Ice Diaries

by Lexi Revellian

  “Wake up! You’ve got to help, damn you. WAKE UP!” He didn’t. I took off my glove, pushed his hood out of the way and slapped his cheek a stinging blow. He grunted and his eyelids flickered. I went to slap him again and found my wrist trapped in an iron grasp. Furious eyes met mine. His voice was a snarl.

  “Stop that.”

  “Fine. Stay out here and die of hypothermia, then.”

  He glanced around, still gripping me. “Where’s my bag?”

  “On the balcony.”

  He let go my wrist and after a moment pulled himself to his feet, hanging on to the edge of the railing, and stepped over painfully slowly as if he were in his eighties. I followed with my plastic, grabbed his bag, slid the door open and we both went in. I lit a tea light lantern. The stove had gone out, and the place was icy; most of the snow in the buckets round the walls still unmelted. Greg would have topped the stove up for me, if I’d thought to ask him. Sometimes I long for radiators and a timer and no smell of wood smoke in my hair. I was down to my last few sheets of newspaper for fire lighting. I glanced at the headline before scrunching the paper into a ball: PM sets out three point plan to halt spread of SIRCS above a photo of Boris Johnson looking sombre. I opened the stove door and dropped it inside, added kindling, wood, and a handful of coal, then lit the paper from the tea light so as not to waste a match.

  The man had slumped on the stone-effect tiles and was leaning against the kitchen island, head down, face half hidden by straggling hair, pulling off his gloves with a visible effort. Irritation swept over me at finding myself lumbered with this uncouth man and his problems – my compassion appeared to have been all used up on Claire with none left over for this random stranger. I picked his gloves off the floor and hooked them over the stove. He was probably dehydrated, so I scooped him a glass of water out of the nearest bucket. He drank it in one go and I gave him another.

  “Is there anything wrong with you?” This came out impatient rather than sympathetic. “You haven’t got frostbite?” The best treatment for that is body heat, which I was not going to volunteer, or warm water, and I didn’t want to use up my water on him; it’s a lot of work, melting enough snow for daily drinking and washing. And the stove was cold. I was tired and wanted to go to bed.

  “I’m all right.”

  He didn’t look all right. By the lantern’s dim glow I could see a dark red bruise on his left cheekbone, and his skin was ashen and sweaty in spite of the cold. He was clearly dead beat. But there were no white patches on his face, and his hands weren’t discoloured, swollen or blistered; assuming his feet were okay he had no frostbite.

  “D’you want something to eat?”

  “No, I want to sleep.”

  “You’d better sleep on the sofa.” The opulent plum sofa that came with the flat would not be my choice of furniture, but there’s no denying it is large and comfortable. Also it’s leather, so easier to clean. It faces towards the stove and away from where my bed is, and is the warmest spot in the place when the stove’s going.

  He struggled upright, picked up the rucksack, made it to the sofa and lay down as he was, eyes shut, one foot still on the floor, dead to the world. Reluctantly, I unlaced his wet boots and pulled them off, because the flat was freezing and boots can restrict blood flow, making frostbite more likely. He didn’t move while I did this. I got out two spare duvets and a couple of blankets and dropped them over him, and put a glass of water to hand on the coffee table. I didn’t much like the look of him, but at least he wasn’t in any state to pose a threat. I washed my hands and face and cleaned and flossed my teeth – in a world without dentists anyone with sense does this with religious zeal. I adjusted the stove’s air intake to last overnight, went to my bed corner and took off some of my clothes, and snuggled into my sleeping bag under the duvet.

  I woke as it began to get light, thinking about Claire and the baby. Then I remembered the man and slipped out of bed to check on him. He’d turned on his side, facing inwards, and still slept, the duvet moving almost imperceptibly with his breathing. He must have taken his jacket off during the night, as it lay across the rucksack beside his boots. The water glass was now empty, and I refilled it.

