I’ve never made a rocket out of loo rolls, or done anything Pinterest-y with yoghurt pots. Or made up lullabies. Or tried to encourage either of them to take up the sodding violin. I’ve failed. On an epic scale … I worry, now.
I try to relay this to Melissa. ‘I think I’ve been equally rubbish with both of my children.’
She does not dispute the statement, but says instead, ‘Well, you’ve got time to change all that.’
‘I have, haven’t I? With your help?’
‘You mean if I do my best not to die?’ She looks at me, very sincerely, as though she is peering into my very soul. Then she sputters a pfftt. ‘Just messing with you!’ and punches me on the arm. It hurts, a lot, but I know, in Melissa-world, that this means we’re at peace.
‘Anything I can do, or that you want to talk about, with the diagnosis or treatment or anything, I’ll be there,’ I tell her. ‘I mean it.’ I tense up in anticipation of another wallop. But it doesn’t come. Instead, she says, ‘Thanks.’
‘I don’t want people to be all careful around me though, or do that thing where they tilt their head to one side like I’m a toddler that’s crapped itself and needs wiping,’ Melissa adds.
‘No. Right. Of course you don’t.’ I hold my head unnaturally upright. ‘But I can come to your appointments, help out around the house – whatever you need.’
‘All right then,’ she agrees, then with a glint in her eye, adds, ‘but you might have to look after the house rabbits. And walk the dogs.’
I gulp.
‘That’s OK. Charlotte and Thomas would love to help with the rabbits.’ I hope this is true. ‘And I can Google “best way to walk dogs”.’
‘It’s not about doing it “the best way”.’ She stares at me in amusement. ‘It’s about giving them some exercise and letting them take a dump!’
‘Got it.’ I nod.
‘And wearing a high visibility vest and a bum bag with dog biscuits in it,’ Melissa says, sounding blasé.
‘OK,’ I concede, resigned to my fate.
‘Just kidding about that last part – you only need to carry around treats or wear a tabard if you want to!’
‘Oh! Right!’ I exhale with relief – as Melissa near undulates with mirth.
‘Ha! You should see your face! I got you that time! Wow, you really are sorry.’
I look at her with damp eyes, trying to smile.
‘And you’re crying!’ Melissa points now.
‘I’m not crying, you’re crying,’ I tell her, laughing. ‘And I’m not going anywhere ever again – you’re stuck with me.’ Then I add as an afterthought, ‘So don’t go leaving me with sodding Margot while you and Tricia talk to boys and hang out in bars!’
‘All right, all right,’ Melissa agrees. ‘But you know, the only reason you don’t like Margot is that you two are similar in a lot of ways.’ She says this as though it is fact – undisputed and apparent to everyone but me.
‘What?’ I scoff. ‘No, we’re not!’
‘Yes, you are,’ Melissa says.
‘We’re not!’
‘You are!’ she tells me. ‘Margot’s not a bad person: she’s just a hotter, smarter, younger version of you – of course you hate her!’
‘I don’t hate her!’ I retort, then modify this with a ‘much’ and ‘any more’. ‘Anyway I’m nothing like Margot!’ Am I?
Could it be that she represents everything I hoped I could be, once?
I have a horrible feeling my little sister has been Very Wise Indeed. Again. ‘Well, maybe I might have tried to win at things a bit too much in the past,’ I concede, glossing over the fact that I’m counting ‘the past’ as being ‘up to and including the last hour’. ‘But I’m not the one with an inherited sense of entitlement, no idea about the real world, and tits so perky they don’t need upholstery!’ I try to make my tone light-hearted, to get back to the place where we were just a few moments ago and make my sister laugh. ‘I’m not the one who’s a pain in the arse, knob-head, Little Miss Perfect at everything – but who can’t bloody swim and nearly made us all drown!’ It’s at this point that I decide to embark upon an ill-advised impersonation of our youngest trainee Viking. ‘Ooh, I’m Margot! Look at me! Help, help! I can’t swim!’
Just at this moment, there’s a lull in the Scandi-pop background music and a sob so loud it can be heard from the cubicle behind us. It’s then I remember that the stall has been occupied since our arrival, and that someone has been in there for a really long time.
