The Ice Twins

by S. K. Tremayne

  9

  It could be any school in Britain. Low-rise and airy, with a biggish playground with gaily painted swings and slides, and lots of parents looking sleepy, careworn and guiltily relieved as they drop off the little ones. It’s just the setting that marks it out: sea to the left, and big sombre mountains behind, scarred with early December snow. And then, of course, there is the screwed-in sign on the gate.

  Rachadh luchd-tadhail gu failteache

  Underneath is a smaller, English translation.

  All Visitors Must Report To Reception

  Kirstie holds my hand, tightly, as we walk from our car between the sleeker city cars, and dirty Land Rovers, and approach the glass doors. Other mothers and fathers are greeting each other, personably, and affably, in that enviable, relaxed, chit-chatty, small-talking way that I have never quite mastered, and will find even harder here, amongst strangers.

  Some of the parents are speaking Gaelic. Kirstie is as silent as her mum. Nervous and tense. She is in her new blue-and-white Kylerdale uniform under her quilted pink anorak; when I pull the anorak off, at the school doorway, the uniform looks painfully big, verging on clownlike. And the shoes are clunky. And her hair is badly brushed: by me.

  My guilt invades. Did I buy the wrong size of clothes? And why didn’t I brush her hair properly? We were in such a rush. Angus wanted to cross to the mainland early: he’s landed a part-time job at an architectural practice in Portree, far enough away that he will have to stay there overnight, whenever he gets work. This is good, financially, but it means transport is even more complicated.

  So we all had to go, together, this morning, on our solitary boat. And I was forced to speed things up: brusquely spraying on the detangler, dragging the brush through my daughter’s fine, white, fairysilk hair – as Kirstie stood between my knees – fidgeting with her toy, and singing a new made-up song to herself.

  And now it is too late: Kirstie’s hair looks messy.

  My protective instinct reaches out. I desperately do not want her to be laughed at. She will already be dauntingly lonely, starting at a new school, well into the autumn term, without her sister. And the confusion about her identity is still there: lurking. Sometimes she calls herself ‘we’ not ‘I’. Sometimes she calls herself ‘other Kirstie’. She did it this morning.

  Other Kirstie?

  It is bewildering and painful, which is why I haven’t addressed it. I merely hope that Kellaway is right, and school will somehow resolve it all: the excitement of new friends and new games.

  So here we are.

  We loiter at the school door as all the other children go straight to their classes, chattering, laughing, hitting each other with their plastic rucksacks. Toy Story, Moshi Monsters. A woman with big glasses perched on a big nose, and a very sensible plaid skirt, gives me a smile of reassurance, and holds open the glazed door.

  ‘Mrs Moorcroft?’

  ‘Yes, er?’

  ‘Checked you on Facebook. So sorry! Just curious to know who the new parents might be.’ She tilts an indulgent expression at Kirstie. ‘And this must be little Kirstie! Kirstie Moorcroft?’ She ushers us in. ‘You look just like your photos! I’m Sally Ferguson. Lovely to have a new girl at school. Please just call me Sally.’ She looks back at me. ‘The school secretary.’

  She is waiting for me to respond. But I cannot. Because Kirstie is talking.

  ‘I’m not Kirstie.’

  The secretary smiles; she must think this is a joke. A game. A child hiding behind the sofa, holding up a puppet.

  ‘Kirstie Moorcroft! We’ve seen your photos! You are going to love this school, we teach in a very special language—’

  ‘I’m NOT Kirstie, I’m Lydia.’

  ‘Uh—’

  ‘Kirstie is dead. I am Lydia.’

  ‘Kkkirr …?’ The woman tails off. And looks at me. Understandably confused.

  My daughter repeats herself. Loudly. ‘Lydia. I am Lydia. We are Lydia. Lydia!’

  The hallway of the school is silent apart from my daughter, shouting these lunatic words. Sally Ferguson’s smile has faded, very quickly. She glances my way, with a panicked frown. There are lots of happy Gaelic phrases printed on paper tacked to the wall. The school secretary tries one more time.

  ‘Ah … um … Kirss—’

  My daughter slaps at Sally Ferguson as if she is a wasp. ‘Lydia! You have to call me Lydia! Lydia! Lydia! Lydia! Lydia Lydia Lydia Lydia LYDIA!’

