Whale Boy Read online

  As the Louisa May headed out to sea, long low swells moved through the water, like the breathing of a great animal. Michael washed his face with seawater to wake himself up, squared his shoulders and set his course. He told himself that he was simply going to continue with the survey; he wasn’t looking for the whale. But although his head knew it was simpler not see the whale again, his heart felt differently; when he reached the spot where it had been, he couldn’t help stopping to scan the sea again and again. There was nothing but a distant line of terns dipping into the surface, and the black zigzags of frigate birds high in the sky. Nothing disturbed the surface – not a spout, not a dorsal fin. Michael told himself he was feeling disappointed because he hadn’t seen any dolphins, but he knew that wasn’t true.

  He settled down to fish and began to bait his hooks. Almost at once he felt rather than heard, Ssssshhhh.

  A whispering touch on the underside of the boat, no more than the lightest brush from a tangle of floating seaweed. But Michael knew at once what it was!

  Pppppppfffff!

  The whale’s spout exploded right under the Louisa May’s port side, and a huge black triangle poked above the water to starboard. The scraping against the hull grew more definite, until the Louisa May was being very slightly lifted, no longer floating in the water.

  Cautiously, his heart racing, Michael leaned over the port side. There, once again, was the great square head with its four white scars. There was the eye – a dark universe staring up through the film of water.

  But the whale didn’t stay still. Its tail disappeared and it no longer scraped under the Louisa May. Its great rock of a head popped up right at her bow and emitted a long stream of mad, tick-tocking clicks. Fascinated, Michael moved towards it, feeling the clicks hitting his breastbone and resonating through his chest. The patchwork of rubbery skin was close enough to touch. He felt irresistibly drawn to it, and reached out, but at the last second the whale dipped below the surface as if pulled down by its tail. Michael looked into the water to see the whole length of the creature’s body. But today the surface was a frustrating jumble of reflecting shards. Forgetting all caution, he leaned further and further out, holding on with just one hand and shading his eyes with the other.

  Ppppppffffffff!

  The whale came up at the stern. It hit the propeller with its head and the whole boat suddenly jolted, tipping Michael into the water.

  11

  Michael immediately understood the danger he was in. He had to get back to the boat before the swells and the current made her drift out of reach. But before he could take a single stroke, the whale was between him and the Louisa May, so big and so close it was almost all he could see.

  It hung at the surface, completely still, much more massive now that he was in the water with it. He felt tiny and completely vulnerable. Helpless. He remembered the whale teeth he had seen years ago in the Rathborne, set in the jaw of the skeleton, each one longer than his hand and wickedly pointed. What did sperm whales eat? He remembered a picture in a book of a sperm whale and a huge squid. Perhaps he was a little squid-like himself, with his arms and legs poking out like tentacles. There was nothing he could do to defend himself; nothing but tread water and watch the Louisa May drifting further and further away.

  The huge head moved forward, slowly and smoothly. The whale didn’t seem like a creature that was about to attack. Yet instinctively, Michael reached out his hands to ward it off, and his palms slipped over its skin. It was the smoothest thing he had ever touched, like curved wet glass, but springy and warm rather than hard and cold. Not dead like glass, either, but singingly alive, as if a million tiny vibrations were happening under his hands. It was so intense a sensation that Michael gasped in surprise and snatched his hands away as if touching something red hot, but the whale kept coming, pushing him, slow and irresistible as a continent. Michael’s hands slid apart and the whale moved into his arms like an embrace. He was spread over the front of its snout like a starfish. Under the slippery skin, Michael sensed the vast workings of the mountainous body, the unimaginable strength and power. But this wasn’t what astounded him; it was the creature’s perfect control of its motion and its infinite, tender gentleness that left him breathless. He was not terrified at all but awed, overwhelmed.

  The clicks began again, at point-blank range now, blasting into Michael’s body. But only for a moment. The whale had got the information that it wanted. It tipped its head backwards, and now Michael was resting on the front of its upward pointing nose, precariously supported just above the surface. A little beyond where his right fingertips stretched, he felt a vibration as the breath approached the blowhole and then: Pppffff!

