Ice Diaries (7 page)

“Who is Mike? Did you work for
him?”

“He used to run FreeFight before
the snow, that’s how I knew him. MMA.”

“MMA?”

“Mixed Martial Arts. Cage
fighting.”

“You were a cage fighter?”

“Yeah. Mike had a finger in lots
of pies. Didn’t know he was a psycho back then, though. He got
hold of the Semtex.”

“
Semtex
?”

“Plastic explosive. For blowing
up safes.”

“I know what Semtex is!” A
thought struck me. “So is it gold in your backpack?”

“Gold and diamonds. Krugerrands,
other coins like Britannias and sovereigns, bit of museum gold, and
18 carat jewellery.”

“No wonder it’s heavy. Was
that your share of the loot? Wow.”

He gave me a dark look, as if there was
more he could have said, but had decided not to. I wondered what he
was concealing. He stared into his glass, drained it and changed the
subject. “So what about you? What are you doing here with this
bunch of losers?”

I thought this rather unkind, and said
so. “I wouldn’t call them that. They’re just
ordinary people, coping with an extraordinary situation they didn’t
bargain for.”

He laughed. “They’re going
to be dead in five years, and they’re squabbling over solar
tulips.”

“They won’t necessarily be
dead in five years. They haven’t done too badly so far.”

“Their skill sets are about equal
to running a charity car boot sale. In nearly a year none of you have
set up a generator. You could have electricity, the petrol’s
there for the taking – all those underground car parks full of
cars. Why haven’t you got solar panels for melting snow and
heating water? Look around a bit and you’ll find them. Set up a
greenhouse, you could grow fresh vegetables. Another thing, what
happens if a more enterprising neighbourhood gang decide to drop in
and co-opt your supplies, all neatly stacked up waiting for them,
huh? Got any defence plans? Weapons? I thought not. Two men with baseball bats could walk
all over you.”

Call me naïve, but this had
genuinely not occurred to me. It’s so isolated here in the
middle of London, I’d never thought of people who might harm us
turning up. I’d sometimes reflected how nice it was, not to
bother with locking the flat when I was out – so different from
the old London, where lock it or lose it was the rule. My balcony
door only locks from the inside, anyway. When I’m out anyone
can walk in. Obviously Morgan was right; there was no law left in
England, nothing to protect the weak from the strong; it could
happen. The thought of raiders beating me up and taking my food and
firewood was scary. I could at least have hidden my reserves in
different places, not kept them all together in my flat and the flat
next door. I started to ask him how his gang interacted with people
they came across as they moved around; but he hadn’t finished.

“And what strategy have you got
for when it gets worse? From what I’ve seen, you lot are
working your butts off just to maintain the status quo. You’re
none of you risk-takers – maybe with the exception of you,
Tori.” He eyed me speculatively. “My guess is under those
nice middle-class manners you’re a carnivore like me, even if
you don’t know it, and that lot are herbivores.”

“That’s an insulting way of
saying they’re kind.”

“No, just soft. In my experience,
no one does anyone any favours. Everyone’s out for himself.”

“Possibly you’ve been
mixing with the wrong crowd. Anyway, I’m not sure I like being
called a carnivore.”

“What I meant is, they’re
not gamblers, they’re risk-averse. To get lucky you have to
take a risk and maybe fail. It’s fear of failure that’ll
kill them. Yes, they’re managing now, but in the end the ice
will get them because they’re living off finite resources. What
will you do when you’ve chopped up the last scaffolding plank
or office desk for fuel, burnt the last book? What will Paul’s
kids do? There’s no future in this country, not till the
climate changes again.”

“I know.”

“If you know, what are you doing
here? You seem smarter than the others. The only future’s in
the south. I want to get there and have a life again, live instead of
just surviving, feel the sun on my skin. This whole country is like
some Arctic research unit, but with no supplies in and no helicopters
out and no long-term future. What’s your five year plan, Tori?
Where do you see yourself in ten years, twenty years? Before the
power went down, you couldn’t turn on the TV or the radio
without hearing people arguing over whether this was a Little Ice Age
or the real thing, or just something weird and transitory to do with
global warming. Whatever it is, it’s not going to get easier
here; it’s going to get a lot harder.”

