The Ice Twins (16 page)

When this happened, they both had that phobic, instant reaction. But Kirstie panted and yelled; Lydia emitted that piercing shriek.

And now I am going to trigger this phobia deliberately. By jailing her in sudden dark. Her reaction will be instinctive, and reflexive, she won’t be able to fake or fabricate it; so it will tell me the truth. My plan is cruel, it makes me faint with guilt, but I see no alternative. Allowing this confusion to go on is crueller.

I have to do it now or I will lose myself in doubt, and self-hatred.

Kirstie gazes up at me as I enter her bedroom. She looks very sad. She has made this bare room a little more homely, with her books on a shelf and her pictures of pirates on the wall. But it is still a spare, lonely room, bereft of her twin. Her radio is playing Kids Pop. One Direction. There is a wicker basket full of toys. But she hasn’t moved them much. Only Leopardy is huddled into her bed. Both twins loved Leopardy. Maybe Lydia loved Leopardy a little bit more?

Her sad eyes are unbearable.

‘Darling,’ I say, tentatively. ‘Tell me what happened today at school.’

Silence.

I try again: ‘Did you have a good day? Your first day? Tell me about your teachers.’

More silence, more One Direction. She closes her eyes and I wait and I wait and I can sense she is going to tell me; then, yes, she slowly leans in to me, and she says, in a very tiny voice,

‘No one wanted to play with me, Mummy.’

My heart breaks open.

‘Oh. I see.’

‘I kept asking people, but no one would play with me.’

The pain in me is burning, I want to cuddle my daughter, protect her.

‘OK, sweetie, it’s just your first day, darling, that happens.’

‘So I played with Kirstie.’

I stroke her hair, gently, as my heart races.

‘Kirstie?’

‘She played with me, like we always play.’

‘OK.’

What do I do? Get angry? Cry? Shout? Explain that Lydia is dead and she
is
Kirstie? Maybe I don’t even know myself, which one is dead.

‘But then, when I was playing with Kirstie-koo …’

‘Yes?’

‘Everyone laughed at me, Mummy. It was … It made me cry, they were all laughing.’

‘Because you were really alone?’

‘No! Kirstie
was
there! She was there! She’s here! She’s here!’

‘Darling, she’s not here, she’s—’

‘She’s what?’

‘Kirstie, your sister – she – she—’

‘Just say it, Mummy, just say it, I know she’s dead you told me she’s dead.’

‘Sweetheart—’

‘You keep saying she’s dead but she comes back to play with me, she was
here, she was at school, she
plays
with me, she is my
sister,
it doesn’t matter if she’s dead,
she’s still here
, still here, I’m here, we are here – why do you keep saying we’re dead, when we’re not we’re not
we’re not
.’

This howling speech ends in angry, noisy tears: Kirstie flings herself away from me and she crawls to the end of the bed and she buries her hot flushed face in the pillow and – I am helpless. I sit here, pathetic, the Terrible Mother. What have I done to my daughter? What am I still doing? What am I about to inflict?

Should I have ignored her confusion in the first place, in London? If I had never entertained any suspicion, if I had insisted she was Kirstie, she might have stayed Kirstie. But now I have to do
this
.

Bad mother. Evil mother.

I wait a few minutes for her anger to subside. The radio plays more tinny pop music: ‘The Best Song Ever’. Then Britney Spears.

At last, I put a hand on Kirstie’s ankle. ‘Moomin.’

She turns. Red-eyed, but calmer. ‘Yes.’

‘Kirstie?’

She does not flinch at the name. I am sure now that she is Kirstie. My Lydia is dead.

‘Kirstie, I’m just going into the kitchen for a second to get a hot drink. Do you want something? Something to drink?’

She eyes me. Blank-faced. ‘Fruit Shoot.’

‘OK. You read a book and I’ll get us a drink.’

Kirstie seems to accept this. She reaches out for Wimpy Kid, and as she does I quietly close the curtains. So that not a chink of light can get through: it’s not difficult, the moon is clouded, and there are no streetlights on Torran.

Then, as discreetly as I can, I bend to the floor, as if I am picking up toys. But I am secretly unplugging her nightlight.

Kirstie does not notice. She reads on, her lips slightly moving. Lydia used to do that.

Now I have one final task: turn off the main light and shut the door. Kirstie will be slammed into total darkness; engulfed in the worst of her fears. There are tears not far from my own eyes, as I walk to the door.

