The Ice Twins

Who was to blame? Maybe me; maybe Angus; maybe sex itself. Of course I was expecting our love-life to suffer, when the twins arrived – but I didn’t expect it to die entirely. Yet it did. After the birth Angus became a kind of sexual exile. He did not want to touch me, and when he did, it was as if my body was a new, difficult, less pleasant proposition, something to be handled with scientific care. Once, I caught sight of him in a mirror, looking at me: he was assessing my changed and maternal nakedness. My stretch marks, and my leaking nipples. A grimace flashed across his face.

For too long – almost a year – we went entirely without lovemaking.

When the twins began sleeping through the night, and when I felt nearer to myself again, I tried to instigate it; yet he refused with weak excuses: too tired, too drunk, too much work. He was never home.

And so I found sex elsewhere, for a few brief evenings, stolen from my loneliness. Angus was immersed in a new project at Kimberley and Co, blatantly ignoring me, always working late. I was desperately isolated, still lost down the black hole of early motherhood, bored of microwaving milk bottles. Bored of dealing with two screaming tots, on my own. An old boyfriend called up, to congratulate the new mother. Eagerly I seized on this minor excitement, this thrill of the old. Oh, why not come round for a drink, come and see the twins? Come and see me?

Angus never found out, not of his own volition: I ended the perfunctory affair, and simply told my husband, because the guilt was too much, and, probably, because I wanted to punish my husband. See how lonely I have been. And the irony is that my hurtful confession saved us, it refuelled our sex life.

Because, after that confession, his perception of me reverted: now I wasn’t just a boring, bone-weary, conversation-less new mother any more, I was once again a prize, a sexual possession, a body carnally desired by a rival. Angus took me back; he seized me and recaptured me. He forgave me by fucking me. Then we had our marital therapy; and we got our show back on the road. Because we still loved each other.

But I will always wonder what permanent damage I did. Perhaps we simply hid the damage away, all those years. As a couple, we are good at hiding.

And now here I am: back in the attic, staring at all the hidden boxes that contain the chattels of our dead daughter. But at least I have decided something: storage. That’s what we will do with all this stuff.

It is a cowardly way out, neither one thing nor the other, but I cannot bear to haul Lydia’s toys to far northern Scotland – why would I do that? To indulge the passing strangeness of Kirstie? Yet consigning them to oblivion is cruel and impossible.

One day I will do this, but not yet.

So storage it is.

Enlivened by this decision I get to work. For three hours I box and tape and unpack and box things up again, then I grab a quick meal of soup and yesterday’s bread, and I pick up my mobile. I am pleased by my own efficiency. I have one more duty to do, just one more doubt to erase. Then all this silliness is finished.

‘Miss Emerson?’

‘Hello?’

‘Um, hi, it’s Sarah. Sarah Moorcroft?’

‘Sorry. Sarah. Yes, of course. And call me Nuala, please!’

‘OK …’ I hesitate. Miss Emerson is Kirstie’s teacher: a bright, keen, diligent twenty-something. A source of solace in the last horrible year. But she has always been ‘Miss Emerson’ to the kids – and now to Kirstie – so it always seems dislocating to use her first name. I find it persistently awkward. But I need to try. ‘Nuala.’

‘Yes.’

Her voice is brisk; it is 5 p.m. Kirstie is in after-school club, but her teacher will still have work to do.

‘Uhm. Can you spare a minute? It’s just that I have a couple of questions, about Kirstie.’

‘I can spare five, it’s no problem. What is it?’

‘You know we are moving very soon.’

‘To Skye? Yes. And you have another school placement?’

‘Yes, the new school is called Kylerdale, I’ve checked all the Ofsted reports, it’s bilingual, in English and Gaelic. Of course it won’t be anything like St Luke’s, but …’

‘Sarah. You had a question?’

Her tone is not impatient. But it expresses busyness. She could be doing something else.

‘Uh, yes. Sorry, yes, I did.’

I stare out of the living-room window, which is half open.

The rain has stopped. The tangy, breezy darkness of an autumn evening encroaches. The trees across the street are being robbed of their leaves, one by one. Clutching the phone a little harder, I go on,

‘Nuala, what I wanted to ask was …’ I tense myself, as if I am about to dive into very cold water. ‘Have you noticed anything odd about Kirstie recently?’

A moment passes.

‘Odd?’

