What to do?
The storm is really picking up. I can hear doors, somewhere, slamming repeatedly, and helplessly. External doors, perhaps the shed. They sound bad: as if they could break. I need to secure everything: batten down the hatches.
So I don’t have much choice what to do next. The weather is in command. Leaning across the table, I touch Lydia on the hand, to get her attention: she is wrapped up in her book, and she has stopped humming that frightening song.
‘Darling, will you wait here – there’s going to be some really bad weather tonight, and I have to go and check the cottage. Outside.’
She looks up at me, and she shrugs. Passive, distracted.
‘OK, Mummy.’
I stand and step into the bedroom and I refuse to look at the mirror. I put on a thick jumper, then my sturdiest North Face anorak. Back in the kitchen I slip on my wellingtons, then I mentally brace myself, and open the kitchen door.
The wind is ferocious. Dead leaves, slips of seaweed, knots of dead bracken are flying through the cold dark air. The lighthouse looks diminished by the booming noise of the wind. Its flickering light is no longer any comfort.
I have to secure all the external doors. But the wind is so strong it almost tips me to the side, into the slippery grass, as I shuffle around the cottage walls. I have never encountered gales like this: not in soft southern England. Occasionally the wind hurls rain right in my face: it stings like cold grit, as if someone is flinging sharpness in my face. I am being threatened.
The shed door is flapping on its rusty hinges: they sound as if they are about to break. My hands are numb with rain and cold as I close the door and slide the wooden bar across.
I once wondered why all the external doors had these wooden bars. Now I know. For the storms of Thunder Island: Eilean Torran.
My task takes me twenty minutes. The most difficult part is dragging the soggy dinghy as high as I can manage, in the dark, and the screaming gales, and the horrid wetness. As I drag the boat, I almost fall, cracking one knee on the shingles, then righting myself.
‘Jesus,’ I say. ‘Come on, Sarah!’ I am shouting these words out loud, to myself. But my words are stolen by the gale and hurled into the sea.
‘Come on!’
How high does the boat have to go, to be safe? I drag the boat all the way up to the lighthouse steps; then I weight it down with the anchor, and lash it to the lighthouse railings. My fingers are clumsy in the freezing blackness.
But there. Done. I can tie knots, just as Angus taught me.
Now I am running back, heading for the kitchen door, crouching down: tugging one side of my hood against the bitter rain. With an exultation of relief I drag myself into the kitchen, close the door behind me. The kitchen door has an internal wooden bar: I slide this across, too. The horrible moaning and howling is muffled, but still audible.
‘Mummy, I’m frightened.’
Lydia is standing in the kitchen.
‘The wind is so noisy, Mummy.’
‘Hey, it’s only a storm,’ I say, giving her a hug. ‘We’ve just got to sit it out. We’ll be fine. We’ve got food and firewood. It will be like an adventure.’
‘Is Daddy coming here to help?’
‘Not tonight, darling, but maybe tomorrow. We’ll see.’
I’m telling lies. Doesn’t matter. The mention of Angus brings me back to his words: his denial of the abuse. And then that other phrase: Ask Lydia what she told me six months ago. I have to go deeper into this: it is going to hurt Lydia, but if I don’t go deeper, her mother will go crazy, which is worse.
‘Let’s go in the living room, sweetie, I want to ask you something.’
Lydia looks up at me. Panicked.
‘Ask me what?’
I lead her into the living room and draw the curtains against the rain and the wind, and the thumps of the wind on the roof – it sounds like slates being torn away – and then in front of the fire, as we sit huddled and cuddled together on the sofa, under a blanket that still smells faintly of Beany, I ask her: ‘You know you said Daddy touched and kissed Kirstie?’
Her eyes flicker. Embarrassed?
‘Yes, Mummy.’
‘What did you mean by that?’
‘What?’
‘When you said it, did you mean—’ I search for the words. ‘Did you mean he touched and kissed her, the way Mummy and Daddy touch and kiss? Do you mean like that?’
