I sit on a rock and watch the boat making its way out to sea, holding my breath for the moment the sail is unleashed and the vessel jolts into a life of its own.
‘Beautiful …’ I murmur. ‘Just … beautiful …’
Baaa! Another sound disturbs the peace.
‘What the?’
Baaaaaa! The ensuing vibrations tremble through the air around me, interrupting my trance. There’s a shuffling in the bushes, and a pair of black, beady eyes glint amidst the foliage. A few flies start buzzing and a beast shuffles forward – a large, woolly body perched atop bony legs.
You! I think. Or, more accurately: ewe.
The creature studies me, unblinking, with eyes that have clearly seen a lot in their time. So I stare back. Braver, now, having bested it during my previous encounter.
How long ago that seems …
My sheep-nemesis lowers her neck and pulls off great mouthfuls of grass, breathing hard through her nose. She chews the cud, mechanically – her mouth arching and stretching into speech-like movements. As though if I could lip-read ‘sheep’, she might be trying to tell me something …
I pay attention. Just in case. But nothing happens.
I wait some more.
Come on, sheep! I try telepathy: Are you attempting to warn me that I’ll be wrestling you this time tomorrow during our berserking session? Because if so, I could probably do with a trial run … I’m still not clear on exactly what the activity entails, so I’m keen to be prepared for anything. Or have I eaten something funny and this is all part of some long-game shamanistic ritual? I can handle that: see Lord of the Flies. Is this the part where you or one of your livestock friends tells me I can ‘never escape myself’ or something – and then I get all flustered and faint? At least, that’s what that boy did … Simon, wasn’t it? I congratulate myself on remembering. Then I get riled. Bloody Simon: typical male! You wouldn’t catch a woman losing it in the middle of the jungle just because she was overtired and there was some offal on show. I’ve got too much on to go around fainting all over the place.
A gnat lands just above my left wrist and I smack it flat with my right hand, impressed and alarmed in equal measure by my own accuracy and the tangle of fly-guts now adorning my forearm. I take three deep breaths, trying to quell the queasiness. Then I shift my position on the hard rock, my body stiff from a week of unfamiliar exercise, and realise that if the sheep’s not going to play ball, I’m going to have to handle this myself. Without wine. Or Kylie. Or any of my usual crutches. Cheers, world …
OK, I start, thinking about Inge’s assignment: so what do I want?
Me #1 waits for a response but then remembers that this too is going to have to come from … err … me.
‘Oh, bloody hell, it’s exhausting …’ I whimper as the sheep baa-s at me to get the flock on with it.
Come on, Alice, think about it: what do you want?
Me #2: I don’t know, OK? Stop hassling me!
Me #1: You’re not getting out of it that easily! WHY don’t you know?
Me #2: *shrugs like a petulant teenager/Thomas, aged five* I’ve never thought about it …
Me #1: What are you, an idiot?
Me #2: Why do you have to be so mean all the time?
Me #1: I’m not mean! I’m … efficient …
Me #2: Is THAT what you call it?!
Me #3: *enters stage left, making a time-out sign with her hands and attempting to mediate* Whoa there! This isn’t helping anyone—
Me #1: Yeah, but she can be a fucking tool sometimes.
Me #3: I know she can. Jeeze, do I know … *executes eye roll* But we have to help her.
Me #1: I can HEAR you both, you know?
Me #2 and #3: *mumbles* sorry.
Me #1: This isn’t working for me; you’re both fired.
Me #2 and #3: You can’t fire us!
Me #1: Watch me.
I pinch myself on the fleshy part of my hand to bring myself around, lest I disappear into swooning-Simon territory. Woman-up, I tell myself. And think.
I don’t know where I’m going.
I’m not sure I’ve ever known.
But do I know what I want?
Actually, yes.
I want a relationship with my sister. I want my kids to be happy and healthy. And Greg … ? Nothing. I feel nothing. If pushed, I could probably summon mild irritation as a requisite emotion here. But, at the same time, I’m aware that I can’t really blame him for things falling apart lately. I chose all this. And, deep down, haven’t I always known what I was getting into?
