She turned around and shouted up to the receptionist in a deep southern-American accent. “Hey, honey, if this is the line for the bar, can you make mine a bourbon?”
The girl looked up, smiled and nodded, before returning to deal with the young couple she was with.
The white-haired American woman let out a huge deep, throaty laugh punctuated with a couple of great nasal snorts. I couldn’t help but laugh too. It was one of those infectious laughs – if you stood within a few feet of it, you caught it. The people in front of her and behind me were all smiling too.
She turned back to me then, and held out her hand. “I’m Angie. Pleased ta meet ya, honey.”
I smiled. “You too, Angie. I’m Melanie – my friends call me Mel.”
“Well, honey, Mel it is. Looks like we’re gonna be gettin’ to know each other real well before we reach the top of this line.”
I took an instant liking to Angie. Large as life, she wore a long blue shirt over beige cargo trousers. She was slightly overweight with a big personality that you couldn’t help but be drawn to. We struck up a conversation, and I didn’t notice how long the queue took. It turned out Angie was a horse breeder from Texas, in Norway as part of a world tour that had started in Africa five months earlier – a year to the day since the death of her second husband.
“Damn fool – I loved the bones off the man for thirty-one years, but he drove me crazy. Always so darned careful with money, never wantin’ to spend any more money than was absolutely necessary in case there was some emergency or other around the corner. Then he ups and snuffs it on me – ’n all before we got to enjoy our retirement, before we got to grow old together.” Her eyes seemed to drift away for a minute. Then she gave herself a quick shake. “Well, I ain’t makin’ the same mistake. I’m gonna spend every cent while there’s still breath in my body and fire in my belly – you betcha, the whole, darn, tootin’ lot of it. The kids encouraged me to take this trip – told me they didn’t want no inheritance. So that’s what’s payin’ for all this – damn, but they’re good kids!” She smiled. “Anyhoo, I’m gonna do every single thing now that me and Ron said we’d do together some day.” She put her arm around my shoulder. “I tell ya, Mel, never put off till tomorrow what you can do today. Read that someplace – damn clever words, those.”
“They sure are.” Angie’s laugh wasn’t the only infectious thing about her, I found myself picking up the American twang myself.
“So!” She took her arm away, and stood back to take a long look at me. “You here on your own too, honey?”
“Yes. I decided to take the break at quite short notice.”
“No husband or guy back home then?” asked Angie.
“No, no men at all,” I said, standing up straighter. “I’m here on my own.”
“Well, I’ll have to take you under my wing then. You’re about my younger daughter’s age – mid to late twenties, right?”
I laughed. I knew I was going to like this woman. “Mmm . . . thereabouts.”
Angie’s turn at reception came, and true to her word she waited for me after.
“So you on for a nightcap, honey?” she asked after I’d got my key. “If I don’t get a shot of bourbon before bed, I don’t sleep.”
I had planned to sink straight into bed with my book.
But what the heck? I was on holidays after all.
“Why not?” I said. “I’ll just drop my bag in the room and see you back here in a few minutes.”
Most of the other passengers from our coach had also decided on a nightcap, so the small bar area was quite full when we arrived in.
“So what made you come on this trip then, Mel?” Angie asked as we settled into a corner of a table beside the fire.
“I just love the sea and marine animals,” I said. “I do a bit of scuba diving, well, I used to anyway . . . So when I found you could actually get to see killer whales underwater here, I had to come. I’ve always had a bit of a fascination with whales in particular – they’re such beautiful animals. I did some whale-watching a few years ago in Ireland.”
“So you’ve seen whales in the wild before then?” asked Angie.
“Well, no, not exactly. I took a weekend course with the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group down in West Cork. We learned about whales and dolphins, and about how to identify the different species in the wild – it was really interesting. During the weekend we went out in a boat to do some watching, but sadly the weather was so foggy and overcast that, other than one small harbour porpoise, we didn’t get to see anything.”
“Jeez, I hope now, Mel, you’re not going to jinx us on this holiday. If we don’t get to see whales now we’ll know who to blame, eh?” Angie gave a loud guffaw and a snort.
I hadn’t even considered that we might not get to see whales on the trip. I just sort of assumed they’d be there if I travelled halfway across Europe to see them.
“Do you think there’s a chance of that?” I asked.
“Hakuna matata!” shouted Angie so loudly that the rest of the people in the bar turned around for a few seconds. She picked up her glass, and saluted them all before finishing off her drink. Then she leant in close to me. “It means ‘There are no worries’,” she whispered. “It’s a popular phrase in Africa – learnt it when I was in Kenya a couple of months back.”
“I thought it was from The Lion King,” I said.
“Huh?”
“Nothing, it’s all right,” I smiled.
Angie leaned back from me. “Listen, honey, we either will, or we won’t, see whales on this trip – that’s about the only thing I know. There sure as heck ain’t no point worryin’ about it.”
“You’re so right, Angie,” I said. “We’ll have a great time no matter what happens.”
“That’s the spirit, honey!” She held up her empty glass. “One more for the road?”
