The Ice Twins

by S. K. Tremayne

  ‘Because …?’

  ‘Because she fell from the top floor, not the middle floor. Kirstie actually told me: they were … up on the top floor, then the twins ran onto the balcony, and that’s when Kirstie pushed Lydia …’

  ‘Still don’t quite picture it.’

  Angus paused. Took a breath. And went on,

  ‘It’s like this, she pushed her off the top balcony, then she – I guess she raced down to the first floor to look over that balcony at what she’d done – as you would – and that’s when Sarah came in and found her yelling – Lydia has fallen Lydia has fallen. So that’s the explanation, that is what probably happened. Kirstie killed her sister. And it has happened in the past. I’ve done research. There is literature. Intense sibling rivalry in identical twins. Which can become murderous.’

  ‘OK. But …’ Josh was shaking his head. Angus could just about discern this, in the light from the pub. ‘What’s this got to do with the identity change?’

  ‘When Kirstie came to me and told me this, I panicked. Totally lost it. Kirstie was determined to tell her mum and her friends and her teachers – everyone. And her mum was massively unstable at the time, there was no way she could hear this. And Kirstie also wanted to tell the police, because she had intense guilt. She was falling apart, my own surviving daughter. So, yep, I panicked.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because! What happens if a six-year-old is accused of murder? What do the police do? Anything? Everything? Investigate? They would certainly investigate. There was circumstantial evidence backing her up. So I had to shut her up, calm her down, get her to disbelieve herself.’

  ‘And …?’

  ‘I did whatever I could. I stopped her talking. I told her not to tell me any more. I said I didn’t want to know. I said no one needed to know. Then I told her Lydia wasn’t really dead.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I explained that no one dies really, they go to heaven but part of them always stays with us, too. I told her about Lydia waking up in hospital, told her that was Lydie coming back. I gave her Lydia’s favourite toy – look she’s still here! I convinced her that twins are special and they don’t really die because they are the same person and if one of them survives then they are both here. I blurred the identity inside her, I told her you are Kirstie, but you will always have Lydia with you, because you are her twin sister, and now you can go on living for the two of you. And I told her all of this was a big, big secret between her and Daddy and she mustn’t say anything about this, ever again.’ Angus sat back. ‘And I told her all of this because I was scared of Kirstie telling the truth, and of my family breaking up entirely, because—’

  Angus gazed directly at the darkness of his friend’s face, and went on. ‘Imagine, Josh. Imagine if my daughter went to her mum and her grandparents and her teachers and her friends and said, “I am a murderer, help me, I killed my own sister.” That would have been us finished. For ever. We couldn’t have survived that as well as the accident. No way. No fucking way.’

  The door to the pub opened, abruptly, as a drinker departed into the night.

  At last, Josh spoke: ‘So you sowed the confusion in her head, telling her she was Lydia as well as Kirstie. And now she thinks she is Lydia, because of what you said.’

  ‘Yes. I calmed her down at the time, which is all I wanted, it did the job, but then the confusion in her head re-emerged. In the most appalling way. As her thinking she is Lydia.’

  ‘But she really is Kirstie?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What about the screaming thing?’

  ‘Just a scream. Doesn’t prove anything.’

  ‘The dog? You told me about the dog.’

  ‘Pets reattach themselves to surviving twins in different ways, they try to protect them. Also I wonder if the dog saw something. Sensed something. He was with the twins when it happened. And he’s never been the same, I know that sounds insane, but it all sounds insane.’

  ‘So Lydia really is still Kirstie.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you know this?’ Josh shook his head, again, in the dimness. ‘You know it’s a lie. You know she is really Kirstie. Yet you go along with this charade, this pretence? You even let your wife plan a funeral for Kirstie?’ His voice was sharpening, in the cold clear air. ‘Really, Gus? It’s just so fucked up. How could you do this?’

