To Become a Whale

by Ben Hobson

  The policeman looked surprised.

  His father said, ‘Didn’t want it on my back.’

  Afterwards, they climbed into the car and drove back the way they’d come and then along the highway. They took their usual exit and passed through hills and came upon farmland. They soon reached their old home, on the old gravel street. The boy could see the tyre swing his father had erected standing lonely in the backyard. The front lawn of their house had grown long and as the boy got out of the car he saw it had grown to his knees and that his mother’s carefully tended garden was now overgrown

  His father swung open the front gate and stepped to the side to allow the boy to go through first.

  When he went through the front door, he was immediately hit by the hospital smell of his mother’s death and the boy understood his father’s reluctance to return.

  He turned and walked to her bedroom. His father’s bad hand found his shoulder, a comfort. He fiddled with the bandages wrapping his own.

  The old bed looked somehow sad.

  His father said, ‘I hate this place.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just hate it,’ he said. He walked in and sat in the chair that had faced their bed those many months and assumed the pose the boy had seen him in whenever his father had sat by his wife’s side. He was slouched down and his foot tapped against the carpet. His father looked at the phantom image of his mother and the boy followed his gaze and did his best to see it too. His father said, ‘I’m sorry, mate.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I’ll do better.’

  The boy nodded. He still wasn’t sure that he could trust this man, but he tried his best to hope. ‘I know,’ he said.

  He looked at where his mother had slept in her sickness and remembered her yellow colour and her eyes still green and present during her death.

  They unpacked the car and then wandered about the house for a bit, then the boy went into his bedroom and collapsed happily onto his bed.

  His father came to the door and said, ‘We need to get some food. You want to come down the street?’

  The boy and his father filled up a shopping basket at the grocer’s and took it to the counter, and the store clerk who tallied up the cost, somebody the boy did not know, offered his father a sad smile of commiseration. His father nodded at this.

  At home they cooked in the usual way and the boy understood more deeply what his father had been trying to escape. The kitchen’s smells were a sharp and powerful reminder of his mother. The two of them sat on the floor in front of the radio, which remained off, and ate in comfortable silence. Afterwards the boy threw his clothes into the laundry sink and remembered his mother’s efforts with the mangler. She was everywhere in this place.

  That night, with his father asleep on the couch, the boy walked out to the backyard. He sat on the tyre swing and pushed with his feet and thought of Albert. There had been such joy in that pup.

  There was a stone on the back verandah they had always used to prop the door open. The boy fetched some tools from his father’s toolbox, still in the car, and under the verandah light chiselled Albert’s name into the stone. With his damaged hand the task was difficult, but he managed it. He placed the stone on a fence post that overlooked the paddock adjoining their home. He patted it a few times and then, with his hands clasped before him, whispered his apology, and his love – to whom he was unsure. In his mind the dream of the whale.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  A novel is never written in isolation. There have been so many people during my thirty-two years on this planet who have encouraged and supported me. If your name isn’t here, don’t worry; you’re very appreciated.

  David Myer, who wrote The Whalers of Tangalooma, was invaluable. This book would not exist without his input and generosity toward this new author.

  Thank you Paul Stephens, Martin Winney, Nathan Dodd and Tiny Owl Workshop, who encouraged me when encouragement was hard to come by and made me want to keep going.

  My agent, Gaby Naher, whose support and eye for a story made this book way better.

  All the wonderful people at Allen & Unwin. You’ve all been so patient and kind. Siobhan, Ali, Rebecca, and all the unsung heroes who made this book as good as it can be; you have my many thanks. And especially Jane Palfreyman, who took this novel (and me) under her wing and then pushed it (and me) confidently from the nest.

  David and Carolyn Thomas, my spiritual mum and dad. I wouldn’t have had the confidence to pick up a pen without you gently and forcibly shoving me in that direction.

  My mum and dad, who showed up to so many Sounds Like Chicken gigs it bordered on embarrassing. You’ve always been my biggest champions and I love you for it.

  My family. My kids. It’s an honour to be your dad. You are brave and wonderful. This book is for you.

  And Lena. What a beautiful lady. The very best type of wife. You set me straight and pick me up when I’m down and encourage my creativity and love for Nintendo. I count my blessings every day that I’m the guy you’re spending your life with.

  And God. For everything.