Singing Home the Whale

by Hager, Mandy

  He finished cooking while Dean took a shower. Placed a cold beer beside Dean’s plate when he sat down to eat. They ate in silence, only the scraping of knives and forks on plates and the chewing of crisp toast to break the loaded hush.

  Dean stared unwaveringly at his meal while Will studied his face. Dean shared his sister’s — Will’s mother’s — eyes, the loamy brown of fertile soil, as did Will. They also shared the same sharp cheek bones and lank black hair, but where Dean’s lips had thinned to a perpetual frown, Will had been told he had his father’s mouth — that teasing elevation at the corners, as if a joke was only ever a breath away. Trouble was, these days the joke was always on him.

  Only once Dean had finished eating and scraped his chair back to smoke a cigarette did he look up at Will and speak.

  ‘Listen mate, you can’t keep on freaking every time someone mentions that bloody clip. It’s been a year—’

  ‘Eight months, one week.’ And two days.

  ‘Whatever. You have to face the fact it’s out there in the world.’

  Will had to force himself not to bite back. He picked up his fork and traced a treble clef in the dregs of yolk. ‘Easy for you to say.’

  ‘I know it is. But you’ve been here six weeks now and you’ve hardly said a word to anyone. Your mother’s worried—’

  ‘She always worries. What does she know?’

  Unfair, he knew, to diss his mum when she was stuck wrangling trucks in a uranium mine, but they all seemed to think he could just forget the shame and pain. They hadn’t been labelled as a laughing stock. They hadn’t been beaten to a pulp. The headaches and the mood swings were bad enough, thanks to those bastards fracturing his skull, but no one bothered to warn him he’d be swept by waves of hopelessness and nervous paranoia — and nausea to boot. He was a mess, he knew. Was so bloody sick of feeling vulnerable and weak. That’s why the business with the orca had been such a treat. For those few short hours he’d forgotten his own misery. But now the little guy was gone it flooded back.

  Dean shifted in his seat. ‘Maybe it’s time to see the head doctor again?’

  Will sighed. ‘What’s the point? They’ll only say to get more rest. Or go on medication.’

  ‘If you think it’d help—’

  ‘Forget it. So long as Gabby Taylor keeps her mouth shut, I’ll be fine.’

  ‘And what if she doesn’t, mate? At some point you have to put that all behind you and get on with your life.’

  ‘Look, if you want me to leave—’

  ‘I’m not saying that, Will. I just hate to see you moping. It’s all very well doing Correspondence to avoid the local school, but you should be out there having fun. Seeing people. Making friends.’

  ‘Yeah, right. Who the hell can I relate to here? Hunter bloody Godsill? I bet he knows a thing or two about opera. Probably has a poster of Pavarotti hanging above his bed.’

  Dean snorted smoke. ‘You might be quite surprised. He’s not a bad kid once you get to know him. God knows he’s had a lot to put up with too.’

  Will rose from the table and started clearing the dishes. Dean wasn’t bad either, he just didn’t understand the world outside this one-horse town. He hardly used the internet and had no clue at all about the curse of social media. Dean thought it could be ignored; that if Will didn’t look then it would go away. But Will knew differently. His clip would be out there forever and he’d never live it down. Would always be the sad loser who drew a laugh.

  When he’d done the dishes he retreated to his room. Logged on to the internet, unable to resist his daily ritual of checking the latest stats. The views had risen again, another sixty-three since he last checked. He resisted the urge to play it; already knew every awful detail off by heart.

  The real tragedy was that the first try-out had gone so well. ‘Che gelida manina’, the perfect song, a student falling for a dying girl. The judges had lapped it up, tears spilling down their cheeks by that final haunting note. A standing ovation. A definite ‘yes’. They’d loved the way he looked: his tattoos, piercings, fingerless gloves, black nail polish and long black goth-inspired leather coat. Had talked to him for an extra ten minutes past his allotted time. They were excited, he could tell. He’d seen the look at other competitions where he’d won: a hungry energy. But in this case, they ate him up then spat him out.