  ‘Because I have no choice! I can’t tell the truth to anyone – you’re the only one that knows. If I told Sarah, she’d probably crack up – would that help? She might hate her surviving daughter. And also, why not let Lydia live, if this keeps the peace? Let her mum have her favourite back. For now.’ Angus sighed, fiercely, and went on, ‘And you know what? Sometimes these days I actually think of her as Lydia, as if she really is Lydia, I forget. And she does act like Lydia; it happens in twins who survive a co-twin’s death. The point is: what does it matter, as long as the truth doesn’t come out, that maybe, probably, one of my daughters killed the other?’

  ‘But Kirstie is still here. Still here now. Still inside Lydia.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Stuck inside Lydia. Fighting to be heard.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Jesus,’ said Josh. ‘What a total fucking mess.’

  Angus nodded, feeling a certain exhaustion. But also a certain relief. He had shared, and yes, it felt better. But the other problems remained; the deeper truths were concealed: his own guilt; Sarah’s involvement; Sarah’s responsibility. Stuff they couldn’t tell anyone.

  The lighthouse flickered across the Sound. Angus thought of his diminished and broken family, out there, in Torran cottage. His yearning for revenge had not gone away. His child had died. And the injustice burned.

  16

  It’s Friday with a rumour of snow in the air when I go to Kylerdale School to pick up Lydia. I am desperate to help my daughter now. She needs friends, or she will be lost. She needs some reason to hope, to see a future here; she needs people to talk to who aren’t ghosts.

  I look beyond the blocky buildings to the waters of Sleat: the grey waves are scoured by the wind, everything is harsh, raw and sombre, making the gaily painted swings and wooden riding animals in the playground look totally incongruous: surreal invaders from a fatuously happy world.

  A young, pale woman is standing on her own at the gates, staring at the glass door of the school, and the cheerful signs saying Shleite and Sgoil. I recognize this woman; Lydia has pointed her out to me as being ‘Emily’s mum’: Julia Durrant.

  Emily Durrant is another blow-in, another English girl at Kylerdale, and she seems to be the only other child with whom Lydia might just have connected. She is, at least, the only child Lydia has mentioned more than once by name, whenever I have carefully, anxiously and pretend-casually quizzed my daughter; ‘Hey, how did it go today at school?’

  I have no real idea if Emily likes Lydia; probably she doesn’t. I am fairly certain none of the children at Kylerdale truly like or even know my daughter: they find her uncanny, and unsettling.

  But I have no alternatives now, and so I grip my shyness and hide it somewhere inside me, and I approach Julia Durrant with her nice purple coat and her Ugg boots. Her slender face creases with a frown, even before I speak.

  ‘Hello, I’m Sarah Moorcroft.’

  ‘Yes, hello.’

  ‘Lydia Moorcroft’s mother.’

  ‘Of course. Sorry. Yes.’

  ‘I was just wondering, would your daughter like to come on a play date tomorrow? We live on Torran Island, the one with the lighthouse, it would only be for about four hours starting maybe eleven a.m. – we’ll come and pick her up?’

  ‘Well …’

  She looks startled. Who can blame her? But I have to persist. I can’t let Lydia’s increasingly crazy loneliness go on. I must be rude, and aggressive: a horrible, pushy parent.

  ‘You see, Lydia is a bit lonely to be honest so we’d really like it if Emily would come and play with her for a day, is eleven a.m. OK?
You’ve not got anything planned? We’ll do everything, that would be great.’

  ‘Well … we had … I mean …’

  She clearly wants to say no but she is wavering, because I am hardly giving her any choice. I feel sorry for this poor woman. Confronted by me. But I need to seal the deal. So I use it.

  ‘Of course Lydia’s still deeply confused after her sister’s accident. You probably know what happened, her sister died, her twin, so she’s – just – just finding it difficult to fit in, and it would be so lovely for her to play with Emily?’

  What can Julia Durrant say now? Oh, I don’t care that your daughter has lost a sister? I don’t care that you are a grieving mother of a difficult and lonely child?

  I can see the resistance crumbling in her expression: she is embarrassed for me, she is probably pitying me – and so what? Just as long as she agrees.

  ‘OK,’ she says, forcing an unreal smile. ‘You know where we live, right, by the Post Office on the hill?’

