In the Shadow of Piper Alpha: Christmas, 1990
From In the Shadow of Piper Alpha
Aberdeen, December 25th 1990
Whether anyone was dreaming of it or not, we had a white Christmas. The garden under snow like Atlantis under the waves, the corner of the barbecue prodded through black, the shed roof a miniature ski run, but the heating was on high and the oven was helping, keeping everything warm for Christmas lunch. The table was set, same as every year: crackers from Marks and Spencer, red and green napkins, all the good cutlery and dishes, coasters and hot plates ready for the veg, the turkey and trimmings, the sausages wrapped in bacon. The radio on, festive cheer from the BBC. Wine glasses. Wine. Waiting for a family.
In the living room, the tree was felled, the framed Monet over the fireplace smashed, whisky sticky on the wall and mantelpiece. I’d just closed the door.
I had my fleece and my slippers on, so I was toasty. I refilled the teapot, added a couple of fresh bags and returned to the dining room, pushed the crackers aside, opened my binder.
Another memorable Christmas then. Christmas last year. 1989. It was like some soap opera through there. Hannah rattling pots and pans, slamming drawers and attacking parsnips with one of the knives Dad sharpened the night before, standing in the garden with the steel refining each blade until it drew blood. Him out there, in the garage, the pieces of his mountain bike spread around him on newspaper and rags, the latest thing he had dismantled. The fight. The shouting.
This year, 1990, the silence.
Focus on your books, Carrie. Focus.
First Year Geology wasn’t that tricky. All the books I’d read, the field trips Dad took me on. No one really studied geology at school so the lecturers assumed a starting knowledge of zero. Not that I was being complacent.
I turned page after page, searching for something, anything I hadn’t learned properly.
Our first Christmas since she left. Ten months since she moved to Bristol to be with Frank Carpenter. I should have known he couldn’t take it. That he would run off. I should have known, but I hoped.
All I seemed to do, hope.
I thought about phoning someone; phoning Graeme but he was in Austria, celebrating a silver in his first competition as a professional; phoning Kim or Lesley but they were both at their grandparents’. Someone from uni, Calum, Mel, Nicola, but I didn’t know their home numbers and no one stayed in Aberdeen over the holidays. Why would they? Christmas is for families but what did you do if your mother walked out and your father hadn’t been home since yesterday morning and the car was gone and the drinks cabinet was emptied?
You cooked Christmas lunch and studied for your exams. He always came home in the end.
I wiped my eyes on the red Christmas napkin, dabbed at my notes trying not to smudge them any more. The paper ripped. Pushing down the urge to tear the page out, crumple and throw it, I clicked up the lever so the arches opened and gently lifted it out. The sheet below was a little damp but nothing to worry about. I found the next empty page in my pad and copied my notes afresh. I only needed to glance at the original. It was all memorised, it was all in there, layers and layers of knowledge, strata pushing down, compressing whatever else might be in there. Fossilising things best forgotten.
Oven off. The state he’d be in when he eventually rolled up, he’d be lucky to keep down cheese on toast let alone a turkey dinner. I’d lost my appetite too. I packed up my notes. As I passed the front door to go upstairs I pulled the curtains back and looked out at the bright white world. Fallen snow had covered the tracks his car made out of the drive. If he came home now he’d never get it back in.
The phone shrilled into the empty house. It’d be her. Hannah. She still called once a month or so when the guilt got to her. I watched until it stopped, grabbed my ski jacket and gloves from the hall cupboard and stepped out into the bitter wind.
In the garage I stretched out my muscles, calves and hamstrings, touched my toes, rolled my shoulders, my neck, made my arms supple and strong. The urge to run was explosive but I wouldn’t reach the street before falling. I took the shovel and rammed it into the snow, the gravelly scrape as the blade raked along the driveway. There was nowhere to put the snow but onto the laden lawn. I flung it feeling the strain of my muscles. Bent again, another load, another.
The heat. I was putting too much into it but the energy had to go somewhere. Dig. Throw. Dig. Throw. Memories threw themselves at me.
Dad in the kitchen, a knife stabbed into the wooden chopping board. Another heap of snow on the pile.
Dad on the hall floor, face down, a crystal whisky tumbler smashed, blood leaking from his hand into the carpet.
Another shovel load, the scratch of metal on stone.
