llnir, and to which Odin had added his gold ring, Draupnir. As they watched, the Gods wept for the departed Baldr until the ship was no more than the faintest glow on the horizon.’Freyr’s Day, 7th November 2008
I am obviously in disgrace.
I’ve never seen my parents so angry. The Tattoo Incident pales into insignificance. I mean, my mother isn’t Ben’s mother so she didn’t break anything, but she actually seized me by the wrist, sat me down in a chair like I was about to be tortured by the Secret Police and shouted in my face. The problem is, I guess, that apart from exercise and lunches my mother doesn’t do much stuff, so apparently the children’s charity thing is of, like, Huge Importance and therefore it was about the worst thing I could have done, ever. Much worse than if I’d just eaten all the salted caramels, which is what I’d planned to do initially.
First of all it was the fact that people had paid £250 for tickets to this thing which had several celebrities and football players among the guests and some BBC man doing the auction, not to mention a famous old jazz singer performing after dinner. So, in Mum’s mind, sabotaging the goodie bags was a bit like scratching the bonnet of a Maserati. An act of great devaluation. Second of all it was the content of the magazine article. (Dad said: ‘It was so disgusting that it actually made me sick – not only that someone would do such a thing, but that people would publish and read it. I’m utterly ashamed of you, Hobie.’) Thirdly, everyone in the article, from the cannibal to the victim’s family, was a complete chav. And that of course made it worse. Not that Mum would have seen the joke if they’d been posh, but she might not have freaked out quite as badly as she did.
I am now not allowed the following:
Puddings
Salty snacks
Sugary snacks
Xbox
Heavy Metal
Any TV apart from shitty documentaries about whales and plankton
My iPhone.
I demanded to be told the timeframe of this punishment and apparently it’s till the end of half term and that’s only three days away. So actually it’s nearly over. Normally I’d be desperate to get back to London, but I’ll be sad when Ben isn’t staying with us any more. Even if we’ve had to put up with his dreadful mother.
I don’t care much about my phone because there’s not much signal here anyway, and I’d only have used it to text Frodes or Archie something belittling or designed to derail their day in some small way. The lack of Xbox hurts more, but we don’t really have time for it anyway, and I’d rather go to Yggdrasil with Ben. Same goes for TV. Plus the one down here isn’t nearly as large as all the London TVs. Once you’re used to a 42-inch screen, you can’t really adjust to anything smaller, I find.
However, the sunflower and pumpkin seeds that Clothilde doles out to me in a little glass ramekin like I’m a pet budgerigar or something are really humiliating and totally inedible. Even though Rebecca says they’re really good for you and full of essential fats. I think I will die if I have to keep eating them. They taste like bits of cardboard.
‘Think about the Berserks,’ said Ben today when we took a break from Geography. ‘They fought on empty stomachs.’
‘Bullshit. Weren’t they stuffed full of hallucinogenic mushrooms or alcohol or something?’
‘Yeah, but no food. Probably.’
‘I’m sure they had a few carcasses to barbecue at the end of it.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Definitely not bloody goji berries.’ Morosely I helped myself to another handful.
We were all in the kitchen. The tutors were making coffee and looking at each other’s notes, murmuring things about ‘timing’ and ‘showing your working’ etc. Me and Ben and Za were at the kitchen table, staring down at our ration bowls like prisoners who’ve been let into the courtyard for an hour’s forced exercise before going off to build railroads or whatever. Ben has nobly refused to eat any of the things I’m being denied. A bit like a protest hunger strike. Not that he ever really seems to care about food.
I spat a pumpkin seed across the table, aiming for Zara’s Longines wristwatch that she got for her tenth birthday. She jerked her arm out of the way and I noticed how narrow her wrist looked, with the pink crocodile bracelet of the watch slithering over it. Her fingers were a bit like Twiglets (another snack I’m permitted to consume). Sort of snap-pable, with sticking-out knuckles.
‘Stop it, Hobes,’ she muttered.
‘Stop it, Hobes,’ I mimicked, with my mouth full of what felt like hamster bedding. ‘How’s the old verbal reasoning going? Learned how to spell your own name yet?’
‘Ho-bee,’ sang Rebecca above the roar of the Nespresso machine, ‘be kind.’
