Gone Viking Read online

  It was probably just stupid Steve, I tell myself. The unknown calls were probably just stupid Steve. Weren’t they?

  I still don’t answer. Then Esme, the big boss, starts calling.

  You should really answer this one, I tell myself: It’s your boss, it’s your boss, it’s your boss … And yet …

  They can’t fire me: I’m the only one who knows how to work the new polishing machine. And where we keep the spare X-ray plates. And the coffee … Basically, they can’t fire me. Can they?

  I hit ‘End call’ again. And again. And again. Until soon, I’m jabbing at buttons frantically to make it stop, like some stomach-knottingly tense game of whack-a-mole. Just. Can’t. Do. Talking. Today …

  ‘Can’t you put your phone away for five minutes?’ Melissa complains. ‘So we can chat? Like normal people – like we used to.’

  Melissa, if she were honest, would like everything to be as it ‘used’ to be. I have a sneaking suspicion she even thinks electric light is overrated and is forever trying to drag me back into conversations about things that happened when we were kids. Just as she’s doing now …

  ‘Remember when we found frogs in the front garden and made up a whole swimming-pool complex for them out of ramekins?’ she starts. ‘Or the time we played hide and seek on our bikes in the woods …’

  I shudder. I hate woods. Too many spores. And shadows. And bugs …

  ‘… and you got lost, then freaked out because I didn’t “find” you in time and so started making owl noises as a distress signal?’

  I look blank. I don’t remember, but the whole expedition in general sounds awful …

  ‘You know! It was the same summer the boy next door offered to show us his penis and we told him “no, thanks” because Rentaghost was on?’

  Nope. Nothing. I appear to have whitewashed vast swathes of our collective past. From childhood hijinks to being forced to grow up before I was ready, there are things I can’t remember even if I wanted to. And I don’t, for the most part. I’m not sure that childhood was a condition that particularly suited me. Besides, there’s no point always harping back, is there? I prefer to look forward. Like now …

  My heart start to gallop as I seize the wheel. ‘Watch out!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Look where you’re going!’

  The car swerves around a bollard and mounts the kerb before I can right it, bringing us back down with the crunch of a hubcap.

  ‘All right, cool your fetlocks. It’s fine. We’re fine!’

  ‘Just …’ I mutter, as a pigeon squawks and skirts the windscreen.

  After this we travel in silence. Well, with Celine, Ali Campbell and Ronan Keating for ‘entertainment’. It’s better for everyone this way.

  Melissa and I are as dissimilar as it is possible to be. I have booby-trapped my life with people who need me, all the time, whereas she has made very sure that she has no (human) dependents and is free to do as she pleases. She lives largely like a character from an Enid Blyton book or one of D. H. Lawrence’s gamekeepers (think Sean Bean, but with bigger breasts), living a simple – some might say simplistic – life. The last time I visited her at home, I had to wait eight minutes for her on-the-hob kettle to boil and even then she insisted on using loose-leaf tea. Not a pyramid bag in sight! I asked for the Wi-Fi password, since the reception was terrible, and she told me she ‘didn’t believe in Wi-Fi’. She’d once read about a man in Leicester who was allergic to it and had to wear a body suit made of tin foil to ‘repel the waves’. I bought her a microwave the Christmas before last, but she only uses it for storage (‘I don’t want radiation with my jacket potato, thanks very much!’). She shuns ‘the new’, loves anything ‘old’ (‘Including rickets? How about hanging?’ I asked once in a moment of frustration) and occasionally likes to ‘opt out’ of the ‘fat-cat system’ by closing her building society account so ‘The Man’ can’t trace her. All this, under the umbrella ambition of being ‘free’.

  But freedom has always seemed overrated to me. I prefer order. And the indoors. And clean, disinfected surfaces, I think, as I touch something alarming in the passenger seat footwell that I’m dearly hoping is a banana skin (rather than anything more sinister).

  In fact, the only thing my sister and I have in common is that we share some genes. And not many, at that, I think, eyeing up my driving companion.

