By morning, Melissa’s bunk is empty once again and Tricia is distant, despite further apologies. She also looks a little worse for wear and I’m wondering how much more alcohol was consumed after I left the rest of the party last night. I cook my own egg and even Margot can only bring herself to give me the briefest of awkward smiles.
Inge isn’t to be trifled with, either, having been kept awake much of the previous twelve hours, she tells us, by a teething Freja, a partially potty-trained Villum staging a dirty-protest at 3am, and a ‘still moaning’ Magnus. ‘Even Vikings have bad nights,’ is how Inge sums up what sounds like a stint of parenting hell. Then Mette fetches her mother coffee (must teach Charlotte how to use our machine …) and her mood improves somewhat. But I wonder whether Inge’s regretting the decision to keep the retreat going with only our eclectic cast of characters for company.
‘OK, let’s do this,’ she says, draining her cup and indicating to her eldest that a refill would not be unwelcome. Mette obliges. ‘Today is all about where you’re going and how to get there,’ Inge continues between gulps of jet-black battery fuel. ‘So eat well, drink up, and get ready to concentrate: because this shit matters.’ Margot flinches at the expletive and Tricia fixes the floor with a steely glare. ‘Right then, where’s Melissa?’ Inge addresses me.
I shrug then reprimand myself. Very mature, Alice.
‘Well, if she’s not here soon, she’ll have to find us,’ says Inge.
‘She’ll have to navigate her way!’ Margot looks pleased with her pun.
I roll my eyes, then realise I haven’t got many allies left. I’d better play nice, I think. So I give a half-hearted nasal exhalation in lieu of laughter.
It’s a later start than usual, but Melissa arrives just as we’re preparing to leave, cheeks flushed and her T-shirt on inside out, the label showing (Fruit of the Loom’s finest).
On seeing her confidante, Tricia crams a final triangle of toast in her mouth and shoves an arm in her cardigan. She pushes her chair back and hurries towards Melissa, grinning and linking an arm through hers as the pair head outside, whispering.
‘It hurts, doesn’t it?’ Inge speaks sotto voce.
‘Yes,’ I whisper, before I can think or calibrate my face into an expression that conveys ‘nonchalance’.
‘Sometimes—’ she starts.
‘Yes?’ I’m hoping she’s going to dispense some sage advice or offer me a modicum of comforting consolation. But this, apparently, isn’t how Vikings roll.
‘Life’s a bit shit,’ she finishes her coffee with a large swill. ‘You just need to get on with things.’
‘Right. Thanks. Great.’
Or, I could just slam my head against this oak table, I muse, fingering the woody knots. Knock myself out, and make this particular ‘shit’ be over. That’s right, I may finally be losing my four-bags-for-life marbles. Here, in a Scandi-style bungalow, somewhere in rural Denmark, surrounded by overachievers, an estranged sibling, and a sunbed-addict who drinks gin from a mug at noon.
‘Come on, let’s get you navigating.’ Inge stands and gives me a ‘pat’ on the arm, so hearty it nearly dislocates my shoulder.
Jesus, has she been taking lessons from Melissa? Must. Get. Stronger.
‘It’s a new day and this is a new skill for everyone, so it’s a level playing field. None of you sail or row normally, do you?’ Inge asks, loading her bowl and spoon into the dishwasher. Margot looks shifty. ‘Do you?’
‘It’s just that, I ran a sailing camp one summer,’ Margot starts, ‘and Dad owns a boat. And I rowed at school …’ she tails off.
Inge takes a deep breath. ‘Well, for the rest of us, then, it’s about tuning in to our senses—’
‘Oh, we didn’t do that …’ Margot says.
‘Right …’
‘We read a lot of books. Did coursework, plotted routes, drew maps—’
‘Yeah, we’re not going to need maps.’
‘We’re not?’ Margot looks anxious.
‘No,’ Inge says firmly. She holds open the door and ushers a now unsettled Margot out and into the fresh air. ‘Shall we?’
Magnus has now apparently been deemed well enough to take responsibility for his offspring and I notice that Inge moves differently when unencumbered by a child on each limb, or by having to push a tank-pram across scrubland. She strides, purposefully, but there’s a lightness about her, too – like a natural athlete. I hasten my pace so as not to fall behind. We catch up with Melissa and Tricia as they near the coast and Inge explains what’s in store.