Jason was looking out across the kitchen garden to where our head gardener was overseeing the building of the most ginormous bonfire you could ever dream of. Tomorrow is our Bonfire Night celebration. After dinner we’ll watch fireworks by the side of the lake and bedtime will be a whole two hours later than usual. I love bonfires. Ordinarily I’d be out there chucking deadwood onto it and then scrambling up the climbing frame and leaping off to land snap crunch on the top of the heap, but as you can imagine that wasn’t on the agenda for today. Too much like fun.
‘Whoa,’ said Jason. ‘That’ll be some bonfire.’
He strode outside, knotting his scarf over his Adam’s apple. Rebecca went with him, closing the kitchen door carefully behind her. She kept pulling at her sleeves so that the cuffs of her sweater (which was the exact pink of summer pudding) covered her hands and she was leaning close to Jason for warmth. Their heads bobbed together. He lit one of his roll-ups, and they seemed deep in conversation. Sometimes Rebecca threw a kind of half-glance back through the window in our direction, and I wondered why. Sometimes she shook her head, as if something was quite sad.
Zara slipped out of the room like a little ghost.
‘You shouldn’t be so mean to her,’ said Ben.
‘I’m not mean to her,’ I said. ‘She’s used to it anyway.’
‘What you did … I felt so sorry for her.’
He was referring to the game of Lose Zara in the Maze that we played yesterday. Zara is just so amazingly trusting each time. That’s what makes it so funny. You lead her into the maze, getting her to bring a couple of those awful dolls and say maybe they can do a fashion show or a concert or something, and then you blindfold her and run away. Then she has to find her way out – ideally while it gets dark – and you crouch outside making ghost noises. Anyway it was all going brilliantly yesterday and Zara was crying and screaming and then Ben, totally unbelievably, went back in to get her.
‘It was extremely lame of you to go in and fetch her,’ I said. ‘She’d have gotten out eventually.’
Suddenly I saw that Zara had left her halloumi and red pepper wrap completely untouched. I seized it and crammed it, whole, into my mouth, feeling the glorious ooze of Hell-mann’s mayo onto my palms, only chewing as much as I needed to facilitate swallowing it as fast as was humanly possible.
I couldn’t resist a victory cry.
‘Soooo good!’ I snarfed. ‘Want some?’
Ben shook his head. ‘Won’t you be in trouble?’
‘S’not sugary, s’not salty,’ I said, or words to that effect. I needed to be economical with speech in order to eat faster. ‘Jesus, I was getting so hungry I almost—’
And then Clothilde came in with a massive basket of ironing and saw me and went into a torrent of stressed-out French, and then, surprise! Mum came tap-tap-tapping in wearing her suede knee-high boots and, lo and behold, I was in trouble again. This time for eating a snack that was a) contraband and b) Zara’s. FOR GOD’S SAKE. DOESN’T MY MOTHER HAVE ANYTHING BETTER TO DO?
‘Mum, I need snacks in order to do the amount of work we’ve got to get through,’ I whined.
‘Yes, and you can have dried fruit, nuts and seeds.’
‘But they’re rank. They’re foul. I hate them.’
‘The point is not for you to like them,’ she said, wetting a piece of kitchen roll and dabbing my mayonnaise-anointed face in a way that I found ludicrously over the top and like she was just trying to embarrass me. ‘You have too much of what you like.’
‘It was only a halloumi wrap. It would’ve gone to waste otherwise. I was just trying to—’
‘Enough!’
I hate it when she gets properly cross. It must be because we’re not in London. She must be bored or something.
She chucked the remains of the wrap – the frayed bits of tortilla I hadn’t had time to hoover up – into the bin. Then she went over to the sink and started flinging potatoes into a colander. (Peeling potatoes = she definitely didn’t have enough to do with her sodding time.)
‘I emailed Mr Voss this morning, Hobie …’
My heart did a little du-dumm of surprise.
‘To say you won’t be doing Rugby for the rest of the term.’
I felt like my stomach was going to involuntarily erupt like Vesuvius and engulf the kitchen table and the whole sorry household in an ash-cloud of chewed-up halloumi.
‘What the f— What the …? Why, Mum, why?’
Very slowly, she turned round. She was drawing on these floral oven gloves that looked like massive gauntlets, smoothing down her matching pink apron.
