The Ice Twins (14 page)

Lydia, his Lydia. Little Lydia. His darling daughter.

He’d loved her too, loved her just as much as Sarah. Yet somehow his grief was deemed as lesser? Somehow the mother’s grief was seen as more important:
she
was the one allowed to crack up,
she
was the one given permission to cry,
she
was the one allowed to agonize for months about her favourite. OK, he’d lost his job, but he’d kept looking for more work through the agony and almost none of it was his fault. This was the enraging thing. She was far more to blame, infinitely more. He wanted to hurt his wife for what happened. Punish her. Hurt her badly.

Why not? His daughter was dead.

Angus plucked a hammer from a shelf. It was a claw hammer. Vicious and slightly rusted. Its fangs stained brown, as if there was already old blood on the steel. It was heavy, but it had a satisfying weight, just the right weight. It asked to be swung, hard, downwards, cracking something open. Finally. An explosion of redness. Like whacking a melon, soft pulp flying everywhere. Would the steel claws stick?

The rain had stopped and the sea was grey beyond the windows. Angus stared at the stained bare floorboards, despairing.

A low whimper brought him to proper consciousness. Beany was staring at him, head-tilted, and sad, and yet inquisitive. As if he could sense Angus’s absurd and terrible thoughts.

Angus looked to the dog. Calmed himself. And spoke:

‘Hey, Beany. Shall we go outside? Find a seal to chase?’

The dog barked softly and whisked his tail; Angus carefully replaced the steel claw hammer on the shelf.

9

It could be any school in Britain. Low-rise and airy, with a biggish playground with gaily painted swings and slides, and lots of parents looking sleepy, careworn and guiltily relieved as they drop off the little ones. It’s just the setting that marks it out: sea to the left, and big sombre mountains behind, scarred with early December snow. And then, of course, there is the screwed-in sign on the gate.

Rachadh luchd-tadhail gu failteache

Underneath is a smaller, English translation.

All Visitors Must Report To Reception

Kirstie holds my hand, tightly, as we walk from our car between the sleeker city cars, and dirty Land Rovers, and approach the glass doors. Other mothers and fathers are greeting each other, personably, and affably, in that enviable, relaxed, chit-chatty, small-talking way that I have never quite mastered, and will find even harder here, amongst strangers.

Some of the parents are speaking Gaelic. Kirstie is as silent as her mum. Nervous and tense. She is in her new blue-and-white Kylerdale uniform under her quilted pink anorak; when I pull the anorak off, at the school doorway, the uniform looks painfully big, verging on clownlike. And the shoes are clunky. And her hair is badly brushed: by me.

My guilt invades. Did I buy the wrong size of clothes? And why didn’t I brush her hair properly? We were in such a rush. Angus wanted to cross to the mainland early: he’s landed a part-time job at an architectural practice in Portree, far enough away that he will have to stay there overnight, whenever he gets work. This is good, financially, but it means transport is even more complicated.

So we all had to go, together, this morning, on our solitary boat. And I was forced to speed things up: brusquely spraying on the detangler, dragging the brush through my daughter’s fine, white, fairysilk hair – as Kirstie stood between my knees – fidgeting with her toy, and singing a new made-up song to herself.

And now it is too late: Kirstie’s hair looks messy.

My protective instinct reaches out. I desperately do not want her to be laughed at. She will already be dauntingly lonely, starting at a new school, well into the autumn term, without her sister. And the confusion about her identity is still there: lurking. Sometimes she calls herself ‘we’ not ‘I’. Sometimes she calls herself ‘other Kirstie’. She did it this morning.

Other Kirstie?

It is bewildering and painful, which is why I haven’t addressed it. I merely hope that Kellaway is right, and school will somehow resolve it all: the excitement of new friends and new games.

So here we are.

We loiter at the school door as all the other children go straight to their classes, chattering, laughing, hitting each other with their plastic rucksacks. Toy Story, Moshi Monsters. A woman with big glasses perched on a big nose, and a very sensible plaid skirt, gives me a smile of reassurance, and holds open the glazed door.

‘Mrs Moorcroft?’

‘Yes, er?’

