The Bay

by Di Morrissey

  ‘It’s listening,’ declared Mitchell.

  Closer and closer it came. The kids leaned out over the boat rail, their arms outstretched, singing to the whale.

  ‘Kids from The Bay seem so different from the city kids my two went to school with,’ Holly whispered to Mitchell.

  ‘Maybe. Trish told me that this lot are all in the school choir. They started working up songs about whales early in the term.’

  ‘Lovely touch,’ said Holly in admiration. Then the whale nudged the boat, rubbing against the slightly rolling hull and everyone broke into spontaneous applause.

  Next it pushed away and flipped on its back in a joyful breech, its massive tail flukes slapping the water and spraying them. Holly peered across the clear calm ocean. ‘Will it come back?’ She desperately wanted Nala to return.

  Before Mitchell could answer, Trish on the upper deck called, ‘Port side!’ And there, breaking the surface came the leathery hump as it glided past with a whoosh of air. It turned and rolled and seemed to hover, its pectoral fins propelling it against the boat. Then it lifted its head and turned towards Holly, who instinctively leaned out towards it.

  She found she was staring at the small bright eye that studied her as intensely as she watched it. They eyeballed each other and then the whale breathed out, a great gushy warm fish oily breath which hit Holly with a physical impact. She reached out and briefly touched the whale’s head, amazed at its softness and how it stayed at the side of the boat.

  Holly became totally absorbed by the incredible magic of the moment, unaware of the shouts of delight from those around her, unaware of anything but a growing sense of oneness with the whale. More tears rolled down her cheeks as the whale drifted away and then, as if waving farewell with its flukes, plunged from sight.

  She stayed by the rail gazing into the empty ocean, feeling connected to the old female whale in some special way, until she felt Mitchell’s arm around her shoulder. ‘Powerful stuff, isn’t it?’ he said softly. ‘The first encounter usually hits pretty hard. Tears are okay.’

  She gave him a quick smile, grateful for the right words and the comfort of his arm. ‘Thanks,’ was all she said, knowing that was all he needed to hear.

  It wasn’t till later that she realised she wasn’t supposed to touch the whale, but she’d felt so drawn to the old female. There was something about that deep release of breath that made Holly think of a baby’s first gasp of air, of how we can live without food or water but not air. Now she understood those stickers she’d seen in The Bay: ‘Don’t Forget to Breathe’.

  Mitchell snapped photographs of the whale as Holly wept with the intensity of her feelings. She could not believe more than an hour had passed since Nala had first approached the boat.

  ‘Where’s Tor?’ she eventually asked Mitchell. She had been aware of him standing near her when the whale first surfaced, but at some stage during the drama he had disappeared. Holly went below and tapped at the door of the cabin he shared with Mitchell. There was a muffled response and when she opened the door she saw Tor huddled in a corner of an upper bunk, his back to the porthole. He looked distressed and sat hugging his knees.

  ‘Tor, what is it?’ she asked. ‘Are you all right?’

  He shook his head. Then put his face on his knees, his shoulders shaking.

  ‘Can I get you something? Do you feel sick? I’ll get Trish.’

  ‘No! It is nothing.’ He brushed at his face and slid down from the bunk, avoiding Holly’s eyes.

  ‘Wasn’t the whale fantastic?’ she said in an effort to boost his spirit, but got an anguished look in return.

  ‘That is the problem, why I am upset. I do not understand. I wanted so very much to see them.’

  Trish appeared in the doorway. ‘Are you okay, Tor?’ She was understanding and when he nodded she took his hand and glanced at Holly. ‘This is not uncommon, the experience of being with whales can have a profound effect on some people.’

  ‘I know, I didn’t expect to be so overwhelmed,’ agreed Holly.

  Tor and Trish sat on a lower bunk.

  He began to speak. ‘It is to do with my country, the killing of whales . . . it still goes on. I feel deeply ashamed. I once went to the coast where a pod of many whales had beached and were dying. There were people there, watching, like it was a picnic.’ He lifted his tear-stained face. ‘I looked into the eyes of mother whales and their calves, and it was like they asked me to help and I could do nothing. Then I saw that these people had stubbed cigarette butts into their blowholes . . . and done other things. Why are people so cruel?’

