Chapter 17
Sunny
My heart was thumping in time with the thud of the blades.
My legs had gone to jelly with the excitement of my first chopper ride.
Ludo, though, seemed way less enthusiastic.
Instead of his usual olive complexion, he looked as pale as me—and I’ve had dead people tell me I needed more colour.
I was low-key enjoying seeing him so uncomfortable.
But all the same, the second our headsets were on and we could speak to each other, I checked in on him.
“All good, mate?” I asked.
He was looking straight ahead, chewing his own face like he was off his chops at Glastonbury, moshing to Anthrax. Or possibly having taken anthrax? I plucked my phone from my pocket.
“We need a selfie!”
Ludo shook his head, but I would not be deterred. I framed up Ludo in the back of my picture.
“Come on, smile! This is awesome!”
Ludo grimaced and raised his hand in a timid little wave. I snapped the picture—Ludo’s discomfort preserved for eternity—then spun around and took one just of myself to send to Mum and the Brent Boys. The helicopter lifted off the ground. Ludo gripped his knees.
“You got your WAG Bag?” I asked. The pilot had handed us spew bags the second he saw Ludo’s pastiness.
Ludo nodded. We shot up higher into the air, tilted, rotated, and flew out over the water towards the oil rig.
The second we crossed the cliff face and were over the sea, the air became bumpy, and we jolted and fell and lifted and swayed.
I looked at Ludo. He was still in his mosh pit.
I burped. My stomach was not enjoying the turbulence either.
It was an enclosed cabin, but the smell of aviation fuel was strong, and two minutes into the flight I felt queasy.
A minute later, I was chundering up Mrs Gallacher’s fry-up into my WAG Bag as intently as if a gameshow host was on standby with a cheque for ￡100,000 if I managed to fill it.
Tears streamed down my face from the effort of puking so violently.
I felt Ludo’s hand slide onto my knee and squeeze it.
What I really needed was terra firma and a nurse to inject Kwells straight into my bloodstream.
The helicopter jolted against something solid, and I realised we had arrived on the oil rig.
“Thank God for that,” I said, my face still buried in my WAG Bag.
“That was… so much fun!” Ludo said.
I looked at him. My cheeks were wet with tears of exertion. My eyes felt puffy, fuzzy, and bloodshot. And there was Ludo, grinning and clapping his hands like a toddler who’d spent the morning mainlining Irn-Bru.
“What a rush!” he said, beaming. Then before I could stop him, he pulled out his phone, framed me up in the background, and took a revenge selfie.
“I hate you,” I said.
* * *
When the press contingent was eventually all present and accounted for on the oil rig and I was feeling much better, the conversation among the reporters turned to what the announcement was going to be.
None of us had any idea, but the location had raised a few questions in my mind. I jotted them down on my notepad.
The helicopter made its final trip back from Shetland. Torsten Beaumont-Flattery stepped out first, keeping his head low and dashing over like a suited superhero to join us.
“The minister won’t be a moment,” he said.
The pilot shut off the helicopter’s engine, and the blades slowly whirred to a stop.
Then, and only then, the lady herself appeared, one hot pink stiletto heel emerging from the door at a time.
Jemima Carstairs, the secretary of state for the environment, glorious in a flamingo-pink pantsuit, was the reason we were all gathered on this bleak, remote oil rig.
This had the beginnings of an Agatha Christie about it.
Would one of us be dead before the press conference was complete?
Jemima Carstairs was smart. She had a reputation as a reformer and an effective minister, and she’d been tipped for the top job. She was in her mid-forties, much younger than most of the cabinet. She had perfectly coiffured long brown hair and eyebrows sharp enough to cut flesh.
“Thank you all for coming,” Carstairs said, taking her place in front of the press pack.
We all extended our arms towards her to record the audio on our devices.
In my free hand, I held my notepad with my questions, clasping it against my chest to stop the pages flapping in the wind.
Terry, the cameraman, said he was rolling.
Ludo stood beside me, his curls bouncing in the breeze.