‘You know, er, odd. Er …’

This is pitiful. But what else can I say? Oh, hey, Miss Emerson, has Kirstie started claiming she is her dead sister?

‘No, I’ve seen nothing odd.’ Miss Emerson’s reply is gentle. Dealing with bereaved parents. ‘Of course Kirstie still misses her sister, anyone can see that, but in the very challenging circumstances I’d say your daughter is coping quite well. As well as can be expected.’

‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘I have just one last question.’

‘OK.’

I steel myself, once again. I have to ask about Kirstie’s reading. Her rapid improvement. That too has been bugging me.

‘So, Nuala, what about Kirstie’s skill levels, her development. Have you noticed anything different, any recent changes? Changes in her abilities? In class?’

This time there is silence. A long silence.

Nuala murmurs. ‘Well …’

‘Yes?’

‘It’s not dramatic. But there is, I think – I think there’s one thing I could mention.’

The trees bend and suffer in the wind.

‘What is it?’

‘Recently I’ve noticed that Kirstie has got a lot better at reading. In a short space of time. It’s a fairly surprising leap. And yet she used to be very good at maths, and now she is … not quite so good at that.’ I can envisage Nuala shrugging, awkwardly, at her end of the line. She goes on, ‘And I suppose you could say that is unexpected?’

I say, perhaps, what we are both thinking: ‘Her sister used to be good at reading and not so good at maths.’

Nuala says, quietly, ‘Yes, yes, that is possibly true.’

‘OK. OK. Anything else? Anything else like this?’

Another painful pause, then Nuala says: ‘Yes, perhaps. Just the last few weeks, I’ve noticed Kirstie has become much more friendly with Rory and Adelie.’

The falling leaves flutter. I repeat the names. ‘Rory. And. Adelie.’

‘That’s right, and they were,’ Nuala hesitates, then continues, ‘well, they were Lydia’s friends, really, as you no doubt know. And Kirstie has rather dropped her own friends.’

‘Zola? Theo?’

‘Zola and Theo. And it was pretty abrupt. But really, these things happen all the time, she’s only seven, your daughter, fairly young for her year.’

‘OK.’

My throat is numbed. ‘OK.’ I repeat. ‘OK. I see.’

‘So please don’t worry. I wouldn’t have mentioned this if you hadn’t asked about Kirstie’s development.’

‘No.’

‘For what it’s worth, Sarah, my professional guess is that Kirstie is, in some way, compensating for the absence of her sister, almost trying to be her sister, so as to replace her, to moderate the grief. Thus, for instance, she has worked to become a better reader, to fill that gap. I’m not a child psychologist – but, as I understand it, this might not be unusual.’

‘No. No. Yes.’

‘And all children grieve in their own way. This is probably just part of the healing process. So, when are you leaving? It’s very soon, yes?’

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘This weekend.’

The phone feels heavy in my hand.

I gaze at the elegant houses across the street; the parked cars glinting under the streetlights. The twilight is now complete. The sky is clear. I can see all the many plane lights circling London, like little red sparks: rising from a vast and invisible fire.

4

Angus Moorcroft parked outside the Selkie Hotel, climbed from his cheap, tinny rental car – hired last night at Inverness Airport – and gazed across the mudflats, and the placid waters, to Torran. The sky was clean of cloud, giving a rare glimpse of northern sun: on a cold November day. Despite the clarity of the air, the cottage was only just visible, peering above the seaweedy rocks, with the white lighthouse behind.

With a hand shielding the sun, Angus squinted at his family’s new home. But a second car disturbed his thoughts – squealing to a stop, and parking. An old blue Renault.

His friend Josh Freedland got out, wearing a chunky Arran jumper, and jeans faintly floured with the dust of granite, or slate, or marble. Angus waved, and briefly looked down at his own jeans. He was going to miss good suits and silk ties.

Josh approached.

‘The white settler has arrived!’

The two men hugged, slapping backs. Angus apologized for his own lateness, for missing the original flight – Josh told him not to worry.

This response had a certain irony, in Angus’s mind. There was a time when it was Josh who was always late. When Josh was the most unreliable man in Great Britain. Everything was changing.

As one, they both turned, and gazed at the view across the Sound.

Angus murmured. ‘You know, I’d forgotten just how beautiful it is.’

‘So, when was the last time you were here?’

‘With you. And the gang. That last summer holiday.’

‘Really?’ Josh smiled, in frank surprise. ‘Junkie overboard! Junkie overboard!’

