Gone Viking Read online

  ‘Great! Leave it to me,’ she says.

  ‘Are you sure? I can organise it.’ I’m just whipping out my phone – to a) check there aren’t any messages from work or Mr Teeth; b) add this to my To-Do list; and c) plan how to scale it back to a weekend – when Melissa interrupts.

  ‘Don’t you trust me?’

  Are you mad? I don’t trust anyone! After last night, I barely trust myself!

  My hand vibrates to alert me to a new message on my phone and I find that every sinew has tensed. Don’t let it be him, don’t let it be him … I start up my most recent internal mantra, followed by the habitual advice of my cardiologist: … and remember to breathe …

  ‘Of course I trust you!’ I lie to Melissa.

  ‘Well then. I’ll sort it.’

  ‘A spa, right?’

  ‘Sure.’ She shrugs.

  ‘OK, then. Done.’

  I check my phone: it’s someone asking if I’ve been wrongly sold PPI insurance. My lungs deflate and my heart begins to return to its normal pace.

  ‘It’s settled then!’ Melissa beams, and I do my best to smile back.

  And breathe.

  Once I’ve handed over the reins I’m filled with a rush of something unfamiliar. Relief? Could it be? I’m becoming increasingly aware after last night’s performance that something’s got to give. And if all it takes to get back on track – by which I mean IN CONTROL AT ALL TIMES – is a spa break with my sister, well, then perhaps it’s a price worth paying? Sure, I’ve just entrusted a weekend of my life to someone who thinks pot noodles are a delicacy and likes to shovel animal shit for fun. And yet there’s a sort of warm, wobbly feeling in my throat as though maybe …

  ‘You’re about to cry!’ Melissa stands up, looking alarmed. I last cried in plain sight of another human being in 1992 – and that was when a limb fractured in four places. ‘Is that a … tear?’

  ‘Definitely not.’ I dab at an eye. This is a lie. I can now feel my armpits sweating Shiraz with the effort not to weep. ‘Do you mind leaving?’

  ‘Okaaaay, I’ll go,’ she says, getting up and giving my arm a hefty right hook for good measure. ‘Well, see you soon – I’ll aim for some time in the next fortnight.’

  ‘The next fortnight?’ I nurse my arm. At least it’s distracted me from the urge to cry. ‘I don’t know about the next fortnight,’ I tell her. ‘I’ll have to check my calendar. I can’t just drop everything …’

  She’s not listening. Instead, she’s nodding as though I’m a small child.

  ‘You worry too much, it’ll be just like the good old days,’ she tells me.

  ‘Ha! Great!’

  That’s what I’m afraid of, I think, ominously.

  Three

  Two weeks later …

  ‘I’ve got us a great deal,’ she said.

  ‘It’s better value to go for a week,’ she said.

  ‘Bring your passport,’ she said.

  I had assumed that this meant we were staying somewhere swanky. Somewhere the concierge needed extra security and liked to take down your particulars, swiping a credit card before your stay in case you raided the minibar for nuts that cost £500 or stole the towels. I hoped that this meant ‘five stars’ and ‘luxury’ and embossed complimentary stationery with the word ‘bespoke’ scattered liberally around the in-room literature. I laboured under this misapprehension and kept on dreaming of infinity pools and massage chairs until our day of departure, when the muddy white pick-up truck pulled off at the junction for Heathrow’s Terminal Five.

  ‘A plane? We’re going on a plane?’ I bleated.

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Melissa responded with a dimpled smile, glimpsed in profile from the passenger seat.

  ‘You never said …’

  ‘You never asked,’ she retorted, still grinning infuriatingly before assuring me that she’d let Greg know and that, ‘Scandinavia’s great at this time of year’.

  ‘Scandinavia? Wha—Why?’

  ‘Don’t worry, you’ll love Denmark!’

  ‘Denmark?’ I squawked. ‘Wait, and you’ve been before?’ This was the first I’d heard of it.

  ‘Oh yes, loads! Copenhagen’s wonderful – better than the song, even!’ Melissa enthused.

  ‘Right. OK, then.’ I tried to stay upbeat and reconcile myself to a city minibreak. ‘So you can be our tour guide—’

  ‘Oh no, we’re not going to Copenhagen,’ she corrected me.