  ‘Yes. That’s great.’ I return an equally phoney smile. ‘Lydia will be so happy. Angus, my husband, will come and pick her up at eleven and we’ll drop her off at three, before it gets dark. That’s great – thanks!’

  With that we both turn and look to the glass door as the children are released from school: as always Lydia is the last, reluctant child to emerge from the door, when all her shouting, smiling classmates have dispersed.

  I scrutinize her as she walks towards me. At least the scarring on her hands isn’t too bad.

  And now I grimace, inwardly, at my own thoughts. That is the extent of my optimism, this is me looking on the bright side: the scarring isn’t too bad.

  ‘Hello, you.’

  I put an arm around her, and guide her to the car.

  ‘Hey. How did it go at school?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Can we go home, Mummy?’

  ‘OK. Sure.’

  I turn the key and we drive away.

  ‘I’ve got some nice news for you, Moomin.’

  I look in the rear-view mirror. Lydia looks back at me. Hopeful yet sceptical. My pity grows, and I hesitate. Then I say,

  ‘Emily is coming to play, with you, tomorrow.’

  Lydia is silent as she absorbs this news. She gazes at me, mirror-wise. She blinks, once, and twice. And now I can see the softness of sad hope in her wide blue eyes. The silence goes on, as she dwells on this thought.

  I know that weekends on Torran Island are achingly lonely for Lydia, worse even than the loneliness of school; however desolated she might be in her isolation on the playground, she is still surrounded by kids and she listens to lessons and at least the teachers engage with her.

  On Torran it is just me. And Angus. And the sky and the clouds and the weeping grey seals and the whooper swans driven south by Arctic cold. I still love Torran – or, at least, I want us to love Torran, despite its harshness and pains – so I want Lydia to love it, too. And for that she needs company. On the island.

  So I hope and believe she will be pleased by this news: the weekend play date.

  At last she says: ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Someone’s coming to play with me? Play with me?’

  ‘Yes, really. With you. Her mummy asked me just now if Emily could come. Won’t that be fun?’

  My daughter gazes, and then she bursts into a big, bright, hopeful smile. The biggest smile I’ve seen on her face for many weeks. Maybe many months. Then she tries to hide the smile: she is embarrassed by how pleased she is. And I am delighted by her smile. And I am terrified. What if this goes wrong? She now has huge expectations. But I have to do it.

  I try to rein in her excitement, but it is not easy. Throughout supper she keeps asking me what time is Emily coming, and if she can come earlier – and this makes Angus irritable. But Angus is irritable, or distant, all the time now. His moods are beginning to resemble the view of Torran in a rainstorm: I can still see him, when he’s with us, he’s right there. But the details are blurred.

  Since the supper party he and I have moved further apart. I don’t know what he’s truly thinking any more. And he clearly doesn’t know what I am truly thinking any more. When we work on the house, we do it with signals and monosyllables. As if we are not fluent in the same language.

  Maybe it’s because we have endured too much pain – but we have endured it differently, individually – and now we are separated. Maybe it’s because he rather frightens me now, with his barely concealed anger – at the world, at the cottage, at life, and maybe at me. The strange thing is that I still desire him. Even as everything else in our relationship seems fractured and misshapen. Maybe there is some hope there.

  But I don’t have the energy to fix our relationship now. My thoughts are focused on my daughter.

  Eventually at nine I put Lydia to bed and I’m so exhausted by her questions and chatter I go to bed myself, soon after.

  At seven-thirty a.m. Lydia is shaking me awake, standing in the cold bedroom in her pyjamas, her face flushed and excited.

  ‘Mummy, Mummy. Where’s Emily?’

  I groan from sleep. Angus remains unconscious, on the other side of the bed.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Emily! Where is she? My new friend. Mummy, you said she is coming!’

  I swing my legs from the bed, and yawn till my jaw cracks.

  ‘Mummy?’

  ‘She’s coming, darling. But not yet.’

  ‘When is she coming, Mummy? When?’

  ‘Oh, God, soon, Lydie, soon. Let’s make you some breakfast.’

