Story Contest

Opposite poles
by Jackie Tritt

'The name is Moon. Charles Moon.' He runs his right hand over his extremely bald head. He should be wearing a hat today, she thinks. The sun is strong, reflecting brightly off the water. Well, to be truthful, he is wearing a hat, but it is not on his head. His black bowler hat is clutched in his left hand, firmly against his groin. It is the only piece of apparel he has on.

Diana Sometime often walks this beach when she comes down for the weekend. She has seen him many times from afar and has wondered whether he has a penchant for head-to-toe pink. Her long distance vision is not good. Now that she knows what his penchant is, she is a little discomfited.

His head is a perfect egg. She has a desire to smooth her hand over it, just to feel the texture. She wants to run a knife around it and slice off the top, so she can scoop out the yolk. Diana often surprises herself with the images that pop into her mind.

She is the opposite pole, she thinks, of Mr Moon. The north to his south. The day to his night. She wears a wide straw hat over her long flaxen hair, and a flowing white gown which reaches her ankles. She knows about the damage sunlight can do to skin. She does not want a face like a contour map, nor has she any desire for cancerous growths to be sliced from her.

North and south poles, she knows this from her schooldays, north and south magnetic poles have a strong attraction for each other. She grins and hopes the shade of her hat has hidden her smirk. She and the Moon man, as she already prefers to call him in her head, avert their gaze from each other to the object which caused them both to stop. It is a small whale, beached at their feet.

'It's just a baby,' she says. 'A baby minke, maybe, but I'm only guessing. I wonder where its mother is? She can't be far away.' She gazes out to sea, but her myopia won't let her distinguish between mother whales, boulders and fishing boats.

'The whales don't come in this close to shore,' he says. 'You have to go a long way out in the whale watching boats if you want to see them.'

'Well, maybe it's sick. Maybe its mother has died. Maybe it lost its sense of direction. It happens, you know, whole pods of them get stranded sometimes. Sometimes they seem to be suicidal.'

Moon man sighs.

He thinks I'm stupid, she says to herself. He thinks I'm blathering on. Diana's mother is Scottish and she likes the exotic feel of the old language when it percolates through to her tongue.

'Is it alive?' he says.

'Good question.'

'Well?' He's getting tetchy now. There's a bit of the school master about him, though she's never before seen one in the nude. She feels the smirk twitching her lips again.

She crouches to touch the whale's sleek body. Maybe this is what Moon man's head would feel like. Smooth and warm. She realises she doesn't know where to search for a pulse. She looks up for help, but finds her eyes are level with his bowler hat and transfixed by the thought of what lies below. His thighs are well muscled and tanned. She forces herself to find his face.

'How can I tell?'

'Well, something must be moving, surely, if it's alive?'

'It's warm.'

'Yes, well, it's a black body, lying in the sun. It would be warm, wouldn't it?'

No need to be snooty, she thinks.

'I don't know that being warm and dry is good for a whale. On the TV news, you see people sloshing water over beached whales to keep them alive. Maybe that would be a good thing to do.'

'Well, it might be, if we knew it was alive. Otherwise it's just a waste of time.'

She is beginning to take a dislike to Mr Moon.

'Maybe we should call for help. Someone in Campbell River would know what to do, surely? Environmentalists? Rescue crews? Have you got a mobile phone on you?'

He snorts.

Obviously not, she thinks, unless it, too, is hidden beneath the hat.

'Well, I think we should try to keep it cool and wet until someone else happens along.'

'And how do you propose to do that?'

She looks around for inspiration and her gaze settles, inevitably, on the bowler hat.

'We'll use your hat to carry water,' she says, in a tone which she hopes will brook no argument.

His eyes widen, his face flushes and he continues to clutch his fig leaf substitute.

'Oh for heaven's sake,' she says. 'Take mine. I'll look away.' She removes her straw hat, turns her back to him and holds the hat behind her. It is withdrawn from her fingers. She gives him enough time to resume his modesty before returning to face him. The straw hat with its trailing white ribbon does a bigger and better job than the bowler but looks less appropriate, somehow.

She takes his hat to the water line and dips it in. Excellent. It was probably designed to be waterproof from the outside in, but it works equally well in the opposite direction. She trickles water over the whale and gets another hatful. And then several more.

'It blinked,' she says. 'I'm sure I saw it blink.'

But he has his lip curled in disgust at what is happening to his hat.

'I'd be very grateful,' she says, 'if you could take a turn. I'm getting hot and tired.' The hem of her dress is soaked and heavy.

'I'm not moving,' he says, 'until I get my hat back. Not that it will ever be the same again. I bought it in London, England, you know. It's a genuine city bowler.'

'Well, pardon me. With respect, I wonder why someone who's so worried about being seen in the nude wouldn't wear a bit of clothing in public? And why that same someone would wear a genuine London city bowler when walking along the beach? Hardly what I'd define as a city environment.'

Her questions hang, unanswered, in the air. She scoops another hatful of water and pours it onto the whale.

'Do you think the tide is coming in? Maybe we could dig a trench to the whale so the water can reach it?'

He replies with anther question. 'With what?'

She looks around her. Small pieces of driftwood are scattered along the high tide mark, but they don't look suitable for digging or scooping. She's seen them made into artefacts in the local gift stores, but not into shovels.

'Well…' and she glances down at the black, soggy hemisphere in her hands.

'Oh, give it to me,' he says. They swap hats. He is uncovered. There was nothing much worth hiding. In fact she can't see what all the fuss was about. He quickly uses his bowler to form a channel and they stare as the water seeps up it. It reminds her of childhood moats and castles. She burrows, like a dog, around the whale, so the wetness can surround it. She is sure it is feeling better. It seems to have a little smile on its face.

'It's okay if you want to go now,' she says. 'I should be able to cope by myself. Thank you for your help.'

He grunts, taps the sand and water out of his hat and gives a barely perceptible shudder as he places it jauntily on his head and continues his brisk walk along the shoreline.

She watches until he goes out of focus.

'I should buy him a black brolly to go with the bowler,' she says to herself. The whale definitely winks this time.