For a while, I enjoyed being the serious, more successful half of the couple. The one who had it all together. But then it stopped being so funny any more. Especially once the kids were born. Greg wasn’t the antidote to my life up until the point I married him; he was a continuation of it. It’s like when we got the bathroom done and then I looked around and realised the problem wasn’t really the bathroom after all.
The only reason I am with Greg is because of Charlotte and Thomas, I can now admit, but perhaps they really would be better off having two parents who love them and live apart, rather than a mum and dad simmering with resentment under the same roof? That part, it seems now, is relatively simple.
What’s trickier is Melissa.
I had thought that I wanted to come away to escape Greg and my life back home. But what if what I actually needed was time with my sister?
These are unchartered waters and I’m not entirely sure how to cross them (and by ‘entirely’ I mean ‘at all’). I watch the sun complete its arc across the sky and begin to make its descent as I try to untangle this particular dilemma.
She brought me here, I think, this was something she wanted. So perhaps the least I can do is make it up to her and play nicely. Throw myself into it, setting aside my usual reluctance and considering the next forty-eight hours a sort of … Viking holiday. From a lifetime of scepticism.
The task feels Herculean. But I have to try. I stand up and plant my feet firmly, stretching my eyes to the sun.
‘I want to be more Viking, in all its facets,’ I say out loud now, with as much gravity as a woman with only sheep for company can muster. ‘Starting now. Or at least in a second …’
I draw out the rectangular, metal object that has been warmed by my body and run my fingers over its smooth surface in an attempt to memorise its every seductive curve. This has to go back, I know now. But there’s one thing I need to check first.
I take a deep breath and power it up before waiting – hoping – for a vibration. After a few breathless moments, it comes. It’s been waiting for me: the answer to the question I put off asking for weeks. And the message reads:
‘No such luck;)’
I exhale with relief, telling the sheep. ‘I didn’t do it!’
Baaa! she responds, by way of congratulations.
‘I didn’t sleep with Mr Teeth!’
Baaa?
A second message buzzes through and I read.
Oh FFS …
‘OK, so it got a bit handsy,’ I confess to the ewe. ‘What does “second base” even mean anyway?’
Baaa.
‘Really? God … Well, the point is, there definitely wasn’t “full-blown”—’
Baaa!
‘I know, I know, it shouldn’t have happened at all. I should never have got myself in a position where it could have happened. I’m an idiot. But still. Phew …’
Baaa.
‘Thanks. You too.’
At this, I power down. Goodbye, smartphone, I whisper. You’re going back where you came from. Just for a while …
I look out at the soul-lifting sweep of blue ahead and see the boat, white sail taut, approaching the shore.
If I’m quick, I could make it to the house, return the phone and get back, before anyone notices. I estimate this by taking into account how long it took us to walk to the beach, how far the tiny smoke stack appears to be away from my current position, and dividing it b
y two. Because, I reason, I will be powered by both renewed determination and adrenaline, the hormone secreted by the adrenal medulla in response to stress that increases heart rate, pulse rate, and blood pressure, and raises the blood levels of glucose and lipids, all of which can improve performance …
Then I realise that I’m wasting precious time and so get going. Thanking the sheep for her counsel, I sprint downhill towards the house making this sort of a sound:
‘FUUUUUUCK!’
Just so you know, running, barefoot, on unfamiliar scrubland that’s been booby-trapped with razor-sharp flint is quite extremely painful.
But I don’t stop. Because now, I’m a woman on a mission. And my plan is thus: put the phone back; apologise to Melissa, get back to the rest of the gang before sunset, live happily ever after. I repeat the mantra – partially to distract from the throbbing pain now coursing through my right foot and partly to stay motivated.