It was a catchphrase from that memorable holiday: when they’d come up here as college kids, to Angus’s granny’s island. They’d spent an epic weekend drinking too much, laughing too much, being obnoxious and loud, annoying the locals – and having enormous fun. They’d nearly sunk the rowing boat as they sculled back from the Selkie in the sweet, violet, Scottish summer gloaming: the twilight that never went totally black. Seals had emerged: perpendicular, and observing them. ‘Junkie overboard’ was born from one spectacularly intoxicated episode, when Josh, completely mashed on Ecstasy, had tried to embrace one of these seals, then fallen in the cold black water – at maybe 11 p.m.

It was a potentially lethal accident, but they were twenty-one years old and obviously immortal. So Josh just swam to the island, fully clothed – and then they’d got drunk, all over again, in that cranky, beautiful lighthouse-keeper’s cottage.

‘How long ago was that? Fifteen years? Jesus!’ Josh was chatting away, hands in pockets. The cool sunny wind tousled his ginger Jewish hair. ‘But we had fun, didn’t we? All that cider we drank in Coruisk. You seen any of the gang?’

‘Not so much.’

Angus could have added for obvious reasons. But he didn’t have to. Josh knew all the facts.

This last year, following Lydia’s death, Angus had turned to Josh, above all others: for long consoling phone calls, and the odd one-sided session in the pub, when Josh came down to London. And Josh had done his duty, listening to Angus talking about Lydia. Talking until the words turned to spit, until the words were a bodily fluid being purged, drooling from his mouth; talking until whisky and sleep blotted everything.

Josh was the only man who had seen Angus really cry about his dead daughter: one, dark, terrifying evening, when the nightflower of anguish had opened, and bloomed. A taboo had been broken that night, maybe in a good way. A man crying in front of a man, snot running, tears streaming.

And now?

Josh was checking something on his phone. Angus surveyed distant Torran Island once more. It was a long way across the mudflats: much further than he remembered. He’d have to walk down to the foreshore, then hike all the way around the big tidal island of Salmadair, then cross the causeway to the smaller, secondary tidal island of Torran. It would take thirty or forty minutes at the very least.

And this walking distance mattered, because the old island rowboat had long ago rotted to nothing. Which meant they had no boat. And until they acquired a new boat, he, Sarah and Kirstie would have to trek these dank, slippy, treacherous mudflats to access the island, and they could only do that at low tide.

‘Know anyone with a cheap dinghy? To sell?’

Josh looked up from his phone.

‘Mate, you haven’t sorted a boat?’

‘No.’

‘Gus, come on. Really? How can you live on Torran without a boat?’

‘We can’t. But we’ll just have to, until I buy one. And money is an issue.’

‘I can give you a lift in mine, right now?’

‘No, I want to walk across the mudflats. Test it.’

Angus’s friend was tilting his head, offering a sceptical smile.

‘You do remember those mudflats are dangerous, right?’

‘Er. Yeah.’

‘Seriously, Gus, at night – after civil twilight – you don’t want to cross those mudflats. Even with a torch, you could break an ankle on rocks, get stuck in the mud, and then you’re fucked.’

‘Josh—’

‘In Skye, no one can hear you scream: half the houses along the shore are empty. Holiday homes. In winter the tide will come in, cold and lethal: you’d drown.’

‘Josh! I know all this. It’s my island! Practically lived here as a boy.’

‘But you nearly always came in summer, no? In winter, days are five hours long, or less. Mate. Think about it. Even with a boat, Torran can be very tricky in winter. You can still be stranded for days.’

‘All right. Aye. I know winters are tough. I know it won’t be easy. But I don’t care.’

Josh laughed. ‘Sure. I get it. I think.’

Angus pressed on: ‘So, you mentioned, on the phone, the tides. This afternoon?’

Josh glanced at the receding sea, then back at Angus. ‘I emailed you a link earlier: official Mallaig tide tables, with all the details.’

‘Haven’t had a chance to check: on the go since breakfast.’

Josh nodded. He was training his gaze, thoughtfully, on the mudflats and the seaweed, drying in the feeble sun. ‘OK. Well, low-tide today is four p.m. You’ve got an hour either side of that, max. So we have half an hour to kill; till about three.’

Another silence descended between them, momentarily. Angus knew what came next. Gently, his friend enquired: ‘… how’s Kirstie?’

