To Become a Whale

by Ben Hobson

  ‘Quit daydreaming, Sam,’ his father said.

  He looked over and saw his father was holding two pieces of timber positioned crossways between two uprights. With his crippled hand, he proffered nails and the hammer.

  ‘You want me to nail them in?’ the boy asked.

  ‘No, mate,’ his father said. ‘I want to stand here just like this the rest of the night.’

  The boy took the nails and hammer. Thunder rolled in the distance. The boy hammered a nail into the wood his father held. It bent and stopped sinking, despite a few more whacks. The head sloped over and made a divot in the pine.

  ‘Pull it out,’ his father said.

  ‘How?’

  ‘Just pull it out with the back of the hammer –’ he pointed ‘and get a new nail. Come on, mate. I can’t hold it all day.’ His father tried out a smile that seemed fake before it started.

  ‘Let me hold it up then.’

  ‘Just hammer the damn thing.’

  The boy yanked the nail out with a mighty struggle. It squeaked against the wood as it exited. He found another nail and hammered it in. Same result. Thunder nearby. He kept hitting this bent nail and finally, near the end, it righted itself a little. His father carefully released the wood; the nail held.

  They continued in this haphazard way around the whole shack. The boy unsure how it helped, if it did at all.

  The rain did not come on slowly but instead hit the roof and the side of the house in a torrent. The first tropical storm they’d experienced since his mother died. It pelted against the roof like movie-bullets into cars. It flew sideways through their open door and reached the foot of his father’s bed.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ his father muttered. He grabbed their clothes and rolled them up like snakes and put them under the door to stop the water seeping in.

  Outside, in the storm, Albert yelped. The boy flung the door open and dashed out, almost leaping over his father. He untied the puppy and cradled him to his chest in the harsh wind. He ran back in, blinking the rain from his eyes.

  His father shook his head. ‘Albert can’t stay in here.’

  The boy shook his head, sending drops of water flying. ‘Why not?’

  ‘He’s soaking wet. He’ll stink. Put him back out.’

  ‘It’s raining.’

  ‘It know it’s raining, mate. I can bloody see that. The dog’ll be fine. Dogs live in the wild. You ever hear of a dingo? They just sit out there in the rain and they do alright. No trees or nothing, out in the outback anyway. Albert’ll be okay.’

  His father expected to be heeded.

  The boy looked at the puppy licking water from his forearm. ‘He’s too little.’

  ‘Mate, throw the dog outside before I throw him, yeah? And I don’t give a good damn if he runs away or not. You understand me?’ Pointing his finger.

  ‘He won’t be alright. He isn’t like you say.’

  ‘Well then he’s useless, right?’ his father said. ‘We got him to guard our stuff and if he’s too bloody soft for rain then he’s too bloody soft for all of it.’

  ‘I don’t want him to be a guard dog.’

  ‘Well then what’s he good for?’ A mean look in his eye. ‘What bloody good is he? We’ll take him back. We don’t need another useless mouth to feed.’

  His father turned away from the boy. A quality to his voice that demanded acquiescence. Something final and damning. The boy surprised at how little he felt his father’s condemnation. Maybe this was the saddest thing. The boy tucked the puppy into his shirt, and set to helping his father.

  TWELVE

  They drove to Brisbane city a few days later and the boy sat with the car window down and watched the buildings as they changed shape with each new suburb they travelled through.

  His father said, ‘Hate the city.’

  ‘Why?’

  He coughed. ‘Too dense.’

  After a moment the boy said, ‘You sure he’ll be alright?’

  ‘He’s got water and food. He’ll be fine.’

  The boy watched new houses fly by, waterfront properties elaborate and expensive. Some of them had short jetties attached to their rears with large boats moored to them. The boy wondered if the humbleness of their current home bespoke a kind of pride just as the extravagance of these houses did.

  They turned left away from the river and its murky waters, then turned left again. His father seemed to know the way without consulting a map. They pulled into a tree-shaded brick driveway and parked behind a car some way down. Outside the house was a shirtless bloke leaning against the verandah rail with a stubby in his hand. He laughed as they got out of the car and yelled, ‘Walter!’

