Ice Diaries (20 page)

I looked behind the counter and found
chichi carrier bags. I selected the largest, knocked the glass shards
from the nearest showcase and transferred the contents gingerly,
being careful not to slice my fingers. The jewellery wasn’t my
taste; lots of over-elaborate diamond and stone-set rings and
necklaces. Quite big diamonds, some of them, sparkling in the
torchlight. (Though beautiful, diamonds are not rare or intrinsically
valuable; their costliness was a result of clever advertising and
manipulation of the market by De Beers.) I’d moved on to the
second case when Morgan told me to climb back to the hallway with
him. We retreated to our former corner till the explosion, waited and
returned as before and climbed into the next shop, a men’s
outfitters. There were no letters in this one, so we rooted around in
the office at the back of the shop until I found an address on an
invoice.

“90 Brompton Road.”

Morgan smiled, teeth glinting white in
the dark, face smudged with grime. I guessed mine was too. He raised
his thumb. “We’re so good.”

I was enjoying myself. I liked working
with Morgan. Beyond the next wall was the sports shop we were after.
Together we systematically sorted through all the stock choosing what
to take, dumping our selection in a heap on the floor. We went for
quality, the most expensive items. I had not realized it was possible
for a sleeping bag to cost £460, but it is if the filling is
grey goose down and the lowest comfort level minus 26°C. We took
one each. I let Morgan choose, because of my total lack of camping
experience. He selected a Hilleberg Nallo 2GT, a top of the range
two-man tent. I tentatively suggested a bigger one might be better,
but he said smaller would be warmer as well as lighter. He picked out
two primus stoves, cases of gas canisters and various other camping
equipment. We moved on to clothing; base layers, ski wear, socks,
balaclavas and gloves, selecting only the best. When we were done we
loaded everything into four bin bags and made two trips to bring them
to the surface, following the strips of newspaper. Before we left
with the last load, we cleaned out the jewellery showcases.

“Like old times,” Morgan said.

Ice Diaries ~ Lexi Revellian

We got back to Bézier when it
was past tea time and had lunch. It was getting late to set off that
day, so Morgan said he’d pack the trailer while I went round on
the sled to say goodbye to my friends. Knowing it was a final
farewell – that in all likelihood I’d never see any of
them again – made my visits poignant. Charlie and Sam were fine
– we made a few silly jokes and Sam said to send them a
postcard. Nina too, but then we’d never been close. She was a
little reserved with me, I thought, and she didn’t mention
either Mike or Morgan.

She said briskly, “It’s
really more au revoir, we’ll probably meet again when things
are stable enough in the south for helicopters to be sent to pick us
up.”

Archie said little, but enveloped me in
a silent bear hug, which is not his style. “God will be with
you on the journey. I’ll pray for your safety.”

Claire was upbeat, assuring me in an
unsteady voice she’d manage without me just fine, she’d
always thought Morgan and I would make a good couple, she’d
think of me having a terrific time in a warm climate. I told her how
sorry I was that I’d miss Toby’s christening, and not be
his godmother. She said she’d think of me as his godmother.
Gemma gave me a card she’d drawn with a picture of me and
Morgan under a yellow smiley sun with a cat beneath a tree; and a
small cardboard box that rattled. “It’s my tooth.”

“Ah Gemma, your favourite tooth!
How lovely to have a little bit of you to take with me.”

As the sled moved off I looked back.
Claire, Paul and Gemma stood together on their balcony watching me go
and waving like mad, Claire making Toby’s little mittened hand
wave goodbye, tears shining on her cheeks.

I left Greg till last. I carried my
spider plant to its new home in his flat, and took him on the back of
the sled for a ride, down to the Thames where Morgan had taken me.
Snow began to fall as we returned, making me worry about how we’d
leave the next day if it continued. When we got back to Greg’s
I gave him a fancy silver treasure box looted from the jewellers
which I’d filled with Smarties. I’d written him a note
and put it underneath the Smarties for him to find later:

Greg,

Thank you for protecting me.

Miss you,

Tori

X

He got Rosie out so I could say goodbye
to her too. I said, “Help yourself to anything of mine from the
flat, won’t you?”

“I think I’d rather leave
it, so it’s the same and sometimes I can visit and pretend
you’re still here, only gone out foraging.”