  I dressed in the privacy of my bed corner. The man didn’t stir as I raked out the stove, added fuel and put porridge to cook. Usually I dress by the stove. When I moved in, I dragged one bed into the living area and partitioned it off with neat stacks of firewood from floor to ceiling, so I only have to heat one room. The flat is seldom really warm, since a wood-burning stove needs constant feeding and when I’m off foraging I have to turn it right down so it doesn’t go out. More wood is stored against the walls; I’m paranoid about running out, and work hard to keep supplies high. I live in the spacious living room/kitchen, and keep the bedrooms and two of the three bathrooms for stores. I’ve stacked heavy stuff on my toilets – after the sewers froze rats came up through the pipes to basements and ground floor flats, and though I’m probably too high I’m not taking any chances.

  I watered my spider plant and removed a few dead leaves. It’s an offshoot of Claire’s enormous one, and doing quite well. They are the only plants left in this part of London. Sam used to have some cacti, but they didn’t like the cold. Though there’s not much difference between a dead cactus and a live one, eventually she had to admit they had shuffled off this mortal coil and were now ex-cacti.

  I’d planned to go foraging today. There’s this block of flats I found on my own, only the top floor above the snow, and I’m working my way down it, collecting everything of use – wood, paper, food, clothes, blankets. There are bodies, but not too many; I work fast in those rooms and avert my gaze, careful to shut the doors behind me to keep the rats out. The worst ones are where there are several people, huddling together, especially children. I try not to think about their last hours. I don’t worry about catching SIRCS, because I reckon I’ve got natural immunity or it would have killed me when the pandemic raged. Probably most of them died of cold, anyway. One flat had a fireplace, which got me excited, but apparently they relied on the radiators and the fire wasn’t often lit – there was only a single bag of coal, which I’m using up bit by bit for keeping the stove in at night. Wood burns much faster.

  I decided to start my journal and simultaneously melt a load of snow to top up my water supplies, so I’d be around when the man woke. I could forage the next day.

  Greg interrupted my writing mid-morning. I’ve started to worry too much chocolate will rot his teeth, so I gave him a musical snow globe from the flats. It was a particularly nice one. He wound the brass key carefully, shook the globe and set it down. We stared into the tiny perfect world; a village on a snowy hill, a church and snow-covered houses around a central Christmas tree. A miniature train ran on its track through tunnels while a cheerful tune tinkled and snowflakes swirled.

  Greg was very taken with it, though you’d think he’d have had enough of snow. I certainly have. I said, “Imagine if we were tiny and lived there.”

  “I wish we did.” Greg pointed. “I’d have that house, with the ivy. You could have the big one opposite. We could ride on the train.”

  A snow globe and London have a lot in common these days; both are perpetually snowy and limited in scope. I put water to boil. Greg had already called on Paul and Claire and admired the new baby, and told me they’ve decided to call him Toby. Greg was in favour of calling him Bart (he was a great Simpsons fan, and misses them). I said the name wouldn’t suit him as his face wasn’t yellow. Greg said Bart Simpson probably wasn’t yellow in real life, just in the cartoons, then he noticed the man.

  “There’s a man on your sofa, Tori.”

  “I know. I found him in the snow last night and dragged him here. He’s been asleep ever since.”

  “Is he staying?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps he’s passing through, and will leave once he’s had a rest and some food.”

  Greg walked across to the sofa. “He’s got blood on his
jacket.”

  I joined him. He was right – how did I miss that? A big dark patch on the quilted lining. We stood for a few seconds, gazing thoughtfully. Greg picked up the jacket for a closer look, and the man erupted from the bedding and pulled a knife on him. The sunlight flashed off a short business-like blade. He stared at us in turn, bloodshot eyes narrowed, breathing fast. He was bigger than I’d realized. His sweater was soaked in blood. We edged away.

  After a moment, Greg bent forward and dropped the coat back where it came from. “Sorry.”

