Gone Viking

by Helen Russell

  ‘How are the kids?’ she asks, after a cursory rummage around in my glove compartment for sweets and a harrumph that there are none lurking.

  ‘The kids are well! Ish …’ I tell her. ‘I mean, they still hate me for confiscating the iPad and think their dad’s more fun because he lets them watch TV all the time when they stay with him. But they’re helping to lay the table now and can even get their own cereal in the morning! Laundry’s still a struggle, but since I set up a trampoline in the garden, they’re so exhausted most days, they haven’t got the energy to fight me on it. And they’ve got those kind of round, rosy cheeks, like kids in story books!’ I say, with pride.

  ‘Wow!’

  ‘I know!’

  ‘No, I mean, are they OK?’

  ‘Oh yes – I think it’s just from the fresh air and exercise. Not slapped cheek syndrome,’ I say with some certainty, having Googled this ferociously ahead of my previous visit for fear of contaminating Melissa.

  ‘Huh. And you set up that trampoline all by yourself?’ She looks doubtfully at my admittedly still sub-Viking physique.

  ‘Yes!’ I tell her. ‘I’ve been working out, honestly!’ She nods, impressed. ‘I also think that trampoline assembly might be my one of my secret special skills,’ I tell her.

  ‘Like sword-forging?’ she jokes. ‘Or axe-throwing?’

  ‘Ha ha! Very droll – no. But, listen to this: I now have the ability to tell if a trampoline is the optimum tensile strength just by looking at it!’ I enthuse. ‘I’ve tested it out at friends’ houses, too,’ I add with a note of pride, because I have friends now!

  ‘Optimum tensile strength, eh?’ Melissa is mocking me but I don’t care.

  ‘Yes! It’s pretty exciting stuff. At the very least, it’s something you want to get right – otherwise the kids end up in next door’s garden …’

  ‘Did you learn this the hard way?’

  I keep my eyes fixed on the road.

  ‘Al?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I did … Anyway …’ I gloss over this last part, ‘… are you proud of me?’

  ‘I am,’ Melissa agrees, generously. ‘You’re practically a Viking. What next? Building them their own bunk beds out of whittled wood, like Inge?’

  ‘Who knows?’ I enthuse, ‘Maybe!’

  We pull up outside her cottage and the dogs start up a cacophony of greetings before I can even slot my key in the lock.

  ‘Mama’s home!’ Melissa ruffles their fur and allows herself to be mauled by them before wincing slightly at one of the bigger dog’s enthusiastic reception.

  ‘Is Silas trying to hump you?’ I frown.

  ‘Only a little …’ she waves a hand in dismissal.

  ‘All right, all right, get down,’ I tell him firmly as we make it in through the front door. Melissa’s house is cheerfully shambolic, playing host to a miscellany of country life with bits of old shell, stones and what she terms her ‘knickknacks’, generously scattered around. The floor is, again, littered with clothes after my last big tidy up. I’m still not sure how much of the mess is because my sister’s been in and out of hospital and how much is down to baseline detritus and her own personal housekeeping standards (still low). Fortunately, the rabbits are safely ensconced in the neighbour’s kitchen, spreading straw and shredded newspaper to their heart’s delight there. It turns out that Charlotte has inherited my allergies and Thomas took an instant dislike to ‘the bunny that looks at me funny’. Still, we tried. And dirty protests aside, the dogs and I have been getting on surprisingly well during my visits and stick-throwing sessions.

  If anything, Silas is a tad too keen …

  Now, taking her hand in mine, I help Melissa inside and upstairs to get her fully-pyjama-d and ready for some serious sofa time. A cursory rifle around her Tracey-Emin-d bed reveals some semi-clean pyjamas and we make it back downstairs. A couple of the smaller dogs curl into tight coils on her lap as she settles into the freshly plumped and laundered (by me) cushions.

  I light candles – because, well, that’s something else both of us like to do now, to make a space feel like home – then I boil the kettle on the hob until it screams.

