Afterlight (12 page)

 

 

 

 

‘So, it’s our first anniversary of having power,’ announced Jenny proudly. Some of the audience around her cheered and whooped.

Jenny stood on the main deck of the drilling platform, lit by the faint amber glow of several plain bulbs in wire safety cages from the walkway leading across to the production platform. The deck was filled with expectant faces standing amidst the stacked Portakabins, sitting on them, hanging out of open windows, squatting in rows on those gantries not cluttered with growbags and foliage, and all of them waiting, full of excitement, for Jenny to get on with proceedings.

The middle of the deck was open to the sea sixty feet below. When the rig had been active the drill core had descended through that opening to the cellar deck and down to the sea. Thick support struts ran across the open space now and sheets of metal grille were welded on top of them to fill the gap and create sturdy additional floor space. They’d done that a couple of years after settling here, after they realised this platform was the most practical outdoor space on which the entire community could assemble together. It was their public forum, their civic space, a place for announcements, celebrations and, so far occasional, burials at sea. According to Walter the metal-grilled floor was secure and utterly safe, however, Jenny found it disconcerting standing on the mesh and seeing the water, a long way down, churning menacingly beneath her feet.

‘A special day for us,’ she added her voice croaking already as she did her best to be heard by everyone congregated around her. ‘A celebration of our ability to make our own electricity. And, you know, it’s also a reminder that things
will
get better; get easier for us. We’ll get better at the business of survival . . . and maybe one day soon, when we know for certain it’s safe enough, we’ll
all
return to the mainland.’

She heard several voices amongst the crowd muttering. She’d like to think, just for once, that sour-faced cow Alice wasn’t sticking her oar in.

‘So, that’s why we’re having this anniversary bash, to remind ourselves that these rigs are just a
temporary
home . . . that things will improve. I promise you.’

Several voices called out in agreement. Another good-natured voice heckled her from the back to get on with throwing the switch.

Jenny laughed. ‘All right.’ She gestured towards Walter, standing beside her.

‘As always, Walter’s been working tirelessly for us. We have some homebrew booze that he’s managed to distil.’

‘Not from chicken shit I hope!’ cried someone.

A peel of laughter rippled across the crowd. Jenny smiled. ‘Potato peelings . . . so he tells me.’

Several people groaned at the thought.

‘I’m sure it tastes better than it looks.’

Walter strode forward to stand beside her. ‘That’s right, ladies and gents! Several gallons of the highest quality
Spudka.
So you’d better bloody appreciate it!’ he chipped in gruffly. The crowd rippled dutiful laughter.

‘And, of course, we have our wonderful Christmas lights. Shall we get them on now?’ She smiled at the gathered rows of faces in front of her; pale ovals fading out into the dark night.

The chorus was deafening.

She turned to Walter. ‘Walt, would you like to do the honours?’

He grinned as he reached down to his feet and picked up a length of yellow flex with a junction box attached to it.

‘Ladies, gentlemen and children,’ he pronounced grandly. ‘Happy anniversary!’

Around the edge of the drilling deck hundreds of tiny coloured bulbs, strung across from one side to the other, suddenly winked on, lighting the platform like a Christmas tree.

The night was filled with a collective gasp.

Jenny found herself joining them. Even though she’d done her bit threading the power cables and strings of lights around the metal spars this afternoon, and took turns standing guard, banning anyone else from coming down on to the deck so that it would be a big surprise for them all; even though she had a rough idea where all the lights were strung and how many of those twenty-five watt bulbs were going to come to life, her breath was as much taken away as anyone else’s.

Impulsively, she reached out and hugged Walter, looking over his rounded shoulder for her kids in the crowd.

 

Leona’s gaze drifted along the strings of bulbs; red, blue, green, orange; beautiful carnival pinpoints of light that fogged and blurred with her tears. Hannah was chuckling with delight and swinging on her arm.

‘Hey, Lee? Why you crying?’

Leona laughed, shook her head and wiped the dampness away. ‘I’m not, Han. It’s . . . it’s just . . . so pretty!’ She felt her throat tighten and knew that saying anything else right now would mean she’d probably end up blubbing like some old dear. She noticed amongst the other faces around her, turned upwards to gaze adoringly at the lights, the telltale glint of moist eyes.

Hannah’s attention returned to the lights and she whooped with joy, then tugged Leona’s hand. ‘Can I go give Nanna and Uncle Walter a “well done” hug?’

Leona nodded and let her hand go, watching Hannah scoot off through the crowd towards her grandmother, realising how old she felt just then. Only twenty-eight and yet she felt like one of those sad old soldiers who got misty eyed at the sight of an RAF flyover on Remembrance Sunday. Old before her time.

She let the tears roll; the lights becoming a blurred kaleidoscope. Laughing and crying at the same time as she suddenly realised all those pretty lights winding their way up the comms tower reminded her vaguely of Trafalgar Square on New Year’s Eve, Oxford Street at Christmas.

There was an orderly queue already forming beside the huge plastic ten-gallon drum containing Walter’s potato brew and Hamarra had started bashing out an old folk tune on her acoustic guitar. Rowena Falkirk - a silver-haired surly stick of a woman, unsurprisingly a friend of Alice’s - joined in on the fiddle; a playful tune that instantly lifted everyone’s spirits and had toes compulsively tapping.