  He was such a goddamned fool to have agreed to go out with his friends the night before the first filming session. He’d let audition nerves get the better of him and sculled far too much bourbon and Coke. Had dropped his guard. Got halfway through the shortcut at the back of the old hospital and tripped over those three evil meth-heads, too drunk to get the hell away. He’d mouthed off something stupid and they took violent exception. Couldn’t remember what he said, but next thing he was on the ground, robbed of wallet, phone and shoes, his leather coat slashed with a knife. One of them pinned him by the throat before the final parting shot that broke his nose and cracked his skull.

  He should’ve gone straight to the hospital. Called off the audition and waited for the swelling to go down. But he was desperate. Concussed. Hid from his parents and turned up to the filming the next day looking like he’d walked out of a zombie flick, still half-cut and dazed from the crack to his head. They’d tried to send him home, but he’d insisted on singing as they escorted him towards the door. He sounded like a geriatric yodeller with a dose of flu. Goodbye stardom, hello YouTube out-takes. Some prick had filmed the whole sorry performance on their phone. They dubbed the clip ‘Will of the Living Dead’ and he’d often wished he was dead; it would’ve pleased the jerks who taunted him online. Of course it was an instant hit. And every time his parents’ lawyer hassled someone to take it down, it popped up somewhere else. With money so short, he had no choice but leave it be — and stew.

  Old history. Dean was right: he somehow had to shake it off. The trouble was, the bumps and bruises may have faded but the nausea still screwed his gut. And the doctors said it could take years before his head came right.

  He spent an hour browsing through clips and photographs of orcas, listening to the different sounds and finding out their purposes: pulsed calls for recognition and coordination of their groups, whistles that they mainly used when in the company of their clan, clicks and squeaks for echolocation … What amazed him was the discovery that each group had its distinct dialect, a repertoire of calls that pods could identify as their own. And, while no one came out straight and said the whales had a shared language, it seemed their soundings were so complex and mysterious that it was hard to argue otherwise. That had to mean that if they shared a universal language and regional dialects, they had a brain at least as complex as his own.

  At ten-thirty the day’s excitement finally caught up with him, the words blurring and shifting as his eyelids drooped. He shut down the computer and stretched out on his bed, conjuring up the encounter with the orca as he felt himself pulled into sleep. He dreamed of an enormous pod swimming in through his window, lifting him, nudging up against him with their dense warm flesh. He sang ‘Vesti la giubba’, dressed like the clown he was, and they accompanied him with their haunting harmonies. Put on your costume, and powder your face. The people pay to be here, and they want to laugh …

  As I descended from my dreams into the soft silver of early dawn, panic drummed inside. Gulls stalked the shore, shrieked shanties as they skewered shellfish from the flotsam at their feet.

  Hunger nagged me now, the bawling from my belly breaking through my grief to goad me on. I did not want to feed, yet I no longer wished to die — there was a comfort in the boy’s compassion and he’d sensed my youthful yearning for a fill of fun. I felt the pull to play, an untamed energy that egged me on.

  I left the shelter of the shingle bank where I had slept, and sought those swarming salmon out. I nosed up to the weir that barred my way, but could not catch them through the cracks. Beyond, the fish fought to escape me. I slipped beneath to try to snatch them from below. I ached t
o eat.

  My teeth could get no traction on that threaded thatch, and so I bunted, butted, bludgeoned, until the barrier broke. I backed off then, sank down into the sludge, and waited for the salmon to swim out. They teemed, a flood of fleeing fish, no match for my sharp-tipped teeth. But the festering that flooded off them — pricked by parasites, stressed and poxed — put me off.

  Instead I played — corralling, chasing, catching them, then spitting them back out to start the game again. The gulls soon swarmed right over us, their cries recalling the brawl over my mother’s meat. I fled.

  As I caught cleaner cod out in the centre of the channel I sensed a ship. I swerved, and slipped into a sheltered cove. Two tiny waifs waded there, reedy voices ringing in the arrested air. I scanned the feelings flowing off them, found a softness like the singing boy’s.

  I edged as close as I could chance, and stretched up to show myself. They shrieked and stumbled from the sea, limbs flailing, faces flushed with fear; I’d yet to learn the Hungry Ones might mistrust me too. They teetered on the tide-line. Threw a wedge of wood to ward me off. I scooped it up and shot it back. They tossed it out and I returned it, time and time again, until their worry waned.

