The Ice Twins

2

I stare at Kirstie. Trying to smile. Trying not to show my deep anxiety.

There is surely some latent grief resurfacing here, in Kirstie’s developing mind; some confusion unique to twins who lose a co-twin, and I am used to this – to my daughters – to my daughter – being different.

From the first time my own mother drove from Devon, in the depths of winter, to our little flat in Holloway – from the moment my mum looked at the twins paired in their cot, the two identical tiny babies sucking each other’s thumbs – from the moment my mother burst into a dazzled, amazed, giddy smile, her eyes wide with sincere wonder – I knew then that having twins was something even more impressive than the standard miracle of becoming a parent. With twins – especially identicals – you give birth to genetic celebrities. People who are impressive simply for existing.

Impressive, and very different.

My dad even gave them a nickname: the Ice Twins. Because they were born on the coldest, frostiest day of the year, with ice-blue eyes and snowy-blonde hair. The nickname felt a little melancholy: so I never properly adopted it. Yet I couldn’t deny that, in some ways, the name fitted. It caught their uncanniness.

And that’s how special twins can be: they actually had a special name, shared between them.

In which case, this piercingly calm statement from Kirstie – Mummy, I’m Lydia, it was Kirstie that died – could be just another example of twin-ness, just another symptom of their uniqueness. But even so, I am fighting panic, and the urge to cry. Because she’s reminding me of Lydia. And because I am worried for Kirstie.

What terrible delusion is haunting her thoughts, to make her say these terrible words? Mummy, I’m Lydia, it was Kirstie that died. Why do you keep calling me Kirstie?

‘Sweetheart,’ I say to Kirstie, with a fake and deliberate calmness, ‘it’s time for bed soon.’

She gives me that placid blue gaze, identical to her sister’s. She is missing a milk tooth from the top. Another one is wobbling, on the bottom. This is quite a new thing; until Lydia’s death both twins had perfect smiles: they were similarly late in losing their teeth.

Holding the book a little higher, Kirstie says,

‘But actually the chapter is only three more pages. Did you know that?’

‘Is it really?’

‘Yes, look it actually ends here, Mummy.’

‘OK then, we can read three more pages to the end of the chapter. Why don’t you read them to me?’

Kirstie nods, and turns to her book; she begins to read aloud.

‘I had to wrap myself up in toi-let paper so I didn’t get hypo … hy … po …’

Leaning closer, I point out the word and begin to help. ‘Hypoth—’

‘No, Mummy.’ She laughs, softly. ‘No. I know it. I can say it!’

‘OK.’

Kirstie closes her eyes, which is what she does when she really thinks hard, then she opens her eyes again, and reads: ‘So I didn’t get hy-po-thermia.’

She’s got it. Quite a difficult word. But I am not surprised. There has been a rapid improvement in her reading, just recently. Which means …?

I drive the thought away.

Apart from Kirstie’s reading, the room is quiet. I presume Angus is downstairs with Imogen, in the distant kitchen; perhaps they are opening a bottle of wine, to celebrate the news. And why not? There have been too many bad days, with bad news, for fourteen months.

‘That’s how I spent a pretty big chunk of my sum-mer holidays …’

While Kirstie reads, I hug her little shoulders, and kiss her soft blonde hair. As I do, I feel something small and jagged beneath me, digging into my thigh. Trying not to disturb Kirstie’s reading, trying not to think about what she said, I reach under.

It is a small toy: a miniature plastic dragon we bought at London Zoo. But we bought it for Lydia. She especially liked dragons and alligators, all the spooky reptiles and monsters; Kirstie was – is – keener on lions and leopards, fluffier, bouncy, cuter, mammalian creatures. It was one of the things that differentiated them.

‘When I got to school today … every-one was acting all strange.’

I examine the plastic dragon, turning it in my hand. Why is it here, lying on the floor? Angus and I carefully boxed all of Lydia’s toys in the months after it happened. We couldn’t bear to throw them away; that was too final, too primitive. So we put everything – toys and clothes, everything related exclusively to Lydia – in the loft: psychologically buried in the space above us.

