Free Ice Diaries by Lexi Revellian Page B

the going hard, keeping far to
the left of his trail. From where I was, the Gherkin peeks out from
behind two taller rectangular buildings on the left; my approach
would be hidden by the office block next door. I wanted to sneak as
close as I could before coming out from cover.

    The Gherkin is enormous. I hadn’t
really appreciated the fact, having only ever seen it on the skyline
back in normal times; you didn’t get a clear view from the
streets. Since the snow, it stands like a monument to a lost
civilization, but I’d never had occasion to go near. Close to,
the diamond glass panes and criss-cross girders are massive,
overwhelming, on a giant scale. Eat your heart out, Ozymandias.
    I have a natural affinity for facts and
figures, and they stick in my mind; I miss the ability to satisfy my
curiosity on Google more than is rational. (I’ve brought
encyclopaedias home, but it’s not the same.) I know that the
Gherkin is 180 metres tall, so most of it – 160 metres –
still sticks out of the snow. It made me feel puny and ant-like as I
trudged nearer, abandoning thoughts of concealment as I followed
Morgan’s footprints. One triangular window at snow level was
not reflecting light like the others. As I got closer I saw the glass
was missing. I stepped into the building and through another inner
window, this time rectangular and floor-to-ceiling, but also
glassless. A vast empty floorspace, a hushed secular cathedral, light
because of its white floor and ceiling and the huge windows; the air
surprisingly temperate; a faint smell I identified as petrol. To the
right, a lobby with a steel staircase. Sunlight slanted in from the
east. Occupying only a tiny part of this grandiose space was a modest
pile of human clutter; a neat yellow generator, a few boxes of tins,
toilet rolls, a compact tent and sleeping bag, a typist’s chair
and several twenty-five litre water cans, the type from Argos we all
use.
    And right at the front, shiny black and
silver, was a snowmobile.
    I put my hood down, staring, and walked
round the machine. It resembled a two-seater motorbike, but with
short ski-type runners at the front and a caterpillar track at the
back. I got on the saddle to see what it felt like. On the dashboard
were LCD display panels; a speedometer, rev counter, mileometer,
engine thermometer, and compass. I’ve never ridden a motorbike.
How difficult was a snowmobile to learn? At least you wouldn’t
need to keep your balance. I clicked an inviting red rocker switch on
the handle, searched around for what to do next and noticed an
ignition like a car’s. No key.
    Feeling it beneath me, gleaming and
raring to go, I had a sudden doubt my powerkite idea would ever come
to anything. I ran my hand over the glossy paintwork. This was what I
needed – a snowmobile would get me to the south, no problem. This snowmobile, if I stole the key while Morgan was asleep.
Not that I’d do something so … unethical.
    A change in the light made me look up.
Morgan stood between me and the view, unsmiling. For such a
powerfully built man, he moved quietly.
    I said, “You didn’t tell me
you’d got a snowmobile.” He said nothing, just stared at
me. “Why not? What’s so top secret about it?”
    “You followed me here.” His
surprise was giving way to righteous anger. To my mind, Morgan had no
business to be righteous about anything.
    “That’s right. So, are you
going to tell me what you’re up to?”
    His eyes narrowed. “And I should
do that because … ?”
    “Because you are living in my
flat, sleeping on my sofa and eating my food. And because you don’t
want to sleep in the Gherkin tonight.”
    There was a pause while he thought this
over. Then the tension went out of him. He drew up the chair and sat
down. “What do you want to know?”
    “Where the snowmobile came from,
for one thing.” Perhaps he had found a snowmobile shop beneath
the snow, and there would be one each for all of us and we could go
south together