To Become a Whale

by Ben Hobson

  While he worked the boy thought about Albert and how the dog might fare on this island. He also thought of how he had changed since coming to the island and wondered if his mother would have still recognised him. When he looked up from his task he noticed Melsom had appeared on deck and was standing next to his father chatting. He was wearing tan shorts the same as his father’s and gumboots. He was pointing at the boy. The boy felt his stomach drop at this and knew he had been discovered: they’d seen the whetstone, his father had figured it out, he was to be cast out.

  The boy stood, terrified, and walked over. Melsom greeted him with a smile that warped his beard. ‘You on the knife now?’

  The boy nodded and then noticed his father’s narrowed eyes. ‘Dad just gave it to me today,’ he said. ‘To learn. I only just started.’

  ‘Right,’ Melsom said. He looked at the boy’s father and raised his eyebrows. ‘You sure about putting him on the knife, Walter?’

  His father nodded, which lifted the boy’s heart. ‘He’s been doing well, helping with the bones. He had a few weeks on the hose. Thought it was time to start him on something small.’

  ‘And Marshall’s double-checking everything?’

  ‘Yeah,’ his father said.

  ‘Well,’ Melsom said, ‘best get back to it, son. Keep up the good work.’

  The boy, dismissed, returned to his task. The knowledge that his theft remained undetected did nothing to silence the churning of his guilt. Like choppy water in his gut. Despite Melsom’s praise and his father’s pride, the blubber became even more sticky, trickier to handle. The boy exerted what remaining energy he had, and finished his shift with the other men. He ate and showered and tried his best to fall asleep quickly.

  The next day the men were eating in the mess hall, the noise so loud the boy had to crane his neck to better hear what his father was saying. His father leaned forward and shouted something about the boats and Phil, across the table, sat back in his chair and nodded solemnly.

  Then Melsom stood up and shouted, ‘Right!’ and the men slowly quietened. He took a moment, looking down, before he spoke.

  ‘I’m sure by now you’ve heard the planes,’ he said, though the boy had not noticed them. ‘They’ve been doing their job, working hard, long hours, but there’s still less whales here than we would’ve liked. You may have noticed there’s been fewer coming in each shift.’

  The men murmured then hushed again.

  ‘You boys haven’t been meeting your shift quotas, which hasn’t happened before. So we’re going to be lowering the quota to five whales per team per shift.’

  Renewed murmurs at this, and it took some time before the men fell silent. His father said not a word but continued to stare at Melsom.

  ‘And we’re going to be sending out another plane. Now, I don’t care if you make that quota in the first hour. When you’ve met the quota, you clock off. I can’t keep paying you lot to drink coffee. Yeah?’ He paused, took a breath. ‘This season might last a little longer, so whatever you need to do to make allowance for this – call your family or whatever – make sure you do it. The phone in the office is always available. You need to be ready to stay an extra month this year, maybe two, which might lead right through Christmas. I know this bloody grates, but it’s the way its gotta be so we all come out with a decent cheque at the end.’

  The men reacted to this with groans and angry mutters.

  Melsom waited for quiet before he spoke again. ‘Keep a good attitude about it. This is the industry we work in. We’re doing our best. We’re going to have rough spots. Keep working hard and we’ll be out of here soon enough.’

  He looked as though he might continue, but instead he sat down and stared at his empty plate.

  The men resumed their chatter and it seemed as though the anger had dissipated, or at the very least been buried until a later time. The boy, at the mention of the season being extended, had started breathing harder. He knew his father had normally been away four or five months a year and already felt deeply afraid that he might not survive until that time. That his father would be travelling home on that boat with the boy’s own carcass towed behind. After his triumph at being able to last a whole shift, he had almost started to feel like he might make it through the whole season. Now, knowing the season might go right through Christmas, the boy knew for sure he was in purgatory. Each day the same. Each day. Not a single day of rest. The boy took a mouthful of the meat on his plate, still breathing hard, and looked up at his father.

