by Harper Fox
I followed Wycliffe through what felt like miles of neon corridors and into a locker room, where he sized me up with a glance and tossed me the kind of coveralls I recognised from TV programmes as a survival suit. I dragged it on with fingers almost too damp and numb to do the job and had to stand, looking into the middle distance, while he pulled tight for me its various straps. Any minute, I knew, I would either wake up or this charade would end. Wycliffe, no matter how friendly and obliging, would see through my impostor’s shell, which had grown up to encase me almost without my realisation or consent. I’d ridden out here on the tide of his assumptions…“All right?” he said, after showing me how the life jacket worked and how to find the whistle that was sure to draw rescue down on me straightaway, if we ditched in the boundless black maelstrom of the North Sea. “You’re a bit of a funny colour. I’ll give Westie a good talking-to for leaving you to look after yourself…Come on. I can hear her powering up.”
When we emerged onto the apron on the far side of the block, I realised that the helicopter I’d seen from the road was about five times the size I’d thought, a monster of black and yellow steel, its rotors conspiring with the wind to create a roar like the end of the world. I fell back involuntarily. Wycliffe turned, grinning. “Not ridden one of these bitches before?”
“No.” I reckoned I’d better say something professional, and racked my brains. “Did a bit of evac training with the hospital, but…” That was good. It happened to be true as well, and I shut my mouth before my voice could falter.
“Well, you’re still not quite dressed for it.” Wycliffe dived back into the glassed-in office and returned a second later with a bright orange oilskin like his own. “Put that on. Right.” Other men were gathering around us, about a dozen of them, though I’d almost lost the ability to count. They were glancing at me: Wycliffe was yelling my assumed name and status. Then he grabbed my arm. “Okay, Doc, we’re off. Duck your head right down and take a run for it.”
I could say no. I could lay down the charade right here. The hot water I would be in, the humiliation would be as nothing compared to the fear climbing up in my throat. I gave it a second of thought.
And that fear was nothing, was dust in the face of losing Aaron. Of living for even one night with the knowledge that he thought himself rejected. Every instant he thought I was passing in Joe’s arms, in the warm, well-lit flat where I had tried to take him home, burned on my skin like a brand. Wycliffe, taking my stillness for a paralysis of fear, pulled me forward. “Christ, you are a rookie, aren’t you? Get your bloody head down and run!”
***
The flight took an hour and a half. After the first ten minutes or so—the brief exhilaration of ascent, which even in these circumstances was a breath-stealing kick—I closed my eyes and focussed on getting from one breath to the next without freaking out and demanding to be put back down. The wind seized us in its fist. For every blow it dealt, I felt the pilots slug it back, and every impact jarred straight through my spine. Even strapped tight to my seat, it was like being a pebble kicked in a tin can, and I was grateful that my position near the tail kept my clench-jawed terror hidden from most of the dozen other men making the trip. For a while they yelled at one another cheerfully over the roar of the engines. Then the storm increased, and even the most stalwart fell into a thoughtful silence. Dave Wycliffe, seated next to me, who had given my white-knuckled hand a friendly pat or two during our ascent, turned his attentions to the black window, where rain lashed the glass as if hurled from a bucket.
I was alone. In a space between the worlds. Behind me was a harbour where I could still find shelter if I capitulated to Joe, accepted him for what he was. In front of me—only unknowns. I had flung myself out into the night. I felt my grip on reality begin to slide, a plunging loss of bearings and identity. If this frail craft went down, I would drop untraceably into the void. What the fuck was I? A flicker in the dark yearning hopelessly towards another, which perhaps had forgotten my existence by now.
The helicopter jounced violently and tipped to the side. I experienced some tiny, distant relief that mine was not the only gasp extorted by the movement. It had wedged my hip against the bulkhead. Slowly I became aware of a pressure, a small angular shape, trapped between my skin and the metal.
Oh, Aaron. My throat closed at the thought of him. Half convinced every pitch of the craft would be its last, I undid enough zips and straps on the survival suit and reached inside. It was an awkward stretch into the pocket of my coat. With trembling hands, I withdrew the little cardboard box and eased it open.
