AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I press two fingers to my lips then against the words Beloved Father. “Hi Dad,” I whisper. “I brought you this.” I nestle the miniature brandy between the flowers and the engraved black marble. “It’s a small one. I don’t want you getting into trouble on your cloud.”
I kneel onto the carrier and rest back on my heels. “Four years, six months ago to the day. Can you believe it? I still remember it like it was yesterday. Everything. The sights, the sounds, even the smell. Sometimes I think I can taste the stench of methane and burning flesh. I can hear the whirring of the chopper coming in to land…”
I hold my hands over my ears as I run off the helipad, further onto the rig, Little Princess. I keep my hands in that position until the chopper has risen back into the clear blue sky and left us out at sea, the rippling Persian Gulf twinkling like aquamarine.
“My girl.”
I turn into my father’s arms. “Roger.”
“Would you please call me Dad?”
“Not at work.” I ruffle his mass of messy grey hair as he drapes an arm across my shoulder and leads me up to the captain’s balcony, where we look down over the rig, finally in full operation.
I watch the movement of parts in the rig’s derrick. The men working down there are hot and sweaty as they play their roles in the extraction process.
“Are those shoes really the most appropriate you could find for the rig?” My dad asks, offering me a chilled bottle of sparkling water.
“They put me on the same level as every man on here, so they might not be appropriate, but they are necessary if you want those guys to take me seriously.”
We lean on the balcony rail. “Actually, that’s why I got you out here. I want you to see your new position, if you’ll accept it.”
I look at him. His eyes are alive, excited. “I don’t get it.”
“I want you to take control of SP someday, and you need to understand how everything works. Not just the office stuff; you’re already an ace at that. I want you to see the operations, get involved in managing extraction, refining, blending.”
My eyebrows rise as I connect the dots. “You want me to take control of the rig? Take control of Little Princess?”
He nods. “She is named after you. But only if you want to. I recognise it would be quite a challenge, and you’d have to spend a lot more time out here. Not full time, but a week or more a month, I think.”
I look out across the complex operation in front of me. “Dad, I can’t do this.”
He rocks sideways, nudging his shoulder into mine. “Is it because of him? The Layton kid?”
“Clark?” I scoff. “No. Actually, we’re over.”
He shifts his weight onto one arm and twists his body to face me. “I honestly thought I’d lost my girl to that one. I’m not sorry I haven’t. Why did you end it?”
I look out to the horizon and blink against the stinging in my eyes. “I didn’t. He did.”
Dad shakes his head and wraps an arm around my shoulder. “Then he’s as crazy as his goddamned old man.” He drops his temple to mine. “You’re too good for a Layton anyhow.”
“Thanks, Dad,” I tell him through a forced smile.
“So, you’ll take the job?”
“I just don’t know that I’m ready for it.”
“We all have to start somewhere, Princess.”
I nod, unsure whether I’m agreeing to the position or the sentiment.
After an introductory afternoon and a roughneck dinner of pie and mash, I wash up and head to my bed for the night. Bed is a single metal frame in a room I imagine is no bigger than a prison cell, with my own sink and small wooden dresser.
I wish I could sleep, but I can’t stop thinking about yesterday. Being left in my bed, alone, after I told the only man I’ve ever loved how I feel about him. I’m staring at the ceiling when the ground rumbles beneath me and rocks the bed. I reach out on instinct, gripping the bedframe.
A low growl is followed by another shudder. I hear male voices shouting in the corridor, then running feet. I quickly switch my pyjamas for skinny jeans and a shirt and head into the corridor, falling into the stampede of men in overalls.
“What’s happening?” I ask my dad when I’m on the balcony we stood on just hours earlier.
