunt with that same Human hunger. We share their stealth and strength — their blood and bones — this clan who push their prey off icy floes. They have no care for who or how they kill. Cold-bloods, Warm-bloods, young ones, old … It is their glee that grates, their manner much like Men whose wants, not needs, rise up to rule their every move.

  All the same, I have a fondness for the good that grows, when watered, in the Humans’ hearts. To hate is easy. To find a meeting place, to brave a bond, takes much more time. We Beings must surely sense the truth of that.

  I fear, friends, all this drifts off course. I merely meant to say it was the snatches of these stories, first sung to soothe me off to sleep, that bolstered me back in those days. They breathed a little life in; helped to hold my mother in my mind. I dared not let her go, for fear of finding nothing, no one, no more love.

  Perhaps, indeed, it was the first flutters of what would leaven into love that day — the warm wishes that flowed from their hurt Human hearts — which kept me in their cosy company, our two kinds tipping towards kinship. Song Boy and Broad Boy stayed on after shadows loomed, tucked tight in that cleft of cove. As I slept, my watchful half-mind heard the humming in and out of their two breaths, so very soothing. So like the comfort of my clan.

  When the morning light came calling Song Boy swam out to sing before he left me with Broad Boy to while away the day. But as the sun made its mid-point pass, Broad Boy slipped into a sound unstirring sleep.

  Left alone, with no new friend for fun, I sped away, seeking out Song Boy on my own. But when I passed another salmon swarm, balled up in their bindings, I thought to try my luck. For, though their fate — and state — was foul, I hungered for an easy fill of fish. There is a richness to their flesh, an oiliness, far too fetching to forgo. Perhaps it was my new-found friends who soothed the sickness I had felt two nights before. And so, again I bunted at the bindings; tore the webbing with my teeth. I did not stop to think past the growing grumble in my gut.

  Heartless hunger, friends, in all its many shades and sizes, makes fools of all. But by the time I grasped this, it was too late to turn it back.

  As the sun rose Will awoke to the rhythmic purr of Hunter’s snoring and found himself analysing how slow the tempo was. Andante? Adagio? A lazy snorting lento? The night had been a shocker. After giving up on the yacht (far too cramped) he’d bunked down in the tent with Hunter; spent the night hunched in the corner, trying to avoid Hunter’s massive sprawl. Now, as he edged past his prostrate body, everything ached. Out near the yacht Min lolled in the first fingers of sun to break through the arch of rocks.

  Will stripped down to his boxers and waded out, gasping as the chilly sea reached his groin. Min swam over, noisy in his greeting, and Will began to sing.

  ‘Come away, fellow sailors, come away, Your anchors be weighing: Time and tide will admit no delaying …’ The aria, from Dido and Aeneas, was one of the first his singing teacher, Marilyn, had chosen for him when he started. One of the few he’d learnt in English.

  Min bobbed around him, filling in Will’s pauses with his unique song. Hunter stumbled from the tent and stood at the wat
er’s edge, his grin stretching as he listened to their surreal duet. At its end, Will swam back to shore and shook like a wet dog.

  ‘That’s so awesome,’ Hunter said. ‘My ears hear it but my eyes don’t believe what they’re seeing!’

  Will grinned back. ‘Mad, huh?’ He picked up a stick and poked at the ashes of last night’s fire, hoping it might rekindle. It was well and truly out. They’d sat up half the night, hunched over it, discussing Will’s plan for Min. He would go back to Blythe today to see if Dean had managed to set up a meeting with his rellies. Hunter, meanwhile, had the day off. He’d offered to stay with Min till Will returned.

  Once Will had dressed, Hunter punted him over to the Zeddie. He dived into the water to distract Min as Will sailed away.

  ‘I’ll be back by five,’ Will called as he cleared the arch.

  Hunter waved back. ‘No worries! I’ll see if I can catch us a feed of fish.’

  There was a steady northerly out in the main Sound and Will made good time back to Blythe. He arrived just after ten to find Dean sitting on the doorstep, poring over the morning paper in a patch of sun.

  ‘Gidday mate. Good night?’

  Will slithered down beside him. ‘Yeah, good thanks. Hunter Godsill turned up. Have you seen his eye?’

  Dean nodded. ‘Yeah. I’m waiting for the day he finally hits back. Now that would be something!’

  ‘Why doesn’t someone report Bruce to the cops?’

  ‘You think I haven’t tried? But it’s complicated — and I have to work there.’

  Will opened his mouth to push Dean further but then changed his mind. No point. He needed Dean onside. ‘Did you call up your cousin?’

  ‘Sure did. We’re meeting them at the marae at noon.’

  ‘The marae?’

  Dean laughed. ‘You betcha. Mike, Cathy’s husband, is a bigwig there.’

  Good news. ‘So there’ll be a proper pōwhiri?’

  ‘Yep. Are you okay with that? I can do all the—’

  ‘No, that’s fine. We learnt all that stuff in Year Nine. I’ll do my mihi.’

  ‘Excellent. You wanna do the song too? I’m crap at that.’