CHAPTER 21
10 years AC
‘LeMan 49/25a’ - ClarenCo Gas Rig Complex, North Sea
Dr Gupta watched the ceremony unfold in sombre silence, the north wind gusted mournfully through the spars and struts around the drilling deck, as Dennis, Howard and David carefully lowered the small wrapped parcel of Hannah’s body towards the surging sea below, boiling with swirling white horses this morning.
Beside the opening in the deck - a grille pulled aside to allow them to lower her through, the very same grille they’d all been waltzing on just a week ago - Walter and Jacob stood, both spilling quiet tears into their hands.
The two people who should have been standing there, watching her go, were absent. Jenny, in the infirmary, drugged to the gills and fighting a fever.
And Leona.
She turned to look over her shoulder at the far-off accommodation platform, and yes, she could just about make her out; a forlorn, lonely figure standing on the helipad and watching the ceremony.
Poor, poor girl.
Jacob had tried talking her down. Tami had tried to talk her into coming down at least to see Hannah buried. She’d tried explaining that the healing of that awful pain in her chest could only begin with the saying of a proper goodbye. Leona, stubborn as her mother, simply refused to come down and remained up there as she had the last couple of days. All day long, a lonely vigil up there with only the swaying tomato plants for company. As far as Tami knew, she’d not come down to sleep. The Sutherlands’ cabin looked unchanged; Jenny’s cut hair was still on the floor, Martha’s hairdresser’s scissors, comb and brush remained where they’d been dropped on the end of one of the cots.
Valérie Latoc offered a prayer as the bound corpse inched its way down. Martha stood beside him, her hands clasped, her dark cheeks shining with tears, her shoulders hitched.
‘. . . such a precious spirit, a gift from God. An innocent who only knew this world and not the old one; not spoiled by the luxuries and privileges and distractions of that time. Here she found love, safety and happiness. And here she . . .’
Tami detected the grief in the man’s voice. He too had been touched by Hannah; his nurse, his carer, his little guardian angel.
Oh, Leona, you should be down here.
The distant silhouette remained perfectly still, anorak flapping in the breeze. Tami could only imagine the poor girl’s lonely torment. She needed to be right here, to see how many lives her daughter had touched; to see all the children in her class crying, to see the others, even the likes of Alice Harton, shedding genuine tears for her.
She was loved, Leona. Your daughter was loved by us all.
And she truly needed to witness her daughter’s wrapped form slide into the water and fade into the depths. Closure; the way back to them, back from her lonely vigil up there, back to the land of the living - it could only begin with closure.
Tami could see, though, even from here, she could see it in her resolute stillness on the edge of the helipad. She’d seen it in the firm set of her jaw earlier; the lifeless gaze of her eyes and the calm, stubborn way she’d politely refused to come down for the ceremony.
Leona had no intention of coming back to them.
Tami suspected she knew how this ended. Tomorrow morning, perhaps the morning after, Leona was simply going to be gone; at some point during the night, she was simply going to step out into the darkness and be gone.
Valérie Latoc finished his prayer and a solemn ‘amen’ rippled amongst those gathered around the hole in the deck. The old men lowered the linen bundle the last few yards towards the sea. A rolling wave rose up and soaked the cloth, rolled the body off its harness and took her away.
Jacob and Walter squatted down by the edge and together tossed a small plastic figurine after her. It tumbled and spun in the gusting wind between the platform’s legs, pink and bright and finally lost amidst the grey froth.
Walter held Jacob closely as his shoulders heaved; more than a family friend - Walter was family. Tami wished Leona was down here, too, so she could hold her; let her open her heart onto her shoulder, soak her jumper with tears.
Oh, Leona . . .
She could see which way this was heading. It was touch and go with Jenny. There was a fair chance she might not pull through. And if she did pass away, young Jacob then would probably quietly leave. Then they’d all be gone; all the Sutherlands; the family who’d started this place.