  Phil said from across the table, ‘Well, that’s a bugger, eh?’

  ‘It’s not that bad,’ his father said. ‘People acting like some bloke got shot. Could be worse.’

  ‘Never happened before, though.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘So maybe that’s it? For whaling I mean. Maybe we’re done.’

  His father shook his head and swallowed. ‘It’s just a mongrel season. If the numbers were dwindling, if there weren’t as many, it would’ve decreased gradually. We’ve had a sudden drop. So it’s probably something to do with the temperature of the waters. Or maybe the Japs have been getting more down in the Antarctic, scared the rest off. Who knows?’

  The boy said, ‘The Japs?’

  ‘The Japanese hunt whales down in the Antarctic before we can get to them,’ his father said. ‘Bloody stupid, too.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The whales store up blubber while they’re down there for their journey north, to breed. We get ’em on the journey, so they’re as plump as they get. The Japs hunt ’em all through, so no telling how much blubber’ll be on them. Waste of good whale.’

  The boy looked at Phil, who was cutting into his meat.

  Phil said, ‘Normally plenty to go around but, hey, Walt?’

  ‘Yeah. Normally.’

  ‘Anyway. Who knows, right?’ Phil pointed at the boy’s plate with his fork. ‘How’s the whale, Sam?’

  The boy looked down and swallowed the meat in his mouth. ‘This is whale?’

  Phil laughed. ‘Tastes like steak, doesn’t it?’

  His father said, ‘They serve whale steaks in here sometimes, just for fun. I’ve never liked the taste, myself.’

  The boy looked at the meat on his plate and lifted an edge with his fork. It looked like beef. He cut off another bit and chewed. Before, in his ignorance, he had not tasted the ocean, but now he knew what it was the salt and brine of the ocean was more apparent. The steak was thick and chewy, but tasted okay. His new knowledge made it hard to eat, though. He pushed his plate away before he was finished.

  Phil laughed so hard when he saw this that some of the men at a nearby table turned to see what was so funny. ‘What’s the matter, mate?’ Phil asked. ‘No good now?’

  ‘I was finished anyway.’

  ‘Sure you were,’ Phil said, and winked.

  The boy still did not like being teased. He looked at his father for his reaction, but his father just chewed and said nothing.

  The boy went to fetch a cup of coffee to escape further mockery, and took his time about spooning in the granules. When he returned, the conversation had shifted.

  Phil was saying, ‘By the sound of things we might be getting a little more downtime this season. Might have to start hunting again. Can’t remember when we last had time off here?’

  ‘Normally too busy,’ his father said. ‘Four years ago?’

  ‘Yeah, maybe. You want to come hunting, Sam?’

  ‘Sure,’ the boy said immediately, then regretted it. He’d been so thrilled by the invitation he’d forgotten what hunting would actually entail.

  ‘Great,’ Phil said. ‘We just hunt pigs here, nothing serious. But it can be good fun in the dunes.’

  His father said nothing but regarded the boy while chewing his whale, raising his eyebrows in question. The boy refused to answer.

  The three men left the mess hall and stood out in the breeze beneath the cloudless sky and looked at the stars. His father turned to watc
h the men still working on the deck and said to the boy, ‘You want to see a movie? We have time before we start.’

  ‘Where?’ the boy asked. ‘Here?’

  His father smiled. ‘They screen movies here sometimes. Let’s go see what’s on. You coming, Phil?’

  ‘I think I might try to fit in a nap, boys, but I’ll see you on the deck.’ Phil raised a hand and walked away.

  His father put an arm around the boy’s shoulders and together they followed an old path around the mess hall. In the dark it was hard to see the leaves before they slapped into his face. They came to a room at the rear of the hall and entered.