Half of the driveway was clear, but flakes were drifting down again. Sisyphus.
Dad gone for days, somewhere north, drunk on the roads, driving at full speed. Each time reminding me of the first time I didn’t know if he was coming home, and each time I hated him for making me hate him.
I leaned on the shovel, out of breath, hot.
More images. Hannah this time, her face changing, hardening, she’d already left him for Frank Carpenter in her heart but Dad made it so much easier for her to walk out. Why did she wait so long to leave?
I kept her secret, thinking there would be a better time to tell him. Memories.
He was away. Hannah’s Merc was in the driveway, February 1990, not even a year ago. Her boot open, suitcases, boxes, bags.
‘So you’re leaving us.’
She had the decency to be crying. ‘Caroline.’
‘Don’t call me that.’
‘Carrie. I can’t stay. I can’t do it anymore.’
‘Has the commute to Bristol finally got you down?’
‘It’s not like that—’
‘You’re not going to Bristol?’
‘I am but… he’s not the man I married, Carrie. He’s changed. He… he scares me. Since Piper Alpha—’
‘Don’t you dare blame him for that. Blame that for this. You were with him that day. While Dad was fighting for his life you were flat on your back with Frank fucking Carpenter.’
She flinched. We’d never spoken about it. What was there to say?
‘It’s hard to understand, I know. We’re your parents so you can’t view it objectively. Our marriage has been over for a long time. We’ve both… strayed. Him much more than me, not that that excuses me, I know. The truth is, Carrie, we only stayed together for you. If you hadn’t… we’d never…’
Something in me froze, crystallised. I could feel myself frosting over, arms folded rigid across my chest. ‘Go then. We’ll be fine without you.’
‘Caroline, Carrie, he needs help. Professional help. What’s wrong with him, it’s a mental illness. Without help he could…’
‘What?’
‘You finish school in a few months. Then you’ll be away to university. I was going to wait until then but I can’t take it. Even those few months… I’m sorry Carrie. I can’t do it anymore.’
‘And what happens to him?’
‘Maybe my leaving will shock him into getting help.’
‘And if it doesn’t?’
She shut the boot. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘That makes it all right then.’
‘Carrie—’
‘Go.’
I continued beyond the driveway and cleared the pavement outside our house, shifted a path from the road, a valley between two hills of dirty snow and sand ploughed up in the gutter. I could have kept going along the pavement, round onto Midstocket, up onto the Drive and out of the city, gone forever.
Scottish Highlands, December 25th 1990
A car horn blasted over the desolate landscape and it took Marcus a moment to realise it was him doing it. He let his arm go slack and it fell from the steering wheel into his lap. The vision of Piper Alpha blazing in the night gave way to the morning sun. There was a bottle of Laphroaig on the passenger seat, about two inches left. He took a swig, the burn of it confirming he was alive, he was awake. Merry Christmas. Marcus Fraser, still alive. Survivor.
Where the fuck was he?
The Saab was parked on a patch of grass at the side of a single-track road. He clambered out into the bitter bracing air and fumbled for a cigarette. The hills were covered in snow, dirty off-white patches, a mottled effect of dark brush, bare rock, puddles and bogs. About twenty metres ahead the road curved to the right, the hill blocking his view of what might be lurking. The road back wriggled like an uncoiled intestine along the shore of a smallish loch before disappearing behind another hill. It looked familiar but most of the roads in the Highlands were familiar. How had he got there? Shards of memory. Christmas Eve in Under The Hammer. Mistletoe, a kiss from that solicitor, Isobel. No taxis to be had. Icy roads home.
Then there was something about the Christmas tree. The twinkling lights.
Driving into the Highlands. If this was the west coast then that was about four hours of driving.
A wave battered him and he threw up in the ditch next to the car. He wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his fleece and rooted around in the boot amongst the camping gear that lived there, found his emergency kit – a bottle of water and some peanuts. Washed his mouth out. Left the nuts. Didn’t think he could manage them. A tot of whisky. Dug some Aspirin out the First Aid kit. Just gone half six. He should find somewhere less conspicuous to park the car. He pissed into the ditch, his urine the colour of rust, the colour of whisky, like it had just passed straight through him. Probably could get pissed off it. Can it, call it lager, nice froth on it. Make a fortune.
