James Lovegrove - The Age Of Odin (23 page)

There is a man.

He is getting married.

He stands beside his bride at the civil ceremony in hired rooms above a pub. His head is still spinning and his tongue sandpaper-rough from the stag night to end all stag nights. The celebrant asks him to take this woman, Genevieve Amber d'Aulaire, as his lawful wedded wife and to pledge to share his life openly with her, promise to cherish and care for her, honour and support her, et cetera.

It isn't the hangover that makes him feel as though his legs are going to give way. It's nerves. He thought he knew what fear was, but not until this day, not truly, as he makes his vows before friends and family. Gen's smile keeps him going. She looks hopeful, honoured, happy as can be, and that is his anchor.

There is an expectant father.

He is by his wife's bedside in the maternity ward.

He is saying stuff as she screams, trying to comfort her, insisting that everything is going to be okay. The bones in his hand ache from the crushing grip she is exerting. Her birth agonies make his soul cringe. Why is the miracle of bringing new life into the world such prolonged bloody torment?

Then the baby is placed in his arms, swaddled in a soft white cotton blanket patterned with rabbits. A son. He has huge, watchful, impossibly careworn eyes. He is studying his father's face, scrutinising it, as if to ask,
Are you going to look after me?
All the new dad can do is promise that he will, even as his vision swims with joy and relief.

There is a corporal.

He is being discharged.

He has acquitted himself well, his superiors say. He has been an exemplary soldier, a credit to his regiment. His record is unblemished. He has given impeccable service to queen and country.

Well, if I'm so fucking big-balls wonderful
, he wants to say,
why are you kicking me out?
But of course he knows why. Half deaf, with several ounces of his brain gone and a tin plate stapled to his skull, he is no use to them any more. He is a rifle no one makes ammunition for, an outmoded tank, an Operational Ration Pack, General Purpose that has passed its use-by date. He is excess to requirements. He is military surplus.

There is a prisoner.

He is serving out his sentence as meekly-mousily as he can.

He gets on with his cellmates, a fraudster and a rapist. The two of them don't much like each other but he plays the middle man and repeatedly defuses the tension between them. He is a dab hand at this, and they all have to remain on good terms, don't they? Cooped up together for hours on end, smelling one anothers' farts and BO, hearing the creak of one another's bedsprings as they wank themselves to sleep at night - they're in a confined space, under pressure, and the last thing anyone needs is a blazing row.

That skanky, red-eyed crackhead, though, he's a different story. The prize arsehole of B Wing. He keeps getting into everyone's faces. Aggression pulses off him. If you don't move out of his way, if you look at him funny, he can flare up, lash out. He doesn't care about himself. He just hates. It doesn't matter who you are, he hates you, although he has a penchant for the weak. Hates the weak most of all. He noses them out and goes for them, viciously. Somebody has to sort him. Somebody eventually does, and forfeits the chance of early parole because of it.

There is an ex-con.

He is an ex-husband.

He is on his way to becoming an ex-father too. He's barely allowed to see his son these days, only on very occasional, heavily supervised visits. His wife has taken up with another woman, and they are providing the stability and nurture the boy needs. Cody is happy living with Gen and Roz. It's far more secure and normal than before, when he was living with a father who drank too much, smoked too much weed, and came home time and again with a bruised face and bloodied knuckles and a sorry tale to tell.

For his own sake the ex-everything stays in touch with Cody, phoning, emailing, keeping tabs on his progress at school, remembering birthdays and such. For Cody's sake, however, he remains as hands-off as possible. The boy will do better if distanced from him. The less he sees of his train wreck of a dad, the less compromised his chances in life will be. Failure is contagious, although hopefully not genetic.

There is a man named Gid Coxall.

He is travelling in a car with a friend named Abortion.

They are heading north through the worst whiteout conditions the UK has ever known. Gid has nodded off in the passenger seat. Abortion steals a sideways glance at him, then produces his battered old rolling tin, the one he bought in Belize City, with the oh-so-subtle cannabis leaf design on it. He thumbs open the lid and starts to -

"Stop!"

Twenty-Six

Verdande paused the tape.

On the TV, the image froze in that flickery VHS way, wavering between consecutive frames. Abortion's hand fluttered up and down, placing a pinch of weed into one of his Bible page skins, then removing it, over and over. Just as he'd told me, he was steering the car with his knees. Stupid arse wasn't even looking at the road, concentrating on his rolling instead.

I stared at the screen, feeling shock. Anger. Incomprehension. All these things at once, and a kind of nausea too.

My life. I'd been watching
my life
on videotape, as though it were a rented movie. Me from the age of nought, through childhood and adulthood, right up to nearly now. All of the significant scenes, the meaningful moments, the narrative jumping from one to the next with a brief stutter of static in between. As if a film crew had been following me, making a biopic of Gid Coxall, and these were the highlights, the best bits cut together for the trailer. Every shot tidily composed. The lighting always right, the angle appropriate, the camera positioned to capture mood and feel. Some director had been toiling for thirty-odd years on this. Some Spielberg, some Cameron - no, I was flattering myself; some journeyman hack - had made it his life's goal to create
Gid: The Movie
. Without the star of the show even realising.

At the beginning I'd not understood what I was seeing. Then, as the truth dawned, I'd gone through denial, fuck-me-rigid astonishment, outrage, before finally settling on acute distress. I'd had enough. I couldn't bear to watch any more. Did I want to relive the car crash? See Abortion getting torn to pieces by those wolves again? No I damn well did not.

Verdande was smiling. All the Norns were smiling. Not nicely.