‘Viking navigation is a bodily thing,’ she says, ‘based on feelings and intuition.’ Margot and I are none the wiser, so Inge elaborates. ‘It’s like when you craft or work with wood or metal – you can’t read books about it then go and do it properly – you just need to do it. Well, it’s the same with navigation: you have to feel the sensations. I feel it here—’ she wriggles her fingers ‘—and also feel it here.’ She points to her toes.
I can’t help smiling at this and notice that Melissa is also sniggering. I catch her eye and, for a moment, I wonder whether a Wet Wet Wet-shaped rope bridge can be thrown across the chasm that has opened up between us.
‘What’s so funny?’ demands Inge.
‘Nothing.’ Melissa shakes her head.
‘Why are you laughing?’
‘It’s nothing. Sorry, that was just a lot like the song …’
‘What song?’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ I join in, still smiling.
Are we … bonding? Over a Marti Pellow pop classic? I’m hopeful, but Melissa has already moved on.
‘So, if it’s instinctive,’ my sister asks, composing herself, ‘does that mean you never get lost?’
‘Never,’ Inge says with complete certainty. I look at her in awe. I haven’t sounded that certain … well … ever. ‘I know my way, she goes on, ‘and if I’m ever in doubt, I just let go of my head and remember to be in my body instead.’
I let this sink in.
It takes a while.
The rest of the walk, in fact.
We arrive at the sea and stand in silence for a few moments contemplating the empty beach in front of us.
‘So, what now?’ Margot asks, taking the opportunity to do a few squats.
‘Now, we are still,’ Inge replies.
‘Don’t we need to fetch anything?’ Margot is gesturing at the hut further up the coast, prone, like a tightly coiled spring, ready and willing to run errands. ‘Any equipment?’ she asks.
Inge says nothing but points, very slowly, to her eyes. Then, she points to her ears. Before finally, holding out her hands.
Margot looks disappointed. ‘No compass?’
Inge shakes her head.
‘GPS Plotters?’ Margot goes on, hopefully, only to be met with another headshake. ‘Dividers?’ she tries again. ‘Cinometers?’ Her voice becomes more desperate with each disregarded crutch. ‘Chinagraphic Pencils?’ Finally, she half gasps, ‘a whistle?’, before slumping, spent. ‘No … stuff? At all?’
‘No stuff,’ Inge confirms. ‘People today use all this equipment to get around – like cell phones and Google maps.’
I feel my smartphone burning in my pocket at this. No one else was talking to me, I mentally run through my defence: It was the only company I had, your honour … my surrogate friend. So what if I spent the night ‘liking’ old classmate’s holiday snaps/kids/lives?
‘Vikings, however, are aware of their surroundings. They know how to read the waves – they can think “are the waves still at the same angle to the boat as they were an hour ago?”, or “Is the wind blowing in the same direction?” When you’re near the shore, you can look at the water and judge how flat or choppy it is to work out how shallow the sea is. Then, of course, there are swans …’
‘Swans?’ I wonder whether I’ve misheard.
‘Yes, I often navigate by swan,’ says Inge. Four blank faces stare back at her. She sighs, as if tired of dealin
g with half-wits, then relents and enlightens us. ‘So swan necks are around forty centimetres long—’
Melissa looks impressed. ‘Good fact!’
‘And many boats extend to forty centimetres below the water,’ Inge continues. ‘So if there are swans around and they’ve got their arses in the air, you know the water’s deep enough for a boat. If the body is visible and the swans are just poking their heads under to fish, it means it’s too shallow and your boat will get grounded. Other birds can help out, too – most fly towards land for sunset and you can always pack a raven to be on the safe side.’ She throws this out there casually, as if she’d just mentioned she was going to pack snacks for a long journey. ‘Ravens fly really high and they don’t like being out at sea, so if you set one free from a boat, it’ll fly up and up until it can see land. Then it will head straight for it and you can basically follow. If it can’t see land, it’ll come back again to the boat.’
‘And then?’ I ask.
