The Ice Twins

by S. K. Tremayne

  We walk through the gloom and wet of the dining room, and the murk of the kitchen. The rain is dripping from the ceiling. The whole place is crumbling in the storm. It is time for us to leave.

  Tightly clutching hands, Lydia and I pull open the kitchen door, and step into the hurling rain; straight into the black and howling wind.

  Everything out here is as cold as ice.

  27

  Angus zipped his raincoat, and buttoned it, too. Then he realized that he was going to need many more levels of clothing than this, to fight the wind and rain, to cross the mudflats at six a.m. in the dark.

  He was so drunk, his judgement was failing him. He undid his coat, and sat back down on the bed, listening to the wailing of the wind outside the Selkie. It resembled the hooting of a bunch of kids, trying to sound like ghosts.

  The sound was quite convincing.

  One more drink.

  He reached for the bottle, nearly knocked it over, and poured himself a final glass of Ardbeg. The peaty, spicy whisky burned down his throat and he grimaced as he stood up, once more.

  Another zip-up top, another jumper. Then his raincoat, again.

  Now he grabbed for his boots, slightly swaying, and laced them tight. They were good, waterproof hiking boots, but they would not keep out the cold, seeping waters of the Torran mudflats. He was going to get horribly wet. But that was tolerable, as long as he made it out there, under cover of dark. Where he would do what he had to do. To save his daughter.

  Angus was the only person around as he pushed open the front door of the hotel – against the resisting storm, out into the blackness; the Selkie was silenced by the booming of the wind.

  Lights on a wire swung, crazily, in the gale. Torran lighthouse blinked through the murk.

  Angus began the walk, down the pier, along the shingle and mud towards Salmadair. The cold dripped down his neck; the mist and rain grew denser as he waded out onto the gaping, endless mudflats.

  Was he going the right way? The torch was heavy in his numb hands. He should have worn the head torch, as well. This was a stupid, foolish error. He was very drunk, and making elementary mistakes. And basic errors on these mudflats would be bad.

  He looked left, and saw black shapes. In the dark. Black on grey. These were surely boats. But then the wind howled, in the firs of Camuscross, and it sounded like Beany, still alive, still lost on the mud.

  ‘Beany?’ He couldn’t help himself. He loved that dog. ‘Beany? Beano!’

  He was shouting into the void. He was now ankle-deep in mud. And he was lost, and drunk, and in trouble.

  Angus lifted his boot from the sucking glop and hiked on, desperate now, flinching against the bitterness of the wind, and the rain. No. He was lost. The lighthouse was invisible. Had he gone the wrong way round the bay? Was he heading into the same place where he nearly drowned, trying to save Beany?

  There.

  A figure? He was sure he could see a figure. Maybe two figures, an adult and a child. Both of them were hunched against the ferocious wind. But why would an adult and a child be out here, walking across these dreadful muds, in the storm, in the pre-dawn darkness?

  It could only be Sarah and Kirstie. And now he could hear his daughter, calling him. He knew that voice so well. Dada Dada Dada. Carried on the wind.

  Dada.

  She was calling him, pleading for him. But could he see her?

  He could make out the cold rocks of Salmadair, a lighter grey in the general black. Kirstie and Sarah must be on Salmadair, he just had to reach them and get them all back to the mainland.

  ‘Darling, I’m coming. Hold on!’

  Dada.

  Angus pulled up short. Gazing into the chains of rain. The figures had completely disappeared. The mist was whorling in places, like flaws in ice. Perhaps he had imagined it? Perhaps there was no one crossing here. It certainly didn’t make sense that they would be out here. Why would Sarah and Kirstie leave the cottage to step into this horrific storm? A pointless risk.

  And the noise? The voice?

  Perhaps it was just the wind. All he could hear was howling. Yes, it might be dogs or children, but it might just be the wind. He was deceived by his fear and desperation.

  Leaning low to the gale, Angus trudged on. Slipping left, he pushed a hand into thick mud. Like wet cement. Leaving his mark. And now his right foot plunged into a depth of water: sudden, and sharp, and icy.