‘I spoke to the physio. She said it wouldn’t be wise after your arm injury.’
‘But my arm is fine!’ I said, flailing it madly to prove it. She winced.
Tears. There were tears at the back of my nose. Traitors.
‘Off you go now. Time to crack on.’
Like probation officers, Jason and Rebecca were waiting to usher me and Ben back to the dining room, where two hours of War Poetry awaited.
‘But, Mum—’
‘Stop showing off in front of other people, Hobie.’
And she turned back to the sink.
‘Why’s she doing it, Ben? Why?’
We were perched at the top of Yggdrasil again. It was almost raining, but not quite. Sort of misty, with water suspended in the air, a pinkish greyish sky. Tutoring was over for the day. If we’d been in London, you’d have been able to smell that firework smell that always hangs about for a few days either side of bonfire night. The mushrooms were still there, jostling at the foot of the tree like a bunch of disgruntled football fans.
Ben lowered his left leg into the hollow trunk and waved his foot from side to side.
‘Your mother likes power. Mine does too.’
I reached above my head for a branch, considered letting it take the whole of my weight, thought better of it.
‘Why do they have to have more power than us? They’re women.’
‘Frigg and Freyja are women.’
I thought about the Norse Goddesses. There aren’t that many, obviously. Other than a lot of blonde hair, they had zero in common with Mum, as far as I was concerned.
‘At least our mothers aren’t immortal,’ Ben went on. He shivered. He was looking really pale.
‘D’you think we’ll pass the exams next week?’
‘Dunno.’
‘I think I’ll die without Rugby.’
We sat in the arms of the tree while the light faded.
Saturday 8th November
Today is the last day in the countryside. We are driving back to London tomorrow. Ben will leave with his mother in the morning. I want to go in their car but I can’t apparently because it ‘doesn’t make sense’. On Monday we have exams. I know that if I fail them, they’ll move me down. I’m trying not to think about this.
I will miss:
I will not miss:
OK, maybe that’s a bit unfair, because Jason’s all right really. He just doesn’t let us run around every ten minutes like Rebecca does. And he’s too bloody serious about everything.
Tonight we’re having people over for drinks before dinner and they’re bringing some other people who are staying with them, which is what people do in the country. Personally I hate it when someone that I don’t know comes to one of my parties, say like when Matteo’s cousin is visiting from Geneva, or one of Frodo’s lame orchestra buddies accompanies us to Byron Burger. But for Mum and Dad it’s a chance to mingle/connect/show off how nice the house is. And they sit and talk blah blah mingle crunch sip guffaw and the kids and Clothilde pass around the canapé nibbles that’ve been knocked up earlier, and then at exactly eight fifteen they all roll back into their cars and drive six minutes back to their houses.
Mum has relented on the boring food front as it’s our last night and, let’s face it, I’ve sat there with Jason and Rebecca for FOUR HOURS every day, working my socks off. She asked what I wanted for dinner and I said boeuf bour-guignon, which is one of my favourite-ever suppers, with potato dauphinoise and then hot chocolate and raspberry soufflés and she must know she’s been a real bitch to me for the last few days because she said yes to all of that.
I went into the kitchen to find Anna browning the meat. She was salting and peppering the cubes of beef, dabbing them in a bowl of flour and then sliding them into this massive casserole dish where they sizzled in butter. When they were brown on all sides she lifted them out with a slotted spoon, leaking juices, and put them aside. My hand shot out immediately and she smacked it lightly away.
‘Hobie, absolutely not.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because it’s not cooked yet, only browned.’
‘Raw beef can’t kill me!’
‘Perhaps, but I’d still prefer not to take the chance. Would you like to chop up those onions?’
‘That’s not my job,’ I told her and ran out again, seizing a couple of Frusli bars from the counter on my way.
Ben and I finished the last of the French papers, the last of the Maths papers, the last of the History Source questions. It was all done. I didn’t know about Ben, but I felt drained. Some bloody holiday. One by one the textbooks went back into our rucksacks, the revision notes and index cards were filed and put away, our files stacked in the hall with labels on.
Jason, quite lamely, but I suppose with some inner core of decency, high-fived us both and gave us these handmade certificates that he’d drawn on cartridge paper.
