Look into the Eye

by Jennifer Barrett

  “Right.” Ed’s voice became sharp and distant again. “Well, I’m sorry you’re out there on your own, Richie. Can’t be easy. I’ll let you know about the arrangements as soon as I can.”

  Click.

  And he was gone.

  I stared at the receiver.

  Cool?

  What the hell was I talking about – cool?I’m far from fucking cool! My mother is dead, I’m stuck on board a floating steel prison, and I can’t even talk to my own brother about it.

  I tried to get to the bed, to the whiskey bottle, but just as I let go of the desk the ship lurched and I got flung up against the wall. As we continued to roll, I dragged myself up, and half-crawled, half-slid across the floor. I grabbed the bottle and the tumbler off the bottom bunk, and sat on the floor against the bed frame to pour the whiskey. I finished that in one go, then drank another. As the boat continued to lurch and sway violently, the liquid kept spilling over the sides of the plastic tumbler, so I threw the empty tumbler across the cabin and drank straight from the bottle.

  I wanted to call Ed back, wanted to tell him that I didn’t know how I felt about our mother dying, and I wanted to tell him that I had never felt so alone in all my pathetic life. I hung my head, and looked at the whiskey bottle in my hand. I turned it round and round, staring at the swirling auburn blur of liquid that was now almost gone.

  I thought of the last time I saw my mother, those last few minutes by the front door. I thought of her wrapping my scarf around my neck, the uncharacteristic but welcome hug, her waving me off from the garden gate. I thought back to my Ashvale days, back to that great day when my team won the Leinster Cup – she was so happy then, so proud of me.

  But the good memories disappeared when I recalled how crushed she’d been to see my father show up at the school with his new girlfriend that day.

  “That fucking bastard!”

  I threw the bottle across the cabin. It crashed against the wall, sending broken fragments of glass all over the floor. When I tried to stand to clear it up, I was flung back against the side of the bed. I tried to get up again, but I lost my footing and got thrown across the room, this time landing under the desk. I grabbed on to it and pulled myself up. Then just as I managed to stand up, I retched – violently, again and again until there was nothing left inside.

  Then I heard a loud, pained scream. It was a few seconds before I realised it had come from me.

  I fell to my knees, sinking down into my own vomit. The cabin around me went blurry, and I blacked out.

  Chapter 15

  RICHARD

  I awoke to a hammering on the door.

  “Get up, Richie, we’ve got humpbacks out here!”

  I opened my eyes, then snapped them quickly shut again. I opened them very slowly then, and looked through narrow slits. I had no idea where I was, but everything ached. I pulled myself slowly up to a sitting position. I was on the hard floor. I could just make out an overturned chair, broken shards of glass and loose papers around me. I put my hand to my head, and felt the congealed vomit in my hair. And that’s when I remembered exactly where I was: rock bottom.

  The banging on the door started again, then the handle turned, but the door was still locked from the night before.

  “Come on, Richie, open up.” It was Ray. “We’re launching an inflatable rib. Myself, Jules and Hilary are going out to get some footage for the campaign. We’re taking the hydrophone too to get some humpback sound recordings. You don’t want to miss this.”

  I got up and sat on the edge of Takumi’s bunk for a second before slowly moving towards the door. I unlocked then opened it. Ray pushed it in, letting a blinding flood of light into the cabin. It was just the artificial light from the corridor, but it felt like someone was trying to burn my eyes out of their sockets.

  I cupped my hand over my face. “Easy, man. Easy. What time is it?”

  “Almost six.” Ray took a step inside. “Jeez, the typhoon really made a mess of this place last night, didn’t it? The rest of the ship is in chaos too. We’ll have some job clearing up.” He started to sniff the air then. “What’s that smell? Some kind of alcohol?”

  “Eh . . . yeah . . . it was a bottle of whiskey I bought in duty free on the way over.” I rubbed the back of my head. “It got smashed.” It was the truth – more or less anyway.

  “Oh right.” Ray had a good look at me then. “You look pretty rough yourself – did you get seasick?”