  His father laughed too and looked up, shielding his eyes.

  The shirtless man rushed down the stairs and the two men shook hands warmly. The boy wondered why he had no memory of this man his father knew so well.

  The man turned to the boy.

  ‘This your boy all grown up?’

  ‘This is Sam, Phil.’

  ‘Haven’t seen you since you were this big, mate,’ Phil said, and put his hand to his knee. He extended a hand to the boy and they shook, the boy doing his best to remember his father’s advice. The man’s hands were calloused and rough, his grip too strong. Phil said to the boy’s father, ‘Good handshake on him,’ and his father smiled.

  Phil added, turning back to look the boy in his eyes, ‘I hear about you all the time, mate. He won’t shut up about you. Sam did this and Sam did that. You got some sort of prize at school for spelling a while back, didn’t you? It was spelling, right?’

  The boy nodded.

  They walked up the stairs. The boy had never suspected his father bragged about him and the idea did not settle in his heart as true.

  Phil said, ‘Sorry to hear about your mum. Yeah.’ He scratched the back of his neck. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘It’s alright,’ his father said.

  Phil looked at the boy’s father and nodded and the boy knew that this would be all the sympathy the two would exchange, all either of them would need. The boy, though, was not like his father. He didn’t know what he wanted, but knew those few quick words might as well have not been spoken.

  Phil asked them to remove their shoes, then they stepped inside, the boy’s feet immediately swallowed up in shaggy brown carpet. Plants in terracotta pots sat on the kitchen counter, so many of them that it looked like a mini jungle, and there was no space for meal preparation.

  His father plonked himself down on the couch and the boy sat beside him.

  ‘Beer?’

  ‘Yeah, mate. God, yes.’

  ‘Sam?’ Phil said, his head already in the fridge.

  The boy looked at his father, who smiled. ‘Yes, please.’

  His father laughed. ‘Had his first a few days ago. Didn’t think you liked it.’ He slapped his knee.

  The boy was thrown a cold XXXX from the fridge and he copied his father’s mannerisms as the man leaned back and put his feet on the coffee table in front of them. His father cracked the steel can open and swigged it back. The boy followed suit, did his best to appear accustomed, but choked on the foul taste and sat upright. Some went down the wrong pipe, which made him cough.

  ‘Go easy,’ his father said, and clapped him on the back and laughed. ‘No rush.’

  ‘How’ve you been?’ Phil asked. He situated himself opposite them on the leather armchair, a television set beside him. ‘I mean, with everything.’

  ‘Okay. I don’t know.’

  Phil took a sip of beer. ‘How’s the place?’

  ‘It’s getting there.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Well,’ his father said, and looked at the boy. ‘We haven’t really started the house yet. We’ve just made a bit of a shelter for ourselves, which should see us through till we start building.’

  ‘Is it a couple of twigs nailed to a tree?’ Phil said, grinning. ‘Is it a tarp draped over a stick?’ He turned his smile on the boy.
‘Tell me it’s more than a bloody tarp.’

  The boy said nothing, tried to smile in return, drank his beer to hide his discomfort.

  His father said, ‘You still got the plans?’

  Phil put his beer on the coffee table, lurching upright, and said, ‘Still a bloody stupid idea if you ask me.’

  ‘I already know what you think.’

  Phil laughed. He went to the kitchen and rustled through a stack of paper on the counter. ‘There’s no way you’ll do this by yourself. It’d take you twenty years.’ He came back to the lounge holding the plans.

  ‘I’m going to try. No harm in that, is there?’

  ‘Now, now,’ Phil said. ‘Don’t get bloody testy. I’m just saying. How much have you spent on it already?’ He took a blue singlet that was draped over the back of the chair and slipped it on, pushed the long hair that fell to his shoulders in golden curls behind his ears. A different breed this man, though he swigged his beer the same way. He added, ‘Don’t get that look in your eye, mate. I’ve seen that look. A mate should be able to talk honestly with his friend, yeah?’ He took a sip of beer. ‘I’m only playing, anyway. I know you’re a careful bloke.’

