The Ritual

the tent to yourself, mate. I’m spending the night in there.’
    But Phil never took more than a few steps through the paddock. Whatever instinct made the other three hesitant caught up with Phil and he eventually stopped with a sigh.
    They had seen hundreds of these Stugas on the train journey north from Mora to Gällivare, and then again around Jokkmokk. Outside of the cities and towns of northern Sweden there
were tens of thousands of these simple wooden houses; the original homes of those who lived in the countryside before the migration to the cities over the last century. Luke knew they were now used
for recreation during the long summer months by Swedish families when they renewed their bond with the land. Second homes. A national tradition; the fritidshus. But not this one.
    It lacked the bright red, yellow, white or pastel walls they were accustomed to seeing on these fairy-tale houses. There was no neat white fence or lawn mowed flat as a bowling green. Nothing
cute or quaint or homely about it. No sharp right angles or neat windows about its two storeys. Where there should have been symmetry it sagged. Tiles had detached and slid away. The bulging sides
were blackened as if there had once been a fire and the place had not seen any attention since. Boards sprung loose near the foundations. The windows were still shuttered fast against winters that
had come and gone. Nothing about it seemed to catch or reflect the watery light that fell into the clearing, and it suggested to Luke that the interior would be just as wet and cold as the
darkening wood they were lost inside.
    ‘What now, Hutch?’ Within the confines of his glistening orange hood, Dom’s round face was tight with irritation, but his eyes flicked about. ‘Any more bright
ideas?’
    Hutch’s eyes narrowed; they were pale green with long inky lashes and almost too pretty for a man. He took a deep breath, but didn’t look at Dom. He spoke as if he hadn’t heard
his friend. ‘It’s got a chimney. Looks solid enough. We can get a fire going. We’ll be as warm as toast in no time.’ Hutch walked to the small porch, built around a door so
black it lacked all definition within the front of the house.
    ‘Hutch. I don’t know. Better not,’ Luke said. This wasn’t right. Neither the house nor breaking into it. ‘Let’s get moving. It won’t be dark until
eight. We’ve got another hour and could be out of the forest by then.’
    Around Luke the tension from Dom and Phil gathered until it felt like it was squeezing him to a standstill. Phil turned his bulk quickly with a rustle of wet blue Gore-Tex. His doughy face was
dark red. ‘What’s wrong with you, Luke? You want to go back into that? Don’t be a stupid arse.’
    Dom joined in. As he spoke a drop of spit hit Luke’s cheek. ‘I can’t walk any more. It’s all right for you, your knee isn’t the size of a rugby ball. You’re
as bad as the Yorkshire twat who got us into this.’
    Luke went dizzy and hot. They would be forced to stay here for a night because Phil was so fat his feet were ruined merely by walking outdoors. His feet were ruined the first morning.
That’s when he started bitching about them. Even in London he drove everywhere. He’d lived there fifteen years and never used the Underground once. How was that possible? Dom was no
better. He looked about fifty these days, not thirty-four. And every time he swore, it made Luke grind his teeth. Dom was a marketing director for a big bank with a mouth like a hooligan; what had
gone wrong? He used to be a superb fast bowler who came close to county cricket, a guy who travelled across South America, and a friend you could stay up with all night, smoking joints. Now he was
one of these married men with children, and a forty-six-inch waist, dressed from head to toe in Officers Club casuals, who tutted and sniggered and dismissed him whenever he mentioned some new girl
he’d been seeing, or a crazy bar he’d visited back in London.
    He recalled his shock when he’d struggled to continue a conversation with either Dom or Phil on the first day of the reunion, when they all met in London the night before the flight. They
had laughed at his shared flat in Finsbury Park before they and Hutch fell to the usual banter, as if the three of them had been seeing each other every week for the last fifteen years. Perhaps
they had. Right from the start he’d felt left out. A lump formed in his throat.
    Hutch must