  “Eh . . . yeah,” I said.

  “Don’t worry, you weren’t alone last night – it was a pretty wild one. Anyway, it’s already threatening to be a beautiful day. The sun’s about to come up . . . and . . . we’ve got humpbacks! A pod of four or five, including at least one mother and calf. We’ll be heading out to film them in less than five. Get yourself together and we’ll see you down at the launch deck.” Ray went outside, then shouted back. “You won’t need a dry suit – it’s pretty warm already out there – just grab a jacket for the boat.”

  I stood up, and picked up the overturned chair. And that was when I remembered:

  My mother is dead.

  I sat back down on the side of the bunk.

  I have to get home. I need to find out when we’re due to reach Auckland. I need to book a flight.

  My head was pounding, my stomach was in shreds, but I had to get it together. I grabbed my jacket and went outside to the launch deck. The crew were busy loading up the inflatable. Ray was passing his video camera to Jules who was already inside.

  “Great. You made it, Richie,” he said when he saw me. “Look! Out there. See?”

  I looked over to where he was pointing. The sea was as flat as a sheet of glass, barely a ripple to be seen, and a few hundred metres away I could see fins moving just above the surface and wafts of water shooting up from the humpbacks’ blow.

  “Yes, very good,” I said, turning back to Ray. “Listen, man, I need to talk to you for a minute.”

  “No time, Rich, we can talk later. We’ve got to move fast – no idea how long they’re going to hang about. Come on, jump on board. I want to film your reaction – hardened news journalist meets humpback whales for the first time – it’ll make a great piece.”

  I didn’t feel one bit hardened, but I didn’t have the energy to protest, so I just got into the boat after him.

  “Standby for launch!” one of the crew shouted, and the boat, with us in it, was dropped the few feet into the water.

  “This rib has a water-powered engine, so it’s safer for the whales and better for the environment – clean fuel,” Ray was saying.

  “Right,” I said, holding onto the rope on the side of the rib, almost in a daze, as we cut through the waves.

  When we got within about a hundred metres or so of the whales Jules switched off the engine. Ray started to hoist his oversized video camera up onto his shoulder.

  “We’ll try to stay as quiet as possible now so as not to scare them off,” he said to me. “Now we just watch, film and listen.”

  “Sorry, can I get in there, Richie?”

  “Huh? Oh yeah, sure.” I moved aside in my seat to let Hilary up to the side of the boat to lower the flex of the hydrophone into the water. It was just like a small microphone at the end of a long lead attached to a black recording box.

  I looked out to sea.

  The whales were close now. I could see two, then three of them at a time near the surface, then a fourth and fifth would pop up, blowing their streams of spray high in the air to signal their arrival. One of the biggest seemed to move a bit slower than the others.

  “Watch this,” said Ray from behind the lens.

  The whale slowly disappeared beneath the surface, and as he did he flipped his tail clean out of the sea, sending water cascading down around the edges of the tail like a miniature waterfall. We watched as the other whales did the same, until they had all disappeared.

  Hilary turned back to me. “That’s how we identify them,” she said. “Each whale has a un
ique pattern on the underside of its tail – or its fluke as it’s called. We can tell a lot about their behaviour using photo-identification of the flukes. That’s why Jules is helping me today.” She nodded over at Jules, who had been taking photographs and was now changing the lens on her camera. “I’ll send the photos to the research centre for cross-checking then. If we can find a match, we could be able to find out more about the whales’ migratory pattern, feeding and other habits. It all helps underline our assertion that we don’t need to harm whales to learn more about them.”

  “Right – good stuff,” I said, scanning the water, waiting for the whales to reappear, but there was no sign of them.

  “When they tail-fluke like that they’re diving deeper,” Ray said. “They could be gone for anything up to fifteen minutes now.” He leaned back to rest on the boat’s side.

  “Hey, Richie, want to hear what they sound like?” Hilary had a big pair of headphones on her head and a wide smile on her face.

  I slid over in the seat to her.

