The Forever Whale. Sarah Lean

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      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 us if we need them. And,” Megan continues, “it reminds me that I have to wear a life jacket when we go out in my uncle’s boat.”

      “So it also reminds you of something to do with yourself. What about you, Hannah?” Mrs Gooch says. I look back at the statue, at the people who could be anyone.

      “I don’t like that they don’t have names,” I say. “I want to know who they are.”

      Is it just my name that Grandad is forgetting? Or is it much more than that? What about all our journeys in his boat, all our thousands of mornings, our talks, all the things that tie us together? Will he remember the story? Will he remember me when I get home?

      6.

      “GRANDAD?” I CALL AFTER SCHOOL, WHILE I FLICK on the kettle for him. I’m still thinking about the statue on the quay. Mrs Gooch said we could all try and find something of ourselves in the statue, but I’m thinking of Grandad instead.

      The back door is open. At first I think I see ashes outside on the patio, and I remember the burnt toast from this morning. But they aren’t ashes. They’re tiny red and brown feathers.

      My stomach turns to stone. I call Grandad’s name and run upstairs and look in all the rooms, but I’m already thinking that Smokey wouldn’t dare come so close to the house to take a bird if Grandad was here.

      I come back to the kitchen. Grandad’s newspaper isn’t on the table.

      Grandad doesn’t walk as well as he did, but most days he used to go as far as the shop down Southbrook Hill to get a bar of chocolate and a newspaper and some birdseed. On the way to the shop he’d stop to talk to Mr Howard who clips his box hedges with tiny shears into Christmas puddings and cones and clouds.

      I run down the street. Mr Howard is clipping his hedge as usual.

      “Have you seen my grandad today?” I call.

      “Yes, he was headed thataway.” Mr Howard points with his sharp snippers towards Southbrook Hill. “I wished him a good afternoon, but he walked past without so much as a friendly word. I told him he looked a little peaky, but … well, that was nearly an hour ago.”

      I am already running towards the hill.

      Grandad isn’t at the shop. Suddenly my mind is racing, thinking of how he was when I left this morning. Had he heard me after all? Would СКАЧАТЬ