“How long would you wait for me?”
“Ooh, a week at least.”
“Hey! I’d give you a fortnight.”
He hugged me. Morgan was good at hugs, perhaps because he was so large and solid; with his arms around me everything seemed a bit better. He made me feel safe.
Ice Diaries ~ Lexi Revellian
CHAPTER 19
Shopping with Semtex
Thumbing through an old copy of Yellow Pages as he ate, Morgan located a sports shop opposite Harrods which he thought would have a block of flats above it. We hoped to collect everything we needed from one place. After breakfast he packed a couple of shovels and two backpacks in the Polaris’s trailer, then turned to me.
“I’ll show you how to drive it. Get on.” I swung my leg over the saddle. He sat behind, holding me so he could look over my shoulder. “Feet in those pockets. Pull up the kill switch – the red button – and turn the key. Now pull the start cord here.” The engine started. “Okay, that’s the brake on the left, throttle on the right. Release the brake and gun the throttle. Gently.” The machine leaped forward. “Don’t go too fast at first, watch out for obstacles and take it easy turning till you get the feel for it. Head west southwest.”
Snowmobiles have a compass on the dashboard, handy when most of the streets have vanished under snow. I drove carefully, wanting to do it right, keeping an eye on the direction and the snow surface. I couldn’t stop beaming, partly because it was such fun, rushing through the snow with Morgan’s arms round me, and partly because showing me how to work the sled meant he trusted me not to steal it, and he was not a man who trusted easily. I was warming to him. I’d thought he was not my type; noted that others might think him hot while not admitting I did. I’d changed my mind. Hot? The guy was scorching. I’d also assumed anyone with those muscles, a professional fighter, wouldn’t have much of a brain. But though he’d been to a crap school and got hardly any qualifications, I was beginning to realize Morgan was clever as well as stoical and persistent. He was the sort of man you could respect.
Another bonus: in his company I didn’t have leisure to brood. Had David turned up in pre-Morgan days, after he left I’d have spent weeks or months moping, dwelling on every aspect of our relationship, wondering whether our/my love had ever been real or merely a delusion, going over and over the whole sorry business. With Morgan close to me in bed or out, full of plans and enterprises, David didn’t enter my mind for hours at a stretch.
We flew across London straight as a migrating bird, and in less than ten minutes saw Harrods’ distinctive ornate pinky-beige dome emerging from the snow, with a row of flagpoles along the roof, their flags still bravely fluttering. You could make out the position of the Brompton Road since many of the buildings stuck out a few metres. Not far beyond, the rooftops gave way to a featureless expanse; the location of Kensington Gardens. It pained me to think of all the trees frozen beneath that bland sterile surface. Morgan told me to slow the sled, looking about.
“It’s across from the front of Harrods, northwest, that end rather than this.”
We went a little further, and I stopped beside a rooftop with emergency steel ladders, the tops of lifts and other random features sticking into the air, all with a topping of snow. Morgan dragged the sled next to the building to make it inconspicuous, though there was no sign of human activity, then smashed the nearest window with a hammer and knocked out all the glass. He gave me a backpack and took the other himself.
“What’s in here?”
“Snacks, water, bin bags, crowbar, hammer, earplugs, goggles and a head torch. Might as well put the torch on now.”
“Where did you get all this kit?”
“Argos and the chemist this morning.”
“Aren’t we taking the shovels?”
“The snow at the bottom will be packed solid. We’re going through the walls.”
I was relieved – I remembered digging out the corridors from shop to shop in Old Street, and it had been hard labour, even with seven of us taking turns. I climbed into the building after Morgan, and we made our way downwards, using minimum force to lever open any doors that barred our way. A year of practice had made me expert at this. The head torches were handy as light levels diminished the further we got, and I couldn’t think why it hadn’t occurred to me to get hold of one before.
Morgan had brought a compass. Even so, it was difficult to retain a sense of direction in the dark. I suggested leaving a trail to stop us getting lost on the way back. We broke into one of the flats and searched among the lavish furnishings till we found a Saturday Telegraph. We tore the newspaper into strips and placed one every few metres as we went. This turned out to be sensible; we took a wrong turning several times and had to backtrack. The long corridors were claustrophobic, but Morgan’s presence made it a million times better than being there on my own. Still, I was thankful when we finally arrived at the ground floor and found ourselves in the spacious lobby and main entrance in Brompton Road. I shone my hand torch around. Compacted snow pressed against large windows and glass doors, their brass fittings dull with a year’s neglect. The floor was patterned marble, and big vases of dead flowers stood in alcoves picked out with gold leaf.
“I think it’s to our right. Number 92.”
With a cold chisel and hammer Morgan chipped a small hole in the middle of a recessed wall. The noise echoed in the tomb-like silence. He got a plastic-wrapped slab from his backpack, longer and slimmer than a brick, unwrapped the end and broke off a few centimetres of what looked like cream-coloured plasticene, then pressed it into the space. I gazed in fascination as he attached a narrow metal tube, which he told me was a blasting cap. For a moment I glimpsed him as the soldier he had once been. He glanced up.
“Put your earplugs in, goggles on, and stand round that corner.”
Waiting on my own in the cold and dark, I heard the faint scratch of a match. Morgan appeared, and drew me further away. We stood for a couple of minutes, and I wondered what happened if the charge failed to go off. They tell you not to go back to check a firework that fails to ignite, and the possibilities for sudden death were much greater with Semtex. I’d just started to ask Morgan, when there was a massive whoomph and flash of light. The floor vibrated and the air was thick with dust and smoke. I pulled my scarf over my face to avoid breathing it in. Once we could see, we went back to the hall, which now resembled a war zone. There was an irregular breach in the wall with darkness beyond. Morgan peered into the hole and laughed.
“It’s a jeweller’s.”
I helped him jemmy out bricks and debris, and when the gap was big enough climbed in after him. The shop was small, lined with showcases, their glass mostly shattered from the blast. Thick dust and grit lay everywhere. Morgan strolled to the front door of the shop, bent and picked up a handful of letters and riffled through them.
“88. The shop we want should be two along. Unless we’re going the wrong way.” He got out his tools. “Might as well collect the stuff from the cases. Don’t cut yourself.”
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
CHAPTER 20
Saying goodbye
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
CHAPTER 21
News of Mike
Four days later, the weather started to improve. Snow sti
ll 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.
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