‘I, Hobart Duvalle, have survived a week of intensive study,’ said mine. He’d done it quite well, to his credit, with a frame of vines and roses and thorns. Ben’s was the same but with his name, obviously. Benjamin Holloway. Both of the certificates had a wolf on the back, so beautifully done with a calligraphy pen that I stared at old Jase briefly with new respect.
‘That’s going to be my tattoo,’ I whispered to Ben in an undertone. ‘And it’s much better than yours!’
‘Hobart,’ Rebecca was saying. ‘What a name! Where’s it from?’
‘It’s an old version of Hubert, isn’t it?’ said Jason.
I explained that it was my grandfather’s name and his grandfather before that, making me the Third.
‘Hobart Duvalle the Third,’ Rebecca said dramatically, giving me a salute. ‘That’s a name to do serious mischief behind. And I suppose your grandson, Hobie, will be the Fourth. Imagine that!’
And she hugged me.
‘You boys have been so focused, and you’ve worked so well together.’
She wrapped her arms around Ben and kissed him on the cheek and I was inwardly furious because she only hugged me and what was all that about? Especially since it’s my house. Then she frowned, and reached out to touch his forehead with the back of her hand.
‘Ben, you’re awfully hot. I think you’re coming down with something, my love.’
The guests crunch-crunched onto the gravel through the massive gates that have stone pineapples on either side. From the kitchen we heard the muffled slam of car doors, wellies scuffling towards the door. Drinks were being served in the drawing room, which is a bit like the sitting room but fancier and with more oil paintings in it and no TV. Dad was opening champagne.
Outside, the gardeners were lighting the bonfire while some men from the village strode to and fro on the big lawn, setting up fireworks. Ben and I watched from the window on the landing.
‘It’s a funeral pyre,’ Ben murmured. ‘Remember Baldr.’
‘Tell me,’ I said.
Ben drew a deep breath and closed his eyes.
‘Everyone came to Baldr’s funeral. Odin was there, with his ravens and Valkyries. Freyr came in a chariot drawn by a boar; Heimdallr on his horse. Freyja’s chariot was drawn by cats. The frost giants came too, for they all had loved Baldr deeply.
‘Baldr’s body was carried down to the sea, where his ship, Hringhorni, waited on the shore. The Gods found, however, that it was too heavy for them to launch. So they sent for a giantess, whose name was Hyrrokkin, who came on a wolf, with vipers for reins. She went to Hringhorni and pushed it into the sea with a shove so powerful that the world shook.
‘The Gods placed Baldr’s body on the funeral pyre that they had built onboard the ship, with Baldr’s wife, Nanna, beside him.’
‘Oh, did they burn her alive?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘She died of grief.’
‘Huh. I’d rather be burnt alive than die of feelings.’
Ben went on: ‘Slowly the great ship rolled down to the sea, blazing with the flames that Thor had consecrated with his hammer, Mjllnir, and to which Odin had added his gold ring, Draupnir. As they watched, the Gods wept for the departed Baldr until the ship was no more than the faintest glow on the horizon.’
‘Awesome!’ I said. I stared out at the growing flames. Funerals in England are so dull and drab. Lame-arsed singing and silly flowers and eulogies that are so bland and unfunny they might as well have been downloaded off the Internet. I wouldn’t want that, if I died. I’d want what they had in the Otherlife.
The bonfire hissed and crackled as the dry leaves and branches caught fire in the gathering dusk. We stared at it, willing the body of Baldr to appear above it, as a sign that the Otherlife really did exist.
From the drawing room came the sounds of hooting laughter, glasses clinking together and the fwah-fwah noise that grown-ups make when they’re interacting.
Ben’s mother came out from her room. She smelt of some super-strong perfume and her hair was completely straight and shiny.
‘Hello, darling. Hello, Hobie. Are you boys coming down?’
It wasn’t a question, so we trotted down the stairs after her, Ben first, me following.
‘Ben,’ she was saying, ‘you must make sure you answer clearly when people speak to you, all right? Don’t just mumble like you would at home. Are you feeling OK? You look terrible.’
As I watched them go in, side by side, I was assailed by this terrible wave of sickness and sadness. I shook it off immediately. Just for a moment, though, I felt, as he passed through the door, like I would never see Ben again.