  ‘Tea?’ I ask and she nods. ‘Fancy eating anything? I brought miso soup and kale?’ I’ve read that these are healing foods but Melissa’s not biting.

  ‘Urggh, no thanks.’ She pulls a face. ‘I’m not hungry.’

  ‘Right …’ I suspected that this might be the response. Fortunately, I have a back-up plan. ‘Not even … for a Marks and Spencer tuna pasta cheesy bake?’ I ask, retrieving a satisfyingly weighty cardboard box from a second bag-for-life.

  ‘Oh … well—’ I can see she’s tempted ‘—OK, then! Thanks.’

  ‘I’ll just heat it up,’ I tell her, feeling pleased I remembered to stock up on a few of her favourites during yesterday’s supermarket sweep. It’s a good thing I did, I think, noticing that the rest of the fridge is bare but for bottles of beer and a few forgotten-looking bowls of … something or other. I lift tin foil off one to have a sniff, then recoil and hold it as far from my nose as possible to convey it to the bin, silently. After putting the rest of the provender away (maybe she’ll feel like the kale later, I kid myself), I sling the ready meal in the microwave – a modern contraption that Melissa has finally been won around to on account of ‘having cancer anyway’. While I wait for the food to heat up, I take in the new batch of postcards from well-wishers and friends, stuck on to the front of the fridge with a variety of canine and equine themed magnets.

  Because I am now a Viking, I ask Melissa before I read these – apparently it doesn’t count as snooping this way and my curiosity can be sated with a clean conscience.

  ‘Sure,’ she mumbles drowsily, ‘if I can have a go on your phone?’ My sister has recently discovered the delights of online Solitaire, a mere two decades after everyone else. She takes my mobile, still suspicious of its square icons and sounds, then unlocks the game and begins to play, furiously.

  Weirdo …

  One of the postcards is of turquoise seas, white sands and expensive-looking people wearing exclusively beige. It’s from Margot, who’s doing a swimming course in St Barts.

  All right for some, I think, and then correct myself. You know what? Good for her.

  We’ve agreed to meet up next month, ahead of our Viking reunion later this year. She’s growing on me, Margot, and I’ll never forget her parting words to me on the retreat. ‘You are an older version of me!’ Then she added with similar guilelessness. ‘So I’m going to be your friend whether you like it or not.’ I couldn’t stop smiling at this. And I felt strangely honoured. So now I have Tricia, Margot, New Dentist (Ben), School Mum (Sara), Former Classmate (Emily) … I tally them up: FIVE friends!

  The second postcard is from Tricia, bearing a Brighton beachfront and announcing that she’s been seeing Ed – her son – more and ‘doing some parenting’. She’s also got a job interview next Tuesday and has been further getting her craft on with a local crocheting group, delightfully named ‘The Happy Hookers’.

  A third is from Otto, written in neat, block lettering with a Danish postmark. I feel oddly embarrassed to be reading this one but he simply says he misses her, that he’s forging a sword in her honour, and he hopes she’ll come back and visit him one day. And that’s it.

  I wonder whether Melissa minds this – whether she had hoped for more. So when the microwave pings and I return to her with a bowl of pasta, I enquire, gently.

  ‘Otto? Oh no! I’m good,’ she assures me. ‘He’s great and all but I’ve got a lot on. Long distance suits me just fine. Plus he sent me two packets of artisanal bacon last week.’

  ‘Is that a good thing?’ I ask carefully.

  Now my sister looks at me as if I’m the weirdo. ‘Did you not hear what I said, about the bacon? Of course it’s a good thing! If anything, he’s a little eager, don’t you think?’

  ‘What, a postcard and some cured pig?’

  ‘I know, right?!’ Melissa
rolls her eyes. ‘But maybe I’ll invite him over sometime soon,’ she softens. ‘Maybe …’ Then she puts her arms out to receive her tuna bake. ‘Anyway, quick! Gimme gimme!’ She forks in two mouthfuls in quick succession before murmuring, ‘Mmm, penne: like slimy panpipes …’ in semi-rapture.

