The Stranding (35 page)
Callista recognised Lex’s walk as he laboured down the beach. Even beneath the weight of the tent there was still that familiar spring in each slow stride, as if he could walk into the infinite without stopping. His shoulders were hidden under the sagging tent bag and his head was bowed forward a little into the wind. He dumped the tent on the sand and came up to join them.
‘How’s it going?’ he asked, avoiding Callista’s eyes. He seemed distant, uncertain.
‘Not sure, mate,’ Jimmy said. ‘We’re waiting for Taylor over there to see if he can get on to the vet. Then we need to discuss logistics.’
Callista wondered if Lex would ever summon the courage to look at her. And then he did and she felt her stomach tighten with distress. It seemed like hours since they’d argued and there was so much space between them now. She wasn’t sure whether the distance could be crossed.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked.
‘Fine, thanks.’ She could feel her father’s eyes on her, questioning. She scanned the grey-bellied skies. ‘Do I hear a helicopter?’
‘Probably,’ Lex said. He was searching the sky to the north. ‘They’ll be off loading more gear to bring down. I’ll have to pitch the tent and then give them a hand.’
He headed back up the beach.
‘What happened?’ Jimmy asked.
‘He wanted us to just walk away and do nothing. Leave the whale on the beach to die.’
‘A fair idea to consider.’
‘That’s for experts to decide. Lex knows nothing about whales.’
‘Perhaps not.’ Jimmy slung his backpack onto the sand and pulled out a thermos. ‘Here,’ he said, pouring her a strong black coffee. ‘You could probably use this.’
She accepted the mug and took a sip, grimaced at the bitterness of the brew.
‘Where’s Jordi?’ she asked. ‘I thought he’d be here.’
‘He’s bringing the boat in and tying her up at the wharf. We might need her later.’ Jimmy scratched his beard and examined the sky. ‘If the weather doesn’t deteriorate too much and the whale holds its condition, there’s a chance we might get it back out in the water by the end of the day. We’ll need the boat then to herd it further out so it doesn’t get washed back in.’
‘The end of the day?’ Callista felt a worm of doubt turning in her belly.
‘That’s about as fast as things go at events like this.’
She looked into her father’s calm blue eyes. His gaze steadied her, as it always had, the peaceful acceptance about him, his ability to slow things.
‘Give me a job then,’ she said. ‘Or I’ll go mad watching.’
Jimmy smiled. ‘You can be my scribe.’ He handed her a pad and a pencil. ‘We have to document everything that happens and all the decisions we make, including the time, so cranky members of the public can’t hassle us about our actions later on.’
‘There’s nobody here who’s going to cause trouble, other than the journalists.’
‘No, but they’ll come.’
‘That’s what Lex said.’
Jimmy flashed an ironic, red-lipped smile. ‘Maybe he knows something after all.’
Taylor wanted to keep activities at a distance from the whale, so Lex and Jack Coffey unfolded the tent about a hundred metres further up the beach. While they were laying it out, the weather whipped up and the canvas lifted and billowed in the wind. Even at this distance, the whale was agitated, belting its pectoral flipper over and over against its side. Lex winced as he watched the whale struggle to raise its flukes, but the receding tide had bogged its tail in the sand.
Pitching the tent was a challenge. Pegs were useless in the sand, so they improvised and filled plastic bags with wet sand to anchor the corners and the guy ropes. It wasn’t a large tent—maybe three metres by four—but it provided shelter from the squally weather that kept drifting in from the sea. Once it was erected, two rangers moved in and set up radio equipment so communications could be established between the beach and the hilltop.
After the tent was secure, Coffey lit a cigarette.
‘You haven’t lost your job yet,’ Lex said.
‘Not yet. But Taylor’s face was thunder when he saw me on the hill. They won’t sack me till next week. They need all hands on deck today.’
‘There’s a chance you’ll redeem yourself.’
‘I’ll need to do something spectacular.’
‘We’re in the same boat then.’
‘How come you’re in trouble?’
Lex nodded towards Callista who was standing with Jimmy by the whale. ‘I suggested we just leave the whale on the beach. Leave it to nature.’
‘Not a bad idea.’
‘It wasn’t appreciated.’
Coffey shrugged. ‘That’s women. It’s the nurture thing.’
Lex glanced along the beach towards the hilltop where he could see the chopper setting down again. ‘We’d better go for another load, I suppose.’
