Marie Claire 1997-03 By Louise Carpenter Photographs by Jason Bell "Class of Björk" Despite living in London for most of the year, Björk remains extremely close to the Icelandic friends she grew up with. Louise Carpenter talks to the international star and looks at the lives of Icelandic women through Björk's best friends. In a small house on the edge of Reykjavík harbour, Björk is standing in the kitchen sink skinning a pile of boiled salted cod. As she takes each piece out of the bowl and scrapes off the grey scales, the 31-year-old singer smacks her lips and licks the juice off her fingers. Björk has come a long way since she worked in an Icelandic fish factory to help support herself and her young son, Sindri. But tonight her international music achievements, her health and her fame have melted into the background. As she potters around her modest open-plan house wearing swimming goggles to stop her eyes from watering while she fries onions, she is just another of Reykjavík's 3,792 single mothers holdinga dinner party for her closest Icelandic girlfriends. The dinner marks Björk's first substantial trip home to see friends for more than a year. After months of personal faxes, emotional phone calls late at night and the odd snatched meeting, she is back where she belongs. The rest of her time is divided between her London flat and her recording studio in Spain. If Björk's life has changed, it is only on one level. Her emotional reliance on and fierce loyalty to women with whom she played in the school orchestra when they were teenagers, bought second-hand clothes and rebelled against her parents is as strong as ever. 'These are the people I would truly die for,' she says passionately, looking around the table at the exceptionally good-looking gathering of female-friends. 'You come to a point when you stop and think, "Hang on, the last ten times I really needed someone I turned to them. They all stand for different things for me, and different periods of my life, but none of them judges me and they're always there for me." 'Take Didda,' she says, nodding to a finely boned redheaded woman smoking strong cigarettes and drinking water. 'Didda and I broke away from our parents together. We left school at fourteen, shared a room and then a flat - we were always together, it was so intense. We weren't having sex but we might as well have been. She was very macho and always getting into fights, and I would go around in my pink coat carrying a little handbag, ever the Miss Sensible.' Didda nods in agreement and as she waves away the offer of wine, the sleeve of her second-hand jumper rides up to reveal and identical tattoo to Björk's, a compass, chosen when the girls were sixteen. As Didda watches Björk ferry out a succession of Icelandic dishes - marinated herrings, gravadlax, cheeses and rye breads, rather than the more traditional boiled sheep cheeks, dried fish heads and puffin - it's easy to see from the tiny scars on her nose and the maturity of her eyes that her life has been more tumultuous than Björk's. 'I was an alcoholic,' she admits. 'I have been sober for four years now. I started drinking at thirteen, and I was 22 when I finally realised I was addicted. My son was two and a half years old, and I had to make a choice between being his mother and what I had become. I made the decision and I stopped drinking. Björk was the only one at the time who said anything about my drinking. When she accused me of being addicted, I just looked at her and thought, "You don't understand me." But she was right.' Didda's addiction might sound extreme, but it is representative of the pervasive nature of alcohol in Iceland. In winter, when temperatures plummet to as low as -10°C and there are only five and a half hours of daylight, young people feel the need to let off steam. On Friday and Saturday nights, Reykjavík turns from quiet Toytown to thumping metropolis. The Icelandic capital is fast becoming a hip destination for wealthy Europeans - Blur's leadsinger Damon Albarn has bought a flat here and part owns one of the city's most popular bars. The compulsion to get high on drink is exacerbated by the government's tight control on its sale. Alcohol can be bought only in state-run shops by those over the age of twenty. This, combined with its phenomenally high price, has lead to a huge black market. Didda, who is now councellor at a drink and drug rehabilitation centre at Reykjavík Hospital, explains, 'I get women of all ages coming to my clinic. Today we had three sixteen-year-olds, and there was a woman of 82. Drugs are getting bad here now, but the positive side is that we can help a lot of women because rehab is free in Iceland.' Björk smiles and adds, 'Didda's got so much intergrity. I've seen some pretty dark sides of some dark people, and they get lost in them. But Didda's quite comfortable on the dark side - she's kind of a consultant to me.' Didda - like Björk - married her boyfriend at eighteen to get round a government scheme that at one time took a proportion of young single people's earnings to 'keep' until their 21st birthday. The marriage lasted two weeks. Her next marriage to the father of her son, lasted a year. Björk's marriage broke after a year, just like her mother's. The government policy no longer exists, but the country divorce rate remains as high as ever. The doorbell rings and Björk skips to her porch, which, like her bathroom and much of her furniture, is covered in mosaic tiles. She and a former Icelandic boyfriend decorated the small house and lived there together for four years. A young woman, dressed entirely in white and wearing a pair of huge faux-diamond-encrusted Versace glasses, rushes through the door. The guest is Andrea, the newest and youngest member of the group. As Björk's personal assistant, she shares most of her day-to-day life. 