Singing Home the Whale

by Hager, Mandy

  He took a deep breath, as though about to dive into a fathomless sea. Panicked, stepped back from the edge … No, idiot! Do it! Sometimes bravery wasn’t facing up to warring hordes, or even psychos like Bruce, it was peering into your own quaking heart to find the one undamaged seed of strength and letting it grow. ‘Okay. Let’s do it.’

  ‘You mean it? You said that last time.’

  ‘I really mean it.’ He raised two fingers to his brow. ‘I swear. Tenor’s honour! It’s a bloody good idea.’

  ‘Thank you!’ She kissed him, her nose cold against his.

  ‘Jesus, girl, you’re freezing. I think I may have a cunning plan to warm you up.’

  ‘Again?’ she said.

  ‘Yep. And tomorrow and tomorrow and …’

  He slipped the sheet back off her breasts. Gently pulled her down the bed. And, there, he etched his love onto her with his lips.

  IT WAS AS THOUGH THEY sat on the belly of the sea, breathing in and out below them. The boat wallowed in a long slow swell, in the position Duncan had given them. So far they’d seen two sperm whales, all squared-off edges, like surfaced submarines. They upended right in front of the boat, huge winged flukes sliding into the water with hardly a splash.

  ‘Time for another song?’ Hunter said.

  ‘I guess.’ Where are you, Min?

  ‘It’d better be the last try. If we don’t find him soon, we’ll have to give it up. I’ve gotta pick up something for Dean and get it back to him by five — and you’ve got a ferry to catch.’

  ‘Okay.’ Will stood again; shifted his feet to find his balance. ‘Any requests?’

  Pania shrugged. ‘You haven’t done “Amazing Grace” yet. I know the words too.’

  She joined Will first, then Hunter came in too. His voice was breathy, undisciplined, but his tone was good. Such a different person from the one Will met last year. Pania was right: Hunter should give him hope. Did give him hope. His resilience was totally impressive, booze or not.

  Will swept his gaze across the water, eyes weeping from its glare. He felt so disappointed. The whole thing was pointless. Duncan may’ve spotted a pod this morning, but they could be anywhere, and it could have been any pod. So why couldn’t he give up?

  He sat down when they’d finished the song. Nothing. Tried one last bid to stall for time. ‘Come on, I’ll teach you a round. We’ve still got an hour before we really have to go.’

  In the middle of the second run-through of ‘Dona Nobis Pacem’, Pania shrieked. ‘Oh my god — look!’ She pointed over his shoulder.

  He swung around, saw a forest of fins, straight, high, distinctively orca, cruising their way.

  ‘Min!’ He launched himself back to his feet. Nearly overturned the boat. Began Min’s signature call, heart so fast his hand flew to his chest to hold it in. Be Min. Be Min. Be Min.

  A small orca breached near the head of the pod, so high it spun in mid-air before it dropped. Could that be him? He tried to spot the bullet hole. Couldn’t see one, yet the little guy was heading straight for them. Maybe all orca babies were that bold?

  But then he heard him, recognised him calling back! He glanced at Pania. Her hand was plastered to her mouth, shoulders shaking.

  ‘You bloody little beauty!’ Hunter grabbed the camera. Started filming seconds before Min reached the boat.

  Min thrust himself towards Will’s outstretched hands, clicking, whistling, wailing. Did his demented Donald Duck! Will couldn’t stop blubbing; didn’t care. He wrapped his arms around him and kissed his salty head. ‘Gidday, mate. I’ve really missed you.’

  ‘Holy crap!’ Hunter’s tone verged on panic.

  Will looked up. Min’s pod was spy-hopping, lined up, front-seat to the show. Fifteen he counted, two teenage, three small like Min, the rest really bloody huge next to their tiny boat. They’d be pitched overboard if any of the big ones got it in their head to try. Could bite them right in half.

  Min was whining like a shitty kid; slapping on the water as if to say, ‘Get in!’ Will looked from him to the watching adults, then to Pania — who eyed them open-mouthed — then back to Min.

  ‘D’you think it’s safe to go in?’

  ‘Up to you, dude.’ Hunter’s focus never left the camera. ‘But I don’t reckon they’re gonna hurt you.’

  Will turned to Pania, her face a tear-stained mess. ‘Pans? What d’you think?’

  ‘I don’t know. They’re really big.’

  He couldn’t decide. Wanted to — god, he wanted to — but was he kidding himself he’d be okay? And what about the ‘wall’? He stared down at Min, who bunted at Pania’s hand like a lamb searching for a teat, and got hooked up in the depth of his eyes. Felt his pleading. Warmth. What if this was his last chance? He’d spend his whole life yearning, haunted by regrets. He didn’t need any more of those.

  ‘Bugger it!’ he said. ‘I’m going in.’ He tore off his shirt and jeans. Didn’t look at the big orcas. Kept his eye on Min. ‘I hope you get all this on camera, man, in case they need it at my inquest!’

  ‘Very funny.’ Hunter wasn’t laughing.

