‘Who was that?’ Lex asked. ‘Looks like he could use a good wash.’
Sam grunted. ‘That’s Jordi. Don’t mind him. He’s not too bad. Just lives a bit rough.’
Sam squinted down at the three boxes he had placed on the counter and Lex felt dismay thicken. He’d hoped this old man might chat with him, but that appeared to be the end of it.
‘I’m new around here,’ Lex said, clearing his throat.
Sam Black squinted at him, not quite focusing on his face. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘We’re not much used to strangers.’ He looked back down at the boxes under his gnarly old hands. ‘But we’ll get used to yer. I hear yer’ve bought the place out at Wallaces.’
‘Yes, from Beryl Harden. Although I gather that’s a crime too.’
Sam Black nodded. ‘Split the town it did, her gettin’ that place. Church against the Wallaces.’
Lex frowned and shrugged while the old man stared at him like he expected something extra of him.
‘Anyway,’ Sam said, in his scratchy voice. ‘Got some binoculars for yer to look at. See if any of them’s any use to yer.’
Lex chose some 10 x 40s and paid for them with cash.
‘Thanks, Sam,’ he said on his way out. ‘I appreciate your help.’
Wandering back by the newsagency, Lex scanned the noticeboard to see what was going on in town. Among the usual ads for old cars and used furniture, there was a phone number for somebody trying to sell a surfboard, an old Malibu. He wrote the number down on his hand and dialled it from the phone booth across the road.
The woman on the end of the line told him she had given the board to John Watson to handle the sale. It had been her husband’s, but he hadn’t used it for years. Her son had played around on it a bit when he was learning to surf in his teens, until he bought himself something smaller and zippier. He had wasted too much time surfing when he should have been helping out on the farm. Now the son had shot through to the city for a more exciting life. He was supposed to take over the farm, and yet here they were in their sixties, still doing all the work. It was too much for them. She had to get rid of the old board, she said, because every time she looked at it she was angry. The kids say there’s nothing to do here, she told him bitterly, but the young people of today don’t want to work. They’re lazy. They only think of themselves. She told Lex the price, and he accepted it without discussion. One hundred and fifty dollars seemed a bargain to end a conversation he didn’t want to have.
He left a cheque at the newsagency and shoved the board in the back of the Volvo. He could see John Watson wondering why he didn’t grow up and get a job. But he didn’t wait to explain that he hadn’t bought the board to surf. What he needed was a paddle-board to take him out to the whales.
Friday morning was clear and quiet, and Lex could feel the building warmth of summer in the air. There were whales about. He tugged on the wetsuit from the laundry cupboard and dug out a set of old goggles and a snorkel. With the board under the crook of his arm, he headed down to the beach.
Owning a surf board felt alien to him. Surfing was something all the other boys at school had done—the trendy ones, whose parents owned houses at the coast. Not him. At school he used to hear them talking about hanging out on headlands, listening to music and waiting for the surf to come up. It had always sounded boring to him. Now, on the beach, it was different. He set the board on the sand and ran his hand over the clumps of old wax that still clung to the surface. There was something reassuring about owning a board with history, a life before him. At least the board was experienced, even if he wasn’t.
In the shallows, he strapped the leg-rope around his ankle. He was pleased that the board couldn’t escape him if he was flicked off in the surf. He carried it out into the waves, pushing through the breakers. When he was far enough out, about chest deep, he slid onto the board in a lull between waves, on his stomach, and started paddling, dipping his arms in up to his elbows and pulling strongly. It felt good, free, and the board was surprisingly eager to move. A large wave crested in front of him and he paddled madly to thrust over it before it broke. The Malibu responded and slid up over the wave. Lex smiled. He could get used to this.
About fifty metres out, he stopped and looked around. Lying on his stomach he couldn’t see much, so he swivelled to sit and search the waves. There had been a pod of whales out here earlier, maybe four of five of them, travelling slowly. He had seen them from the cliffs before he came down to the beach. They had been a few hundred metres out, cruising slowly towards the Point. There was no sign of them now.