  Slipping on my dressing gown, I walk into the kitchen – and the first thing I see makes me almost vomit. There is a dead vole drowned in a jar of oil; its little corpse leaking black blood, which curlicues in the green oil. My God. Torran.

  Where do these vile rodents come from? The rats and voles, the shrews and mice; they are remorseless, and numberless. Shuddering my disgust, I open the door, and I hurl the oil and its little black corpse onto the frosty beach, to be taken by the tide, and I come back inside and I think about the day and the Big Play Date. And abruptly I realize that, even though I do not believe in God, I am actually praying.

  Please, God, make this work. Please, God, I will believe in You if You make this work.

  And now Emily is here.

  It is half past eleven and I am standing at the kitchen door and I can see Angus in the boat rounding the rocks of Salmadair, with a little person to his right: Emily Durrant. Even from a distance I can see the wariness in the little girl, in her posture. Lydia didn’t go on the boat because she wants to welcome Emily to her island, on her island.

  Lydia and I walk down to the lighthouse beach to greet Emily Durrant. My daughter is jumping up and down in her blue wellingtons. The day is clammy and misty, but at least it isn’t raining: the girls will be able to explore the rock pools, touch the fossils in the stones, they will comb the beach for all its rich treasures: plastic bottles of Nestlé water, fish boxes from Peterhead and Lossiemouth, antlers discarded by stags after the rut, floating on the tide from Jura.

  I call out, ‘Hello, Emily!’

  The small, freckled, red-haired girl gives me a shy, uncertain glance as Angus helps her from the boat. By my side, Lydia is staring at Emily as if Emily is a celebrity. Lydia is amazed, wondrous, dazzled, an actual new friend! Come to her island! Emily is in a new black anorak, and new black wellingtons.

  ‘Lydia, say hello to Emily.’

  ‘Hello-Emily-thank-you-for-coming-thank-you!’ My daughter says, all at once, and then she rushes forward and she hugs Emily and this is obviously too much and too gauche, for Emily Durrant, because she actively pushes Lydia away, with a scowl. Quickly I intervene, and separate the girls, and take them both by the hand, and then I say, brightly, ‘Right, let’s go inside, shall we have some orange juice? Some biscuits? Then, Lydia, you can show Emily all your favourite rock pools!’

  ‘Yes yes!’
says Lydia, bouncing up and down. ‘Emily, do you want to see all our rock pools?’

  Emily shrugs, unsmiling, as we trudge to the kitchen door. Then she says, ‘All right.’

  I feel serious sympathy for little Emily: this girl isn’t being cruel or cold, she simply doesn’t know my daughter, she has been forced into this play date. But I can’t let this stop me. I just hope Lydia’s inner niceness, and bashful charm – the charm of my lovely sweet daughter, so delicate and funny when you get to know her – will do the hard work, and form a bond.

  Angus offers me a stare as he passes into the cottage; as if this play date is going to be my fault if it doesn’t succeed. Ignoring this, I give the girls their biscuits and juice and then I button up their coats, so I can send them out onto the rocks and beaches to play; I’m trying to sound as affable and relaxed and we-do-this-all-the-time-ish as possible.

  ‘Thank you, Mummy, thank you, Mummy!’

  Lydia is trembling with happiness as I do up her coat: she is so thrilled by the thought of her new playmate. In contrast, Emily stands there mute and resentful, but trying to be as polite as a seven-year-old can, which is: not very polite. She mumbles a minor thanks for the food and drink, and she slowly follows my unusually noisy daughter out of the kitchen door.

  ‘C’mon, Emily, we’ve got crab shells and everything and mussels and seals, can I show you? Can I?’

  It is painful to hear Lydia’s supplications, her neediness. So I close the kitchen door and meditate on my hopes, wishing them away. I must not expect too much.

  Angus hovers into the kitchen; pecks me on the cheek; his stubble is prickly, not sexy. He says, ‘I’ve got to see Josh at the site in Tokavaig, then go to Portree in the morning. Planning office. Might stay overnight.’

  ‘OK.’

  I suppress my envy. He gets to do stuff. I have to look after Lydia.

  ‘But I’ll be back to pick up Emily.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘About three.’