The Last Refuge (4 page)

‘I guess. I’m just not at that stage yet.’

Oli turned and greeted another customer, a balding man in his fifties or sixties, with shorn white hair at the sides and a hippy-looking white beard.
‘Hey, Tummas. Hvussu gongur?’

The man nodded and answered softly.
‘Gongst val, Oli. Gongst va
.’

The barman began pulling a pint of Gull for the new arrival without being asked and took cash from him. Beer wasn’t cheap here and neither was anything else.

‘So what kind of work do you do?’ Oli asked me as he handed change back to the customer.

Good question, I thought. What I did, what I used to do, was something I could never do again, and that hurt.

‘Anything I can get.’ I told him the truth, if not the whole truth. As the other customer took his first mouthful of beer he hesitated and narrowed his eyes at the sound of my accent. ‘I can turn my hand to most things. You know of any work going?’

The barman thought about it for a few moments before shrugging. ‘Maybe. There are jobs. If you don’t mind working hard.’

‘I don’t.’

‘Okay. I can ask around. You be in here again?’

I took a long sup on the Klassic ale in my glass. It was dark, cold and malty. ‘Yeah. I’ll be in again.’

My virgin conversation over, I took a seat at a wooden table with my back to the wall, all the better to watch without being watched. I had a thing about having my back covered. Part paranoia, part self-preservation. Wild Bill Hickok always sat with his back to the wall while playing poker, until the day he played in Nuttal & Mann’s saloon in Deadwood in the Black Hills of Dakota. Hickok got shot in the back of the head that day, and I was damned sure it wasn’t going to happen to me.

To be fair, the customers of Cafe Natur didn’t seem likely to pose such a threat.

Three young guys sat at one table, moodily staring into pint glasses and occasionally gesturing at each other in as unthreatening and undemonstrative fashion as you could imagine. At another table, an older group of men chatted away furiously, but still any kind of fight seemed beyond them. Opposite me, three young women were giggling with their heads bent over tall drinks. One of them, a pretty dark-haired girl with an outrageous 1980s quiff under a porkpie hat looked over and caught my eye, measuring me up before turning back to the company of her friends.

The man, Tummas, who had come in just after me, sat on his own on the mezzanine level, surveying the scene below. Or at least, he was surveying me. He was leaning back in his seat, a leather waistcoat over a white T-shirt, with blue jeans and what seemed to be cowboy boots, slugging on his pint and looking down to where I sat. Maybe he’d never heard a Scottish accent before. I turned side-on and let him look at the back of my head.

Even allowing for Tummas’s scrutinizing, the bar betrayed a distinct lack of any threat, of any of the latent aggression that I was used to looking out for in pubs in Glasgow. Maybe it’s all about what you are accustomed to, knowing how quickly a lively discussion can become a heated argument. Maybe it’s all about spending too much time in pubs where it’s wise to sit with your back to the wall. This wasn’t Deadwood.

I drained my pint of Klassic, replaced it with a Gull and resumed my watching brief from the position of safety. Through the far window, beyond the wooden stairs that climbed to a second floor, I could see the harbour. White boats bobbed and the grass-roofed red buildings of Tinganes winked at me through the smirr. Free from the drizzle and with the warming buzz of the beer inside me, I grudgingly admired the beauty of the scene. Take away the rain, and the wind, and I had to admit the Faroe Islands were beautiful. The beer must have been stronger than I thought.

Suddenly a raised voice from the table opposite interrupted the idyll and made me turn my head. I saw the dark-haired girl with the quiff gesturing extravagantly, her entire body angrily animated. One of her friends, a short girl with long fair hair, sat with her back to me, but I could tell by the way her arms were spread out, palms up, that she was either apologizing or simply failing to understand what she was being berated for.

Whatever it was, the argument had seemingly sprung from nothing. The three of them had been laughing over drinks just seconds before and now were at war. I knew I shouldn’t look, but the dark-haired one was oddly hypnotic. Her green eyes were on fire, staring at her friend furiously. As I watched, her hand shot out and she slapped the other girl across the face.

The sound rang around the little pub, the sharp smack of flesh on flesh.

