by Heide Goody
“Hypothetically?” said Polly.
“Of course.”
The final brassy blart of Mars faded away, followed by gentle pastoral opening notes of Venus.
“I think,” said Polly, “that I learned long ago there’s no point in imagining things that are never going to happen in real life.”
“It’s just a game,” said Margaret.
“Life?” said Polly.
“You betcha,” said Strawb and led the way through to the next room where they found a sign. “Oh, what’s this?”
You may put your golf club down
and pick up your ball.
Put it on the table and fire the mechanism.
There was a raised table, tilted slightly on its end.
“It’s pinball!” declared Strawb in recognition.
He put his ball into the corner and pulled back a knob that was attached with a spring. The ball shot up the table and bounced off numerous plywood dividers before it settled into a cup with fifty written on it.
“Fifty points,” he growled victoriously. “Get in!”
“I thought we were just testing?” Polly said with a wry smile.
“Fifty’s not even the top score,” said Margaret, thrusting forward with her ball. “There’s one that’s worth a hundred.”
She leaned backwards, trying to get the spring stretched as far as it would go. There was a stopper to prevent it going too far, and she huffed as she reached it. She released the knob. The ball rocketed up, bouncing sharply as it reached the top and leaping over the edges of the game. It cracked into the wall and trickled towards them on the floor.
“Well, that’s just not safe,” said Margaret. “We need to get Ragnar to do something about that.”
“Maybe you pulled it too far back?” suggested Strawb.
“Nonsense. If I can do it then someone else can, and give themselves a black eye. That’s why we’re testing it.”
Strawb shrugged. “Maybe if they get a black eye they’ll learn not to do it again.”
Margaret nodded “We want something that is idiot-proof for when suspected idiots come and play it, but we want to be able to play it without protection if we feel like it. Just because we have a duty of care, doesn’t mean we can’t live dangerously.”
“Amen” said Strawb. They’d all finished their turn without beating his score, so Polly wasn’t sure if he was celebrating that, or agreeing they liked to live dangerously.
They knocked the balls through the wall and strolled through the door. The air was cold and crisp. There was another sign.
This must be used with care.
Put in the ball, apply no more than ten pumps
and push the pedal.
The device mounted on a board reminded Polly of a weed-sprayer she’d had in the past. One pumped it up to get more pressure. This had the pump handle connected up to something that looked like a drainpipe and pointed at a fixed angle towards a small lawn area about twenty yards away.
“Would I be right in thinking that this is a golf ball cannon?” asked Polly.
They all nodded. Nobody looked worried that such a thing existed, which was a little strange.
“I’m going to make my ten pumps count!” said Strawb. He plunged the handle up and down with gusto. Whether his enthusiasm made the pumping any more effective was debatable, but he seemed to enjoy it. “Right. Wait for it! Here we go!”
He stomped on the pedal. The golf ball whooshed out of the pipe and over towards the lawn. It dropped onto the grass, feet away from the hole.
“Margaret next,” said Strawb, “who will no doubt put fifty pumps in to do a test.”
“Haven’t you read the footnote?” asked Jacob. They all looked back at the sign.
Extra pumps will not improve performance.
They might damage the mechanism,
and they will make you look as if you’re trying too hard.
Strawb laughed. “Nice one, Ragnar.”
26
Looking out of her office window, Sam hoped the weather would be kind for the training course. She was supposed to take the attendees through the basics of the FitMeUp wristband, then lead them in some sort of group activity that would demonstrate how the device worked during a workout. She was hoping a brisk walk would be possible, as she had no real idea how to run circuit training or a step class, which were the other suggestions given.
There was a lot of paperwork that went with the course. Sam was obliged to print out a form for every participant, then scan and file a signed confirmation they had received the training. It was a challenge for the aged printer in the DefCon4 office, which found itself suddenly required to print twenty five copies of a document.
“Come on, you can do it,” said Sam, wiping dust off the little lights along the front of the printer. There were three next to the LCD display, but she couldn’t remember what they all indicated. Two were green and one was amber. Either the wi-fi was fine, the power was fine and the toner was low, or the power was fine, the toner was fine and the wi-fi wasn’t working. She was fairly sure if the power wasn’t working all of the lights would be out.
“Just do these ones and I’ll get some more toner. We’ll need to do it all again next week, you know that don’t you?” She looked at Doug Junior. “Times must be desperate when I start talking to the printer, eh?”
She searched for an online printer manual. Just as she found it and opened the PDF document, the printer lurched into life and started on the forms.
“Typical.”
The forms were faint, but just about readable.
The amber one flashed an erratic Morse code. Sam looked it up in the manual.
“Cyan? Cyan? What on earth are you on about? I don’t even want cyan. Well, I don’t think I do. It’s a stupid made-up colour that doesn’t exist in the real world. All I want is black.”
She didn’t relish trying to order a fresh toner cartridge. If ordering printer ink from DefCon4 had been one of the labours given to Hercules, he would have given up and gone home.