I could feel the warmth radiating from his body.
“Today, the world stands on a precipice,” Carstairs said.
“We have a choice. We can continue on the trajectory we have been on. The trajectory that created the modern world, that made Britain great, but which will ultimately cause not only our downfall but that of our entire planet. Or we change course. We can set off in a new direction, harnessing the spirit and ingenuity that saw our small island nation build a great global empire. We take the reins; we seize the opportunities of Brexit and become the world leaders in tackling climate change. We become, once again, through our greatness and our example, a country and a people the entire world looks up to, emulates, and envies.”
Holy shitballs, she’d murdered the whole cabinet in some kind of Night of the Long Manolo Blahniks and planned to rule Britain from this oil rig like she was the führer and this was the Eagle’s Nest.
“Today, as the secretary of state for the environment, with special responsibility for tackling climate change, I announce the end of the United Kingdom’s reliance on fossil fuels.
We will aggressively pursue our net zero commitments through whatever means possible, including creating a sovereign wealth fund to heavily invest in new renewable energy projects and technologies—investing in British ingenuity and British companies.
We will encourage polluters and the fossil fuel industry itself to make the change to cleaner, greener energy sources and to decommission and rehabilitate outdated, climate-destroying technology like this oil rig, the Viking XI. ”
The minister continued cosplaying as Winston Churchill for another five minutes, announcing a huge suite of new policies, regulations, and legislation, before we could finally ask questions.
Press conferences were a bit of a free-for-all as far as asking questions went.
The strategy, generally, was to shout loudest to get the minister’s attention, to make eye contact, to keep eye contact, and to keep asking your question even if you could see a madman in your peripheral vision coming at you with an axe.
Ministers tended to choose questions based on a vague triage of professional seniority and the likelihood of getting softball questions from friendly outlets.
If Carstairs was going on the former, I’d get to ask a question before Ludo.
If she went by the latter, he’d get to go first. The minister finished answering a question from Annabelle, and the press pack erupted into a squawking mass, like seagulls on a bucket of chips.
“Ludo Boche,” she said, pointing a glossy pink fingernail in Ludo’s direction. The noise died down.
“Minister, where does nuclear energy figure in this new policy? Is nuclear good or bad? And what does this mean for the plans for a nuclear power plant at Newton Bardon?”
It was a good question, and one I had written down on my notepad.
Bonus: it saved me asking it. I still had one question left, and I was determined to ask it.
No one wanted to be the reporter who failed to ask a question at a press conference on a story as big as this.
Carstairs nodded, indicating she would take Ludo’s question.
“Obviously, many people would like us not to use nuclear energy at all,” she said.
“I have some sympathy with this view, and I’m sure we will eventually transition away from it completely as new, competitive technologies emerge.
But where we do use nuclear—let me be very clear about this—it should be British-owned and British-built, and provide jobs for British people. ”
Carstairs was now well beyond the usual government talking points. This amounted to a wholesale gutting of her cabinet colleague Bob Wynn-Jones and his dodgy Belarusian business deal.
“So, is the Leicestershire plant on or off?” Ludo said, asking the sensible follow-up question.
I felt oddly proud of him. He couldn’t have been to too many press conferences.
They could be terrifying early in your career.
It was like being a newly minted Roman senator on the day they decided to kill Caesar.
At first, you’re hovering at the back, unsure what’s going on.
But you soon realise you’re going to have to plunge the dagger in yourself eventually, otherwise your career and reputation are toast. It’s only then you realise that everyone else is hacking away at the emperor’s body so enthusiastically that they’re never going to stop to give you the knife.
You have to jump in there and grab it yourself.
“Individual projects and investments will go to an independent panel, the make-up of which is yet to be decided,” Carstairs said. “But all funded projects must be British-owned and -operated.”
I jumped in to ask the last question on my page.
“Minister, this has essentially been an energy policy announcement. Why are you making it and not the energy secretary? Where is Bob Wynn-Jones? And what does this say about his political future?”