  Carrying Michael like a wet rag doll, the whale turned through the water towards the Louisa May, balancing him carefully so he didn’t slip. He didn’t see the boat behind him, only felt the gentle buffet of his head against its gunwale as the whale shoved him against the side with perfect precision. Instantly, Michael reached out, grabbed the edge of the boat and scrambled aboard, kicking against the slippery step of the whale’s skin. He fell into the bottom of the boat, panting, then spun round to see where the whale was – but there was only the circle of flat water to show where its tail had pushed it down, back into its deep ocean world.

  It felt as if the whale had deliberately tipped him out of the boat, out of his container, his wrapper, just to see what he was; and, having found out, put him back. Could that really be true? Michael looked down at his clothes: a slick of black whale skin, oily and fine like slime, coated his T-shirt and was lodged under his nails. Proving that he hadn’t dreamed what had just happened.

  Michael didn’t bother pretending that he wasn’t looking for the whale any more. The excitement of being with a real wild whale pushed his worries about Spargo to the back of his mind. For the rest of the morning and into the afternoon he searched up and down, in and out, within sight of Cape Paradis, but didn’t see a single whale blow. But the moment he stopped searching, the whale simply appeared right beside the boat, as if it had been waiting for him to keep still!

  It was so close to the Louisa May that its spout hit her side, noisy as a volley of stones. The experience of being in the water with the whale was running in Michael’s veins like a fever. Fear and exhilaration raced around inside him, tangled together, so he wasn’t sure what he felt. So now, when it tried to tip him out of the boat again by putting its head under the stern, he clung on with both hands, his knuckles white and his heart beating hard in his ears. After a moment or two the whale stopped trying. Michael wondered if the clicks told it that he was afraid.

  It swam slowly around the boat, very close, and Michael grew calmer and more curious, until the desire to be in the water with the whale overcame his fear. He tied the painter to his ankle, put on his snorkel and face mask, and slipped over the side.

  Now it was the whale’s turn to be alarmed. It jerked in the water like a startled fish, and jinked downwards. Michael floated on the surface, his face submerged, the rope snaking back to the boat, and looked down at the whale below him. It swam on its side, the sunlight just strong enough to dapple its skin. The speckled white around its narrow lower jaw made it look like it had been eating mouthfuls of flour. Michael could see its eye, clearly looking at him. It swam horizontally under the boat, perhaps twelve metres down, and then turned and swam back on its other side, looking at Michael with its other eye. He remained still, trying to keep his breathing through the snorkel as quiet and regular as possible.

  Then the whale headed back towards the surface, bending its long body and pirouetting along its length. It curved as it rose, to arc under where Michael floated, so that it was swimming belly up, perhaps three metres below him. The movement was so graceful, the creature so flexible, so perfectly controlled and yet free, that Michael found himself thinking of hummingbirds and the way they cruised between flowers, changing direction with effortless precision. As the whale passed beneath him, he felt the wash from its
tail, and saw the patchy detail of its skin, where more sections had stripped away, leaving the whale’s belly looking like a badly painted wall.

  Michael’s vision was limited by his mask, so he couldn’t see where the creature had gone. He took a breath at the surface, then paddled himself around, feeling awkward in the water compared to the whale. He looked back to where the Louisa May floated, connected to him by the umbilical cord of the mooring line. The whale was hanging in the water a few metres below the boat, tail down, head up, clicking. The boat looked so different seen from below – a little scoop of green hull, and the metal twist of the propeller poking downwards. And it struck Michael that the world above the water was as unknown and unknowable to the whale as the dark ocean depths were to a human being.

  As he watched, the whale took the drooping rope in its mouth, and for a moment he thought it was going to bite through it; but the whale was just finding out what it was, like a baby putting something between its gums. It was so gentle that Michael hardly felt the tug. It let go of the rope and headed towards him. Michael took a deep breath and dived. He couldn’t go down very far, but for a moment at least he wanted to break that connection with the surface; to meet the whale in its own world.

