CHAPTER 41
10 years AC
‘LeMan 49/25a’ - ClarenCo Gas Rig Complex, North Sea
Valérie Latoc watched the women moving amongst the terraces and walkways of the drilling platform, watering the plants from cans, taking care not to waste a single drop of fresh water. It was quieter here. Fewer people to break the soothing murmur of the sea below. Quiet enough to hear himself think.
Whilst Jennifer Sutherland had been unconscious, in the grip of a chemically induced stupor, he’d noticed how quickly things had begun to unravel under the stewardship of that poor old fool, Walter. His manner was clumsy and unappealing. He patronised people when he spoke to them. He was gruff and irritable, and when he did attempt some good-natured humour, it was usually ill-judged and fell uncomfortably into a silence.
No one seemed to like the poor man. He’d heard the ladies mutter about him. How his little rheumy pink eyes darted where they were not invited. How they hated it when he accompanied Jennifer on her tours of the rigs. The bunking areas in particular. His ‘little ferret eyes’ - that’s what that woman, Alice Harton called them - always seemed to be hunting for a tantalising glimpse of someone half-dressed, according to her, lingering too long on items of underwear that dangled from washing lines strung from handrail to handrail. How he seemed too close to Jennifer and her family; how he’d been too close to poor young Hannah . . . always there, hanging around their personal quarters.
The superficial unity of this community had very quickly begun to unwind with Walter in charge of things. Without Jennifer Sutherland’s forceful personality keeping things ticking over, they were drifting, breaking apart.
That’s why I ended up here. Their compass is spinning. They’re lost.
What they needed to know was what he fully understood. That their being gathered here on this remote, windy, damp artificial island wasn’t just random happenstance. There was a purpose to it. Something far more important than mere ‘making do’ day after day.
Valérie knew deep down it wasn’t mere chance that had driven him east out of London up to this remote rump of England. He was needed here. These people, these hard-working, these wonderful people, who’d managed to create something that vaguely resembled a little Garden of Eden on these ugly rusting platforms, they needed to hear that they were all alive and fed and safe and living in this remote place for a very specific reason.
God has plans for you.
Valérie could see what these platforms were; true they didn’t have a keel or a rudder, or a hull - they stood on solid base rock instead of floating on the sea, but those details withstanding, undeniably, this was an ark for those God had determined should survive.
He understood now that God - Jehovah, Allah, Jahmeh . . . whatever people chose to call Him - had a sense of irony, a sense of humour even. He could have gone Old Testament on the old world and flooded it once again with globally-warmed ice water from the polar caps. But, instead, He’d chosen a very modern way to show His displeasure; He’d chosen to strangle man with his own arrogance. All that technology, all those power stations, all those convenient machines that mankind so relied on, were stilled in one night when the oil was stopped from flowing through pipes from the Middle East.
Valérie shook his head. Who would have expected God to be so modern-minded?
He watched a dozen people making their way across the long walkway from the production platform. He recognised some of their faces from the last prayer meeting he’d held, and there were some new faces that they’d brought along with them. Word was spreading amongst the others that he had something to say worth hearing. That God wanted to talk to all of them - whatever faith they’d been clinging to in the past - and explain His plans. Here, on this sea-borne Garden of Eden, right here, was where the future could be written. And Valérie could feel the tug of destiny, the obligation to step into Jennifer Sutherland’s shoes before things fell apart completely and lead these people to a place where he suspected Jennifer had already, gently been coaxing them; away from old material values towards a simpler, sustainable life.
The only thing she’d forgotten to add to the mix was God’s merciful message. It was the knowledge that they were special, chosen, that would bind them together, and they certainly needed that.
Martha Williams appeared in the doorway across the deck from him. She waved to catch his eye. ‘They’re ready below,’ she said.
He nodded. ‘I will come along in a minute.’ He watched her turn and step back inside. The woman had become his most helpful ally. Although Alice Harton had been one of his first converts, she wasn’t a popular woman. Martha, on the other hand, everyone seemed to warm to, and trust. The fact that she’d recently gathered up her few belongings and moved across from the accommodation platform to be with him on the drilling platform had helped his cause immensely. Others were coming now. Several more fresh faces each and every day.
Things were gently sliding Valérie’s way. Walter was doing a fair job of alienating almost everyone he interacted with, and the more he sensed authority slipping through his fingers, the more stressed and harried he seemed to become.
When Jennifer finally recovered enough to climb out of her cot, he hoped she would be sensible enough, and selfless enough, to hand over the burden of leadership to him. These people needed what he had to offer. Needed it so badly. It would be damaging for everyone’s morale if there was some sort of an unsightly power struggle between them.
For now, though, the longer she stayed in bed, the longer Walter had to really screw things up, the longer Valérie had to build his congregation, the better it would eventually be for all of them.
An idea occurred to him.
An idea to help speed things along. Many of the women already viewed Walter with a little suspicion; clucked amongst themselves at how close he’d always been to the Sutherlands, particularly Leona . . . particularly Hannah. Hadn’t there been something about his almost constant proximity to the little girl that had looked a little inappropriate . . . needy even?
Didn’t he just look the part, too? Old and unappealing, bushy eyebrows that shadowed furtive eyes and opportunistic glances and a Captain Birdseye beard on those florid cheeks, thick enough to hide the subtle leer of a pervert.
Just a suggestion. That’s all. A question or two about Walter. What do we know about his life before the crash? Did he have some kind of . . . ‘form’? Had he ever been on some sort of a ‘register’? Perhaps? Who’s to know, eh?
And that shrew of a woman, Alice, seemed the perfect person for him to ask.
After all, that’s all it took - just asking the question - to taint an unappealing old man like Walter with the lingering smell of that kind of a suggestion.
Once branded, always branded. It’s how that kind of thing worked.