‘That’s awful!’ Tricia says, cooing over the creature.
‘It happens, in the countryside,’ assures Melissa, our resident Countryfile correspondent, with an eye to impressing Inge, I can tell. I’m starting to wonder whether Mrs Bad Sheep was my nemesis-ewe (‘nem-ewe-sis’?).
The one who tried to put me off my berry foraging and crapped everywhere …
On the roughly hewn kitchen table is a loaf of bread and a bowl of something white and cloudy-looking.
‘Goat’s milk,’ Inge informs us. ‘Fresh this morning. Good for dunking.’
‘Oh my …’ says Tricia.
‘Are we in the olden days?’ I whisper.
‘I think we might just be,’ she responds in hushed tones.
‘You have goats, too?’ Melissa is asking.
‘Yes.’
‘Wow.’
‘So you found the house all right?’ Inge asks and we nod. ‘Did you use the trailer?’
‘Trailer? No … we built a stretcher,’ says Margot a little too keen in my view to take credit for the idea.
‘You carried him? All this way?’
‘Yes.’
‘Along the road?’
‘There’s a road?’ Melissa is stupefied.
Inge shifts Magnus’s weight against her to free up an arm and points out of the window. There, next to the worn path we have taken out of the woods is a parallel, perfectly tarmacked road. ‘Right there, past the pig,’ she says, as though we are idiots.
We are idiots, I think, or, rather, Melissa is. She made us go that way …
‘Oh! Right. Yes, we saw the pig,’ Melissa nods, attempting to wrest back some pride.
‘Yes, we just have one now. There were eleven, but we ate them,’ Inge says simply before addressing Magnus and saying something that sounds slurred.
‘I think it’s Danish,’ whispers Tricia.
‘Right.’ I nod.
Inge pulls back her husband’s eyelids to study his pupils, then examines his tongue before propping him up like a ventriloquist dummy against the wall.
‘Well, she doesn’t butter her parsnips,’ murmurs Tricia, just as I’m admiring her brisk and efficient bedside manner.
She ‘wifes’ a lot like I ‘dentist’, I think.
‘Will he be OK?’ Margot looks concerned.
‘Oh, sure. I’ll make him the usual,’ she says, reaching into cupboards for an assortment of implements and ingredients. She selects a gnarled arthritic hand of ginger from a wooden crate of produce and begins to peel it with the back of a spoon before chopping, expertly and without looking, until it has been thoroughly pulverised. Then she adds a dash of hot water from a pan on the stove, and finishes it off with a sprinkling of something brown.
Melissa sniffs, trying to identify the mystery powder before finally nailing it. ‘Smells like tacos!’
‘Cumin,’ Inge says. ‘Helps him sweat it out.’ When she’s done, Magnus is flopped over her arm like laundry and she carries him out of the kitchen, throwing back an, ‘I’ll just get this down him, then we can talk. Make yourself at home – coffee’s in the pot.’
‘Coffee?’ My ears prick up and I can feel my pulse race and fingertips tingle in anticipation. ‘We’re allowed coffee?’ I half gasp with delight.
‘Of course.’ Inge shrugs. ‘We’re Vikings; we’re not Amish.’
Good point! Stupid Magnus and his stupid rules, I think, before adding as an afterthought: Though obviously I hope he’s OK …
‘And help yourself to salted liquorice,’ she adds, as though this is a ‘thing’ we should know about.
‘Sorry?’
‘You don’t have that back home? Good for reviving. Looks like you might need it. Anyway, it’s just there, on the table.’ Inge gestures at a small glass dish containing dusty pellets I had previously taken for something the lamb had excreted.
Melissa digs in at once, explaining that she’s sampled these on her previous adventures in Scandi-land and proclaiming them to be ‘delicious’.
I’m not convinced but I gamely pop one in my mouth when the bowl is passed around before instantly wishing I hadn’t.
‘I think my airways are on fire …’ The taste is revolting. Like someone is urinating in my mouth … someone very dehydrated …
‘Oh yes, salted liquorice originated as a decongestant,’ Melissa thinks to mention now.