  I’m glad she’s OK with the whole Otto situation. I love how relaxed she’s always managed to be – and I’m learning from her, every day. In fact, speaking of relaxing …

  ‘Mind if I help myself to a beer?’ I say this casually, as if unaware that it will raise much of a response.

  Yes, I now drink beer. And eat pasta. And my life is a good 30 per cent better. Basically, I give fewer fucks.

  ‘Be my guest!’ Melissa approves. ‘Are you taking a break from being an arch perfectionist?’

  ‘Something like that,’ I tell her. She knows all about my ‘issues’ with eating now. And although Melissa may not be the apotheosis of anorexia recovery support, talking to her has definitely helped. ‘Mainly though, it’s that I don’t want the entire brewing economy to suffer just because you’re off the sauce for a while …’

  ‘That’s very noble of you, thank you.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  Warm comforting bowls of pasta in hand, we huddle up on the sofa to eat – in a way I never let Charlotte and Thomas get away with these days back home. Hot wax trickles down white candles and pools on the bronze geometric candlestick that Melissa admired at the airport on our way back from our retreat. I distracted her at the time by telling her there was a Lego model of a dog in the shop next door (true) then snuck back and bought it before presenting it to her as a ‘thank you’ for the trip. It was the first thing I’d ever given her that she actually wanted – and it felt good. I resolved to try doing more of it.

  Cocooned under a blanket now and wearing the new, matching woolly socks I treated us both to (thoughtful present #2), the remains of the day are spent watching films and chatting like teenagers. Something we never did growing up.

  We’re not regressing, I tell myself. We’re making up for lost time.

  They say that if you suffer a loss, life goes on hold until you make peace with your personal brand of angst – and we all have one of those. Even Vikings.

  For us, the hurt came to a crescendo that endless summer back when I was sixteen and Melissa was fourteen. Everyone else was hanging out in parks, learning to smoke and have casual sex, but we were inside, not coping with our mother’s death in our different ways. Not speaking – not feeling, in my case. For weeks, months, decades, even, after. Our relationship stopped that summer – until this year. Until our Viking Spring awakening.

  I watch Melissa now, curled up like a cat, barely needing a fork and simply inhaling tubes of pasta one by one. She’s laughing intermittently at the TV, talking with her mouthful whenever possible, and nuzzling one of the dogs with her foot. Another of the canine companions has made a dreadful smell, while a third laps contentedly at his own penis. And yet … I feel a wave of love, like the kind I experience when I see, hear, or even think about Thomas and Charlotte. This is it, I realise. This is what it’s all about. Having my sister, here, with me now – hopefully at the end of her treatment – as well as my children happy and healthy and a career I care about, is enough. The addition of a masterfully taut-strung trampoline in the garden is merely the icing on the cake (which I also now eat, just FYI).

  Melissa draws me back out of myself by starting up what turns into an impassioned debate about whether Back to the Future I is superior to Back to the Future II (Answer: Yes. Clearly …) before widening out the discussion to include such seminal topics as the best way to serve eggs (me: ‘poached’. Melissa: ‘Are you insane? Fried! Obviously!’) and ‘if you could only have one type of carbohydrate for the rest of your life, what would it be’ (jury’s still out on this one, but ‘potato’ definitely has a shot). We talk about old friends, making new ones, family, work and the milestones that each of us missed out on in each other’s lives. I feel sad that it’s taken us so long to come around to this, but also grateful that I’m getting the chance to make up for it, now. Here. With my wonderful, caring, courageous and chaotic sister, who somehow planes the edges off me.

  The light outside fades and the air blackens to reveal a million tiny specks of light, luminous dust that fills the sky, visible from every window of Melissa’s cottage. She now eschews curtains or blinds in favour of ‘The Viking Way’, insisting that she prefers to see what’s going on in the world around her, rather than the pattern of something floral from John Lewis. The results are a little drafty, but I can live with that. And she was right about one thing, I think. It is beautiful out here. Turns out nature isn’t so bad, after all. So after a couple of hours, we turn off the TV and watch the night, instead. And chat some more. And then some more. Because, you see, we have more than twenty years’ of conversation to catch up on.

