Whale Boy Page 2

  ‘She just wasn’t mother material,’ was all Gran could ever be persuaded to say about her. Michael didn’t even know what his mother looked like – there wasn’t a single photograph of her anywhere. But she must have been pretty, because in the end Dad had decided to leave Liberty and join his older brother Davis in England so he could look for his wife. He’d sold his fishing boat to pay for the ticket. That was six years ago now, almost seven, and they hadn’t heard a word from him since. At first Gran had written a few letters to an address in London, but Samuel had never written back.

  Michael remembered their last day together, fishing far from shore, making plans to buy a bigger boat, maybe take tourists out on trips.

  ‘Who knows, Michael,’ his father had said. ‘Maybe we could find some of the old whales to show ’em, eh?’

  After he left, Michael had wondered about the whales, and what Samuel had told him.

  ‘Do you remember the whales around the island?’ he’d asked Gran.

  ‘Oh my goodness, yes!’ she’d said, her eyes wide. ‘When I was little, a few ships still came into harbour with the barrels of whale oil on their decks. Your great-grandfather, Grandpa’s daddy, he worked on a whale boat when he was a boy, up in the crow’s nest, watching for spouts! He was a champion whale-finder, Ivor always used to say.’

  Gran had never seen a live whale, but she’d seen their bones.

  ‘Big as rocks, they were, sunk in the bottom of the harbour. All rotted away now, though, I expect. The only bones left are in that hotel where the rich people stay.’ She shook her head sadly. ‘It’s a shame and disgrace that we killed those great creatures, that’s my opinion!’

  Gran had been right about the bones. Michael’s school teacher took the class to see the sperm whale skeleton in the foyer of the Rathborne Hotel in town. It was painted white and bigger than the inside of Gran’s house. So big, it was impossible to imagine it had been inside a living body, a body that swam and floated in the sea. Even Eugenia, who never cared about anything but books and learning, was impressed.

  ‘I wish there were still whales!’ she’d sighed, and was quiet for a whole fifteen minutes.

  So at least Samuel hadn’t been making it all up, but nobody had seen a whale spout anywhere near the island in half a century. They were just a story now, something not quite real any more, like Michael’s father.

  Even though the whales and his father had gone, Michael decided that he could still make real plans: he would work hard and get a boat of his own, and go back out onto the sea.

  Gran didn’t like boats and she didn’t want him to go out on the sea. After her husband drowned – his boat had disappeared in a hurricane when Samuel was tiny – the sea had always scared her. She’d never liked Samuel and Michael going out fishing. So because Michael loved his gran and didn’t want her to worry, he didn’t tell her about his plans or why he worked so hard and saved his money so carefully.

  Life had been very tough for Gran. She was the only person in Michael’s whole family who hadn’t been busy leaving the country or dying.

  ‘I’m durable,’ she used to tell him when he was small. ‘That means I’ll last for a long, long time, so I can always take care of you.’

  But she had begun to look far from durable. Coming across her in the dusk, Michael noticed once again how small she was. He had been taller than her for more than a year. She was tiny and fragile; now she needed his protection.

  ‘Goodness me!’ Gran exclaimed. ‘You gave me a fright there, Ivor.’

  Lately, she had started calling him by the wrong name. At first he’d complained to her, but she got so upset that he began to ignore it, so as not to hurt her feelings. After all, the names weren’t any old wrong names, but names of other people in his family.

  Usually it was Ivor. Sometimes it was Davis, the name of her elder son. ‘He was wild, that boy,’ Gran would say, shaking her head. He’d gone to London to drive a taxi, while his younger brother Samuel was still in school – long before Michael was born. He didn’t write or visit either, but Gran always got a card from him at Christmas.

  And sometimes Gran would call Michael by his father’s name. It hurt every time she did it because it was the only time they mentioned Samuel these days. Somehow they’d both stopped talking about him.

  ‘Oh!’ Gran put down her bags. Michael couldn’t help noticing how big they looked compared to her. She clapped a hand to her mouth. ‘Did I just call you Ivor? I must be losing my mind.’

  ‘No, Gran,’ Michael reassured her, ‘you didn’t. You’re sharp as a tack. Hey! Gimme those bags.’