Can I do this? How can I not do this?

Quickly I slap the light off, then I step outside Kirstie’s bedroom and shut the door. The hall beyond is also gloomy, barely lit by the light from the living room down the way. Kirstie’s bedroom will be immersed in total dark.

I wait. There is a fierce burn of guilt in my chest. Oh, baby. Kirstie. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

How long will it take for her to scream?

Not long.

Not long at all.

Three seconds after I shut the door she screams: and it is a high, piercing, shrill distinctive scream, like something thin and metallic being sheared in two. It is unmistakable and horrible; it is piercing and unique.

Opening the door I snap on the light and rush to my bewildered and horrified daughter, wailing in her bed.

‘Mummy Mummy Mummy—!’

I am cradling her in my arms; crushing her to myself.

‘Sorry, darling. I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I forgot, I forgot about the light, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m so so so sorry.’

But in the middle of my stabbing guilt there is just one appalling thought.

It was Kirstie that died.

This is Lydia sitting here.

We got it wrong, fourteen months ago.

11

Angus calls me on the phone next morning. It is a Saturday. He wants me to come over and pick him up from the Selkie pier at five p.m.

‘It will be dark.’

He can barely hear me over the popping static of our sea-chewed landline.

‘What? Sarah? What?’

‘Won’t it be dark? Angus?’

‘Full moon—’ he says; I think.

The line frazzles into nothingness. I check my watch: eleven a.m. In six hours I will have to meet my husband in Ornsay, and then tell my husband that we made the most grievous error, that Kirstie is dead and Lydia is alive. How will he react? Will he even believe me?

I step out of the kitchen onto the cracked paving stones and look east, at the chalky pillar of the lighthouse, with the sea, and the snow-talced Knoydart mountains beyond. For some reason the sight – the mere existence – of the lighthouse always comforts and soothes me. A calming beacon, serene and aloof. Flickering every nine seconds at night, signalling the world: here we are. Angus, Sarah and
Lydia
Moorcroft. We three.

I can see Lydia, she is solitary, playing down there in her new blue wellingtons, wading in the rock pools, looking for little fish and pulsing urchins. It seems so easy to call her Lydia. She is Lydia. Lydia is back. Kirstie has gone. I am mourning for the second time, yet quietly and guiltily jubilant. Lydia has returned from the crematorium. My second daughter, the one who loves rock pools, the one who loves staring at the sea urchins, watching their delicate contracting softness, is alive, once again.

Lydia turns and looks at me, then she runs up the incline of salty grass to the kitchen, to show me some shells she has collected.

‘Hey, very nice.’

‘Can I show them to Dada?’

‘Of course you can, Lydia. Of course.’

The shells are wet and sandy and graciously freckled with blue striations, fading to yellow and cream. I wash the grit from them, under the uncertain spatter of the tap, and hand them back.

‘Keep them safe, Daddy is coming home later.’

When I have changed her boots for trainers, she disappears happily to her room. In the silence, I make soup to dispel my anxious thoughts: we eat a lot of soup, it’s easy to reheat in this nightmare of a kitchen. I can freeze and microwave it back to life when the prospect of real cooking defeats.

The time passes without terrors. It’s four-thirty p.m, and dusk is upon us when I peer my head around Lydia’s door and ask her to come and get Dad at the Selkie.

She stands there, in her pink leggings, and her pink trainers with the glowing lights in the heel, in her draughty bedroom. Shaking her head.

‘But Daddy wants to see you.’

‘Nn. Don’t want to.’

‘Lydie-lo. Why not?’

‘Just not. Just not. Not now.’

‘Lydia, you’ll be alone on the island.’

It seems so easy to call her Lydia. Maybe I knew, subconsciously, she was Lydia all along.

Lydia shakes her head. ‘Don’t mind!’

I have no desire to fight my daughter this afternoon, I’ve too much to worry about confronting Angus. And there is no reason why Lydia won’t be safe on Torran, as long as she doesn’t stray. It’s an island. The tide is out. I’ll be gone for thirty minutes. She is seven and she can sit safely in a house on her own. We don’t have balconies.

‘OK, then come here. Just promise to stay in your room, OK?’

‘Yes.’

Giving her a hug, I button her blue cardy. Then I kiss her shampoo-scented hair and she retreats, obediently, to her room.