  It’s fair to say that I wouldn’t have chosen Melissa as my sister even in a nuclear fallout. Nor she, me, for that matter. But apparently there ‘definitely wasn’t a mix-up at the baby unit’ and no one was ‘secretly adopted’ (she checked this, aged twelve). So Melissa and I are stuck with each other. Normally, this doesn’t prove too much of an issue. Normally, I can get on with my life and all the ‘looking after people’, merely adding Melissa to the end of my ‘list’ during our twice-yearly meetups or quarterly phone calls. It is manageable; neat; contained. Just the way I like it. But all this is about to change.

  Two

  The children, welded to an iPad, barely look up when I come in. Fun Aunt Melissa elicits more enthusiasm. She is tackled to the floor within five seconds flat and is soon, from what I can make out, wrestling with them in the hallway. Greg appears, frowning at a smartphone, which he hastily puts away when he sees us.

  ‘Oh. Hi …’ he says in his most Eeyore-y of Eeyore voices.

  ‘Are those pillow marks on your face?’

  ‘I … I may have fallen asleep.’ His cheeks colour.

  Dad of the Year Award in the post, I think.

  ‘I love a nap,’ Melissa offers generously. ‘It’s like two days in one.’

  ‘Err … yeah. Tea?’

  ‘Thanks. Green,’ I tell him as he slouches off to put the kettle on. There’s no sign of a swimming bag, nor has the satchel containing Charlotte’s piano practice moved from its spot in the hall where I left it yesterday. Greg evidently forgot both activities in the ‘rush’ of demolishing the Kellogg’s’ Variety Packs I bought for the kids yesterday …

  I lower myself tentatively onto a kitchen chair, still conscious of the nausea ripples in danger of returning to tsunami-like proportions at any moment. I just want to hide under the duvet with a bottle of Lucozade Zero, I moan inwardly. But I’m a mother of two; I have responsibilities. And possibly some sick still lodged in my bra …

  When I’ve done some slow breathing and swallowed hard to put any bile back in its place, I look around at the assortment of half-empty takeout containers and sandwich wrappers scattered over the kitchen surfaces like a modern-art installation.

  ‘I see you’ve been nailing your five-a-day …’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Did you even look at a pan while I was away?’

  Greg settles into his customary mask of resigned fatigue while I adopt a steady expression of well-practised tolerance. It’s a heady combination that’s got us through the past few years. No point rocking the boat now, I think, getting up in search of paracetamol. Or a lobotomy. Or a stomach pump, I think. I’d take either right now.

  It’s then that I notice the trail of crusted mud (earth? Manure?) meandering around the white tiled kitchen in hot pursuit of … my sister.

  ‘You! Shoes! Off!’

  Reluctantly, she relinquishes her boots and at the same time, unleashes a blast from the past.

  ‘Jesus Christ, your feet still stink.’ I cover my mouth with a hand, fearing a further episode of vomiting.

  ‘What? They’re my lucky socks!’

  ‘Do you ever wash your lucky socks?’

  She looks at me, appalled. ‘I’d wash the luck off!’

  ‘I don’t care! Put the boots back on.’ I point at the doormat. ‘I’ll get you clean socks.’

  ‘They’re not dirty; they’re unwashed,’ Melissa objects.

  ‘There’s a difference?’ I ask, incredulous and Very Nauseous Indeed by now. My sister looks at me as though I’m a fool. ‘It doesn’t matter. Just stay there. I’ll lend you a pair of mine. I need to change
, anyway.’

  Sprinting upstairs as fast as my hangover will let me, I pass duvets pulled over piles of washing and a fusty-smelling study, blinds still down. Fear flickers behind my eyes and I feel the familiar tightness in my throat. Instinctively, I reach into my pocket for my phone in need of a soothing pellet of … something. Bugger, it’s still in my bag … I feel bereft. Pulling on some jeans and a fresh shirt, I start to worry that the mystery caller or texter will have started up again. Or worse, that Greg will have answered it. I realise I have no option but to get the socks and go back downstairs. To my life ….

  ‘What’s for lunch?’ Greg greets me as I deliver the clean socks and return to the kitchen. I slip my phone from my bag and check: two more missed calls, one from the surgery, and a message.

  ‘It’s me’

  I feel sick.

  ‘From last night?’ the follow-up text reads.