'Björk bought me these glasses in Marbella to make us laugh,' she explains, as the group shriek with joy. They speak to each other in Icelandic, but all are equallyat home in English. Just behind her is MaggaVil, a 30-year-old actress who has known Björk since music school, when they were both thirteen. 'Björk played the flute and I played the violin,' says MaggaVil. 'I always said the flutes had more fun.' The trip home with Björk is Andrea's first since ending a long relationship and moving to England last year, first to run her friend's fan club, then to become her personal assistant. Now the two friends - who met seven years ago walking to a party - are inseparable. 'It was big decisionto move to England and leave my boyfriend, but I wasn't happy with myself. We'd lived together for five years and I had to get away for a while. Björk helped me through the whole thing. She's so logical about everything. You can talk to her for hours and then look back later and see how right she was.' Andrea's decision to leave the country is typical of young Icelanders in their mid- to late-twenties, around half of whom find work abroad. At 267,806, the population of Iceland is tiny. Huge glaciers, lava fields and sandy wastelands make four-fifths of the country uninhabitable. Nearly half of the population lives in Reykjavík. Throughout college or university, most young women hold down several jobs at a time, but they consider the long hours a small price to pay for their financial indepenendence. While Björk was working in coffee shops, hotels and fish factories at the beginning of her singing career, Andrea was holding on three jobs of her own, working into the early hours to pay for tips to the South of France. 'During every school holiday, you are expected to work,' she explains. 'I started working at nine years old.' 'I think the need to leave home is an independence thing,' says Björk. 'I thought I was the bravest person at fifteen because I'd got my own flat and had three jobs, but it wasn't until I got to England that I realised I hadn't been taking risks at all. Icelandic society is so sheltered. Because Reykjavík is so small, your friends are everywhere, so even when you to go it alone, you're still not really independent.' Predictably, everybody hangs out in the small collection of bars, coffee shops and clubs, creating almost a village atmosphere. 'When you split up with a boyfriend, you can't just get a new pile of friends,' Björk says, pouring out another bottle of wine. 'Sooner or later you are bound to have to talk to him because you'll see him in the supermarket and you'll be picking up toilet rolls together.' However, the insular nature of Icelandic society is also hugely positive. Friends and family are considered sacred, especially since illegitimacy is so common. Björk's stepfather (who is now separared from her mother) pops around for dinner with her younger stepbrother. Her mother, Hildur, to whom she is very close, is not at the dinner party, but she looks after her daughter's house whenever Björk is abroad. 'The last time Sindri spent a birthday in Iceland, my father's second wife and my mum made the cake together. Sindri's father's second wife brought another cake and my grandmothers two husbands turned up. They all just got it done together,' Björk says, matter-of-factly. Didda - like two other friends, Yogga and Maggastina - contribute to the statistic that one in every four mothers in Reykjavík are single. Unlike Britain, it is the contraceptive pill rather than illegitimacy that is frowned upon. Even Vigdis Finnbogadóttir - the President of Iceland until last year and the first woman in the world to be popularly elected as head of state - is raising her child alone. 'It's easy to bring up a child alone,' says Andrea. 'My sister has been alone for ten years, and the family just helps each other.' Despite her high spirits, the emotional significance of Andrea's return is taking its toll. The reunion with her friends and family, combined with the anticipation of an unevitable meeting with her ex-boyfriend, has caused a nervous rash on her face and the onset of flu. However, she still makes herself useful in the kitchen. As Björk prepares the final course, Andrea is behind her with her cloth wiping down the surfaces. The two work silently and efficiently, typical of a close female relationship which needs no effort or converstation. 'Andrea is like a kitten who has got 5,000 kilos of love,' says Björk. 'She doesn't go through nine mood swings a day, she's really stable, but she's still emotional and deep and a very loving person - she is the ideal friend.' 'It's been a good and a bad year for both of us,' says Andrea. 'But we were there for each other, which is the main thing.' It's now 10am, the morning after the night before, still dark and temperature is well below zero. Björk and Yogga are about to go swimming in one of Reykjavík's many outdoor thermal pools. The urge to strip off when there's snow on the ground is Icelandic culture at its best. 'It's a top way to start the day,' Björk claims, as she and Yogga undress. 'Almost everybody swims in the morning. When I lived in Iceland we all used to meet here and have a chat. It's natural hot water and it's cheap so it's perfect way to beat the cold. It's also the best thing for my voice.' Physically, Björk and Yogga couldn't be more different. As they run out of the changing room to the pool - Björk, small and dark, and Yogga, large and blonde, with eyes that sparkle out of her plump face - they make an odd pair, and yet it is Yogga to whom Björk is closest. They met nine years ago during a camping trip, when Sindri and Yogga's son, Frosti, struck up a friendship. 