An extract from Soundings: Journeys in the Company of Whales by Doreen Cunningham.
Travelling the grey whale highway
The train ride is a beauty. We shoot out of the station in our capsule, in glorious limbo, past the Wun Fun meat company buildings and a viaduct. Max and I stare out the window, transfixed. Muddy brown snake of river and yellow conveyor- belt- plant flash past. Glittering heaps and in the distance mountains. I can feel the landscape filling my head. This is how my heart is furnished, like the view from a train. I like to be totally occupied in the immediate. And am always, always, longing for something in the distance.
Max is sitting quietly next to me and then he is not. He is retching. I launch myself towards him just in time to catch a stream of brown vomit on my front. Chocolate milkshake while we waited for the train had seemed a great idea at the time. Passengers nearby look around, then quickly turn away. A towel, some tissues, I have nothing. I can’t open my bag because my hands are covered in brown. When the retching stops I shuffle backwards into the aisle, carrying Max and cradling the brown lake between us on my T- shirt. I walk down the train towards the toilets.
‘Sorry, sorry,’ I say to each person as we pass.
A tall woman in a white blouse leaps up, her eyes wide. ‘Oh my!’
I apologise frantically.
‘What can I do?’ she asks. She’s joined by another woman offering help. They excavate items from my rucksack and pass them to me in the loo. Baby wipes, shampoo, nappy, clean clothes. Finally, they magic up a plastic bag to stuff the dirty clothes in. I want to hug them but worry I might still smell of vomit, so I thank them instead.
‘Been there,’ says the tall woman knowingly. The other wishes me luck.
‘Nee- nee, Mummy,’ Max interrupts. It’s our codeword for boobs. He breastfeeds sporadically for the remaining journey. I keep a towel and baby wipes close to hand.
It’s getting dark when we arrive in San Diego.
‘I need to go on a tram,’ Max shouts as they stream around us.
‘Maxim,’ I say firmly, ‘we’re getting a bus.’
‘Not a bus, I need to go on a tram,’ he screams. A man gives him a quarter and tells him I will buy him something later but Max shrieks, at ear- splitting volume, all the way through the bus journey and into check- in at the hotel. That night he sleeps peacefully but I can’t. I take his temperature every few hours. What am I doing? Was it really that bad in the hostel? At least it was safe there.
At half past four in the morning I wheel Max out in the buggy, dropping things everywhere. He’s still out for the count. A warm wind blows around a group of mainly elderly people standing by a minibus. I thought there would be other kids, other ages, families. Everyone’s quiet, shocked to be up so early. I fit the car seat into an empty row in the bus. Max wakes as I lift him in and stares sleepily out of the window. No one speaks. We’ve got hours of driving ahead.
At the Mexican border the officials peer in and wave us on. The checkpoint guards are attractive, two women and one man, with tight trousers and guns. I fancy all of them. It feels so good to be out in the world again, brings back memories of travelling for work. I’m reminded that I once had a paid job, was self- supporting, judged useful by society. We pass through Tijuana, where colourful roadside businesses are just starting to wake up.
‘We’re getting closer to the whales,’ I tell Max.
‘Look Flash, whales.’ He holds his toy dog up to the window.
‘Not yet, we’ll be there soon.’
He gives me a dubious look and goes back to sleep.
We’ll join the whales where the ocean is geographically blessed by the tropical and subtropical desert climate. The lagoons are their safe place, their birthing grounds. I’ve read that whale- watching pangas are not allowed to get close but occasionally whales approach the boats. I imagine a grey whale mother giving birth, raising her tail vertically from the water and lowering it again, repeating the movement while a comparatively tiny head emerges close to her own flukes out of a beautiful long slit. Surrounded by seawater and amniotic fluid, the unborn calf will have been hearing everything, will know his mother’s voice. He appears, inch by inch, then it’s all in a rush, all five metres of newborn in the water, fins unfurling. She supports him with her body, he scatters the surface, breaks the light with his first breath.
I remember breathing and blowing, calling out into the water as my body produced my son. Whales and humans are both mammals. I wonder if we experience birth similarly. Our babies both seek out the nipple, make sounds that communicate that they are upset, or scared. We share the same survival instinct, feelings that tell us to go towards things, or get away. I haven’t managed to provide much in the way of close family for Max, but I want to show him his place in this more- than- human family and to tell the whales thank you, just for being here.
On the narrow mountain roads, lorries come by fast and close. Cacti give us the finger as we pass. We arrive in Guerrero Negro as the clouds curdle with orange. I carry Max to our room, his face and arms licked amber by the sunset. I know whales see in monochrome. But do they play in the changing light as night falls? I wonder if the baby whales are sleeping out in the lagoons. Are the mothers watching the sky? Do they feel the wonder too?
Soundings: Journeys in the Company of Whales by Doreen Cunningham is available now for £18.99
Join us at Stanfords on Wednesday 15th June 2022 as we welcome Doreen to talk about her book. More information and tickets available here.