If I’m quick, no one will notice. If I’m quick, Inge will just think I’m doing more soul-searching on a hill. If I’m quick, I reason, trying to ignore the slicing sensation creeping up my ankle, there might be an opportunity to have a hunt around for some paracetamol. And perhaps a plaster. And maybe, even, shoes ahead of the ‘berserking’ …fn1
Limping now – my right foot a boot of pure agony, caked-on blood, and mud – I make it to the house. I use a tea towel as a makeshift sock to prevent further bleeding on the pine wood floor, holding it in place with an elasticated hair band. It’s a little tight, but I rationalise that compression can only be a good thing, since I’m unlikely to have the chance for much elevation or ice for a while (Day #1 of basic first aid: ICE. Ice, compression, elevation – this stuff saves lives …). Tea towel sock in place, I limp along the hall and deposit my phone in the wicker basket, still left on show by our trusting hosts.
As soon as it’s out of my hands, I feel free somehow. And slightly smug that I have, finally, Done The Right Thing.
I’m a good person! I knew I was!
I’m just heading back out again, when I hear Magnus and the children coming in from outside.
I don’t want to have to explain what I’ve been doing and I can’t leave out of the front door unnoticed now. I’ll have to wait, I rationalise, until one of them goes for a wee or something. I slip into the utility room that the chicks and the chainsaws also call home as well as *drumroll* the shoes …
I look around with delight at an array of children’s footwear along with some stylish ankle boots that I presume belong to Inge and a jumble of trainers. Including … mine! I rush to them, trying not to inhale as I manoeuvre Melissa’s stinky plimsolls out of the way and take up my own still-remarkably-white pair of Nike running shoes.
There you are!
It’s an emotional reunion as I hold them close to my chest in a warm embrace.
If I put you somewhere safe, I mentally address my footwear, and find a sock of some confection, I can wear you tomorrow! As long as the swelling’s gone down …
It’s not long before the scamper of small people can be heard. The fridge door goes, a lamb bleats and I deduce that refreshments are being enjoyed by all. Inevitably, after a few moments, there is whining – in a tone universally acknowledged as ‘toddler needing a wee really quite urgently now’ and I hear the party shuffle out down the corridor towards the bathroom.
Phew!
I press myself up close to the door in an attempt to open it without a ‘click’ until I’m eye-to-eye with the cubbyholes holding various flotsam and jetsam of family life. Several sets of keys, a block of Lego and a single mitten occupy the first couple of rectangles with two stacks of unopened mail below. The first holds franked, postmarked letters bearing wonderfully exotic monikers including Stine Storm and Lone Wolf (They sound like Viking wrestlers! I rejoice. Yes, I’m nosy – but with names like that, wouldn’t you be?). The other administrative cubbyhole contains addressed envelopes yet to be stamped. I’m just admiring this as a system and wondering whether to implement something similar at home when I notice an envelope in the ‘outgoing’ pile bearing my own address.
Examining it more closely in the fading light, I recognise it as the letter I wrote to myself on the first day – the one intended to be read six months from now. Should I read it now? I prepare to cringe – to be mortified by my former self. Can I even remember what’s in it? I think back almost fondly to those first few hours of ‘Viking training’ and how alien it all seemed. I’d never even tried rye bread before! Or made a stretcher out of trees and a sex fleece! Or learnt to forage, or build boats, or navigate via my arse! And now I’ve done it all … thanks to Melissa, I realise, making a mental note to thank her. And apologise. Again. Properly this time.
I put the letter back, prepared to be patient – for the first time in my life – and wait.
It hasn’t been too bad, I can appreciate now – any of it. Even Margot may not be so terrible really. Even though she looks far too pretty post-exercise and is hideously privileged …
Despite having chastised Melissa for being overly impressed by posh people, something in me is fascinated by the seemingly rarefied life that Margot apparently leads.
I wonder what her parents do? I wonder where she lives?
Realising that there’s a very simple way to sate my curiosity for the latter question, I pick up the sheaf of remaining letters and flick through, scanning the envelopes. Tricia lives near Brighton, I see, although this, I think, we knew … And Margot? I clock a Kensington postcode (Of course she lives in sodding Kensington!). I’m just preparing to put the stack back when I do a double take.