  ‘We’re not?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not quite …’

  We had already checked in our bags before she revealed our final destination. But by then it was too late.

  ‘WHAT?’ I struggled to contain my ire on learning that we were headed as far from the style-saturated Danish capital as it was possible to travel. Melissa tried to placate me with the biggest coffee they sold at Costa, before breaking the news that not only was there unlikely to be a fluffy towel in sight, but that there were other people involved. ‘Group travel? “Roughing it”? That wasn’t what we agreed!’ I hissed, trying not to make a scene.

  ‘Wasn’t it?’ Melissa adopted her best ‘innocent’ expression. ‘I must have remembered it wrong. That or you were still drunk …’ she’d added, tartly. Then, in an attempt to appease me: ‘Here, I got you a present.’ Rummaging in her rucksack, she pulled out what looked like the costume for a hen do: a bulleted silver plastic dome topped with two comically large horns.

  Slowly, and through gritted teeth, I asked: ‘What the flying fuck is that?’

  ‘It’s a Viking helmet!’ She beamed, ramming it on so hard that the rough plastic moulding scraped my forehead and the bulleted rim dipped below my eyes, obscuring my vision. ‘Whoops! It’s a bit big. You always did have a pea-head!’

  ‘At least I haven’t got a swede-head,’ I countered once I could see again and spotted the matching hat perched atop her cranium.

  Melissa, unperturbed, continued. ‘We’re going on a Viking retreat! This is what they wear!’

  There were so many things wrong with this statement, I wasn’t sure where to start.

  ‘OK, firstly: Vikings never wore horned headgear—’

  ‘Yes, they did! I’ve read Asterix the Gaul!’

  Apparently she wasn’t joking.

  ‘That was a cartoon! Drawn by a Frenchman!’ I half spluttered. ‘Horned Viking helmets are a myth!’ Melissa looked sulky on hearing this. ‘And you know Vikings don’t exist any more, right? They’ve been out of action for a thousand years!’

  ‘Have they though?’ Melissa countered.

  ‘Yes!’

  I’d watched enough History Channel output with Greg to feel fairly confident on this one.

  ‘Or is that just what they want you to think?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Otherwise everyone would want to move to Scandinavia!’

  ‘Would they? Would they really?’ Exasperated, I removed my scratchy hat, at which point Melissa put it back on me. There ensued a very unbecoming tussle between two grown women over an item of fancy dress until our flight number was called and we passed the duration of the journey in silence.

  It had been arduous enough explaining to Greg that he was going to be in sole charge of himself and two children (essentially: three children) for a whole week, with only an arsenal of takeaway menus for backup.

  ‘But you never go anywhere?’ had been his response.

  ‘Exactly!’ I’d told him. ‘That’s why I’m going away now. I’ve earned this.’

  I bought up as many ready meals as our freezer could handle, then instructed Charlotte and Thomas on how to defrost them if necessary. I briefed the childminder that we might need extra hours in case Greg ‘forgot’ to pick up the kids (again) and asked her to call me in case of emergency.

  ‘Because I’ll only be an hour or so away,’ I’d told her. ‘I can easily come home’.

  Ha!

  What I hadn’t banked on was travelling 1000km to spend a week with strangers.

  I hoped that
the kids would be OK.

  I hoped that Greg could keep them fed and watered and generally alive and unbroken.

  For Seven Whole Days …

  Now, I’m crouching in a field with a wet bottom and knees that feel as though they’re going to give way at any moment. It’s raining. Again. That kind of persistent drizzle that makes the world smell like a portaloo. And we’re being shouted at. Again.

  ‘Squat down: get low! Channel your inner primate!’ the man-bunned hipster in harem pants is barking at us as he walks up and down, supervising our attempts at ‘chimp walking’. ‘This is natural movement,’ he tells us while scratching at facial hair in a manner that screams ‘monkey’. ‘You’re relearning basic mobility skills!’

  That’s as may be, but I feel like a fool. I’m also cold, fed up, and inherently suspicious of people who substitute a beard for a personality. I’m already pretty sure that this trip is A Bad Idea.

  ‘See? No horned helmets,’ I hiss at Melissa.

  ‘Maybe they only wear them for special occasions,’ she responds mid-squat, unwilling to meet my eye.

  ‘Right. Sure. That’ll be it,’ I mutter and do some grade-A swearing under my breath.

