Page 65 of Swept Away

“Aren’t you too young to—”

“Lexi.” I’m laughing.

“Sorry, sorry. I think eating them would probably be bad, though.”

“Bad, like, morally?” I ask, looking down at her.

“Bad, like, intestinally.”

She gives me a tiny smile when I laugh.

“We’re going to be OK,” she says.

“Absolutely,” I say. “We’re going to be fine.”

And right now, with my arms around Lexi, it doesn’t even feel like I’m pretending to mean it.

Lexi

“You don’t haveto call me a culinary genius,” Zeke says from behind me, “but I have just conjured up an absolutely banging dinner from fossilized tins.”

I am standing in a pool of seawater and cracked old mussel shells, staring out at the waves between the metalwork on this side of the rig as he picks his way across to me. Seabirds swoop and caw above him—it’s clear they’ve colonized this place, and they’re not sure about the visitors. Zeke’s holding two plates on one arm, like a waiter, and two glass bottles of Coke between the fingers of the other hand. The steam rising from the food swirls away on the wind. He’s wearing someone else’s faded jeans with a leather belt; he’s shorn the jeans to finish just above his boots and found a moss-green knitted jumper that makes him look like he might distill whisky in the Scottish highlands. Only Zeke could try out oil-rig chic and make it happen.

He’s moving more gingerly—he thinks I’ve not noticed, but I know his wound is hurting. I try not to let the worry show on my face.

“You got the hob working?”

“Yep—whichever generator powers the kitchen seems to still have some juice. Not sure how long we’ll have it, but…let’s make the most.”

When he’s close enough, I peer at the contents of the plates, stomach tightening with hunger. It’s some sort of stew—it smells strongly of Bisto gravy, which makes me nostalgic for home, and it has those little round boiled potatoes in that my grandma used to eat for her dinner.

“This looks…”

“It tastes better than it looks, I promise you.”

“I was going to say it looks fantastic.”

Zeke smiles, already tucking in, Coke bottle now balanced on a giant concrete bollard to his left. There are so many giant things around here. After the smallness of the boat, this rig feels oversized and garish, with yellow and red lines painted on the concrete and blaring instructions laminated on walls. The machinery all around us is caked in sea salt, rust and bird poo; it’s like standing in a metalwork graveyard.

I look back out at the water, trying a forkful of the stew. It’s delicious—hot, laced with salt, and just the right sort of wholesome.

“So. What now?” Zeke asks.

“Now…”

I stir through my plate, noticing chopped green beans, wondering if they really can survive this long, even tinned. We can’t figure out when this place was abandoned, but it feels like a time warp. Even the fonts on the signs look dated, and the curtains in the bedrooms are all a shade of nineties mauve.

“Do we hit the radio room door again? Try to knock it down?” I suggest.

“It’s solid metal, Lexi,” Zeke says, his voice gentle. “I don’t know what more we can do.”

I clench my jaw. “Then we look for clues as to where we are. There might be a map somewhere with coordinates.”

Zeke looks pensive, still chewing. “Do you know what to do with coordinates?”

“No,” I admit, looking back out to the water. It’s so different from all the way up here on the rig platform—I’m used to the horizon sitting close to us, a warm blue line across the windows of the houseboat, but suddenly we can see so much more water. The sky blends into the sea in the distance, as if someone smoothed a thumb along it.

I glance up at the machinery that reaches into the sky. The rig has several cranes, painted a battered red and white. There’s a tower, too, a sort of crisscross metalwork structure to the right of us. Inside it there are thick, rusty cables leading down toward the water below. I squint, lifting a hand to block the glare of the low sun. It’s hard to see what’s at the top of the tower, but I think there’s a ladder running up its side.

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