  Acknowledgements

  I wrote this while being kicked to kingdom come, from the inside, by four legs. Four. That’s a ridiculous number. Human beings cannot, I feel sure, have been designed for BOGOF reproduction. Fortunately, I love them very much, even though one just puked on me and the other is currently fixing me with a look that says, ‘Get ready to put another load of laundry on …’ But if there’s one thing that doing something a bit hard and hurty does, it’s make you stronger – so thank you to the two mini-Vikings now out, proud, loud and marauding on the outside. Hear them roar, every two hours (with extra decibels at night). My husband, the Lego Man, did some first-rate latte-papa parenting to allow me to write this and our toddler, Little Red, proved invaluable at fetching ‘warm paper’ from the printer when needed (though he’s still mightily cheesed off that this book isn’t about diggers).

  The biggest of thank yous must go to the team at Ebury for bringing Gone Viking to the world – to my fabulous commissioning editor Emily Yau; to Gillian Green, the phenomenal publishing director for fiction; plus Steph Naulls and Tessa Henderson for publicity and marketing wizardry.

  I am ever grateful to my splendid agent, Anna Power, for her support, assistance and general superwoman credentials.

  My traditional Viking education came courtesy of the Kongernes Jelling Museum in Jutland, as well as Diana, Karen, Gudrun, Bjarne and the team at Ribe Viking centre, who were unbelievably patient while teaching a heavily pregnant Brit how to axe-throw and make authentic Viking tar. Roskilde Viking Ship Museum sailing instructor and navigation teacher Karen Andersen opened my eyes to a brave new world of ‘being in touch with nature ’n’ that’ and is the source of my new favourite swan fact. Go visit all these places: they are fascinating and you’ll see A LOT of excellent beard-work.

  I’m hugely grateful for the help of the information nurse team at Cancer Research UK for checking factual accuracy (visit www.cancerresearchuk.org for more information and those affected by cancer can call CRUK’s nurses on 0808 800 4040). My chats with Alexandra King from Cancer Research UK were instrumental – and she’s an inspiration (#Viking).

  And thanks as always to my tribe for showing me how modern-day Vikings roll. For introducing me to Icelandic horses and lambs in cupboards (Katie); for insight into dentistry (Jill); for opening my eyes to contemporary retreat options (Matthew); and for crucial help with character names (Rob, who’s miffed that he hasn’t been mentioned in previous books. So there. R.O.B.). To Emily, Chrissy, Caroline, Sarah and Joe for unflagging support from the motherland as well as my actual mother, for bringing me up to believe that girls can do anything. To Tara and Fen for early brainstorming over gin; to Frauke and Jackie for sanity breaks when I was nearing the end of my housebound tether; and to every badass Viking I’ve been inspired by during five years of living Danishly: you rock.

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditi
ons under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Epub ISBN: 9781473551695

  Version 1.0

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  Ebury Press, an imprint of Ebury Publishing

  20 Vauxhall Bridge Road,

  London SW1V 2SA

  Ebury Press is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com

  Copyright © Helen Russell, 2018

  Cover illustration © Shutterstock Dreamstime

  Cover: www.headdesign.co.uk

  Helen Russell has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental

  First published in the UK in 2018 by Ebury Press

  www.penguin.co.uk

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 9781785036491

  One: Three weeks earlier …

  fn1 Otherwise known as ‘doing a Thornberry’ after Jeremy Corbyn’s Most Awkward High-Five Ever post-2017 election …

  fn2 Post recession, even the Waitrose brigade loves a Premier Inn

  fn3 Also: naked mole rats, chinchillas, mountain beavers, baby elephants, hippopotamus calves, orangutans and rhesus monkeys, according to the Cornell Veterinarian Journal.