The Age of Odin - James Lovegrove [68]
"As if he has a choice."
"In our house."
"On our terms."
"He cannot refuse."
Then, like that, they were gone, whisking out of the room in a flourish of skirts. I looked at Odin.
"What the hell was all that -"
And suddenly they were back, wheeling a TV set. It was sitting on a rickety hostess trolley, with a VCR on the shelf beneath. The telly was vintage; fake wood veneer, bulbous screen, loads of knobs and buttons. Mid 'eighties at the latest. The VCR was much the same. A top-loader the size of a kitchen sink, with clunky lever switches you had to press hard.
"Once, we spun threads," said Urd. They were back to speaking in turn, thank God. That overlapping dialogue of theirs had been freaking me out.
"One for every mortal," said Verdande.
"But so effortful," said Skuld. "So laborious."
"A grey thread for the common man whose life is never to amount to much."
"Occasionally a colourful thread for the freeman or the farmer, he whose lot is to provide for others and set a good example."
"And rarely, very rarely, a golden thread, for the chieftain, the king, the hero..."
"The uncommon man."
"The exception."
"The great."
"But that was then, and this is now." Urd produced a videocassette. It gleamed brightly. It looked for all the world like an ordinary plastic-cased VHS tape that someone had spray-painted gold. I glimpsed my name scrawled on the stick-on strip on the side.
"This is yours, Gideon," she said. "This is you. Your past..." She handed the tape to Verdande.
"Your present," said Verdande, passing it on to Skuld.
"And your future," said Skuld, slotting it into the VCR.
The telly, like the fire, lacked a plug cable. Still it came on when Urd prodded the main button. Verdande manually selected a channel. Skuld pressed "Play" on the VCR. The machine's drive motor whined and churned.
"Sit back."
"Watch."
"It will be instructive."
Out of the corner of his mouth, Odin said, "I was afraid this might happen. Those who come to the Norns seeking knowledge must pay for it somehow. In your case, the cost is submission to a demonstration of their power. If you weren't a hero, or so unintimidated by them, they wouldn't feel the need to flaunt their superiority. The greater your destiny, the stronger your character, the more they must try to belittle you."
"With a video?" I muttered back. "A Blu-Ray disc, a forty-inch plasma display, now that would impress me. But this?"
"They have modernised."
"Hardly."
"Nonetheless, I urge you, don't watch. Or watch for as long as you can bear, but close your eyes and stop your ears when it becomes too much."
"It's pre-digital technology," I said. "There aren't even remote controls. I'm not worried."
The TV screen flickered into life. A wash of static. Then...
Twenty-five
There is a baby.
He gurgles.
He has a teddy. A woollen Rupert the Bear his nan knitted for him. It doesn't look much like the actual Rupert the Bear, but it had the yellow checked scarf and crude red jumper.
He loves that teddy. He sucks one ear so hard, it eventually comes off. Nan sews it back on, and the teddy is never quite the same from then on, but he still loves it.
There is a toddler.
He hates tinned rice pudding.
His mummy is feeding him some. He knows he is going to sick it up. He tries to tell her to stop spooning it into him because it's just going to come straight out again, all over her. He doesn't have the words. She doesn't stop. It does come out.
He never can stand rice pudding after that. Even the smell of it turns his stomach.
There is a little boy.
He has a bike.
It is a BMX, a Mongoose Supergoose with chrome frame and bright red everything else. He rides it over the pavements and through the underpasses and across the railway bridges. His father bought it for him second-hand and it's not in the best of nick, but still, it is the coolest bike ever. Then some neighbours kids steal it. He sees them riding it a few days later, popping wheelies and giving one another backsies. He goes up and challenges them. They punch him and tell him to f-word off.