by Ben Hobson
Another vessel had anchored and another whale was sliding up the slipway, much smaller than the other two. The boy did his best to copy what Brian had been doing, splashing water beneath the beast. A sound somewhere below them of a saw churning and then the sound of the blade squeaking into stubborn timber. The boy kept on hosing and as the smell began to make him gag he put his face closer and closer to the hose and did his best to focus on the smell of fresh seawater instead of the smell of fresh innards of whales.
TWENTY-THREE
In all, seven whales were hauled up the slipway while the boy watched with subdued horror. He kept an eye out for Brian, so that he might be relieved of his task for a while and sit and rest his legs. But the man didn’t return, so the boy was stuck hosing. It took each team an hour to process a whale completely, sometimes longer, though as the night progressed and the boats stopped arriving the men grew quicker. The boy had never felt so tired in his life. His legs and arms were aching and the hose that had once felt so light grew heavy. His mind became muddled and he flicked his head sideways to clear it. He pictured his mother in her summer dress with a hook through her feet being winched up the slippery surface that he was helping to keep wet. She stared at him in mute appeal. He kept hosing, shaking his head, trying to dispel the image.
His father had lost all awareness of his son’s existence and was working like a man possessed. Despite his crippled hand and slight build, his father appeared to be a giant among these men, a clear and respected leader who worked quickly and efficiently. The boy envied his father his skill and the delight he seemed to take in his work.
The sun winked up from beneath the horizon and the boy was relieved to see her. He looked down. Sharks were gathered near the base of the slipway, gliding silently through the water, waiting for the next catch. Their fins sliced the surface without sound. The boy was aghast he had not noticed them before.
He was on the verge of being unable to continue, struggling to hold up the hose and aim it true, when Brian appeared beside him, smiling. ‘I appreciate that, mate,’ he said. He had a mouthful of something and he shoved more in and chewed. ‘Always want more experiencing flensing. And always like getting some grub. You alright?’
‘Pretty tired,’ the boy said.
Brian laughed. ‘First night can be hard on a bloke. But you did alright. Here. I’ll take over.’ He took the hose and nodded towards the mess hall. In the distance came the Tangalooma with two more whales bobbing. Brian said, ‘Go and get some coffee.’
The boy nodded and stepped back and clenched his fingers into fists. He released them then clenched them again. He felt weary in the limbs. His legs were wobbly as he walked back across the deck, taking care to avoid the remnants of whales. Most of the men had disappeared from the deck during the lull and his father was nowhere to be seen. He felt a dull anger in his gut.
As the boy reached the stairs Brian called out, ‘Tell your old man there’s more coming now.’
The boy nodded without turning then walked down the stairs. He made his way back along the muddy track to the mess hall and swung open the doors.
To his surprise, his father and Phil both were seated at a table with their feet up on other chairs and coffees steaming on the table before them. His father was more relaxed now that he was at work and Phil also seemed contented. The differences between the two the boy had found so puzzling were now diminished by their shared labour. His father said something and Phil tilted his head back and laughed.
In the corner the boy found sachets of instant coffee and emptied one into a blue tin mug then carried it to the large urn where a few other men had congregated to fill their mugs with boiling water. He followed the other men to the milk and then he walked over to his father and sat down next to him.
His father greeted him with a proud smile and said, ‘How’s your first shift going, mate? You feel like falling asleep?’
The boy nodded and banged his head down on the table in mock exhaustion and started to snore. Both men laughed and the boy raised his head.
Phil said, ‘You did alright on that hose, mate. Your dad said you felt a bit sick?’
The boy felt ashamed and for a moment did not respond. Then he said, ‘It’s a bit big.’
‘It is big. It’s a big deal.’ Phil winked at his father. ‘You’ll get there.’ He looked down and raised his eyebrows. ‘What’s this on your feet?’
‘I forgot to get him boots.’
Phil laughed. ‘Bloody hell, mate. That’s a bit rough. What else did you forget?’