'The boys started playing together, we started talking - and we've been talking ever since,' Yogga explains. Behind every story written about Björk - from difficulties with personal relationships to a scuffle with a journalist who tried to ask her son questions at Bangkok airport - Yogga has been working quietly in the background, getting her friend through difficult times. It was Yogga to whom Björk turned to after her split with Goldie, her longterm musician boyfriend. And when a disturbed fan sent an acid bomb throught the post before committing suicide, Yogga was there waiting to help. The list goes on: it was Yogga who was straight on a plane to America, helping Björk through the crisis of losing her voice while on tour. Lucky enough to be able to take time out from her own masseuse business, Yogga travelled with Björk, talking to her day after day and hugging her as her health deteriorated; and in the final crisis supporting her through the ordeal of not being able to sing. Björk explains, 'I went to Spain to record some music, as my way of coping with the bomb incident, but when I talked to Yogga on the phone I was muttering and mumbling and she said, "Just shut up and come home to us now," and that's what I did. I just got on a plane and went back to Iceland. I had talks with all of them during that period, and they all helped me in their own way. That was the maddest week of my life - and they were all there for me.' 'So often I feel she needs support and protection,' says Yogga. 'I always want to be closer to her. I always think that at difficult times she must come home to us to know the world isn't against her. In return, she gives me humour and lightness.' Almost as a testimony to the stregth of their friendship, Yogga is the one friend who does not share Björk's love of music. And yet she has been immortalised with a song called Yogga, which Björk sings with Tricky on his album. 'Once I was with her on tour and she introduced me to Bono - I didn't know who he was,' Yogga chuckles. 'When my brother heard about it, he said "It shouldn't be allowed for you to meet all these people. You don't appreciate it." But music is completely in the background for Björk and me.' Yogga, along with all Björk's friends, met Goldie when the couple came to Iceland for the Christmas and New Year before last. But like a true friend, she refuses to be drawn on the relationship, except to say that 'he had a similar energy', then adds 'I have lots of secrets. In my job I try to get people to explore their actions, and that takes courage. It is very emotional, and sometimes I am lost for words.' After an hour in the pool, Björk and Yogga are back in the changing room, stripping off their costumes and throwing themselves under the communal hot showers. It's easy to imagine public reaction in Britain if Björk were spotted naked chatting in the communal showers of a local authority swimming-pool. But Björk's behaviour in Iceland is symptomatic of a country comfortable with her fame. As Björk marches along the street in her polar-bear jacket and white trainers to meet her friend Maggastina, nobody bats an eyelid. At 31, Maggastina possesses the softness and quirky sense of humour often attributed to her famous friend, with her quirky selection of second-hand clothes, candy-pink nail varnish and white-blonde hair. Like Björk she's making her own music, and if she came to Britain she'd probably be branded bonkers too. But rather than being mad, they are both pragmatic mothers who share a sense of fun. 'People in Britain think I'm bonkers just because I come from Iceland, but I am the sensible, practical one,' Björk explains. Maggastina adds, 'There's an Icelandic edition of Hello! magazine now on sale here, but it was once thought that people didn't care about the private lives of celebrities. If I could have met Elvis maybe I would have been just a little bit excited, but that's about all. 'I think all this publicity is nonsense. I would say to the press, "Do you want to make Björk feel worse about things than she already does?"' Maggastina's daily life - working in a record shop, planning to bring out her own album, and raising her four-year-old daughter - most clearly mirrors Björk's early years. But Björk has moved on, and financially there is a gulf between them. 'I think money is irrelevant to my friendships,' Björk states emphatically. 'I would never think I was better for having money, but then I also won't pretend I haven't got it. If you can use it to make people laugh, then use it. You just end up following your instincts. I have never wanted to isolate my different worlds. If my friends come over and stay, they come out with me - it's simple. At the end of the day, we are all simple creatures who want their mates.' 'Maybe the fact that we have such different lives outside the group brings it together even more,' adds Maggastina. 'Our friendship will go on for ever.' 'So many of my mates have got as much talent as I have,' Björk says. 'It's just that I've gone and done it. Maybe next I'll run a record label or start a children's music school in Uruguay - maybe it's an illusion, but I feel like a change.' With that she dashes off to buy some material to make a dress to wear at a party she's throwing. Meanwhile, Maggastina is planning her record launch, Didda is about to start university in England, and Andrea and Yogga are getting ready for a relationship on their own terms. As Björk waves to someone actoss the street, an earlier comment she made is still ringing in the air: 'Your real mates - whoever they are - will stick by you and say, "Go for it, girl."' Björk's latest album is Telegram; her new single, I Miss You, from the album Post, is released on 10 February.