Call of the Whales Read Online Free Page A

asked, of course I’d say I had a snowsuit. It would keep her happy, and having asked the question made her feel she was doing the proper mother-stuff. She didn’t really know much about the mother-stuff, but every now and then she’d act like a mother. I mean act , not behave; act, like on stage.
    I didn’t really have a snowsuit. I wasn’t three, and anyway, there wasn’t usually much snow the places we went to in the summer time – at least, not in those early days. There was lots of snow on the horizon and pack ice to the north. But in the coastal settlements where we went to meet the people, the summer temperatures were mild to cool, but not cold, and the main problem was the mosquitoes.
    The first time Dad showed me the tent we were going to take with us, I laughed when I saw that it had a built-in mosquito net. I thought mosquitoes were things you got in hot countries. How wrong can you be? We were eaten aliveby the arctic mosquitoes, who were clearly thrilled to find some nice fresh Irish blood – a lovely change for them from the arctic blood they were used to. We were walking gourmet meals, me and my dad, in the arctic summers. It was the lakes that did it. The tundra is always pocked with lakes and boggy pools in the summer time. You could see that as you come zooming in by plane. It’s because the ice melts and there’s nowhere for all the water to go. Some of it finds its way into streams, but some of it just lodges in hollows and it can’t seep away into the earth, because the subsoil is frozen solid all year round. So the water just sits there and creates a lovely damp environment for the mosquitoes to lay their eggs in.
    Anyway, we agreed we wouldn’t tell Mum, so as not to worry her. Dad didn’t worry – or not so’s you’d notice. He understood about risk – that’s the good thing about Dad – and he knew I hadn’t been foolish, just unlucky.
    He said we had to go to Turaq’s house, though, to thank him for saving me.
    ‘ No ,’ I said. ‘I can’t do that.’
    ‘You have to,’ Dad said. ‘We are guests here, and we have to be very careful to be polite. Anyway, it’s the right thing to do. He saved your life.’
    ‘Don’t keep saying that,’ I muttered, embarrassed. But I combed my hair and brushed the twiggy bits out of my jacket and off we set that evening after dinner. I remembered to take Turaq’s sealskin parka with me. We’d dried it out by hanging it inside-out over the tent ridge. I was glad I’d thought of it. It gave us an excuse to be going to his house. Saying thanks for saving my life was not my idea of a reason to visit someone.
    I noticed Dad looking longingly at his tape recorder aswe got ready to go, but I said, ‘No way, Dad! You are not going to tape Turaq.’
    ‘He might have a grandmother,’ said Dad, wistfully.
    ‘I’m sure he has,’ I said, ‘but she is Turaq’s grandmother, not a “source” for you, not a “subject”.’
    I’d picked up a bit of anthropological jargon over the years. I knew that the way of life Dad was interested in was quickly fading and that the old people were the only ones who could tell him about the traditional way of life, but I drew the line at Turaq’s family being used like that, for research purposes. He was my friend. It was different from just any family.
    ‘You’re right,’ said Dad. ‘It would be rude.’
    ‘It certainly would be,’ I said sniffily. I didn’t often get a chance to tell an adult off. It’s a nice feeling.
    As it turned out, Turaq did have a grandmother. Turaq’s father was away at the caribou hunt, but his mother invited us in. My dad was in heaven. His first invitation into an Inuit home that year.
    I liked the inside of Turaq’s house. Nothing matched. Even the two curtains on the living-room window were in different fabrics and of different lengths. It gave the house a lovely topsy-turvy, haphazard, colourful feeling that I liked, like being in a caravan. My mother thought she