Storms. Chris Vick
coming the other way. A short, craggy-faced bloke he’d seen at Praa Sands a couple of times. The dude was climbing through the waterfall.
‘Wass it like?’ said Jake. He always asked surfers coming back from a break, checking their faces for glassy eyes and stupid grins. ‘Is it wonderful?’
Crag-face headed past, without saying a word, or looking at him. Maybe he hadn’t heard Jake? Or maybe he didn’t want to let on how great it was.
Only one way to find out. And it would give him thinking time. Surf could do that. Wash all your worries away. Clear your head. Just for a bit.
HANNAH CHECKED HERSELF in the hall mirror.
Sunset-red Henri Lloyd storm-breaker jacket, brand new. A present from Dad. Black waterproof trousers. Hunter wellies.
‘Sexy,’ she said. A howl of wind rattled the door, threatening to blow it open. Rain hammered on the conservatory roof like a thousand tiny drumbeats.
‘No such thing as bad weather,’ she said to Beano. He was scratching at the door. ‘Only a bad attitude and the wrong clothing. Right?’
Beano whimpered, keen to get going.
‘Hang on, he’ll be here soon.’
‘Morning, Hannah.’ Dad walked down the stairs in his dressing gown. ‘Going out?’
‘Beano needs a walk.’
‘Want some company? I can be ready in five.’
‘No. You’re okay. I’m supposed to be meeting Jake.’
‘Supposed to be?’
‘He hasn’t turned up … yet.’
‘Ah.’ Her dad smiled, raised his eyebrows and walked to the kitchen. As if just that one look said everything about Jake. Just that look. He did it all the time. It annoyed her.
She looked at her phone. Seven thirty. There was a message. He was going surfing.
Hannah smiled. Maybe it was a good thing if she went by herself. She needed to think.
Without saying goodbye to Dad, Hannah headed out along the path down to the village, through the streets and past the houses. When she came round the corner and started on the road to the beach, she got the force of what Jake called the full Atlantic blast. A shock of wind and stinging rain.
‘Jesus,’ she said, and sank her head deep into her jacket as she headed down to the sand.
It was only weeks before she was due to get on that plane. It didn’t seem real. How could she be walking on a howling Cornish beach one day, and not so many later be photographing whales in crystal lagoons?
And with Jake? He wanted Hawaii as much as her. More than anything. Not just for her, but because it was Hawaii, the best surf on earth.
It was his dream too. It was just a different one.
How would it go when they got there? Her working long hours, him surfing. And he hadn’t bought a ticket yet. He kept saying he’d sort it, but he hadn’t. She had money, but if she bought his ticket and had to pay for them both when she got there she’d be stony broke, pretty quick.
She reached the sand and started walking.
What if he couldn’t get the ticket? What if he didn’t come?
It would be months. And she’d miss him, the same as she’d miss the Cornish storms. The kiss of needle rain on her face, and Jake’s kiss when he put a smacker on her cheek. How she’d wipe away the itch of his stubble.
‘Ugh. It’s like being kissed by a badger’s bum,’ she’d say. Complaining, but not complaining. Then he’d kiss her on the lips and it’d almost knock her out. Like the shots of tequila the night they’d met.
‘That’s disgusting,’ she’d said, reeling from the salt, the bitter shot and the sting of lime.
‘You’ll get to enjoy it,’ he’d said, handing her another.
She had too. Hannah smiled at the memory.
How could she go without him? How could she even think it? But …
He’ll drag you down.
She heard the words like they were said out loud. She heard them every day. From Phoebe, Bess, Mum. Dad. He said it every chance he got.
‘Well, sod you, Dad,’ she said into the wind and rain. ‘He’s coming!’
Then she saw something, through the sheets of rain, at high tide, on the sea’s edge.
At first she thought they were rocks. Six or more. Huge, smooth, black boulders. Big as upturned yachts. Bigger.
They were rocks. They had to be. The storm must have stripped the sand off them. But, at the same time, she knew they weren’t. They were too dark, too rounded, too perfect in their shape.
So what were they? Beano ran straight to them, barking.
Only when she got close did Hannah see the white patches like giant eyes, the dorsal fins like great black knives on the creatures’ backs. The tail flukes lying useless and still on the sand.
Orcas. Killer whales.
She ran to the first one, the largest. It wasn’t moving. Its blowhole was closed and its mouth was open, showing a row of perfect, shining teeth. Its oddly human tongue hung out of the side of its mouth, limp and dead. Its eye was human-like too. But there was no light in it. It stared, unseeing, at the grey sky.
She checked the next one. It was half hidden in orange fishing net and seaweed. It was smaller, with a short fin. A female. Also dead.
The third one had fresh scars on it. They were pink and gaping: the telltale cuts of a whale tearing its flesh to escape netting.
This was what a loose net could do. She imagined the whales, trapped, holding their breath till they suffocated. Struggling uselessly against the nylon nets.
Three hundred thousand whales and dolphins died this way, every year. One every two minutes.
‘Jesus Christ,’ she said. Warm tears, mixed with rain, fell down her cheeks.
She stood, useless and tiny, next to these great, dead whales.
She’d always wanted to see orcas. Now she had.
‘Fuck!’
Beano was standing fast by one of the smaller whales, barking at it, then running away, coming back, front paws and head down, pointing and barking.
‘Beano, leave it alone,’ she shouted. But the dog ignored her, growling and barking ever louder. ‘I said, leave it alone!’
She wanted some dignity for the poor things. She grabbed Beano by the scruff of the neck, and yanked him away. It was a young one, this whale, half grown, maybe a year old. Its mouth was open, its tongue lolling. It was just as dead as the others.
She put a hand on the young whale’s head, stroking the rubbery skin, and felt suddenly ashamed of being human. Of what humans do.
She looked into the whale’s eye. ‘Sorry.’
That black pupil moved. A huge, rolling marble. The eye looked at her, glinting bright and fierce. It set Hannah’s skin on fire, being looked at this way. A loud phoosh sound burst through the wind and rain as the whale breathed out of its blowhole, filling the air with a fishy stench.
Even in that mad second Hannah had a clear thought. This wasn’t like a dog or horse looking at you. It wasn’t like any animal, or human, looking at you. It was something else.
Beano