‘Then you’re fucked,’ she says, simply.
Ahh, the relaxed Scandinavian approach to swearing, I think, as Margot stiffens at the profanity.
‘You can use clouds, too,’ Inge goes on. ‘Look up.’ We all turn our faces skywards. ‘What do you see?’ We remain silent. ‘I know: “clouds”,’ she answers for us. ‘But keep trying.’
‘OK … umm …’ Tricia squints upwards as Melissa holds a hand over her eyes and arches her back, legs askance.
‘Well, that one looks a bit like a dragon,’ is the best she can come up with.
My sister: always with the dragons …
Finally, Inge takes pity on us. ‘You’re looking for volume. There are always more clouds over land than there are at sea.’
‘Ah! Yes.’ Melissa nods as though she knew this all along.
‘It’s also good to look up and get some perspective,’ she goes on. ‘Look at nature and feel insignificant.’
I don’t know how to tell her that I already feel insignificant in numerous different environments – outdoors, at work; even in my own home …
‘You need to listen, too,’ adds Inge. ‘You can hear land. In Viking times you could make out a blacksmith very far out to sea, or even a dog, barking. And then there are smells – usually bonfires and excrement.’
Lovely …
‘Navigating is about tuning in to all your senses. You’re waiting for that meditative feeling,’ Inge explains. ‘Try it!’
So I try.
Nothing.
I look around. Melissa, Tricia and Margot look similarly lost, and so eventually Inge concedes. ‘OK, well let’s get you in the water. Maybe you’ll get the hang of it that way.’
The rest of the morning is spent readying the boat for another voyage then breaking for a simple meal of bread and cheese. The stonewalling continues past lunchtime, when Inge splits us into pairs. Since Melissa and Tricia now appear fused at the hip, I get Margot. Again. And we’re first up.
Margot and Inge bear the brunt of heaving our Viking vessel into the water while I trot behind, pushing the pointy-bit-at-the-end-that-I-still-can’t-remember-the-name-of.
Once we’re in and bobbing along nicely, I concentrate on overcoming the initial panic of not having dry land under my feet and remind myself how much I enjoyed the plain, simple ‘rowing’ part yesterday. And soon, I feel o-kay.
Once we’re clear of the shore and the water gets choppier, Inge unties the knot that binds the ream of white fabric to our mast and with a swift, violent unravelling, the sail lashes outwards. It whips and cracks as it fills with air and we lurch forward. My heart starts to pound and the cool breeze now blasting my face makes me feel alive. So much so that, for a smudge of time, I forget that I’m me. Which is nice.
Inge pauses, tasting the air, then addresses Margot. ‘I don’t know what you’ve been taught elsewhere, but I always say, you need to sail by your butt.’
‘Sorry?’ Margot looks concerned.
‘There’s a feeling in my butt when I’m not on the right course,’ Inge goes on, half-shouting now to be heard above the racket. ‘It’s about sensing with your body whether the boat is balanced or whether there’s too much weight in the front or on one side. You can use your head, too, of course, but it’s not about thinking. It’s about moving a little until you can feel the wind blowing evenly on both of your ears. Vikings never relied on just one thing to find their way – you need a constant awareness of the world around you.’
Still feeling a little silly, I adjust my head until I can sense the wind whipping around each ear. I notice that the waves are coming right at us, threatening to engulf our vessel, just before Inge signals to the rudder and shifts the sail so that we turn, changing course (‘This is tacking,’ Margot tells me with authority).
The boat travels fast, cutting through the water effortlessly. Minutes (hours? Days?) pass as we soar like a rocket, repeating the manoeuvre several times before executing what I’m reliably informed is a ‘jibe’ and heading back to land.
‘How was that for you?’ Inge asks finally.
‘Actually … OK!’ I manage. ‘Thank you.’
‘Really?’ she says, hinting at something I don’t seem to understand.
Are we still talking about boats, here? Or am I being psychologist-ed?
She moves closer so that she can speak without Margot hearing. ‘There isn’t a “safe” way to do any of this, you know – you just have to do it.’
I AM being psychologist-ed!
‘Do you know what the matter is with you?’ Inge goes on.