  I sang, then, for them to swim with me, but at that moment a maddened man burst from the bush. He bellowed, breaking up our back and forth, and tugged those two small souls further up the shore. I slipped beneath the swell and sank, blowing bubbles, basking on the seabed amid the anxious fish.

  Eventually I nosed back north, returning to the place where I had spent my nights. There was the boy! His voice was bouncing on the breeze, long notes and lengthy runs pouring from his frail frame. I breached to tell him I was there, and sped over to share my sounds.

  For those whose daily thoughts are dull, they fail to follow our most splendid songs — while we, who marvel at the many melded webs within our minds, are filled with thankfulness. We think, we feel, we love, we sing. It is our way.

  And, so, to sing with one who walked the world, and feel the sharing of his spirit through his sounds, hooked my heart. Our calls collided, music mingled, two tongues tried to make us one. The wind whispered our wanting; the seaweed swayed along in time. I felt a fondness fix in me. A thankfulness. I may have lost my mother and my family, but now I strongly sensed that I had found a friend.

  Will was halfway through his song when the orca showed itself. His heart clattered as the little creature rushed over and flipped onto its back. Its gaze met Will’s and held it as he kept on singing. Soon the orca’s tuneful calls began to weave into his own.

  The sound was doleful, like the gibbons who called across the valley every morning, voices rising from the city zoo near where he’d lived. And pure, a ringing crystal glass rubbed round its rim. All the hairs on Will’s arms and neck sat up.

  He closed his eyes, his voice ascending through bone and skin to meet the orca’s in the late morning air. Tears pricked his eyes. Music did this to him every time. It tapped into the part of him that was hard to articulate. The side he tried to hide, for fear of being ostracised. Poofter. Bum bandit. Knob jockey. Fag. The comments on YouTube left him in no doubt of what they thought — and, though he had no problem with gays (had several close friends that way inclined), he resented being labelled one merely because he’d cried. But that was then — not anymore. He’d rather die than be sprung for blubbing again. Yet here he was, right now, tears spilling down his cheeks just like his mother when she watched a soppy film. Pathetic.

  He squatted down to greet the orca face to face. It rolled, not breaking its accompaniment, and bumped its snout against Will’s outstretched hand.

  ‘Hey, you.’

  The orca sprayed him with fine mist, emitting the little creaking sounds that he knew, from last night’s web search, were for echolocation. Was it trying to read him? If only the bastards who’d judged him for his failure had bothered trying that, instead of writing off his life.

  ‘What’m I going to call you?’

  Beneath his hand the orca squealed, a girly giggle like The Mikado’s Three Little Maids’. He’d played the hero, Nanki-Poo, the wandering minstrel out to win sweet Yum-Yum’s heart. Such stupid names. And yet …

  ‘What about Minstrel, eh?’ The orca’s noise continued unabated. ‘Or maybe Minor?’ It was the relative key that underscored virtually all its sounds. ‘Nah. Too obscure. Though Min’s okay. What if I call you Min?’ He liked the associations that came with this; it conjured up old black jazz singers in smoky bars. Little Min. Big Mo. Will of the Living Dead.

  The orca seemed to grin, revealing spiky teeth. It nosed up to a dangling rope and took it up as tenderly as a mother cat carries her young. Floated backwards, feeding out the line.

  Will scrabbled for the rope and gently tugged. Min squealed again and yanked a little harder in return. The Zeddie swung around as they played tug-of-war, Will’s laughter and Min’s caterwauling chiming off the bush-clad hills.

  When the game grew stale Will ditched the rope. He stripped down to his boxers and jumped into the sea. Before he’d even cleared his eyes Min was right there, brushing along him, blowing a series of noisy bubbles as Will studied its markings to figure out its sex. One of the pages he’d read online showed mammary slits, but nothing broke the velvet smoothness of its abdomen.

  ‘So you’re a boy?’ He reached for Min’s flipper and shook it like a hand, surprised to feel the knobs of bone within. ‘How do you do, sir! I am Will!’