‘Checked you on Facebook. So sorry! Just curious to know who the new parents might be.’ She tilts an indulgent expression at Kirstie. ‘And this must be little Kirstie! Kirstie Moorcroft?’ She ushers us in. ‘You look just like your photos! I’m Sally Ferguson. Lovely to have a new girl at school. Please just call me Sally.’ She looks back at me. ‘The school secretary.’

She is waiting for me to respond. But I cannot. Because Kirstie is talking.

‘I’m not Kirstie.’

The secretary smiles; she must think this is a joke. A game. A child hiding behind the sofa, holding up a puppet.

‘Kirstie Moorcroft! We’ve seen your photos! You are going to love this school, we teach in a very special language—’

‘I’m NOT Kirstie, I’m Lydia.’

‘Uh—’

‘Kirstie is dead. I am
Lydia
.’

‘Kkkirr …?’ The woman tails off. And looks at me. Understandably confused.

My daughter repeats herself. Loudly. ‘Lydia. I am Lydia. We are Lydia. Lydia!’

The hallway of the school is silent apart from my daughter, shouting these lunatic words. Sally Ferguson’s smile has faded, very quickly. She glances my way, with a panicked frown. There are lots of happy Gaelic phrases printed on paper tacked to the wall. The school secretary tries one more time.

‘Ah … um … Kirss—’

My daughter slaps at Sally Ferguson as if she is a wasp. ‘Lydia! You have to call me Lydia! Lydia! Lydia! Lydia! Lydia Lydia Lydia Lydia LYDIA!’

The woman backs away, but my little girl is quite out of control now. She is giving us a full-on toddler’s supermarket tantrum: except we are in a school, and she is seven, and she is claiming that she is her dead sister.

‘Dead, Kirstie-koo is dead. I’M LYDIA! I am Lydia! She is here! Lydia!’

What do I do? I try to make normal conversation, absurdly, ‘Um, it’s just a thing, a thing – I’ll be back to pick her up at—’

But my efforts can barely be heard as my daughter screams again, ‘Lydia LYDIA LYDIA LYDIA LYDIA LYDIA – Kirrrstie is DEAD and I HATE her I’m
Lydia
!’

‘Please,’ I say. To Kirstie. Abandoning my pretence. ‘Please, sweetheart, please?’

‘KIRSTIE IS DEAD. Kirstie is dead, they killed her, they killed her. I am Ly-DDDDEEE-YYYAAAA!’

And then as quickly as it started, it blows itself out. Kirstie shakes her head, stomps over to the far wall, and sits down in a little chair, under a photo of schoolkids working in the garden, with a cheery inscription in felt-tip pen.

Ag obair sa gharrad.

My daughter sniffs, then says, very quietly. ‘Please call me Lydia. Why can’t you call me Lydia, Mummy, that’s who I am? Please?’ Her teary blue eyes are lifted. ‘I’m not going to school less you call me Lydia
please
. Mummy?’

I am paralysed. Her pleading sounds painfully sincere. I have no choice.

The silence prolongs into agony. Because now I have to explain everything to the school secretary at the worst possible moment, in the most awkward way; and to do that I need Kirstie out of here. I need her in that school.

‘OK, OK. Mmm—’ My childish stutter returns. ‘Mrs Ferguson. This is
Lydia.
Lydia Moorcroft.’ I am frightened, and mumbling. ‘I’m actually enrolling Lydia May Tanera Moorcroft.’

A long silence. Sally Ferguson looks at me, with intense confusion. From behind those big thick glasses.

‘Pardon me? Erm.
Lydia?
But …’ She flushes bright red – then she reaches to a desk, behind an open, sliding window, and takes up a sheet of paper. Her next words are more of a whisper. ‘But it says here, quite clearly, that you are enrolling
Kirstie
Moorcroft? That was the application. Kirstie. Definitely. Kirstie Moorcroft?’

I deeply breathe. I go to speak, but my daughter gets there first. As if she has overheard.

‘I’m Lydia,’ says Lydia. ‘Kirstie is dead then she was alive but then she is dead again. I am Lydia.’