I wasn’t going to tell him about
my project. I didn’t entirely trust him not to steal my
powerkite, though that I have got hidden in a safe spot – after
all, like me he wanted to go south, and needed transport. I decided
not to practise for a day or two in case he saw me, and focus on
finding materials for the sledge. On the other hand, if as I
sometimes suspected it was a dumb idea, I didn’t want him to
mock me.

“I’ll work something out.
What’s your plan, then? You’re no better placed than me.
That gold won’t help you.”

He smiled to himself. “Like you,
I’ll work something out.”

I eyed him. He’d got something in
mind he wasn’t telling me. Perhaps he’d got a powerkite
concealed somewhere too. I sipped my brandy, and started to think
about weapons. I quite forgot to ask him if he was a serial killer.

Ice Diaries ~ Lexi Revellian

Morgan left early the next day without
saying where he was going – the gym, maybe, or running in the
snow. While washing up I thought over what he had told me about
himself the night before. He was the first cage fighter I’d
ever met. I don’t mix in the right milieu for cage fighters,
whatever that may be, nor do I see the appeal of watching two men
beat hell out of each other. On the other hand, with no police force
or justice system, civilized behaviour was optional and if it came to
it, might was right; martial arts experts had an advantage over the
rest of us. Morgan had made me appreciate how defenceless we were,
and I decided I must do something about that, however small. It was
my day for sweeping the rooftop help sign clear of snow, and once I’d
finished I made a lone trip to Argos.

It’s seriously creepy down there
on your own. The darkness, the maze-like quality of the abandoned
aisles in the storeroom, the rats’ faint scuffles; the
disagreeable dank odour, like an ice rink but with the added smell of
decay and rat droppings. The light from my torch illuminated only a
small circle at a time, making it slow work to find what I’d
chosen from the catalogue. I kicked myself for not bringing a
lantern. But I found them in the end; Sabatier twelve-piece knife
block sets. I opened two boxes and took the knives, leaving the
wooden blocks, and put the knives in my backpack. I found the quality
pair of Olympus binoculars I’d selected, compact but powerful.
The baseball bats were right at the back in a far corner, and I’d
just reached them when my torch began to dim and flicker –
foolishly I’d forgotten to bring a spare. I grabbed two boxes
and headed for the exit, afraid of having to find my way out in the
dark. When I got to the top and examined them, the bats were junior
ones, only twenty-six inches long; considered as a weapon, they
didn’t look all that fearsome. I took them anyway.

Back home a thought struck me as I
unpacked the bats to hide them beneath my bed. I went to rummage in
the kitchen bin and retrieve the empty champagne bottle from the
night before. Early champagne bottles tended to explode, so the
manufacturers kept making their glass thicker to contain the pressure
caused by secondary fermentation – 90psi, three times what you
get inside a car tyre. This makes them heavy. I swung the Bollinger
bottle experimentally. Given a choice, I’d opt to be hit with a
junior baseball bat rather than a champagne bottle. I put it to hand
under the bed as well as the bats.

The knives I laid out on the kitchen
counter. They were razor sharp and well made, with triple-riveted
handles; a good weight and balance in the hand. I chose a medium size
knife and made a sheath for it with cardboard and black duct tape,
cutting the card to the shape of the blade, then winding duct tape
round. It took me three goes to do it to my satisfaction, so that the
fit was close but not too tight for me to be able to withdraw the
knife quickly. On my third effort I incorporated a neat loop for it
to hang by. I threaded my belt through and re-buckled it so the
sheath was on my left hip, and practised whisking the knife out in
front of the mirror in the bathroom, trying to look menacing, a
person not to be messed with. Alas, my acting lacked conviction; I
was about as scary as one of Doctor Who’s female assistants. I
once read that soldiers have to be trained to overcome their
reluctance to harm a fellow human, information I found heart-warming.
I could not imagine sticking the knife in anyone; could only hope
that in dire necessity I would find the necessary courage.