She gives me all her attention. And her face is shocked. ‘No. No, Mummy. No! Not like that!’
‘So …’ The darkness opens wide inside me. I might have made an atrocious error. Again. ‘What did you mean, Lydie?’
‘He was just cuddling her, because you wouldn’t, Mummy. And then he shouted. That scared her. I don’t know why he shouted.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Yes, Mummy. Sure. I’m sure. He didn’t kiss her like Mummy and Daddy. No. No! Not like that!’
The darkness turns to blackness.
I take long breaths, with my eyes closed. Then I try again. ‘OK. One more question, darling. What did you tell Daddy six months ago?’
Lydia sits there. Awkward. Stiff. Not quite gazing at me. Her eyes angry and wet, and frightened.
I repeat the question. Nothing.
Just like her mother and her grandmother. Nothing.
But I am determined to do this. I’ve come so far, I must get to the end. Even if it is causing her obvious distress. My rationale is that if I do all this on the same day then maybe it will fade into her memory as just one terrible day, the Day of the Storm.
I ask again. Nothing.
I try once more.
‘Did Daddy ever ask anything about Kirstie, or did you ever tell him something about Kirstie, when he asked?’
She shakes her head. She is backing away from me: extracting herself from my embrace, edging up the sofa. The wind shrieks in the trees outside. This is horrific. I ask again. I have to know.
‘Did you tell Daddy something six months ago?’
No response.
‘Lydia?’
Silence. Then she breaks open.
‘This is what Daddy did, this is what Daddy did, you’re doing what Daddy did: STOP IT!’
What?
I reach out a hand, to calm my agitated daughter. ‘What did you say, darling? What do you mean – this is what Daddy did?’
‘Like you, like THIS, what you are doing now.’
‘Lydia, tell me—’
‘I’m not Lydia, I’m Kirstie.’
I have to ignore this.
‘Lydia, what did Daddy say, what did you say? Tell me.’
The wind throws everything at the walls and doors. It feels as if the house is going to break.
‘He did THIS. He kept asking me QUESTIONS about it, about the accident, so I told him, Mummy, I told him—’
‘What, darling?’ My blood is thumping even louder in my ears than the booms of the wind outside. ‘Just tell me what you said.’
Lydia looks at me, gravely. She seems suddenly older. A vision of the adult she will become. And now she says, ‘I told Daddy I did it, and I did, I did, I did it – I did something bad.’
‘What? What do you mean? What did you do?’
‘I told Daddy I did something bad. And I DID. Daddy didn’t do anything. But I never told him about you, nothing about you, I told him ’bout me not you so he wasn’t angry with YOU—’
‘Lydia?’
‘What??’
‘Lydia. Tell me. Now. Tell me everything.’
‘Tell you everything? But you know! You already know everything!’ The wind duets with my daughter, screaming and repeating, ‘Mummy, you know what happened. You know it!’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘Yes you do yes you do.’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘Yes you do YES YOU DO!’ My daughter is trembling, and shrieking, ‘It wasn’t just me, it was never just me.’ A sudden silence. Lydia looks straight at me. And then she scr
eams in my face. ‘MUMMY SHE DIED BECAUSE OF YOU!’
25
Angus sat in the Selkie, nursing a triple of Ardbeg: drinking by himself. The pub was virtually deserted, the only noise came from a few locals, including Gordon, finishing up their pints before they all headed home to sit out the storm. Angus had booked a berth upstairs: the Selkie was pricey in summer but a bargain in the winter depths.
He would have stayed with Josh and Molly again – they were normally very generous – but it didn’t feel right. He was too angered by Sarah’s outrageous accusation. He would make his friends uncomfortable.
Child abuse.
It was insane. The idea – the mere idea of the idea – entirely enraged him. Maybe it was a good thing he was stranded on Sleat, away from his family, because if he saw Sarah, after all these whiskies, he would probably kill her. Actually kill her. He would. He could. Just break her neck.