  ‘It’s none of your business,’ his father said and snatched at the paper Phil proffered.

  Phil raised his hands in mock alarm and laughed and looked at the boy. ‘He always like this?’

  The boy said nothing and Phil sat down opposite them once more. The boy shuffled closer to his father to take a look at the plans. Indecipherable diagrams covered with numbers and arrows drawn in barely legible script. On the side of the large sheet a colour photo of the finished house. It looked like his grandparents’ house. There was a small concrete base and an overhanging gutter and small, vertical windows.

  ‘This is it?’ his father asked.

  ‘That’s them.’

  ‘It says 1946 on the front here,’ his father said, holding up the diagram and pointing.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Well what? You wanted something classic. That’s Edwardian architecture.’

  ‘I don’t give a damn about that.’

  ‘That’s it then,’ Phil said, throwing his hands up. ‘That’s all I got. Why don’t you go speak to somebody who actually knows what they’re on about? Why don’t you speak to a real estate bloke? Don’t know why you asked if you’re going to grizzle about it.’

  ‘No,’ his father said, and took another look. ‘These’ll be fine. We’ll make it work.’

  ‘You sure, mate? You sure you don’t want me to run all over the bloody country?’

  ‘All you did was talk to your dad, didn’t you?’ his father said, refusing to look up from the plans.

  ‘You know I hate him,’ Phil said, and looked at the boy. ‘He’s a bloody mongrel.’ He smiled, which seemed to belie the seriousness of his words. The man clearly enjoyed teasing, something the boy had never been comfortable with. An uneasiness, it would seem, he and his father shared.

  ‘Thanks,’ his father muttered. ‘I’m sure these’ll do. We’ll maybe change a bit of the façade …’ He wafted his finger over the drawing, as though shooing a fly. ‘But the structure’s all there.’

  ‘You sure now?’

  ‘Yes. Thank you,’ his father said.

  Phil leaned back and drank in long swallows, and the boy could tell by the way he lowered his can he had downed the whole thing. ‘You ready to go back, or what?’

  ‘Feels like we were just there,’ his father said. He didn’t take his eyes from the plans. He traced the lines with his good hand.

  ‘It was six months ago. And we were only there a few months.’

  ‘I know,’ his father said. He folded the plans carefully and laid them beside him, then clapped his son on the shoulder and added, ‘It just seems when I’m not there I’m not really in my life, you know? You don’t know.’ A sigh. ‘I’m taking Sam with me this time.’

  Phil met this announcement with widened eyes. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Thought it would be good for him.’

  ‘How old is he? How old are you, mate?’

  ‘I’m thirteen,’ the boy said.

  ‘Thirteen? And what’s he gonna do?’ Phil asked, turning back to the boy’s father. He stood and switched on one of the ceiling fans and the boy noticed both men had started sweating. As he sat back down he said, ‘He won’t be flensing, surely?’

  ‘He’ll be helping. I don’t expect he’ll be paid this time out but I thought it could set him up for the future.’

  ‘You check it was okay with the Norwegians?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’re not going to?’

  Silence for a moment. His father’s clawed hand shifted slightly closer to his leg. Then, ‘If they don’t want him there he can just go back home.’

  ‘By myself?’ the boy said. It had sprung from him unbidden and his voice had sounded childish in contrast to the men.

  Phil laughed. ‘They won’t want him there.’

  ‘They’ll have him. He’s a good worker,’ his father said.

  The boy added, ‘I’ll work really hard.’

  His eyes were down and so he didn’t see Phil’s expression as Phil said softly, ‘I’m sure you will, mate. Your old man tell you how to flense the whale? Separate the blubber?’ The boy looked up and Phil smiled. ‘You know how the shifts work?’

  ‘He won’t need to know that. He’ll shadow me for a while.’

  ‘Alright.’

  A pause before his father said, ‘You doing anything for work?’

