Gone Viking

by Helen Russell

  ‘Anyway, there’s a hamper with oats for porridge, flour, eggs, a few essentials.’ She gestures up shore. ‘And I like to free up any bad mussels.’ She nods to the shells in her hand. ‘Don’t want to kill any of you!’

  ‘No,’ I manage. ‘Quite …’

  ‘So how are you finding the retreat so far?’

  ‘Um …’ Melissa stalls. ‘Good, although I thought there might be a few more Viking helmets around—’

  Oh god no, not this again.

  I will her to stop. She does not.

  ‘You know,’ Melissa goes on, ‘with horns?’

  ‘Vikings didn’t wear horned helmets,’ Inge says flatly.

  I nod furiously, keen to convey that I haven’t been buying into the Asterix the Gaul-hoax.

  ‘Not even “for best”?’ Melissa isn’t giving up that easily. ‘They didn’t even dress up on special occasions?’ she asks, still hopeful.

  ‘Being a Viking isn’t about dressing up,’ Inge replies, studying Melissa. ‘It’s about what’s inside. It’s finding your North Star,’ she says, slipping the knife into a holster.

  ‘My what?’ Melissa asks.

  ‘Your guiding principle,’ Inge explains.

  ‘Is that like the seven stages?’ Tricia asks. ‘Handicrafts and going berserk and all that?’

  ‘Sort of,’ says Inge. ‘Going berserk and being stripped back, naked, is all about getting to your essence—’

  ‘Oh,’ say Tricia, her tone thoughtful, but I’m forced to interject.

  ‘Sorry, what was that last part … ?’

  ‘You mean getting to your essence’?’

  Well, yes, but also …

  ‘I mean the other bit?’

  ‘Being naked? Stripped back?’

  ‘Uh-huh …’ I tremble.

  Inge looks confused, as though this can scarcely be a source of concern. ‘You’re afraid of being naked?’

  Yes, I’m afraid! What fresh hell is this?

  Tricia and Melissa both strive to look completely at home with the idea – and, in fairness, probably are – so it’s just ‘uptight Alice’ who’s suddenly losing her mind at the idea of losing her pants.

  ‘That’s just “who you are”, underneath it all. There’s a freedom in nudity,’ Inge says matter-of -factly as she loads up Tricia and Melissa with supplies to take back to base camp. ‘You could be a CEO or a cleaner, it doesn’t matter. Everyone’s equal when they’re naked – and we all need to be comfortable with ourselves in our natural state, obviously.’

  Obviously. I try very hard not to look like a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

  You see, I don’t do naked.

  There hasn’t been any need in a long time now. Even in the shower, it’s more of an ‘in, out and try-not-to-catch-sight-of-own-corporeal-form-after-two-kids-in-the-full-length-mirror’ type thing. On the few occasions I’ve been forced to set foot in a public changing room, I execute the ‘shimmy into underwear while holding up a towel with my chin’ move with well-practised aplomb.fn2

  I don’t do naked.

  ‘What about pants?’ I ask still hopeful. ‘Could I go berserk in my pants? Maybe a bra—’ but she cuts me off.

  ‘No. Carry this.’

  I’m handed a basket of eggs and it becomes clear that no further explanation is likely to be proffered – nor is there any discussion to be had on the matter.

  I crumble on the inside while attempting to appear cool, calm and collected on the outside – and fail on all three counts.

  Melissa never mentioned anything about taking our clothes off! I’m going to be forced to be naked! In front of women who were strangers just yesterday! In approximately – I try to remember what day it is and how many hours stay of execution there are until I am excruciatingly embarrassed, and fail. Again. Sodding maths. Sodding naked countdown sodding maths. Oh, and did I mention? We’re all going to have to be NAKED?!

  ‘If she really wants to worry about something,’ Inge is now joking to Melissa, ‘most people crap themselves at the getting lost in a forest part!’

  I stop breathing.

  What the merry fuck?

  Forests and I are not friends (see ‘spores’). But getting lost in one? This has only happened once before, on account of the experience being so horrific and etching such an indelible impression on my adolescent mind that I have made damn sure it’s never happened since.