Melissa breaks away from me, hesitates for a moment, then knocks at the door. ‘Everything OK?’ A muffled snuffle can be heard in response, and so Melissa, with no regard for privacy or personal space – as usual – stands on the loo seat of the adjacent cubicle to peer over the top of the plywood wall. Finding she’s too short to see, she summons me to try.
‘No way!’ I hiss.
‘Yes way!’ Melissa insists.
The crying game continues as the bawls ramp up a gear.
‘Come on!’ my sister beckons. ‘Whoever it is might need help!’
I’m not convinced this is wise, but unwilling to jeopardise our newfound sisterly equilibrium, I do as I’m bid.
You are putting your bare feet on a loo seat, my inner monologue castigates me. But Melissa appears unconcerned, edging around the oval throne to give me a better foothold until I can extend my fingers to gain purchase on the top of the stall and then, finally, poke my head over to see what’s the other side.
Shit …
I experience another of the sinking feelings with which I’ve become exceedingly familiar of late.
‘Oh god,’ says Melissa. ‘It’s her, isn’t it?’
An open, unlined face registers shock, then dismay, mottling slightly on seeing me, before crumpling into a further onslaught of tears.
‘Sorry, Margot,’ is all I can think of to say.
Fifteen
‘Every … time …’ Margot gulps to get the words out between sobs ‘… I spend time … with people … I like—’ she dissolves into hiccups and does some loud sniffing before she can resume her sentence ‘—they never … like … me.’
There is an awkward silence, at least on my part. Then Melissa pipes up. ‘Of course we like you!’ She pokes at my thigh, urging me to follow her lead.
‘Yes!’ I blurt. ‘I didn’t mean it, that stuff I said – it was the gin talking!’
But Margot won’t be consoled. Her bottom lip is trembling and she’s battling snot now, so I scrunch up some loo roll for her to have a wipe with. Once I’ve leant over the top of the toilet door and delivered my gift of several sheets of two-ply, I poke at Melissa.
‘Go on!’ I tell her.
‘What?’ Melissa hushes me.
‘Say something else! Something nice! Please?’ I beg. ‘You’re good at all that.’
‘What?’
‘You know, talking and stuff – words coming out of your face …’ I’m floundering now.
‘No!’ she hisses. ‘This is your crap-storm, you clean it up!’
Must everything relate to excrement with my sister? Seemingly so …
‘Margot?’ I try, looking back over the plywood wall. ‘Margot! Listen – what you just heard … Ignore me. Forget about it. I shouldn’t have said—’
‘But you meant it!’ she wails.
‘No! Not really.’ I glance back at my sister, still hoping for backup. She makes a V-sign with her fingers and points them at me, then at the cubicle next door. What? ‘What does that even mean?’ I hiss. ‘I have no idea what you’re on about!’
Melissa shakes her head in despair. ‘Just keep talking! To her!’ she whispers back.
So I do.
‘I didn’t mean mean it,’ I go on. ‘It’s just that you can sometimes come across a bit … perfect … what with your hair and your face and your tiny bottom and nice arms and your no-bra policy—’
‘What?’ Margot cups her hands to her chest defensively and Melissa mimes slitti
ng her throat to indicate that I might just be making things worse.
‘Sorry, that’s not important right now,’ I say, trying to dismiss my previous point. ‘You’re also clever and good at things and young. So young …’ I lose my train of thought momentarily.
‘That’s not my fault …’ Margot retaliates, quite rightly.
‘No, it isn’t,’ I say. ‘I think I was just—’ I take a deep breath before I can bring myself to say the words ‘—a bit jealous.’
‘Jealous?’ She looks wide-eyed. ‘Of me?’
‘Mmm,’ I murmur, embarrassed now. ‘As though we were somehow in competition—’ I break off, aware that I’m flattering myself by even entertaining this notion.
‘Basically, I think my sister would quite like to be you.’ Melissa cups her hands and speaks into the wall. Oh, so NOW she’s joining in? Thanks a lot … ‘Isn’t that right, Alice?’ Melissa raises her eyebrows at me encouragingly.
Really? Is my vilification to be quite so complete? Thank god for the gin, I think. This would be far too much, sober …
‘Yes,’ I manage, jaw clenched. ‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘See?’ Melissa beams. ‘That wasn’t so hard, was it?’ She hops off the loo seat looking pleased with herself.