Sitting on the board he felt the tide tugging him shorewards. He shifted back onto his stomach and paddled further out, another fifty metres or so, then sat up and scanned the waves again. Five minutes passed, maybe ten, then he saw a spout rise further out. He was in luck. The whales were still short of the Point, moving slowly. Dropping to his belly again he paddled on, heading towards the whales. It was a reflex reaction. He really had no idea what he planned to do. He had only thought as far as buying the board and paddling out here.
Another fifty metres and he stopped again, pulled the goggles on and slipped into the water. He wasn’t sure how close he was, whether he’d see anything, and his heart was pounding with excitement. The water was a deep green-blue, light at the surface, with sunrays shafting through. It was like being in another world.
He looked around. At first, he heard little except the hollow sound of his breathing in the snorkel and the swish of the water, and each time the board bumped against his head it made a dull clunking sound. Then came a sound, a hollow moan that descended deeply before rising again and then trilling downwards. Several notes followed, one sliding into the other, up and down a rolling scale. Whale song. Stunned, Lex clung to the surfboard, shivers running through him in waves. He had company close by. The moment was enormous, humbling, overwhelming.
Lifting his head out of the water he tried to see how close they were. Two or three minutes passed before a spout rose skywards, about a hundred metres off, vapour rising over the surface of the water in a bushy V. Pulsing with excitement, Lex hauled himself onto the board and paddled in the direction of the spout, slowly now, dipping his hands in quietly. After a while he stopped. It was hard to gauge distance over water and he had no real idea where the whales were. Then below, right beneath the board, he saw a massive dark shadow slip through the deep. A moan ascended through the water and, forty metres off, a slick black back rode to the surface and exhaled a puff of spume with an explosive snort.
Lex whimpered, and his heart escalated somewhere between exhilaration and fear. But he couldn’t stop now. He paddled close again, then quickly slipped off the board and dipped his face under. Beneath him in the green watery light he could see the slowly moving shapes of three humpback whales gently riding through the haze. They were massive and fluidly buoyant. It was as if they were gliding rather than swimming. Beside one was a smaller shadow, a calf clinging closely to the flank of its mother. They cruised below him, rolling languidly, turning slowly, cruising back. He could see the pointed shapes of their heads, the slow waft of their long pectoral fins, the knobbles that studded their heads and fins, the startling white of their bellies, the long grooves that marked their throats.
He wondered if they knew he was there, if they were watching him. But of course they knew. This was their world and he was an intruder. With pounding heart, he realised he may have done a silly thing following them out here and moving in so close. They could easily knock him off his board. They could kill him with one swish of an enormous tail. Yet he couldn’t pull out. He was riveted by the incredible sight of them, the grace of their immense bodies suspended in blue, dappled by the shifting shafts of sunlight.
Suddenly his heart froze and he focused on one whale. It had separated from the pod and came slowly swimming towards him about twenty metres below. The great animal rolled on its side, flashing its white throat and belly, and Lex was startled to see an eye staring at him, surprisingly small. Then the whale rolled again, sliding deeper, and curved away back to the pod. A string of low moans ensued, reverberating through the water. Lex was transfixed, but knew he should leave. The whales had given him time, and perhaps he was too close to the calf.
Trying not to thrash his fins, he dragged himself back on the board and paddled slowly away.
On the beach, he collapsed on the sand, overwhelmed by a sudden rush of emotion. Tears came, and he lay on the Malibu, crying as if he would never stop. He was engulfed by conflicting feelings—joy, grief, fear, hysteria—and he allowed it all to wash over and through him, until eventually, exhausted, he rolled onto his back on the unforgiving hardness of the board and stared up into the sky. That had been one of the peak moments of his life. How could that happen, he asked himself, when so recently he had seen the bottom of low?
When he stood up, he noticed Sash sitting on the rocks watching him, and above the cliffs he saw the shape of Sally, looking down. Sash saw him glance at her and came running across the sand. She was small, pale, alarmed.
‘I saw you,’ she said.
Lex felt drained and unable to engage. ‘What did you see?’ he managed.
‘I saw you swimming with the whales.’
She looked at him with wonder, like he had performed a miracle.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘Then you came back, and I saw you lying there on the surfboard for a long time.’
‘Yes.’
‘Were you crying?’
‘Yes.’