Broad, plain, heavy. Warming in my hand with a weight like a kiss pressed to the palm. I closed my fingers round it, tighter and tighter, until I could feel its circle burning deep into my flesh. I would never put it on—not unless he put it on me. I clutched it like a star, as the storm raged harder and the rotor blades began to wail for purchase on the air.
***
“Take it easy with him, Jens. He’s had a rough trip out, even by my standards.”
I raised my eyes from the concrete. There was an almost infinite stretch of it beneath my feet, and it was not moving. Almost infinite—in the far distance, between gigantic scaffolds and towers made of girders and chains, I could see an edge. Beyond it, darkness. A hand was clenched tight on my elbow, and I suddenly remembered the lurch of my guts as the chopper dropped through nothing, and the thud of heavy impact. Being unable to unfasten my belt, and hands reaching to do it for me. A crowded struggle down some metal stairs.
“You’re telling me. We had the rescue boat ready to go. Who the hell is he?”
The man in front of me was dressed from head to toe in orange slicks. In one hand, he held a clipboard protected by a plastic bag. He was marking off the names of the crew as they disembarked. I had thought it wet and windy back at Baltic Road. I’d had no idea. Here, the gale arrived in flying wedges, each one accompanied by a blast of horizontal rain. I could hardly breathe. The man holding me up—Dave, I remembered—was obviously experienced in making his lungs and his voice work in spite of it. “Barnes,” he bellowed cheerfully. “The new medical assistant. Bloody Westie was meant to bring him out. He forgot him. Dr. Barnes, this is our ops team leader, Jens Larsen.”
“That’s nice,” Larsen yelled back. “I’m not surprised Aaron forgot, Dave. Barnes isn’t due out for another two weeks. So like I say—who the fuck’s he?”
“What? He said he was…” Suddenly the grip on my elbow disappeared. I staggered, feeling the platform yaw, a muscle memory of flight. Wycliffe had his hand in the air and was beckoning someone over the heads of the dispersing crowd on the helipad. “Hang on. There he is. West! Over here!”
He was in front of me. He strode through the flow of men heading in the other direction, and I saw how they parted for him. I remembered him as I had first seen him—black leather and tight-fitting vest—and I remembered how he looked in early mornings, wandering around the flat with a T-shirt on over his pyjama bottoms, smiling and holding out an arm to me even though we’d just spent the whole night entwined. He was alluring, welcoming or forbidding just as he chose, and out here…out here, plainly it suited his purposes to be a sheer granite cliff. I saw in an instant why he never had any trouble from his coworkers. And he was, as always, devastating. He made the ghastly waterproofs look tailored. His short black crop was plastered down with rain. He had his usual crown of stars, the silver hairs picking up lights from the gantries. His face was stripped of all expression, a pure pale mask. You would no more mess with him than with the churchyard statue of some avenging angel. His eyes came up to meet mine.
“Westie,” Wycliffe began again, having one last go. “This is Barnes, isn’t it? The new medical assistant?”
Aaron’s gaze did not leave my face. If he didn’t acknowledge me, I wasn’t going to press the issue, I decided. They could throw me overboard, which I probably deserved, and Aaron could get on with his life. He said softly, voice carrying all the same over
the wind and the dying thump of the rotors, “Who told you that, Dave?”
Chapter Ten
I saw Dave reviewing the last few hours of his life. Replaying, as I was, who had said what to whom. After a moment he took a step back, looking at me with new eyes. He blew his cheeks out and gave a tug at his souwester hood. “I…I suppose I told him. Well, I’ll be buggered! No offence, Westie.”
Aaron almost smiled. “None taken. How the hell did he get out here?”
It was an odd question. I didn’t think there was a bus. Wycliffe looked puzzled too. “Same way I did. On that thing.”
He gestured behind him. And it was as if, somehow, Aaron had not seen or taken in the massive rumbling machine on the helipad behind us, grunting and snarling like a beast forced too far and hard through the night. His pallor drained to grey. He looked at me and back to the chopper, and I thought for a second he was going to pass out. His mask had cracked to dust. He just looked terrified. “Aaron,” I whispered and took a step towards him.