  ‘Oh, how horrible,’ said Holly.

  Trish sighed. ‘We still have a long way to go to protect these amazing creatures. And still so much to learn. These encounters evoke deep feelings in people.’

  ‘I somehow feel guilty about whaling. Our people invented the harpoon and we have always been a big whaling nation,’ said Tor. ‘Or whale killing nation,’ he added.

  ‘You can’t do anything about the past,’ said Holly sympathetically. ‘Just think of the here and now, and what a joy it is for all of us to be able to celebrate the magnificence, the intelligence and connection we have with them today.’

  ‘You can come to terms with that past,’ said Trish. ‘These same whales we see out here, so free and beautiful, are the descendants of those who escaped the slaughter in the old days.’

  There was a shout from the deck as more whales were sighted.

  Trish and Holly stood up. ‘Come on, Tor, let’s enjoy this. They’re bringing us a gift, I think,’ said Holly, taking his hand.

  The days blurred in a timeless blending of sunrise and sunsets, starry nights, clear warm water and the continuing visits of the whales. They were all known to Trish and Wally; one mother brought a new calf to show off to those on Oceania.

  At night on deck the children sang, and they all talked about their thoughts, feelings, dreams, ideas. There seemed no age difference between them as they shared this unique and special time. They had bonded in a way they never would back on land.

  Towards the end of the last day at sea Wally set a course to the edge of the continental shelf where the ocean floor dropped away to the deepest most secret depths – the heart of the sea. The colour of the water changed, it was dark and mysterious, eerie in the setting sun. And it was here that the Oceania hove to and Wally explained that an unusual request had been made by Ivy and Alex, the two ‘quiet Americans’ as they’d been nicknamed – a little ceremony was going to be performed.

  Wally’s preamble failed to prepare the others for what Ivy and Alex had in store for them when they gathered on the afterdeck around a table. The Americans carefully opened a small package and unfolded a felt wrapping inside to reveal a beautiful chunk of chrysoprase crystalline quartz. It shone in the late light like a large rough-skinned green apple. Alex began the explanation.

  ‘We know that crystals are energy transducers, meaning they can transmit and receive information. Just like we can send our thoughts and feelings through the nervous system of our bodies, a kind of electrical charge.’ He paused as if waiting for questions, but no one said a word.

  Ivy then spoke up. ‘We can transmit that same energy into a crystal. We thought it would be fitting for us to hold this little ceremony to help heal the wounds inflicted on the creatures of the sea and start a reunion process between humans and cetaceans.’

  ‘How can we do that?’ asked Holly.

  ‘By deeply focusing on the crystal it will receive our message, provided it has loving intent,’ said Alex as he cupped the crystal in his hands.

  Ivy asked them all to link hands and to think about their experiences, emotions and feelings of the past week; to think about the beauty of being as one with nature, and the moments when each one of them had made a connection with a whale.

  To Holly’s amazement, the quartz crystal seemed to vibrate and it looked soft, like jelly, in Alex’s hands.

  Wally spoke for all of them. ‘
Let the whales, who are the record-keepers, those who hold the history of our planet in their songs, know that we all wish to share a united world. One of peace, love and harmony, where life unites the human and the world of nature; where we all care for each other as we depend one upon the other.’

  Then Alex stepped to the rail, stretched his arm out and let the green crystal slip from his hands into the dark waters. Wally finished by saying, ‘Let the healing begin.’ They all stood silently staring at where the crystal had disappeared, to fall to the bottom of the sea.

  Mitchell squeezed Holly’s hand and she in turn looked at Tor beside her. He felt her gaze and smiled. ‘It is all gone. The pain I always felt in my heart seems to have gone.’

  ‘How strange,’ said Mitchell. ‘I could have sworn that crystal vibrated or changed in some way.’

  ‘Some mysteries and questions aren’t meant to be answered,’ said Trish.