  The woman backs away, but my little girl is quite out of control now. She is giving us a full-on toddler’s supermarket tantrum: except we are in a school, and she is seven, and she is claiming that she is her dead sister.

  ‘Dead, Kirstie-koo is dead. I’M LYDIA! I am Lydia! She is here! Lydia!’

  What do I do? I try to make normal conversation, absurdly, ‘Um, it’s just a thing, a thing – I’ll be back to pick her up at—’

  But my efforts can barely be heard as my daughter screams again, ‘Lydia LYDIA LYDIA LYDIA LYDIA LYDIA – Kirrrstie is DEAD and I HATE her I’m Lydia!’

  ‘Please,’ I say. To Kirstie. Abandoning my pretence. ‘Please, sweetheart, please?’

  ‘KIRSTIE IS DEAD. Kirstie is dead, they killed her, they killed her. I am Ly-DDDDEEE-YYYAAAA!’

  And then as quickly as it started, it blows itself out. Kirstie shakes her head, stomps over to the far wall, and sits down in a little chair, under a photo of schoolkids working in the garden, with a cheery inscription in felt-tip pen.

  Ag obair sa gharrad.

  My daughter sniffs, then says, very quietly. ‘Please call me Lydia. Why can’t you call me Lydia, Mummy, that’s who I am? Please?’ Her teary blue eyes are lifted. ‘I’m not going to school less you call me Lydia please. Mummy?’

  I am paralysed. Her pleading sounds painfully sincere. I have no choice.

  The silence prolongs into agony. Because now I have to explain everything to the school secretary at the worst possible moment, in the most awkward way; and to do that I need Kirstie out of here. I need her in that school.

  ‘OK, OK. Mmm—’ My childish stutter returns. ‘Mrs Ferguson. This is Lydia. Lydia Moorcroft.’ I am frightened, and mumbling. ‘I’m actually enrolling Lydia May Tanera Moorcroft.’

  A long silence. Sally Ferguson looks at me, with intense confusion. From behind those big thick glasses.

  ‘Pardon me? Erm. Lydia? But …’ She flushes bright red – then she reaches to a desk, behind an open, sliding window, and takes up a sheet of paper. Her next words are more of a whisper. ‘But it says here, quite clearly, that you are enrolling Kirstie Moorcroft? That was the application. Kirstie. Definitely. Kirstie Moorcroft?’

  I deeply breathe. I go to speak, but my daughter gets there first. As if she has overheard.

  ‘I’m Lydia,’ says Lydia. ‘Kirstie is dead then she was alive but then she is dead again. I am Lydia.’

  Sally Ferguson blushes, once more, and says nothing. I am feeling too dizzy to respond: teetering on the edge of dark absurdity. But with an effort, I speak: ‘Can we let Lydia join her new class and I can explain.’

  Another desperate silence. Then I hear children singing a song down a corridor, raucous and happy.

  ‘Kookaburra nests in the old gum tree, Merry merry king of the bush is he! Laugh, kookaburra LAUGH—’

  The incongruity makes me nauseous.

  Sally Ferguson shakes her head; then she edges closer to me and says, quietly: ‘Yes … That seems sensible.’

  The school sec turns to a good-looking young man, in skinny jeans, pressing through the glass doors from the cold outside. ‘Dan, Daniel, please – do you mind – can you take, ahh, Lydia Moorcroft to her new class, Year Two, end of the corridor. Jane Rowlandson.’

  ‘LAUGH, Kookaburra, LAUGH—’

  Dan nods a languid amiable Yes and squats down, next to Lydia, like an overkeen waitress taking an order:

  ‘Hey, Lydia. D’you want to come with me?’

  ‘Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree, Countin
g all the monkeys he can see-ee.’

  ‘I’m Lydia.’ Kirstie is fiercely folding her arms. Scowling. Bottom lip jutting. As stubborn a face as she can manage. ‘You must call me Lydia.’

  ‘Sure. Of course. Lydia! You’ll like it, they’re doing music this morning.’

  ‘Stop, Kookaburra, Stop, Kookaburra, That’s no monkey, that’s me.’

  At last: it works. Slowly she unfolds her arms and she takes his hand – and she follows Dan towards another glass door. She looks so small, and the door looks so huge and daunting, and devouring.