Now he could see his father in himself: kicking the shit out of the little woman. The difference was that he, Angus, was justified.
Child abuse.
Did you rape Kirstie?
He swooned with rage, but steadied himself with another slug of whisky. And another. What else could he do? It was all her fault, anyway.
Standing up and walking to the window, Angus gazed drunkenly through the thick glass at the island, now blurred by rain and dark.
How was his daughter doing, stuck on that island in the storm? Did Sarah have the sense to hunker down properly? Would she secure all the doors and windows, slide the necessary bolts? Would she lash the boat to the lighthouse railings? She wasn’t an idiot. Perhaps she would do all this.
But she was also unstable, and had been so since their daughter’s death. She’d recovered her senses in recent months but now she was, apparently, right back in the vortex. The whirl of her private insanity.
Child abuse.
Angus wanted to spit the words onto the floor. Bitch. Fucking cunt. Child abuse?
What lies was she pumping into his daughter right now?
He needed to get over there, and take control, but the tide was in, and the weather was too foul for anything but the biggest boat to cross in safety; Josh’s RIB was not built for gales like this. And this storm could take several days to clear.
That meant, if he had to get to Torran by boat, he would be obliged to call the authorities and seek official help. He would need the police, the coastguard, the law. But if he brought them into this mess, everything would unravel: he might – he probably would – get arrested for child abuse. And even if he managed to prove the absurdity of that allegation, the police might then ask questions about the accident, and they might discover that the sister pushed the sister, that there was a murder, however childish.
And then, everything he had striven to do – to keep the family together, despite it all – would come flying apart. Their lives would be shattered, for the second time. A whirling nightmare of police, doctors, child psychologists. Sarah would crack when her guilt was revealed, when her denial was ripped away.
And yet she might crack anyway: because of his stupid outburst.
He shouldn’t have said what he’d said about the kist. He’d just been lashing out, in his fury. Not thinking. Yet now, if she remembered this remark, and actually looked in the bottom drawer, she would see the truth and there was no guessing how she might react. Out there. When she was meant to be caring for his little girl.
Perhaps he should have destroyed the contents of the drawer, months ago. Yet he’d always kept it, in reserve. Spare ammunition. Once his daughter was safely grown up, he’d thought he might show it to her: See, here, bitch, this is what YOU did. This is what REALLY happened.
Too late.
Angus sat down, defeated, drunk, angry, trembling, on the hard uncomfortable chair. He was paralysed. He couldn’t do anything until the storm passed, could he? But he was desperate.
‘All right there, Angus?’
It was Gordon, passing out of the pub.
‘Yer girls out on Torran?’
Angus nodded. Gordon frowned.
‘Raw night for them to be alone, out there. That cottage is hellish cold in these storms.’
‘I know.’
Gordon shook his head. ‘And that thunder. Could drive a man to drink!’ He glanced at Angus’s whisky glass, and frowned again. ‘Well now. If you need any help, ye know where to call me, any time.’
‘Thanks, Gordon.’
Gordon sighed, blatantly dismayed by Angus’s attitude, then opened the door to the blasting wail of the storm, and disappeared.
Angus stared out of the window again. The wind was so strong it was ripping small branches off the trees down the way: the car park of the Selkie was a mess of leaves, and twigs, and shrivelled bracken.
What was Sarah doing on Torran? What was she doing with his daughter?
He had to get out there as soon as the tide allowed. It didn’t matter how dangerous it was: not doing anything was worse. He had to get out there and make Sarah see sense. Or calm her down. Or maybe silence her.
That, then, was his plan. Cross before dawn, at the next low tide, six a.m. And before then he would drink away the pain, and stifle the anger. Until he needed that anger.
26
I ask for the third time, maybe the fourth time. This is too much.
‘What do you mean, it was me?’
I cannot disguise the trembling fear in my voice. Lydia has now stopped screaming, stopped crying; but she is looking away from me. Leopardy is lying next to her. She picks him up and hugs him close, as if he is a better friend to her than me. Better than her own mother.