‘The prob-lem with the Cheese Touch is that you’ve got it … un-til you can pass it on to some-one else …’

Lydia adored this plastic dragon. I remember the afternoon we bought it; I remember Lydia skipping down Regent’s Park Road, waving the dragon in the air, dreaming of a pet dragon of her own, making us all smile. The memory suffuses me with sadness, so I discreetly slip the little dragon in the pocket of my jeans and calm myself, listening to Kirstie for a few more minutes, until the chapter is finished. She reluctantly closes the book and looks up at me: innocent, expectant.

‘OK darling. Definitely time for bed.’

‘But, Mummy.’

‘But, Mummy nothing. Come on, Kirstie.’

A pause. It’s the first time I’ve used her name since she said what she said. Kirstie looks at me, puzzled, and frowning. Is she going to use those terrible words again?

Mummy, I’m Lydia, it was Kirstie that died. Why do you keep calling me Kirstie?

My daughter shakes her head, as if I am making a very basic mistake. Then she says, ‘OK, we’re going to bed.’

We? We? What does she mean by ‘we’? The silent, creeping anxiety sidles up behind me, but I refuse to be worried. I am worried. But I am worried about nothing.

We?

‘OK. Goodnight, darling.’

This will all be gone tomorrow. Definitely. Kirstie just needs to go to sleep and to wake up in the morning, and then this unpleasant confusion will have disappeared, with her dreams.

‘It’s OK, Mummy. We can put our own ’jamas on, actually.’

I smile, and keep my words neutral. If I acknowledge this confusion it might make things worse. ‘All right then, but we need to be quick. It’s really late now, and you’ve got a school day tomorrow.’

Kirstie nods, sombrely. Looking at me.

School.

School.

Another source of grief.

I know – all-too-painfully, and all-too-guiltily – that she doesn’t like her school much. Not any more. She used to love it when she had her sister in the same class. The Ice Twins were the Mischief Sisters, then. Every schoolday morning I would strap them in the back of my car, in their monochrome uniforms, and as I drove up Kentish Town Road to the gates of St Luke’s I would watch them in the mirror: whispering and signalling to each other, pointing at people through the window, and collapsing in fits of laughter at in-jokes, at twin-jokes, at jokes that I never quite understood.

Every time we did this – each and every morning – I felt pride and love and yet, also, sometimes I felt perplexity, because the twins were so entire unto themselves. Speaking their twin language.

It was hard not to feel a little excluded, a lesser person in either of their lives than the identical and opposite person with whom they spent every minute of every day. Yet I adored them. I revered them.

And now it’s all gone: now Kirstie goes to school alone, and she does it in silence. In the back of my car. Saying nothing. Staring in a trance-like way at a sadder world. She still has friends at the school, but they have not replaced Lydia. Nothing will ever come close to replacing Lydia. So maybe this is another good reason for leaving London: a new school, new friends, a playground not haunted by the ghost of her twin, giggling and miming.

‘You brushed your teeth?’

‘Immyjen did them, after tea.’

‘OK then, hop into bed. Do you want me to tuck you in?’

‘No. Mmm. Yes …’

She has stopped saying ‘we’. The silly but disturbing confusion has passed? She climbs into bed and lays her face on the pillow and as she does she looks very small. Like a toddler again.

Kirstie’s eyes are fluttering, and she is clutching Leopardy to her chest – and I am leaning to check the nightlight.

Just as I have done, almost every evening, for six years.

From the beginning, the twins were horribly scared of total darkness: it terrified them into special screams. After a year or so, we realized why: it was because, in pitch darkness, they couldn’t see each other. For that reason Angus and I have always been religiously careful to keep some light available to the girls: we’ve always had lamps and nightlights to hand. Even when the twins got their own rooms, they still wanted light, at night, as if they could see each other through walls: as long as they had enough light.

Of course I wonder if, in time, this phobia will dwindle – now that one twin has gone for good, and cannot ever be seen. But for the moment it persists. Like an illness that should have gone away.

The nightlight is fine.

I set it down on the side table, and am turning to leave when Kirstie snaps her eyes open, and stares at me. Accusingly. Angrily? No. Not angry. But unsettled.