  Angus cringed, and lifted his heavy, soaking boot from the seawater. Was the tide coming in already? No. That didn’t add up. But how long had he been out here? His sense of time was slipping; he was tired and still drunk, and deafened by the disorienting gales. The rain and mist were so intense, the lighthouse beam was quite obscured.

  Or maybe that was it over there: a dull pale throbbing in the grey; like something ominous underwater, like something bad on an X-ray.

  For a second the fog split open.

  There. That was definitely the lighthouse. And it was not so far away. He was almost around Salmadair. Once he made it to the causeway, it would be easier.

  But again he could see a smear of movement, just one figure, rather small, moving in the greyness. Yet the smear of darkness was moving strangely. Left, and then right. Darting. And fast. Not like a child. More like a dog? Was it Beany? Then the movement stopped. And it was gone.

  He clambered, painfully, to the top of the rock, where the mist was even thicker.

  Whatever it was, it had gone. But now a real gleam of light showed him the way. The lighthouse was truly close: he was running up the causeway, the mud had yielded to rocks and pebbles; the wind was still driving and the rain was still intense, but the beam of the lighthouse displayed the route, every nine seconds.

  Up, up, up.

  There. He was on the island. There were lights glimmering, in the cottage. In the bedroom? His and Sarah’s bedroom?

  Angus crouched against the wet and sprinted up the path. The kitchen door was open, flapping hysterically in the brutal wind.

  Why had Sarah left the door open? In this storm?

  He stepped over the threshold, into the kitchen. The floor was wet, there was water everywhere. His torch showed why: a huge gash in the dining-room ceiling, a great beam of timber protruding.

  ‘Kirstie?’

  He was shouting against the wind that boomed outside.

  ‘Kirstie! Sarah! Lydia! It’s me!’

  Nothing. No one answered. The house was empty. They had gone? Did that explain the two figures he’d maybe seen on the mudflats? Had he just seen his wife and daughter?

  ‘Lydia!’ He tried one last time. ‘Sarah!’

  Again, nothing. What about the bedroom? That’s where he’d seen the light. Running through the dining room, he kicked open the bedroom door, and stared, from bed to chair, and from wall to wall, where the Scottish chieftain raised his hand at the crucifix.

  The room was empty. The light was on, and the bedding was disturbed. But whoever had been here had recently left.

  The house was empty. He’d lost them. They might both die on the flats.

  Then he heard the voice. Coming from the far end of Torran cottage.

  ‘I’m still here. I’m still in here!’

  Six Months Later

  28

  It’s the first fine day of the summer. The spring has been so wet; endless days of drizzle, and grey. But now the air sparkles, and the hills of Knoydart shine bright across the Sound.

  Sgurr an Fhuarain, Sgurr Mor, Fraoch Bheinn.

  As we get nearer to Torran, I look to the lighthouse. Just as Molly told me, the railings have been recently repaired. And there is evidence of more building work: big piles of bricks and planks, wheelbarrows parked on the beach. As it’s the weekend, our builders are absent.

  The new dinghy beaches gently on the shingle. I offer a hand, but Kirstie says,

  ‘No, I can do it by myself now.’

  She climbs out of the boat. Together we walk up the heathery path, and push the kitc
hen door.

  A breeze greets me. Like the building is exhaling. Like it has been waiting for me, holding its breath.

  But this is my delusion. The breeze comes from that hole in the roof: it forms a wind tunnel. The thin place is thinner than ever; the wildness is reclaiming it.

  ‘It’s cold in here,’ says Kirstie.

  She’s right. The day is warm but Torran cottage is still unwarmable.

  Together we edge into the dining room. Most of this building work, so far, has been done to the exterior; the interior is much as it was that night. The dining room is entirely wrecked: the rafter that plunged through the dining-room ceiling still protrudes, like a bone in a gruesome fracture. Kirstie gazes around.

  ‘Look at the mess!’

