The World’s Worst Eskimo
The World’s Worst Eskimo was sitting in my living-room, sipping from a mug of cocoa clasped between her trembling, frozen hands. The chattering of her teeth quite drowned out the reassuringly dull drone of the passing traffic, five floors below, as it headed for the consumerist bright lights and a frenzied bout of last gasp festive indulgence at the electronically chiming tills.
“I’m s-s-s-still c-c-c-cold,” she murmured, sticking out her bottom lip in a most disgruntled pout. This had been her mantra since she arrived at my front door earlier in the evening. The knocking had been tired and quiet - barely there, yet nonetheless insistent. I hollered to the unexpected caller to let them know that I was on my way, but the tapping continued unabated: the sound of an exhausted, demented woodpecker determined to make a breakthrough by sunset. It was only when I finally opened the door and found her right hand held in mid-air, still shuddering against nothingness, that I realised quite how violently she was shivering.
I offered to take her coat as I ushered us both into the dimly lit, artificially heated warmth, but she refused, instead pulling the heavy parka even more tightly around her and yanking its hood forward so that her face gazed out at me, wide-eyed and enquiring, from inside a thick, fur-lined tunnel.
“Are you kidding? I only got this last week, and I’m not taking it off until the temperature is back to something at least vaguely liveable.”
I was curious, even puzzled. I may have only studied Eskimos in the pages of simplistic, brightly coloured picture books at primary school, but even that cursory knowledge taught me that their coats are of the utmost importance to them - the mix of fox fur and seal skin offering these hardy souls some badly needed protection from the harsh winds and bitter chill of their natural environment. Seemingly not.
“I don’t believe in cruelty to animals. Plus, those traditional Eskimo garments are so bulky, and can have such a lingering odour about them. Frankly, they whiff a bit. So I bought this one at Marks & Spencer in Hammersmith. It was a bargain in the sale. It’s my first winter coat, too - my dear mother back home will be so proud that I’ve finally seen sense. I was bloody freezing before that, running around in t-shirt and jeans at minus thirty degrees. I had goose pimples in places you don’t even want to know about.”
I showed her into the living-room and expected her to take a place on the sofa. But no, she seized one of the cushions and hurriedly dragged it over to the radiator, squeezing it round the top of the cast iron frame, whereupon she hoisted herself up on to the hastily built seat. Closing her eyes, she sat absolutely still for a moment - as if feeling the welcome heat surging through her body - before sighing, almost contentedly. Almost.
“Getting better. Could be better still. I can’t feel my fingers yet. Or my toes. Or the end of my nose. It turned blue earlier. My nose turned blue! How you people manage to cope in such weather is beyond me, really it is. Now, can I have something to eat, please?”
Delving once again into my limited classroom learning, I informed my visitor that the contents of my fridge - a word that made her once again visibly shiver - sadly rather lacked much in the way of seal meat or freshly-speared whale, though I did have a tin of dolphin-friendly tuna chunks that might be to her liking. She sniffed dismissively, turned her nose up at me, and asked for a sausage sandwich. With ketchup.
I had, up until this point, been very patient and polite, but my bewilderment had at last risen to the surface. I wanted to know just how an Eskimo could be quite so unused to the arctic winds, the sub-zero temperatures, the ice, frost and snow. How an Eskimo had never owned a winter coat prior to spotting one going at a substantial discount in an M&S sale. How an Eskimo preferred Wall’s bangers on a doorstep of white bread to some tasty char-grilled seal steaks.
“The locals always called me the World’s Worst Eskimo,” said the World’s Worst Eskimo, between gobbled mouthfuls of sandwich. She dabbed a finger at a tell-tale trail of tomato ketchup that was slipping from the corner of her mouth, before continuing. “But I wasn’t. I really wasn’t. I just enjoyed being different.”
“And now?”
“Now I’ve decided that I’m quite different enough. Different enough from everyone else, anyway. I just want to be warm, thank you very much. Speaking of which - do you have a hot water bottle?”
When I returned from boiling the kettle, I discovered that my arctic visitor had grabbed every spare pillow, duvet, blanket and winter coat she could forage from my cupboards, drawers and wardrobes, using them to construct a makeshift igloo in the middle of the floor. I allowed myself a brief smile at the thought that even this wilfully different Eskimo didn’t go against her native tradition in every way.
I turned out the light and closed the living-room door. As I did so, there was an almighty sneeze from inside the heavily cushioned refuge.
“Bugger. I think I’m getting a cold.”