  Man-bun tells us to call him ‘Magnus’ and that he’ll be our ‘spiritual and physical guide’ for the next seven days.

  Well, that sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen … I think.

  ‘Now I want you on all fours!’ he demands, prompting sniggering and a side-eye from the busty, older blonde next to me. ‘I need your legs wide and your butt low!’ Cue guffawing. ‘I want you crawling, chest to the ground!’ he says.

  And by ‘ground’, he means ‘mud’.

  In a rain-sodden no-man’s-land on an island somewhere in the North Sea, I finally wave goodbye to the last shreds of my dignity. And as someone who’s been stooped in the trenches of early parenthood for years now, this is a new low.

  I want to stand up and shout, ‘What are we doing here? Surely nobody is enjoying this?’ But I don’t. Because I’m me. Stupid old ‘me’.

  ‘Next: crab walk!’

  ‘I’ve done that one,’ the older blonde mutters, pulling at the gusset of her leggings. ‘Horrendous.’

  Magnus ignores this and demonstrates a sort of mobile bridge, pushed up on his hands and feet, torso upwards, moving around with apparent ease, as though ‘walking’ this way is perfectly normal. ‘You need to be prepared for any potentially injurious situation you might encounter!’ he barks, still in position. I can’t imagine what potentially injurious situation might necessitate a crab walk. Perhaps a sociopathic megalomaniac with a finger on the nuclear button who says hefn1 will destroy the world unless everyone starts walking like a crab. Or a real-life version of that Catherine Zeta-Jones scene in Entrapment, where we all need to limbo under lasers …

  Magnus goes on. ‘Look up, see the sky! There’s a whole world out there! Just look!’

  I try. But it’s raining, hard now. So I’m forced to squint.

  ‘I’m very, very wet,’ I hear myself whimpering, to no one in particular.

  ‘It’s just water!’ Melissa scoffs. ‘Don’t you wash?’

  ‘I wash. You don’t wash …’

  ‘No, you don’t wash’

  Oh god, this is ridiculous, we can’t regress to childhood insults on day one. Where will we have left to go?

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ I stop myself, too tired to spoil for a feud and damned if I’m doing it in public. ‘I just hoped we’d end up somewhere … warmer.’

  Melissa inclines her head, still in crab pose. ‘I’m a woman whose face gets sweaty in the Midlands! I can’t go to a hot country.’

  ‘It’s just so … bleak.’ My crab collapses as I look out beyond our rucked-up field to the forbidding woodland behind us and a wind-churned sea – the colour of Farrow and Ball Elephant’s Breath. My fluffy-robed, manicured-lawn fantasy now seems a long way off. ‘It’s like we’re in a black-and-white film,’ I say, taking in our fifty shades of grey surroundings. ‘The sea, the sky – even the clothes – everything’s monochrome,’ I whisper.

  ‘We’re not in black and white,’ she corrects me. ‘We’re in Scandinavia.’

  ‘Oh.’

  My knowledge of the region prior to arrival was muddy, at best, but I have already gleaned that it does indeed boast latter-day Vikings, along with bad weather and an allergy to colour. Even the hostel we stayed at last night was largely unicolour: that colour being grey. Everything about the place could be described as ‘functional’. Clean, tidy and minimalist, certainly – but a spa, it was not. Now I’m chilled to the bone and mourning disposable slippers, medical grade facials and a mini-break filled with small food on big plates.

  ‘OK, now stand up and take off your shoes!’ our leader shouts to be heard over the whistling wind.

  He must be joking.

  ‘But it’s freezing!’

  ‘It can be blowing half a pelican, I don’t care. You need to reconnect with nature, feel the earth beneath your feet.’

  I look down and see rivulets of water meandering through patches of lichen. I don’t feel much like reconnecting with that. I’ll get trench foot! Isn’t there some sort of health and safety directive against this? But Magnus will not be moved. ‘You won’t meet the – how do you say it? – “Health and safety brigade” here. We’re Vikings.’ He goes on: ‘Our work has moved from cow to computer – we’ve forgotten how to live. We don’t even feel our bodies any more unless we’re on holiday and then we get ill, because we’re so run down.’

  This is true. I’ve been on antibiotics every half-term and school ‘holiday’ for years.