  ‘I can carry my own bags!’ she said. Gran never liked to rely on anyone. Don’t rely on another soul, then you don’t owe nobody a thing was one of her many favourite sayings. But Michael picked up her bags anyway and she didn’t argue. They walked on in silence while the sun finished sinking. The velvet-soft dark crept out from under the trees by the side of the road as they reached the rickety little gate into their front garden. It creaked and grumbled open, and Gran began to climb the steep, narrow path under the grapefruit trees.

  ‘So, why were you running so hard, Ivo— I mean, Michael?’ Gran wheezed as she plonked herself down on the bench on the veranda. ‘You near run me down. Something the matter, eh?’

  In some ways, Michael thought, Gran really was still as sharp as a tack. She could tell when something was wrong, even if he tried not to show it.

  ‘I’m fine,’ he lied, ‘and I have fish for your supper.’

  Michael took the bags inside and lit the Tilley lamp. He put the fish on a plate under a flyscreen and went back out to sit beside her. Gran knew all the old people in Rose Town. She would know where to find old Mr Levi and get his down-payment money back. But he had to be careful, or she would wonder why he was asking about him. Now wasn’t the right time to reveal his boat plans. So he did his best to sound as casual as possible when he asked, ‘You seen that big old fence they put up next to the fish market?’

  Gran’s eyes grew wide. ‘I have,’ she said. ‘I have indeed. And d’you know old Edison Levi? Had a little business next to the market? You maybe didn’t know him, but I was at school with that boy’s sister, Marietta. The New Marine Enterprises people – they took his shack and his boats – just took ’em, like that!’ She snapped her fingers. ‘And he dropped dead on the spot. Dead! That business was all he had. No wife, no children. Just that. It’s a scandal.’

  Michael was glad he was sitting down.

  ‘You sure you fine, Michael?’ Gran asked.

  He managed to nod, to say that he had to get to work. Even made a joke about saving to take her on a cruise ship, which made her laugh. ‘Wouldn’t catch me on one of them floating skyscrapers,’ she said.

  Then he changed out of his school uniform and walked back into town, with his heart heavy as a rock in his chest.

  4

  The Flying Fish Frizzle Bar was full of Friday night customers. Michael came in through the back door to find the cooks, Xavier and Vernon, already yelling at each other like they always did when things got really crazy. Out in the restaurant, Mr Joseph was busy serving behind the bar, and the waitresses, Malady and Julietta, were whizzing around taking orders. There was no sign of Eugenia at first, and then she came in through the swing door, pushing it open with her bottom, her tray loaded with dirty dishes.

  ‘These are for you, Michael Fontaine,’ she said, dumping the loaded tray by the sink. ‘Enjoy!’

  Her smirk made Michael furious. He decided not to even look at her, and just set to work.

  Deafened by the clatter of pots and swirled in steam and water, Michael thought about the notebook at the bottom of the harbour, the blue boat snapped in two, and poor Mr Levi, dead as a fish. The sign on the new fence didn’t mean a thing. New Marine Enterprises was a company, not a real person you could write to and say, Why did you bust my boat and where are my down payments? Michael had washed so many dirty dishes to earn that money – they would surely
make a pile as big as a mountain range. Now he would have to wash them all over again to make up for what he had lost.

  ‘Washed your arms off yet, Michael?’ Eugenia quipped as she dumped another trayload beside him.

  Michael was just about to say something smart and cutting back when he noticed how tired she looked. It had been a very busy night and Eugenia wasn’t used to real work, only studying. But in spite of being obviously worn out, she hadn’t slacked. Michael was grudgingly impressed, so he just smiled and said, ‘No, not yet. You doin’ OK?’

  To his astonishment, Eugenia smiled back – a proper smile, not smart or smirky. ‘To tell the truth, I’m only just keeping up,’ she said. ‘Don’t know how you do it, Michael.’

  ‘You’ll get used to it. You’ve done good!’

  Now they were both astonished. In all the years in school together, neither had ever given the other credit for anything.

  Malady and Julietta went home before the last customers finished their meals. Eugenia bussed the final lot of dirty dishes to the kitchen and flopped down in a chair. ‘I’m bushed!’ she said. ‘Do you do this every night, Michael?’

