by Ben Smith
The old man leaned his elbows on the table and fitted his hands together carefully. The creases over his knuckles deepened. ‘There is no out.’
‘You don’t know that.’
‘There is no out.’
‘You don’t know …’
‘No.’ The old man stood up quickly. ‘You don’t know.’ He stared down at the tin with his pale eyes, his mouth set, breathing hard, then turned and left the room. ‘You don’t know anything.’
The boy stayed where he was. He listened to the old man’s footsteps, the tap dripping. After a while, he felt his heart rate slow.
He looked down at the tin, then reached over for the old man’s penknife, fitted the blade under the half-opened lid and levered it up with a crunch of rust.
A thick and heady scent rose and spread across the room. Sweet, but nothing like coolant or new paint. Sharp, but nothing like salt or metal. It hung in the air, as though it were impossible that it could mix with any other smell on the rig.
The boy could just make out dark lumps floating in a dark liquid. He leaned forward, reached into the tin with the blade of the knife and speared one. When he raised it into the light it shone bright red. The colour was so strange in the monotone room that, for a moment, the boy could not get a clear sense of its outline. It seemed bulbous at one end, tapering down into a rounded point. Yet, despite its strangeness, he could see that it was not a piece of something, not a re-formed shape, but something whole in itself.
He hesitated for a second, then pulled it off the blade. It was soft, but not gelatinous. If he squeezed it, it oozed a syrupy, red liquid and the same heavy scent. When he put it in his mouth, the sweetness was almost unbearable. He bit into it and, for a moment, it was sharp. He chewed and small grains, like fine grit, popped between his teeth. He chewed slowly, until long after he needed to, before swallowing.
Bottles
There was a small collection of spare parts in the cramped storeroom off the dock, which the boy had managed to salvage, scrape together and save out over the years.
There was a crate of engine parts, a box of electrical components and a few coils of wire, a single replacement gear wheel and a handful of anemometers. He’d hidden them under a loose floor panel, which could only be accessed by shifting a whole shelving rack out of the way.
He could have used any of these parts a hundred times in the past, but he always tried all other options before he resorted to raiding his dwindling stock.
Right at the bottom of one of the boxes there was a complete socket set, still sealed in brittle, yellowing cellophane. However much he’d wanted to, however difficult the jobs had been, he’d never been able to bring himself to open it. Now, as he sorted through the dusty stock, he picked it up, turned it carefully in his hands, and put it in his toolbag. The cellophane crackled quietly, like a fire. Then he opened the crate containing the engine parts.
The parts were old, but the boy had kept them clean and oiled in case they were ever needed. He used to come in here a lot, to clean and sort things by himself. He liked the smell of oil and dust, and the streaks of old paint on the walls. Whenever the weather had got to him, when there had been endless hail or the air had been daggy for days, he’d come in here. When the farm had pressed in and felt too close, he would sit and imagine all the different uses for the parts – the rows of turbines, the wheels in a gearbox, the patterns on a circuit board … It seemed to help. He shook his head. A good choice, using a tiny cupboard to help him deal with claustrophobia.
He held up a bearing lock and it glinted in the dim light. Well, the parts were needed now. One by one, he removed the components from the boxes and put them in his bag.
From out in the dock he heard the sound of the maintenance boat returning. He quickly moved the rest of the components, shifted the floor panel and shelf back into place and left the storeroom.
The old man was walking across the deck carrying a crate and his poles. As he came down onto the dock, he stopped, put the crate down, bent over and let out a long wheezing breath. The boy stayed where he was. The old man’s breath kept coming, like air forcing itself from a pipe, until, just as it seemed there could be no more left in his body, he took a short gasp, gripped the handles of the crate and shut his eyes. Three long shudders made their way up his back, but he kept his mouth closed and his eyes shut.
The boy walked forwards quietly. The old man stayed where he was, leaning on the crate. As the boy got closer, he could see that it was open and inside there were seven or eight old plastic bottles, cut in half and filled with what looked like mud.
The old man breathed out slowly, reached up and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Then he looked up, saw the boy, slammed the lid of the crate shut and carried on up to the rig.
This became their new routine – passing in corridors or on the way down to the boat, exchanging no more than a few words. They were rarely on the rig at the same time, but when they were they would keep to their rooms, avoiding the galley or control room when the other was in there. Some days the boy would be able to take the maintenance boat out first, other days he would have to wait for the old man, then wait for the battery to charge, then finally have a few hours out working on his boat before it got dark.
But the repairs progressed. He managed to drain the water from the keel, reseal the prop shaft and weld up some small leaks in the hull. He cleaned the cabin, tidied up the deck and took stock of the supplies in the hold. One by one, he took the batteries back to the rig, tested and charged them. They all held their charge pretty well. One by one, he took them back to the boat and connected them up.
