The World According to Vince - Jane Harvey-Berrick Page 0,94

staying on my honeymoon?” Gracie yelped.

“It’s more of a moneymoon,” I quipped, then moved on quickly when she didn’t smile back. “We’ll be camping while we’re on safari. In tents. Big tents. The best tents—with, um, zips … er … zippers and everything.”

Gracie closed her eyes, then blinked a few times before her voice came out in a whisper.

“Showers?

“At the end of filming, yeah!”

“But … but the film crew said they have a month-long shooting schedule?”

“Yeah! Innit fab?!”

“No showers for a month?” she said faintly, then smiled. “Bring it on.”

“That’s me girl!”

Grace

We stood by the Chobe River in northern Botswana as the setting sun turned the water blood red, and the sky blazed orange and gold while we stared down at the herd of elephants, silent and awed as the massive animals sank their enormous feet into the dark, gluey mud of the riverbank.

The producer nudged Vince, reminding him that he had a job to do.

Vince walked over to our guide, Baruti, a gnarled old man with wiry white hair and a ready smile, dressed in his uniform of khaki shorts and shirt. He’d worked with the wild elephants in Botswana for over 40 years, and there was nothing he didn’t know about these magnificent creatures.

He led Vince toward a female who was standing by herself, watching the two men and swishing her stubby tail.

“This is Nkechi,” said Baruti. “Her name means ‘loyal’. Her mother was killed by poachers when she was just a month old. I helped to hand-rear her until she was old enough to return to her herd. She is very friendly. She likes you. See? She is wagging her tail, just like a dog.”

“That’s a bloody big dog,” Vince laughed. “Imagine cleaning up that shit!”

“We’ll have to cut that bit,” the cameraman mumbled, but the producer disagreed.

“TV gold,” he said.

Vince and Baruti walked right up to the large female, and even after all this time and knowing he really was an animal whisperer, my nerves jangled as Vince ran his hand down the ridged skin of the four-ton animal.

Vince stroked her a few more times, then turned to do his piece to camera.

“Elephants love me, don’t you, baby,” he said to Nkechi, making me smile nervously. “I can talk to them. All animals understand me—we have a thing. How’s it going, beautiful? You ready for your close up?”

I don’t know why I should have been surprised, but Vince’s TV show had been a huge hit as the weekly program was broadcast on the internet, and several hours of live footage streamed every week. Millions of people were watching Azzo in Africa—Walking and Talking with Elephants. He had more work offers and endorsements than he knew what to do with, and it quickly became clear that my idea of becoming an events planner would have to go on hold while I filled the role of his manager and sorted through the dozens of offers he was getting every day.

My crazy goof of a husband was becoming one of the most popular wildlife presenters since Sir David Attenborough and only just behind Bindi Irwin. Who would have thought it? But that was Vince’s world, and he was great at it.

My heart was filled with love as I watched him. Vince had taught me so much: he’d taught me to plan less and enjoy life more, to value the sheer joy of taking what life threw at us, together. He’d taught me to open my heart, and he’d taught me to hope. Most of all, he’d taught me to seek the sunshine, to look for the positives, even when life seemed dark and dreary. He’d taught me that being happy was a choice we had to make every day, finding the smallest thing to smile about.

I’d smiled a lot on our safari, even managing to forget that the camera crew followed our every step.

The production company were already talking about a follow up series, Azzo in the Arctic—Walking and Talking with Penguins, which I greatly preferred to their original idea of walking and talking with polar bears, which would have been a lot more dangerous. Vince was even planning to get a Canine Crusader suit made in penguin colors.

Vince was smiling happily as he continued to stroke the enormous elephant.

“Me mate here, Baruti, has told me that many elephants mate for life, which is just like me and Gracie,” Vince grinned. “But I might see if I can steal a kiss from Nkechi while Gracie is over there. Give