him the thumbs up. I think he died sort of knowing Dad was pleased with him.’ Leona wiped her damp cheek on the back her hand. ‘I don’t know . . . that sounds silly doesn’t it?’
Jenny shook her head. ‘No it doesn’t, Lee. I sometimes think he is there, watching us, somehow.’
‘So maybe they both are now?’
‘Maybe,’ Jenny smiled, ‘maybe . . . all three of them.’
Leona suddenly felt her own façade slipping. Oh, screw it . . . cry if you want, girl.
She did. They both did, for Jacob, for Hannah, for Dad. For quite a while.
Presently, Jenny wiped her nose on her cardigan. ‘Oh, hark at us defenceless wimpy, weepy women.’
‘Mum?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m so proud of you. You’re not some wimpy, weepy woman. You’ve been a wall, protecting me and Jake, and Hannah. A solid wall. For all the others here, too. Even those ungrateful bitches who turned against you. You made this place happen. You kept us safe.’
Jenny said nothing. Not for a while. Finally she sighed. ‘I am so tired, though.’
‘I know. So am I.’ Leona reached out and hugged her mother. ‘You and me, like two peas in a pod.’ Both grieving mothers. She left that unsaid. Didn’t need to be said. Mum knew what she meant.
Jenny cleared her throat, blew her nose. ‘Those men you brought with you seem like decent types.’
Leona watched as the moon cleared a thin skein of a combed-out cloud. ‘Yeah, I think they are.’
‘Particularly Adam?’
Leona snorted. ‘Oh, come on.’
‘What? He seems quite nice now he’s shaved that awful beard off.’
‘And more your age than mine, Mum.’
‘How old is he?’
She thought about it. ‘I think he said he was twenty-nine when the crash happened.’
‘Thirty-nine, then.’ Jenny grinned. ‘Now, if I was ten years younger . . .’
Leona shrugged. ‘Or if I was ten years older . . .’
They both laughed. It felt good; like gulping fridge-cold lemonade on a hot summer’s day. Wasn’t even that funny, but still, it didn’t stop them.
‘It’s much quieter, ain’t it?’
Adam nodded. Even when it wasn’t a party night back at the dome, those boys made a racket arsing about; shrieking, singing tunelessly, cackling like hyenas. He certainly didn’t miss any of that.
‘Nice an’ fuckin’ peaceful,’ added Walfield.
They gazed out at the moonlit sea; dark swells that bobbed and dropped gently; like a micro mountain range fast-forwarding through geological eras.
The darkness on the rigs was total. It had been Adam’s suggestion; tonight, and every night for the foreseeable future, no oil lamps, no candles, nothing after dark. Nothing that could give them away. No point of light guiding Maxwell and his boys in if they chose to make their approach after dark.
Murmurs of conversation drifted across the restless fidgeting sea from the other platforms. There were people on lookout duty on each platform, looking north, east, south and west. But it was this one at the end - the drilling platform - that was the most vulnerable. Its spider deck was the closest to the water, more often than not catching the tips of larger swells when the sea was in a spirited mood.
Adam silently scanned the sea, looking for the telltale sign of a faint grey skirt of suds amidst the shifting black hillocks. The last twenty-four hours had been busy. There were now little ammunition piles of rusting bolts and nuts and rivets set along the perimeter of the main deck of each platform at regular intervals. A number of women had been busy with needles, threads and scissors making hand-held catapults and slings from lengths of bungee rope, and - believe it or not - the cups of bras. Others had made an array of clubs and spears and cloth-wrapped handles on a number of cutting weapons fashioned from jagged strips of aluminium sheeting. Then there were their eight firearms; the five SA80s they’d taken from the boys and the three remaining assorted guns this community had been relying on for the last five years.
There was a plan of sorts. Adam could only guess that Maxwell would try for the lowest platform first and, with that bridgehead taken, move down the row attempting to take the production platform next, then the secondary compression platform, the accommodation platform, and then off to the left of that, the primary compression platform. Hopefully, if they threw everything they had at them before they could get a toehold on the drilling platform’s spider deck, the boys would think better of the idea, turn tail and sail away.