This isn’t what psychologists are supposed to do, is it? It’s not what that woman did in The Sopranos …
‘Isn’t it up to me to “find out”?’ I ask her.
‘Normally?’ she says. ‘Yes. But it’s your last day tomorrow and you don’t seem to be getting it. Plus you’re probably thinking of American psychoanalysts like you see on TV. We prefer to tell it like it is in Scandinavia.’
You don’t say …
‘So you’re being “cruel to be kind”?’
‘I prefer, being “honest to be honest”,’ she says.
You may well prefer that, but it’s not a phrase, I want to respond. But don’t. Because I’m all at sea – literally – with a Viking psychologist and a model-esque overachiever (or two).
‘You’ve got anger issues,’ Inge tells me now.
WTF? ‘Me?’ I splutter in disbelief. Cool and calm Robo-Alice? ‘I never lose it!’ Well, apart from the other night … but in general … ‘I pride myself on keeping a lid on it—’ I say in my defence.
‘That’s the worst kind,’ Inge tells me now. ‘Suppressed anger. It has to go somewhere so it turns inwards.’
What, so I can’t even fume inwardly now?
‘You can’t deny your feelings: you have to face them. Same with the past. It’s done; it’s happened. But you have to make peace with it before you can move on. I come from a strong seafaring tradition—’ she goes on, as I begin to wish that I too had gin in a mug to look forward to.
Oh god, more boat metaphors …
‘And there has long been a tension in the Viking temperament between staying and leaving – yearning for something better that might come along and grief for what we leave behind.’ She looks in the direction of Melissa and I see my sister and Tricia sprawled out across each other on the shore, basking in the sun and laughing like drains. ‘Many things are out of your control – like the weather, the water, other boats,’ she goes on, ‘so we need to learn to be still and observe when something’s going wrong.’
‘Be still when something’s wrong’, did she say? I try to take this in, a concept that’s met with a small software malfunction: Surely when ‘something’s wrong’, you just keep busy and try to forget about it? More work, more stuff – more of something, at least – until the sensation has passed. Or been numbed. Or you’re so frazzled that you no longer notice the initial stressor. Isn’t that the way to deal with niggling sensations that ‘somethin
g’s wrong’?
‘You need to be open to the signs and learn how to read them,’ Inge counsels.
Or, I think, you can ignore them!
This has been my modus operandi for as long as I can remember and it’s served me, if not ‘well’, then certainly ‘adequately’. Hasn’t it?
An eye twitch? Ignore it! Stress knot in your stomach? Take no notice and try chewing sugar-free gum! Carpel tunnel syndrome? Give your wrist a shake and get on with things! Tension headache? Localised alopecia? Nervous breakdown at a dentistry conference at a Premier Inn in the Midlands? Bury it! Deep down! Then run away on a Viking retreat with your sister and try to forget about it! Easy, right? Oh … Oh wait …
It’s here that I realise my time-honoured coping mechanism has stalled.
Inge moves away to help Margot ‘reef in’ the sail (look at me! Learning all the lingo!) and prepares to take us back to dry land. I watch her calm, dextrous hands doing complicated things with ropes, all the while instructing her pupil on what to do next. I wish she could tell me what to do, I think, always. But I don’t know how to ask. And I have a feeling she’d say ‘no’ – that, maybe, just maybe, she’s got enough on her plate already, what with a retreat, a PhD, three children and a Magnus in tow. The woman must be five years – a decade, even? – younger than me, but I can’t help wishing that, no matter how much I worshipped my own, Inge had been my mother. I’d have got the genes for that ass for one thing …
As the water becomes shallower and turns a startling turquoise, Margot rolls her trousers up, ready to leap out and drag us onto the sand. Before I disembark to do the same, Inge places a hand on mine and instructs me, in a low voice to, ‘Take a walk. Have a think about what you want. Then come back and make your peace.’
So I do as I’m told. As a still-giggling Melissa and Tricia board the boat for their turn at sea, I set off as prescribed, trudging up the hill until I come to a leafy glade. I have no idea where I am, but from my elevated position I can at least see smoke rising from the chimneystack of the house. So I can’t get too lost, I reason – even with my negligible navigation skills …
Gone Viking Page 23