Ice Diaries Read Online Free PDF

why God had let
billions of people die miserably. His brow furrowed. “I don’t
know. God moves in mysterious ways. We are like moths living in a
carpet, unable to see the pattern. One day we will.” He smiled.
“That includes you, Tori, when to your surprise you come to
glory.”
    Archie called me over and I joined him
and Paul. “Paul was telling me he doesn’t know what he’d
have done without you while little Toby was being born.”
    “He’s being kind. Claire
did all the work. I mostly watched and tried not to panic.”
    Paul said, “You stopped both of
us panicking.”
    Archie nodded. Nina insists he shaves,
so he is the only beardless man here; with no running hot water or
electricity it’s a daily chore the other men see no point in.
He smiled at me, shifting his head a little to get a clear view. The
left lens of his spectacles is cracked across, and of course he will
never be able to get it replaced. “And I hear she rescued a
stranger lost in the snow on her way home.”
    “Hey, I can’t help being
awesome. It’s just the way I am.”
    Nina had put sheets of paper at the
head of the polished wooden dining table ready for the meeting,
glasses and a carafe of water. She is chairman – she’d be
interrupting all the time if anyone else did it, so we’ve taken
the line of least resistance and her tenure of the post is permanent.
She tapped a glass with her pen.
    “Can I have your attention? We’ll
start now Tori’s arrived, if you’ll all sit down.”
    We took our seats round the dining
table. Silence fell, and Nina picked up her agenda. She read the
minutes of the last meeting, which we approved by a show of hands.
Every time, this clinging to ancient formalities amid the wreckage of
civilization strikes me as slightly bizarre.
    “First on the list,
congratulations to Claire and Paul on the new addition to our little
community.” Murmurs of good wishes ran round the table, and
Paul thanked us and said mother and baby were doing well. “Next,
Morgan. You all know we have a stranger in our midst as of last
Sunday, staying with Tori. Tori, perhaps you can tell us a little
about him and his plans?”
    “There’s not much to tell.
He’s slept most of the time he’s been here, just waking
to wolf down food and going back to sleep. He was exhausted and had
lost some blood from a cut on his side when he arrived.”
    “Do you know if he’s
staying or passing through?”
    “I think he’s on his way
somewhere, but he hasn’t said much. I really know very little
about him.”
    Nina gazed at me over the tops of her
spectacles, waiting for more. Greg helped out. “He’s got
a big black tattoo on his back. Tori said it’s called a tribal
tattoo.”
    “Thank you, Greg, but that’s
not really the sort of information I was after,” Nina said
repressively. “I was actually wondering when he’d start
to contribute to joint projects. Which brings me to, if that’s
really all Tori has to offer, the subject of firewood. How are
everyone’s stocks lasting? Should we schedule a Firewood Day?”
    We agreed we’d have one next
Wednesday, and talked a bit about where to scavenge the wood from,
and whether there was any prospect of laying our hands on another
axe. The discussion wandered off-topic, and Nina glanced at her watch
and brought us back to order.
    “Let’s move on. Rats in the
shops. Charlie says their numbers are building up. Any ideas for how
we can deal with this?”
    Greg opened his mouth, and I think was
about to volunteer to lessen their numbers by taking one home, but in
the end he kept quiet. Nina suggested Sam and Charlie’s cat
might help out, but they shook their heads in unison. She wasn’t
used to hunting and might get bitten. Charlie fetched Nina’s
Argos catalogue to look for traps, but they only had plug-in Rodent
Repellers, no good without power. None of us were enthusiastic about
looking for nests and hitting rats over the head, a solution
tentatively proposed by Paul.