Gone Viking

by Helen Russell

  ‘Yes, I think so …’ I respond, before experiencing a hearty slap on the shoulder.

  ‘There you are!’ It’s Tricia, who has broken away from the couple and clearly absorbed a few of Melissa’s mannerisms. ‘Here.’ She presents Margot and me with a blanket each. ‘Let’s get you both warmed up. I’m drying my bra in front of the fire if you want me to take yours? No? OK then; well, how about a drink?’

  It’s taking me a while to process all this. ‘Where are we?’ I look around, puzzled. ‘And what’s happening here, please?’

  ‘Here?’ Tricia echoes my words, gesturing all around her. ‘Or here?’ She points at the scene ahead, the one entitled, ‘Massive Viking currently snogging Melissa’.

  ‘Both?’ I reply. ‘But mainly, that.’ I nod at my sister.

  ‘Right. Yes. This is our local, in case you were wondering. Great place, isn’t it? And that—’ she inclines her head towards Melissa ‘—well, join the dots …’

  Nope, I’m still drawing blanks. Perhaps the cold has numbed my mind and dulled my faculties.

  ‘Have you heard of knullruffs?’ Tricia continues.

  What is she ON about? I think. Is she suffering from brain-freeze, too?

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Tricia assures me. ‘I hadn’t either before this week, but apparently it’s a Swedish word meaning “messy hair after sex”. Don’t Scandinavians have the best words? Did you know the Finns have a term for drinking at home in just your underwear?’

  ‘I did not know that,’ I freely confess.

  ‘Yes! Kalsarikännit.’

  ‘Right, good.’ I try to return us to the matter in hand. ‘But what’s this got to do with my sister?’

  ‘Oh yes. Well, what I meant was …’ Tricia gets back on track. ‘Haven’t you noticed? Melissa’s been rocking up with some great knullruffs most mornings …’

  ‘Oh?’ I say, and then the kroner drops. ‘Ohhhh …’ I draw the word out.

  How could I have been so slow? My sister? And the Viking? ‘Doing it’, as they say in Charlotte’s class at school? My little sister has sex … ?

  My SISTER has SEX.

  I repeat the phrase a few times in my head to try and make it stick. It seems unlikely, somehow, that the younger sibling I have known and yet not known forever – my sister who likes horses and dogs and old black-and-white films and Enid Blyton – also likes to hop on the good foot and do the bad thing. Regularly, if Tricia is to be believed. I think about whether I have been blind to the signs – the clues that my sister has been a fully fledged ‘sexual being’ for some time now. And conclude that the answer is ‘yes’.

  The summer she locked herself away in her room for long stretches of time with a poster of Jeff Goldblum and insisted on doing her own laundry is suddenly framed in a whole new light. The time during her GCSEs when she told us she was staying the night with her friend, Jodie … before Jodie turned up on our doorstep, was, in retrospect, a poorly planned dirty stop out. I have, it seems, been wilfully blind.

  This has been quite the day of revelations …

  ‘Drink?’ Tricia goes on, as though appreciating that I might need one.

  ‘Yes,’ I say, emphatically. ‘Please.’

  My de facto wing woman Margot also nods at the offer, and so, thickly wrapped in woollen blankets, Tricia leads us to a wall of wooden shelves in the far corner of the bar.

  It looks like something out of a Dickensian apothecary, laden with ancient glass bottles bearing brown luggage labels and what appears to be a selection of red wine already ‘breathing’ in decanters. Behind a low wall of sandblasted wood stands a man so dashing that I don’t know where to look. But Tricia greets him in a most familiar manner, then turns to us and whispers, ‘Isn’t this place To. Die. For? It’s like a tree house for grown-ups, but with hot people and booze!’ She whips back around and gives the barman her most winning of winning smiles.

  ‘So what’ll it be?’ she asks us while still beaming at him.

  ‘What have they got?’ I respond, a little (a lot) overwhelmed. I feel as though I’m in a language tape from the 1980s and should just be asking for ‘three drinks of alcohol please’. Fortunately, Tricia is an experienced and willing guide.

  ‘Well, I’ve been rather enjoying aquavit,’ she tells me. ‘A Scandinavian spirit distilled from potatoes …’

  I have flashbacks to a particularly punitive detox diet I tried once that involved drinking potato juice (a real low), and so ask if perhaps there might be an alternative. ‘Or?’

