When we reach the coast, Melissa and Tricia are already there – shrieking with laughter and then speaking in huddled confidences as though they’re the oldest of friends. I see Melissa give her a friendly wallop on the back. I’ll bet that hurts, I think, wondering whether Tricia had braced herself for one of Melissa’s ‘affectionate’ punches.
Just before the sand trails down to the sea, poking up above bulrushes and the long grass, is a support frame, already in place, with the skeleton of a wooden, almond-shaped boat on it.
‘Aren’t we building the whole boat?’ Margot sounds disappointed.
‘No,’ Inge tells her. ‘Even the smallest boats take about two weeks to make – ten days, at a push, if I haven’t got kids with me.’ It dawns on me now that she means single-handed. Overachiever #101. ‘But there’s still lots to do,’ she tells us as we reach Melissa and Tricia. The women swiftly disengage and listen up. ‘We need to check the planks are overlapping, stuff wool in any gaps.’ She gestures towards the ‘three bags full’ – presumably from my ewe-nemesis and her kinfolk – in hessian sacks a few yards away. ‘Then we smear everything with tar to keep the water out.’
‘That’s the stuff that Magnus likes?’ Margot asks. She may be a genetically gifted superhuman, but she doesn’t half lack tact …
‘What?’ Melissa looks nonplussed.
‘Yes, that’s right.’ Inge sighs. ‘The stuff Magnus likes. Anyway, you make the tar by cutting up pine or birch, covering it with grass then setting it on fire—’
‘Is it just me or do a lot of things in Viking culture involve fire?’ Tricia asks.
‘Yes.’ Inge feels no need to defend this fact. Instead, she nods towards a large oil drum with the embers of a fire underneath and says, ‘Here’s some tar I made earlier’, at which we all snigger.
I’m in an episode of Blue Peter …
‘So, err, will we all fit in the boat when it’s finished?’ Tricia asks.
I’d been wondering this, too. It does look a little on the small side …
‘Officially?’ Inge replies. ‘It takes two people. But that’s Viking men. You lot—’ she sizes us up ‘—I’d say we can fit three in. We won’t all go out in it together. You need some ballast, of course, but the water should be no higher than two fingers below the top plank.’ She demonstrates an imaginary line just beyond where the uppermost plank ends. ‘I always recommend two oarswomen and a steerswoman who’s also the navigator or sub, like in football.’
‘Oh.’
‘The substitute person can also be the bailer, if needed. And there’s a plug in the bottom of the boat to let the water out,’ Inge instructs us.
‘A plug?’ Melissa asks. ‘Doesn’t that let the water in?’
‘No.’
‘Are you sure?’ Margot asks, helpfully.
‘Am I speaking?’ Inge fires back.
‘Y-es … ?’ Margot doesn’t sound quite so confident now.
‘Then I’m sure,’ says Inge.
That’s us told …
She points down at the rubber stopper in the base of the boat and speaks slowly, as though we are morons. ‘The plug is for when the boat is out of the water, to let out any rain. When the boat’s at sea you should never pull the plug. Obviously.’
‘Right!’ Melissa looks relieved.
‘And do we need an anchor or something?’ Margot asks, still keen.
‘Vikings didn’t bother for boats like this – we just make them light enough to drag on land.’ Inge demonstrates this by lifting the boat and giving it a gentle toss in the air. Margot does the same, to reassure herself. I try, and it moves not an inch.
Stupid upper body strength! Stupid Margot with her Michelle Obama-arms. Just because she and Inge hit the DNA jackpot …
The section of the boat that’s already been tarred (a term to which I struggle not to add ‘and feathered’ to) feels like metal to the touch – warmed by the sun, oxidised and scaly, almost. Melissa also has a go, tracing her fingers along the tactile surface.
‘Like a dragon …’ she murmurs to herself.
‘You do know they’re not real, right?’ The quip slips out of my mouth before I can think better of it.
‘Yes!’ Melissa snaps, but looks disappointed.
Oh brilliant, I think, Space: no, but dragons? Sure …fn1
‘OK,’ Inge calls out. ‘Time for action.’ She looks at me here. ‘We need to finish tar-ing up, then we can do seats, oars, oar locks, and a rudder frame – plenty to be getting on with!’ We’re each given a task and, first up, I use my less-than-impressive might to shift ropes, stiffened with seawater.
