‘Are you sure? We came down with a bit of a bang.’
‘I know,’ he said, rubbing his elbow, ‘but there are no signs of splintering ice. And we’re camouflaged, so there’s no screaming and no panic. Which is remarkable when you think there’s been an historian on site now for nearly five minutes. Is it possible you’ve lost your touch?’
‘Yes, very funny,’ I said, clambering to my feet. ‘Personally, I always say that any landing you can walk away from has been a good one. Even with a techie driving.’
‘That was your definition of a good landing, was it?’
‘Well, as you say – no external panic and no internal injuries. A huge success by St Mary’s standards.’
I joined him at the screen. ‘Oh, cool. It’s a Frost Fair.’
‘A what?’
‘Don’t you know about the Frost Fairs?’
‘I’m a technician. I have different priorities.’
‘And yet, here’s the historian once again saving the day with vital information the techie needs to know.’
‘In less than two hundred words, if you can possibly manage that.’
‘OK. Listen up. In the old days, the Thames was much shallower and wider than it is today. No embankment. All the debris and rubbish would pile up around the narrow piers on London Bridge and almost bring the river to a standstill. So it would freeze over. The weather was much colder then, too. So cold that birds fell dead from the air. Deer died in the parks. People died in the streets and public subscriptions were taken up to provide the poor with fuel to help them survive. Come on.’
‘You’re not going out there?’
‘I’m not missing this.’
‘Are you insane?’
‘Leon, I must see this. It’s my only chance. I’ll never be able to come back.’
‘If it’s so cold that birds are dropping from the skies, do you really want to be out there in your pyjamas?’
I pulled open locker doors. ‘There must be something.’
Reluctantly, he pulled out a jumble of miscellaneous clothing. I saw sweatshirts, socks, gloves. I knew he’d have something. This was his own personal pod. He’d had it for years. In addition to his own cold and wet-weather gear, there was no way he wouldn’t have accumulated all sorts of useful stuff.
I scrambled into as many garments as I could get on, tucking my jammy bottoms into several pairs of old socks. He picked up a blanket and cut a slit for my head and I wore it Clint Eastwood style over my dressing gown. And yes, he was right, I did look very odd, especially clumping around in his outsized wellies with three pairs of socks, but everyone outside was almost certainly wearing every single item of clothing they possessed, and possibly their bedding as well, so, as I pointed out, I fitted right in.
He said nothing in a very meaningful way.
We stepped outside. He was absolutely right. It was cold.
Bloody hell, it was cold.
Oh God, it was cold.
Only pride stopped me bolting back into the pod. I felt the hairs in my nostrils freeze. He wound a scarf around my head and face.
‘Told you.’
I glared at him over the scarf.
He smiled. ‘You have snow in your eyelashes.’
Before I could work out what to say to that, he said, ‘Breathe through the scarf and don’t cough, whatever you do, because you’ll never stop.’
I could feel the chill striking up through the rubber soles and three pairs of socks. My feet instantly turned into blocks of ice. There was little wind, but the cold passed effortlessly through my layers of clothing and froze the marrow in my bones. My heart went out to the poor, huddled together in their draughty hovels. Some without a proper roof and some probably without proper walls, either. Trying to stay warm. Trying to stay alive.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Keep moving or go back inside.’
We turned back to familiarise ourselves with the pod’s location because, sometimes, it’s quite tricky finding something you can’t see. We were next to a red–and-white striped booth and opposite a grubby white canvas awning with looped-up sides, underneath which quantities of ale were being distributed.
There was plenty of dirty snow on the ice to give us a good grip, so we were able to stride out quite briskly. He pulled my arm through his.
‘All right?’
I nodded so he wouldn’t hear my teeth chattering.
I judged it to be late afternoon. The sun was already setting. Faint stars appeared above us. The odd snowflake drifted down. More people were appearing on the ice, calling to one another and laughing.
They say, ‘If life gives you lemons, make lemonade.’ For Londoners, if life gives you a frozen Thames and bitter temperatures then hold a Frost Fair and make some money. They were turning a fight for survival into an entertainment opportunity.
Smoke from thousands of chimneys streamed horizontally in the cold air and choked the city. The last streaks of colour left the sky. I felt even colder, if possible.