The engine spares had worked well, but there were still parts that he needed. The drive belt was charred and brittle. A generator belt could be made to work, but they didn’t have any in the storeroom. He thought about it for a long time, going through his options. At night, in his room, he read through his technical manuals, looking for any alternatives; but he knew what he needed to do.
He stood in the nacelle and looked down at the generator. He’d removed the casing to reveal the inner workings – the spinning wheels and the drive belt whirring. It was warm in the nacelle, but the boy shivered. Wind pounded on the outer walls. The blades thrummed.
He reached over for the isolator switch. The generator slowed and then stopped.
The nacelle was clean and dry; everything was rust-free and running as it should. He’d spent all day travelling round the farm, searching for a turbine that was in good condition. All day and this was the only one he’d found.
He touched the belt, pressed down to test the flex of the rubber. There were no cracks, no brittleness. It felt almost new. It must have been replaced. Maybe it had been him who had replaced it.
He let go of the belt. Maybe he should find a different one.
A turbine that was about to give out, but that still, for some reason, had a new drive belt? He shook his head. No, it had to be this one.
He hadn’t checked the maintenance reports in weeks; but every time he happened to glance at the system he saw that the numbers had dropped. They’d soon be below fifty per cent. What difference would one turbine make?
He took a pry bar out of his toolbag and began to work the belt off the wheels.
The old man was waiting in the dock when the boy brought the boat back in. The boy threw over the mooring rope, but the old man just stood there, staring out of the dock gates. The boy climbed out of the boat and moored it up himself.
‘You manage to fix it then?’
The boy looked up at the old man. ‘What?’
‘Did you manage to fix it?’ The old man looked at the boy. ‘The transformer you’ve been going back to.’
‘Oh …’ The boy picked up the charging cable and took it over to the socket. ‘Yeah.’
‘What was wrong?’
‘What?’
The old man
was still looking at the boy. ‘What was wrong?’
‘The fan.’
‘Must’ve been a big job.’
‘Yeah, I suppose.’
‘You’ve been going back enough.’
‘It was a big job.’
The old man nodded and turned back to the gates. ‘How’d you fix it?’
‘What?’
‘How did you fix it?’
‘I fitted a new motor.’
‘Had a spare one with you?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I didn’t know we had a spare one.’
‘We did.’ The boy got his stuff and made to leave the dock.
The old man nodded. ‘I didn’t see it on the maintenance report.’
The boy stopped. The old man never looked at the reports. He crouched down, unzipped his toolbag, zipped it back up again.
The old man walked over to the charging point. ‘So is this battery almost done, or what?’
‘I’ve only just plugged it in.’
‘What’s it on?’
‘Thirty per cent.’
‘That’ll do.’ The old man unplugged the cable, climbed over the gunwale onto the boat.
The boy stayed on the dock. ‘That’ll do for what?’
The old man went into the cabin and switched on the engine. ‘I thought we’d go and do some work.’
‘What?’
‘Some work.’ The old man came back to the cabin door. ‘You know, like you’ve just been doing.’
‘It’s getting dark.’
‘We’ve got lights.’
‘The battery’s low.’
‘It’ll do.’ The old man climbed back out of the boat and made his way towards the boy’s toolbag. ‘We can go back over where you just were, see if we can fix some more of those turbines. Get them yùnzhuăn.’
The boy stepped forward and blocked his path. ‘Why do you want to do it now?’
The old man shrugged. ‘I feel like it.’
‘But why now?’
The old man was so close that the boy could see the dark fleck in the corner of his left eye. He’d got it one winter, when a flywheel they’d been working on had suddenly shattered in the cold, throwing out splinters of metal. The boy had got three in his forearm and one in his neck. He’d pulled his out straight away but the old man had left his eye alone, saying that the metal would work its way out eventually, or work its way further in and disappear and then he could forget about it. But in the end it had just stayed where it was, floating.
The old man frowned. ‘Why don’t you want me to go?’
The boy took a step back. ‘I don’t not want …’
‘You bloody moan at me day after week, year after month. And now, I say let’s go and do some work and you don’t want to.’ The old man walked past the boy and picked up the toolbag. Then he untied the moorings and pushed the boat off from the dock.
‘All right, hang on, I’ll …’
‘I’m not bloody hanging on.’ The old man turned and pointed a finger at the boy. ‘I’m going to go on my own. You’re bloody disinvited.’
The boy watched as the boat pulled out of the dock, then he ran up to the control room and switched on the map. The maintenance boat’s symbol was heading south, straight towards the transformer where the other boat was moored. The boy watched the screen, watched the symbol creep further on.
Then it stopped. The boy held his breath and watched, but the boat didn’t move. He breathed out slowly, checked the coordinates and brought up the footage from the nearest working camera. The screen was turning an inky blue, but he could just make out the boat, moored up to a stopped turbine, and the dark smudge of a figure climbing the ladder up to the jacket, carrying a large bag.