  I was fourteen and railing against the world for letting Mum get sick. But because I liked to ‘rail’ solo (or rather, I had been raised to do it this way), I took myself off and thought I’d try what I believe outdoorsy types refer to as ‘a walk’. It got dark (I also don’t like the dark. Give me a light-polluted city any day) and I got scared. I thought I remembered a shortcut home from reluctant participation in family rambles, so I tried to get back through a forest. And it was probably the most terrifying six hours of my life.

  I’ve never had a great sense of direction – in any respect – and the thing about sodding nature is that it all looks the sodding same. There were no handy shops or houses or landmarks to let me know that I’d already passed a particular section of woodland, twice, or that I was now doubling back on myself and prolonging my torture. There were just more trees. And bugs. And, latterly, bats. I tramped around in circles, getting cold to the core and afraid that I was going to be stuck there forever. Afraid that I would miss out on the remainder of my time with Mum.

  This was when I had my first panic attack.

  Lost and alone in dark woodland, I crouched down among the leaves, trying desperately to breathe and willing my legs to work again. They did, eventually. And I cried with relief. I don’t know how long it took, but when I finally found my way to a break in the tree-hell, I saw a house in the distance. Despite years of ‘Stranger Danger’ education at school, I rationalised that my best – or ‘only’ – hope was begging its inhabitants for help. I mentally prepared for the fact that they would probably kidnap and/or murder me afterwards, but thought that if they at least let me call home first, it would be a price worth paying. Turned out it was where our French teacher, Madame Dean [The Sex Machinefn3], lived with her husband Clive. They were midway through a game of Boggle and more than a little surprised by the apparition of a white-as-a-sheet fourth former peering in through the conservatory window. They allowed me to phone home at once and gave me peppermint tea while I waited to get picked up. Mum was livid – incensed with that strange, parental anger of ‘relief’ that I only recognised years later. I was so consumed by snot and shock that I couldn’t speak for two hours after that. But at least no one murdered me.

  Since then, nature and I haven’t got on. It’s no wonder Inge’s words strike a splinter of ice into my very soul.

  ‘Well, would you look who I found,’ she hollers as we stumble back to basecamp to find Magnus and Margot competing to see who can do the best lunge, post run. He springs up and away from Margot on seeing his wife, then his hands vanish into his harem pants for a quick readjustment to conceal what I suspect might be a modest erection.

  ‘You forgot the welcome hamper,’ Inge tells him tartly, before adding, ‘Again.’

  I’m reassured to observe that even Amazonian goddesses experience marital disharmony. Or rather, exasperation.

  ‘Anyway, here you go.’ Inge hands over her bundle and encourages the rest of us to set down our provender. ‘I’m going to head back, find the kids.’

  ‘OK,’ Magnus mumbles, looking chastened.

  ‘Oh, you have kids?’ Margot is asking.

  ‘Three.’ Inge raises her eyebrows. ‘Magnus didn’t mention?’

  ‘No, he didn’t!’ Margot shakes her head, oblivious to any discord she may be contributing to.

  Inge says nothing but gives a small smile.

  ‘Where are they now?’ I can’t help asking. ‘The children, I mean.’

  ‘Oh, they’re around.’ Inge waves a hand dismissively. At this, my face clearly contorts in something approaching horror
, because she adds, ‘They’re playing – kids should be free-range. We call it “healthy neglect”.’

  At this moment there is a roar and a flaxen-haired mini Viking tears into view. Magnus crouches down to receive him with open arms then flings him into the air, to squeals of delighted laughter.

  ‘Watch out, he’s been berry picking,’ Inge starts, clocking her son’s stained hands, but Magnus ignores her, slinging the child skyward again before dangling him upside down by his feet. ‘Magnus, the kid probably just ate his own bodyweight in berries,’ Inge says again. ‘I wouldn’t if I were you …’

  Magnus continues to ignore her, so Inge turns and begins walking away, muttering under her breath, ‘Three, two, one …’

  As if on cue, the child erupts, projectile puking purple berries-’n’-bile down his father’s legs.

  ‘Urghhh!’ Magnus drops his son and attempts to scrape sick off his harem pants.

  Inge sucks in her cheeks to repress a smile before saying, ‘I did try to warn you.’ She addresses the now-deflated child. ‘Come, come with me.’ Then she tells the rest of us, ‘I’ll see you all soon, I’m sure.’ And with that, she’s gone.

  ‘Wow, she’s …’ Tricia is, for once, lost for words.