  For one moment she pauses and turns to give me a sad, frightened smile – and then Dan escorts her into the corridor: she is swallowed up by the school. I must leave her to her lonely fate; so I turn to Sally Ferguson.

  ‘I have to explain.’

  Sally nods, sombrely. ‘Yes please. In my office. We can be alone there.’

  Fifty minutes later I have given Sally Ferguson the basic yet appalling details of our story. The accident, the death, the confusion of identity, over fourteen months. She looks suitably and honestly horrified, and also sympathetic, but I can also detect a hint of sly delight in her eyes, as she listens to this narrative. I am very definitely livening up another dull schoolday. This is something she can tell her husband and her friends tonight: you won’t believe who came in today, a mother who doesn’t know the identity of her surviving twin, a mother who wonders if her supposedly dead and cremated daughter has actually been alive for fourteen months.

  ‘That’s a remarkable story,’ says Sally Ferguson. ‘I’m so so sorry.’

  She takes her glasses off and puts them on again. ‘It is amazing that there is, ah, no scientific way … of …’

  ‘Knowing? Of proving?’

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘All we know is that – I mean, I think – If she wants to be Lydia for now maybe we have to go along with it. For now. Do you mind?’

  ‘Well no, of course. If that’s what you prefer. And that’s fine in terms of enrolment. They are …’ Sally searches for the words ‘Well, they were the same age, so – yes – I’ll just have to update the records, but don’t worry about that.’

  I get up to leave; quite desperate to escape.

  ‘So sorry, Mrs Moorcroft. But I’m sure everything will be all right now, Kirstie – I mean – your daughter. Lydia. She will love it here. Really.’

  I flee towards the car park and in the car I buzz the windows down and race back up the coast, the wind is biting cold, a knifing westerly off the Cuillins, from the Butt of Lewis, from Saint Bloody Kilda, but I don’t care. I want the freezing cold. I squeal past Ornsay and head for Broadford, which feels like London after the remoteness of the Sleat peninsula. Here there are shops and post offices and people on pavements – and a big bright warm café, with very good wifi connection and a very good mobile signal. I want vodka, but coffee will have to do.

  I sit on a comfy wooden chair by a big table, and with the fattest mug of cappuccino at my side, I take out my phone.

  Mum. I need to call Mum. Urgently.

  ‘Sarah, darling, I just knew it was you! Your father was in the garden, we’re having an Indian summer down here.’

  ‘Mum.’

  ‘Is everything all right? Has Kirstie started at her new school?’

  ‘Mum, there’s something you need to hear.’

  My mother knows me enough to realize what my tone of voice implies: her chatter ceases. She waits.

  And I explain. I explain as I did to Sally Ferguson. As maybe I am going to have to explain with everyone else.

  I do it quickly so I don’t choke up. I tell her there is a possibility that we got it wrong: the identity of the twin that died. We don’t know. We are trying to find out. It is all so absurd yet so cruelly real. As real as the mountains of Knoydart. My mother, who can anyway be easily as silent as me, stays respectfully silent throughout.

  ‘My word,’ she says at the end. ‘My word. My. Well. Goodness. Poor Kirstie. I mean—’

  ‘Mum, please don’t cry.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  She is crying. I wait. She keeps crying.

  ‘It’s just that it brings back so many memories. That awful night. The ambulance.’

  I wait for her tears to subside, fighting my own emotions into submission. I have to be the strong one here. Why?

  ‘So, Mum, we need to get to the bottom of this, if we can, because – because we need to decide if she is Kirstie or if she is Lydia. Then settle on it, I guess. I don’t know. Oh, Jesus.’

  ‘Yes,’ my mum says. ‘Yes.’

  A few more stifled maternal sobs pass me by. I watch the traffic outside the café, heading for Kyle or Portree. The long winding mountain road that snakes past Scalpay and Raasay. Angus took that road this morning.

  Our conversation drifts into practicalities, and trivialities. But I have a serious question for my mother.

  ‘Mum, I want to ask you something.’

  She sniffles. ‘Yes, darling?’

  ‘I need to know, to search out any inconsistencies, find out any clues.’

  ‘What …’

  ‘Is there anything about that night, that weekend, before the accident. Did you notice anything different about the girls, or different between them? Something you haven’t told me, because it didn’t seem relevant?’