  “These are a chatty bunch,” she said, handing me a second set of headphones.

  I put them on.

  The sounds were incredible. It was just like the campaign video we’d watched the first night on board the Illuminar, but more vivid. It sounded like something out of an old dinosaur movie – an eerie, groaning, moaning sound, interspersed with high-pitched cries and warbles and growls. It was surreal, haunting and thrilling all at the same time.

  I looked up and caught Hilary’s eye. I said nothing, just raised my eyebrows, smiled and slowly shook my head in disbelief.

  She nodded, smiling. Neither of us had to say a word. It was pure magic.

  Suddenly less than ten metres from the boat, a whale launched himself head-first right up out of the sea, causing the boat to sway and sending tall sprays of white, foamy water flying into the air. He jumped clean out of the ocean. His long head was covered in small white barnacles, and the fins and folds of his belly were a patchy white against his grey-blue body.

  “Wow, look at him fly!” Hilary cried out. “Isn’t that something?”

  But I couldn’t speak. I was transfixed. As I watched that huge whale leap for the sky, a powerful charge shot through my entire body, sending technicolour shockwaves through my black-and-white existence. He crashed back down sideways into the water with an almighty splash. The sound of the impact broke my trance and I jumped back from the edge of the inflatable. I quickly sat up again – just in time to watch his tail, like outstretched eagle’s wings glide back down into the dark water below.

  “Over here now!” Ray called out.

  I pulled off the headphones just as a huge whale surfaced right beside us on the other side of the boat. We all moved to that side and leant over the edge – the whale was so close to the boat that we could see its double blowhole, like a pair of huge nostrils, rise up above the water. It made a loud whooshing noise and a massive spray showered over the boat, covering us in cold, smelly seawater. Hilary and Jules reacted quickly and dived to cover the equipment; Ray just wiped his lens and continued filming.

  The whale disappeared down into the water and I stood up on a seat to watch him swim, just beneath the surface, around the back of the boat to the other side. I went over to that side and leant out over the edge to watch him. I could see him approaching very clearly through the water – his long, nobbly barnacled head, his scratched dark-blue and grey skin. As I watched, he flipped over so that he swam by me, this time on his back, just inches from the surface. Like a curious, friendly puppy, he was so close that I could almost have reached out and rubbed the folds of his white belly. Then he turned around and circled back for another go, this time swimming on his side. When he was right alongside me again, he peered up at me from just below the surface of the water and I looked right into his eye as he swam past.

  “Did you see that?” I said to Ray who’d been filming the whole thing beside me. “He looked straight up at me.”

  “Yep, I got the whole thing,” Ray said, pointing the camera at me. “So what’s it like to see humpbacks up this close, Richie?”

  “It’s incredible, man! Unbelievable.” I looked back for a moment to watch the whale swim off in front of the rib, then turned back to Ray and the camera. “I’ve seen some things in my time, but this tops it all. I just looked into the eye of that whale and it was pretty damned amazing.” I rubbed the back of my head. “It’s at times like this that it feels good just to be alive!” I laughed and turned back to face the sea.

  “I’m using that,” said Ray, putting his camera down.

  The whales continued to swim around by the boat for another while. We watched as they circled, surfaced, then dived again in sequence, we even got treated to a full display of acrobatic tumbles and leaps. It was like being in another world entirely. I forgot who and where I was, and just enjoyed the spectacle.

  After another fifteen minutes or so the whales left us to continue their own journey, and we turned to head back to base. As we sped back over the waves I held my hand over the edge of the boat to feel the water spray up from the sea below and, for the second time that day, I remembered that my mother had died. I felt guilty that I’d forgotten – ashamed that I’d been enjoying myself when my mother was dead.

  I caught Ray’s arm as we stepped back on board the Illuminar and told him my news.

  “Oh no, Richie. I’m really sorry for your loss,” he said. “You’ll need to get home.”

  “Yes, thanks, man. Do you know when we dock?”

  “No, not exactly, but I’ll go check with George now.”