Sally Ferguson blushes, once more, and says nothing. I am feeling too dizzy to respond: teetering on the edge of dark absurdity. But with an effort, I speak: ‘Can we let Lydia join her new class and I can explain.’

Another desperate silence. Then I hear children singing a song down a corridor, raucous and happy.

‘
Kookaburra nests in the old gum tree, Merry merry king of the bush is he! Laugh, kookaburra LAUGH
—’

The incongruity makes me nauseous.

Sally Ferguson shakes her head; then she edges closer to me and says, quietly: ‘Yes … That seems sensible.’

The school sec turns to a good-looking young man, in skinny jeans, pressing through the glass doors from the cold outside. ‘Dan, Daniel, please – do you mind – can you take, ahh,
Lydia
Moorcroft to her new class, Year Two, end of the corridor. Jane Rowlandson.’

‘
LAUGH, Kookaburra, LAUGH
—’

Dan nods a languid amiable
Yes
and squats down, next to Lydia, like an overkeen waitress taking an order:

‘Hey, Lydia. D’you want to come with me?’

‘
Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree, Counting all the monkeys he can see-ee.
’

‘I’m Lydia.’ Kirstie is fiercely folding her arms. Scowling. Bottom lip jutting. As stubborn a face as she can manage. ‘You must call me Lydia.’

‘Sure. Of course. Lydia! You’ll like it, they’re doing music this morning.’

‘
Stop, Kookaburra, Stop, Kookaburra, That’s no monkey, that’s me.
’

At last: it works. Slowly she unfolds her arms and she takes his hand – and she follows Dan towards another glass door. She looks so small, and the door looks so huge and daunting, and devouring.

For one moment she pauses and turns to give me a sad, frightened smile – and then Dan escorts her into the corridor: she is swallowed up by the school. I must leave her to her lonely fate; so I turn to Sally Ferguson.

‘I have to explain.’

Sally nods, sombrely. ‘Yes please. In my office. We can be alone there.’

Fifty minutes later I have given Sally Ferguson the basic yet appalling details of our story. The accident, the death, the confusion of identity, over fourteen months. She looks suitably and honestly horrified, and also sympathetic, but I can also detect a hint of sly delight in her eyes, as she listens to this narrative. I am very definitely livening up another dull schoolday. This is something she can tell her husband and her friends tonight: you won’t believe who came in today, a mother who doesn’t know the identity of her surviving twin, a mother who wonders if her supposedly dead and cremated daughter has actually been alive for fourteen months.

‘That’s a remarkable story,’ says Sally Ferguson. ‘I’m so so sorry.’

She takes her glasses off and puts them on again. ‘It is amazing that there is, ah, no scientific way … of …’

‘Knowing? Of proving?’

‘Well, yes.’

‘All we know is that – I mean, I think – If she wants to be Lydia for now maybe we
have
to go along with it. For now. Do you mind?’

‘Well no, of course. If that’s what you prefer. And that’s fine in terms of enrolment. They are …’ Sally searches for the words ‘Well, they were the same age, so – yes – I’ll just have to update the records, but don’t worry about that.’

I get up to leave; quite desperate to escape.

‘So sorry, Mrs Moorcroft. But I’m sure everything will be all right now, Kirstie – I mean – your daughter. Lydia. She will love it here. Really.’

I flee towards the car park and in the car I buzz the windows down and race back up the coast, the wind is biting cold, a knifing westerly off the Cuillins, from the Butt of Lewis, from Saint Bloody Kilda, but I don’t care. I want the freezing cold. I squeal past Ornsay and head for Broadford, which feels like London after the remoteness of the Sleat peninsula. Here there are shops and post offices and people on pavements – and a big bright warm café, with very good wifi connection and a very good mobile signal. I want vodka, but coffee will have to do.

I sit on a comfy wooden chair by a big table, and with the fattest mug of cappuccino at my side, I take out my phone.

Mum.
I need to call Mum. Urgently.

‘Sarah, darling, I just knew it was you! Your father was in the garden, we’re having an Indian summer down here.’

‘Mum.’

‘Is everything all right? Has Kirstie started at her new school?’

‘Mum, there’s something you need to hear.’

My mother knows me enough to realize what my tone of voice implies: her chatter ceases. She waits.