  There was a movie already playing, bathing its audience in a wash of light as they leaned back on plastic chairs. The air was cold and the boy saw an air-conditioner at the back of the room pumping chill despite the cool evening. They sat down beneath it, facing the screen. The movie playing was The Magnificent Seven. The boy had seen this film already the year before with his mother. He had never seen a film with his father before and found the man already removed from him. His mother had sat close beside him and whispered things to him, explaining the parts he might not have understood. His father maybe had more respect for him, or less empathy. In one scene a little boy told Charles Bronson that his father was a coward and Charles Bronson said all fathers were brave because they carried responsibility.

  It was during this scene that his father leaned over and whispered to the boy, ‘Did I ever tell you how I lost my fingers?’

  In the dark the boy shook his head.

  His father leaned closer and whispered, ‘I lost ’em in New Guinea. Bloody stupid it was, too. Why I probably don’t talk about it much, I guess. It wasn’t during combat, or anything like that.’ He shook his head. ‘I slipped, fell, cut my fingers on a tree branch when I tried to catch hold of myself. And then I didn’t get it checked out. Bloody stupid. Just being stubborn. Cuts got infected and by the time I got ’em seen to they had to come off.’ The boy saw his father clench his broken hand.

  His father looked up. ‘Thing is, mate, you don’t hear me going on about it. I could spend my time here complaining about my fingers, how it hurts to even grip the knife, but I don’t. I just get on with what needs to be done. That’s what a man does. Now I watched you when you started here, and before that as well, and you’d complain about every little thing. But here you’ve been keeping your head down, just doing what needs to be done, doing as you’re told. I wanted you to know I’d noticed.’

  The boy knew that this was as close to affirmation as his father would come. He looked at the man, whose eyes were still fixed on the screen. In the flickering projector light his face looked monstrous as the shadows played across it.

  After a moment the boy asked, ‘Are you going to lose your job because of the fight?’

  His father shook his head almost imperceptibly. ‘Don’t be stupid, mate. We sorted it out. He’s not working our shift anymore.’

  ‘Does Harry hate you?’

  ‘Probably. It doesn’t matter.’

  The boy thought about this. Maybe his father was right and it didn’t matter.

  The two of them watched the rest of the film and enjoyed the final shootout, but the boy felt sad when each gunman passed. Giving up their lives for a cause was a noble but silly thing. No blood need be shed at all.

  THIRTY

  A few days later they were informed they would be moving to the day shift. They knocked off that day at midday as usual and the plan was to stay up until midnight, but the boy only lasted till six o’clock. He woke up too early the next morning, around four, and struggled to go back to sleep. The snores of Steve and his father coalesced into a constant thrum and the boy knew they they were not going to wake for some time. He had eight more hours before starting work, and then he had to work a twelve-hour shift. He feared he wouldn’t be able to make it through the shift and would have to revisit those feelings of deep shame and failure until his body adjusted to the new working day.

  After tossing and turning for some time, he rose and went outside to look at the deck and watch the men who were toiling at his old shift. They looked busy but soon the last whale was flensed and the man at the chalkboard shouted and the men stopped work and stood idle. The boy saw Harry among them and realised he now felt less fear. The man was chatting with his colleagues as a few cleaned up. There were no more inbound vessels that the boy could see, but the men must not have met their quota yet because they didn’t leave the deck. Some of the men sharpened their knives, and others levered up the planks of wood lining the deck and scrubbed them with soapy water from a bucket. The boy was surprised to see that the planks were laid on a concrete base; he’d assumed the deck was wooden the whole way through.

  Towards dawn a chaser approached across the sea and the boy could see a small whale lashed to each side. The men on deck surged forth and stood at the top of the ramp and watched as the whales were unloaded.

  The boy’s father woke not long afterwards. He shuffled to the railing and leaned on it like his son and said, ‘You want to get breakfast?’

  The boy nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘How long you been up?’

  ‘A while.’

  They returned to the room and pulled on some clothes then crept out, shutting the door quietly on Steve’s heaving bulk.