Of course. This is what you have to ask. How’s Kirstie? How is Kirstie?

What should he say?

He wanted to tell the truth. Maybe six months ago Kirstie had begun behaving very peculiarly. Something truly strange and disturbing had happened to his surviving daughter: to her persona. Things got so bad Angus nearly went to a doctor: and then, at the last moment, Angus had found a remedy. Of sorts.

But Angus was unable to tell anyone, not even Josh. Especially not Josh, because Josh would tell Molly, his wife, and Molly and Sarah were fairly intimate. And Sarah could not be allowed to know about this; she must not be told, ever. He simply didn’t trust her with this. He hadn’t trusted her, for so many months, in so many ways.

So it had to be lies. Even with Josh.

‘Kirstie’s good. Given the situation.’

‘OK. And Sarah? Is she doing, y’know, all right now? Doing better?’

Another inevitable question.

‘Yes. She’s fine. We’re all fine. Really looking forward to moving.’ Angus spoke as calmly as he could. ‘Kirstie wants to see a mermaid. Or a seal. A seal would probably do.’

‘Hah.’

‘Anyway. We’ve got time to kill? Shall we have a coffee?’

‘Uh-huh. You’ll notice a few changes in here,’ Josh said, as he pushed the creaking door of the pub.

He wasn’t wrong. As they stepped inside the Selkie, Angus gazed around: surprised.

The old, stained, cosy, herring-fisherman’s pub was transformed. The piped pop music was replaced with piped modern folk – bodhrans and fiddles. The muddy carpeted floor had evolved into expensive grey slates.

At the other end of the bar a chalked sign advertised ‘squab lobster’; and in between the boxes of leaflets from local theatres, and stacks of pamphlets on sea-eagle spotting, a chubby teenage girl stood behind the beer-pumps, toying sullenly with her nose-ring – and obviously resenting the fact she had to take Josh’s order for coffees.

The metamorphosis was impressive, but not exceptional. This was yet another boutique hotel and gastropub, aiming itself at rich tourists seeking the Highlands and Islands experience. It was no longer the scruffy, vinegar-scented local boozer of two decades back.

Though, as it was mid-November, and a weekday afternoon, locals were the only clients to service, right now.

‘Yes, both with milk, thanks, Jenny.’

Angus glanced across to the corner. Five men, of varying ages and virtually identical crew-neck jumpers, sat at a large round wooden table. The pub was otherwise deserted. The men were silent as they squinted back at Angus over their pints.

Then they turned to each other, like conspirators, and started talking again. In a very foreign language.

Angus tried not to gawp. Instead he asked Josh, ‘Gaelic?’

‘Yep. You hear it a lot in Sleat these days, there’s a new Gaelic college down the road. And the schools teach it, of course.’ Josh grinned, discreetly. ‘But I bet they were speaking English before we walked in. They do it as a joke, to wind up the incomers.’

Josh lifted a hand and waved at one of the men, a stubbled, stout, handsome guy, in his mid-forties.

‘Gordon. All right?’

Gordon turned, and offered his own, very taciturn smile.

‘Afternoon, Joshua. Afternoon. Ciamar a tha thu fhein?’

‘Absolutely. My aunt was struck by lightning.’ Josh tutted, good-naturedly. ‘Gordon, you know I’ll never learn it.’

‘Aye, but maybe one day ye can give it a try now, Josh.’

‘OK, I will, I promise. Let’s catch up soon!’

The coffees had arrived: proffered by the bored bar-girl. Angus stared at the twee little cups in Josh’s rough, red, stonemason’s hands.

Angus yearned for a Scotch. You were meant to drink Scotch, in Scotland, it was expected. Yet he felt awkward downing booze, in the afternoon, with sober Josh.

It was a slightly paradoxical feeling: because Josh Freedland hadn’t always been sober. There was a time when Josh had been the very opposite of sober. Whereas the rest of the gang from Uni – including Angus – had mildly dabbled in drugs, then got bored and returned to booze, Josh had spiralled from popping pills at parties, into serious heroin addiction: and into darkness and dereliction. For years it seemed that Josh was slated for total failure, or worse – and no could save him, much as they tried, especially Angus.

But then, abruptly, at the age of 30, Josh had saved himself. With Narcotics Anonymous.