  ‘Yep, most nights,’ he replied without looking at her. ‘And I’m not even saving for college.’

  Eugenia looked at her feet. He could see she was embarrassed and he was immediately sorry.

  ‘I mean, it’s great – that you’re saving for college—’ he spluttered.

  ‘I’m not,’ Eugenia interrupted flatly. ‘I’m saving for the rent. Mum lost her job.’

  Before Michael could say any more, or even remember to close his mouth, she was gone, slamming the door into the alley with a bang. He had always thought of Eugenia’s life as comfortable and easy; it was a shock to find that she had problems, just like he did.

  Michael finished at the sink and went out into the restaurant to sweep the floor. The place was almost empty now. Just one customer was left at the bar – a big old guy in a T-shirt and jeans, wearing an expensive watch that said ‘tourist’ as clearly as if he’d had it written on his forehead. Michael swept round the guy’s feet, hoping he’d take the hint and leave, but he just smiled and didn’t move.

  Mr Joseph was cashing up behind the bar. ‘Have a juice while I tot up your wages, Mikey,’ he said. ‘Hey, I heard about poor Edison – and his boats,’ he went on. ‘Was yours smashed up with the rest?’

  Michael nodded, and gulped down his juice.

  ‘You got a record of what you paid on it?’ Mr Joseph asked.

  Michael didn’t really want to talk about it, especially with the tourist guy listening in, but he knew Mr Joseph was just trying to be kind. ‘Mr Levi wrote it in a notebook,’ he answered quietly. ‘But the construction guys threw that in the harbour. It sank.’ He was sure the tourist guy was leaning closer to hear.

  Mr Joseph sighed and shook his head. ‘How much you lose?’

  ‘Three hundred and twenty-seven dollars and fifty-eight cents.’

  Mr Joseph whistled through his teeth. ‘What’ll you do?’

  ‘No good trying to get it back from New Marine Enterprises’ – Michael shrugged – ‘and Mr Levi didn’t have any family I can ask. So I’ll just have to start again.’

  ‘That’s too bad, Mikey,’ said Mr Joseph. ‘Anyway, here’s your wages, plus a little bonus for helping out at short notice. You’ll get your boat in the end, I’m sure.’

  Michael smiled and thanked him, but his boat had never seemed quite so far away.

  The streetlights made pools of yellowish brightness on the dark road as Michael left the Flying Fish. He walked fast. Rose Town was as safe late at night as it was in the day, but he was tired and wanted to get home. Tomorrow he’d be looking for at least one more job, so he’d have to be up early. He was thinking so hard of other places where he might work that it wasn’t until he’d passed the last hotel on the Old Town road – the last place where anyone from out of town might stay – that Michael realized the tourist was behind him. Surely he wasn’t following him? That only happened in spy movies. All the same, when he reached the coconut palms on the edge of the road by Cat’s Paw Beach, Michael stepped behind one of their trunks to see what the guy would do.

  The man stopped at once and peered into the darkness under the moonlit trees, clearly looking to see where Michael had gone. He was taller than Michael had thought. He wore a suit jacket over his T-shirt now, which gave him a sort of square, cut-out look, and the brim of his panama hat hid his face in shadow. But his voice when he spoke was deep and friendly.

  ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of, lad,’ he said. ‘I’d like to talk to you about your boat, is all . . .’ He left the sentence trailing like a fishing line.

  It was too much to resist. Michael came out from behind the tree. But he kept his distance: what normal person would follow you in the dark rather than speaking to you in a well-lit bar?

  ‘How d’you know about my boat?’ Michael asked, although he knew perfectly well; the man’s ears had been all but flapping.

  ‘Well, I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation in the bar . . .’

  Michael waited.

  The man went on, a little uncomfortably, ‘My name’s Spargo. I work for New Marine Enterprises. I’m sorry about your boat and what happened to Mr Levi.’

  The man’s face emerged from shadow and caught the moonlight: a big, broad face, with deep lines around the mouth, and at the corners of the eyes. An old face – weathered, like a piece of driftwood left in the sea. Michael listened to his accent. It was English, a voice from the country that had swallowed up first his mother and then his father. But not English like the people on the radio Gran listened to. There was a curl in the man’s ‘r’s, as if his voice had been warmed up and cooked on a wood fire.