‘Don’t know. Haven’t unpacked everything yet.’
Phil laughed and punched his father on the arm and his father smiled. ‘I’ve got some spare boots, mate,’ Phil said. ‘I’ll bring ’em by when we’re done.’
‘We’re not done?’ the boy asked and was answered by a gale of laughter. He looked outside, remembered Brian’s instruction, and said, ‘Brian said there were more whales coming.’
His father quickly stood. ‘Now?’
Phil was already heading for the door and his father followed. ‘You should’ve bloody led with that, Sam,’ he called out.
The other men put down their mugs and followed Phil and the boy’s father, and the boy found himself almost alone. Just one other man sat nearby and when the boy looked more closely he saw it was Magnus, who looked as tired as the boy felt. The big man’s eyes were shutting slowly and opening and his head dipped towards the coffee he held in both hands so that his red beard almost dipped in. His breathing was slow.
The boy put a cheek on the table. The happiness he had felt at Phil’s laughter and his father’s good humour had been banished with his mistake. He studied Magnus and wondered if this man also struggled to fit in or if he even considered such things. The coffee was bitter and smelled foul. After one sip the boy wanted to stop but he forced himself to down the rest. Instead of making him feel better he felt the nausea rising again. He gagged, realising he was about to throw up. He ran out of the mess hall without a word to Magnus, who looked properly asleep, and threw up in the bushes beside the front door. He held his stomach and groaned and more vomit came out, sticky brown and hanging in strands from the leaves of the bush. He looked up at the deck and heard the men shouting, and somehow summoned the strength to go on.
He squinted into the early-morning light and shielded his eyes as he stumbled onto the deck, still holding his gut. He searched for his father and tried to take shallow breaths through his mouth lest the foul air make him sick again. Dizzy with fatigue, he rubbed his eyes. He had to stay alert or he might fall asleep mid-stride and land inside a whale and be swallowed up like Jonah. His father would only laugh at him and bury him in entrails.
A hand landed on his shoulder and steadied him. His father’s voice whispered, ‘Just take a break, mate.’
‘I feel sick,’ the boy said. He couldn’t place where he was on the deck. How close might he be to the slipway? ‘I just threw up.’
‘Well. That’s alright,’ his father said. ‘Big day. Big couple of days.’
The boy looked up at his father and saw him shake his head.
‘I didn’t think. You go back to our room, yeah?’
‘I don’t remember which one is ours.’
‘Just look for my shoes. They’re out the front.’
The boy did not want to admit he did not know his own father’s shoes and so he walked away without saying anything.
He went down the stairs and immediately the sound of the deck became distant and the air seemed fresh.
He found a pair of shoes on the verandah and, not caring if he was wrong and they weren’t his father’s shoes, he turned the handle and went inside, heading straight for the bed. Then he remembered he was covered with whale insides and so he showered and found his pyjamas in the closet – it was the right room after all – and collapsed onto the mattress. He shut his eyes and fell asleep.
TWENTY-FOUR
When he woke and tried to stretch he realised all his
muscles ached. His arms, his chest, his back. Beside him his father was asleep, snoring in that heavy way of his. The curtains were drawn but flapped in a breeze coming through the open window and the sun leaked in around the edges, warming his legs, his chest. Outside the sounds of whaling continued and the smell of cooking carcasses, the boiling of blubber, barbecued sausages, filled their room. The boy could still taste whale blood on his tongue, which made him regret not brushing his teeth. He smacked his tongue against the roof of his mouth.
Lying on his back he stared at the ceiling for a moment before he kicked at the covers and sat up. He looked at the clock on the bedside table. It was 2 pm. So his father had only just knocked off two hours ago. The boy groaned. Another ten hours before they started once more. He needed to go back to sleep.