  The students, who’d seemed awed by the experience, announced they’d written a new song. So as the Oceania sailed back across the bay and the moon rose, they sang of the journey that had brought them together, that would bind them, for now their lives were changed and linked forever. They called it ‘The Gift of Whales’.

  The following morning the Oceania headed back to Urangan Boat Harbour, dolphins dancing in the bow wave. Holly hung over the side watching them, her hair swept off her face in the salty breeze. Mitchell stood beside her and dropped an arm over her shoulders. ‘Glad you came?’

  ‘Oh, yes. It’s been magical, I really feel I’ve changed. Something deep inside me has moved. I can never, ever thank you enough.’

  ‘I’m glad. I hoped it would free you,’ he answered and leaned over and kissed her smiling mouth, and it seemed, to both of them, the most natural thing in the world.

  A couple of skateboarding youths gave a loud, ribald imitation of a rooster crowing as they flashed past Kimberley as she was leaving the council chambers, and she couldn’t help laughing. The recently built edifice was known far and wide as the ‘chookhouse’ because the architecture of the tin-shed office building was like a lot of the chicken farms in the area. The chookhouse was condemned by most ratepayers as a bureaucratic indulgence and was the subject of endless jokes. Local government was not a service that enjoyed much respect among the residents, thanks to a legacy of corruption allegations and decades of inadequate funding for essential works.

  While the council generally stayed aloof from party politics, it was never free of faction fighting. In recent years, particularly since the last election, the generally pro-development bias of the council had been seriously challenged by a more environmentally conscious group of new, younger councillors. But they were in the minority.

  ‘They’re just out of the trees and wet behind the ears,’ was how outspoken and long-serving councillor Jimmy Bright frequently described them, particularly when they claimed that development threatened the environment and lifestyle of The Bay. ‘They don’t live in the real world.’

  The electoral uprising had been led by one of the local greenies, Buck Hagen, whose campaign slogan ‘Let’s Buck the System’ roused the town out of a long lethargy. The election had been a mini war that attracted national media interest, mainly because of Buck’s methods – radical, in-your-face, cheeky – and his near defamatory actions. Not all the candidates loosely associated with the push to reform council endorsed his tactics or extreme policy stands, but ‘Buck of the Bay’ became known in local politics across the nation as an alternative lifestyle hero. Posters of Buck, an ageing hippy with wild, grey-streaked hair hanging around his shoulders, wrists shackled to the council gates in yet another protest, sprang up all over town, replacing the peeling pictures of Bob Marley, Che Guevara and the Maharishi.

  Kimberley had only met him fleetingly, for despite his outspoken letters to The Beacon Bugle, his stunts and flamboyant publicity events, Buck was very disciplined in separating public posturing from his private life. Personally he embraced solitude, meditation and painting rainforest scenes that sold well enough to keep him off the dole. Reluctantly he had stood for council and been elected. Even conservative voters figured he’d do more good from within the system than ‘bucketing’ it from outside.

  The divided council, increasing developer interest in the town and pressures from a fast expanding tourist industry made Kimberley’s new job more interesting than she ever hoped it would be. Today had been well above average in terms of the unexpected and she was now making her way up to the rooftop office of The Beacon Bugle.

  Stolle put in many hours as a volunteer on the paper as well as writing his column. He could generally be found hanging out in the small office, particularly on the eve of publication. When Kimberley arrived he was on the phone. She tapped him on the shoulder and gave a ‘gotta talk’ sign.

  Stolle wound up the conversation, put down the phone and leaned back in his chair. ‘You look like a woman on a mission. Got something for us?’

  ‘I think so. Is there another chair in this joint?’

  ‘I’ll find one, and a coffee.’

  Once settled Kimberley wasted no time. ‘I’ve just had my regular meeting with the councillors and just before that I picked up a juicy bit of information courtesy of an indiscretion by Councillor Bright.’

  ‘Good old Not-so. I find it amazing the old geezer has managed to survive for so many years. Mr Bright is the definitive tumbleweed – blows with the prevailing wind. So what’d he have to say?’