Hang on …
I set down two of the envelopes then rifle around in the cubbyhole in case there are any more lurking.
Nothing … that’s odd …
I study the remaining pair: both have my name on them. But while one is in my hand, the other is a large, cursive scrawl I’ve secretly admired for the past thirty years: Melissa’s.
The envelope is marked ‘Alice Ray, c/o’ followed by my sister’s address. At first, I presume that she misunderstood the exercise. But then, why send it to her home address? Had she forgotten mine?
I’m not proud of what happens next. And I think perhaps that Melissa and Tricia might be right. Maybe I am a snooper … Although the envelope is addressed to me. So, technically, it’s mine. But then, so was the phone, and look at the trouble that landed me in …
A mere fifteen minutes after my vow to be more Viking and embrace the ethos and all its traits – you know, honesty, truth, not being a massive sneaking-around-snooper – I find myself prising open the envelope and unfurling the crisp white pages within. Hardly daring to breathe, I read.
‘Dear Alice …’
Eleven
Dear Alice,
The bad news is, if you’re reading this, I’m not around any more. Either that, or I’m in such crap shape that they’re making you clear up my stuff and walk the dogs. Alternatively, I’ve got so used to all the grapes and those cool hospital beds (the ones that let you sit up at the touch of a button), that I’m staging a sit in (or a ‘lie-in’?). In any case: sorry.
I break off, turning over the sheet to check it’s not a joke – some prank designed to further rile ‘uptight Alice’. What is she on about? Finding no clue, on either side of the sheet of paper, I continue:
If it’s option one, I hope the funeral was a blast and everyone ran up a really big bar bill. And that they played The Clash. And that Dad got hammered and Aunty Jill did a lot of tutting. Some things should never change. But some, I’ve realised, should.
I’m writing this to you after the first night in our very own Viking shelter. We’re watching the sun rise from the beach and you’re about five feet away from me, scowling, scrunching up your forehead and huffing loudly the way you do when you’re concentrating (Did you know you did that? I bet your patients do … !). I know I dragged you out of your comfort zone by kidnapping you and whisking you away to Nordic no-wo
man’s-land, but it was the only way I could think of to spend time with you. The real you – the ‘not knowing’ you. I didn’t want you to feel sorry for me or put on that ‘sympathy face’ that I keep seeing in the people I’ve told about the cancer so far—
I reach out a hand to steady myself against the wall as my stomach twists.
What’s happening here … ? Please tell me this is a horrible, horrible joke …
I didn’t want to be another obligation in your life. You’re always telling me how many of these you have – and I believe you – so I didn’t want to burden you with any of it. You think I enjoy being another thing on your ‘to do’ list? I don’t. So I’m trying to do this on my own. I’m trying to be more like you. I may tease you, but all I’ve ever wanted is to have my big sister back and hang out with her more. I miss you.
I hoped that time with you – a holiday – before surgery, would help bring us closer. They told me the lump shouldn’t get any bigger by waiting another week, so I wanted to live like normal for a while.
Sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, but for what it’s worth – in the spirit of full disclosure and in case I never get the chance to say it – I found a lump at Easter. It was like a pea, below the skin – then my nipple started turning in slightly, as though it was shy (and there’s normally nothing shy about either of them!). I was going to leave it – I had a lot on, and I thought ‘What harm can a pea do?’ But then I thought WWAD? (‘What Would Alice Do?’) So I went to get tested – yes, I braved a medical professional. Are you proud of me?
Apparently, I’ve got very dense breasts, the woman who did the mammogram told me. I asked her if this was a good thing and she said ‘no’ – just meant she had to squish them harder to get a proper look (which really hurt, FYI). Anyway, to cut a long story short, there were needles, cups of sweet tea in waiting rooms, and then a consultant said lots of words I didn’t understand. He offered to spell them for me but my head was too scrambled to tell him I wasn’t hot on speling [sic], either. So I just said thank you and shook his hand. I’d gone in there with just my wallet and car keys. But I’d come out with ‘cancer’.
Gone Viking Page 24