On the back seat he noticed his kitbag, the one he’d used whenever he went offshore. He hadn’t touched it since. He picked it up and it tinkled happily. Felt like he had emptied the drinks cabinet into it. Good man, Marcus, planning ahead.
The engine caught and he eased her onto the road. She was an old lady, Ruby, the Saab, but he could still rely on her. They’d been through a lot together, her red paintwork and leather interior racing up the A96 and into the Highlands every chance he got. She knew the roads herself, could find her way even without him at the wheel. Never let him down.
As soon as he was round the corner, he knew where he was. The Ullapool road. Of course it was, fucking autopilot. Like a homing pigeon, he kept coming back here. He couldn’t think of anywhere better to go than onwards.
He braked milliseconds before a corner, dropped two gears, was already accelerating again and back up to top before the car was straight. This was driving. Him and this car, they’d had some fun. He turned off the main road, gunning the engine. He hit a humpback bridge and almost took off. He raked in the glove box and pulled out some tapes, Frank Zappa, Genesis – Peter Gabriel era of course – yes, there it was, Pink Floyd. He popped out the tape already in the machine. The Corries? He must’ve been in quite the melancholy mood last night. He banged in The Piper at the Gates of Dawn and cranked it up, welcomed the morning as he broached a hill and saw the Atlantic below.
About twenty miles up the coast there was a little dirt road that you’d miss if you didn’t know it was there. He swung in, the Saab jumping as he dragged the back wheel over a rock. Sorry old girl, won’t happen again.
The road dipped down, turned to the right and ended at a stone dyke. No one could see him from the road and the farmhouse was two fields away. No one would know he was there unless they deliberately came and found him.
He took the tent, sleeping bag and blankets, the mat, and climbed down onto the sand. It was a small beach, beautiful white sand, the bay that jutted out farther on the northern side, just now it was an island but when the tide went out, it exposed a rocky causeway. It would be easier to set up at the southern side, near the car, but he knew from experience there was no shelter there. At the north end there was more protection from the wind, an almost cave, dry and peaceful. That was where Hannah and he had first camped.
Apparently most people don’t fall down when they’re shot, they only fall down when they realise they’ve been shot. They fall down because they’ve seen it in the movies and think that’s what happens.
Tent up, ropes weighted by stones. If anyone could see him they’d think he was mad. Suicidal. Maybe he was. Like it mattered. He’d camped in colder conditions than this, up mountains, in the Arctic circle. No such thing as bad weather, just bad clothes. If people could survive on the top of Everest, he could survive winter in Scotland. He scratched out a fireplace, lined it with rocks, big enough to provide heat, small enough to escape notice. He finished the Laphroaig, rattled through the kitbag and pulled out half a Caol Ila.
Last night, memories like fireworks. No taxis. A kiss under the mistletoe from Isobel.
He went down, landed hard on his arse outside the Spar. Up again, arm around a lamppost, tried to light a fag.
He huddled closer into his jacket, the hood up over his hat, trying to remember.
The snow on the lawn up over his boots, dragging his feet through it. The curtains in the living room still open, the Christmas tree lights still on, blinking.
Blinking.
The key circling the lock like water around a drain, eventually slipping in, then he couldn’t get it back out again, tripped over the step. But home. Made it.
He went to the drinks cabinet, poured himself a nightcap, a decent slug of Laphroaig in the crystal tumbler they got as a wedding present. The last one standing.
He put some music on.
On the sofa. Boots dripping onto the carpet. Glass in his gloved hand. Merry Christmas.
Carrie upstairs. He couldn’t face her in that state, the look she’d give him.
Couldn’t meet her eye.
Merry Christmas.
Above him, there on the west coast, a gull scooted by, the wind carrying it. It arced down and round, landed on the sand in the lee of a rock and watched him. He watched it.
He must have dozed off on the sofa. The lights. Blinking.
Blinking. Flashing. Each light a face. Faces, blinking. Faces without names.
Flashing lights. Sirens. In the darkness with flashing lights. You were back. You were there. A space filled with darkness and smoke, flickering lights, shouts.
The glass, smashed into the picture frame over the fireplace. Shards.
Whisky.
The blinking. The tree.
Needles catching in your clothes. The tree was down, baubles bouncing across the carpet. You yanked the lights from the wall, the wire coming out the plug, shorn.
Darkness. The blinking gone. The faces still there. You left.
Got in the car and drove.