Read Online Whale Music by Paul Quarrington - Free Book Online Page A

Desmond,” sighs my mother. My mother aims deadly eyes at the alien. “What exactly is your mission?”
    “Just crashing, that’s all,” she answers.
    “Oh!” It all becomes clear to me.
    “Hey, lady.” The alien raises a finger, points at my mother. “Desmond and I are friends, okay?”
    “Desmond has no friends,” sighs my mother.
    “I’m going in the house now,” says the alien Claire.
    “Make yourself at home!” yells my mother. “Take advantage of my son’s weakened mental condition! Help yourself to whatever you need or want! See how much money you can cheat him out of!”
    The alien Claire spins around. She places her hands on her hips and cocks her body. “Did you go to Bitch College, or is this a natural talent?”
    “Oh, I went to Bitch College, my dear. I did post graduate work.”
    “I’m pleased to see you two getting along,” say I.
    “I just need to know one thing,” says my mother, “out ofconcern for my son’s well-being. Exactly how old are you?”
    “In earth years,” I remind Claire.
    “I’m twenty. How old are you?”
    “I was twenty once.”
    “Hold it against me, why don’t ya?”
    “Run along and play now. I have to talk to Desmond about his treatments.”
    “Right.”
    I watch Claire as she runs along. Her buttocks are small and very firm. They are also bright red, unaccustomed as Claire is to the proximity of the sun.
    “Dr. Tockette has been calling me,” says my mother. She lights a cigarette. She takes a couple of puffs and then puts it out. My mother doesn’t really like smoking, but she enjoys showing off just how elegantly she can light up.
    “I have no need for Tockette,” I respond. “I’ve made great strides. Why, just yesterday I almost went to bed. I almost got into my nappies, pulled down the covers and waited for Mr. Sandman.”
    “He says you won’t let him in the house.”
    “People come and say that they’re Dr. Tockette, but they’re not, because the real Dr. Tockette knows the secret password.”
    “Dr. Tockette refuses to indulge you in this secret password business, Desmond. He says it’s necessary for your treatment that you open the door and invite him in.”
    “There, you see, a Mexican stand-off.”
    “It costs us two hundred dollars every time you won’t let him in.”
    “Ha! I could find people who would do it for half that.”
    “Desmond, Desmond,” she sighs. “I found an empty bottle of whiskey.”
    “Yes?”
    “You’ve been drinking.”
    “Perhaps a small sip. Forestalling a cold.”
    “Don’t you want to get better?”
    “I only want to be happy.”
    “Happy? What makes you think you have any right to be happy?”
    “I am a life form. Watch the whales, Mommy. They’re happy. They swim around the world in happy pods. They lunch off the coast of Peru, they gather for cocktail hour just south of Greenland. They sing songs. I’m throwing a big party for them, just as soon as I’ve finished the
Whale Music.”
    “Enough.”
    “You’re invited. Bring that husband of yours, what’s his name?”
    “You know very well what his name is. His name is Maurice.”
    “Yes, yes, Maurice. How is Maurice?”
    “Maurice is very ill.”
    “I’m sorry to hear that.”
    “Are you? Are you really, Desmond?”
    The ringing in my ears suddenly becomes deafening, the little hobgoblins have gotten hold of sousaphones and crash cymbals. I pull myself out of the water. I feel so uncomfortable on dry land. “Mom, come into the music room. Come hear the dolphins.”
    “Put on your robe, please.”
    I plod into the music room, locate the bathrobe in the control room. My mother enters the dim room, leans against the wall. She has a new lemon gin in her hand, they seem to materialize there. “Listen,” I instruct her, although, what with the twenty or so speakers mounted on the wall, it’s not as though she has any choice. I feed the tape into the module. The “Song of Flight”, I announce, and then the music starts.