Coffey chucked his cigarette in the sand and ground it with his foot. ‘Penance,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’
They trudged up the beach in easy silence. As they settled into a rhythm, Lex looked up and noticed a group of young people hiking along the sand towards them. They were scruffy and dreadlocked. The great unwashed. Always among the first to arrive at a scene. Lex had been concerned that casual volunteers might come poorly equipped for the weather conditions, but this group looked well rugged up in plastic wet-weather gear and warm beanies. The frontrunner was a young guy with masses of dreads draped across his chest in the wind.
‘Hey,’ he called out to Lex and Coffey. ‘How’s the whale going?’
‘We’re waiting for the vet to arrive,’ Coffey said, stopping to 8216;Hey,’ he called out to Lex and Coffey. ‘How’s the whale goshake hands with the guy. ‘That might have been him in the chopper that just landed.’
‘We’re here to give a hand,’ the guy said. ‘I’m Jarrah.’ He waved a hand at the group coming up behind him. ‘We’ve just come up from Eden. Heard on the radio there was a whale stranded up here.’
‘News is out already then. We need all the help we can get.’ Coffey pointed down the beach to where Taylor and Wallace were standing near the tent. ‘Speak to one of those grey-bearded fellows down there. They’ll give you a job.’
‘Thanks.’ Jarrah gave a friendly wave and continued on.
The rest of the group was approaching. There was a girl among them who was staring hard at Lex.
‘Don’t I know you?’ she said, stopping and pulling off her beanie to scratch her head. Her dreads flicked out in the wind.
Lex recognised Jen and quickly lowered his head to continue walking up the beach.
‘Yes, I do know you,’ she yelled. ‘You’re the guy who gave me a lift to Eden. Hey, guys,’ she called to the rest of the group, laughing. ‘This is the guy I told you about who picked me up on the highway outside of Merrigan. Fed me up a treat, but couldn’t take it any further. Turned me down.’
Lex stopped, mortified. His day just kept falling apart. And Jack Coffey was looking at him curiously. He summoned a casual smile.
‘That’s what happens when you get close to forty,’ he called to the girl. ‘It’s quality you’re looking for, not quantity.’
Jen laughed. ‘Pay that one,’ she said. ‘What a surprise. I didn’t expect to see you again this lifetime. Now we’ll be working together.’
‘Great.’
Lex glanced at Coffey and they recommenced trudging up the beach. They could hear Jen still laughing as she scuffled away with her mates.
‘Not much chance of redeeming yourself today then, mate,’ Coffey observed.
Lex shook his head. ‘You do the right thing and you still get in trouble,’ he said.
‘That’s life, mate. That’s life.’ Coffey slapped him on the shoulder.
As they approached the hill, the humming of the chopper escalated to a shriek and it took off, blades thwacking the air. They watched it lift quickly into the grey sky and buzz over them, heading down to make a high pass over the whale before banking steeply and heading north further out to sea. Climbing the dunes, Lex and Coffey met three men skating down the sandy track carrying toolboxes and backpacks. They were grim-faced and obviously in a hurry, not stopping to speak, but they nodded as Lex and Coffey stood aside, puffing, to let them pass.
‘Reckon that was the vet,’ Coffey commented between gasps. He was leaner than Lex and faster up the hill.
‘What’s the time? Things seem slow as hell around here.’
‘It’s after eleven,’ Coffey said.
‘At least they can get a proper assessment done now.’
‘What will they do if the whale’s not going to make it?’
‘They’ll have a go anyway. The public won’t stand for euthanasia.’
‘Why not?’ Coffey asked. ‘What’s so bad about a humane death?’
‘It’s a whale,’ Lex reminded him. ‘On the animal scale they rate right up there. It’ll be all stops out for a rescue attempt.’
‘You’re not impressed, are you?’
‘I don’t want to see it die. But I don’t want to see the poor thing dragged through some epic rescue that was doomed from the start.’
They trudged slowly to the top of the hill where more gear was waiting to be transferred to the beach. Lex surveyed the gear and divided it mentally into loads. This would keep them busy for a while, even with the assistance of the other rangers. His stomach growled.
‘How are you going? I’m hungry.’
‘Starving, mate, starving.’ Coffey lit a cigarette.