A grip closed on my arm. Larsen’s this time—nothing like Wycliffe’s friendly grasp. Larsen did not look the type of man who would let a stranger blag his way onto an oil rig. “Dave, I’ll talk to you later,” he said. “Get out of here for now.” To my surprise, once Dave was out of earshot, Larsen extended his free hand and took hold of Aaron’s wrist, the gesture gentle. “All right, West. Everyone’s fine, okay? Now—do you have any idea who this guy is?”
“I…Yes. Jens, I’m so sorry. This is Rosie’s brother. I’ve been worried he would pull some sort of stunt. He’s been distraught.”
Larsen turned to me. He looked as bewildered as I felt, but whatever Aaron was playing, I had to go with it. “Rosie’s…Oh Christ. Look, West—I don’t know how he got past security shoreside, but you know he can’t stay—”
“I know. I know. Just…let me talk to him, okay?”
“I should have him placed under arrest…”
“No.” Aaron shifted, placed himself subtly but solidly in Larsen’s path. “I understand, but…give me a while alone with him. He’s not dangerous, I swear. I’ll make him my responsibility.”
He didn’t wait for an answer. I felt my arm carefully removed from Larsen’s grip and transferred into the larger, stronger one I had hopelessly tried to envisage clasping me safe in the jolting chopper’s cabin. Now I had it, I found myself differently afraid. It was like steel. He turned me away and began to march me off towards a low block of buildings that ran along the platform’s far edge. Whether Larsen made an effort to follow us or not, I didn’t care. All I could feel was wave after wave of delayed shock and the horrible chill of Aaron’s grasp on me without affection. He could have been dragging off a hostile stranger.
For as long as the wind continued to tear at us, I remained silent, concentrating on staying upright and making some of the effort of this forced march look like my own. I was blind with tears. When we passed into the lee of the low block, I swiped my palm across my eyes and ground to a halt, obliging Aaron to stop too or pull me off my feet. He swung round on me. Whatever pain or fright the sight of the helicopter had caused him was gone, subsumed back into that cold mask. “What?”
“Please stop. Let me talk to you.”
“Oh, we’ll talk. But not out here, you fucking nutcase.” He gestured to the double doors behind him. “Inside. Now.”
To be out of the wind was a shattering relief. The doors clapped shut behind us like the last notes of a violent symphony. A hush fell, in which I could suddenly hear everything: the thud of my own heart, a high whine in my reverberating eardrums. Aaron’s breathing, regular and deep, a sound I had come to love beside me in the night, but which at the moment seemed more the respiratory discipline of a man trying not to lash out and kill me. I said, more for the sake of speaking than out of real interest, “Where…where are we?”
“Accommodation block five. Of the Kittiwake deep-sea rig. Terrorists have tried to board her, Matthew. Paratroopers on exercise and Rainbow fucking Warriors. And you…just hopped on the shuttle flight and came.”
“I’m sorry. God, I’m sorry. But I had to…” I didn’t get to finish. Aaron had stopped dead outside a door in a corridor not dissimilar to the one in his shore quarters. The floor was lined with rubber and steel, not mass-produced carpet, but it was just as anonymous. I wondered if that made it easier for him to go back and forth. Never accumulate anything, never leave anything or anyone behind…
The room I saw before me when he shoved open the door instantly killed that theory. It was only a cabin, about ten by ten, but I knew before he switched the light on. My God, this is where you live. There were pictures on the walls—mechanical sketches by da Vinci, huge geological maps. Designs for machines I didn’t recognise, beautifully executed in pencil and fine-line ink. As well as textbooks and classics, on these shelves were volumes I could imagine an ordinary man putting his feet up and reading to pass a rainy afternoon: blockbuster novels, Terry Pratchetts. I took it in almost with reluctance, grabbing at the edge of the desk to keep from falling. This was home.
Aaron shrugged out of his oilskins, stepped round behind me and helped me out of mine with about as much ceremony as if he were skinning a rabbit. He tossed them to one side and pulled out the chair from under the desk. He didn’t invite me to sit down, but the push he gave my shoulders was enough to make my knees buckle, as they’d been wanting to since the helicopter touched down. Turning away, he crouched beside a metal filing drawer and pulled out an unlabelled bottle. He broke the seal—it looked homemade—and sat down heavily on his bunk. The contents of the bottle were lucently clear, and the smell of it reached across to me like a clenched fist. Tipping it up—I saw with a twisting pain at my heart that his hand shook—he drank deeply, straight from the neck. Then he corked it back up again and returned it to its place in the drawer. “None for you, Amelia Earhart,” he said. “You’re on the wagon.” He pressed the backs of his fingers to his mouth for a second. Transfixed me with such a look that I almost wished myself back in the chopper again. “Right. Explain.”
