Two of the young trainee vets working with him were tending to a seal whose flipper was caught in a fishing net. They were slowly disentangling the poor thing, who seemed to understand they were trying to help and remained still and quiet, looking at them with her huge expressive eyes.
Since Jack and Delima had started up the animal sanctuary, they had been inundated with broken, bruised and battered animals of all kinds. From baby owls with damaged wings to otters with cuts to their noses and paws.
They’d even had a very disgruntled walrus who had strayed way off course from the frozen north. He had taken out his bad temper by mounting some of the sailing yachts in Kirkwall harbour, reducing them to little more than bits of twisted metal and kindling. Jack chuckled at the memory. Somehow, they had guided ‘Wally,’ as he was inevitably nicknamed, back out to sea and on his way back to far away Arctic waters. It had taken days of patience and a fleet of little boats, but Jack was so proud they had saved the splendid mammal.
A photo of a very angry-looking Wally took pride of place on the noticeboard as well as various newspaper clippings about his adventures that had given their fledgling sanctuary a real boost. Jack had spent a large chunk of his savings buying and restoring the ramshackle house on the white sandy shore near Hoxa on South Ronaldsay.
They still had enough money to live on, but he had underestimated the amount of cash it cost to save all the animals needing help, and he knew they would increasingly rely on donations to keep the place running properly.
From the outside, Jack looked like the strong one in their marriage. He was ridiculously good-looking and bore more than a passing resemblance to the Viking god Thor, but it was his tiny wife, Delima, who was the real powerhouse.
They had met when Jack went to work in Singapore. He had always wanted to have a job outdoors, on the land or by the sea, but his father said he needed a steady career, so to please him he went to university to study accountancy. He found the job soul crushing, but Jack was talented and hardworking and quickly gained promotion, ending up in the City of London working for a multi-national merchant bank.
Overworked, stressed and thoroughly fed up with all the wide boys and chancers he had to deal with on a daily basis, Jack was totally disenchanted with London high finance and decided to apply for a job overseas in Singapore. He thought if he had to work in this corporate world, he might as well do it somewhere warm, interesting and that would be a safe base to explore a fascinating part of the world.
So there he was in Singapore and what a place of wonders. He’d spent hours walking around Little India and the Arab quarter visiting temples and buying gifts of perfume and carpets for his family back home in Orkney. He didn’t join in verymuch with the heavy drinking ex-pat scene, but finally agreed to go on a night out with some of his colleagues from the bank.
And that’s where he first set eyes on Delima, who was with a group of her friends in the Ku De Tat bar atop the Marina Sands Hotel. Jack was planning an early escape and desperately trying to ignore the braying, red-faced Aussie opposite, bragging about his latest killing on the stock exchange. He glanced over at a table by the window, saw Delima and was hit by a thunderbolt.
She was slim and elegant and apart from a tiny bit of black eyeliner, her face was make-up free, but her skin glowed. Delima’s hair was jet-black, shiny and cut in a perfect bob and her green silk dress was deceptively simple and fitted her to perfection. Jack thought she looked like a Singaporean Audrey Hepburn.
Everything in the bar seemed to go into slow motion and all he could hear was the thud of his heart beating. He locked eyes with the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with and gave her what he thought was his most charming and winning smile.
In fact, his expression was so completely gormless, Delima looked hastily away. He turned to the group of financial blowhards and asked if any of them knew the girl in the green dress, but they shrugged and told him not to waste his time.
The boastful sunburnt Aussie with the peeling nose roared there were plenty of girls who would be glad to spend the night with him. He waved his mobile phone around. “Just one click away my friend.”
“I’m not interested in paying for a woman,” said Jack tersely. “Not my style guys.”
He called the waiter over and asked him to send a bottle of champagne to the ladies at the table opposite with his compliments.
When the bottle arrived, Delima looked over at him with a puzzled look on her face as if to say: ‘Do I know you?’ Her friends giggled but they didn’t send it back.
Emboldened, he walked over and addressing Delima, he said: “I know you must hear this all the time, but I think you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my life. I would love to get to know you better. Maybe just take you out for coffee and we could have a chat sometime.”
There was more giggling from her friends and one of them said in Malay. “Who does this big-nosed hairy apeman think he is? Coming up to you like that without being invited and trying to make you go out with him. Tell him to get lost.” She gestured with her hand for Jack to beat it.
But to her horror and surprise he replied in almost perfect Malay, “I am most sorry. I do have a very large nose and I am indeed hairy but that does not change the fact that your friend is beautiful and looks kind and I would very much like to take her out. I am quite new here and I hope she will take pity on me and help me to get to know Singapore better.”
Delima burst out laughing. Her friend looked sheepish. Delima was intrigued, “What is your name?”
“I’m Jack Randall,” he said in English and added to himself, ‘And I am going to marry you and take your home to Orkney and we will have a house full of beautiful babies.’
This time his smile actually was devastatingly charming.
And that was that.
Jack thanked the Lord he had decided to go out that night and that he had learned passable Malay before moving to Singapore.
The two of them decided to get married after six months and move into a tiny and overpriced one-bedroom apartment in Duxton. Although he loathed the world of banking, Jackwas raking in a fortune and Delima earned a top salary as a buyer for a fancy department store in Orchard Road.
They talked long into the night about their plans for the future, deciding to give it two more years in the rat race and save up enough money to be able to move back to Orkney. Jack hesitantly told Delima of his dream to raise a family and own a wildlife sanctuary.
Instead of being appalled she agreed to go with him and help him live his dream.
Her friends were not convinced and her sister Layla told her, “I looked it up. Orkney is freezing, you will die of the cold and it’s also dark for half the year. You will have to eat disgusting deep fried food and your insides will clog up and then you will die of that, if the ice and wind doesn’t get you first.”
Delima sighed. “That’s not true Layla and you know it. Orkney can get cold, but we will have fires in every room and the sea food is the finest you can find. Better than here even. I can make the best chilli crab and dumplings and that spicy fish curry you love when you visit.”
