To Become a Whale

by Ben Hobson

EIGHTEEN

  Two men stepped onto the jetty and untied the mooring and cast the ropes back on board before riding the gap over the water as though straddling a horse. Finally, they were reunited with the boat and the men on board cheered and laughed. The conversation swirled about the boy without pause, muffled and thick. There were accents the boy had never heard before – Norwegian, he supposed – and he struggled to decipher some of the words and phrases. As the boat began to move he staggered forward into a man who turned to regard him and then offered him a smile and a calloused hand. He said, ‘Jeg heter Magnus,’ and shook the boy’s hand. His grip hurt the boy’s fingers. Magnus’s beard was brilliant red and thick and bushy, not like his father’s wiry effort.

  ‘Sam. Nice to meet you.’ The boy found himself shouting to be heard over the people nearby.

  ‘And you! You are young?’

  ‘I guess,’ the boy said.

  The man shifted closer to the boy’s ear. ‘You will be okay! Strong handshake.’ He clapped the boy on the back so hard the boy stumbled, then he moved off to talk to the other men.

  The boy pushed his way through the crowd in search of his father. He found him standing alone at the front of the boat watching the waves. The boy rested his arms on the railing and made fists of his two hands in the same manner as his father. His father regarded him with a smile.

  ‘You alright?’ he said.

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Been a while since you were on a boat.’

  The boy pictured his own boat, the one he had made. He remembered he wanted to look for their beach when they were out to sea. He tried now, but they were not far enough from land. He said, ‘No. I haven’t.’

  ‘You’ll be alright.’ His father sounded as though he were trying to convince himself as much as the boy. ‘Just lean over if you need to be sick.’

  His father lifted his gaze from the waves and looked sidelong at the boy. He gave him a wink.

  The boat lurched up and down in the choppy waters. Some of the men were throwing up and the boy smelled it and immediately chucked up what little remained of his breakfast. Some of it splashed on deck and he quickly scuffed it with his shoe so that nobody would notice and looked around to see if he had been caught. He wiped his mouth with his jacket sleeve and his father winked again, and turned back to the ocean.

  Curious, the boy watched the men converse. He hadn’t had many opportunities to observe a group of men like this. At school he had been surrounded by boys his own age, and when his father was home from a season flensing whales he didn’t socialise much with other men, but was quiet and solitary.

  They were all wearing jackets with their hoods up and their hands in their pockets to protect them from the chill of the wind. Most had beards and the few that didn’t had heavy stubble. They were chatting and laughing in groups of three or four. Periodically these groups would disband and new groups would form. Few men stood alone like his father. The boy was by a great margin the youngest of the bunch.

  The boy raised his own hood and looked at his father then back out to sea. The island was still some distance away. The boy knew what he was about to undertake was both momentous and strange. Few men had done what he was about to do and maybe none so young. He had never been so thrilled nor so terrified.

  After a while he felt like vomiting again. His father noticed his face this time and the way his bottom lip trembled. He said, ‘Move to the back of the boat. It doesn’t bounce so much back there,’ but he made no motion to suggest that he would take the boy there.

  The boy slipped between the men and hastened towards the back. He was pelted with salt spray. He stood behind the man piloting their vessel. The man did not appear to notice the boy. The boy watched the man spin the wheel, and spin it back. After a time, he began to feel better and looked past the man to regard the island.

  As it came on it slowly grew in width. The water grew choppier still and the man at the wheel uttered what the boy thought must be a curse word in Norwegian. It was bitterly cold. His father was still solitary and unmoving at the front and the boy had to look by him to see the island in its entirety. From their beach the island had appeared mostly flat, but as they drew closer the boy could see just how many hills there were. Inland was thickly forested with some type of gum. The edge of the island was fringed with golden sand. Seagulls circled over what the boy assumed was the main factory and the boy was struck by the smell, which came on him fast. It was rich and full of blood and salt. The boy had smelled blood before but this air felt viscous and was difficult to suck into his lungs. The smell of fishing mixed into the odour. The boy wanted to retch again and coughed. None of the other men seemed bothered by it except Magnus, who maybe was also new because he coughed just like the boy.

