[This story is a continuation of the last story entitled 'The Anxiously Awaited Letter']
The helicopter lifted up from the platform, the powerful downdraft from its rotors swirling the mist into a white vortex as it slowly clawed its way upwards and within seconds it had disappeared from view. Angus watched sadly as his friend took what was probably his very last trip home from Gryphon B.
The Super Puma racing across the sea transported Barnaby Carmichael towards the mainland while the morphine transported the six feet eight giant into a place far, far removed from the agony of his broken leg.
In the Emergency Room at Oban hospital a team of specialist doctors were waiting and after a cursory examination the gurney was soon racing along the wide corridor towards Radiology. The detailed images from the CT scan revealed an unbelievably complex problem; when Barnaby fell from the gantry he had landed badly and, with his considerable weight behind the fall, had shattered his femur and fragments were strewn all around the surrounding tissue.
Angela sat in silent vigil in the small day room, clutching her swollen stomach and hoping against hope that her baby would wait just a few more days to emerge into this world. Jeanie Sinclair, Angus's wife, stayed with her for as long as she could, murmuring words of comfort to her friend and neighbour, but family duties soon drew her away and Angela was left alone with her own thoughts.
Finally, after eight and a half hours of intensive reconstruction, Dr Murdock materialised in the doorway, his mask dangling from his chin, his face gaunt and drawn.
Angela rose to greet him, her expression an unhappy union of apprehension and anticipation, but the doctor forced a weary smile. 'It seemed to go very well, Mrs Carmichael, very well indeed. He will doubtless set off the alarm bells at the airport for the rest of his days, but I am confident he will walk through the barriers . . . given sufficient time.'
Angela gasped, tears of relief streaming down her cheeks; she could not muster the strength to speak, but her face conveyed her gratitude. The doctor nodded and left to clean up. He was exhausted.
When Barnaby opened his eyes for the first time his wife was right there beside him, smiling her support. Still drowsy from the anaesthetic Barnaby tried to put on a brave face for her benefit, but as she gripped his hand she could feel the desperate disappointment through the
At every physiotherapy session Barnaby pushed himself beyond the limit, his handsome face set in grim determination as he struggled along the assault course of the parallel bars. Angela watched on in despair, for although he was making satisfactory progress physically, mentally he was in a complete mess. However, no one could argue with his strength or willpower and the day soon came when the doctor made his rounds with discharge papers in his hand.
'Good, luck, Barnaby,' he said, with a sympathetic smile. 'You have done well. If I had to make a prediction then I would say that in a few weeks time you could be walking with a stick, but don't expect miracles and make sure you walk before you try to run, or else you could end up back in here and none of us want to see that, do we?'
He thanked the doctor, but Angela could see that his words were forced through gritted teeth. Her husband would not stop at walking or running, he would not stop until he was fit to return to Gryphon B. Then he would begin grooming his son for the day he could work beside him. But therein hung her dilemma: she knew that was his dream scenario, but Barnaby did not know that she had carefully avoided discovering the sex of their child. He was the one who had always insisted it was a boy and she was determined that until the baby arrived she would allow him to enjoy his fantasy in blissful ignorance.
Barnaby forced himself through an exhausting routine of exercise, pushing himself hard; every day he would make more progress, staggering around the house supported on two sticks and then managing to walk short distances across the room on just one. The only interruption to his gruelling regime was when Angela woke one morning with sharp cramps in her stomach. He made a mad dash down the stairs to the phone, ignoring the stabbing pains in his leg and would not rest until the ambulance was rolling towards the hospital with him holding her hand for comfort for a change.
He almost overdosed on his pain killers as he waited in agony outside the delivery room, but all that was forgotten when a shrill cry broke the silence. When he was finally permitted into the room Angela was sat up in bed, red in the face and perspiring, her sleek blond hair plastered to her forehead, but ecstatically happy as she cradled her baby to her chest. Barnaby gazed for the first time on his son's tiny red face, framed by the white blanket, his tiny lips crumpling as he struggled to raise the energy for another cry.
Angela gave her husband a weary smile. 'She's beautiful, isn't she? We could call her Maggie?'
At first Barnaby was stunned, but when his daughter filled her lungs and once more screamed out her defiance at the world he was overwhelmed . . .
He smiled at their tiny miracle. 'You can call her whatever you want to, my darling.'