  ‘We’re afraid to get back to the earth! Afraid to get our hands dirty—’

  ‘Not me,’ Melissa mutters.

  My nose wrinkles and I find myself wiping my hands on my trousers, wishing I’d packed hand sanitiser.

  ‘We’re gym rats who have forgotten how to jump or sprint. Office hamsters who’ve forgotten how to climb a tree!’ I’m pretty sure that now isn’t the time to mention that I have never been able to climb a tree. Nor do I enjoy being compared to vermin. But Magnus goes on. ‘Man – even woman – has been fully domesticated, and we’re miserable because of it!’

  ‘Even’ woman? Rude, I think.

  ‘You!’ he jabs a finger at me, as though sensing dissent.

  Oh bollocks: I’m going to be required to do something. Or worse: say something …

  ‘Can you honestly tell me you’re strong enough to carry her –’ here he points at Melissa ‘– out of the woods when she breaks her leg?’

  ‘“When”?’ Melissa looks alarmed. ‘You mean “if”?’

  ‘Or that you could swim, cross current, when you fall in the sea?’

  ‘Again, “when”?’

  ‘Or jump out of a second-storey window and land unharmed?’

  ‘No …’ I falter, though feel fairly sure this isn’t going to happen any time soon – the only buildings I’ve seen since arriving are bungalows.

  ‘I’m sure a few of you are familiar with a treadmill.’ Here he looks at our youngest participant, the model-esque twenty-something with the caramel-coloured hair. ‘But free running is the most essential life skill we can possess.’

  This seems a bit strong. What about the ability to tear the film off an M&S ready meal while sending an email, doing a seven-year-old’s homework and disciplining a five-year-old, all at the same time? Or dentistry, just for example?

  ‘As the saying goes: you “run for your life”, you don’t swim or climb for it. So here, you’ll learn to run as nature intended. You will learn how to sprint up hills, carry boulders—’

  ‘Boulders?’ FFS …

  ‘Climb trees, crawl through brush, balance on logs – all the skills our distant ancestors had to have in order to survive, back before reality TV, pensions and Wi-Fi took over. You will learn,’ he continues to bark, much like an army major, ‘the transformative power of PHYSICAL ENDURANCE –’ he
half spits these last words ‘– as well as the instinctual movement patterns built into our PRIMAL MEMORIES. You will reconnect to the elements; to yourselves; and ultimately, to the UNIVERSE.’

  ‘Blimey,’ I whisper to Melissa, ‘are we in a cult?’

  ‘Shh!’

  ‘You will pass through the SEVEN STAGES of Viking training.’ He holds up a finger to illustrate each of these. ‘STAGE ONE: shelter. STAGE TWO: foraging. STAGE THREE: handicrafts—’

  ‘“Handicrafts”?’ Melissa’s lip curls.

  ‘Handicrafts,’ Magnus repeats, looking irked. ‘People always talk about the plundering but handicrafts are a crucial part of Viking-ing! You want to look your best going into battle, right? Well, Vikings – especially men – took extreme pride in their appearance and adorning themselves.’ He strokes his beard.

  This explains a lot, I think.

  ‘Non-Scandinavians often presume all the men here are gay, but no, we just know how to look after ourselves.’ He touches his necklace protectively, then smooths back his hair.

  The Viking protests too much, methinks …

  ‘STAGE FOUR: weaponry—’

  ‘That’s more like it!’ Melissa grins.

  ‘STAGE FIVE: boatbuilding. STAGE SIX: navigation. And, finally, STAGE SEVEN: going berserk.’

  Magnus is dismissive when the chesty, older blonde asks him to elaborate on this last one and more than a little thrown by having his ‘YOU will’ speech interrupted. ‘Later!’ is all he says, before continuing, ‘As well as mastering essential life skills, YOU will learn to embrace the Viking code of conduct—’ I’m willing him to keep marauding and pillaging out of this and thankfully, he obliges ‘—prioritising truth, honour, discipline, courage, hospitality, self-reliance, industriousness and perseverance.’ A quick mental tally tells me I’m in need of help with at least two of these. ‘By the end of the week, the four of you will never be the same again!’

  We are SO in a cult, I think.

  ‘Sorry,’ the older blonde pipes up again, hand raised. ‘Did you say it’s just the four of us?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s it? No others?’