‘Well, there’s an amateur’s mistake.’ Aunt Kathleen sighed in disgust. ‘Didn’t you have anyone out with you?’
My mother shook her head. ‘I wanted to try out that new rudder, see how well it worked in choppier waters. The boatyard warned me it might stick.’
‘And you just happened on a whale,’ said Lance.
She took another swig of water. ‘Something like that.’ Her face had closed. She had closed. It was as if the whale thing had never happened.
For a few minutes we ate in silence, as the sun sank slowly towards the horizon. Two fishermen walked past, and raised their arms in greeting. I recognised one as Lara’s dad, but I’m not sure he saw me.
My mother ate a piece of bread and a tiny plateful of salad, less even than I eat and I don’t like salad. Then she glanced up at Greg. ‘I heard about Suzanne.’
‘Half of Port Stephens has heard about Suzanne.’ Greg’s eyes were tired and he looked as if he hadn’t shaved for a week.
‘Yes. Well. I’m sorry.’
‘Sorry enough to come out with me Friday?’
‘Nope.’ She stood up, checked her watch, stuffed her sodden cheque book back into her bag and made for the kitchen door. ‘That rudder’s still not right. I’ve got to ring the yard before they head off. Don’t stay out without your sweater, Hannah. The wind’s getting up.’
I watched as she strode away, pursued by the dog.
We were silent until we heard the slam of the screen door. Then Lance leant back in his chair to gaze out at the darkening bay, where a cruiser was just visible on the far horizon. ‘Our first whale of the season, Greg’s first knockback of the season. Got a nice kind of symmetry to it, don’t you think?’
He ducked as a piece of bread bounced off the chair behind him.
Two
Kathleen
The Whalechasers Museum had been housed in the old processing plant, a few hundred yards from the Silver Bay Hotel, since commercial whaling was abandoned off Port Stephens in the early 1960s. It didn’t have much to recommend it as a modern tourist attraction: the building was a great barn of a place, the floor a suspiciously darkened red-brown, wooden walls still leaching the salt that had been used on the catch. There was a shed dunny out at the back, and a fresh jug of lemon squash made up daily for the thirsty. Food, a sign observed, was available in the hotel. I’d say that the ‘facilities’, as they’re now known, are probably twice what they were when my father was alive.
Our centrepiece was a section of the hull of Maui II, a commercial whalechaser, a hunting vessel that had broken clean in two in 1935 when a minke had taken exception to it, and had risen beneath the boat, lifting it on its tail until it flipped and snapped. Mercifully a fishing trawler had been nearby and had saved the hands and verified their story. For years local people had come to see the evidence of what nature could wreak on man when it felt man had harvested enough.
I had kept the museum open since my father died in 1970, and had always allowed visitors to climb over the remains of the hull, to run their fingers over the splintered wood, their faces coming alive as they imagined what it must have been like to ride on the back of a whale. Long ago I had posed for pictures, when the sharp-eyed recognised me as the Shark Girl of the framed newspaper reports, and talked them through the stuffed game fish that adorned the glass cases on the walls.
But there weren’t too many people interested now. The tourists who came to stay at the hotel might pass a polite fifteen minutes walking round the museum’s dusty interior, spend a few cents on some whale postcards, perhaps sign a petition against the resumption of commercial whaling. But it was usually because they were waiting for a taxi, or because the wind was up and it was raining and there was nothing doing out on the water.
That day, behind the counter, I thought perhaps I couldn’t blame them. Maui II was more and more like a heap of driftwood, while there were only so many times people could handle a whalebone or a bit of baleen – the strange plasticky filter from a humpback’s mouth – before the delights of mini-golf or the gaming machines at the surf club became more inviting. For years people had been telling me to modernise, but I hadn’t paid much heed. What was the point? Half the people who walked round the museum looked a little uncomfortable to be celebrating something that is now illegal. Sometimes even I didn’t know why I stayed open, other than that whaling was part of Silver Bay’s history, and history is what it is, no matter how unpalatable.
I adjusted Maui II’s old harpoon, known for reasons I can’t recall as Old Harry, on its hooks on the wall. Then, from below it, I took a rod, ran my duster up its length and wound the reel, to confirm that it still worked. Not that it mattered any more, but I liked to know things were shipshape. I hesitated. Then, perhaps seduced by the familiar feel of it in my hand, I tilted it backwards, as if I were about to cast a line.
‘Won’t catch much in here.’
I spun round, lifting a hand to my chest. ‘Nino Gaines! You nearly made me drop my rod.’
‘Fat chance.’ He removed his hat and walked from the doorway into the middle of the floor. ‘Never saw you drop a catch yet.’ He smiled, revealing a row of crooked teeth. ‘I got a couple of cases of wine in the truck. Thought you might like to crack open a bottle with me over some lunch. I’d value your opinion.’
‘My order’s not due till next week, if I remember rightly.’ I replaced the rod on the wall and wiped my hands on the front of my moleskin trousers. I’m old enough to be beyond such considerations, but it bugged me that he’d caught me in my work trousers with my hair all over the place.
‘As I said, it’s a good batch. I’d appreciate your opinion.’ He smiled. The lines on his face told of years spent in his vineyards, and a touch of pink round his nose hinted at the evenings afterwards.
‘I’ve got to get a room ready for a guest coming tomorrow.’
‘How long’s it going to take you to tuck in a sheet, woman?’
‘Not too many visitors this deep in winter. I don’t like to look a gift horse . . .’ I saw the disappointment in his face and relented. ‘I should be able to spare a few minutes, long as you don’t expect too much in the way of food to go with it. I’m waiting on my grocery delivery. That darned boy’s late every week.’
‘Thought of that.’ He lifted up a paper bag. ‘Got a couple of pies, and a couple of tamarillos for after. I know what you career girls are like. It’s all work, work, work . . . Someone’s got to keep your strength up.’