The Forever Whale. Sarah Lean
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more bread, put it in the toaster this time and turn the timer up high.
“My class is going on a field trip down to the quay today,” I tell him as we sit to eat our toast. “The mayor is unveiling a statue of a lifeboat. They’ve put a big cover over it so nobody can see it until today. Would you like to go down at the weekend and see it too?”
Slowly Grandad turns towards me. “We’ll hide my boat at Hambourne where nobody will find it.”
Right then I feel as if I’m on my own in the boat at sea, and I can’t see solid land on the horizon, and there’s nowhere safe to go. I’m about to tell Grandad that his boat is in the garage, but sometimes when I correct what he says he gets confused and I don’t want to upset him.
The dark edges of his toast crumble and fall into his lap. He doesn’t notice.
“Hannah,” Jodie says, breaking the uncomfortable silence, “we’d better get going.”
She picks up her bulging book and some photographs fall out from between the pages and scatter on the table. Three are of my grandma, Hannah Jenkins, who I never knew; three are of me, Hannah Gray. All of the photos are rippled and flaking from the dampness in the cupboard.
Grandad’s eyebrows furrow as we all look at the photos.
“Where’s Hannah?” he says. “I haven’t seen her this morning.”
Jodie stares at me, chewing the pad of her thumb. I try to hide what feels like a stone dropping in my stomach. She doesn’t say what I know she’s thinking, that neither of us knows whether he’s forgotten that Grandma died over ten years ago or if he’s now starting to forget me.
Jodie goes to the front door, but I can’t leave, not yet. I want to believe that when I come back this afternoon Grandad will be as he always was. I lean my hand on the table and kiss the white beard on his cheek.
“We’re going to school now,” I say.
His eyes brighten for a moment and he doesn’t know what he’s just said, but I see something unfamiliar in his face.
“Grandad, please remember the story you were going to tell me. About the deer, about a journey. It’ll be August the eighteenth soon.”
His eyes flicker as if he’s searching for something. He rubs his beard and I hear the bristles. I see brightness in his eyes, as if he’s found something.
“Hannah!” Jodie calls. “We’re going to be late!”
Grandad moves his hand and mine disappears underneath his.
“It’s quite a story, Hannah, about the greatest power on earth.”
I’m not sure if we can wait until August.
“Hannah, you have to come now!” Jodie shouts.
“Tell me about it after school, Grandad,” I say and kiss him again. “Today!”
“Today, after school, I’ll be waiting,” he says. “Let’s see if we can find that whale.”
“A whale?” I say, but Jodie has come back in and is dragging me away. “A whale, Grandad?” I call.
“Don’t forget,” I hear him say.
5.
THE MAYOR’S GOLD CHAIN LOOKS HEAVY, AND AT last he stops talking to the crowd and holds up a huge pair of scissors to cut the red ribbon around the statue. Four people are behind him, holding the corners of a big shiny black sheet so nobody can see what’s underneath.
Josh Beale makes a noise like he’s dying for some unknown reason, so our teacher tells him to shush, but he carries on gargling. I want to blank him out because I’m trying to think about what Grandad said this morning. I thought he wanted to tell me an important story about the deer, but he said we were going to find a whale. I don’t understand. I’m thinking about how Alzheimer’s disease is making me confused too.
A photographer from the local paper tells the mayor to wait a minute.
“Can we have some kids from the local school up there as well?” he says. “And a teacher.”
I am one of the children who get picked and we line up either side of the mayor and pretend we’re helping to hold the ribbon.
Everyone counts down, three, two, one. The scissors snip.
The four people let go of the cover and it billows above our heads, puffed up by the sea breeze. I feel the cool shadow over me as it ripples over our heads, falls and shrouds us. For a second the world goes dark and I smell something metallic. The people who were holding on to the cover drag it away again and everything seems just as it was. The crowd gasp then clap, but I have a funny feeling, like someone is standing behind me.
I turn round. The life-size statue is of a smooth golden-bronze figure, with no nose or eyes or mouth. It is leaning over the bow of a boat and reaching an arm to someone who is in the sea who doesn’t have a proper face either.
“Hey, you, little girl,” the photographer says, “look this way. Everyone smile.”
I can’t stop looking at the statue of the people with no faces. I see how hard the person in the boat is reaching for the one lost at sea.
I nudge Linus Drew who is standing next to me.
“Who is it?” I ask him.
“Who’s who?” he says.
“The statues. How are we supposed to know who they are if they don’t have faces?”
Linus shrugs, which is what he does a lot of the time. Our teacher hears me.
“They represent anyone,” Mrs Gooch says. “We’ll be talking about it later in class and reflecting on what we feel about the statue.”
I think of Grandad and how this morning he looked at me but didn’t see me. It feels like the shadow of the black cover is still over me.
“Anyone?” I say, catching Mrs Gooch’s arm. “How can a person be anyone? Surely they have to be someone?”
“Well, yes, that’s a good question, but this is art, Hannah, so there might be lots of possible meanings. Maybe we can find something of ourselves in it.” Mrs Gooch waits for me to say something. “Is everything all right?” she asks.
I nod. But it’s not true. Everything isn’t all right and I want to talk about it, but I’ve not told anyone that my grandad has Alzheimer’s. All my friends know him because of all the years he used to take me to and from school. He was the BFG at the school gates who lifted us up high in his arms and asked us to tell him what we’d been doing that day. I had told my friends Grandad didn’t come any more because we’d got too big and because I could walk to school on my own now.
Alzheimer’s isn’t like a broken leg or the flu; it’s buried in someone’s brain. You can’t see it. You just notice what’s missing. People don’t like it when it’s something to do with brains and not being normal.
We line up to go back to school and I’m partnered with my friend Megan. Mrs Gooch walks beside us.
“Megan?” Mrs Gooch says. “What did you think of the statue?”
“I thought it was nice because it’s to remember all the people who helped save lives at sea,” Megan says.
“Yes, it is. And how does it make you feel?”
I’m listening, but I don’t really want to join in now.
“I feel … like it’s good that we have people who will help