The next day I split between scavenging
and cutting up wood. I made a rewarding if not terribly useful find;
a flat with a wardrobe full of new designer clothes in my size. I
stood in the cream-carpeted bedroom by the mirrored doors and gasped
over the labels: Alexander McQueen, Vivienne Westwood, Dior, Dolce &
Gabbana, Emporio Armani. Even the shoes fitted: Manolo Blahniks,
Jimmy Choos and Christian Louboutins. There was some fabulous costume
jewellery, too. The owner must have been a rich woman with good taste
and a packed social life. I took a selection home, wishing I had the
occasions to wear them to.

Later, while sawing and chopping chairs
into firewood, I wondered what Morgan did all day after he’d
finished exercising. The day before he had not returned until dusk.
When asked he’d said he had been foraging, but without giving
any details – I’d never met anyone so good at not
answering questions. He hadn’t brought anything back with him.
I decided to find out what he was up to. That evening was the
ceilidh. Next morning I’d follow him.

I washed my hair and sat head down in
front of the stove scrunch-drying it. Nothing short of a miraculous
return to a normal climate would persuade me into a skirt, but I wore
a brand new pair of skinny jeans under ski trousers and an Oscar de
la Renta lacy silk top under my sweater for when the dancing had
warmed me up. I put on makeup, earrings and a necklace and studied
myself in the mirror; not bad. It’s reassuring to know I can
still look good when I want to.

We all get together once a month on the
last Saturday for a party, at a different flat each time; we play
games, dance and chat, and do an assortment of turns of varying
entertainment value. Each of us brings candles, food and drink. None
of us are Scottish, but ceilidh seems to cover the mixed activities
of the gathering better than any other word, and one of the most fun
things we do is Scottish country dancing. Paul has a wind-up
gramophone and some old 78s with Scottish dance tunes, and Archie
found a couple of books,
Scottish Ceilidh Dancing
and
The
Swinging Sporran
. We had a hilarious time teaching ourselves how
to dance, and now we’re quite good at it.

This ceilidh was at Claire and Paul’s,
to make it easy for them with Toby. It was really my turn to host it.
Morgan hadn’t returned by seven-thirty when Greg called to walk
over there with me. I wrote him a note:

Yo Morgan,

I’m at the ceilidh at Paul and
Claire’s in Shakespeare Tower in the Barbican …

Would he know it?

…
it’s one of the three
brutalist towers southwest of here, less than a mile away, the one in
the middle. If you get back in time, do come if you’d like to.
You’ll see the lights from close to. It’s the most fun
you’ll have around here with your clothes on.

Tori

I reread this, had second thoughts, and
wrote it out again without the final sentence before setting off with
Greg across the snow.

I unlaced my mountaineering boots,
slipped out of my ski trousers (my skinny jeans were underneath) and
into the Balenciaga ankle boots I’d brought with me. The room
looked its best in the light of a dozen candles, the cushions’
bright colours glowing cosily. In daylight it looks a bit the worse
for wear. It’s difficult to keep a room immaculate when you
have a child and no running water. Nina and Archie were on the sofa
talking to Gemma, and Greg went to join them.

“Hi Tori,” said Claire.
“Morgan not with you? I was looking forward to meeting him. I’m
the only one who hasn’t.”

“He’s out, I left him a
note. Maybe he’ll come later.” I showed her the two tins
of soup I’d brought. “Shall I open these?”

Paul came and took them. Claire poured
me a glass of wine. “Will you be godmother to Toby? Archie’s
going to christen him.”

“I’d be delighted –
as long as you don’t mind me not being very religious.”

“I’m not either, but it’ll
please Archie and anyway, the ceremony will be nice.”

“Who are the other godparents?”

“Greg and Archie. It’ll be
a little tricky for him conducting the service as well as making the
responses as a godfather, but I’m sure he’ll rise to the
occasion.”

Claire looked well; she seemed very
happy. She told me you could tell Toby was intelligent already by the
way he squinted at you and waved his hands. I thought she was joking,
but realized in the nick of time she was entirely serious. As I was
lighting my candle Gemma came over. She wore a pink tutu over her
jeans, and Mickey Mouse ears on a headband.