“Just things from my store rooms,
then …” I was going to burst into tears any minute. I had
to go. I smiled resolutely. “I shall think about you all a lot.
Take care of yourself, won’t you?”

“Wave when you go tomorrow. I’ll
be watching, I’ll wave back.”

Tears were streaming down my face on
the short trip to my flat. What with that and the snow I could hardly
see where I was going, but I made it home all right. Morgan had
finished loading the trailer. He took one look at me and gave me a
hug.

“I’m not usually like
this,” I said. “Before the snow I hardly cried at all,
honestly. Gemma gave me her tooth.”

“Ri-i-ight … I don’t get
what it is with you lot and teeth. Still think you’re all
weird.” His lips brushed my cheek, his breath warm on my neck.

“I’m not weird!”

“You’re weird in kind of a
nice way. Come with me to hide the sled. Take your mind off it.”

Morgan hooked up the trailer and we
took it to its hiding place in a building site, the shell of a block
of flats next to a crane to the north of the shops. There were no
walls, making it easy to lift the sled and trailer inside and round a
corner, invisible to someone passing close by. We each took an end of
a pallet and dragged it over the tracks to even out the surface. Snow
was now falling thickly, blurring our trail.

“D’you think he’ll
come back before we go?”

“Hope not. I’d leave now
but there’s a risk of wrecking the sled in the dark with snow
falling. It might be an idea not to sleep in your flat tonight.”

“Oh …” I could see
the sense of this, but I wanted one last night of home comforts. The
thought of sleeping in a sleeping bag (even one filled with grey
goose down) on an icy floor was not inviting. On the other hand, the
thought of four men bent on revenge bursting in while we were asleep
had even less appeal. But it turned out not to be necessary; within
twenty minutes, the snow was falling so thickly it was a whiteout,
with no sign of stopping. We couldn’t leave London, and nor
could Mike come and get us. We settled for a cosy evening at home,
getting to know each other better.

For the next four days, all we could
see beyond the windows was white. Snow piled up on the balcony
against the glass. The weather was too forbidding even for Greg to
venture out doing his rounds; though unable to see my lights, he
might guess we wouldn’t have left in this weather. You’d
have had to be crazy to take out a snowmobile. To my astonishment,
Archie appeared late the next morning, practically on his last legs
after fighting his way through the blizzard. He said he’d
wanted to put his mind at rest that we hadn’t set out on our
journey in these conditions. He stayed for a meal and I dried his
clothes over the stove. Morgan accompanied him back to the Barbican,
as he could see I was worried Archie wouldn’t make it on his
own. On his return he said,

“Nasty out there.” He
stripped off soaked boots and snow-dampened clothes. “Told you
he fancied you – only true love would make a man go out in this
vile weather. He just couldn’t help himself.”

“Huh! I think all he wanted was a
break from Nina. Can you imagine being snowed in with her?”

Being home the whole time and feeling
no need to conserve my wood stores, we kept the stove fed and the
temperature became delightfully warm. Morgan and I spent quite a bit
of time in bed. We read or played cards, and talked about what it
would be like when we got south, and our pasts before we met; our
childhoods. Morgan hadn’t known his father, and his mother had
brought him up alone in poverty. He had clearly loved her
uncritically, but reading between the lines it seemed she’d
struggled with too many problems of her own to be much use to him
with his. He’d had to fight his own battles from a young age.
It made me realize what a secure and privileged childhood I’d
had, even though my family wasn’t well off.

When he went down to the gym to lift
weights, I went with him and sat admiring his physique by candlelight
(I’d got used to his muscles and adjusted my ideas of male
beauty – by comparison David seemed weedy) or did some weight
lifting myself. He continued to teach me to fight.

It was a strange time out of time, cut
off from the world. I decided I liked Morgan, a lot.

Ice Diaries ~ Lexi Revellian

Four days later, the weather started to
improve. Snow still fell, but less heavily. We began to think we’d
be able to leave the next morning.

We’d finished eating and dusk was
approaching when, faint and ominous, there came the sound of an
engine getting louder. We exchanged glances and got to our feet. This
could only mean trouble. My heart beat faster and my hands sweated.
Morgan blew out the candles and I snuffed the lantern; we went to the
windows and strained to see through the blizzard. Outside was fuzzy
white, far buildings barely visible. A lone snowmobile came slowly
into view, drew in beside the balcony and its passenger got off,
peering into my windows.