  ‘Different?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What does that mean, Sarah?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s just – maybe I can differentiate them? Even now. Were they behaving differently, was there anything weird, any reason why there was this confusion in my daughter’s head?’

  My mother is entirely silent. A soft snow is now falling outside, the first of the winter. It is just a few brief flurries. It floats like the lightest confetti in the sharp sad air. Across the street, a small child, walking with her mother, stops and points at the spangled nothingness, her face ignited with joy.

  ‘Mum.’

  More silence. This is an unusually prolonged pause, even for my mother.

  ‘Mum?’

  ‘Well.’ My mum puts her thoughtful, lying voice on. ‘No. We don’t need to dig it all up do we?’

  ‘Yes, we do.’

  ‘Well, I can’t think of anything.’

  She is lying. My own mother is lying. I know her too well.

  ‘Mum, there is something. What is it? What? You have to tell me, no more evasions. Tell me.’

  The snow is thinning to nothing: just a trace of silvering in the air. The ghost of snow.

  ‘I can’t remember.’

  ‘Yes, you can.’

  ‘But, darling, I really can’t.’

  Why is she lying about this?

  ‘Mum. Please.’

  The next silence is different. I can hear her breathing. I can almost hear her thinking. I can see her down there in Devon, in the hallway, with the photos from my dad’s career on the wall, framed and faded, and dusty. Photos of him receiving awards for long-fogotten ads.

  ‘Well, darling, there was something maybe, but it’s nothing. Nothing.’

  ‘No. It’s not nothing. It might not be.’

  This is so obviously where I get it from: the propensity to silence, the refusal to reveal.

  I can see why Angus occasionally wants to strangle me.

  ‘It’s nothing, Sarah.’

  ‘Tell me, Mum. Tell me!’

  I actually sound like Angus.

  My mother takes a deep breath, ‘All right, I … I just remember the day you arrived Kirstie was quite upset.’

  ‘Kirstie?’

  ‘Yes, but you didn’t notice, you were so distracted, what with … everything. And Angus was late of course, late arriving, very late that night, and, I asked Kirstie what it was, what was upsetting her so, and, she said it was something, to do with Daddy. That he had upset her somehow, I think. Something like that, that’s all I remember, it’s surely nothing.’

  ‘No, it might not be. Thanks, Mum. Thanks.’<
br />
  The dialogue dwindles. We express our motherly and daughterly love. My mum asks if I am all right,

  ‘I mean,’ she adds, ‘all right in yourself?’

  ‘Yes. I am all right.’

  ‘You’re sure? You sound, darling, a little, you know, like you did. Sarah, you really do not want to go back there. Not like you were.’

  ‘Mum, I am managing, I really am, apart from this Lydia thing. I actually like the house, despite the rats under the bed. And I love the island. You must see it.’

  ‘Of course, of course we will.’

  To get her off the subject, I ask about my brother Jamie: and it works. My mum laughs softly, and affectionately, and says he is sheep-farming in Australia. Or felling trees in Canada. She’s not entirely sure. It is a family joke that Jamie is so wandering, and prodigal: a family joke we use, to get us through the bad times, and the awkward conversations. Like now.

  Then Mum and me say goodbye. And I sit there in the café, and order another coffee. Wondering about this conversation I’ve just had. Why was Angus late that night arriving at Instow? Before the accident the story was: he might be working late. Yet when we tried to call him at work, he wasn’t there. It later emerged – he later explained, further – that he’d stopped by Imogen’s house, from work, to pick up some of the twins’ things: as they’d recently had a sleepover there.

  Childless Imogen always liked having children around.

  At the time I didn’t question this story. Not remotely. I had too much grieving to do; it all made sense anyway. But now?

  Imogen?

  No. This is stupid. Why am I doubting my husband? Apart from the drinking, he’s been there for us all along. Loving, devoted, resourceful, miserable, Angus. My husband. And I need to trust him, as I have no one else.

  And anyway there’s nothing more I can do about Kirstie’s troubles this minute; I’ve got to do some of my own work.

  I have to earn, by writing. Angus’s new, part-time job in Portree will bring in a few quid, but a few quid is not enough. We need more income. Consequently whatever I can add will be crucial in keeping us on Torran.