The dark-haired girl who had delivered the slap sat frozen in her chair, the only movement being her mouth falling slowly open, as if she was confused by what she’d done. The third girl covered her own mouth with a hand, her eyes wide.

The three of them sat dazed for a fleeting eternity, until tears began to roll silently down the cheeks of the girl with the quiff. It burst some communal dam and in seconds all three were in tears and hugging each other over the table in either apology, forgiveness or consolation.

After a bit, they must have remembered that they weren’t alone, and looked around to see people watching them. It prompted a fit of nervous giggles then the swift finishing of their drinks. They stood and headed sheepishly for the door, all cloaked in their embarrassment, except for the dark-haired girl, who turned and stared defiantly at the other customers before she left. If this was Deadwood after all, then Calamity Jane had a black quiff and a porkpie hat.

I drew breath on their departure and recommenced my people-watching, albeit aware that the most interesting of the Natur’s clientele seemed to have gone. The speed with which the girl’s mood shifted had fascinated me. She’d flipped a switch from fun to furious, then another from apologetic to defiant, all changing faster than the Torshavn weather.

Sipping slowly on my beer, I watched the world inch by, slower than the drizzle but just as constant. People ghosted past the pub window, unhurried shadows on their way to or from the sea.

The ageing white-bearded rocker Tummas left too, although not before returning his glass to the bar and bending in close conversation with the barman, his head flicking back in my direction. Whatever was said was brief and the man took the front door towards the harbour. However, as soon as he was outside, he paused and turned to look back in at me, his eyes narrowed in concentration. This time his stare immediately bothered me, sending paranoia spiralling through my bones. Maybe this guy wasn’t fascinated by my Scottish accent. Maybe he was trying to work out where he knew me from.

He left and I tried my best to settle, convincing myself that I was reading something into nothing. Some old guy was curious about a stranger in town. Nothing unusual about that. It would have been more surprising if he hadn’t been.

After a while that could have been a minute or an hour, I became aware of a voice at my shoulder. It slowly dawned on me that my name had been said, and it was only on the third calling that it registered. ‘John?’

I looked up and saw a man of about forty examining me from behind a greying beard.

‘Oli says you are looking for work.’

He was tall and slim, with bright blue eyes that regarded me inquisitively. The grey at his chin and temples seemed at odds with his face, which was tanned and unlined. He wore jeans and a blue checked shirt under a navy-coloured jumper.

‘Um. Yes. I am.’

He nodded, continuing to look me over. ‘And you are from Scotland, yes? I knew someone from Scotland, a friend. He was a good man. What can you do?’

‘Anything. I’m a hard worker.’

He continued to weigh me up, scepticism staring back at me from behind the beard. ‘It is not well paid.’

‘That’s okay. I need a job.’

‘And it is hard. But it is honest work.’

What was that supposed to mean? Why would he feel the need to state that it was honest?

‘Honest work is the only kind I want,’ I assured him.

‘You haven’t even asked me what the job is.’

‘It doesn’t matter. I’ll take it.’

Maybe I was being too desperate. I could see him regretting the offer that he hadn’t yet made. He scratched idly at the hair on his chin.

‘Are you a man of God?’

I’d happily have given whichever response would get me the job, but I had no idea what that was. All that I was sure of, as my head whirled, was that it was the defining question of this interview. I looked at the man and plumped for his being a bible-basher rather than a heathen.

‘I am.’

He smiled and nodded slowly.

‘Do you know anything about fish farms?’

‘No.’

‘You can learn. You start tomorrow. Where are you staying?’

‘The Hotel Torshavn.’

He pursed his lips disapprovingly. ‘It is expensive there. I will pick you up outside the hotel at eight. I am Martin Hojgaard.’

‘John Callum.’

He shovelled a large hand towards me and I shook it gratefully. I had a job. And one less reason to leave.

Chapter 6

Hojgaard arrived as promised the next morning. I’d been awake since six, partly because of the infernal light but also due to an overwhelming nervousness at what lay ahead. I hadn’t started a new job in eight years, and hadn’t been sure that I ever would again.