  ‘Or beer, or wine, or … no! I’ve got it! There’s something you just have to try …’ Tricia tells us and orders on our behalf. I recognise that this is dangerous when we’re handed two tumblers of brown liquid.

  ‘What’s this?’ Margot wrinkles her nose at her glass.

  ‘It’s G&T, but they make their own tonic from quinine bark!’ Tricia gushes.

  Of course they do! It’s like a hipster masterclass … I bet they can all secretly tell that the first album I ever bought was Simply Red’s Stars.

  ‘Quinine bark?’

  ‘Yes! The owner told me it means you can use cheaper gin,’ Tricia adds as I almost choke on the concoction.

  Sweet Jesus …

  ‘Strong?’ Tricia asks, innocently.

  ‘It’s like lighter fluid,’ I gasp in a voice that is not my own. After a second sip, I feel as though I’ve been tasered. ‘Oh god, it’s burning …’ I press my free hand to my mouth then add a lisping, ‘I think my teeth are melting. That can’t be good …’

  ‘Don’t think too much, just drink! It’ll warm you up. I’ve ordered food, too,’ Tricia assures me. ‘For soakage. So come on, bottoms up!’

  Margot does as she’s told before a platter of pickled fish, rye bread and knobbly-looking vegetables arrive on a wooden slab.

  ‘This’ll sort us out,’ Tricia announces, digging in, and she’s right. It does. There’s also a strange sort of respite that comes halfway down the second tumbler of brown-tinted lighter fluid when I don’t feel so cold any more and I’m also not afraid. This is unusual. More Euro pop starts up and the cool kids start pogo-ing in insouciant formation.

  ‘I love the music here, don’t you?’ Tricia asks, bobbing chaotically. ‘They play exclusively Scandinavian pop.’

  ‘That’s a good thing?’ My eyebrows arc.

  Maybe my Simply Red admission wouldn’t go down like such a shit sandwich after all. I could even confess to my Billy Joel collection …

  ‘Of course!’ Tricia retorts as though this much was obvious. ‘It’s only in the UK that we don’t fully appreciate its charms.’

  ‘Is that right?’

  ‘Yes,’ she tells me very definitely. ‘It is. When ABBA won Eurovision in nineteen seventy-four with Waterloo, they got nil points from the UK. And look how they turned out. So who do you think knows more about music?’

  I see I’m not going to win this one, so I eat, drink, and find that, soon, I don’t care any more.

  ‘Have you been coming here a lot?’ I ask Tricia.

  She guffaws. ‘Are you asking if I come here often?’

  I snort 70 per cent proof alcohol and brown tree juice out of my nose until it hurts. ‘I suppose I am,’ I reply when the burning sensation has subsided.

  ‘We may have stopped by last night in the boat …’ Tricia says with a practised nonchalance, taking a swig from her tumbler.

  ‘And when did it start? With Otto, I mean. And how did you find this place? Did everyone know about all this apart from me?’

  ‘I didn’t know,’ Margot pipes up and I realise that by ‘everyone’ I meant Tricia and Inge. Melissa not confiding in a model-esque semi-stranger ten years her junior is one thing. But Melissa not confiding in her sister? Again? That’s something else.

  Of course, it pales into insignificance in comparison to the letter I read earlier today, but still …

  I want her to be able to share things with me, don’t I?

  It’s at this moment that
the lighter fluid/brown unction hits my … my – neurotransmitters, is it? – in earnest. So I down the remainder of the scalding liquor until I tingle from my oesophagus to my groin – and decide to find out for myself what’s been happening.

  I move towards my sister but am blocked by Tricia, now dancing wildly to Roxette. After a tussle, I manage to break free from her attempts to embroil me in a duet and leave Margot to fend for herself. Edging through the beautiful people until I’m close enough to see Melissa, I notice she’s considerably more preoccupied than anticipated. My sister’s arms appear to have been cut off at the wrists, the rest of them disappearing down Otto’s trousers.

  Oh my, I think, and then, surprising myself: good for her!

  Melissa finally disengages and with a final squeeze of his bottom (at least, I hope it’s his bottom …). She dodges through the mob in the direction of what I guess to be the ladies’ loo, thanks to a wooden arrow with a carving of a She-Viking on it.