And Josh had gone for sobriety the same way he’d gone for drugs: with total commitment. He did his sixty meetings in sixty days. He completed the twelve-step programme, and entrusted himself to a higher power. Then he’d met a nice, affluent young woman in an NA meeting, in Notting Hill – Molly Margettson. She was a cocaine addict, but she was cleaning her scene, like Josh.

They’d promptly fallen in love, and soon after that Josh and Molly had married, in a small poignant ceremony, and then they’d exited London, stage north. They’d used the money from selling her flat in Holland Park to buy a very nice house, here in Sleat, right on the water’s edge, half a mile from the Selkie, in the middle of the place they had all loved: near to Angus’s grandmother’s island.

The beautiful Sound of Sleat, the most beautiful place on earth.

Now Josh was a stonemason and Molly, remarkably, was a housewife and businesswoman: she made a decent living selling fruits and jams, honeys and chutneys. She also did the occasional painting.

Angus stared across the pub. Pensive. After years of feeling sorry for Josh, the truth was, he now envied him. Even as he was happy for Josh and Molly, he was jealous of the purity of their lives. Nothing but air, stone, sky, glass, salt, rock and sea. And Hebridean heather honey. Angus too wanted this purity, he wanted to rinse away the complexities of the city and dive into cleanness and simplicity. Fresh air, real bread, raw wind on your face.

The two friends walked to a lonely table: far away from Gordon and his Gaelic-speaking mates. Josh sat and sipped coffee, and spoke with his own conspirator’s smile.

‘That was Gordon Fraser. He does everything, fixes shit from Kylerhea to Ardvasar. Toasters, boats, and lonely wives. If you need a boat, he could probably help.’

‘Yes, I remember him. I think.’ Angus shrugged. Did he really remember? How much could he recall, from so long ago? In truth, he was still shocked by his own miscalculation of Torran Island’s nearness to the mainland. What else had he remembered wrongly? What else had he forgotten?

More importantly, if his long-term memory was unreliable, how reliable was his judgement? Did he trust himself to live, peacefully, with Sarah on this island? It could be very difficult: especially if she was opening the boxes, shining lights into the darkness. And what if she was lying to him? Again?

He wanted to think about something else.

‘So, Josh, how much has it changed? Declined? Torran?’

‘The cottage?’ Josh shrugged. ‘Well you really should prepare yourself, mate. As I said on the phone, I’ve been doing my best to keep an eye on it. So has Gordon – he loved your gran – and the local fishermen stop by. But it’s in a state, no denying it.’

‘But – the lighthouse keepers?’

Josh shook his head. ‘Nah. They only come once a fortnight, and they’re in and out, polish a lens, fix a battery, job done, head back to the Selkie for a jar.’

‘OK.’

‘We’ve all done our best, but, y’know, life, it’s busy, man. Molly doesn’t like using the boat on her own. And your gran stopped coming here four years ago, so it hasn’t really been inhabited since then, at all.’

‘That’s a long time.’

‘Too right, mate. Four long Hebridean winters? Damp and rot and wind, it’s all taken a toll.’ He sighed, then brightened. ‘Though you did have some squatters for a while, last summer.’

‘We did?’

‘Yeah. Actually they were OK. Two guys, two girls – couple of lookers. Just kids, students. They actually came in the Selkie one night, bold as bollocks. Gordon and the guys told them all the stories – Torran was haunted – and they freaked. Left next morning. Didn’t do that much damage. Burned most of your gran’s remaining firewood though. Fucking Londoners.’

Angus acknowledged the irony. He remembered when he and the gang, from London, had been the same: sitting in this pub, listening to the folktales of Skye, told by locals, in return for a dram, those tales designed to while away the long winter nights. His granny had also told these stories of Skye. The Widow of Portree. The Fear that Walked in the Dark. And och, the Gruagach – her hair as white as snow, mourning her own reflection …

‘Why haven’t you been up since?’

‘Sorry?’

Josh persisted: ‘It’s fifteen bloody years since you’ve been here. Why?’

Angus frowned, and sighed. It was a good question: one he had asked himself. He struggled towards an answer.

‘Don’t know. Not really. Maybe Torran became a kind of symbol. Place I would one day return to. Lost paradise. Also it’s about five million miles away. Kept meaning to come up, especially since you guys moved here, but of course …’ And there it was again, that fateful pause. ‘By then we had the girls, the twins. And. That changed everything. Cold Scottish island, with yowling babies? Toddlers? All a bit daunting. You’ll understand, Josh, when you have kids with Molly.’