Leona found herself humming along in her own tone-deaf and tuneless way before she even realised she was doing it.

 

Jacob and Nathan had managed to sneak a second tumbler of Walter’s brew before Jenny spotted them both queuing for a third and turfed them out of the line.

Sitting on the steps leading up to a Portakabin, Jacob found Valérie, smiling at the revelry going on around him. Walter’s concoction - limited to a mug per child and two per adult - had begun to weave its magic, taking the edge off the cool breeze and the damp and drizzle in the air.

‘It is a good party,’ said Valérie.

Nathan nodded. ‘Walt and Jake’s mum done well cool with them lights.’

Jacob found space on the step beside Valérie and sat down. ‘How’s your leg feeling?’

‘It is very sore, but it is healing well, I think.’

He looked at the man. Valérie looked much more presentable now he’d tidied himself up a little. He’d borrowed some trousers and a thick woolly jumper from the clothes-library. If Mum decided to let him stay, he’d be able to pick a whole wardrobe of clothes from the communal pile, and those would be his to wash and repair as needs be.

He wanted to quiz Valérie further on what he’d seen ashore whilst on his travels. Mum had said she’d heard enough from him for the moment and when he was feeling better she’d want to hear more details. But Jacob was eager to know more now. Stone-cold sober it would have felt presumptuous to corner him like this; emboldened by the drink, this felt as good a time as any.

‘You said there was
nothing
out there, Mr Latoc. Not a thing.’ He looked up at Nathan, standing with a foot on the bottom step and distractedly watching the party going on. ‘Me and Nate thought maybe, by now, there would be things getting themselves sorted out?’

Valérie shrugged sympathetically. ‘In the Europe that I have seen . . . no. There was too much migration of people. Eastern Europeans, North Africans all assuming France and Germany would be better organised to cope. Too many people. It was a very bad mess.’

‘And the United Kingdom?’ asked Nathan. ‘Is it really as bad as that?’

‘I sailed across to Dover,’ Valérie replied, shuffling on the hard metal grating of the step to find a more comfortable place. ‘Then I walked through, uh, Kent?
Yes.
Then north towards London.’

‘What did you eat?’

‘There is still food to be found. Much easier to find food actually in your country than in Europe.’

Jacob cocked his head. ‘Why’s that?’

‘You British died much faster at the time. The water was stopped when your power stopped, yes?’

Jacob nodded.

‘People drinking bad water and getting diseases very quick. In Europe; France, Germany had much better emergency plans, reserves of food and water, and some power in areas. More people survived for much longer . . . a year, two years. All this time, they are finding food in damaged shops and warehouses, but not making new food. So, you know, eventually, we have too many people coming in, our emergency plans collapsed too. But by this time too many people had been picking for food and it is now all gone.’

Mum had said something along the same lines once, that in a way it had been a good thing that the die-off in Britain had been so incredibly rapid. It meant there’d been much more left behind to be foraged; it had given those who’d survived a better chance of keeping going whilst they prepared to feed themselves on what they could grow.

‘What about those men who chased you?’ asked Nathan. ‘What was their place like?’

Valérie shook his head. ‘Scavengers mostly. Just a few of them, maybe twenty. They were growing a few things, but not growing them very well.’

‘Surely there were others you came across?’

‘I just saw some signs of other people. The horse droppings . . . I saw a horse-drawn cart far away, I think. I saw a woman on a bicycle on a motorway bridge. She did not stop to talk to me.’

‘But you never saw any lights on at night?’

Valérie nodded. ‘Once or twice, you know, perhaps candlelight, a campfire maybe.’

‘But no electric lights?’

Valérie hesitated. It was long enough that both Nathan and Jacob sensed he was holding something back from them.

‘Hang on,’ said Nathan, quickly ducking down to sit on the step. ‘You saw something, right?’

‘Did you see street lights?’ asked Jacob.

Valérie’s jaw set, reluctant to say any more. ‘It is nothing. Your mother is right. This is the best place to—’

‘Come on, what did you see?’ urged Nathan.

‘Please,’ said Jacob. ‘We need to know.’

Valérie studied their faces with a long considered silence. ‘Very well. I think . . . I maybe saw electric lights . . . once. Perhaps.’

Both boys’ eyes widened. ‘Where?’

‘It was very faint. Very far.’

‘Where?’

Valérie bit his lip. ‘Your mother would not be happy with me. It is still a very dangerous place on the land. I know she does not want—’

‘Where?’ asked Jacob. He leaned closer. ‘Please!’

Valérie looked up at the party going on across the deck. Some of them were dancing in a circle, singing along and clapping to the accompaniment of the guitar and fiddle. The babble of merry voices, the incessant rumble of the sea below, more than enough going on that nobody but the two boys sitting beside him would hear their conversation.

‘I was crossing the River Thames at a place near your Big Ben. I saw a glow of lights in the east.’

‘Shit!’ uttered Nathan, ‘you mean the City of London, don’t you? East? That’s the
Bank
and
trading
bit.’