Lex propped his hands on his hips and waited for his breathing to ease. ‘Can I use your phone?’ he asked. ‘I’m going to see if I can rustle up some tucker.’ He dialled directory assistance, then punched in the number they gave him. ‘Sue,’ he yelled into the phone.
‘Is that you, Mr Henderson? Where are you? You sound like you’re in a cyclone. Are you in on this whale rescue too?’
‘It’s wild out here. I thought John Watson would have filled you in by now.’
‘He’s right here with me. We’re in the shop. Discussing you lot over a coffee and a chocolate brownie.’
‘That’s cruel, Sue. We’re dying of hunger out here. There’s no food and it’s going to be a long day.’
‘What do you want me to do about it?’
‘I was wondering if there was any way you could organise some food. There’s going to be a crowd down here. I’m sure National Parks or somebody will help cover the costs.’
‘Leave it with me. I’ll see what I can do. I might pop up to the church and see if Mrs Jensen can organise a team.’
‘The church, Sue! I thought you’d forgotten where it is.’
‘Yes. It’s amazing what one can do in times of emergency. How’s the whale going, anyway?’
‘Not great.’
‘Should I invite the minister along to pray for you?’
‘Why not? We could use a miracle.’
Callista took on the job of keeping the whale covered with wet towels. Taylor and a group of about six men had tried to roll it onto its chest so it could breathe more easily, but the sand held tight and all they achieved was a few stressed air-blasts from its blowhole. Then the whale let out a wrenching moan that brought everyone to a sickened full stop. At that point, Taylor decided they should only carry out basic supportive therapy until the vet arrived.
The reporters were happy smoking and chatting, and Taylor didn’t want too many people working close to the whale, so Callista offered to lay out the towels on her own. Near the tent, she rolled up her trousers and took off her boots, grabbed an armful of towels from a pile that had been dumped on a tarp, and strode into the shallows. The water was grippingly cold. It was difficult to wring the wet towels out with stiff cold hands, so she gave up and hauled them heavy with water towards the whale.
She approached cautiously, moving around to where she could see the whale’s eye so it knew she was coming. Even so, it raised its flipper half-mast and tried to wriggle in the sand. Beside the great animal, her heart beating fast, she placed the pile of wet towels on the sand and carefully shook the first one out to lie over its back. This was the closest she had been to the whale and she was surprised by the surge of emotion that swamped her. The poor animal was making small scraping movements with its flipper back and forth across its side. Gently, tentatively, she placed a hand on its back, half-expecting it to shudder at her touch, but it lay still and its flipper stopped moving. The skin was smooth and surprisingly firm, rubbery almost. For a while she stood there with her hand against its skin, breathing empathy through her palm. Then she draped the first towel carefully, avoiding the blowhole.
Moving slowly, she covered the whale’s back and then moved around to the belly side to complete the job. The grooves running along its throat and belly arrested her, great deep furrows in parallel rows. She had seen photographs of these pleats billowing out to create a huge throat sac when a whale took in large volumes of water while feeding. That was how they caught their food, trapped inside the mouth while the tongue pushed water out through the baleen like a great sieve. She dipped her fingers into one of the grooves and slid them along the long contour of the whale’s belly. Then she let her fingers run down across several grooves, tripping from one furrow into the next, unable to believe that she was touching a whale’s skin, touching an animal that belonged untouchable in the sea.
Tears came again. Not the first time today, and she suspected not the last. As she leaned forward to press her forehead against the whale’s side, it exhaled with a blast and she jolted upright, aware of the upwards jerk of the pectoral flipper just missing her head. The whale’s breath was putrid. Like rotting fish. The stench of it sent her staggering out of the water to vomit inelegantly on the sand. She felt wretched. Pathetic. And she hoped Lex hadn’t seen it.
When she raised her head, she saw a newly arrived group of people watching her. Great! She hadn’t been expecting an audience. Mustering a feeble thread of dignity, she waved at them and walked unsteadily over to where Jimmy was waiting with a cup of water. The new people were volunteers, he explained as she drank. And this might be a good time for her to take a break. She had already put in significant hours on the beach this morning, and these people were fresh and eager. Callista appreciated his tactful offer for her surrender, and was happy to grasp it and step aside.
In the tent, she dried off and pulled on her boots. She was surprised at how quickly the cold had seeped in and stiffened her. She must be a bit overwhelmed by everything—the argument with Lex, the long wait in the cold, the close contact with the whale. It had already been a long day.