“It’s Serena.” I
breathed deeply and let my shoulders relax.

Morgan relit the candles while I forced
the door open against the piled snow and told her to put my trailer
over the sled to keep the snow off. Serena brushed the worst of the
weather from her clothes and came inside, looking agitated and shaky.
I put her jacket by the stove.

“Are you all right?”

“More or less, thanks. I’ve
been going round in circles for ages, I thought I’d run out of
petrol and never get here, die of hypothermia – scary, I was
beginning to panic. I totally lost my bearings and my goggles kept
getting snowed up and I couldn’t see the buildings to work out
where I was. I thought the snow wasn’t too bad, but it’s
still practically a whiteout.”

Morgan said, “Are you on your
own?” She nodded. “Any chance of you being followed?”

“I sneaked out. Mike thinks I’m
with Jen, she’s a woman we met. I can’t stop long, I want
to get back before he misses me.”

“Coffee?”

“I’d rather have wine.”
I opened a bottle of Chardonnay and slopped it into glasses and we
all sat round the counter. There was a pause while we waited for her
to tell us why she had come. Possibly she wanted to travel south with
us instead of Mike. I hoped she didn’t; three of us sharing a
tent would not be the same. Perhaps she could get her own tent …
Serena had a swig of her drink and began to talk, to me rather than
Morgan, though she kept giving quick glances in his direction.
Whatever he thought, she was definitely keen on him.

“At Strata where we are now it’s
not like here. Everyone lives in the same block of flats, like a
commune. It’s amazing, they’ve got electricity, there’s
three wind turbines on the roof. They’ve got a guy there who’s
a whiz at mechanical stuff, he got them going. People get together in
the Hall – they’ve knocked down walls in the flats at
snow level to use as a communal area, with a bar and a shop, loads of
sofas and tables, a ping pong table and a darts board. Stalls with
stuff for sale, too, and a notice board. A bit like a cross between a
market, a pub and a village hall, and it’s almost always got
power, even when there’s none to the flats. Everyone hangs out
there. We spent a lot of time in the Hall so Mike could get to know
people. They all think he’s such a good listener, but that’s
because he’s on the lookout for anything he can use to his
advantage. It’s sad really, seeing them fall for it.”
Serena took a long pull at her wine, and I topped up her glass.
“Anyway, the evening of the day we arrived David came in
looking pissed off, got himself a stiff drink and joined us. He’d
been taking care of Tessa all day. I got the definite feeling him and
Katie had had a row, and he was sort of seething like he needed to
offload on to somebody. And of course there was Mike, all sympathy
and concern.”

Somehow when David was here I hadn’t
got round to telling him about Mike forcing me and Greg to stand
outside; the revelations about his new family had sidetracked me. I
should have told him what had happened after Nina’s party,
instead of making generalized assertions he could dismiss out of
hand.

“David told us about seeing you,
and I could see why he couldn’t let off steam to Katie. He said
he was worried about you, thought you were making a big mistake yada
yada. Went on for ages. Though if you ask me, what really bugged him
was you getting it together with another guy – he’s one
of those people who expect their exes to remain celibate forever in
memory of them.”

I almost laughed. Looking back, he’d
been like that about his girlfriend before me, but it hadn’t
registered at the time, I’d been so madly in love with him.

“Because no way was he going to
admit that, he really laid it on thick about the danger to you with
Morgan being so deceitful and unreliable and thuggish.” Morgan
stirred and she shot a quick look at him. “Sorry. That’s
what he said. And you can imagine Mike agreeing. I didn’t say
anything because he would just have told me to leave. So they spent
ten minutes trashing your character, then Mike said what a pity it
was when Tori was such a lovely girl, if headstrong. David agreed. He
got quite maudlin, though he hadn’t drunk
that
much –
Mike of course was totally sober. He said he was afraid it was all
his fault for introducing Morgan into your community, however
indirectly and inadvertently, and he felt duty bound to do something.
So finally he said he’d been thinking of going back to confront
Morgan, and what David told him had made up his mind.”