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so
he’d have a nicer home, but because she thinks he needs keeping
an eye on. But he chose this flat himself, and likes it, which is all
that matters. Like the rest of us he lives in one room, and uses the
two bedrooms to house his collections, arranged on shelves he has
found and installed all round the walls. He keeps his stores in the
flat next door. Greg is the only one of us – possibly the only
person on the planet – who prefers life after the collapse of
civilization. He used to live in sheltered accommodation, with rules
and restrictions, being told what to do all the time. Even choosing
his clothes was done under supervision. Now he is his own boss, and
has friends and things to do that keep him busy every day. He has
blossomed. He’s actually happy.
    Baths and showers are a thing of the
past, but as Florence Nightingale said, with two pints of water and
privacy any woman may be clean. Morgan’s presence forced me to
take my hot water and soap and strip off in the icy bathroom, but
Greg didn’t have this problem. I heated the water then
disappeared into my bed corner and read a book to give him privacy.
When he’d finished I trimmed his hair for him. He told me he
wouldn’t mind getting a tattoo like Morgan’s because it
was cool. I got a black felt pen and inked him a small tribal tattoo
on the inside of his wrist. It looked rather convincing. He was
enchanted, and made me promise to renew it when the ink wore away.

    Before lunch the next day Morgan
surfaced and said he felt better. He looked it, too; more alert, his
face not as drawn, younger. The thought crossed my mind for the first
time that Morgan was reasonably attractive, his features actually not
at all bad under the short scrubby beard and unkempt hair; his cool
assessing eyes, a mouth both firm and sensuous, those hard muscles;
if the clichéd tough guy type seen in a thousand movies was
your bag, here was the real thing. He went to the windows and scanned
the view, and asked me where we were. When I changed the bandage, the
cut was less red and swollen, its edges closer together as if the
fight was going out of it. I cleaned the area and taped it up again.
    “I got these for you.” I
dumped a selection of men’s sweaters, tee shirts and jeans from
Peacocks in front of him on the counter. I’d chosen an
assortment of sizes. Clothes are one of the easiest things to find,
which is lucky as washing and drying anything bigger than underwear
is a huge task. It’s simpler to throw them away.
    He shuffled the pile warily, and looked
up at me through his tangle of hair as if there was some catch. “I’ll
pay you back before I move on.”
    “I can always do with more
firewood if you’re offering. As long as you don’t overdo
it and open up the cut just as it’s healing. You need to take
it a bit easy. There’s a group forage all day tomorrow if you
want to come and help.”
    “I’ll take a look.”

    Ice Diaries ~ Lexi Revellian

CHAPTER 5

Solar tulips and a Tardis

    A heavy weight of misery was waiting to
pounce when I woke Saturday morning. The 5th May is David’s
birthday. He would be twenty-six today. We celebrated his
twenty-fifth together, just as people started getting sick; it seems
a long, long time ago. There is a remote chance he is still alive,
but I don’t think so. He’d have come looking for me if he
was.
    David. Tall, skinny, dark eyed,
laughing, intellectual, words spilling out of him in an effort to
keep pace with his mind, a doctor fascinated by his work, hopeless
with anything mechanical, the last person to get involved in a fight;
my sort of man. We had barely a year together. I found the man I
loved, and I lost him. Thinking about him is so depressing, I do it
as little as possible. I keep the photo of him on holiday in Kos –
the solitary one I have left – in a wooden box in a drawer, and
only take it out on his birthday, the anniversary of the day we met,
Christmas, New Year’s Eve and my birthday. He looks