‘What?’ I say. ‘What is it? Sweetheart, you have to go to sleep.’

‘But, Mummy.’

‘What is it?’

‘Beany!’

The dog. Sawney Bean. Our big family spaniel. Kirstie loves the dog.

‘Will Beany be coming to Scotland with us?’

‘But, darling, don’t be silly. Of course!’ I say. ‘We wouldn’t leave him behind! Of course he’s coming!’

Kirstie nods, placated. And then her eyes close and she grips Leopardy tight; and I can’t resist kissing her again. I do this all the time now: more than I ever did before. Angus used to be the tactile parent, the hugger and kisser, whereas I was the organizer, the practical mother: loving them by feeding them, and clothing them. But now I kiss my surviving daughter as if it is some fervent, superstitious charm: a way of averting further harm.

The freckles on Kirstie’s pale skin are like a dusting of cinnamon on milk. As I kiss her, I breathe her in: she smells of toothpaste, and maybe the sweetcorn she had for supper. She smells of Kirstie. But that means she smells of Lydia. They always smelled the same. No matter what they did, they always smelled the same.

A third kiss ensures she is safe. I whisper a quiet goodnight. Carefully I make my exit from her bedroom, with its twinkling nightlight; but as I quietly close the door, yet another thought is troubling me: the dog.

Beany.

What is it? Something about the dog concerns me; it agitates. But I’m not sure what. Or why.

Alone on the landing, I think it over. Concentrating.

We bought Beany three years ago: an excitable springer spaniel. That’s when we could afford a pedigree puppy.

It was Angus’s idea: a dog to go with our first proper garden; a dog that matched our proximity to Regent’s Park. We called him Sawney Bean, after the Scottish cannibal, because he ate everything, especially chairs. Angus loved Beany, the twins loved Beany – and I loved the way they all interacted. I also adored, in a rather shallow way, the way they looked, two identically pretty little blonde girls, romping around Queen Mary’s Rose Garden – with a happy, cantering, mahogany-brown spaniel.

Tourists would actually point and take photos. I was virtually a stage mother. Oh, she has those lovely twins. With the beautiful dog. You know.

Leaning against a wall, I close my eyes, to think more clearly. I can hear distant noises from the kitchen downstairs: cutlery rattling on a table, or maybe a bottle-opener being returned to a drawer.

What is it about Beany that feels wrong? There is definitely some troubled thought that descends from the concept dog – yet I cannot trace it, cannot follow it through the brambles of memory and grief.

Downstairs, the front door slams shut. The noise breaks the spell.

‘Sarah Moorcroft,’ I say, opening my eyes, ‘Get a grip.’

I need to go down and talk to Immy and have a glass of wine and then go to bed, and tomorrow Kirstie – Kirstie – will go to school with her red book bag, wearing her black woollen jumper. The one with Kirstie Moorcroft written on the label inside.

In the kitchen, I find Imogen sitting at the counter. She smiles, tipsily, the faint tannin staining of red wine on her neat white teeth.

‘Afraid Gus has nipped out.’

‘Yes?’

‘Yeah. He had a minor panic attack about the booze supply. You’ve only got’ – she turns and looks at the wine rack by the fridge – ‘six bottles left. So he’s gone to Sainsbury’s to stock up. Took Beany with him.’

I laugh, politely, and pull up a stool.

‘Yes. Sounds like Angus.’

I pour myself half a glass of red from the open bottle on the counter, glancing at the label. Cheap Chilean Merlot. It used to be fancy Barossa Shiraz. I don’t care.

Imogen watches me, and she says: ‘He’s still drinking a bit, ah, you know – excessively?’

‘That’s a nice way of putting it, Immy: “a bit excessively”. He lost his job because he got so drunk he punched his boss. And knocked him out.’

Imogen nods. ‘Sorry. Yes. Can’t help talking in euphemisms. Comes with the day job.’ She tilts her head and smiles. ‘But the boss was a jerk, right?’

‘Yes. His boss was totally obnoxious, but it’s still not great, is it? Breaking the nose of London’s richest architect.’