I was so tired and groggy from the nightcaps when I got up at five thirty the next morning that I couldn’t decide what to wear. After breakfast we were to have a lecture at the Inn, before being taken out to try to find whales in a large whale-watching boat for the day. The heating was on in my small bedroom, so it was quite snug, but I knew it was going to be very cold out on the water. I finally settled on a pair of thick black combat trousers, thermal leggings, a thermal vest, a long-sleeved T-shirt, a heavy, woollen polo-neck jumper and a warm black fleece – I wasn’t going to risk getting cold. I put my warm puffer jacket and white woolly hat and matching gloves with my camera equipment by the door to collect later. Then I made my way down to breakfast.
We were due to meet in the lecture room after breakfast. Angie was sitting a few rows from the front beside an elderly couple I recognised from the bar the night before. And lest we should forget why we were there, the lecture room was dominated by a life-size model of a killer whale, which hung from the ceiling.
I stared at it for a few seconds.
It really was big. Seeing one of those was going to be quite something, let alone getting in the water with it. I felt a wave of excitement wash over me.
“Over here, Mel!” Angie shouted to me.
I went and sat down beside her.
“Mel, this is Tanya and Bert, they’re from England,” said Angie.
“So have you ever seen whales before, Mel?” Tanya asked after we’d all said our hellos.
Angie let out another of her loud guffaws. I wasn’t expecting it this time and nearly jumped out of my skin.
“Don’t ask!” she said. “Mel here is a bit of a jinx when it comes to whales. Ain’t that right, honey?”
I smiled. I couldn’t help but smile around Angie, even when she was teasing me.
“That’s right, Angie, but I’m hoping you’ll help me break my streak of bad luck.”
We were interrupted then by a bell.
“Hello, everyone, can I have your attention, please?”
A woman with short black hair and very red cheeks stood at the front of the room, smiling profusely and
shaking a small silver bell.
“I’m here to tell you the story of killer whales. It all starts with a very fishy love story.”
And we were immediately hooked.
Odile, our guide for the day, enchanted us with the story of the killer whales of Norway and the mating herring (the lovers of the story) which were the whale’s food source.
“Here, in fact, we prefer to call killer whales by their other name – orcas,” she said. “They sound a lot nicer that way, don’t they?”
We smiled and nodded our agreement. Odile could have given lessons on how to charm an audience. She had such a captivating presentation style that it would have been impossible not to agree with everything she said.
“Orcas are part of the dolphin family.” She clicked through the first set of slides as she spoke. “In fact, they are the largest species of dolphin. The adults typically range from five to eight metres in length, the males being bigger than the females. They are very intelligent, sociable animals, living together in small family pods. They spend about a quarter of their time feeding, and the type of orcas that come to Tysfjord only have one thing on their minds – the herring that meet and mate here!”
Odile pointed to the screen behind her where a sequence of photographs showed the whales using what she called “the carousel feeding method”.
“This is when a pod of whales surround the fish, and slap their massive tail flukes through the shoal of herring, thereby stunning them.” Odile turned around to face the room again. “Then – and you may be surprised by this – they eat the fish one by one. Yes, even though they are such big animals with such huge mouths, they just eat one small fish each at a time. Can you believe it?”
Now, normally, I would be put off by Odile’s approach – it might have seemed more suitable to a group of schoolchildren than adults, but this woman clearly loved her job and the whales, and her passion was wholly infectious.
I sighed as I thought of Marcus, Fenella and the stress of my job at The Mill. I wished I could go back to the time when I felt more like Odile did about my own work – back to the days when I bounced into the office every day at The Mill.
The last slide was a photograph of a line of three orcas – their heads popping out from the water.
“Such a beautiful spy-hopping photograph, isn’t it?” Odile said. “‘Spy-hopping’, as you may know, is when they rise vertically from the water and scan the area around them, rotating as they do so. They are such curious animals as you can see.”
I nodded – I longed to see them in action.
“And so, the number of orcas coming to Tysfjord each year goes up and down,” said Odile, “but it is thought that between four and five hundred hunt the herring and live in the fjords here between the months of October and January each year.”
“That should be enough to see at least one or two on a clear day in November, shouldn’t it?” I whispered to Angie.
“Absolutely, honey,” she whispered back with a wink.
Chapter 12
MELANIE
The Nordic Dream was a large cruising boat with three decks and ample vantage points for spotting whales. Angie, Tanya, Bert and myself found a spot on the upper deck where we could sit outside and take in the scenery and after a quick safety briefing we were under way. The others all went inside to the cabin to get warm a few minutes after we set sail, but I didn’t want to leave. I took a deep breath as I gazed out at the scenery. The air was very cold and sharp, but it felt so fresh and clear that after inhaling it my lungs almost didn’t want to let it go again.