Sash regarded him with eyes that seemed much older than her years. She took his hand. ‘You’re special,’ she said. ‘I’ve never seen anyone swim with the whales.’
Lex looked out to where he could still see the vapour spouts of the pod, just rounding the Point.
‘They let you, didn’t they?’ Sash said. ‘I mean, they didn’t have to, did they?’
‘No.’
Her smile was like a flash of sunlight.
‘They like you. Like I do.’
Lex smoothed his hand over her head. Her hair was warm and soft. She smiled again and they walked together up the path from the beach.
Saturday, market day again. Callista sat at her stall feeling shaky and off-balance. She was nervous about the oystercatcher painting, and whether Lex would show up. Fortunately, the morning had been busy, but it was tricky for her to scan the crowd for him, in between closing sales and sorting change. By late morning she started to think he wouldn’t come.
Searching for his face yet again among the passers-by, she clashed eyes with the guitar freak and was shocked by the boldness rising in his gaze. He was gyrating his hips while he played, smirking and leering at her. There was no subtlety about him at all. Keeping her face blank, she looked away, annoyed. With her arms folded protectively across her chest, she kept watching out for Lex.
Then, finally, she caught sight of him in the crowd. Damn. He must have seen her first. She saw him disappear behind a stall and then there he was, passing the church stand. Callista watched him heading towards her, pausing at various stalls. They almost eye-contacted but he slid his eyes away. Good. Her heart galloped. She knew he had been looking for her. She had a few quick moments to rearrange some umbrella paintings and slip the oystercatcher painting onto the display before he swung back her way. When she saw the shape of his shoulders easing along the stalls towards her stand, her hands and heart tingled.
‘Busy today, aren’t we?’ he said.
His voice was rich, quiet and mellow, and meant for only her to hear.
‘Have you been watching me?’
His slow smile made her breathless.
‘It pays to check the lay of the land before you move in.’
‘I don’t like being watched.’
‘You’ve been doing well today.’ He stepped back a little and scanned her works. ‘This is different,’ he said, closing immediately on the oystercatcher. He lifted it and glanced at her. ‘Is it for me?’
She hadn’t expected him to be so direct. It caught her out.
‘It is for me, isn’t it?’ he insisted.
She was disarmed by the smile that tweaked his lips.
‘I haven’t decided to sell it to you yet,’ she said, feeling cheeky.
‘Yes, you have,’ he said. ‘I want it.’
She raised her eyebrows at him. ‘It’s not as simple as that.’
His face clouded. ‘No, I didn’t think so,’ he said, turning away. ‘I’ll give it some thought.’
He was already gone, unreadable, soaked into the restless crowd. Callista sat down with her heart thudding. She was worried and uncertain. What if he didn’t come back? She’d have blown her chance.
A lengthy half-hour dragged by. She made a few sales, checked her watch a few times, fobbed off an attempted approach from the sleaze with the guitar grafted to his chest, sorted her change, sipped from her water bottle. The flutter was gone. She was swapping notes and coins with an old lady in a blue cardigan when a hot dog appeared by her hand. It was hanging limply out both ends of its bread roll, bathed in too much tomato sauce.
‘Thank you, but I’m vegetarian,’ she said.
‘There’s not much meat in this.’
Lex’s laugh was straight up from his feet. It rocked them both and turned heads nearby. Callista tried to withhold eye contact, but she could feel him too close, watching her as he bit into the hot dog. He was wearing Levi’s today. They looked good on him, snug around his waist. A loose shirt masked the belly he was carrying underneath.
‘How much for the oystercatcher?’ he asked, leaning against the easel at the side of her stall.
‘It’s not for sale.’
His face closed and he withdrew a little from the stand. Callista’s heart galloped as his arms folded over his chest.
‘It’s a gift,’ she said. ‘Take it. And I have the other one here for you too. I fixed the frame.’ She pulled the painting from under the trestle.
His eyes were more intense than she remembered, very direct, not shy. He had opened towards her again. Callista saw it in the easing of his shoulders and the relaxed shift of his hand to grasp the wraparound sunglasses nestled in his fine hair. She would have to be careful with him—he was more fragile than she thought. The smile that shot across his face reached through to her toes, until he closed it off by lowering his sunglasses.