  ‘I was a young chap like yourself, once. On shore and champing to be on the sea in my own craft. I’d like to offer you a job and the use of a boat and fishing gear. My boss and I, we need someone who can handle a boat, who knows the waters round ’ere. Someone who knows how to be quiet – discreet, like. Of course, we’d refund the down payments you made to poor Mr Levi. What do you say?’

  A boat and his down payments returned? It was almost irresistible.

  The man sounded trustworthy, even kind, but asking for someone who could be ‘quiet’ was suspicious. Quiet about what? Michael wondered; he hung back and stayed silent.

  ‘Well,’ Spargo said with a low chuckle, ‘that proves you have one of the qualities we’re looking for. Like I said, we need someone who can be quiet.’

  Michael still said nothing.

  The man hesitated. ‘You don’t have to make a decision now. I’m staying at the Rathborne. Come and see me tomorrow morning maybe?’

  He bent down and put a business card on the moonlit sand, then turned abruptly and walked away into the night.

  Michael stood looking at the card for a while. The whole thing stank – creeping about in the dark wanting someone who could keep their mouth shut! But he was curious: he stepped forward, picked up the card and turned it over. He could just read the name on it in the thin moonlight. Spargo – no ‘Mr’ and no initials. Why didn’t he have a proper name?

  Michael let out a long-held breath. A boat and fishing gear – his dream, lying here in his hand in the form of little bit of white card. For a moment he wanted to run down the road after Spargo and say, Yes, yes! But then his father’s voice, deep and low as it always used to be, came back to him once more: Remember, Mikey, the bigger the bait, the bigger and sharper the hook.

  Yes, a piece of bait as big as his dream must have a very big, very sharp hook at its centre.

  Michael sighed. He thought about poor Mr Levi, ‘dropped dead on the spot’. Spargo had seemed sorry about him, but there was too much that was suspicious about the old Englishman. No, he would rather wash up a stack of dishes higher than the Rockies and sweep a continent of dirty floors than do a deal with people who could snatch some old guy’s boats, wreck his shack and then cr
eep around trying to make deals in the dark.

  Yet as Michael walked away from the beach, he found he’d put the little white business card in his pocket.

  5

  Sometimes Michael wished that Gran’s house was right in town so his walk home late at night wasn’t so long. Then he would be near school and his jobs and the quayside, and close enough to the power lines for them to have electricity in the house. But sometimes, like now, he loved the fact that it wasn’t.

  He breathed in the air, warm and spicy as a fruit cake. Frogs chirped, fireflies flashed their little green lights in the tops of Gran’s trees, and there was no electric light to spoil the comfort of the dark. Down the hill, house lights and streetlights shone too brightly, and the few cars still on the road streaked the hillside with their headlights. Beyond the town was the greater darkness of the ocean, and tonight, far, far out to sea, a storm, with lightning flickering but too distant for thunder. From inside the house came the sound of his gran snoring gently like a big cat purring.

  Michael lay on a blanket on the veranda to be close to the night. He would save the money for another boat. Tomorrow he would find more work to help him do it. He didn’t need New Marine Enterprises or Spargo. Michael shut his eyes, and the sea dreams rushed in as they always did . . .

  . . . Michael and Samuel are far enough from shore for the island to be a tall fin, stretching along the eastern horizon. They know there are other boats somewhere out on the ocean, but it feels as if theirs is the only one. A still, blue day, with a swell soft as breathing; the boat moving up and then down in a sleepy rhythm. It is their last day at sea together, although Michael doesn’t know it.

  They sit opposite each other, baiting their hooks with chunks of ballyhoo, ready for a catch of bonito or jacks. They are happily silent for a long while; then his father speaks.

  ‘When my great-grandfather was a boy,’ Samuel says, his voice a soft, sweet growl, ‘there would have been whales out here, right underneath our keel. Sperm whales, with their big square heads swimmin’ around in two thousand feet of water. Just think of the mysteries they’d see down there, Michael, at the very bottom of the sea!’