  So that’s definitely not Steve from the surgery. Mr Teeth … I don’t want to know his real name. I don’t want to know anything about him. What I want is to vomit again and then hide under the table with my fingers in my ears until everything and everyone goes away. But I can’t. Because I’m the grown-up here …

  ‘Don’t contact me again,’ I type back swiftly before adding as an afterthought, ‘please.’

  Manners cost nothing.

  I ram my phone in my pocket so that I can keep it close to me from now on and practise my best ‘unruffled face’. The kettle has boiled and there are mugs on the draining board. This, clearly, is as far as Greg’s tea-making is going to extend today.

  ‘I said, “what’s for lunch?”’ he asks again.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I snap back. ‘What wholesome, nutritious dish have you been slaving over?’

  ‘Err …’

  ‘Right then.’ I yank open the fridge and analyse the contents. ‘I’ll do it then, shall I?’ I begin pulling out packages of various shapes and sizes and arranging them in an order that I hope might constitute a meal. ‘Kids? Food! Melissa? Stay … if you want … ?’

  I’m hoping she’ll say no.

  ‘I could eat …’ she peers at the packaging ‘… some “tofu ragu” …’

  I can already tell she’s having second thoughts as I stab the film of the plastic tray with a fork and throw it in the microwave.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I assure her. ‘A couple of “micro-waves” won’t kill you. And there’s a meat version for whoever wants it.’ I watch her shoulders lower with relief. Greg slopes off to do whatever Greg does and Melissa reluctantly adds her ‘lucky socks’ to the washing pile. While I wait for the food to ‘ding’, I attack a cling-filmed head of broccoli – my one concession to home cooking – and steam it over a pan of spaghetti.

  ‘Right. Food. Everyone!’

  There is no response.

  ‘Lunch!’ I try again.

  ‘No!’ one child yelps, followed by giggling.

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Right …’ I do some deep breathing and press my fingers to my temples in an attempt to quell the throbbing as the saucepan boils over.

  ‘We’re watching a Taylor Swift video!’ the eldest calls out plaintively.

  ‘Taylor who?’ My sister isn’t great on pop-culture references.

  ‘Swift. Long legs. Lucrative break-ups.’ I bring her up to speed while draining pasta and scalding myself on the steam. ‘The kids like to watch her videos on YouTube.’

  ‘Bit young, aren’t they? It was a dolls house and farm sets in our day.’

  ‘Was it?’ I say, distracted by the pain that now seems to be lodging itself in my eye sockets as well as my newly burnt wrist.

  FFS … this isn’t a hangover; this is torture …

  ‘Of course we didn’t have all this technology …’ Melissa pronounces this as though it’s a new fancy word for something she refuses to have any part of.

  ‘Come on!’ I try again. ‘Who’s for broccoli?’ There is silence. ‘Mmm! Broccoli … I love broccoli!’

  ‘Said no child ever …’ Melissa jokes. I give her a look that says: don’t you dare come into my home and criticise my cruciferous vegetables. ‘Sorry. Sorry. OK, deal me in.’

  So I do. Even laying out knives and forks and napkins and condiments on the table in the hope of pulling back control of a day that has already gone seriously off track. We can all sit down and share a meal. Like they do in films. Like the magazines tell me we should. We will talk. And eat. And a convivial time will be had by all, I decide.

  Greg appears in the doorway and smirks slightly. ‘Why have you laid the table?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Why aren’t we eating on our laps in front of the TV like normal people?’

  ‘Because it’s a lunchtime on a Saturday, for once we’re all home, and –’ my voice catches until I reign it in, sharpish ‘– I thought we could eat together. That it would be nice. But the food’s there. Do what you want with it.’

  So he does. Loading up a plate and conveying it to the sofa where he can shovel it into his mouth with only the television for company. Taking their cue from ‘Dad’, Charlotte and Thomas come in giggling and do the same, seizing the bowls I’d served up for them and lolloping back to their Taylor Swift sound-tracked lair. Only Melissa sits down with me at the table and tucks in, appreciatively.

  ‘Do you know what the most important ingredient of the meal is?’ she asks, mid-mouthful.

  I look at her plate, puzzled. ‘Beef?’