Her phone buzzed. She thought it might be her task manager telling her to get to the fitness app training, but it was yet another warning message saying her current overtime wouldn’t be authorised. The damned app wouldn’t let her sign out until she had cleared the community payback records from the system. She’d called several people over the past day or so, to no avail. Greg Mandyke wasn’t answering his phone and Hilde Odinson didn’t have one.
She checked the time. Yes, maybe she had a few minutes spare to go visit one of those in person.
27
Hilde Odinson believed that everyone had a stronghold. Even in this modern age, people had a place they could retreat to – to curl up, to relax, to be themselves, to find a haven from the rest of the world.
For the Odinson clan as a whole it was their compound of caravans and rough-built huts in the furthest corner of the Elysian Fields caravan park. Protected by a wall of derelict caravans and chicken-wire fencing, the compound was home, hearth, mead hall and final point of retreat from a world that did not want them. Within it each person had their own personal stronghold. For Hilde’s dad it was his bed, where he would collapse in deep sleep after a hard day’s work, or a light day’s work, or a day of no work at all. For Uncle Yngve, it was his truck’s driver’s seat: Nordic talismans ranged along the dashboard and a gel-filled lumber support on the chair.
For Hilde herself it was her workshop. It was the second largest building in the compound after Ragnar’s mead hall, but it was exclusively hers. A long shed with decent lighting, a dependable power supply and every tool money could buy or hands could steal. When the Saxon world outside didn’t make sense, when the east winds howled (as they often did) and the rains rattled the roof, Hilde was snug inside, making her own sense of the world, one cog at a time. She even had a hammock strung up in one corner for when leaving her bolt-hole seemed too much effort.
The workshop was Hilde’s stronghold, but others were allowed
in. There was the occasional need for someone else to enter. In fact she encouraged some of the younger family members to dismantle and repair things. It was the only way to learn. What was sacrosanct, however, was her whiteboard. It served partly as a memo board and partly as an ad-hoc design space. Nobody was to mess with her whiteboard.
She was looking at said board and frowning. She shifted her welding goggles onto her forehead and looked again. Nobody would dare mess with her whiteboard except Ragnar Odinson.
“Farfar!” she yelled. He wouldn’t be far away and his hearing was good.
When a shadow appeared in the doorway, she turned, prepared to give him the sternest ticking-off a granddaughter could give her farfar, except it wasn’t just Ragnar. With him was the community service woman, Sam.
“Miss Applewhite.”
“Hi Hilde,” said Sam, watching her feet as she stepped inside. The Odinson compound was frequently several inches deep in mud. Hilde made an effort to keep the mud out of her workshop but it was a pointless battle. “I’m on my way to the retirement village and I needed to pop in. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“You weren’t interrupting,” said Hilde, glancing round to check there was nothing obviously stolen on display.
“Miss Applewhite says tha haven’t finished tha community service work,” rumbled Ragnar.
“It’s not that,” said Sam hurriedly, almost nervously. “It’s just maybe you haven’t cleared your latest hours with the court liaison.”
Hilde shook her head, not understanding.
Sam stepped closer. “It’s just that after the previous scheduled session, not everyone was ticked off by our system.”
“I handed my form in. I really did.”
Sam shrugged. “Fine. It’s probably not you. My stupid computer system would only tell me someone hadn’t completed, but not who. I phoned round everyone, except there’s a couple I couldn’t get in touch with and— Do you even have a phone?”
“Not sure who I would phone with it.”
“Oh, I thought you’d be all over social media. You’ve got a really interesting hobby here.” She waved at the part-repaired and part-deconstructed items around her, pieces that Hilde had fashioned for the crazy golf project but ended up not using. Devices and components that would soon be put to use around the compound. “Passion,” said Sam. “You’ve got a real skillset. I thought you’d be watching or recording ‘how to’ videos, or selling things on e-Bay.”
“Sell them?” said Ragnar, affronted.
“You should really have a word with my friend, Delia. She’s got a shop dedicated to giving old things new life.”
“We don’t need to mess with Saxon shops,” said Ragnar.
“And what’s this here?” said Sam.
Hilde’s workshop had to be big as it served as the repair garage for the Odinson’s small fleet of commercial vehicles. However, the space where trucks, vans and earth-movers would be parked to have their oil changed or brakes refitted was currently taken up with the beginnings of a wooden construction: a skeleton of wooden planks, curved up at each end.
“Farfar’s longboat,” said Hilde. “He plans to sail it and go a-raiding.”
“She don’t need to know owt about that,” said Ragnar.
Sam’s smile was one of embarrassment. “I’m sure I don’t. I’ve taken up enough of your time.”
“I’ll walk thee to tha car,” said Ragnar which was plain code for ‘I’ll make sure tha leaves our land.’
“And then I want a word with you, farfar,” said Hilde.
When he wandered back in a few minutes later, Ragnar’s face was a picture of innocence. “Nice sketch,” he said, indicating the whiteboard.
“Did you think I wouldn’t notice that you changed it?” asked Hilde, pointing.
Ragnar pretended to study the diagram, looking for changes. “Looks right good to me, lass, what’s up?”
Hilde sighed. “It’s a longboat, right? Based on designs from our forefathers, who lived a thousand years ago. Wasn’t that what we agreed?”