‘Uh-huh. Sure …’ Imogen smiles slyly. ‘Though, y’know, it’s not all bad. I mean, at least he can throw a punch – like a man. Remember that Irish guy I dated, last year – he used to wear yoga pants.’

She smirks my way; I force half a smile.

Imogen is a journalist like me, though a vastly more successful one. She is a deputy editor on a women’s gossip magazine that, miraculously, has a growing circulation; I scrape an unreliable living as a freelancer. This might have made me jealous of her, but our friendship is, or was, evened out by the fact I got married and had kids. She is single and childless. We used to compare notes – what my life could have been.

Now I lean back, holding my wine glass airily: trying to be relaxed. ‘Actually he’s not drinking as much as he used to.’

‘Good.

‘But it’s still too late. For his career at Kimberley.’

Imogen nods sympathetically – and drinks. I sip at my wine, and sigh in a what-can-you-do way, and gaze around our big bright Camden kitchen, at all the granite worktops and shining steel, the black espresso machine with its set of golden capsules: all of it screaming: this is the kitchen of a well-to-do middle-class couple!

And all of it a lie.

We were a well-to-do middle-class couple, for a while, after Angus got promoted three times in three years. For a long time everything was pristinely optimistic: Angus was heading for a partnership and a handsome salary, and I was more than happy for him to be the main earner, the provider, because this allowed me to combine my part-time journalism with proper mothering. It allowed me to do the school run, to make cooked but healthy breakfasts, to stand in the kitchen turning basil into organic pesto when the twins were playing on one of our iPads. For half a decade we were, most of the time, the perfect Camden family.

Then Lydia died, falling from the balcony at my parents’ house in Devon, and it was as if someone had dropped Angus from a height. A hundred thousand pieces of Angus were scattered around the place. His grief was psychotic. A raging fire of anguish that could not be quenched, even with a bottle of whisky a night, much as he tried. Every night.

The firm gave him latitude, and weeks off, but it wasn’t enough. He was uncontrollable; he went back to work too soon and got into arguments, then fights. He resigned an hour before he was sacked; ten hours after he punched the boss. And he hasn’t worked since, apart from a few freelance design jobs pushed his way by sympathetic friends.

‘Sod it, Imogen,’ I say. ‘At least we’re moving. At last.’

‘Yes!’ she says brightly. ‘Into a cave, right, in Shetland?’

She’s teasing. I don’t mind. We used to tease each other all the time, before the accident.

Now our relationship is more stilted; but we make an effort. Other friendships ended entirely, after Lydia’s death: too many people didn’t know what to say, so they said nothing. By contrast, Imogen keeps trying: nurturing the low flame of our friendship.

I look at her, and say,

‘Torran Island, you remember? I’ve shown you photos, every time you’ve come here, for the last month.’

‘Ah yes. Torran! The famous homeland. But tell me again, I like it.’

‘It’s going to be great, Immy – if we don’t freeze. Apparently there are rabbits, and otters, and seals—’

‘Fantastic. I love seals.’

‘You do?’

‘Oh yes. Especially the pups. Can you sort me out a coat?’

I laugh – sincerely, but guiltily. Imogen and I share a sense of humour; but hers is wickeder. She goes on. ‘So this place. Torran. Remind me. You still haven’t been there?’

‘Nope.’

‘Sarah. How can you move to a place you’ve never even seen?’

Silence.

I finish my glass of Merlot and pour some more. ‘I told you. I don’t want to see it.’

Another pause.

‘Uh-huh?’

‘Immy, I don’t want to see it for real, because – what if I don’t like it?’ I stare into her wide green eyes. ‘Mmm? What then? Then I’m stuck here, Imogen. Stuck here with everything, all the memories, the money problems, everything. We’re out of cash anyway, so we’ll have to move to some stupid tiny flat, back where we started, and – and then what? I’ll have to go out to work and Angus will go stir crazy and it’s just – just – you know – I have to get out, we have to get out, and this is it: the way of escape. And it does look so beautiful in the photos. It does, it does: so bloody beautiful. It’s like a dream, but who cares? I want a dream. Right this minute, that’s exactly what I want. Because reality has been pretty fucking crap for a while now.’