  ‘No!’ She raises a fork in appreciation and clinks her water glass against mine. ‘Good company!’

  ‘Oh.’ I can tell she’s trying to make me feel better but it’s not working.

  She has flecks of food in her teeth, I observe, and it doesn’t look like ragu … or pasty … I bet she hasn’t been using the multipack of floss I sent her …

  I eat without pleasure or appetite. Broccoli with a drizzle of tofu sauce: because I should. Because it’s what a responsible, health-conscious mother of two who didn’t have a rollicking great hangover would do. It takes some more aggressive swallowing than normal and a battle of wills with my oesophagus about what’s going down and what’s still intent on coming up. But I win. I usually do. Or at least, I used to. Then I chase the children around the house with a pan full of broccoli (the usual) before giving up.

  In lieu of a family mealtime, I treat myself to unloading clean dishes from the dishwasher (Greg thinks a House Elf does this …) and replacing them with newly soiled ones, along with a surplus collection of crockery that has built up on the windowsill.

  Finally, once order and symmetry have been restored, it’s time to move on to upstairs. Melissa follows me.

  ‘Is that normal then? Greg just eating and watching TV and the kids on iPads?’

  ‘Well … not normal exactly …’ I flounder.

  ‘They didn’t seem very happy to see you.’

  ‘Thanks for that,’ I say as I ascend the stairs. My sister: human truth grenade.

  At the top of the stairs, I feel a strange sense of vertigo as I survey the carnage. You can do this, I coach myself. Just tidy up, get the laundry sorted, do some work, do dinner, do bath time, get the kids to sleep, then you can go to bed. This way, I rationalise, I can make the day be over sooner. I feel sluggish and fatigued now, so pinch the fleshy part of my left hand to regain focus. You just need to keep going, laying the path one paving slab at a time in front of you …

  So what if I spend my life loading and unloading a dishwasher? Or putting on the washing machine then emptying it and hanging it up (the worst part). I’m getting things done, keeping my career going and looking after my family until some magical point in future when things will get easier. Like retirement. Or death …

  I’m just grappling with a double duvet cover while simultaneously trying to check emails (Esme wants to know why I’ve gone AWOL; I could, if I wanted, have my penis enlarged at a ‘low, low price’fn1 and our library books are late; but on the plus si
de: I’ve got two new endorsements on LinkedIn!) when Melissa pipes up.

  ‘Have you ever thought maybe modern life is life too convenient?’

  Inside my tent of Egyptian cotton (wedding present), with both arms outstretched in a crucifix position, mid tricky manoeuvre of holding-on-to-the-inside-of-the-duvet-cover-corners-for-dear-life pre sheathing action, I seethe.

  ‘No.’ I’m hoping the irritation in my voice is muffled by my vast cotton shroud. ‘I have never thought my life is “too convenient” …’ I execute a ‘flip and shake’ motion with all my might and woman-wingspan to force the duvet into covered submission until, finally, I’m free – newly static hair giving me an attractive, electrified appearance. Melissa misses my triumph and is now occupied leafing through old photographs that she keeps in her wallet, like it’s the 1990s.

  ‘Well, then riddle me this,’ she starts and I brace myself. ‘Look at this picture of Nanna, smiling, looking totally content.’ She waves a yellowing curled square showing a sepia-tinted image of a woman neither of us really ever knew. The woman has Victory rolls in her hair and wears a sundress. She’s posing on a pier somewhere, standing up very straight. ‘She doesn’t care about how many likes her Facebook posts get, or what her inbox looks like,’ Melissa goes on. ‘She’s just happy because war is over and she’s about to be reunited with Grandpa and have twins!’

  I bet she wasn’t smiling like that once they arrived, in the days before disposable nappies, I can’t help thinking.

  ‘Her life was simpler!’

  ‘Yes, well, lucky old grandma – some of us are paying a mortgage.’

  I can say this because Melissa lives in a gardener’s shed on an estate that she pays tuppence a year for. From what I can tell, her ‘job’ mainly consists of swanning about with animals in tow like a latter-day Dr Doolittle to earn what funds she needs for ‘essentials’, like pasties and the upkeep of a 1980s white pick-up truck.