S2E1 Beyond The North Wind Chapter 1

Beyond The North Wind was the first novel I wrote and was published on Amazon.  I thought it would be fun to narrate and serialise the novel, chapter by chapter.

Here is the first chapter.  Alexander, a young Englishman, is passing through Norway after the events in Magnus and, before that, The Book of Alexander (both published by Salt).  His story will become entwined with that of a Norwegian woman, Anna, who is looking for her missing husband, Emil.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Beyond the North Wind. Chapter one. In the days that followed the captain's departure, I hid away on the farm run by his wife Tona. A police helicopter picked its way in and out of the fjords, while I picked fruit with the other farm hands, nervous of the clatter of rotor blades overhead, wary at night of infrared cameras. My fears subsided. It was not me they wanted. They were after the monster, the mountain man who had lit up the islander's swindle. He had terrorized five good, decent people from the university, threatening to burn them alive in their hut, but they had rallied and conspired to chase him over a cliff. The body of the giant man had been fished from the sea. His death was recording as accidental, a rat cornered with nowhere to run. I nodded at the events recounted by the farmhands, watching the red berry juice run down my arm. A new story then emanated from our wind up radio out in the fields. The police were searching for a local man who had gone missing somewhere on the coast. His wife was appealing for help and information. The missing person was quite famous, a photographer called Emil Gironde, someone I recalled from my studies. Search teams were combing the nearby area on foot and were expected on the farm soon. My friends kept me updated while we loaded baskets of fruit into trailers. The next day I was eager to leave. Turner had laid out breakfast on the kitchen table, but I stood ready to go at the door, dressed in the grey tracksuit and grey hooded top she had donated. I thanked her, in Norwegian, for helping me out, and voted my thanks to her husband and his crew again for saving me, mispronouncing the words from a note I had composed with much help. She smiled and looked a little teary as she packed my breakfast in a bag. We walked down the path from her house to the fjord where we hugged goodbye. A bus took me to Tromsa. In the city I trailed tourist groups around the cathedrals, museums and other landmarks, attracted by the sounds of the English speaking guides. In the evenings I practised what I had learnt in the day and listened closely to the guide's patter on the next tour. After a while I knew as much about Trumsa as the guides. Gossip in the evening bars led me to Anders. He handed me an official guide badge, and I started my first tour the next morning. The group were a mix of Europeans whizzing around the top ten attractions in the Paris of the North as I learnt to introduce the city. Anders gave me a phone and the key to a house where I and other illegal immigrants slept. He arranged further work as a guide. In return I gave him half my earnings from the tourist centre, and nothing else, and like other people tempted by more money. I called the mother and father hotline, and a short time later a replacement passport arrived in a brown padded envelope delivered to the main post de Nauge in the city. The clerk accepted the ID presented on my phone. I was a legitimate person again. I grinned as I remembered trying to post the report on Alexander to my client in Cambridge. Those were the days when I was foot loose and fancy free. To blow with the wind was my aim. All was fine for a week, then the fits came back. The first was in public in the nave of the Dumkirka. Some thought I lay quivering out of religious fervor. Others saw that I frothed at the mouth and bit my tongue. Anders was not pleased. He waited a couple of days before sending me back out to work. The next time I simply fainted, falling like a sack of potatoes in front of a group of tourists at the polar museum, who laughed hard until they saw the dark spreading stain on my trousers. Anders took away my badge, phone and key, and I never saw him again. I was left with some cash stuffed inside my passport. That night the lowest I have ever endured, I heard the name seagreed again. There was no one else in the room. When the fishing boat carrying me pulled into the little harbour and drew up at the quay, I had a tremendous sense of deja vu. The day's light was the soft glow of a light box, and the sea, sky, houses and boats were all sharply defined. The water, although deep, was clear enough to see the bottom of the harbour. I was happy to step off the boat onto the solid wooden planks, and while I felt giddy for a moment, my balance returned soon enough. This side of the harbour was a single tall cream house with large doors, some sort of factory. On the opposite side of the harbour was a long line of wooden houses, all built up on another wooded stilted quay. The houses were mostly white, otherwise the deep colour of orange red and brown mud. A line of orange boys bobbed in the harbour, beyond which there were two other boats. These craft were sleek and gleaming white. They suggested tourists taking fun rides, not the hard work of fishing the sea. Behind the row of houses the grassy hills rose to an impressive height, and in the middle, somewhat on its own, sat a large white house. The old man who had brought me over from Tromser in his boat called to me Sigrid, he said, and he hooked a thumb