Afterlight (33 page)

As if in answer to his thoughts, another few flakes of dark rust and some more feathers fluttered down.

He heard one of the people above talking; recognised her voice. It was Alice Harton. She had the kind of voice that always seemed to carry. Before the crash she was a manager in a retirement home, which seemed to fit. Walter could imagine the hard-faced cow doing the rounds through a crowded day room, queen of all she surveyed, speaking deliberately loudly, patronisingly slowly, as if talking to a room full of children.

A loud, piercing voice.

Someone else answered, much quieter, murmuring something he couldn’t quite make out.

‘That’s what she said,’ replied Alice. ‘And when I think about it . . . he was quite creepy with them all. Always hanging around them. Not just Jenny, but Leona . . . and Hannah.’

The mousy voice had something to say, again too soft to discern. Walter found himself stepping lightly across the floor, careful not to kick any of the snaking cables. He looked up through a narrow triangular crack, framed by the serrated edges of the rusting floor. Light flickered as someone stepped over him and a feather fluttered down onto his forehead.

‘Well he did, though, didn’t he? Do you remember? He told everyone
not
to go and look down there for her, didn’t he? Said he’d go look for her
himself.
’

The softer voice replied with something.

‘Oh, I dunno. I always thought he was a creepy old bastard myself. Hangin’ round the Sutherlands like a fly on a dog turd. Knocking on their quarters at all times. I bet you he was just trying to catch a glimpse of them. Of Hannah.’

Walter’s jaw sagged open with disbelief.

The other woman said something.

‘Oh, yeah, dirty kiddy-fiddler. But he was always all over her, wasn’t he? Holding her hand, hugging her and stuff. It’s not like he was her dad. I’m sorry, but that’s just creepy.’

The quieter woman spoke again.

‘Well that’s what we all thought, wasn’t it? That he was just soppy over Jenny. But now I think about it, I reckon he was just using her and Leona to get closer to the poor little girl, wasn’t he? It all makes sense when you think about it.’

Walter felt his blood run cold. He was half tempted to shout up through the crack that he’d heard what Alice had just said. That she was a dirty-minded bitch and he was coming up there to tell her as much to her face.

‘Oh, yeah,’ said Alice in response to the other woman. ‘Oh, yeah, more I think about it, yeah. It’s possible, isn’t it? He took her down there and maybe this time he did something to her she didn’t like. He went too far. So he panicked and killed her. So, then when the search party came down to the generator room and Jenny found her, he just flipped, didn’t he? Made the generator blow up to cover his tracks.’

The other woman spoke.

‘Or that, yes. Maybe he did pull it off and was waiting for it to blow. All I know is that he was acting very odd about the whole thing.’

Walter felt his heart pounding in his chest. He felt light-headed with panic.

The light through the crack flickered and reappeared as the two women above moved slowly across the floor amidst the chickens.

‘Oooh, that’s a really big egg, look,’ said Alice. ‘Anyway,’ she continued a moment later. ‘If I had kids, I certainly wouldn’t let the dirty bastard near my little ones. No way.’

The other woman said something about Jenny.

‘Well that’s right. Someone should. But she’s such a stubborn bitch. She probably give you a bollocking and throw you off the rigs for spreading rumours. Bloody Jenny’s Law,’ said Alice sarcastically. ‘Bloody Jenny’s
Law
. Who does she think she is, anyway?’

The other woman stepped across the deck as she spoke quietly.

‘True,’ Alice replied. ‘Maybe he will. He
should
be in charge. I never really did the church thing before, but you know what he says seems to make so much sense. When I think about it, it was all so messed up . . . and . . . and, wrong. You know? I could imagine God was furious with us. Why not? Why not wipe the slate clean and start again?’

The other woman chuckled as she said something.

‘Oh, but, he is, isn’t he? I think if I was just a little younger . . .’

The two women giggled like schoolgirls as they finally finished feeding the chickens. He heard the wire mesh door to the chicken deck grate across the crap-covered floor and rattle shut behind them.