  They swam towards each other, and at the last second the whale turned, that effortless pirouette again, so that it was almost within reach. It stopped still, and Michael did his best to do the same. The whale managed this without any apparent effort, but for Michael it took a lot of flailing arms and legs.

  Belly up, both the whale’s eyes could look at Michael at the same time. They squinted around its jaw like someone peeping round the side of a house. A loose piece of skin bigger than a sheet of paper was floating beside its head, but still just attached. With the last of his breath, Michael propelled himself further down, too close to the creature’s underside for him to see its eyes. But the whale kept still, trusting his intent. He caught hold of the irritating bit of skin, so fine and slick; it slipped and came apart in his fingers, but he managed to pull most of it free. At once, the whale turned so that now one eye lay almost under Michael’s hand, and looked at him for a long moment.

  There were black spots in Michael’s eyes. He’d never held his breath for so long or gone so deep. The surface was a long way away, and it took willpower to breathe out all the way up to protect his lungs from damage. He burst back into air and took a deep breath. How must a whale feel after an hour down there? He put his mask back under the water. The whale had dived: he could see the cylindrical body fading into the blue below him, a strange being from that other world.

  Just think of the mysteries they see down there, Michael, at the very bottom of the sea!

  Yes, just think. Was the whale thinking the same thing looking at the strange little creature from the unknown world above the surface?

  He knew that a wild animal would never come when it was called, like a dog, but the whale was now so special to him that he had to name it – even if only in his head. It didn’t take him long to find a name: Freedom.

  12

  Michael got to the hospital late and found Gran’s bed empty. The sheets had just been stripped off and lay in a laundry bag at the foot of the bed. He sat down on the mattress, feeling his knees give way and his head swim. There could be only one reason why Gran was not in her bed. On an evening he had been delayed, she had died.

  A nurse he’d never seen before, small and skinny – the exact opposite of the familiar Sister Taylor – came up to him with a big smile.

  ‘Didn’t they tell you at reception?’ she said, still beaming.

  Michael wondered how anyone could be so heartless as to smile at such a time.

  The nurse looked at him carefully. ‘She’s OK,’ she said. ‘She’s been moved to a private room. I’ll show you.’

  Michael didn’t ask any questions; he was still reeling from the shock of having believed, if only for a moment, that his gran was dead.

  She was propped up on a whole mound of fluffy white pillows, in a room with a TV and a big window looking out over the town. She opened her eyes when he came in and raised the thumb of her right hand. That little bent thumb was so hopeful, so obviously trying to cheer him up, that it wrung his heart. Her forefinger roved around a little, pointing to the room. Michael understood at once.

  Look at this, Michael, the finger was saying. Looks like your old gran lucked out at last!

  ‘Michael!’ she breathed. ‘Michael!’

  He was so glad that she had said his name, not Davis or Samuel or Ivor.

  ‘So good to see you!’ she said. Her voice wasn’t much more than a whisper, but her eyes were bright and full of life.

  ‘How are you doing, Gran?’ he asked.

  She smiled and opened her eyes wide in the old Gran way. ‘Oh, I’m on the mend!’ she said. ‘Be out of here any day now.’

  ‘You take it steady, Gran,’ Michael chided her gently.

  ‘I don’t want Davis paying any more bills than he has to.’

  Michael’s heart dropped with disappointment. She was still confused after all.

  But Gran nodded her head. ‘Davis! Davis is paying for this room! He called the hospital today.’

  Then she let go of Michael’s hand and went limp as a rag, as if the effort had worn her out. In seconds she was fast asleep, snoring her usual purring snore.

  It was almost time for work at the Flying Fish. Wearily, Michael got up and walked down the corridor.

  ‘Michael! Michael?’ It was Sister Taylor, just leaving at the end of her shift. ‘Great news about your uncle, isn’t it?’

  ‘My uncle?’

  ‘Didn’t your grandmother tell you? Davis Fontaine called today and made a bank transfer to pay for all her treatment and a private room!’ She saw the look on Michael’s face. ‘It must be a great weight off your shoulders,’ she said kindly.

  ‘Did he say where he was calling from?’ Michael asked.