The kitchen is quiet. Imogen raises her glass and she gently chinks mine and says: ‘Darling. It will be lovely. I’m just going to miss you.’

We lock eyes, briefly, and moments later Angus is in the kitchen; his overcoat speckled with cold autumn rain. He is carrying wine in doubled orange plastic bags – and leading the dampened dog. Carefully he sets the bags on the floor, then unleashes Beany.

‘Here you go, boy.’

The spaniel shivers and wags his tail and heads straight for his wicker basket. Meanwhile I extract the wine bottles, and set them up on the counter; like a small but important parade.

‘Well, that should last an hour,’ Imogen says, staring at all the wine.

Angus grabs a bottle and unscrews it.

‘Ach. Sainsbury’s is a battleground. I’m not gonna miss the Camden junkies, buying their lemon juice.’

Imogen tuts. ‘Wait till you’re three hundred miles from the nearest truffle oil.’

Angus laughs – and it is a good laugh, a natural laugh. Like a laugh from before it all happened. And finally I relax; though I also remember that I want to ask him about the little toy: the plastic dragon. How did that end up in Kirstie’s bedroom? It was Lydia’s. It was boxed and hidden away, I am sure of it.

But why ruin this rare and agreeable evening with an interrogation? The question can wait for another day. Or for ever.

Our glasses replenished, we sit and chat and have an impromptu kitchen-picnic: rough slices of ciabatta dipped in olive oil, thick chunks of cheap saucisson. And for an hour or more we talk, companionably, contentedly – like the three old friends we are. Angus explains how his brother – living in California – has generously forgone his share of the inheritance.

‘David’s earning a shedload, in Silicon Valley. Doesn’t need the cash or the hassle. And he knows that we DO need it.’ Angus swallows his saucisson.

Imogen interrupts: ‘But what I don’t understand, Gus, is how come your granny owned this island in the first place? I mean’ – she chews an olive – ‘don’t be offended, but I thought your dad was a serf, and you and your mum lived in an outside toilet. Yet suddenly here’s grandmother with her own island.’

Angus chuckles. ‘Nan was on my mother’s side, from Skye. They were just humble farmers, one up from crofters. But they had a smallholding, which happened to include an island.’

‘OK … ’

‘It’s pretty common. There’re thousands of little islands in the Hebrides, and fifty years ago a one-acre island of seaweed off Ornsay was worth about three quid. So it just never got sold. Then my mum moved down to Glasgow, and Nan followed, and Torran became, like, a holiday place. For me and my brother.’

I finish my husband’s story for him, as he fetches more olive oil: ‘Angus’s mum met Angus’s dad in Glasgow. She was a primary school teacher, he worked in the docks—’

‘He, uh … drowned, right?’

‘Yes. An accident at the docks. Quite tragic, really.’

Angus interrupts, walking back: ‘The old man was a soak. And a wife-beater. Not sure tragic is the word.’

We all stare at the three remaining bottles of wine on the counter. Imogen speaks: ‘But still – where does the lighthouse and the cottage fit in? How did they get there? If your folks were poor?’

Angus replies, ‘Northern Lighthouse Board run all the lighthouses in Scotland. Last century, whenever they needed to build a new one, they would offer a bit of cash in ground rent to the property owner. That’s what happened on Torran. But then the lighthouse got automated. In the sixties. So the cottage was vacated. And it reverted to my family.’

‘Stroke of luck?’ says Imogen.

‘Looking back, aye,’ says Angus. ‘We got a big, solidly built cottage. For nothing.’

A voice from upstairs intrudes.

‘Mummy …?’

It’s Kirstie. Awakened. And calling from the landing. This happens quite a lot. Yet her voice, especially when heard unexpectedly, always gives me a brief, repressed, upwelling of grief. Because it sounds like Lydia.

I want these drowning feelings to stop.

‘Mummyyy?’

Angus and I share a resigned glance: both of us mentally calculating the last time this happened. Like two very new parents squabbling over whose turn it is to baby-feed, at three a.m.