He realised that his father’s snoring was interspersed with someone else’s snores. The boy looked over and saw another man asleep on the couch. This bloke had kicked off most of his blankets and his big white belly moved as he breathed. It was matted with sticky hair. A moustache curled at the sides of his mouth and the boy imagined his eyes were blue because his hair was sandy. He was too big for the couch and looked uncomfortable on it. Ashamed at having taken his bed, the boy debated waking the man to swap places with him, but decided against it and lay back down.
Eventually, unable to fall back to sleep, he stumbled from their room in search of fresh air. Standing on the verandah, he looked at the flensing deck. Men who had just started their shift were clambering over yet more whales. The Tangalooma bobbed near the end of the slipway. In the distance, near the horizon, a ship moved into view, a whale lashed to her side.
As he turned to enter the room again, he noticed next to the door some gumboots about his size. Phil must have put them there before he fell asleep. The boy felt a rush of gratitude. He picked them up and took them back inside with him and put them beside his bed. This time he easily fell asleep.
That evening, the boy felt ready. Wearing Phil’s gumboots, a cup of coffee warming his hands, he sat at a table with his father in the mess hall, two hours before their second shift. He felt included now in the rhythm of the work and knew what to expect and so was less afraid.
His father leaned back and put his hands behind his head, his eyes roaming the room, nodding whenever he caught another man’s gaze.
He turned to the boy and smiled and clapped him on the shoulder. ‘So,’ he said, ‘what did you think of your first day?’
The boy said, ‘It was alright.’
‘How’re you doing with the smell?’
The boy had stopped thinking about it and said so.
‘Yeah,’ his father said. He looked at the ceiling. ‘It takes a day or two but you get used to it.’ His gaze returned to the boy and the boy did his best to not flinch or turn away. ‘You think you’ll make it the full twelve hours this time?’
The boy shrugged. ‘Don’t know.’
‘How’re you feeling?’
‘Okay. Sore. Sore in the back,’ the boy said and rolled his shoulders.
‘Anywhere else?’
‘Everywhere.’
His father smiled. ‘You want to be on the hose again tonight?’
The boy nodded. ‘Brian seemed to like getting a chance to do something different.’
‘Mmm. He would,’ his father said. He sipped at his coffee. ‘It’s not bad though, is it?’
‘What?’
‘Working.’
‘I guess.’
The father did not seem fazed by the boy’s response and continued, ‘There’s something about it.’
‘What?’
His father sighed, leaned forward. ‘I don’t know, mate. It just feels good to be out there. It feels good getting your hands dirty.’ He looked down and noticed the boy’s new footwear. He looked at the boy’s cup. ‘You liking the coffee?’
‘Not really.’
‘It’ll help.’
‘It makes me feel sick.’
‘You’ll get used to it.’
The boy swallowed another bitter mouthful. ‘I don’t think I like killing the whales.’
‘They’re already dead when we get ’em. You’re not killing anything.’
‘I just don’t like the industry, I think.’
‘What industry? The meat industry?’
‘I guess.’
‘How’s it different from killing a cow?’
The boy briefly remembered his mother doing just that as an act of mercy. That had been very different, and long ago. ‘I don’t think I’d want to kill a cow either.’
‘Where do you think meat comes from? What did we just eat?’
The boy looked down at the remnants of his meal: roast lamb, mint sauce, peas, mashed potato. He said, ‘I know.’
‘How’s it different?’
The boy looked aside and took another sip of coffee and hoped his father wouldn’t get angry at him. ‘It might not be for me, is all.’
‘You get used to it. It’s not easy to start. Plus you’re more sensitive.’
‘Sensitive?’
‘You care more about animals. I don’t know.’ His father leaned back in his chair again. ‘Whenever we went fishing when you were little, you’d always scream when I reeled one in. It got so your mum made me throw ’em all back. Then we stopped going altogether.’ At the mention of the boy’s mother his father lowered his head. Then he looked up. ‘You’ll grow out of all that, though. Would’ve happened years ago if it was up to me. Can’t keep you sheltered from everything. It’s not healthy. My old man did it for me. You remember your other grandfather, my papa?’
The boy shook his head.