"Why stop here? We were just getting to the interesting part," Verdande said. "Urd has had her turn, with your past. We've reached my realm, the fulcrum, the present. Skuld comes next, and I'm sure she has many things to reveal to you. Many extraordinary things."

"Why would I want to know my future?" I said numbly. "Bad enough to have to go through all the old stuff again."

"Why would any man want to know his future?" replied Skuld. "Because he is curious. Because he wishes to find out where he is going and be assured that it's the right direction."

"Mortals perceive their lives moment by moment," Verdande said. "They do not realise the course they are on as they travel it. They do not see how each decision they make is a crossroads on a long, winding journey."

"Except perhaps in hindsight," said Urd. "But even then, looking back, they may be aware only of a maelstrom of circumstance. It appears as if there is no design, just coincidence, random events, whims and missteps that have brought them to where they are today."

"To know your future," said Skuld, "is to appreciate how fixed and unavoidable your destiny is."

"Is and has always been," said Urd. "You will gain a greater acceptance of your life so far. You will know that what strike you as mistakes have all, in fact, been integral to your becoming..."

"...who you are," said Verdande.

"And who you are meant to be," said Skuld.

"But, look," I said, "I'm really not interested in what's going to happen next. That's assuming you can even show me."

"Oh, we can," Verdande said.

"If we can show you everything we already have..." said Urd.

"Then we can show you everything to come," said Skuld. "How can you doubt that, given what you have just seen?"

And of course, I didn't doubt it. Not for a second. These three weren't messing around. They weren't bluffing. That tape wasn't over. There was more on it. A lot more. Or maybe
not
a lot more. Which was one of the reasons I didn't want to take it any further. Who would want to know how many years they'd got left? When they were going to die, and how? Nobody. Nobody in their right mind.

"I'm happy with the state of things as they stand," I said. "'One day at a time, sweet Jesus,' and all that. Live for the now. Tomorrow can take care of itself. That's my philosophy."

"You aren't the slightest bit intrigued to learn what lies in store?" said Skuld, with a witchy leer and a rub of her gnarled hands. I'd thought people only rubbed their hands in story books, but she did.

"Nope," I said firmly. "Call me boring, but that's the way it is."

"The dear little creature," said Verdande to her sisters. "He acts as though he has a choice."

Cue smug laughter.

"I do," I said. "I do have a choice. I can get up and walk out. You un-press Pause if you like, but I won't be sticking around to watch. I'll be gone. I'll be dust. You see if I won't."

"Very well. Let's put it to the test, shall we?" Verdande clicked the switch, and the image of Abortion at the steering wheel jerked back into motion.

I stood up.

Or thought I did.

I kept standing up. Turning round. Walking out.

But somehow I remained stuck fast to the settee. In my head I was making good my bid for freedom. My body had other plans. Paralysed.

The Astra veered off the road. It bumped over the snowy verge, punched through the wire fence, and careened out into space.

I shut my eyes. Screwed them up tight. I could at least manage that, even if I was powerless to move in every other respect. I heard Abortion's heartfelt cry of "
Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!"
I heard the crashing-crunching-thumping-dinging of the car as it bounced down the hillside. I heard my own grunts and helpless little doglike yelps as the rolling impacts jarred my body. Finally I heard... nothing.

Nothing except an empty, airy hiss.

It went on for a long time. I felt someone tap my knee. Odin.

"Gid," he said. "You may look now."

I opened one eye. Peeked.

All that was on the TV was static. It sizzled, white and black, like a night-time blizzard. Clusters of photons jostling against clusters of darkness, never-endingly.

The Norns looked mighty pleased with themselves, like they'd just pulled off a monumental practical joke.

"That's it?" I said. "That's all? I have no future?"

"Or," said Skuld, "the rest is for you to decide. You are free. Your options are unlimited."

"But you said -"

"The path of the hero," Skuld cut in, "has more branches than even Yggdrasil. Anything and everything is yours for the choosing. There is no certain route, no sure outcome. There is only what is right and what is wrong, and you yourself must be the constant judge of that. That's what being a hero is: freedom of choice. Death or glory. Fight or flight. Honour or shame."

"Coke or Pepsi. Look - stop me if I've said this already - but I don't reckon I am a hero."

"The evidence suggests the contrary," said Verdande, with a wave at the TV.

"The tape would not have ended where it did," said Skuld, "were you of a lesser breed, with more mundane prospects. What appears to be formless chaos is, in fact, endless possibility. Infinite opportunity. You are a rare, fortunate man, Gid Coxall."

I turned to Odin. "Do I trust them?"

"They are the Norns," he answered with a shrug. "Whether to trust them or not isn't really an issue. You simply have to accept everything they say."

"The All-Father may not be all-knowing," said Urd, "but he offers good counsel."

"This isn't some kind of set-up?" I said, suspicious. "Some plan the four of you have concocted together to make me stay?"

The Norns played innocent and offended. Hands to throats. Elaborately shaken heads. Deep frowns.

Odin, for his part, seemed bemused by the whole notion. "I and the Norns, collude? I don't think so, Gid."

"But you keep telling me I'm a hero. Are you trying to, how shall I put this? Seduce me, Mrs Robinson?"

"Aren't you staying?" Odin said. "Aren't you willing to fight on the Aesir's behalf? You appear to be. More so, certainly, than a couple of days ago. Thor's convinced you'll be a terrific asset. He told me you're positively bloodthirsty. You know no restraint."

"I... I've not signed on any dotted line yet."

"But you'd like to."

That solitary eye of his bored into me. I felt like an open book.

"I might," I said. "Maybe if I knew what we're going up against... I mean, that is why you brought me here to the Norns' lovely
Hello!
magazine spread mansion, isn't it? To clue me in on who the enemy is."