  ‘Isn’t she …’ I’ve never met anyone like her.

  Melissa, however, has other things on her mind. ‘What’s in this hamper then? Shall we dig in?’

  So we do.

  As dusk approaches, we cook up some of the leaves that Margot and Tricia found earlier and Magnus shows us how to make dough from the worthy-looking flour in the hessian sack. We’re going to make bread, he tells us, that we’ll cook around the campfire.

  I’m just about to protest that I don’t eat bread and make something up about being gluten intolerant (this is a lie; only my thighs are) when Melissa gives me a dead arm. I’m so startled (this isn’t how grown-ups behave!) and in such agony (ow … !) that I clamp my mouth shut and nurse my arm instead.

  ‘Leave the fads where you found them and just eat the fucking food,’ she hisses.

  I contemplate a comeback, but I’m bushed. And hungry. So I resolve to ‘just eat the fucking food’ (I can just see the new Instagram hashtag now: #justetff) and put my no-carb principles on hold.

  Magnus shows us how to wind ribbons of dough around sticks to make snøbrod, as he calls it – or ‘winding bread’ – traditional style.

  ‘We have a saying here,’ he tells us. ‘When someone needs to calm down, we say they need to “spis lige brød til ” or “eat some bread”.’ At this, he tears off a corner of raw dough and begins chewing to demonstrate. ‘Because carbs help most things,’ he explains, through a mouthful, as Melissa nods vehemently in agreement.

  I knew it! I think, Carbs = sluggish. Must do a double cleanse when I get back to civilisation. But for now, I’m in.

  Sitting on logs in a circle around the fire, we rotate our sticks slowly until the dough cooks to a perfect golden brown (Margot), or to a congealed blob, blackened on the outside and stodgy, possibly raw, on the inside (the rest of us). But it doesn’t matter. Because we’re famished and we’ve cooked it ourselves and so it’s – almost – the most delicious thing I have ever eaten. Hot mouthfuls of doughy goodness send steam escaping from our mouths into the cool evening air, and huddled around the fire as the black, damp night draws in, it occurs to me that perhaps this might not be so bad after all. Then Magnus gets on to what lies ahead of us in our training and just what ‘going berserk’ entails. And I change my mind.

  ‘Berserk comes from “Berserkers” – the name of the fierce Viking warriors who wore wolf skins and howled in battle like wild animals,’ he explains casually, as though he’s telling us how he likes his herring (pickled, I presume).

  ‘Ri-ght.’ Melissa tries to get her head around this. ‘And so, err, what are we going to be doing?’

  We all hold our breath during the seemingly interminable pause while Magnus composes his reply. ‘Wellll …’ he starts slowly, dragging the word out in a manner that doesn’t inspire us with confidence.

  ‘Well?’

  Magnus explains that he doesn’t like to go into too much detail about berserking in case people find it intimidating.

  At this, the anxiety-inducing Valhalla chorus starts up in my head and Melissa thoughtfully relays that ‘Alice is already intimidated after what Inge said!’

  Thanks, Melissa …

  Magnus looks miffed at having his thunder purloined, so agrees to throw us a few more nuggets of information. He tells us that his version of berserking involves ‘running for hours’, ‘being at one with The Rage’, ‘nudity’, ‘sea swimming’, and ‘free dancing’. Each phrase would, individually, be enough to strike fear into the heart of a sober Englishwoman; together they have the effect of something akin to paralysis.

  Once Magnus departs for home and – presumably – the recriminations of his wife and child after puke-gate and failing to acknowledge their very existence, we’re left alone to our thoughts. Which is never a good place to be left, in my experience. Ruminations predominantly centre around the specifics of what’s to come on day seven of our training.

  ‘I heard berserking was a shamanistic ritual,’ Tricia tells us, claiming she’d met a chap who’d tried it once in a yurt in Arizona. ‘You take drugs and hallucinate and stuff,’ she says, becoming vague around the ‘and stuff’ part.

  ‘Isn’t it like an extreme triathlon?’ asks Margot. ‘I thought it was a naked Iron Man/woman with a disco at the end.’

  I’m not sure which sounds worse: this or the hallucinations.

  ‘Aren’t there bears involved?’ Melissa pipes up as I turn white. ‘Don’t you have to wrestle a bear? Or at the very least a wild animal? Maybe one of those mangy racoon dogs?’