  I hope she hasn’t got cystitis, is my instant, unfiltered response. All that cold water, wet pants and ‘action’. I wonder whether I’ve got a spare sodium citrate sachet in my wash bag to help make her urine less acidic. Then I realise that this is horribly unromantic and probably says more about my own disappointing sexual encounters to date than the likely state of my sister’s urethra.

  I attempt to follow Melissa, without giving much thought to what’ll come next. I shuffle through the crowd as swiftly as an awkward Brit still suffering from the after effects of shock/hypothermia/home-made tonic and cheap gin can. After dispensing the odd, ‘excuse me?’ and ‘please may I just get past … ?’, I slur an uncharacteristically yobbish. ‘OI!’ and push my way through to the loos just in time to catch Melissa pre-wee.

  ‘Hello you!’ I start, in what I hope is a casual tone.

  ‘Oh hi!’ Melissa gestures to the free cubicle. ‘Want to go first? I can wait.’ She nods at the other, occupied stall. ‘Until they’re done.’

  ‘Oh no!’ I tell her. ‘I only came in to see you!’

  ‘Because that’s not weird at all …’ she replies.

  ‘Is it?’ I’m genuinely not sure any more. I should start making a list … Maybe I could start a running document in the Notes app on my iPhone. ‘Weird stuff I do that apparently isn’t socially acceptable’?

  ‘Yes,’ Melissa assures me. ‘It is. Following people into the loos when you don’t want a wee is definitely weird …’

  ‘Right,’ I acknowledge my gaffe, then add, ‘Noted. Sorry. I just wanted to say … congratulations.’ Is that the right word? The appropriate response to the revelation that your sister has been getting a good seeing to with Thor’s hammer? ‘I mean, I had no idea about your friend …’

  What am I? A middle-aged maiden aunt from the nineteenth century?

  ‘Congratulations? On what?’

  ‘Otto?’

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ is all she says.

  ‘So, are you two … an item?’ I say this, inexplicably, in an American accent. As though trying to disassociate myself from the cheesiness of the enquiry. I am truly terrible at this ‘talking’ business …

  ‘It’s only been a few days – no hats just yet! Sure you don’t want to go?’ She nods her head towards the loo.

  ‘No, thanks,’ I tell her. Then, in the hope of fostering a confessional mood, I add, ‘I went in the water before we got to shore – helped warm myself up.’

  At this, she gives a pfftt of laughter. ‘OK, well, mind if I?’ She’s already peeling down trousers as she says this and proceeds to urinate, with the cubicle door open.

  She’s not even hovering or putting loo roll down on the seat first! I shake my head at my sister’s brio. I haven’t touched a bowl since 1998, let alone the rim of a public convenience! Doesn’t she know how many germs could be lurking?

  ‘So,’ I ask, averting my eyes and casting around the rest of the white panelled washroom, ‘are you OK?’

  ‘Me? Yeah, I’m OK, I just needed to wee …’

  This wasn’t what I’d meant. Although … uh-oh. A klaxon goes off in my head. Recent intercourse? Urgency to pass water? Urinary tract infection alert! Must search for that sachet …

  ‘I mean, about what will happen when we get back. Are you booked in for surgery?’

  She nods.

  ‘Are you feeling all right about it?’

  ‘Yeah, brilliant.’ She makes a sarcastic face. ‘I’m going to have a chunk cut out of my left breast. Which has never been my favourite, but still.’

  I don’t know what to say to this.

  ‘Have they given you any lifestyle advice?’ is the best I can come up with. She looks at me defensively.

  ‘This isn’t because I’m fat, in case that’s what you’re thinking—’ she starts.

  ‘Oh no, I wasn’t!’ I protest.

  ‘Apparently using deodorant has nothing to do with it, either. Or space. Or Wi-Fi … In fact, the main risk factors for breast cancer seem to be the things none of us can do anything about,’ she goes on. ‘Like getting older, genes, and just having breasts – yeah, that seems to be the main one. Which is a kicker.’

  I know this already after the research I did at our local library once Mum was diagnosed. That and all the questions I asked doctors because Mum was too depressed and Dad was too upset to think of them. Jotting everything down in a yellow notebook that always looked far too cheery – inappropriately upbeat, I realised – whenever I got it out at hospital.

  ‘Basically, it’s all going to be a bit crap for a while,’ Melissa concludes.