I step down, tentatively, and between us we coax Margot out of the stall. Her feline eyes are pink from prolonged crying and her brow is crinkled with confusion.
And yet … still pretty! How does that work?!
‘Come here, come to mama bear,’ Melissa says, inexplicably maternal all of a sudden. She holds out her arms and envelops Margot into one of her best hugs as the younger woman attempts to compose herself.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say again – for what must be the twentieth time today.
‘’S’OK,’ Margot mumbles, wiping away tears. ‘But you would tell me, wouldn’t you?’ she asks. ‘If there are things I do that put people off? Because this happens a lot …’ She’s crying again. ‘At school …’ She sniffs. ‘University …’ Her sentence is further punctuated by a nose blow. ‘… even the Duke of Edinburgh Awards! Though of course Phil would never say anything to Daddy …’
‘Of course he wouldn’t.’ Melissa strokes Margot’s hair and shushes her as I fight the urge to roll my eyes. ‘But perhaps,’ my sister offers, ‘you could do with … relaxing a bit more?’
‘Mmm.’ I make a tentative ‘agreeing’ noise then try to get in on the hugging and head-stroking action.
Is this what girls do in these sorts of situations?
But Melissa breaks away and both women stare at me.
‘I mean you as well,’ Melissa tells me. ‘No one likes a smartarse and there’s no need to make everything a competition.’
Oh …
‘No …’ Margot and I say in unison, struggling to take on these new life lessons.
‘But it’s never too late to change.’ She turns back to Margot. ‘Look at my sister? She’s been uptight for thirty-seven years—’
‘I have not!’ I retort on reflex.
‘You have,’ Melissa corrects me.
‘Not … ?’ I’m less sure now.
‘OK, what was the last party you went to where you let your too-long hair down?’ she asks.
‘The last party? That’s your metric? Are we fifteen?’ I flash her my best ‘teenage’ look and wonder aloud whether a dentistry conference counts. Melissa shakes her head and a pitying expression comes over her. ‘In that case, I don’t know,’ I concede. In truth, it may have been the millennium. ‘I used to be fun once, didn’t I?’ There is silence. ‘Then suddenly, one day, I woke up with two kids and a Renault Espace …’
‘You both just need to … loosen up more,’ Melissa goes on, giving a – possibly drunken – shimmy to illustrate ‘optimal loosening’.
‘Like how?’ I ask, cautiously.
‘Like …’ Melissa thinks of a suitable example, before settling on, ‘Like Tricia! Come on, I’ll show you.’ With this, she boots open the toilet door, links an arm in each of ours, and leads us back out into the now buzzing bar where a bouffant blonde bob is just visible amidst a crowd of cheering Vikings. She stands, legs apart, breasts hoiked together like buns by a fire-warmed brassiere, a clutch of silverware in one hand and tumbler of ‘brown liquid’ in the other.
‘Tricia?’
‘There you are!’ she greets us enthusiastically. ‘Are you having a marvellous time? I’m having a marvellous time! It turns out that when I get drunk, I can speak Danish!’ She slurs something incomprehensible at a passing Viking who looks perplexed.
‘What are you doing with those?’ I point to the knives in her hand.
‘Ah! Well.’ She looks pleased to have the opportunity to explain her cunning ploy. ‘I’ve been chatting to the indigenous, and with the help of my push-up bra, I have negotiated a deal whereby we’ll all get a free beverage of our choosing, every time I can hit that corkboard, over—’ she squints at the far side of the room ‘—there! At least, I think that’s where it is … I was telling everyone all about our axe-throwing lesson and then I thought, “Why not show them?” Here, hold my drink …’ A glass is deposited in my sister’s hands as Tricia turns to take aim, before any of us can form the words to dissuade her. I reach out, in what feels like slow motion, to catch her right arm as it swings back to launch weaponry in the direction of the immaculate clientele, when a voice from the entrance halts Tricia in her tracks.
‘Stop!’
Silhouetted by a crack of lightning from the outside world stands a statuesque figure: her mane of glossy hair apparently undiminished by a pounding from the elements.