I want Melissa to speak to me again after my outburst last night, but my misguided dragon comment hasn’t helped. She’s happily chatting and laughing away with Tricia and Inge – even Margot. But she won’t even look at me. I am frozen out of all conversation.
Talk to me! I will her, arms full of salty hemp coils. Me! Only it appears that my reserves of sisterly telepathy are spent.
My spirits are lifted slightly by a cameo from the sun – a hot white orb burning west across the sky as we work. Hard. The labour is so physical that often there’s silence all around. Our collective energy is used up by the sheer endeavour of lugging planks of wood, nailing them, stuffing gaps with fistfuls of wool, then conveying leaden, lava-hot tar in buckets from the oil drum to our painting positions surrounding the boat. The children play in the long grass, occasionally fetching food for us or tucking into the picnic-rucksack and gorging on apples until Inge commands the youngest to stop (‘I can’t cope with a toddler and a husband both shitting liquids,’ is how she puts it, eloquently). Finally, once I’m convinced that I can’t do any more without dropping or at least finding somewhere to hide in the bulrushes for a power nap, Inge says, ‘Well then. Let’s give it a go.’
Translation: Let’s watch it go wrong together …
‘Should we wear life jackets?’ I ask, not entirely trusting our own creation. Inge looks at me as though I’ve just suggested defecating on her firstborn. I take this as a ‘no’ and remember Magnus’s insistence that Vikings don’t do health and safety. I’m not, however, the only one with reservations.
‘If we fall in the water, will we get Weil’s Disease?’ Tricia is asking in all seriousness, as she pushes back hair from her face with tar-stained hands.
Inge looks puzzled.
‘Maybe you don’t call it that here.’ Tricia appeals to the rest of us for help, but sadly my medical knowledge doesn’t extend to translating urine-born bacterial infections usually carried by rodents. ‘Rat syphilis?’ Tricia tries again. ‘Do you have that?’
Inge allows herself two raised eyebrows at this. ‘Me? No, I do not have rat syphilis …’
‘No, not you – I mean the water! Is it clean? If we fall in while out at sea?’ Tricia looks anxiously from the boat to the sea and back again. ‘Or … sink?’
‘Of course it’s clean,’ is the response. ‘This is Scandinavia.’
‘Fair enough.’ Melissa sniffs and begins to lug the boat towards the water, single-handed.
Even at her most irritating, my sister can be very impressive, I think, a little proudly.
We take it in turns, two mere mortals and an Inge, for each ‘go’, so that we don’t sink our cherished creation on its maiden voyage. Melissa elects to go out with Tricia, which stings. So I’m left with Margot. Again.
My sister’s party heads out first with whoops of excitement (hers) and even from my station on the shore I can see that Melissa’s having the time of her life.
‘I’m the King of the World!’ I hear her calling out as she stands, wobbles, and is swiftly pulled back into her seat by Inge. ‘Sorry,’ she shouts back. ‘I mean “Queen”. Or rather, “Viking”!’
‘My sister is no Leonardo DiCaprio,’ I mutter.
‘Oh, I know him! A girl in my class went out with him for a while. She met him doing some modelling,’ Margot pipes up, mid-apple.
Of course M
argot went to school with models who date Hollywood A-listers!
The biggest celebrity link our school ever had was Geoff Capes, the shot-putter, coming to open the summer fete one year. That and Jamie McMahon getting two girls in the year above pregnant before their A-Levels, I remember now.
I leave the Leo line hanging and am already paddling out to meet the boat and help heave it out by the time Tricia and Melissa come back at the end of their turn.
‘That. Was. Amazing!’ Tricia gushes. ‘And to think, we built it! Almost!’
I hadn’t expected this. Axe-throwing enthusiasm aside, my dealings with Tricia to date have involved the two of us, unified by our poor attempts at mastering the hallowed Viking skills. But one morning with my sister and now she’s apparently a new Viking woman … ?
I feel my mouth become pinched with envy.
