in dark wet patterns. All that we have is waves. Great powerful, timeless, surging waves. They are mesmeric. For a few minutes or so, your brain keeps tossing up the stupid surface thoughts. ‘This will be here for eternity.’ ‘I could stand here for ever.’ ‘This will go on and on when I am dead.’ But after a while, you simply watch. And watch, and watch. On land, it’s cold or hunger that makes you move on in the end. We’re so wrapped up, we could stay warm as far north as the Arctic. And life’s so dull that all we do is eat too much, then snack on chocolate. It can be noisy, depending on who’s clanging about above or below. But if you choose the right spot, most of the hum of the generators blows away, and leaves you with just the wind whipping around you.
In sets that sense of being tiny in the universe. An ant. An apple pip. Something so small and unregardable you may as well not exist. You are reminded of all the aeons you weren’t here, and no one knew or cared. You think of how, within a few years of your vanishing, things will be like that again. You look at all those waves and think, I am a blink in time. I go two ways. Sometimes I find it quite exhilarating. Thrilling. Inspiring. I feel as if I could go anywhere, do anything. Impatience seizes me. I want to pack in this small life and pick another. Choose to be anything. Fly!
At other times in comes the void. I get the sense that life is worthless, pointless and drab, and nothing matters. A grey fog settles and clings. Usually I’m glad to get off a rig. On days like these, it makes no difference. I go through the motions, gather my stuff together and scramble aboard as usual. But it takes time to come back to myself and feel a person, not just a walking, talking ‘thing’ pacing out life on the planet.
Back at the terminal, there was a message. ‘Please phone Geoff.’
‘I’m off home anyhow,’ I lied to Donald. But he had picked up a ringing telephone. ‘Oh, right. No, she’s still here.’
He handed it to me.
Geoffrey.
‘Hi, sweetheart. Back at the terminal, having a cup of tea with Donald before the taxi arrives?’
I looked at the mug in my hand, with steam still rising. He could, I knew, have caught me almost any time, on almost any day, and got it almost as close. If a man goes to the trouble of asking you about your day and listening to your answers – triumphs and grumbles – and cares enough to remember, then he will learn how your weeks work. I could imagine some woman who adored Geoff making a call to say much the same to him. ‘Hi, Geoff. Are you busy explaining to Mrs Mackie the jobs that came in since she went off for lunch?’
Someone.
Not me.
But still, the grey mist lifted. Believe me, I so wanted us to part that I tried clinging on to it. I almost felt myself trying to hug depression round me. But sad, weird moods come and go as they choose, and this one chose to go. All I was left with was a warm and loving feeling. This man so cared for me that, all through his day, he kept me firmly in his mind. He knew where I might be, and what I might be doing. Who I was with and how long it might take. I mattered to him. So I mattered.
And suddenly, whether I could talk to him about his father mattered less.
6
IT WAS MINNA who first mentioned ‘Mummy’s Bump’ one weekend morning. I can’t remember why she came out with it, but the expression struck me at once.
‘You don’t suppose she’s pregnant?’ I whispered to Geoff as I passed him a cereal box to put back in the cupboard.
‘Who?’
‘Frances, of course. Weren’t you listening? Minna said she has a “bump”.’
Just at that moment, Harry came back in the kitchen to pick up his radio-controlled rat. Sensing that we were having a private conversation, he hung around, so it was quite a while before Geoff picked up the topic again. ‘Of course she wouldn’t be pregnant. Frances is far too old to start again.’
‘Geoff, she’s barely scraped
In sets that sense of being tiny in the universe. An ant. An apple pip. Something so small and unregardable you may as well not exist. You are reminded of all the aeons you weren’t here, and no one knew or cared. You think of how, within a few years of your vanishing, things will be like that again. You look at all those waves and think, I am a blink in time. I go two ways. Sometimes I find it quite exhilarating. Thrilling. Inspiring. I feel as if I could go anywhere, do anything. Impatience seizes me. I want to pack in this small life and pick another. Choose to be anything. Fly!
At other times in comes the void. I get the sense that life is worthless, pointless and drab, and nothing matters. A grey fog settles and clings. Usually I’m glad to get off a rig. On days like these, it makes no difference. I go through the motions, gather my stuff together and scramble aboard as usual. But it takes time to come back to myself and feel a person, not just a walking, talking ‘thing’ pacing out life on the planet.
Back at the terminal, there was a message. ‘Please phone Geoff.’
‘I’m off home anyhow,’ I lied to Donald. But he had picked up a ringing telephone. ‘Oh, right. No, she’s still here.’
He handed it to me.
Geoffrey.
‘Hi, sweetheart. Back at the terminal, having a cup of tea with Donald before the taxi arrives?’
I looked at the mug in my hand, with steam still rising. He could, I knew, have caught me almost any time, on almost any day, and got it almost as close. If a man goes to the trouble of asking you about your day and listening to your answers – triumphs and grumbles – and cares enough to remember, then he will learn how your weeks work. I could imagine some woman who adored Geoff making a call to say much the same to him. ‘Hi, Geoff. Are you busy explaining to Mrs Mackie the jobs that came in since she went off for lunch?’
Someone.
Not me.
But still, the grey mist lifted. Believe me, I so wanted us to part that I tried clinging on to it. I almost felt myself trying to hug depression round me. But sad, weird moods come and go as they choose, and this one chose to go. All I was left with was a warm and loving feeling. This man so cared for me that, all through his day, he kept me firmly in his mind. He knew where I might be, and what I might be doing. Who I was with and how long it might take. I mattered to him. So I mattered.
And suddenly, whether I could talk to him about his father mattered less.
6
IT WAS MINNA who first mentioned ‘Mummy’s Bump’ one weekend morning. I can’t remember why she came out with it, but the expression struck me at once.
‘You don’t suppose she’s pregnant?’ I whispered to Geoff as I passed him a cereal box to put back in the cupboard.
‘Who?’
‘Frances, of course. Weren’t you listening? Minna said she has a “bump”.’
Just at that moment, Harry came back in the kitchen to pick up his radio-controlled rat. Sensing that we were having a private conversation, he hung around, so it was quite a while before Geoff picked up the topic again. ‘Of course she wouldn’t be pregnant. Frances is far too old to start again.’
‘Geoff, she’s barely scraped
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