  Min gurgled like a drain and dived, resurfacing right under Will. He joggled Will onto his back, Will clutching the slippery dorsal fin, fair crapping himself. He had flashes of Whale Rider as he was piggybacked around the bay, whooping his joy. Beneath him, Min’s firm fat body swayed. For such a little guy he had surprising speed and strength.

  Will burst out with the first thing that popped in his head. ‘Away, away! My heart’s on fire!’ He wished his mum and dad were here! It was his mum who’d stoked his musical theatre addiction. She’d played Gilbert and Sullivan endlessly since he was small. He’d even taken a CD with his favourite Pirates of Penzance song ‘Tarantara! Tarantara!’ to primary school for his morning talk. His mates were not impressed — to put it mildly. He’d soon learnt to keep it quiet — and, later, to shut up about serious opera as well. They reckoned it was for old fogies. And, anyway, most people thought music was a product, not an art. Only in Year 11 did he find a few like-minded friends — but they were all back home, too busy now, it seemed, to keep in touch with a screwed-up recluse like him.

  After nearly two circuits, Will slid off beside the yacht. He floated on his back until Min came to rest beside him, and then flapped his feet. Min flapped his tail, so Will replied by slapping at the water with his hands. Right away Min aped him with his flippers. It was incredible. Surreal. Will folded at the waist and sank. Lightning quick, Min slipped below the water to blow a giant raspberry. Will shot back to the surface, laughing so hard-out he choked. Meanwhile, his small fat friend sounded like a strangled duck. The little sod was mocking him!

  Will hauled himself aboard the Zeddie and wrung the water from his ponytail, stiffening when a movement up on shore drew his eye. Three hikers lingered by the bush, phones in hand.

  He turned his back, elation souring. Min was his secret. He didn’t want to share him with the haters of the world. He dredged up the anchor. Whistled a high B flat, the note closest to Min’s default cry. Immediately Min answered back.

  Will set the sail and urged the Zeddie out to sea, one hand on the tiller as he wrestled clothes over dripping skin. Ahead, Min kept perfect pace. As they approached the headland Will glanced back. The hikers had advanced down to the shore, phones aloft as if they were filming. Goddamn. Privacy meant nothing, not now every arsehole had a camera on his phone.

  Beside him Min bounced through the water peeling off the bow as sunlight splintered all around. He was so at one with his world Will felt a pang of jealousy. He was the fish out of water here, always off-side, gut scre
wing up when someone even looked at him.

  He never used to be like this. When he was young his parents gave him unconditional love. He used to sing his heart out, even as a little kid, at the supermarket, on the way to school, in the car … The world felt safe and reassuring with his parents always there to cheer him on. Of course, they did still love him, but the distance made it feel like they were dead. Even when he Skyped them or his friends it didn’t feel real. And right now it felt as if he’d washed up in a weird new dimension … here, in a yacht, out at sea — romping with a singing orca! Maybe he was crazy after all.

  The yacht had reached the channel now. To the south the mail boat ploughed up the Sound. Will back-winded the sail and threw the tiller over hard until the yacht hove to. Min bobbed up next to him, head listing.

  ‘You need to skedaddle, mate.’ Though he’d ignored Dean’s parting shot this morning to ‘stay the hell away from that black fish’, Will also figured Dean was right. If Bruce Godsill got wind of Min then things could easily turn to shit.

  But Min was performing again, back-flipping and tail-slapping like the show-off kid Will once had been. He had no idea how to return to Blythe without Min following. It wasn’t like he was a dog that could be told to ‘stay’.

  He leaned over the gunwale and slapped his fist down in the drink. Min swivelled mid-breach and smashed down next to the yacht, completely soaking Will. Damn. Min thought it was a game. What the hell to do? He could try to scare him — drive him off — but that was cruel. Min was a baby. He had no one else.

  But first things first: the mail boat was gaining on them fast. Will eased the tiller off and tacked out of its path, hoping Min would trail along without creating too much splash. As if. Min was clearly out for fun, racing on ahead then breaching before doubling back. The boat drew nearer, shifting from its normal course, heading straight for Will.