“Aye, tha’s right!” said Ragnar. “We’re Odinsons, mind, so we’d want it to go a bit faster.”
Hilde nodded patiently. “I understand what you’re saying, granddad. We can discuss some options. What definitely won’t work – and when I say definitely, I really mean it – is to put an outboard motor on the end of each oar. It would be a health and safety nightmare. And quite honestly there are more problems than that. It’s—”
“Not to worry lass, it were just an idea.” Ragnar ambled across the workshop space and inspected the stacked planks. “How much more wood will tha need?”
Hilde waved an arm. “We could make a start with what we’ve got. It all depends on how big we—”
“—as long as it’s the biggest,” said Ragnar.
Hilde sighed. Ever since Ragnar had heard of the Draken Harald Hårfagre, a replica ship built by a Norwegian, he had been obsessed with having one that was bigger and faster. Much to his annoyance, the Draken Harald Hårfagre had crossed the Atlantic and toured round the coast of the United States.
“It would be much more practical to build a snekkja for round here,” she tried. “A small raiding vessel we could carry down to the beach.”
“No!” snapped Ragnar, more like an angry toddler than a powerful patriarch.
“Fine. Well you’ll need more wood then. You might need to use pine or something cheaper—”
“No! It must be oak. The sacred tree of Odin!”
Hilde rolled her eyes. “You’re going to need several trees’ worth of oak. It’s really expensive stuff. I have no idea where you’re going to get it from.”
“Leave it wi’ me lass,” said Ragnar, tapping the side of his nose. “Mek what tha can from this lot and I’ll get t’ rest.”
Hilde made a doubtful noise.
“Oh, and Strawb told me to tell thee that tha crazy golf was right impressive,” said Ragnar. “Smashing, it were.”
“Course, he did,” said Hilde.
28
Sam was having trouble with some of the logistics. “Mrs Gainsborough—”
“Margaret, please.”
“Margaret. I’m supposed to have twenty-five attendees for this training. The contract is very clear. If I don’t get twenty-five forms with signatures then I haven’t done what’s required.”
“That won’t be a problem,” said Margaret.
Sam looked at the individuals arrayed before her in the Otterside lounge. She counted them again. She really didn’t need to. “But I only see six of you.”
“That’s right.”
“I’m booked to deliver this to twenty-five people. I’ve printed off twenty-five forms.” She didn’t want to reveal the printer-based anguish those twenty-five forms had caused, but some of it must have come out in her tone of voice.
“I’m sure we can all manage several forms each,” said Margaret smoothly.
Sam found Margaret’s steely calm unnerving. Somehow she was left with the feeling that she was making unreasonable demands of a sweet old lady. Albeit a sweet old lady who wasn’t budging an inch.
“Perhaps I’ve misunderstood this contract,” said Sam. “It sounded to me as though the Otterside residents were getting favourable terms on their insurance cover, with the understanding that twenty-five residents would receive training in, and would continue to wear, these fitness trackers.”
“No, you understood perfectly well,” said Margaret.
“And yet you have only six people here. How does that meet the terms you agreed to?”
“How old are you, love?” asked the man in the black trilby, Strawb.
Sam was taken aback by the question. “Why do you ask?”
“Older people are our field of expertise, and you can’t be expected to understand how things can sometimes be challenging for them.”
“That is literally why I am here. So I can help them to understand these devices.” Sam bridled at the assumption she didn’
t know what she was doing. “I am a patient and kind person. I can assure you I won’t patronise your residents or leave them confused.”
“No. No you won’t, love.”
“We know this because you’re going to deliver the training to this small group,“ said Margaret, indicating the people sat around her. “Then we will make sure the other residents are brought up to speed. We will make sure you have all the signed forms you need, and all will be well. We organise and disseminate. Organisation and dissemination is our role. Is that clear?”
“Well, I suppose that will have to do,” said Sam.
“It will,” said Margaret. “Frankly, there were only going to be five of us, but Janine insisted on joining.”
“I’m mad about my exercise,” said the leathery-faced West Country woman on the end seat. She wore a black tracksuit with red piping that wouldn’t have looked out of place on an Olympic hopeful.
Sam could see she was never going to persuade them to let her carry out the training as she wanted. “Very well, if you think it will be more effective the way you suggest, then I will bow to your expertise.”
The residents nodded sagely to each other. Sam sighed.
“What I will need to do is make sure all the fitness trackers are operating correctly afterwards. I will check that all the feeds are being outputted. How would that be?”
Margaret nodded. “Not a problem.”
Sam regarded the group. Margaret was clearly some sort of self-appointed leader. Sam had chatted with Polly and the rotund ex-army gent, Bernard, when she’d been in Otterside before, trying and failing to investigate the death of Drumstick. The two men, Strawb and Jacob, plus the West Country woman, Janine, were new to her.
“We can do the first part here if you like. Then we’ll move around so you can see the devices in action.” Sam unpacked one of the boxes. “I’ll give you all a tracker now, then Margaret, you can take the others and make sure they’re all on residents’ wrists by the end of the week.”