  Now, I’m terrified.

  A bear? A fucking bear? Or, best-case scenario, a ringworm-infested racoon dog that may or may not attempt to defecate in my face to finish me off? I’ve already tackled a sheep. Isn’t that enough? Surely animal-wrestling isn’t allowed … even in Scandinavia. Aren’t there health and safety rules about this sort of thing? Then I remember Magnus’s counsel: ‘Vikings don’t worry about health and safety’.

  Turning in to our ‘shelter’ soon after and preparing to embrace the chill of a second night’s camping, I find my mind is racing.

  Is it all going a bit Lord of the Flies? I worry. And if so, which character am I? This is probably something worth considering, I think. Am I Ralph? I’d be Ralph, right? I bet a modern-day Ralph would have four bags-for-life in his car. But then, what if I’m secretly Piggy? Or one of the actual pigs? And what if the ship never comes? What if I never see the kids again? What if I end up on News 24 and that’s how Greg finds out I’ve gone?

  I lie very still, agonising over these questions and trying to get warm, but find I can’t stop shivering – my muscles incapable of relaxing. I can feel the pressure building up behind my eyes.

  Anyone else for a cry? Anyone? I feel like saying. But never would. Or could.

  And then from somewhere, a hand extends in the semi-darkness and gives mine a comforting squeeze.

  ‘It’ll be OK,’ Melissa whispers.

  I swallow hard as a tear rolls down my face, pooling in my ear.

  ‘Thanks,’ I manage finally. She gives my hand one last Melissa-style crush then lets go, and I drift off to sleep to dream of pigs, carrying bread on hand whittled fishing rods, chasing me through unfamiliar woodland.

  Five

  Chickens squawk and scatter as we approach and I spot what may or may not be a mouse out of the corner of my eye. Magnus flings open the double doors of a rickety-looking shed and announces with a flourish, ‘Welcome to the workshop!’

  It’s another flannel-grey morning at camp and we’ve walked for what feels like an Iron Age to reach a circle of huts further along the coast for the next stage in our Viking education. Rustic, weather-beaten, and puffing out black, carcinogenic smoke, the sheds are basic, at best,
and I’m not filled with hope for the day ahead.

  ‘Is this how they’d have looked in Viking times?’ Margot asks, relentlessly upbeat as usual.

  ‘Sure.’ Magnus shrugs. ‘Only with more flies. We used to chuck old bones and rubbish outside, like Vikings did, but environmental health found out and we had to stop.’ He looks crestfallen at the recollection, although, to my mind at least, the scene still looks alarmingly rustic. I half expect to stumble across someone playing a lute.

  Today, I’m amused to note, our leader’s beard is plaited into two braids as though Pippi Longstocking is attached to his chin.

  Could Magnus be ‘peak’ bell-end? I ponder, now, taking in the bearded, harem-panted creature before me. I think, perhaps, yes.

  He lights a lamp that does little to lift the gloom and I can just make out a primitive-looking wooden frame with some string and treadles attached. There’s also a blackened stone stove, and various baskets of fabric and what I’d term ‘clutter’ but Melissa would probably describe as ‘useful bits and bobs’. All in the same indistinct colour spectrum we’ve come to expect from around these parts.

  ‘Help yourself!’ Magnus holds his arms wide. We stand motionless apart from Margot, who approaches the ‘loom’, as I’m informed it’s called. After giving it the once over, she sits at a small wooden stool and rolls her neck and shoulders in the manner of a concert pianist about to give a recital. Then, she sets her hands upon the mechanism and starts pumping furiously at the pedals. Her right hand deftly feeds a spool of thread through a spider’s web of string, then back again, as the contraption claps back and forth, holestones jangling.

  ‘What—’ Melissa starts, but Tricia finishes her sentence for her: ‘—is she doing?’

  ‘Ahh, I see Night Wolf is a natural weaver!’ Magnus looks pleased. ‘I wondered whether any of you would know your warp from your weft!’

  FFS! Who gets to have perfect upper arms, the nut-retrieval skills of a Disney sodding squirrel AND be good at bloody weaving? How is this possible? Aren’t twenty-somethings too busy taking selfies? Or learning coding? How have they got time to master the art of WEAVING? What is WRONG with her? I’m determined, now, to find something.