  They approached further to the south of the factory than the boy expected, but as they drew close to the island the man beside the boy twisted the wheel firmly to the left and they travelled north along the coast. The water closer to shore had settled somewhat and the boy began to feel more settled in the stomach. As he strained to see the factory, or maybe one of the whaling boats, Phil came alongside and clapped him on the back. Startled, he almost fell over, which made Phil laugh.

  ‘I’ve been looking for you,’ Phil shouted over the sound of the motor. ‘Thought you might have got lost.’

  ‘I’m alright,’ the boy said.

  Phil laughed again and pointed to the boy’s hand, which was holding his nose shut. He took big gulping breaths through his mouth. He could taste the blood.

  ‘Bit of a stink, hey, mate?’ Phil yelled. ‘This is nothing. They haven’t brought in one whale this season yet. Wait till it starts up proper. You get used to it, but.’

  The boy was glad to hear this, because the smell and taste was so cloying he had considered leaping overboard and swimming back home.

  ‘You’re a bit uptight, aren’t you?’ Phil said. ‘Like your old man.’ He nodded towards the father who stood, a sentinel, at the front of the boat, leaning on the rail. None of the other men had approached him, the boy noticed. He kept them at bay with his surly back.

  The boy shrugged. ‘What’s uptight?’

  ‘I don’t know. You know,’ Phil said, and scratched his head. ‘He doesn’t talk much, doesn’t play cards or do anything, really, with the rest of us. Bit hard to talk to. Uptight. Can’t have a laugh. You know?’

  The boy had not been aware that other men shared this impression of his father. Because his father was all he had known, he had assumed this was what all men were like. To hear that his father was as strange and foreign to other men as he was to the boy was a kind of victory, but not one the boy cared to celebrate. Strangely, he found himself feeling defensive on his father’s behalf.

  ‘I guess he is like that.’

  ‘So is that you?’

  Another shrug. ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so.’

  Phil laughed. ‘It sounds like it. Well, you just feel free, when we’re settled, to come spend some time with me and the other blokes whenever you like, if our shifts work in. We go biking some nights, hunting, watch movies. Your dad doesn’t join us that often, but you can.’

  The boy asked, ‘Are you and my dad friends?’

  ‘Yeah, mate. Of course we are. What do you mean?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because we’re mates. I don’t know. I know him.’

  ‘You don’t seem to like him much.’

  ‘Come on.’

  ‘You tease him.’

  ‘Sensitive like your old man too, eh?’ Phil smiled then, as if realising the boy was hurt by it, sighed and lowered his voice a bit. ‘Teasing is just what blokes do. You never got teased at school? He’s just a bloke I know who I can chat with about things. You don’t get that very often. Not round here. You know, serious things. I know he seems shut off but he’s a good listener.’ Phil stared out at the ocean for a few moments, then continued, ‘I just wish he’d lighten up is all. And it’s not just ’cause your mum pa
ssed. He’s been the same as long as I’ve known him.’

  Phil bit his bottom lip as if he regretted mentioning the boy’s mother.

  The boy stared with him out to sea. He didn’t mind his mother being mentioned and he wanted to say this to Phil but sensed this would only increase the man’s shame.

  In front of them, the man behind the wheel said loudly, ‘Nearly there.’

  The boy went to the rail that looked right onto the factory. There was a large wooden ramp that sloped down to the sea, with a flat bit in the middle. The boy pictured a whale sliding up it, getting winched by the tail and the tongue, if it had a tongue, splashing bright red blood as it flapped out onto the wood. There was a walkway to the right that travelled up the length of the ramp and there were two men doing something to the wood with tools the boy could not see.

  The boat pulled to the left and the deck lurched beneath the boy’s feet. They sidled up against a long jetty. Two men, the same who had cast them off back on shore, leaped off the boat now and tied it off. The other men on board were already heading below to fetch their bags and the boy looked over at his father, who still hadn’t moved.