Walter felt a cold twist in his chest as he imagined others all over the platforms having this kind of conversation. He replayed in his mind every exchange he’d heard this morning, doing the rounds for Jenny, issuing the work tasks. All of sudden every reply, every half-smile offered to him, seemed to be tainted with the slightest hint of distaste.

But worse than that, if Alice was to be believed. Far worse than that.

 

 

 

‘J
ay? Jay, man. Wake up.’

Jacob felt fists pummelling the side of his head; the knuckles of some playground bully needling his soft temple. He winced from the pain, groaned and slowly opened his eyes and squinted at the foggy shape leaning over him.

‘Jake, man.’ It was Nathan. ‘How’s the head feelin’?’

His mouth was tacky and dry, his lips stuck together. With a little tug of effort they parted. ‘My . . . head . . . really hurts.’

Nathan laughed, not unkindly. ‘You got whacked well-hard.’

His eyes were focusing - not entirely, it was never going to be 20-20 without a new pair of glasses and he’d lost those long ago. Nathan’s face, grinning down at him, sharpened. Over his shoulder Jacob could see a pale milky white sky . . . no, not a sky. He saw a stretching arc of material. Like sail canvas taut with a strong breeze.

‘Where are we?’

‘The O2 Arena.’

Jacob’s eyes narrowed. For a moment that meant absolutely nothing to him.

‘The Millennium Dome, Jay?’

Then he remembered . . . the dome. One of the safety zones.

He struggled up onto his elbows, wincing from the thudding pain in his head. Around him, across an open floor, he could see a dozen or so mattresses; several of them occupied. Surrounding them, a wall of neck-high partitions just like ones you’d find in an open-plan office; businesslike cream cord material surface, perfect for tacking-on Dilbert cartoons and cute kitty calendars.

‘This is the infirmary,’ said Nathan.

Jacob’s hand wandered up to the side of his head to caress his needled temple, only to find cotton wadding and a bandage wrapped around his forehead.

‘You had a real big bump on your head, like a tennis ball. And a nasty cut.’

It felt like a hangover. He’d had only one of those before - one time in Bracton when Walter had found a crate of Glenfiddich and they’d all toasted each other in the yacht’s cockpit into the early hours.

‘Where’s Leona?’

Nathan hesitated.

‘Nathan?’

‘I think she . . . escaped.’

Jacob only had a hazy memory of what preceded his world going black. A large exhibition hall full of computer games. And . . . and pale, long-haired children, a whole crowd of them chasing them through the dark.

‘We were rescued by some people from this place. They were nearby an’ heard our gunshots.’

Gunshots . . . yes, Jacob definitely remembered gunshots.

‘There was a bit of a fight an’ stuff and they rescued us,’ said Nathan, helping Jacob to sit up. ‘And Leona . . . she, well I reckon she escaped out the other way.’

Jacob closed his eyes for a moment. Relieved. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Yup,’ Nathan replied quickly. ‘She’s probably halfway home to let your mum know. Thing is, she’ll be okay, right?’ He grinned again. ‘Anyway, Jake, man, you really, really gotta get up an’ see this place.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Oh, yeah. It’s the fucking business. Got lights and ‘lectric and everything. And there’s like, thousands of people. You feel like gettin’ up yet?’

Jacob nodded eagerly. His head hurt like a bugger and he felt nauseous enough to hurl. But sitting up on the mattress he felt a little better . . . and excited.

Nathan offered him a hand and pulled him up off the cot. ‘Wanna try stand?’

Jacob grasped his hand and slowly got to his feet. ‘So, what are the people like?’

‘They’re friendly,’ replied Nathan. ‘You know, we could stay if we wanted? They already said that’s okay.’

He led Jacob towards a gap in the partition wall and stepped out onto a wide concourse. Jacob’s jaw dropped at the sight of a nearby suspension arc rising up from the ground, tethered by an apron of thick iron cables, to converge with two dozen more arcs at the apex of the dome’s canvas roof. To his right, he could see a long curving boulevard of shopfronts, cafés and restaurants, just like a real high street; like an indoor town.