‘Lydia, what did I do? What do you mean it was me?’
‘Not saying.’
‘Come on, please. I won’t be angry.’
‘Yes, you will. Like you were before, in the kitchen at Nannan’s.’
The wind rattles the windows, like a burglar. Testing the house. Finding the weak points.
‘Lydia. Lydia, please.’
‘Nothing. No one. Nobody.’
‘Lydie-lo, please tell me. Please!’
She turns, eyes narrowed. I can hear the kitchen door rattling in the gale; the wooden bolt creaking.
‘You took the pills, remember, Mummy?’
‘Sorry?’
She shakes her head. She looks very sad, but she is not crying.
‘What do you mean, I took the pills?’
‘Everyone said you were sick, Mummy. I was frightened you were going to die like Kirstie.’
‘What pills?’
‘Special pills. Oh, Mummy, you know? Daddy kept them.’
‘He …’
Pills? I am getting the sense of dim memories, returning. I did take pills, after the accident. It was that therapist, who emailed me, who recommended the medication. Yes, I can vaguely remember that.
But why? Was there a special reason?
‘Take them again, Mummy. You were better when you took them.’
‘I really don’t know what you are talking about, Lydia. We just have to sit out the storm.’
Lydia looks at me, imploring. Very young again: wanting her mother back. ‘Mummy, I’m frightened by the storm. Please just take them. I know where Daddy kept them in the bedroom drawer. I saw him put them there for you.’
The kist. Angus’s chest of drawers. I never looked in all of it, not thoroughly. And he mentioned the bottom drawer in the phone call. I haven’t confronted this yet. Is there something else in there?
‘OK,’ I say. ‘It’s getting late now. Do you want to go to sleep?’
‘No.’
‘You sure?’
‘No.’
‘You can sleep in Mummy’s bed, if you want.’
‘No!’
Lydia is clutching Leopardy tight, as if she fears the wind will rip him from her arms. And why not? Because the moaning of the wind in the trees is like a pack of wolves. We are being stalked by the weather: it is a huge beast on the prowl, battering
the windows, seeking prey. This has been going on for six hours, and it could last for three days.
‘Want to go to bed with Leopardy.’
Thank God. Thank God.
‘OK. Then let’s do that.’
This is better: I can get Lydia to bed, then I can look in the chest of drawers. Sort this poisonous mystery once and for all: and then maybe we can both sleep through the worst of the storm; maybe we will wake up and the sky will be blue and clear, and Knoydart will sparkle with snow across Loch Hourn. I will have to apologize to Angus. What I said was awful; but he still betrayed me with Imogen.
What is in that chest of drawers?
It is surprisingly easy to get Lydia ready for bed. We run to her room and she rips off her clothes, and she dives into her pyjamas and she slips quickly under two duvets, and I tuck her in tight and she closes her eyes, with Leopardy clutched in her fists. I kiss her. She smells sweet, in a sad way. Nostalgic.
The rain thrashes at her window; I close the curtains so Lydia cannot see reflections of her dead sister. I am about to turn off the light when she opens her eyes, and says, ‘Mummy, am I becoming Kirstie?’
Sitting on the bed, I take her hand, and squeeze. ‘No. You are Lydia.’
She stares up at me, blue eyes trusting, and hopeful, and desperate. ‘But, Mummy I don’t know any more. I think I am Lydia, but sometimes Kirstie is inside me and she wants to come out and sometimes Kirstie is in the windows and sometimes she is just here, out here, with us.’
I stroke my daughter’s soft blonde hair. I’m not going to cry. Let the wind do all the lamenting: it is loud enough for all of us. I can hear terrible crashing outside: perhaps one of the doors is being wrenched away. Maybe I did not lash the boat properly. I do not especially care. We couldn’t use the boat in this weather anyway: we would drown.
‘Lydia, let’s go to sleep. Tomorrow the storm will be over, I promise, and then everything will be better. Tomorrow we can go somewhere else.’
The Ice Twins Page 26