Melissa and Tricia proceed to high five, and even offer Margot one as she wades past to gracefully vault aboard. But me? Nothing.
‘That looked like fun!’ I try, but Melissa ignores me and just holds the boat steady while I clamber not-at-all-gracefully on board.
Inge instructs us on where to sit and heaving at heavy, freshly sanded oars, we set off.
It’s nothing like the rowing I used to do at the gym, back in the days when I had time to go to the gym. It’s real. And scary. And yet …
We built this! I tell myself, with every stroke. Despite my trepidation at leaving dry land and mild queasiness at the buck and quell of the sea, there are some distinct pros to this boat business. I quite enjoy the cool breeze in my hair and the fresh, salty spray occasionally giving me a facial spritz. There is a sail, too, I learn, as Inge points out the ‘big white thing wrapped around a pole’ sticking up from the centre of the boat. But this, apparently, is for tomorrow. We aren’t going far enough today to warrant such further excitements, and although Margot looks disappointed, I find I’m beaming like a deranged woman in appreciation of the whole exercise in general.
I like this! I could do more of this! I think, and feel a little sad when Inge announces that it’s time to return to shore.
‘I can see Mette trying to wipe Villum’s butt with a bulrush again. She thinks she’s being helpful but I just end up with a kid covered in crap and bulrush. She does tend to think outside the cube …’ Inge explains. I wonder whether she means ‘box’ but don’t mention this. And either way, we return, jubilant.
I am now a sea-faring Viking! Hear me roar!
Once we’re back on terra firma, I’m feeling more optimistic about everything. Invigorated, even. I can see why there was high-fiving before, I think now, and why Tricia loved it so much. She and Melissa have already started walking home by the time Margot and I (mostly Margot) heave the boat up on shore. Inge takes the younger children in hand and Margot offers to give Mette a piggyback, usurping my previous role.
With Inge up ahead and Margot wowing Mette by pretending to be a horse (something she was always going to be better at than me on account of actually owning several …), the rest of the walk passes slowly. And alone.
After the adrenaline of the boat trip, a wave of fatigue washes over me. I feel as though I’ve used up a lot of energy trying to put in command performances today, failing at every turn. Contrition isn’t my forte, I think, and Melissa’s still mad as hell … Bugger …
I want to get home, slide off to the bedroom and feel the wave of relief that I know simply closing my eyes will bring. Getting up again might require a more heroic effort than I currently have in me, I reason. But I’ll do my best. I always do. Don’t I?
I finally make it back and while the rest of our party are showering or refuelling, I head to our room for a lie down – just for a while. But on the way, having tip-toed past the master bedroom to avoid any awkward confrontations with Magnus over rogue berries, I brush up against the bookshelf in the hallway. So close that my elbow catches on something, wicker spikes hooking themselves into the fabric of my jumper. There’s a clattering sound and I realise that whatever it was has fallen off the shelf, scattering its contents over the wooden floor. I stoop, meaning to right the accident before anyone sees, but soon find myself face to face with … my phone.
Looking around to check no one is watching, I pick it up. Instinctively, I turn it on. Breath quickening and heart hammering, I unlock the screen and am rewarded with their faces: Charlotte and Thomas, grinning up at me. A quake disturbs something inside me; plates scrape over each other and I realise that the very core of me has missed them.
I only planned to have a quick look at their picture, but I find I can’t put them down.
I can’t not look at this, at them, a moment longer. The soft, fleshy faces of these two extraordinary human beings I was mostly responsible for bringing into the world.fn2
I stuff the phone up my sleeve, drop the rest of the devices back in their basket and scuttle off to our room to try calling, or at least do some elicit scrolling through pictures of them under the covers. Much like my experience of reading the Sweet Valley High saga by torch after lights out as a child. So, you know, it’s at least Viking-saga-related, I think, conveniently overlooking the fact that I am now breaking Inge’s overarching Noble Virtue and her lynchpin for Viking and Völva life: honesty.
But I tried honesty last night and look where that got me. Here goes nothing …
Nine
I try calling Greg first. Not through any huge desire to speak to my husband but in the hope that he can put the kids on the phone.