The boy watched the screen. After almost an hour, just as the last light was beginning to fail, he saw the blades of the turbine begin to turn.
The first thing the boy did the next time he went out was move the boat. He started moving it every few days, towing it to different areas of the farm, mooring it up to different turbines and transformers, then taking long detours on his way back to the rig. He couldn’t risk the old man noticing something again.
The new belt fitted perfectly and the engine was almost finished. The only problem was the power converter. The extra input had been too much for it and had caused the whole thing to overheat. Even if he took the one from the maintenance boat, it would just do the same again.
The boy sat in the hull, staring at the engine and thinking. He thought of all of the components in all of the turbines and transformers across the farm. There was nothing he could use. He thought of all the machinery in the rig; he went through it, level by level, corridor by corridor – the dock controls, the water system, the air con, the galley, his room, the old man’s. He stopped. The boat rocked and a screwdriver at his feet rolled from side to side. There was one way he could get what he needed.
Anything you want – that’s what the pilot had said.
He listened to the old man moving about the rig. He listened to him in the galley, packing his bag, taking food and drink – he would be gone all day. He listened to the old man walking down the stairs and into the dock. And he listened long after he had heard the boat’s engine recede into the distance.
He got up off his bed and went out of his room. He hadn’t slept, but he didn’t feel tired. He knew what he needed to get – what wouldn’t be missed – and he knew where he would hide it until the next resupply.
He walked down the corridor in his socks, the fabric sticking to the floor. At the door to the old man’s room he paused, went over, once more, the same thoughts that had been circling in his head all night: he was doing it for both of them. If he could get the boat working then they could both get out. If, in the end, the old man didn’t want to go, then that was his choice. But the boy had to try.
He turned the handle and pushed the door slowly, but it didn’t touch against anything. He waited for a moment, then opened it fully and stood in the doorway. There was the old man’s room – his bed, his chair, his clothes, his crates; but in place of the piles of trawled-up bones and pebbles and pieces of wood, there were hundreds of plastic bottles with their tops cut off, full of sand and silt and mud.
c.20,000 Before Present
This is how the landscape forms: by increments, by the steady acquisition of layers.
First, the ice pulls back like curling fingers, leaving bare rock and frozen ground – the world stripped back to its bones.
Then pale flecks appear: pollen grains blown north. They land and settle, gathering in the cracks like snow. They wait for enough warmth to split open, enough moisture to put down roots. They gather in the cracks, waiting for the real snow to thaw.
Minerals crystallize.
Lichens grow, like rock from rock, less than a millimetre a year.
Moss follows.
Then a thread of wild flowers. They have been waiting in crevices, following seams of thawing soil. They bloom in a sudden shot of colour, thin and fragile as a vein.
But enough to draw in beetles and minute flies, which settle, breed and expire, leaving a layer of wings and chitin.
Birds and small mammals come next. They leave footprints and bones pressed into the mud. They carry seeds that have tangled in their feathers and fur.
The seeds fall to the ground and grow, sending up shoots to meet the wind, which twists and bends them, pummelling them horizontal.
All things proceed laterally.
Whole trees grow, spreading their branches no more than a few inches from the ground.
A forest grows inch-deep on the rocks.
The first herds of reindeer come and graze down any shoots that break the snow-line.
And following the reindeer, like ghosts, are their own hooves and antlers and skin, cut and sewn to fit the shapes of other bodies, which spread
north, leaving their own traces in turn.
Footprints, handprints, the remnants of fires.
They are deep inland, but their pockets are lined with dentalium shells. As they walk, they roll cowries between their fingers.
Knots
When had the old man done it? When had he taken all of his stuff off the rig? And where the hell had he put it all?
The boy tried to think back to the times he’d watched the old man going out on the boat. When had he taken crates with him? Where had he gone with them? The boy hadn’t been paying attention. He’d been so focused on fixing the boat that he hadn’t noticed anything the old man was doing.
He considered offering the pilot turbine parts, but that wouldn’t work. The pilot had demanded almost a whole nacelle just for a box of poles. The boy needed to get him something he wanted. There was no other option.
He began watching the old man constantly, tracking his movements on the satellite map, noting down the coordinates of every turbine or transformer he stopped at. Then, when the old man came back to the rig, the boy would take the boat out and retrace his winding path, visiting and checking each location in turn. But he never seemed to be able to follow the old man’s route exactly. He would plot the coordinates on the satnav, but always find himself off-course. The screen would show that he was heading towards a transformer, but the transformer would never appear. He spent hours trying to find a turbine that he’d seen the old man go inside on five different occasions. When he finally reached it, after travelling up and down the same row three times, he found the outer hatch completely rusted shut.
Then there was the problem of the battery. However he ran the engine, whichever route he took around the towers, he never seemed to be able to get the charge to last as long as the old man had. Even when he followed the satnav precisely, even when he chose the most direct routes, he found himself fighting against rip currents, or getting lost among the identical rows.