  In the mess hall the boy served himself three rashers of bacon and two eggs on toast and his father added two hash browns to his plate. They carried their plates to a table then the boy went back to fetch two coffees. He set one down in front of his father, who had a mouthful of egg.

  ‘Cheers, mate.’

  ‘No worries.’

  Phil, the boy saw, was seated at another table with his guitar in his lap and when he caught sight of the boy he smiled and came over. He sat opposite the boy, next to his father. Strummed.

  His father said, ‘Can’t sleep?’

  ‘No,’ Phil said, and strummed again, a sadder chord. He looked at the boy. ‘You sleep alright, Sam?’

  The boy shook his head. ‘Got up around four.’

  ‘Four!’ Phil said, and laughed. ‘You’re going to be walking around dead come ten o’clock tonight. Four! Bloody hell.’

  His father smiled and the boy smiled with him. ‘He does alright,’ his father said.

  Phil said, ‘You been up to the dune yet?’

  ‘What dune?’

  His father shook his head and swallowed his mouthful. ‘We haven’t done anything yet.’

  ‘But you told him about it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh, mate,’ Phil said, and slammed a hand on the table, which made Sam’s untouched coffee slosh over the sides of the cup. ‘One of the biggest dunes in the world on this very island. Just down the shore a bit.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘I could take him now if you like, Walter? Give you a bit of a break.’

  The boy resented the implication that he was a burden on his father, but his father nodded and said, ‘Sure. I might rest.’

  ‘You want to go now, Sam?’

  ‘What do I need?’

  ‘Just what you got.’

  They left his father still eating, Phil placing his guitar in the corner of the mess hall. The boy felt nervous about what would follow. He didn’t really know this man.

  They walked down to the beach and the sand was white and brilliant in the sun. Only the breeze reminded the boy that it was winter. He looked for sharks in the water but didn’t see any trace of them. The boy took his gumboots off and scrunched his toes in the warm sand and smiled. With the boy carrying his boots, the pair walked along the shore, looking out at the moderate-sized waves.

  Phil said, ‘You surf?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You want to?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Good thing, I guess,’ Phil said. ‘Couldn’t here anyway, ’cause of the sharks.’ He bent down and found a small shell and chucked it into the water where it dimpled and was swallowed with
out trace. ‘What do you want to do then?’

  ‘Do?’

  ‘You know – what’s your passion?’

  The boy thought about the life he had once led with his mother and his school life with his friends. What had he valued? ‘I don’t know,’ he said.

  ‘Well, that’s alright. You’re young.’

  ‘Do you mean what do I want to do for a living?’

  ‘Yeah, that. But also a hobby, a passion. Ideally that’d be what you’d pursue.’

  The boy put his hands in his pockets and studied the man beside him, pondering the differences between Phil and his father, trying his best to measure his father with some generosity. Phil seemed interested in the man the boy would one day be; his father only in moulding him into some pre-determined shape. After a few minutes he asked, ‘What did you want to do?’

  Phil coughed out a brittle type of laugh. ‘I wanted to – want to – play guitar. Get women. What the greats do. Drink till I can’t.’ There was a spirit to his words that sounded fake even to the boy’s young ears.

  As they walked Phil grew more serious and his pace slowed. The water beside them a sparkling blue. ‘I did want to play, for real. I wanted to write music that really said something. I sound like I’m full of myself, I know. But it’s true. I wanted to write music. Not just the popular stuff, songs to dance to – real stuff.’ He looked down as they continued along the shore.

  ‘Why didn’t you?’

  ‘There’s no money in it!’ he said. That brittle laugh again. ‘And I’m not that good. It’s alright. I still do it. I played you my song about whaling, yeah?’

  The boy nodded.

  ‘I play here sometimes, for the guys. I do some gigs in the downtime. It doesn’t quite pay the bills, but who knows? I might be able to quit this mongrel island for good in five or six years. Depends on how I go, if anybody sees me. I got a few fans around the place.’