‘Didn’t think you would. We’d stopped talking really by the time you came along.’
This made the boy curious; he wondered what had happened. He shifted a little closer in his chair.
‘Anyway, I used to be like you, but Papa knocked that out of me early on. Bit hard on a farm if you’ve got a kid worrying about the cows you have to send off to the abattoir. So he taught me to grow up about it, be a man.’
The boy said nothing. Then, ‘What does that mean?’
‘What?’ his father said. ‘Oh, you mean how’d he teach me? He took me, once. Had me stand and watch as they did the cow.’ His father’s gaze seemed to turn inwards. ‘They used to take this pistol and put it right up behind the cow’s skull and pull the trigger –’ he mimed the actions with his hands ‘– and fire a big old metal bolt into the base of the skull.’ He added his version of the sound, a slap of the tongue to the top of the mouth. ‘This was just to stun the poor thing so it wouldn’t feel pain. The cow would just buckle at the knees. Then Papa made me slit its throat to bleed her.’
The boy nodded slowly, thought of the whales, and said, ‘You weren’t nervous?’
His dad smiled. ‘I was shaking, mate. I remember the blood coming out of her …’ He shook his head. ‘Like I said, I was a bit more sensitive then. But you know, doing it that time, and then working on the farm over the years, just forced it out of me. Good thing, too; I would’ve been useless otherwise. Would’ve been useless out here.’ He waved his coffee mug to take in the dining hall, all his colleagues. ‘Useless in the war, useless at home. Bloke needs to toughen up.’
The boy said, ‘Mum told me she had a pet cow once.’
His father laughed. ‘Oh yeah. Becca. She told you that?’
The boy nodded, tried to smile with his father.
‘We were gonna name you after that cow, you’d been a girl.’
‘Becca?’
‘Rebecca, yeah. That bloody cow,’ his father said. He shook his head ruefully. ‘Shame we didn’t get a property, have a hobby farm or something at least. Your granddad moved his family back nearer to the city when your mum was just little. She always wanted to get another cow, or a few more. Another reason I got you that dog.’
‘Why?’
‘She just loved animals, mate. Always had an affinity with them. Saw that in you.�
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‘Affinity?’
‘Like she was connected to them a bit more than the rest of us. Nothing wrong with caring, mate, but you can’t let that kind of thing cripple you the rest of your life. You understand?’
The boy nodded and then without pause drained the entire cup of coffee. They sat there, the two of them lost in their thoughts. The boy looked at his father and wondered what his life might be like if his father were a different man. Would his father be different if his own father had been? Would he have brought the boy to this place? He knew in his heart that his mother would have hated what he was doing now, and maybe she’d have hated him for doing it. He knew shame so deep then it made his fingers clench.
TWENTY-FIVE
1955
The boy in his haste kept pedalling, but knew he would soon topple. As he went down his arm hit the ground hard, but it was not this that made him afraid; it was the bush he had fallen into, with its spiky leaves. He knew as he put his hand down to right himself that he was stung. He rubbed his arms, which only made the sting worse. The tears started. He struggled to his feet and picked up his bike, then saw the chain had come off. He kicked it, in anger, but knew he’d be in trouble if he just left it, so he picked up the bike and wheeled it back up the dirt path down which he’d ridden.
He was some distance from his home. He ran and cried and wheeled the bike. The rash on his arms spread. His face, too, felt aflame. Maybe his skin would peel off and maybe he would die. Maybe he was poisoned, like from a spider or snake. He ran past an old farm and into town, where he saw Mr Lusby drive by him in his old ute with his eyebrows raised. He ran past the shops without slowing. The stinging grew worse.
At last he reached his house, with its manicured garden out front. He swung open the gate and threw the bike down on the lawn. He ran inside and went to his mother’s bedroom and instead found his father asleep there, snoring.
‘Dad?’ the boy said. He shook his father’s body.
His father groaned and looked as if he wanted to swat the boy away. ‘What, mate? Bloody hell.’