upwards. Tak. There is always someone in charge, in any place you visit, and Siegrid was known for her charity to others. I walked round the harbour looking out for English speakers, but heard only local accents and saw smiles of welcome. The houses around the quays and wharfs were in good shape, well maintained and painted, but as I walked up the path into the hills, I saw that the houses behind the facade of the Pitcherbook Harbour were run down, squalid, disused. There was evidence of restoration work, scaffolding up to the roofs, lumber placed in neat piles, one side of a house freshly painted. A middle aged woman stepped out on the path in front of me. She was in her fifties with thick auburn amber hair that framed her head. Stop there, please, she said, smiling like a pleasant policewoman. I'm just visiting Sigrid. The woman shook her head. Not today, it's not a good day. I looked at her, examining a face tanned like supple leather. Are you Sigrid? She shook her head. I'm her sister, Civ. Sigrid is having the day off. What does she do when she's working? Civ turned and waved her hand across the harbour. She rebuilds this place. On her own, I smiled my brightest smile. With the help of visitors. They build, they paint, they restore the buildings. I can paint, I'm an artist. She looked at me for a long time. Ah you are English. You reminded me of someone else. She struggled to be happy and welcoming, but there was something on her mind. She pointed down to a house the colour of okra. There is food and water in the house, Hines will show you. Tomorrow you can help us. Okay, thank you. No questions were to be asked. I was welcomed as a traveller who needed a job. Perhaps this place would be as easy as picking fruit on Tona's farm. Civ turned and started back up the hill. I called out behind her. Tell Cigreed that I'm sorry for her loss. Civ stopped and turned around. How do you know about that? I suppose people have been talking. Your bracelet the colour of blood in remembrance of someone who is lost. I was guessing, but the air in this place had a tension about it, as did Civ. The red bracelet, made of wood or ivory, I could not tell which. Could have been a party bangle for all I knew. But it happened that I hit the nail on the head. What is your name? Names, identities, characters chance, necessity Which way was the wind blowing today? I raised the ante by asking my own question What was the name of Siegrid's son? I've only ever seen this look of awe, of realization that the speaker is on another plane, on one other woman's face before. The woman was Ruth years ago in that wine bar, when I had an idea about her work that would help her out. Sven, she said quietly, how did he die? She looked away over the sea. I had to move closer to hear her voice. He had health problems from an early age. His heart she looked up at the White House. I did not ask any more questions. Sven's death was not recent. Siegrid's sister had not been crying. The skin around her eyes was not puffy, and she could talk about Sven without faltering. The red bracelet was in an anniversary totem. Here Siegrid engaged with the world through others, letting them do the work of young men. I was a welcome young man who, tomorrow, would be painting one of the fishing huts down below. I suddenly felt deeply sorry for Siegfried, an emotion that surprised me considering that I did not know her. But then do we need to meet all the lonely people of the world to feel empathy towards them? Civ pointed down to the harbour. Hines is down there. She turned and walked up the hill to the White House. My stomach ached and my mouth was dry. I wandered back down the hill, turning plans over in my mind for tomorrow. I was an itinerant worker in a disused Norwegian fishing village, accepted as a case of charity. I expected to meet other similar travellers, and I was not disappointed. Hines was at the door to the Okra House. I did not even have to ask his name. He had a thick, bushy, walrus moustache, and was joined by another bold man of the same thick build. The image of leaping from the frying pan into the fire occurred to me. You wish to blow the wind, Alexander, then you must live your life in line with the roll of the dice, and see where that leads. Hines explained how the place worked. There were three meals a day and a bed with a mattress and a large white house where I arrived. In return for the food and board I would provide labour and follow Hines' instructions. I was not to disturb the artists who visited or get in the way of the holiday makers, even though I fitted both categories. I was welcome for one month, then I should think about moving on. The island provided respite for those who needed a break from their life. I picked up a can of undercoat and got to work. There was bean soup for lunch with mysterious green leaves floating in it. The bread they served was long life made by robots and factories. I resumed work, happy to play my part for a while. This was not to be one month of painting and soaring, and inevitably avoiding Heinz's attention. Siegreed was the boss woman, always go for the boss and see what she wants. She had lost Swen, her son, a young man around my age. Had he been an artist too, or a labourer, or someone else? I reflected on my wide ranging interests in arts and psychology. There was now a need to break new ground, to shock, to do something worthwhile that had real impact. I had an audacious idea forming, one that would help Siegrid move on. And then I too would move on, riding up on the next breath of wind to goodness knows where.