  He went straight up to the bridge while I sat out on deck waiting for him to return. I stared out at sea as I sat there searching the horizon for the whales, but they were gone.

  A few of the crew who’d just heard my news came over to offer their sympathies, and it all started to seem real.

  After about ten minutes, Ray came back and sat down beside me. “George says it’ll be Wednesday morning at the latest before we dock in Auckland. He’ll put the boot down now though and try and get there as quickly as possible.” Ray put his hand on my back. “He asked me to give you his sympathies.”

  “Thanks, man.”

  “Is there anything else we can do? Do you need help sorting out flights and travel?”

  “Nah, thanks, man. Best I do it myself. Good to keep busy.” I stood up to leave, hesitated for a second, then turned back. “By the way, thanks for waking me this morning. Those whales are really something else, aren’t they?”

  Ray shaded his eyes against the sun and looked up at me. “Yes, they are. Worth fighting for.”

  I nodded my head slowly. “You’re doing a good thing, man – you know, being out here, fighting for what you believe in. I admire that.”

  “Thanks, Richie,” said Ray. “Look after yourself, all right?”

  I nodded, and headed down to the cabin. Thankfully Takumi wasn’t about so I cleared the place up, then went for a shower and got into some clean clothes. I sat down at the desk then and looked up flights from Auckland to London, booking one for Wednesday evening. I was a bit worried it’d be too tight – if the Illuminar had any delays en route I could miss the flight. But I decided to risk it.

  Once I’d sorted the flight, I called Ed, but his phone just went straight onto voicemail. I left a message. “Hey, Ed, it’s Richie. I booked my flight. We’re due in to Auckland on Wednesday and my flight gets in to Heathrow at . . .”

  I tried to flick into the confirmation email on the laptop to check the times but the connection was so slow it wouldn’t open quickly enough.

  “Eh . . . the flight’s at . . . gah . . . bloody email!” I slammed the laptop lid down. “Oh, look, forget that. Assuming all goes to plan, I’ll get in to London on Thursday morning, your time. I’ll be coming in on the Air Canada flight via Los Angeles. Give me a call if you can, or even drop me an email. Let me know how the arrangements are going, if there’s anything you need me to do, anyon
e to contact, or whatever it is. I feel so damned useless out here. Just call, all right?” I hung up.

  I tried Sheila’s mobile number then, but it rang out. Then I tried my mother’s home line, thinking they might all be there by then, but there was no answer there either.

  I sat back in the chair and looked around the cabin. It was lunch time; the crew would all be downstairs eating. I could have gone down to join them, but I didn’t want to face more sympathies so I turned back to the laptop hoping that some of the lads might have been on.

  I looked through my inbox. There were just four messages: two from Edith, one spam mail and one from British Airways confirming my flight details.

  I opened the first mail from Edith:

  Well, Richard, it seems like you are back on form – at last!

  Superb first feature article, very well done. Not quite what I asked for, of course, but fortunately for you it’s infinitely better. Mister Splashy Pants, eh? Who’d have thought it?

  We’re running it in the supplement next Saturday. Get Ray to send on some photographs to run alongside it, will you? I don’t know where I’ve put all the ones he’s sent me over the years.

  Edith

  At least she liked the feature. I opened her second mail, sent a few hours later:

  Dear Richard,

  I’ve just heard the news about your mother. I’m so sorry. This must be a terrible shock for you and your family. Make sure to get back home as soon as you can. Let me know your movements, and if there’s anything I can do.

  May dear Rose rest in peace. We will all miss her very much.

  My deepest sympathies,

  Edith

  So the news was out. I looked back through my inbox. Strange that nobody else had got in touch. Not a word from any of the lads. I shouldn’t have been surprised really. I hadn’t been on to any of them in months. Still, it was my mother.

  I sighed. Then I opened my British Airways confirmation and checked the details. All seemed in order. I reread Edith’s two emails, and even read the spam mail, before finally turning off my laptop and going to find Ray to let him know my flight details.