The birth seemed to spur Barnaby on to work even harder at his exercise and soon he could be seen walking round the block on his stick. Then he propped it against the wall by the front door and ventured outside without it. On that particular day Angela insisted on walking beside the stubborn fool, concerned for his welfare, with Maggie asleep in her baby sling snuggled up to her, but the stubborn fool proved her fears to be groundless. He still walked like a drunk, or like a sailor struggling to find his sea legs, but he was walking with more and more confidence.
His daily routine swiftly changed and soon he could be seen striding around the village with his daughter strapped in her carrier, either gurgling or sleeping through his endless ramblings.
Angela watched on with hopeful fascination as the bond between her husband and his daughter steadily grew and her fears that he might return to the dangers of the rig were being pushed further and further into the distance. Unfortunately, the rent had to be paid and someone had to bring money into the house. In this industry, if you did not work you did not get paid. When she had broached the subject he had been unusually brusque with her.
'You are asking me to go out and find a job? What do you think I am working so hard to achieve? The doctor predicted that I would walk with a stick as if that was the best I could hope for, but I will prove him wrong. I will get stronger. I will go back. My family needs the money that job brings in and I know no other trade, especially one as well paid.' When she had tried to argue against him he said, 'I don't want to hear another word on the subject, do you hear?'
Angela knew that it was not anger against her but frustration within himself, her gentle giant had never snapped at her before. However, when she confided her fears to Jeanie, her good friend smiled. 'Angus says there is an article in the newsletter about the company website. Everyone has been saying for years that it's rubbish; that someone who actually understands oil rigs should write the new one.'
'And you think Barnaby could be the one to do it? I know he did the one the Gryphon B guys use, but a company website? Could he really do that?'
Jeanie said, 'Angus seems to think so and he says there would be quite a lot of money in it. Just think, if he does a good job, then with that on his CV they will be beating a path to his door for more, and that's apart from the annual contract they would have to give him just to administer the site.'
When Angela showed Barnaby the newsletter he went nuclear. 'Do I look like a white collar worker? Do I? Look at me, Angela, look at the shape God made me. A stupid great lump like me was designed to work hard . . . physically hard. I am damned good at my job and as soon as I am fit enough I'm going back.'
Angela burst into tears. 'You know you are not fit and the next time you fall it could be your stubborn neck you break, not your leg.' This outburst brought a sympathetic response from Maggie, who up until that point had been rolling and cooing on her play mat, batting the jingly toys with her stubby little fingers.
Barnaby ripped the newsletter in half and grabbed his coat. He pulled the straps of the baby sling across his shoulders and tightened them around his waist. Angela watched in silence as he snatched Maggie up and slipped her into the carrier. The only words he spoke as he pushed open the front door were so soft they were almost inaudible, 'I've got an appointment with the works doctor next week for an evaluation.'
He hurried along past the supermarket and out towards the low rolling hills that glowered over the village. He had set off at a furious stride, but the twinges firing through his leg eventually forced him to stop. He sank down onto a rock, the sling bumping on his knees, squeezing Maggie's face close to his. He tenderly kissed the soft down on her head and whispered, 'Don't you listen to your silly mummy. Your daddy will always take good care of you, my little angel. Daddy will go back to work and earn the money to give you the best life any girl has ever had. And every two weeks I will be home with you and we can go for walks just like now . . .'
Maggie wriggled and let out a soft sigh as she settled more comfortably. Barnaby looked at his tiny, defenceless little daughter and broke. His huge frame shook as he succumbed, sobbing so violently that she woke, with a little cry of her own. Barnaby pulled himself together and calmed the child, but his own words kept coming back to haunt him: every two weeks . . . every two weeks he would be home with her, but what about the other two weeks when he was out in the middle of the North Sea, far away from his family, far away from Maggie as she grew to a child, to a woman . . .
She looked so like her mother and in that moment he knew that Angela was absolutely right; he was not fit and he never would be.
He opened the front door and unhitched the sleeping child, resting her down gently on the mat. Then he threw his arms around his beautiful wife and crushed her slender body to him. In a small voice he said, 'What could you ever have seen in a stupid great lump like me?'
Angela twisted free from his embrace and kissed his cheek, a little surprised at the dampness of his skin. 'You are and always will be my big special man, no matter how much of a stupid great lump you are.' Barnaby nodded. He picked up the newsletter, put the two torn halves together and picked up the phone.