  Will slipped into the chilly water and there was Min, clicking, rubbing against him, nudging just the way he always did. He’d grown at least half a metre, fat and healthy as he tried to herd Will over to his pod.

  ‘Hang on a mo!’

  Min was singing their favourite tune, kept nudging, so Will let rip with some Handel to distract him. ‘Hallelujah! Hallelujah!’ He got so caught up with the singing, especially when Min joined him, he didn’t notice what was happening until he heard Pania’s nervous shout.

  ‘Will! Look out!’

  One glance at her horrified face sent him spinning around. There they were! The whole damn pod, snuck up on him. He was so small beside them, powerless, but — strangely — he felt safe. Goodwill poured off them, warmth streaming from their eyes.

  Min was still singing, his call an eighth tone lower than this time last year. As Will trod water, eyeing the adults, one by one they started singing too. Their voices rose up in a complex orca aria, so resonant it permeated right through him, until he was their song. Any last resistance he had towards Pania’s scheme evaporated. He’d be a fool to say no to this. Their song wrapped him, dug down deep into the hurts he’d suffered and dredged them right up to the surface. And, as their chorus reached its peak, he was finally set free.

  Ah, so here we are at last, winding this tale of love and woe towards its end. Your turnout truly touches me; that you would travel from the far-flung waters of our beset world to hear my song, and take its teachings back to all your tribes, so thrills my heart. Late solace for the side-shows, when I was a Being alone amid the startled scores of Hungry Ones who came to hear the soulful sounds of Song Boy’s voice melding with mine. Today the tide has turned: the throngs of you who gather here to heed my call are witnessed only by my Song Boy and his loving clan of five on land.

  Swim closer now, share your strength, hold me as the light looms and my life leaks out.

  For fifty shining summers I have sung at Song Boy’s side; come to know him as no other Being has ever seen inside a Hungry One before. Hark him here beside me now, swimming, singing still, his sounds so meshed into my mind they steep my sleep — a comfort in the seasons we were set apart. When I awake, wracked by longing, loss, I take great comfort in the knowledge that he keeps on coming, summer after summer, keen to hear my call.

  Oh, how he has changed since we first met: his long obsidian locks leached to silver shades of misty mornings; his wash of worries, hurts and hungers waning long ago. But the heart of him, his kind and caring core, is ever unwavering; he has loved me all this time with the same depths he loves his dear Good Girl — has a way of building bonds so tough they still have heft to hold us in his thrall. When he sings, my heart flies feather-light, all pains forsworn, all losses flown.

  Good Girl, too, I have loved. Her kind concern has sheltered me, bolstered by her backbone; by her brave and honest heart. S
he is the rock my Song Boy clambers back to when the day turns dark. They have withstood the storms, stood side by side, but never has their merging left me lonely — love, dear friends, is ever limitless; it knows no edge.

  See her standing on the shore as I sing you my farewell; Broad Boy too, with his white-haired woman and their two tall sons. They form my Human family, our summers shared in songs, in sea, in full-grown feelings, cosy caring, though the Watchers’ eyes were ever on me as we wallowed in the warming waters of our world.

  Oh, what a wondrous, worrying life to live, dear friends, swimming on Great Mother’s bountiful back. I have seen stars fall from the sky, sinkholes swallow sand and winds sweep seas so high they steal lives. Humans fighting evil; baby Beings born. My clan has gifted me great comfort as I loved and lost and loved again. But no Being ever held my heart like Song Boy has. He was my shelter in that long lost storm of sadness and he soothes me still.

  Ah … how to wrap my mind’s weak witterings? Too many tales end with anger, shame, or hopelessness. Not so mine. True, I had my taste of troubles. I mourned my mother, and my dear aunt’s death, too, truly tested me. She, who took me in, taught of life and love and how to last the loneliness on the days that dawned too dark, died mid-life, struck by a ship. We bunched around her battered body, floated her back home. In truth, on listless summer nights I still hear her songs.

  But though I’ve lived with losses, great gifts have I been given too. And simple gems, no less sweet. The sigh of wind on water, flocked geese sent flying by our Mother’s brimming breath, light-shows in southern skies, a spiral shell, a frigate’s floating feather, the look of love in every mother’s eye.

  While I have swum Her great oceans, much has changed. Tides suck away the shores, foul flotsam fetches into floating islands, the seas fill up with poisons purged from spilling lands to deal death to many more than just my kind — corals killed, reefs rumbled, seabirds starved, lives lost. And now my boisterous body fails, not from old age but through the blight of seaborne Human spoils. Quicksilver queers my meat, stiffening movements, stealing strength, miring the thinking of my tired mind.