  ‘Yes, sorry,’ I stutter. I wish we were both marginally more sober for this conversation. Then again, maybe this was just what we needed – to let go. ‘Have they given you a treatment programme? Will you have chemotherapy?’

  She nods. ‘And hormone therapy, and the rest …’

  ‘Good,’ I say and watch Melissa’s eyebrows shoot up. ‘I don’t mean “good”. What I mean is, I’m glad they’ve got a plan in place. For what’ll happen next. And I’m here for you, whatever you need.’ She nods. ‘It’s OK to be scared, you know—’

  ‘Good, because I am!’ she wobbles. ‘I’m scared of going bald. I’m scared of looking weird after. I’m scared of not feeling like me any more.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I tell her, again, my heart in my throat.

  ‘No! Don’t look at me like that.’ She points at my face. ‘This is why I couldn’t imagine telling you, watching your expression change. I didn’t want to give you the opportunity to feel trapped again. To have to make a sacrifice—’

  ‘It’s no sacrifice!’ I tell her. ‘You’re my sister!’ She looks up at me. ‘What? I mean it,’ I insist again. ‘I miss you. I miss not knowing things about your life. I never know about your relationships or what’s going on—’

  Melissa shakes her head, and then her bottom to eliminate drips pre-wipe. Efficient, I think, impressed. Tugging up her trousers, she says, ‘I don’t tell you about my life because for years you didn’t seem interested!’ She flushes – literally, I mean, not in terms of cheek reddening – then says, ‘I don’t tell you because you never ask. Never wanted to know!’ She raises her voice to be heard above the sluice.

  ‘I’m sorry. Really I am,’ I tell her, then add, ‘I’ve been a crap sister.’

  There is a long pause after this.

  ‘If you’re waiting for me to disagree with you, that’s not going to happen …’

  ‘No, OK, fair enough.’ I nod. But I still feel the need to explain. ‘I didn’t mean to block you out. It’s just … you were … always so down on Mum. And when she died, I was just so sad—’

  ‘You didn’t show it—’

  ‘No. I was an idiot.’

  ‘You were staying in control,’ Melissa corrects me, parroting the phrase I’ve used in my defence for the past twenty years.

  ‘I was an idiot.’

  ‘I missed her too, you know,’ Melissa says, wiping just-washed hands on her still-wet trouse
rs. ‘I lost my mum as well, even though she could be … well—’ She stops herself. ‘And I hated seeing Dad hurting like that. But then it felt as though you abandoned us. Like there was nothing to keep you there – like I wasn’t good enough.’ Then she adds, quietly, ‘Which is just how Mum always made me feel.’

  ‘She did?’ I’m taken aback.

  ‘Always!’ Melissa says. ‘She was different with you. Whether she meant to be or not. I loved her but she wasn’t always … nice to me.’

  I prickle at this. Because my idealised Saint Mum was always fair and just. I got used to defending her – from Melissa, from Dad, even, once, from Greg.

  He never made that mistake again …

  But could I have been wrong about her, too? Or at least, not wholly right? Scandinavia has already taught me that there are shades of grey.

  Perhaps Mum beetled around the ‘battle ship’ end of the spectrum … Supposing she wasn’t ‘all good’? Supposing she was only human? Like the rest of us?

  I remember being very young, sitting on our mother’s lap, wrapped in a towel after a bath. She would sing songs that she made up, just for me, and I felt like I was wrapped in love. But when I picture this scene, it doesn’t include Melissa. Wasn’t she there? I wonder. So I ask.

  ‘Hell, no – I don’t remember her doing anything like that with me.’ Melissa snorts. ‘Maybe she was already a bit knackered. Used up. Or she didn’t like me as much.’

  ‘What, like I got the “best bits” of Mum?’ I ask her.

  ‘Maybe it’s a firstborn thing.’ She shrugs.

  I think about this. Have I been nicer to Charlotte than I have been to Thomas? I scroll through the highlight reel of my own parenting. Of endless nappy changes. Of weaning (the mess!). Of getting Charlotte and Thomas out of the bath when they were small, fighting to get them dried and dressed while they wriggled and shouted and drove me mad. ‘Like wrestling crocodiles,’ is how Greg described my post-bath technique. I’m not sure I’ve been beatifically nurturing with either of them.

  I remember Mum as this shiny beacon of motherhood, but I doubt my children will ever think of me that way, I realise. They’ll probably remember that I was always cross, busy, and a bit useless …