The rear door of a steel-coloured Citroën C4 opened and I clambered inside. Hojgaard was driving and two other men, both in their early twenties, nodded a greeting at me and Hojgaard made the briefest of introductions. ‘
Gooan morgun
. This is Samal and Petur.’

‘Callum.’

We fell into silence as Martin negotiated the narrow streets and drove past the ferry port to the ring road. The morning was dry and there was even a hint of sun behind the thin layer of cloud. It counted as a heatwave here.

We were heading north, the sea on our right all the way, until we swung west along the shore of a fjord. At its head, we crossed overland, emerging on the other side of a large headway. We climbed further north and dipped into an undersea tunnel that seemed to run forever. It was my first indication that we were going to one of the other islands. The sign I saw when we emerged told me we were now on Eysturoy.

On we went in silence, until, at the sign for the village of Eidi, we turned north then east along the coast a short way. Hojgaard signalled right and pulled onto a single-track road that dipped down towards the water’s edge. Way out in the bay was a series of large circular contraptions that I took to be salmon cages, rising and falling with the surge of the sea. A long, low navy-blue warehouse lay off to our left, a taller white building at its end, and two container bays beyond that. Two boats were moored by the wooden jetty and a couple of large, cylindrical aluminium tanks sat nearby.

‘Risin og Kellingin fish farm,’ Hojgaard told me. By way of further explanation, he turned to his left and pointed out to sea, where I saw two spectacular rock stacks, both over three hundred feet high, at the foot of a large headland. ‘Risin and Kellingin. The giant and the witch. Come.’

He led the way while I looked back over my shoulder at the stacks as I walked. The one furthest from the headland was tall and bulky; it was easy to see the curve of broad arms at its side and the protrusion of a head looking towards its mate. The other was slightly the shorter of the two and triangular in shape, seeming to be standing on two legs. The giant and the witch indeed.

Samal and Petur disappeared to their stations while Hojgaard gave me the guided tour of the factory. The floor of the first room we passed through ran with water as people in blue overalls and white hairnets busied themselves. The chug of conveyor belts cut through the chill of the air, muffled only by the sound of running water, the sharp smell of fresh fish all-pervasive. Gleaming silver-grey sides of salmon shone on steel-grey tables.

‘At Risen og Kellingin we have farmers, handlers, packers and shippers,’ Martin explained. ‘You will do different jobs depending on what is needed. Okay?’

I nodded, my senses overwhelmed by my surroundings.

‘You will be in here on the production lines or out there. On the cages. You can swim, right?’

Martin saw the look of wariness that spread across my face and laughed, the first time I’d heard him do so.

‘It’s okay. We have boats. We don’t like losing workers in the cages.’

I allowed a laugh of my own to break out. I realized I had signed up for something I had no knowledge about whatsoever.

‘We farm wild Atlantic salmon. We look after the fish. We look after our workers. And we look after the environment. It is important to the owners, the Poulsen family, that all three are cared for. They make sure that our fish are reared and harvested ethically. As a result, the taste is the best. No antibiotics, no stress in the meat. Nothing but premium salmon. We are very proud of our fish.’

We’d moved into another room, where five workers in yellow waterproofs were tending to large white containers of fish as a machine passed above, dropping shavings of ice onto the fish below. Behind them, crate after crate was stacked to the ceiling, each bearing the company symbol of the giant and the witch.

‘You will learn how we work and why. The company likes everyone to understand why we do things the way we do. It is all about protecting the quality of the fish and the environment here. We operate what is called the all-in, all-out strategy. The government says each production site is limited to only one generation of fish. When the generation passes though, everything is dismantled, cleaned and then left crop-free for at least two months. It is a very good regulation. The salmon are protected from the spread of disease and the ocean currents clean the site. Come.’

Hojgaard led me into another room by a connecting door. A bank of TV screens was against the wall, operators sitting in front of them. On each screen, I saw shoals of salmon swimming this way and that, their silver flesh sparkling in the murky dark of the Atlantic.

‘We watch them twenty-four hours a day,’ Martin told me. ‘They are important to us and we watch them as if they were our own children. And like children, we feed them when they are hungry. The cameras also show when the fish are rising to the surface and we can activate the feeding pipes in the cage by computers from here. It means we only feed them when they want it and we do not waste food.’