  My friends, how Song Boy and his clan have tried to help me shake this from my brittling bones, but all for nought — death whispers on the wind for me as Good Girl lifts her voice from land to call me home. ‘Ka heke i ngā huihuinga, ka heke i ngā kawainga … Ka moe ki Whare-rimu, ka moe ki Whare-papa …’ I sense the strength inside her song; her words of mourning gather meaning, as if I learned them in another life. Depart in company, depart whence the dawn arises … Sleep in the House-of-seaweeds, sleep in the House-of-the-reef …

  Yet, in spite of creeping sickness, I helped to speed a shift, build brotherhood, bridge blindness, bring together Beings to trade the lessons I have lived — just as Song Boy surely shed some loving light on his clan too. And so our work has brought about the greatest of all gifts: for over thirty turnings of the seasons now, no Being has been slain by Human hands. Good gains. A fair and fitting deal amidst the foul. A fruitful life.

  Yes, yes, travellers, I know my pride bobs back, blustering on, as in my youngest years. But, for once, I feel this outburst has been earned: Song Boy and I breached the battlements between Beings and Man. We picked a path. Proved a point. Shone a loving light upon the possibilities for peace. Of that I’m proud.

  Only one sadness still sticks like sucking fish: no offspring have I spawned, no small Being to slip into my mantle after me. Perhaps my heart was only ever Song Boy’s, so full of feeling for him there was little left for my own kind. This closeness we have fostered fills me up; and when we are apart he darts into my dreams. We swim a shoreless sea, share times of happy heartfelt hush; trust to each other brave bare-bellied truths.

  Watch how he holds me, strokes me, soothes me now, my Boy. Make space, squeeze in, give him your ears, your thanks. I feel his heart so heavy, his horror at my dawning death already merging into mourning as he helps me on my way. And, though it troubles him to sense my spirits rise with this unstinting joy — the Hungry Ones fear death, gulp life — even in his grief he gives me what I want.

  How I pine for this unshackling from the sea, long to meet my end in open air. He senses my release and sings of all the joy that bubbles up in me, his love so strong his words wash in my mind and settle there: his mind shouts out Mik-ah-doe as his lungs let loose this anthem to my exultation. I feel its meaning melt into my brain to bolster me, as you, my friends, weave your mellow mourning voices with his own. ‘Then let the throng our joy advance, with laughing song and merry dance, with laughing song and merry dance, with laughing song …’

  Oh, fellow Beings, hear his earthborne song and feel this flow of lasting love. No other lesson matters more than this: souls can be the same, albeit that the worlds we wander are as unalike as air to sea, as he to me. It is our hearts that speak …

  Enough. I have no more.

  Lift me now, lighten my load. Take me, thrust me, throw me landward till my bony bag breathes only air; no sea to float my fatness, solid stones to sit beneath my rest. I do not fear my death. My life has been a pulsing path that peaks with this. I pray you push now, press me, prod me, pass me in. Send me on a swash of swell to shore, with Song Boy by my side. To die with his long limbs wrapped around me answers all.

  Do not mourn my end, dear friends. My many years of wandering, of telling this true tale, are done. New Chronicles arise, snatch up my songs; swim on and spread this story of our rebirthed bond. Tell it, take it, use it, own this yarn about the yokes that bind all Beings of the sea to those who walk the wooded land.

  Song Boy, farewell, my dearest friend. Be blessed. Good Girl, hug him to your side and hold him safe. Broad Boy, my blessings flow for you and your fine family too.

  I feel the shift of stones, wind swiping skin, as up ahead my faithful Humans herald me back home. So weary now, weight wearing me down. Such a struggle now to sing …

  I am lapped in light

  I leave you all with love

  I am The Chronicle

  and my life’s song is sung

  I am in air

  in air

  in

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  MY GRATEFUL THANKS TO Jenny Hellen and the team at Random House New Zealand for their ongoing support, and to Jolisa Gracewood for her expert editing eye, humour and enthusiasm for the project. I owe a great deal to the encouragement and wisdom of Mal Peet, and to the rest of the Masterclass of 2013 for all their help. Enormous gratitude and love to my daughter Rose Lawson, for her beautiful drawings and her thoughtfulness as my first reader. Much love and thanks to Brian Laird for his heroic support of me in every way, and to Nicky Hager, Debbie Hager, Belinda Hager, Julia Wells, Liz Love and everyone else who has helped me on this journey, including Whitireia for their research support. Aroha nui.

  www.mandyhager.com — go to the Singing Home the Whale tab for links to orca information and music.

  Copyright

  The assistance of Creative New Zealand is gratefully acknowledged by the publisher.

  A RANDOM HOUSE BOOK published by Random House New Zealand

  18 Poland Road, Glenfield, Auckland, New Zealand

  For more information about our titles go to www.randomhouse.co.nz

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of New Zealand

  Random House New Zealand is part of the Random House Group

  New York London Sydney Auckland Delhi Johannesburg

  First published 2014

  © 2014 Mandy Hager

  The moral rights of the author have been asserted

  ISBN 978 1 77553 657 4

  eISBN 978 1 77553 658 1

  This book is copyright. Except for the purposes of fair reviewing no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Desi
gn and cover illustration: Carla Sy

  Cover photograph: Shutterstock/Rich Carey

  Chapter page illustrations: Rose Lawson

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