  I suddenly felt annoyed. After all, I’d saved this person’s life. “There’s no need to act like an idiot. You’re making me wish I’d left you face down in the snow. Put that away.” Slowly, he clicked the knife closed and pocketed it, eyes still wary. “Is that your blood on you?” He nodded. “Are you hungry?” He nodded again. Clearly I was on my own with this conversation. I asked him something he couldn’t answer with a nod. “What’s your name?”

  “Morgan.”

  “Morgan what?”

  “It’s what Morgan, but Morgan will do.”

  Greg screwed up his face. “What is a funny name.”

  I said, “I don’t know, what about Wat Tyler? He was called Wat. The Peasants’ Revolt, 1381. He was stabbed by the Lord Mayor of London.”

  “Claire could call the baby Wat.”

  “Oh, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Whenever people asked him his name, he’d say ‘Wat’ and they’d ask him again only louder.”

  “They wouldn’t do that if he was called Bart.”

  “Good point. Maybe you could use that argument to persuade Claire. Unless the baby’s already answering to Toby.”

  Conversations with Greg often have a surreal quality I no longer notice. The stranger gazed from one of us to the other, frowning slightly, as if we had suddenly started talking in Ecclesiastical Latin. He felt in an inside pocket and held out a coin. “I can pay for food.”

  I took it, curious. A Krugerrand, heavy in my hand. There’s an ounce of pure gold in a Krugerrand, but they aren’t beautiful coins. They could easily have made them much nicer, but their purpose was to make money from the global gold coin market so they didn’t bother.

  “This is no good to me.” I handed it back. “We have a bartering system. Anyway, I wasn’t going to charge you for breakfast. Or for lugging you here, or letting you spend the night. You’ll just have to live with being in my debt for now.”

  He gave me a long look. “All right.”

  “Not at all, don’t mention it.” I turned away and scanned the rows of tins. “Scotch broth with corned beef?”

  He nodded. While I opened the tins, they both sat on the sofa and Greg told him our names and about our little community, and asked him questions which Morgan answered without giving much away. Greg didn’t appear to notice his caginess.

  “Where did you come from?”

  “Up north. A fair way.”

  “I slept on Tori’s sofa when I first came, too. Then everyone helped me to find things for my own place.”

  “Who’s everyone?”

  Greg counted on his fingers. “Paul and Claire, they’ve just had a new baby, and they’ve got Gemma too. Then there’s Charlie and Sam, they’ve got a cat. The cat’s called Simone de Beauvoir, she’s black with one white foot, and sometimes she scratches you when you’re not expecting it, so I don’t stroke her in case she does. It’s because people weren’t nice to her when she was a kitten, Sam says.”

  I scraped the contents of the tins into a saucepan and roughly chopped the corned beef with the spatula. I was never a great cook; now I’m a lousy one.

  “I wanted a pet rat, but Nina said I’d get a disease. I still might get one, though. A rat, not a disease. You can train them. Tori says I don’t have to do what Nina tells me. She needn’t know I’d got a rat, it could stay in my pocket. They didn’t let you have pets at Wingfield Gardens. I can have whatever I like where I live now.”

  “Where’s that?”

  Greg pointed through the window. “See the building with the blue bits on it? I’m at the bottom there. If I need Tori, only really badly though, not just to talk to or something like that, then if I hang my red blanket out of the window she’ll come over. And the same if she needs me. You could have a flat there too. Have you got a pet?”

  “No. D’you have any petrol?”

  “We don’t need it, we haven’t got any cars. They wouldn’t work on the snow.”

  “You can use petrol for other things than cars. Generators, for instance.”

  “We haven’t got a generator.”

  I tipped the corned beef/broth into a dish and put it on the counter with a spoon and a glass of water. Morgan moved to a stool and ate, emptying the bowl in two minutes flat. Maybe I should have opened more tins. He looked up at me.

  “Have you got any hydrogen peroxide? There’s a cut I probably should do something about.”

  “I’ve got Dettol and bandages. Take off your top and let’s see.” I went to fetch my book of medical advice and the first aid box from the storeroom, had a thought and went back for my biggest sleep tee and sloppy sweater. He couldn’t go on wearing his blood-soaked clothes.