“I’m the minister responsible for climate change,” she said. “OK, that’s enough questions. Torsten will give a copy of the press release with all the details. Shall we get some pictures?”
Just like that, it was over. Carstairs turned her attention to the camera guy and the photographer, and the press pack dispersed across the platform of the rig to make phone calls and brief their bosses back in their newsrooms. Ludo was buried in his fancy-schmancy Dictaphone, saving the audio file of the press conference.
I took a moment to process what Carstairs had just said, working out my angle.
Could a British government genuinely be taking net zero seriously?
Incredible, if true. But something felt off.
My journalistic radar was pinging. I wandered over to Ludo.
“What did you think?” I said.
“She appears to have lopped off the energy secretary’s bollocks and turned them into a very haute couture pair of earrings.”
“She’s certainly emptied his inbox for him.”
“Quite.”
“Why, though? Why her? And why now?”
Ludo shrugged.
“Bit of good press before a likely reshuffle?”
That was plausible, up to a point. But this kind of announcement required cabinet approval. Where were the other ministers, muscling their way into photos to share the glory? This didn’t pass the sniff test.
“Maybe,” I said.
Ludo and I wandered off in separate directions and made our phone calls to our newsrooms. JT wanted five hundred words for the website, a page lead for the morning paper, and an analysis piece looking at all the unanswered questions.
Cathy and the team would chase up comments from the opposition, oil and gas companies, and environmental groups and keep an eye on Greta Thunberg’s socials.
When we’d finished the call, I opened WhatsApp and sent VladPop a message.
Sunny: Why is Carstairs making energy announcements if Wynn-Jones has the PM’s full support?
He replied almost instantly.
Vladimir Popov: How are my little lovebirds enjoying their island honeymoon?
This was the text message equivalent of the dead cat strategy: if you don’t like the topic up for discussion, throw a dead cat on the table so everyone talks about the dead cat and not the thing you don’t want them talking about. I wasn’t falling for it.
Sunny: Unless I hear something very convincing to change my mind, I’m going to write that Bob Wynn-Jones is about to be sacked.
It took VladPop a little longer to reply this time.
Vladimir Popov: You must write as you see fit. I would not seek to unduly influence a member of the fourth estate.
That was as good as confirmation. A second later, another message arrived.
Vladimir Popov: Come and see me in the constituency office when you’re back in London on Friday morning.
Vladimir Popov: I want to hear all the gossip about you and Ludo.
Vladimir Popov: The kettle will be on.
I had to kill this off right here and now. It was getting out of hand.
Sunny: NOTHING IS HAPPENING! I will NEVER get romantically involved with a colleague.
Vladimir Popov: Oh, that’s a shame. I said to my wife just last night, Ludo is such an adorable helpless puppy of a fellow and you’re such a strong and assertive type on the outside, yet such a bleeding heart on the inside. You’d be absolutely perfect together.
This knobber needed to stop reading Mills & Boon.
Sunny: Is a Cabinet reshuffle imminent?
Vladimir Popov: See you 10am Friday.
Vladimir Popov: The kettle. Will. Be. On.
The man must really like tea.
Sunny: Fine. But I’m putting the boot into Wynn-Jones in tomorrow morning’s paper. See you Friday.
With that, I followed the rest of the press pack into the oil rig’s canteen to write my stories.
* * *
The canteen smelt like someone had dropped a bottle of cod liver oil and decided to clean it up using a mop soaked in human sweat.
I looked around the room for Ludo but couldn’t see him.
I found a spare table, set up my laptop, logged in to the Viking XI’s Wi-Fi, and started tinkering with the opening paragraph of my lead story.
A few minutes later, someone tapped on my shoulder.
I turned to see Ludo standing beside me, face flushed crimson.
He looked adorably flustered. He pushed his glasses onto his nose and ran his fingers through his hair.
“Would you mind sharing your audio from the press conference?” he asked. “I appear to have dropped my Dictaphone into the North Sea.”