The dark has gathered itself, and surrounds the island. I grab a torch to follow the path, down to the shingled beach by the lighthouse, where I drag the boat off the grassy rocks. Unslipping the ropes, I haul the deadweight of the anchor aboard, as if it is a small body I am hoping to jettison, into the concealing waters of the Sound.

Angus it seems, was right; the night is clear and calm and the torch is unnecessary, the moon is ripe and bright, giving the waters a luminescence.

And there he is: my husband waits on the Selkie pier, with the lights of the pub behind. He is in dark jeans – but a V-neck jumper with a checked shirt: a compromise between island life and an architect’s job. He seems energized, smiley, maybe happy from his first day of proper work in a while?

‘Hey, gorgeous the boatwoman. Bang on time.’

Angus leaps down the steps and into the dinghy and kisses me, he smells of whisky but not too much. Perhaps a quick warming glass in the Selkie.

‘How’s Kirstie?’

‘She’s …’

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’

The outboard Yamaha motor slices the cold, black, moonlit waters, as I steer us around Salmadair. The big house of the billionaire is dark and empty. The black fir trees defend it, in their legions.

‘Sarah?’

The boat is hauled up safe above the bladderwrack. The moonlight guides us to the cottage. Lydia hears us and she runs out from her room to hand her dad the shells she found; he cups them in his big hands and says,

‘Hey. Sweetheart. These are beautiful. Really, lovely. Thank you.’ Angus leans and gives her a kiss on her small pale forehead. Then she skips back to her room, past the painting of the Scottish clan-woman.

I sit Angus at the dining table and I make us both tea. He is very silent. As if he is expecting something big. Does he already suspect? Surely not.

As calm as I can, I pull up a chair, and sit down opposite. And I say: ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’

‘OK.’

My breathing is deep, but even. I continue, ‘It wasn’t Lydia who fell off the balcony, it was Kirstie. We got it wrong. We made an error. The girl in that room – our surviving daughter – she is Lydia
.
’

He says nothing. He sips his tea, his dark brown eyes fixed on mine. Not blinking. But fierce. Like a predator, watching.

I feel a sudden sense of peril. Of being menaced, as I did in the attic. My childhood stammer momentarily returns. ‘I sh – I sh.’

‘Sarah. Slow down.’ He glares. Dark, and brooding. ‘Tell me.’

‘I turned off all the lights in her room. To make her scream.’

His frown deepens. ‘What?’

‘Remember how the twins screamed differently when they were really scared, when that phobia was triggered? Remember? The power cut? So I did it again. Plunged her into darkness. Yes I know, it was horrible but—’ the guilt is getting to me. I hurry on ‘—but it’s not something you could fake, is it? That scream was a reflex, it’s fear, it is an instinctive difference, so – so that’s it – she screamed like Lydia when she was in the dark. So she is Lydia. She must be.’

He sips hot tea again. I wish he’d respond normally. Or in any way. Maybe cry. Shout. Do something. React badly.

But all I get is this menacing stare. He swallows tea and says: ‘That’s it? A scream? A scream is your only evidence?’

‘No – it’s not just that, God, there’s so much
more
.’

‘OK. Tell me. Slow down. What else?’

Angus wraps his big hands around his mug. Tight. He takes another gulp, his eyes never leaving mine.

‘Tell me, Sarah. Tell me everything.’

He is correct, he needs to know
everything
; and so, like someone purging a night of alcohol, I chuck it all up. Voiding myself of lies and evasions, redeeming myself with the truth. I tell him about the behaviour of the dog, the literacy issues, the switch of friends, the tantrum in the school, the weeks of strangeness, the way our daughter will only now let me call her Lydia. I tell him about the trip to Kellaway in Glasgow, and how it convinced me, for a moment, that I was wrong, but then the doubts crept back. More persuasive and convincing than ever before.

‘She is
Lydia
,’ I say, in conclusion. Staring at my husband who stares back.

I can see the teeth grinding in his jaw, under the stubble. I stumble on,

‘We – I – made some mistake, somehow, Gus, it was just because of that one line, that sentence, after the accident, I presumed too much, maybe Lydia got confused – remember they were swapping identities at that time, playing games, fooling about, wearing the same clothes, asking for the same haircuts. Remember all that and then the accident, who knows, maybe there
was
some telepathy, when Kirstie was in hospital, we cannot know for sure, some mingling of their minds, like – like the way they mingled in the cot, sleeping in the same bed – sucking each other’s thumbs.’