  When I returned, Morgan was pulling a tee shirt over his head, displaying powerful shoulders and narrow waist, a black tribal tattoo across his upper back, and a couple of round dog tags on a chain. There was also a lot of blood, dried and oozing, and a gaping three inch knife slash on the left side of his ribs. Greg and I both did a quick intake of breath. I felt queasy.

  “How did you get that?”

  “In a fight.”

  “Who with?”

  “Just some guy I annoyed.”

  While Greg took up this topic without eliciting much in the way of concrete information, I opened Home First Aid.

  Wash the cut with soap and water and keep it clean and dry … hydrogen peroxide and iodine can be used to clean the wound. Apply antibiotic ointment and keep the wound covered … change the dressing two or three times a day. Seek medical care within six hours if the wound needs stitches … any delay can increase the rate of wound infection.

  I washed my hands and tipped hot water in a mixing bowl, added Dettol, opened a new sponge from its cellophane and a new bar of soap and sat on the stool beside Morgan. There was a lot of him, all of it muscle. Stupidly, I felt myself blushing. It was a year since I’d been this close to a man who wasn’t wearing at least three woolly layers of clothing. When I bent to examine the wound my head brushed his beard. I could smell his sweat and hair and blood. I busied myself cleaning the cut, then the area round the cut, guilt taking over from embarrassment. This should have been done last night. I’d known something was wrong but had been too tired to pursue it, and if he got an infection and died of blood poisoning it’d be my fault. He sat unflinching, though it must have hurt a lot. I got fresh water and washed the cut again, twice, dabbed it dry with tissues, applied Neosporin cream and looked at it dubiously.

  “D’you want me to try to bring the edges together with plasters?”

  “That might make it more likely to go bad. Leave it, just tape some lint over.”

  “How do you feel?”

  “I’ve felt better.”

  “You should drink lots of water to flush out the germs. I’ve got a random collection of antibiotics, but I don’t know which ones would work for this. But we can try them if you get a fever.”

  “Whatever. I’m going to sleep. Wake me for meals.”

  Ice Diaries ~ Lexi Revellian

  CHAPTER 3

  You might not want to read this

  I suppose I should write a bit about the two great disasters that happened – not that this is an attempt to be a historical record or anything, but my story doesn’t make much sense without knowing, and someone may come across this notebook years in the future when it’s all been forgotten. I’m not going to dwell on it, just give the outline and get on with other things. You can skip this part if you like. H
ere goes.

  First the pandemic struck; I heard about the early victims on the radio, and didn’t take much notice. I thought it was another media-fuelled scare, like bird flu. I was wrong. People got ill, and died within two days; later their relatives and flatmates and work colleagues and people who’d been on the same bus with them got ill. I remember the moment when I took on board this was something major that would affect people I knew. Deaths were counted in hundreds, then thousands, then millions. Those who had a holiday home abroad left the country, taking the disease with them as often as not.

  The government told everyone not to panic, and put their best scientists into finding out what the disease was – easy – and working out what to do about it, which proved too great a task for the time remaining to them. They called it SIRCS, to the annoyance of several organizations with the same acronym: severe immune response coronavirus syndrome. A Chinese businessman called Guozhi Ng had brought the infection from Asia; later every single passenger and crew member on his plane died.

  SIRCS was a hybrid disease as deadly as bubonic plague and as infectious as the common cold, and became a global problem within a week. Fear and chaos took hold. The government declared a state of emergency, and asked everyone except essential workers to stay at home. Cinemas, theatres and restaurants closed. Tubes and buses didn’t run. Face masks were delivered to every door and we all wore them, while doubting their efficacy. The power cuts started then, as key workers failed to turn up for work. There were bodies in the streets. The army moved the dead in trucks to makeshift burial grounds in the countryside. Friends of mine died, but not the two people I cared most about, David or my mother. Some people didn’t seem to catch SIRCS; but most did.