Sleek and surefooted, Inge gusts into the bar as a ripple of awareness follows her. Even the catalogue-esque clientele pale in comparison with her Amazonian form and self-assured presence, and one by one they greet her, vying for her attention. But Inge’s eyes are only on Tricia. The crowd parts as she marches over and confiscates the cutlery.
‘I’ll take those, thanks,’ says Inge, returning them to their rightful place behind the bar.
‘Sorry,’ mumbles Tricia.
‘Never apologise,’ Inge holds up a hand. ‘Just keep your axe-throwing for outside.’
‘Right, yes. Got it.’ Tricia nods. ‘But for all of us running off, too … and for taking the boat …’
‘Yeah, that was a little dumb,’ Inge concedes. ‘In a storm. When there was no hope of seeing a swan … But I must congratulate you all on your wanderlust and seafaring spirit.’
‘You must?’ I’m stupefied.
‘Of course,’ she says.
‘Even though we almost drowned?’ Margot asks.
‘None of you died, did you?’ Inge clarifies, doing a quick headcount.
‘But we nearly did. Twice, in my case …’ Margot starts up again, before Melissa gives her a look that says, ‘You know that thing we talked about when you can be a massive goody-goody who takes things too literally and puts people off? Yeah, this is one of those times. Stop talking. Now.’
‘You were Vikings,’ Inge tells us. We all stand a little taller on hearing this. ‘You survived. Otto gave me the heads up that I’d find you here – and that you’d made it together. Which means you’re ready – for tomorrow. For the final stage of your training. You’re ready for—’ even before she can say the word, I tense up ‘—berserking!’
Bile rises in my throat. Because in spite of all we’ve been through and everything I’ve learned, I still don’t feel as though ‘me’ and ‘berserking’ are entities that should ever go together. How am I going to be able to slough off thirty-seven years’ worth of ‘uptightness’ – as Melissa puts it – to be able to do the whole running, shouting, naked thing in a few short hours? I’m fretting now, so I’m relieved when Inge tells us that there’s a supplementary step we’ll be taking together first.
‘Although I’m proud of you for making your own way here and getting through the week, we still have some work to do around honesty. Wouldn’t you say?’
She looks at each of us in turn. ‘There have been secrets. Lies. Concealments – even from yourselves. To be a Viking, you need to be true to yourself. To finally go berserk, you need to know who you are and what you stand for.’
This is all sounding a little more earnest than I’m normally comfortable with. But somehow, I can’t think of any cynical quips. Maybe it’s the gin. Maybe it’s the quinine. Maybe it’s the ABBA playing on loop … Or maybe, just maybe, it’s the fact that already today I have reckoned with the prospect of losing my sister, fought my way back to her, battled storms – literal and metaphorical – and been humbled in ways I could never have imagined when I woke up this morning. It’s as though I’ve been broken down, only to be built back up, better than before. So if there were ever a time to embrace my ‘inner truth’ and bare my soul in as un-British a way as possible, it’s probably around now, I reason.
‘I want you all to focus on what’s holding you back and what you’re going to do about it,’ Inge tells us, taking a seat at the head of a table and gesturing for us to join her on the wooden benches. ‘Because we all have to share a world. So anything you’re preoccupied with on the inside, now’s the time to get it out. Own up to it here, tonight, so we can move on.’
‘Like a sort of honesty arms amnesty?’ Melissa asks.
‘A little like that, yes,’ Inge indulges her.
‘Ooh, can we have a mantra?’ Tricia requests. ‘I love a mantra on a retreat. Or a manifesto!’
‘The Viking Convention!’ Margot pipes up. ‘Like the Geneva Convention,’ she adds for the benefit of the rest of us in case we don’t quite ‘get it’.
I get it, Margot, I think. But I let it lie. Because I am the NEW, improved Alice!
‘Sure.’ Inge shrugs, as though aware she only has to humour us for another twenty-four hours. ‘So The Viking Convention “Protocol I”.’
‘I plan to stop being a – what was it, Alice?’ Margot looks at me, then remembers. ‘Oh, “a pain in the arse knob-head”. And to try relaxing more.’
She says this totally innocently, apparently unaware she is landing me in it, even deeper than I’m already mired.
Gone Viking Page 29