  Phil grinned. ‘What’ve you done?’

  ‘Worked at the pub. You know. Then been looking after things a bit, and Sam here,’ his father said, looking down. The boy knew how his father resented working at the pub, the rhythm of normal working men boring to him, the way they’d look at him if he mentioned whaling. He took another sip of beer.

  ‘Wanna see what I’ve been doing?’ Phil asked. Without waiting for a response, Phil stood and, grinning maniacally, rushed into the adjacent hall. He returned quickly with an acoustic guitar, frayed around the pick guard. ‘I’ve been gigging a bit.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah. Mostly covers, but I slip in a few originals every so often.’

  ‘Pay better now?’

  ‘Pay’s still garbage,’ Phil said, laughing. ‘But I enjoy it, you know? Better doing something you enjoy.’

  His father nodded, maybe in his countenance the sense of having been chastised.

  The boy pointed to the guitar and said, ‘Can you play?’

  ‘What do you think gigging means, mate?’ Phil said with his large grin. Without further prompting he strummed a chord then began to sing. Something about whaling. His playing so loud and his voice so strange it was difficult to decipher the lyrics. He was a passionate singer. He launched into a chorus wherein whaling, with all its difficulties and all its blood, was a task fit for poets and men. The boy doubted he would feel the same affection for it that Phil did.

  THIRTEEN

  The boy began work on a raft without his father’s knowledge. He found himself contemplating travelling out to sea as far as the vessel would take him to avoid going to the island with his father. He would smile, knowing this for a flight of fancy, but kept on building regardless.

  Over the course of several days, he stole four pieces of timber from their worksite, waking at sunrise while his father slept and going to the beach to hammer the timber into a wooden frame which he kept a little way down the sand from where he and his father normally fished.

  Late one afternoon, he lashed twigs and sticks across the top of his square frame with an old shirt cut into ribbons. It looked too flimsy to float. The twigs and sticks were too sparse and the timber looked ill-fitted beneath. The boy stood back, almost tripping on a tussock, and surveyed what he had accomplished. He turned then to study Moreton Island. At dusk, the whaling station’s lights winked on. He was curious to know why the station was built f
acing inland across the bay. Surely it would make more sense to face the open ocean, where the whales migrated.

  His father had explained about the annual migration. The whales grew plump in the Antarctic, which was important in the collection of their blubber, and then they travelled north as far up as Papua New Guinea and mated in August. Then they travelled back along the same route and got fat and so on. What made the boy sad was the effort the whales expended in the pursuit of their happiness – or for what fulfilled them, such as they were – only for a harpoon, a giant metal gun, to shoot two tiny explosive grenades into their bodies. Sometimes maybe, his father said, the whales were killed instantly because the grenades had embedded in their brains, but sometimes it only struck their bodies and the whales would slowly bleed out as they were dragged behind the chaser. Then they were dragged up a wooden ramp and dissected and used for various boring things like dog food and jewellery, and his father’s voice had held no emotion while he spoke of such things, and remembering it now the boy grimaced. So much effort from the whales for such terrible reward. They would be better off staying put and not bothering.

  His father, after his long explanation, had looked at the boy with tired eyes and then retreated to their shelter, as was his current custom. He had started to forget about the boy completely. Each day he sat in their tin shack and scratched his head and looked at his plans. Only days now before they left. The boy remained outside with Albert and rarely spoke to his father, leaving the old man to what the boy assumed was some type of mourning. They made no further progress on the construction of their new home. The father, two days before, had decided he would attempt to peg out the corners of the house with newly hewn stakes and did so, using his tape measure for accuracy, growing quickly irritated by how fiddly it was. But beyond that there had been nothing.

  The boy, seated, watched the ocean as the sun sank. Bats flew over his head out to sea. He couldn’t track them past a few metres as they were swallowed up in sky. Darkness soon settled about him wholly and so the boy returned to their camp to fetch Albert, who was tied to his tree. The puppy licked him as he was released and leaped around the boy’s legs.