Expectorant sweets? FFS …
‘Well, my tubes are certainly opening …’ I swallow as fast as I can to get rid of the abomination currently taking my mouth hostage and reach for the coffee, asap. Margot makes ‘mmm’ noises but her face tells a different story and so Tricia politely declines what she terms ‘a piss-sweet’.
Margot winces slightly at this, and I realise I’ve never heard her swear. Interesting, I think, Sodding perfect, sodding Margot … Then she begins to choke and I realise it might just be the salted liquorice making her face contort.
‘You OK?’ Melissa asks. Without waiting for an answer, she thumps her on the back until the offending lozenge is released from Margot’s windpipe.
‘Thanks.’ She nods.
As soon as Inge is out of the room, a flaxen-haired child appears from inside the cupboard that has also been housing the lamb.
‘What the …’ Tricia is startled, but the child’s face melts into a mask of pure mischief, as he scampers towards the kitchen table.
It’s the berry puker! I think, affectionately, remembering the little boy who so perfectly cut his father down to size via the medium of regurgitated fruit the other day. Ahh, good times …
Berry Puker scales a chair until he’s high up enough to reach a box of matches lying next to a Scandi-cool candelabra.
‘Is he old enough for those?’ Melissa looks doubtful.
‘Err, no! Definitely “no”!’ I’m already on the move to intervene. ‘He’s about three years old, four at a push.’ I edge towards him and hold out a hand in what I hope is international sign language for ‘give me the matches you tiny pyromaniac’. But he responds with a look that is international kid language for ‘Noooo way!’
‘Children and naked flames, what could go wrong,’ Melissa observes.
‘Don’t just stand there, help!’ I demand, as the child strikes two matches in quick succession then runs away, whooping.
‘OK, let’s do pincer formation!’ my sister suggests.
‘What even is that?’ I don’t take my eyes off the Prometheus toddler and wonder on what planet Melissa is on if she thinks now is the time to start referencing obscure military formations.
At this inauspicious moment, another child appears, similarly blond and no more than five – Thomas’s age – clutching what appears at first to be a fistful of knives.
‘Jesus Christ!’ I yelp. Then I see a fork or two glinting in there as well and realise she’s merely grasping … cutlery.
OK, so maybe you’d allow an exceptionally mature (?) five-year-old sole charge of silverware but you’re still not allowed to give a child matches, are you? Even in Scandinavia …
‘Just get those matches!’
‘It’s like herding hellcats!’ Tricia yammers as she and Margot try to round up the pre-schooler packing fire.
‘Everything OK?’ Inge returns, hands on hips.
‘Oh, thank god!’ Tricia exhales. ‘The kids, they just appeared and then went for matches … and knives … and forks!’ she adds, somewhat unnecessarily. ‘And they move so fast!’ She attempts to justify our woeful lack of control over the situation, but Inge looks unfazed.
‘I see you’ve met Villum and Mette,’ she says, beckoning over the would-be assassins and making them wave at us.
‘Villum’? I think. ‘Villain’, more like.
The two children say something we don’t recognise in Danish, then Inge moves on. ‘And we passed Freja, the youngest, on the way in.’
‘There are three … ?’ Melissa exclaims, doing the addition in her head. In all the excitement, I’d almost forgotten a
bout the toddler using a chainsaw as a climbing frame.
‘Yes.’ Inge nods. ‘But everyone helps out,’ is how she puts it as Berry Puker Villum climbs up onto the table to light the candles and the five-year-old – Mette, it must be – lays out knives, forks and spoons. Shit, I think, Thomas couldn’t tell me where we KEEP the cutlery. And Charlotte’s seven but she can’t even be arsed to change a pillowcase …
Inge retrieves Freja and carries her like a rugby ball, a fluffy yellow chick still clamped in the infant’s chubby miniature fist. The child’s face and spare hand are presented under the kitchen tap for a cursory ‘wash’, then she’s deposited into a plain wooden high chair.
‘We were just about to eat,’ she explains, pulling a heavenly-smelling tray of buns out of the oven and setting it down on the table, along with bread and butter. ‘Join us?’
‘What about Magnus?’ Tricia asks, reminding us all of the medical emergency we had been immersed in just five minutes ago.