  This is my third or fourth reluctant visit, since the storm. I’m putting the traumas of the past behind us; but coming to the island roils these thoughts, again. Torran cottage unnerves me, now. I cannot tolerate being here more than an hour.

  Because the memories of that night, and the final hike through those evil gales, will never fade.

  ‘What are we waiting for?’

  Kirstie is tugging my sleeve, impatiently. I smile, to disguise my anxiety.

  ‘Nothing, sweetheart, nothing at all. You go and find any toys left behind, this is probably your last visit.’

  And she runs off down the hall.

  Now I push the door into the living room. Trying to fend off the grief and the fear, trying to be a responsible parent. A single parent. As that is now my job.

  We are selling the island, after the renovation is done.

  Josh and Molly have sold their plot on Tokavaig, and invested that cash in Torran. This has allowed us to develop the lighthouse-keeper’s cottage. Half of the building will be torn down: the damage has, ironically, allowed us to avoid the conservation order. The work should be completed next year. We hope to sell it for two million, at least, and divide the profits equally.

  Kirstie and I will be financially secure. Any real monetary anxiety will be gone. All monetary anxiety.

  The building whispers, as the wind flutes through the hole in the roof. Quickly I pass into the main bedroom – with the Admiral’s Bed. I glance at the mirror. It’s still here for a very good reason: I don’t want it. The mirror represents too many unsettling memories of those tragic weeks.

  How many false reflections did we all see, that month we lived on Torran? The abuse, the murder, it was all lies, reflected back and forth; or maybe it was the transparency that confused us: we saw one child through the other: but flawed, and distorted, like seeing things through ice.

  Poor Lydia fell. My daughter fell because she climbed down from the top-floor balcony; because she wanted to see her mother. Kirstie pushed her off, to save herself, but it wasn’t murder.

  I suppress the shudders of guilt, and regret.

  The bedroom here in Torran is even colder than the dining room. The Scottish chieftain raises his hand to me – go away, go away. I am keen to obey. When I reach the hall, Kirstie comes running along. She’s in yellow leggings and a blue denim skirt. Her favourite clothes.

  ‘Have you got the toys you want?’

  Kirstie says,

  ‘There was only one toy left. Under the bed.’

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘Desmond the Dragon.’

  The little dragon.

  ‘Not sure I want it anyway.’

  She takes the dragon from her One Direction rucksack; I put it in my pocket; I have an urge to throw it away, like something poisonous.

  Besides, she is maybe grown out of little toys: Kirstie is eight years old. She has just a few years of childhood left, and I want us to make the most of these years. We are settled in a good, solid house in Ornsay; and Kirstie is now at an excellent school in Broadford. It’s a twenty-minute drive, every morning, but I don’t mind. The idea of her going back to Kylerdale was disturbingly ridiculous.

  Though, strangely enough, she now has friends in the village: kids who knew her at Kylerdale. She is popular. The girl with the story. Kirstie was always that bit more buoyant than Lydia.

  ‘I found something for Beany too.’

  ‘You did?’

  She looks in the rucksack again, and takes out a plastic bone. One of Beany’s toys.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say, taking the toy. ‘Beano will love that.’

  Beany is waiting for us at the pub, being indulged by Gordon and the locals. His survival is a miracle. The day after the storm, he re-emerged at the Selkie, loping up the pier, muddy, freezing, shivering; like a sodden ghost of a hound. But he is not unmarked. He never comes to the island, he whimpers whenever I try to take him on the boat, or offer to walk him across the mudflats.

  Beany’s toy is in my jacket pocket. Together Kirstie and I walk out of the cottage, closing the damp kitchen door. It strikes me that one day soon I will close this same door for good – when we sell the island.

  I am satisfied with this.

  I will always revere Torran, I will always gaze in admiration at its daunting beauty from the seats outside the Selkie. But I am content to keep it at a distance. Torran has defeated us, with its winds and vermin, with its thunders booming down the Sound from Ardvasar.

  I hold Kirstie’s hand, very tight, as we walk down to the lighthouse beach. As if the island may try to stop her going.