  After a few of the men had leaped onto the pier the father turned and found the boy in the crowd. He smiled and made his way over. ‘Come on, mate. Let’s get our things.’

  Phil helped them with their luggage and then they joined the stream of men going ashore. The boy looked for Magnus but couldn’t find him in the crowd of beanies and thick sheepskin jackets. A cloud of cigarette smoke travelled with them. The boy noticed his father did not smoke like the others, despite having smoked occasionally these last few months. Maybe he was hiding what weaknesses he could.

  Phil said to his father, ‘What were you thinking about, up there?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You looked like you were thinking about something.’

  ‘I was trying not to think.’

  There were seagulls in greater number above them now, circling and squawking. The boy looked to the whaling ramp, the waves sloshing onto the damp wood at the bottom.

  Phil put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. ‘You see that bit down there?’ He pointed. ‘Down at the bottom of the ramp? Bloody nesting ground for sharks. You can’t swim there. Or anywhere here. This whole damn island.’ He swung his arms to indicate its mass. ‘The whale blood attracts them. Your dad told you that, yeah?’

  His father, who had stopped beside them, shook his head.

  ‘You didn’t tell him?’

  His father shrugged. ‘Figured I’d tell him when he wanted to go swimming.’

  Phil looked the boy in the eyes. ‘Don’t you bloody swim here, mate. Don’t let me catch you even trying.’

  The boy looked at the waters lapping against the bottom of the ramp and he imagined beneath them fins and teeth and black eyes. Nightmare creatures. Why would he want to swim? There were stains on the ramp that were darker than mere dampness and the boy was at first puzzled and then realised that the stains were from a decade of whale blood.

  They soon reached the end of the jetty and stepped onto sand and grass, and the boy strained to see the flensing deck where his father worked. It towered above him, a wooden platform atop a concrete base. He could see chimneys and boiler stacks, heard mechanical sounds within. There were floodlights on towering stilts so the men could work well into the night. His father hadn’t noticed the boy had stopped and he and Phil had kept walking, so that the boy had to hurry to catch up.

  NINETEEN

  The path they followed was engulfed in thick jungle. Despite the many years of slaughter the island felt fresh and alive. The green leaves were rich and the tree trunks dripped moisture. The boy touched one and imagined he could feel its beating heart.

  They headed towards the station’s living quarters, his dad indicating them with a tilt of the head. The accommodation blocks were sheltered from the bitter wind by a thick tangle of tropical trees. Palms, some gums. The branches like hands locking fingers. On their left was a building with the company logo on top painted in deep blue. The building itself looked like the sky in colour, faded from unyielding sun.

  His father put a hand on the boy’s back and steered him up a slight incline towards a building standing on stilts, the ground beneath moist with water. The smell of salt in the air, the blood faint now. The boy looked closely at the construction of the building and wondered at his father’s delusions of carpentry. That they might one day make something so grand.

  They stepped onto the verandah and his father produced a key from his pocket and opened the door. Inside were two beds and a television. The boy threw his bag onto one of the beds and was glad to see through an open door a bathroom with a shower. Until now he hadn’t realised how much he’d missed these modern conveniences. His father had never specifically said, but had always given the impression that his time at Tangalooma was torturous, uncomfortable. The boy had pictured little shacks not unlike his new home, with no showers in which to rinse off the blood, oil, dirt. He hadn’t imagined anything as nice as this.

  His father was unpacking his clothes into the closet, so the boy opened his suitcase to follow suit. His father said, ‘Leave some room for whoever else they stick in here, mate.’ ‘There’s going to be somebody else?’

  ‘Yeah. You aren’t getting paid this first time out so you won’t be sleeping on a bed either, unless they didn’t crew enough to fill the rooms – but I bet they did.’ His father must have seen disappointment in the boy’s expression, as his voice softened. ‘Come on, mate. Don’t whinge. It’s better than home.’