I swallowed. I did not want to be afraid of him, and I didn’t understand quite why he was so bleakly furious. I’d done something stupid, but he must have worked out that I’d done it for him…“It was Joe,” I began, more or less at random. “He…bowled me over. I didn’t mean to let you leave like that. I had to see you. I wanted to tell you…” But before I told him that, I needed to know one thing myself. It shouldn’t have mattered. If I loved him, I loved him. Aaron had been right a while back, though: I was in pieces; more pieces at least than could bear the weight of unassisted trust.
He was watching me in silence. “Aaron, please. Who’s Rosie?”
He drew a breath. Finally gave me a break from his gaze—looked out into the dark that lay beyond his cabin window. Eventually, he said, without inflection, “You know who Rosie is. You read my fucking e-mails, Matt.”
“I didn’t. I mean—Christ, yes, I did, and it was despicable. But I didn’t go through them. I only opened one. I thought…I thought she was your girlfriend, or even your wife. I thought—”
“My wife.” It was a flat echo. For a moment he looked at me again, and then he sank his face into his hands. “My…my wife. Okay. Did you see the date on your one e-mail?”
The date? No, I hadn’t. Beyond a few flaring, unforgettable phrases which had drifted through my mind ever since, I’d taken in very little. I shook my head. “No. Why?”
He pushed himself suddenly upright. I braced myself not to flinch as he strode over to the desk. He crouched by the chair where I sat, and pulled out a drawer. The desk itself was utilitarian, plastic and steel. Incongruously, this one drawer seemed to be lined in dark wool, as if he had folded a thick fisherman’s sweater into it. On top of the wool, carefully stacked, were a few photo frames. Aaron withdrew the largest of them and put it into my hands. “Andrew Rose,” he said, tapping the image smiling up at me. “Rosie. Like Westie, only…funnier, for a hard-
arsed drill operator. He was also a brilliant draughtsman. Those are his mechanical drawings on the wall.” Aaron paused. His voice was calm, conversational, hardly suited to a revelation of this order. He pointed to the bookshelf. “That’s his crappy taste in literature over there. He brewed up rigger’s moonshine in a crate under his bed, which didn’t matter because he was hardly ever in it. He more or less lived in here.”
I looked at the photograph. An ordinary face—for about a second, until you saw the eyes. The uncertain, lopsided smile. He was poised on one of the gantry arms, oblivious to the hundred-foot drop below him into the North Sea, gazing up at his photographer with pure love.
Pretty, dark-haired Rosie, with her house and her garden and everything else in the bubble I’d created to contain her, popped and disappeared. The room seemed to recede from all around me. I felt crass, naïve, and about six years old. I asked, through cold lips, knowing the answer, “Did he leave?”
“No. He was coming back from an off duty last February, and his shuttle helicopter went down. The sister ship, actually, to the one you rode out here tonight. He died. They all did. When I had to go out the other day, it was to hear the findings of the inquest. They couldn’t prove pilot error. It was mechanical failure. So if you don’t mind…” He took hold of the edge of the desk and levered himself upright. “If you don’t mind, I’m sending you back on the supply boat. You’ll have to wait around here for a couple of days, but…I’ll go and talk to Larsen about it now.”
I watched him make his way to the door. I had never seen him other than graceful, but now he moved as if his joints were hurting him. His head was down. He took hold of the heavy steel handle. “Aaron,” I rasped, and wondered if he had heard. My mouth felt numb and sandy. “Aaron, please. Wait.”
“What for?” He turned to me, his eyes hollow with desperation. “So I can tell you I hung about in gay bars for nine months hoping for someone to look enough like him that I could close my eyes and pretend? That I…keep his e-mails and read them and pretend that way? I’ve never told anyone, Matt. I never even meant for you to know his name.”