  ‘OK then, Kirstie-koo. Let’s get home.’

  ‘Don’t call me that, call me Kirstie!’

  The ropes untied, we climb into the boat. With a couple of tugs I get the outboard whirring.

  Kirstie is sitting in the back of the boat, she’s humming her favourite tune. A pop song, I think. I sigh with barely concealed relief as we steer away from the island. Silence absorbs us. Then a grey seal rises a few yards upstream.

  My daughter looks at the seal, and she smiles, and it is very definitely Kirstie’s smile: pert, mischievous, alive. She is definitely getting better. Therapy has helped her recover. She no longer feels that Lydie’s fall was her fault, we’ve convinced her of that. But that still leaves my appalling error. I blurred her identity; I made that mistake. One day I will have to forgive myself.

  The seal has disappeared. Kirstie turns away. And now her face clouds with some further, darker emotion.

  ‘What is it sweetheart?’

  Kirstie stares beyond me, at Torran.

  Slowly, she says:

  ‘Lydia came back, didn’t she?’

  ‘Yes, she did. Just for a bit.’

  ‘But she’s gone now, and I’m Kirstie again. Aren’t I?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘That is who you are. And you always were.’

  Kirstie is quiet. The outboard motor churns the clear water. Then she says:

  ‘I miss Mummy. And Lydie.’

  ‘I know,’ I say. ‘So do I, darling.’

  And it’s true. I do. I miss them every day. But we have what we have, and we have each other.

  And we still have little secrets, that might never be revealed. Kirstie’s secret is the night of the storm, she has never told me exactly what happened, and what was said in the house, that last night; I have long stopped asking, for fear of upsetting her. Why go back? Why dig it all up?

  Equally, I have never told Kirstie the entire truth about her mother.

  When I found Kirstie, huddled in the cottage, she apparently had no idea where her mother was. So I searched the house, looking for clues. And finally, as morning paled the mainland skies, Josh and Gordon came over in Gordon’s skiff, and rescued us from Torran: ferrying us back to warmth and safety at Josh’s house.

  And then we heard about Sarah, before the search parties had properly started.

  Her body was spotted by a fisherman, floating by the beach at Camuscross. Immediately after that, the police took over Torran. I left them to it, shielding myself and Kirstie from the journalists and the detectives. We hid ourselves in Josh’s house, staring at the shivering rowans beyond the big windows.

 
Within a week the police reached their conclusion: Sarah had quit the cottage, for whatever reason – perhaps in some strange attempt to get help; but she had fallen in the mud and the darkness, and drowned. It was so easily done. Too easily done. It was an accident.

  But was it, truly? I am haunted by that phrase I heard at the Freedlands’: All love is a form of suicide. Maybe Sarah wanted to join her dead daughter. Or maybe she was deranged with guilt, by what she read in the bottom drawer of the kist. I found the letter from her doctor, scattered on the floor of the bedroom, that same night I found Kirstie. I destroyed it.

  The questions will plague me, always: would she really leave her daughter behind in the cottage? Did I really see one or two figures, through the mist, as I made my own way to Torran?

  There will never be an answer. Though there were clues, and these are the clues I will not reveal to Kirstie. Not as long as I live.

  When they found Sarah’s solitary body, floating in the tide, they found her holding Lydia’s pink coat, by the sleeve.

  And when the forensic scientists conducted the post mortem, they discovered sad, wet strands of fine blonde hair, clutched in Sarah’s fingers, as if she had been grasping desperately at someone in those final minutes: trying to save her child from drowning.

  Kirstie is looking south, to Mallaig; I have my back to Torran island.

  It is a fine, calm day in early June; the skies are mirrored in the silent sea lochs. And yet a cold wind still whips off those beautiful hills.

  Sgurr an Fhuarain, Sgurr Mor, Fraoch Bheinn.

  About the Author

  S. K. Tremayne is a bestselling novelist and award-winning travel writer, and a regular contributor to newspapers and magazines around the world. Born in Devon, the author now lives in London.