‘Ah—’ she waves a hand dismissively ‘—he’ll be fine; just a mild case of neurotoxicological poisoning.’
‘Mild’ and ‘neurotoxicological poisoning’ aren’t words I’ve ever used in the same sentence, but Inge appears calm.
‘The symptoms will be gone in a few days. He just needs simple food, fluid and rest.’ She flings a tea towel over her shoulder, pulls down plates for everyone, and is about to sit when she notices small puddles now forming around our feet. ‘Oh, you’re wet! Let me get you something to change into.’
And with that she is gone, with three feral, flaxen-haired children in her wake.
‘Well, I think we’ve earned some refreshments,’ says Melissa, sitting down and pouring coffee.
‘This isn’t roughing it at all,’ says Tricia, before adding, ‘but I like it!’
‘Christ … so good,’ is my only input as I savour the sharp tang of the first coffee in days on my tongue and inhale the tantalising aroma – appreciating the ebony nectar in a way I’ve never allowed time for before. It is exquisite. And after the second sip, I feel like a new woman: caffeinated with life.
Margot slumps slightly in her chair at the far side of the table and eats ravenously. I realise that for all her Girl Guide survival skills and Little Miss Sunshine tendencies, she has borne the brunt of Magnus’s weight for the past few hours. She must be exhausted, I think. No wonder she’s starving.
I catch myself in this unusual manner of thinking. What is it, I ponder, an alien sensation … or at least, a feeling of the sort I normally reserve for Thomas and Charlotte … a sort of … Oh! And then I realise: That’s it! It’s compassion-for-another-adult-human-being-who-is-not-a-blood-relative/the victim of some televisual atrocity, and whom I have no professional obligation to be nice to …
I see I still have some work to do.
‘Here, dry clothes.’
Inge is back, bearing armfuls of fabric in strictly grey or black. ‘They should be clean, or as clean as things get with three kids around. They might be a bit … for some of you …’ she tails off as we all realise what she’s thinking: none of us are built like Amazonian goddesses and it’s likely we’re going to look a lot like we’re playing dress-up here. But we try, Melissa and Tricia stripping off in situ (‘What? The kids won’t mind … bye bye, Cary Grant, see you later …’) while Margot and I take it in turns to do a Mr Ben in the loo. After a seamless sartorial rejig, we’re all dressed in Inge’s out-sized monochrome cast offs and look a lot like we’re in an all-female experimental theatre troupe. But we are warm. And dry. And my fingers and toes tingle with renewed circulation and gratitude (if fingers and toes can experience such emotions, which – I give mine a wriggle – I’m pretty sure mine currently can. So there …).
Our clothes are freed from indenture as a make-shift stretcher and Melissa gratefully accepts the offer of having her ‘lucky’ maroon fleece laundered and returned to her as soon as is possible.
We eat, raisin-encrusted buns delicately spiced with cardamom and slathered with butter – even mine. Then Inge asks the children to clear the tea things away and, astonishingly, they do as they’re asked.
Are they drugged? I think, watching perfectly poised children stacking plates. Hypnotised, maybe? How is this happening?
‘Tell them what they can do, then you don’t have to spend so much time telling them what they can’t do.’ Inge appears to read my mind.
She IS magic … I’m trying to reconcile these feelings of giddy heroine-worship with sensible, four-bags-for-life Alice, when Melissa gives me a dead leg and tells me, ‘See? I told you this would be an adventure!’
Inge summons our attention by laying both forearms on the table as though she’s about to talk business. Which, in fact, she is.
‘OK, so you can have full refunds, of course – and we can get on to the airline this afternoon to find out about moving your flights.’
‘What for?’ Melissa asks, fishing out a rogue raisin from her back teeth.
‘Going home,’ Inge answers.
‘Home’?
It’s as though someone’s sucked the air out of my lungs.
Melissa swallows hard, trying to take it in, and Margot looks pale. None of us have had time to think this one through. No Viking leader: no Viking training.
It comes as a jolt. Because despite my moaning – to Melissa, Tricia, the universe, anyone who would listen, in fact – the thought of returning to my old life fills me with a sort of sinking feeling.