The open space before him, though, was busy with people: men and women pushing trolleys of fresh vegetables, heading up the boulevard with gardening tools in their hands. A man, pulling along several five-gallon drums of water on a trolley, nodded politely at them. Although they all wore their own clothes, many patched and faded, they also all seemed to be wearing a turquoise armband.

‘Why they wearing those?’

Nathan shrugged. ‘It’s, like, to show they belong here. You have to earn a band to live here. Guess it’s like a passport or something.’

Jacob quietly observed the activity all around them.

‘A work day,’ said Nathan. ‘Just like back home. Everyone’s gotta get their hands dirty outside.’

He led the way. Most of the cafés and restaurants were closed. One of them, however, was being used as a canteen and groups of workers sat outside around the tables and slurped at warm steaming bowls of food.

At the end of the boulevard they stepped into an open area, a vast foyer, where Nathan led Jacob out of the large glass-fronted doors of the dome’s main entrance.

The morning sun beamed brightly down onto the approach plaza, warming the smooth ground beneath his feet. Spread out in front of them across what was once a wide apron of car-parking reserved for coaches, he could see endless rows of greenery sprouting waist-high from neat rows of long grow-trays. Further along, workers carrying buckets emerged and disappeared down a maze of head-high walls of runner beans and pea vines, climbing frames of bamboo and plastic webbing.

‘It’s one huge farm,’ said Nathan. ‘Much better than ours. They got all sorts of food growing out there.’ He waved his hand to their right. ‘And the Thames is just over there. It’s clean now. They say it’s so clean you can drink it straight out of the river.’ Nathan shook his head. ‘Fuckin’ awesome.’

Jacob nodded. ‘Yeah, this is cool.’

He could imagine Mum approving of this. This is what she’d been trying to set up, somewhere that could sustain itself, feed everyone without having to rely on whatever could still be foraged from forgotten storerooms or overlooked depots. That’s what it looked like they’d managed to achieve here.

Staring out at the rustling sea of leaves before them, he could see this place had so much more potential than their hanging gardens of Babylon out in the North Sea. There was much more growing here than there was back home. Their effort paled by comparison.

If Leona was on her way back to the rigs to tell Mum what had happened to them, then maybe she saw that they were rescued, maybe she saw a hint of the dome, perhaps she understood there was something here worthwhile.

He looked at Nathan. ‘This is so cool.’

‘Yeah.’

Jacob had been hoping to find a bustling city, street lamps aglow and - shit, why not? - maybe even one or two buses picking their way through the centre of London once again. But he realised now that was pitifully naive. A dream like that was still years away. But this . . . he realised with a growing certainty as he watched hundreds of people at work, the slashes of turquoise armbands flickering and moving dutifully amongst an undulating carpet of green . . . this, was where that
bustling
future was going to start. This place, the Millennium Dome of all the odd places, was going to be ground zero of a new United Kingdom.

He found himself laughing with excitement. Nathan joined him.

‘This is it, isn’t it?’ he asked his friend. ‘This is really
it.’

Nathan nodded, knowing exactly what he meant by that half-question.

It. This was definitely
it.

 

 

 

L
eona gazed out of the small study window at the cherry tree swaying gently in next door’s front garden, caught in the morning sun, the blossoms seeming to glow from within. A lovely view. She’d seen Dad a million times sitting in his office chair gazing out of the window.

She smiled. It almost felt like he was there in the room with her somehow. Not the body upstairs in Mum and Dad’s old room . . . not that. That wasn’t Dad any more, it was just the fossilised remains of a cadaver beneath a rotting quilt. No, sitting here, at his desk, looking at the faded Post-It notes stuck to the side of his monitor, the walls, a year planner with jobs and contracts penned in and still yet to do, articles from oil industry magazines, charts and graphs pinned to the cork board, a Gary Larson calendar on the desk; one fresh cartoon for every day. It was still on Monday 4 July - the day he left here for his last job over in Iraq just a few days before the crash happened.