  ‘No – no, he didn’t. I’m sorry.’

  ‘He left Liberty before I was born,’ Michael explained. ‘If he calls again, could you ask him to contact me at the restaurant where I work, the Flying Fish?’

  ‘Yes, I know it. I’ll tell him.’ Sister Taylor put her hand on Michael’s arm. ‘Are you OK?’ she asked.

  Michael nodded and stumbled away, not sure what he felt most: relief that the bills would be paid, or disappointment that it was the uncle he had never met, not his father, who had suddenly appeared out of the blue.

  The moment Michael stepped through the door of the Flying Fish, Eugenia burst into the kitchen with a huge tray of dirty plates.

  ‘Oh, am I glad to see you!’ she said. ‘Malady’s off sick and I’ve never seen the place so full!’

  Michael took the tray. ‘Just what I need,’ he said. ‘An evening of being too busy to think!’

  ‘Don’t tell me you ever think, Michael Fontaine’ – Eugenia grinned – ‘’cos I know that can’t be true.’

  She waltzed out of the kitchen, and in spite of everything that was racing around his brain, Michael found he was smiling.

  People were earning good money on NME’s construction sites, and they all seemed to be in the Flying Fish that night to spend it. Michael and Eugenia didn’t get a moment’s peace: they cleared tables and took orders and washed up until almost midnight.

  Finally things calmed down a bit, and as Michael was collecting dirty glasses from the bar, he overheard Mr Joseph’s conversation with his two most regular customers, Rooseveldt Dringo and Miss Eliza Harmany.

  ‘What I want to know,’ Mr Joseph was saying, ‘is who this JJ is. Could be some criminal, for all we know!’

  ‘Oh, don’t be so suspicious, Errol!’ Miss Harmany scolded. ‘Maybe JJ is a movie star who wants to keep his identity secret.’

  ‘You taken a look at how fast that Marine Exhibition Centre is going up?’ Mr Dringo whistled through his teeth.

  ‘Marine Exhibition Centre for what? That’s what I want to know,’ Mr Jo
seph said as he poured their drinks. ‘Why doesn’t that Spargo or his boss – whoever that is – tell anybody?’

  ‘’Cos it makes a better splash in the news if it’s a surprise.’ Miss Harmany rolled her eyes as if it were obvious. ‘Don’t you know about marketing, Errol?’

  Mr Joseph wasn’t convinced. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘And maybe he doesn’t want anyone knowing what it’s going to be until it’s too late for anyone to object!’

  ‘Oh, don’t be such misery,’ said Miss Harmany, waving her red-nailed fingers around and flicking her hair.

  ‘Well,’ said Mr Dringo, ‘it is kinda weird. Doesn’t look like a regular building at all. More like a big old . . .’ He struggled for the right word, but Mr Joseph was ready with one of his own.

  ‘Tank! Like a great big tank! And what would you keep in a tank that big?’

  ‘I dunno.’ Miss Harmany giggled nervously. ‘A whale?’

  Michael suddenly felt cold, and Spargo’s gravelly voice growled in his memory: All our plans depend on you. Find those whales.

  Mr Joseph pulled something from a drawer under the bar. ‘Take a look at this,’ he said. ‘Friend of mine got it for me. His son works on the new fish market site. It’s the packaging they’re getting ready to use.’ He slid the plastic wallet with its printed label across towards his friends.

  ‘Well, I can’t read a word of it!’ Mr Dringo said, sipping his beer.

  ‘Course you can’t, Rooseveldt.’ Miss Harmany laughed, and pushed the packet back across the counter. ‘It’s Japanese! Now, Errol, what’s suspicious about that? Everyone knows they eat a lot of seafood over there!’

  ‘I’ll tell you what’s suspicious,’ said Mr Joseph, getting cross. ‘They have two million of those packages. I mean, how many fish do they think are in the sea around Liberty?’

  ‘Well, I’m glad,’ she said, getting quite heated herself, ‘because my two sisters have got jobs at the fish plant starting right after Carnival, and two million packages is work for a long time!’