We’ve come so far, learned so much. Heck, we’ve even bonded over a make-shift stretcher and found a way to compensate for our varying physical defects to carry a man four miles across unfamiliar terrain … I’ve made a beetle-brooch, for god’s sake! We can’t leave now!
The idea of going back to my own life now seems impossible. Implausible, almost. I want to shout this, to object in some way. But no one else is speaking. No one else is articulating just how much ‘going home’ now would be a Very Bad Idea. Indeed.
That’s it then, I think. It’s over. Nothing will change.
I’ll get to see the kids sooner, which will be great. I’m already aching for them after four nights away. But it also means going back to work. And to Greg. And – did I mention? – NOTHING WILL CHANGE …
I feel very hot all of a sudden, as though something is bubbling up inside me until …
‘No!’ The protest emerges from my mouth quite involuntarily. Four pairs of eyes swivel towards me. ‘What I mean is, well, maybe, we should discuss it, first … between ourselves.’
Melissa’s expression alters slowly from despair to something resembling hope/her habitual human Labrador persona. I notice Margot nodding, slowly and even Tricia brightens.
‘Would that be OK?’ I go on, pleading now.
Inge regards me, perfectly still.
‘That would be OK.’ She nods. ‘I’ll give you a moment. I think Freja needs changing anyway.’ She seizes her smallest child and sniffs her undercarriage before conveying her to the bathroom like a rugby ball. Once she’s out of earshot, we all look at each other, unsure of where to start.
‘I like it here,’ Margot says, finally. ‘There’s nothing to go back for … this week, at least, I mean …’
Melissa nods. ‘The dogs are being fed and walked, some local teens are keeping an eye on the horses, my neighbour’s got the rabbits – I’m home and dry.’
‘I can honestly say that I’ve never had so much fun carrying a semi-conscious Viking through unfamiliar woodland,’ is Tricia’s reasoning. ‘I don’t even mind that there aren’t any available men here! It’s been nice, having a bit of a break. Stocking up on lady hormones … it’s like HRT without the bloating!’
‘Plus, I really want to build a boat!’ Melissa adds.
A feeling of connection passes around the table and I find I’m smiling.
‘So we’re agreed?’
‘I think we might just be.’
When Inge returns, we all look at her with our best impl
oring faces.
‘We’d like to stay,’ I tell her, to much enthused nodding around the table. ‘Is there anything we could do, to make it work – without Magnus?’
There is an anticipatory silence that crackles, almost, in its intensity – so anxious are we all to know what our future holds.
Finally, Inge speaks. ‘Well … I’ve done a couple of these now … when Magnus … well, you know …’
‘When he should have used flashcards?’ Melissa asks, tactfully (for her).
‘Exactly. So, I suppose, I could teach you some stuff …’
‘What, as well as looking after three children and a lamb in a cupboard and a sick husband?’ I want to stay. I really do. But I can barely cope with myself most mornings so want to give Inge the chance to think about what she’s signing up for. Teaching four batshit British women on top of running a child-animal menagerie and tending to a vomming Viking would be too much for any woman, wouldn’t it?
Margot doesn’t give this much consideration.
‘That would be amazing!’ she beams, and Tricia claps her hands together.
‘OK then,’ Inge nods, as though the matter is settled, before adding a caveat. ‘But I can’t be coming over to the shelter every day – not with Magnus and the kids here.’
‘Oh, right, yes,’ I say. ‘Well, we could come to you … ?’ I have absolutely no recollection of the route but now that I know there’s a road option, I’m pretty sure at least one of us could remember it.
‘Or you could just stay here, in the house,’ she says.
‘Could we?’ Tricia’s eyes widen. ‘Have you got room?’
Mmm, hot running water … I start to fantasise already: Sheets … !
‘Sure,’ says Inge, ‘the kids usually co-sleep—’
Of course they do …
‘So you can have Mette and Freja’s room,’ she says. ‘I made them bunk beds last weekend.’
‘By yourself? From flat pack?’ Tricia is impressed.
But Inge looks confused. ‘No – from trees …’
Gone Viking Page 15