  ‘Not-so Bright has fingers in a lot of pies, I’ve discovered. He’s made good use of his many years in council,’ said Kimberley. ‘Owns shops in town and collects rent from various sources. We all know he’s pro-development and seems to be the leader of that faction. He has ways and means of getting them on side when he needs them, wink, wink, nod, nod.’

  ‘That’s something he’s bright at,’ quipped Stolle. ‘His career in town has had a lot of help from Sam the Man over the years. Sam Mann was in council for years and very good at getting the numbers when he needed them. When he left council, Not-so replaced him. Bright is his stooge,’ Stolle said, turning a page in his notebook. ‘But that’s old news. What’s new?’

  Kimberley was thoughtful. ‘I hadn’t known about the connection between Sam and Councillor Bright. That makes it rather intriguing.’

  ‘So what’s he pushing through?’ asked Stolle, who knew where many of the town’s skeletons were stashed.

  ‘An application for rezoning rural land to residential/commercial has gone from the general meeting to the planning department for a report to council. I was lucky enough to overhear Bright hustling one of the boys in planning to move the application along and get a report in support of it to council asap. He said something about it being good for the health of the town; that it’d be suicide for the town to knock back a big money team, and if council refuses the plan it will go to the Land and Environment Court and win – at council’s expense, so let’s not mess about with this. That was the gist of what he said.’

  Stolle gave a low whistle and made a few notes. ‘Okay. Big money boys. Interesting, but then every developer these days likes to use that line. Did you happen to find out what little bit of land they were talking about?’

  ‘No problem. A relaxed chat over coffee with a workmate was all it took,’ said Kimberley with some satisfaction. ‘Fasten your seatbelt, Stolle, it’s two kilometres fronting Mighty Beach, inland for half a k. Nothing on it, just dunes, wetland and the remains of the old meatworks.’

  ‘Jesus, that land is worth a fortune. It certainly will need big money boys. It’ll attract them like ants to the honey pot. I always thought it was crown land. Can you imagine what they’ll build there?’

  ‘I’d rather not attempt to visualise such a nightmare,’ Kimberley said. ‘How can we stop it?’

  ‘We need more information. Who owns the land and who is putting up the big money, to start with. This is going to cause something like World War Three in The Bay.’


  ‘Sam could be a key if Bright fronts in council for him,’ mused Kimberley.

  ‘You’re going to have to do a little more digging, Kim.’

  ‘No problem, I was planning to work tonight. I told Matty I’d be late.’

  Stolle picked up the phone. ‘I’ll start a bit of a whisper in my “Buzz” column. And it might be a good idea if I called Buck Hagen. Give me a call if you find out anything more.’

  Matty ambled home from where the school bus dropped her. It wasn’t such fun coming home from school now that her mother was so involved with her job. They used to hang out and talk about her day before she went off on whatever activity she’d planned that afternoon. Then at dusk it was home to her desk and homework while Kimberley prepared dinner.

  Nowadays the house was empty when she got home, and notes from her mother were stuck on the kitchen bench asking her to find something for dinner and start it, feed the cat, peg out the washing, or take it in. By the time Kimberley came in it was usually dark, she was tired, had a million messages to answer and wanted to claim their newly acquired second-hand computer to write up her reports.

  So Matty dawdled, dreading the quiet house. She went straight to the kitchen for a drink and to check on the inevitable notes. As always, the answer-phone was flashing. After pouring a glass of soy milk she switched on Replay and her mother’s voice came through. ‘Matts, I’ll definitely be late. Doing some research on a big development. Don’t tell anyone who calls. Just say I’m out and you don’t know where I am. This could be something really huge, believe me. Love you, toots. Bye.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have picked your mother as the type to dramatise events like that,’ said the male voice behind her in a slightly amused tone.

  Matty shrieked and spun around to stare at the figure in the doorway, half in shock, half in joy. ‘Dad!’ She rushed and flung herself into his arms. ‘Why didn’t you tell us you were coming!’ She kissed him eagerly.