  The boy looked at the couch. It was long enough, he reckoned. He lay down, found it comfortable. There were telephones on the stands beside both beds and the covers of the beds were thick, quilted and blue. The boy turned the television on and found the reception too sketchy for pictures. He played with the rabbit ears until he could see people and he forgot completely where he was while he focused on this task. When he looked up he saw his father had fallen asleep on his bed, his shoes kicked out in front of him and his arms spread wide.

  The boy went outside to stand on the verandah. From here he had a clear view of the flensing deck. There were boilers already cooking, big brown tubes from which steam billowed. There were men cleaning the deck with large, thick-bristled brooms, the sound of their steady scraping reaching the boy.

  He went back inside and watched television with the sound turned way down. Some game show he couldn’t follow.

  His father eventually woke and, without a word, took some clothes from the closet and went to the bathroom. While he showered the game show ended and was succeeded by a cartoon the boy knew. He watched happily.

  His father came out of the bathroom and sat on his bed to put his shoes back on. He looked at his son.

  ‘You getting ready?’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘We have to have dinner.’

  They’d eaten sandwiches his father had made for lunch and so the boy had expected something similar for dinner. He had grown comfortable in this new environment; so comfortable he’d forgotten, if only for a short while, their intent in this place. He rummaged in the closet for some clothes to change into. His father added, ‘We might be on late shift tonight, too, so dress warm. Wear boots, your jacket and your shorts. Your legs’ll stay warm as you work. Go on.’

  ‘I don’t have boots.’

  ‘What do you mean you don’t have boots?’

  The boy looked through his suitcase. ‘I don’t have any boots.’

  ‘I told you to pack boots.’

  ‘No, you didn’t.’

  ‘I bloody did, mate.’ His father put his hands to his face and sat on the bed, then looked sideways at his son. ‘You don’t listen.’

  ‘I don’t know what you want me to do,’ the boy said. ‘I don’t own boots.’

  ‘You should’ve said when we were out shopping. You should’ve said this morning. You need boots, mate.’

  The boy w
anted to protest his innocence, but by his father’s countenance he knew arguing would only anger the man. So he put on his shoes instead, the good leather ones he had worn to his mother’s funeral. Once he was fully dressed he stood before his father with his arms outstretched. His father nodded and said, ‘Yeah, alright. That’s fine.’ He frowned at the shoes, though.

  They stepped outside into the dark, which was illuminated by the harsh lights of the verandah. The father looked over at the flensing deck. There was a lot of activity the boy couldn’t make out. At least twenty men at various tasks. There were some other men leaving their rooms along the verandah, and they walked through the darkness as a group. The dirt slope leading away from their quarters was lit only by moonlight and their shadows beneath them were almost circular. The moon somehow seemed brighter on the island, though the boy knew this could not be so. There were bats too, lots of them, flying overhead and alighting in trees. They seemed closer to the boy, nearer to head height. If he were to raise his hand he might touch one’s furry belly and feel its fangs in his fingertips.

  The group entered the mess hall. It was loud with conversation. There were men standing over large cooking pots, stirring their contents with giant spoons, and stacks of white porcelain bowls and plates and silver cutlery in trays. There was a crowd of men lined up to receive their portions of spaghetti and sauce, which they then carried over to one of the large tables, chatting nonstop all the while. Spirits generally seemed high, though there was a table of men near the corner who ate quietly and didn’t speak to one another. The boy knew where he and his father would sit.

  They lined up with the others. The boy saw Phil at a table talking animatedly, his hands gesturing wildly, the men before him snorting with laughter. Phil saw the boy watching and winked at him. The boy nodded in acknowledgement and then looked at his father, this stoic statue. They shuffled along in the line to get spaghetti. He picked up a bowl like his father and held it out towards the man serving. The man smirked at him and gave the boy more than he could handle, a big sloppy helping. He followed his father to the predicted table. As they moved through the mess hall, his father was stopped by men greeting him. Some even shook his clawed hand – the good one carrying his bowl – and beamed as they said his name. Respect in their eyes and words. One even called him ‘sir’. The boy was surprised.