I can check whether Charlotte’s lost her upper central incisorfn1 and find out whether Thomas got on OK at assembly …fn2
But there’s no response on the mobile. Or on Facetime. Or Skype. Greg and I have a tendency toward muteness in common (along with low-level mutual contempt …) so I’m not hugely surprised by this. It’s not our habit to contribute unnecessarily to conversation, let alone initiate one. I also told him in no uncertain terms that this was my ‘week off’ – ‘off’ childcare, wifeliness, dentistry, everything. And Melissa warned him that there might not be adequate ‘telephone reception waves’ for calling home at our retreat destination. So really, I’ve made my own no-contact-with-the-kids bed, I think now, wretchedly. But I try. Again. And again. Until the gloom of having to assess my own face, for an age, like in the hairdresser’s mirror, for another round of fruitless blob blob blob video dialling proves too much. I hang up, feeling dejected.
Greg’s probably mired down in a busy day of News 24 and toast …
I send him a text instead and it occurs to me how much I’ve missed the boo-wip sound of a message shooting off into the ether.
Not as much as my children, OBVIOUSLY … but a bit.
I’ve missed seeing those little bubbles come up underneath my blue messages that tell me someone’s composing a reply. And then …
I have bubbles!
Greg appears to be responding. The bubbles keep bubbling as he types … but then, nothing. Just my message, hanging there, suspended in nothingness.
This is bad, I think. Really bad … But we can’t split up, I’m still trying to persuade myself. We’ve got two kids! Who’s going to want me with two kids?
I look back at my phone, doing precisely nothing. No bubble. No reply.
Who’ll want me? Not Greg, clearly …
Dear Greg, I want to write: Don’t start something you’re not willing to finish … But then I realise a more grown-up approach as befits a professional mother of two with four bags-for-life in her car would be not to enter into a passive aggressive SMS exchange. When they go low, you go high … or something. Taking a deep breath, I call. Again. But there’s no reply. Again.
He doesn’t want to speak to me. Which means I don’t get to speak to Thomas and Charlotte … A scenario that is partially of my own making. This makes me feel very low indeed and the Greek chorus warms up for an encore. So instead, I distract myself by making the most of my contraband phone access.
Ta da! Bad feelings: buried.
A few texts from work give me a rush of importance and validation, notwithstanding the fact that they are predominantly ‘where ARE you?’ variants from colleagues who’ve forgotten I’m on leave. But aside from the office, no one has missed me.
No one? I think, a little wounded. Of course, I’m relieved to see there’s nothing from the anonymous number that I am now 99 per cent sure was Mr Teeth. But really … no one? No friends? Nada … ? I realise, again, that I may have let my social life slide in recent years.
In lieu of a life outside of work and my immediate family, I scroll through the collection of photographs I keep of Charlotte and Thomas on my phone. My mood lifts as unconditional love takes my face hostage. I see my children dressed for the first day of school; in the garden against a wash of blue sky; playing in the snow last winter.fn3
There’s no response to another round of calling, so I diversify, dipping into various other apps. I check LinkedIn for a digital reward pellet (Another new endorsement! Does Alice Ray know about Veneers? Does she heck!), dismiss a few emails from the surgery that can wait, and flag up the others to respond to when I’m back. Because, I recognise now with the perspective of a few days away, nothing is really as urgent as an email marked ‘URGENT’ makes things out to be.
Except for Mrs White’s filling. That does need replacing asap …
I forward the request on to reception with an angry red exclamation mark to signal that it’s high priority. Then I have a browse around, taking full advantage of the password-free WiFi access.fn4 And before I know it, I’m three years deep into an old school friend’s Facebook photos, envying her picture-perfect home and feeling a twinge of the RSI I regularly suffer from. That’s not good, I remind myself. Stop it. Stop scrolling, now. Just as I’m about to close the app, I notice that Steve from the surgery has posted a ‘LOL’ video that has apparently been shared several hundred thousand times called ‘Woman Goes Crazy at Work’, accompanied by the hashtag #thatsshowbusiness. Steve has added his own comment. ‘MUST watch – feel better about my job already …!;)’ to which Beverley from reception has oh-so wittily replied. ‘You don’t have to be crazy to work here, but it helps!’
Gone Viking Page 21