I went up to the front of the ship where I could feel the sea spray on my face. It was freezing, but I didn’t care. I was well wrapped up and I didn’t want to leave. It felt so good to be out on the water again – to inhale the salty air, to feel the vibrations and hum of the ship’s engine. We snaked through the narrow channels of water, passed by jagged cliffs, rocks and snow-capped mountains. And we were blessed with the weather – the sun shone down on us, creating kaleidoscopes of colours as it bounced off the mountains and shone down onto the dark water below. I took out my brand-new camera to capture the scene – and the whole effect was so stunning that I couldn’t stop it clicking away, almost by itself.
“Good for the soul, eh, honey?” Angie appeared beside me. She was all bundled up in a white puffer jacket and matching white faux-fur hat.
“It certainly is,” I said.
“So what kind of equipment have you got there?”
I took my camera off over my head and handed it to her. She inspected it. “Ah, Canon 400D – nice. Good all-round camera, this one. Are you getting any decent shots with it?”
“A few, but it’s new so I’m only getting used to it. I’m just using it on the automatic function at the moment.”
Angie made a face. “You’ve a great camera here, and you’re using it on auto? For shame!” She shook her head. “Well, kid, you’re in luck. I took a couple of advanced photography classes before this world trip – one of those things I’d always wanted to do. Want me to show you some of the basics?”
“Absolutely – that would be great, thanks, Angie.”
I looked over my photos on the small camera screen while I waited in the foyer for Angie and the others to arrive down for dinner that evening. I’d enjoyed myself out on the water, and I felt thoroughly invigorated from the fresh air and the scenery – so much so that I almost didn’t mind that we didn’t get to see any orcas from the Nordic Dream. Almost.
The talk over dinner was all about orcas – whether we would see any orcas the next day, where we might see orcas, what we would have to wear to see them in the water, and so it went on. Like most of the people there, I was enjoying everything about the trip, but seeing the orcas was what it was all about.
One day on the water down, just one more to go.
We’d been warned that it would be very cold out on the small Zodiac speedboats the next day, so this time I put on six layers of warm clothing underneath my dry suit. Angie and the staff at the Inn had enjoyed a good laugh at my expense as we struggled to find a suit big enough to fit over all my clothes, but I didn’t care – I was determined to stay warm.
There were three Zodiacs going out on the water that day. Each had between twelve and sixteen guests on board. They sliced at speed through the waves, which was great fun at first but in time the combination of the icy air and the chilling spray cut right through my layers of clothing – right down to the bone. Angie and I huddled together in the middle of the boat to try to stay warm.
By one o’clock we’d been at sea for over three hours and we still hadn’t found any orcas. The Zodiacs pulled in together to a small fishing-village harbour for lunch. The short wooden gangway was bordered by a row of red, corrugated-iron houses built on stilts over the water. Our boat was the last to come in so our guides Pål and Johann tied our Zodiac to the other two that were already secured to the gangway. We made our way over the other two boats with some difficulty – our mobility restricted by the many layers of clothing and the dry suits. I followed Angie up the ladder from the boat to the gangway, both of us collapsing on the wooden decking at the top to get our breath back.
We both laughed as we hauled our sumo-wrestler bodies upright and waddled up to the café.
I finally felt my blood slowly flow warm again as we sat at the table after eating and I cradled a hot paper cup of coffee gratefully in my hands.
“Tell me about your time in Africa, Angie,” I said, thinking that talking about warmer climes might help warm us up some more.
And it worked. Between the coffee and Angie’s African adventure tales, pretty soon I’d forgotten all about the cold.
“It sounds fantastic. It must have been amazing to have woken up in the Serengeti to see elephants right there in your camp.”
“It sure was, honey,” said Angie. “I’m having the time of my life on this world trip. Only a shame my Ron can’t be here to share it with me – the ol’ coot.”
She sighed and looked down into her coffee.
I touched her padded arm and she looked back up at me and smiled.
“I used to do a lot of travel myself,” I said after a few seconds. “I just don’t seem to do as much any more. In fact, this is my first trip away in almost two years.”
“Why’s that?” asked Angie.
“Oh, I don’t know – lack of funds due to the money pit that is my new house, I guess. And lack of time because of family commitments and study. Not to mention the ongoing struggle at work to keep an overbearing boss happy.”
“Jeez, honey, sounds more like a prescription than a life!” Angie laughed and snorted. Then seeing my expression, she got serious. “Sorry, Mel, I didn’t mean to joke – wanna talk about it?”
So I told her a little about the pressure I was under back at The Mill, and she listened to every word, asking me questions along the way, encouraging me to talk.
“It sounds like those folk in work have been tryin’ to control ya, Mel. You gotta be careful that playin’ the victim doesn’t become your default position. Take that boss of yours, for example – he sounds just like a school-yard bully. And y’know what bullies do when they smell fear? They attack. Thing is, most bullies are just plain ol’ cowards themselves.” She sniffed. “I used to be married to a man like that – my first husband.” She screwed up her nose. “He never struck me nor nothin’ physical, but I sometimes think that what he did was worse – spent his time manipulatin’ and controllin’ everything I did, constantly criticisin’ and puttin’ me down. That son of a bitch had me bullied into submission over the years we were together, had me believin’ that I was worth nothin’.”
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