The Ice Twins (34 page)

25

Angus sat in the Selkie, nursing a triple of Ardbeg: drinking by himself. The pub was virtually deserted, the only noise came from a few locals, including Gordon, finishing up their pints before they all headed home to sit out the storm. Angus had booked a berth upstairs: the Selkie was pricey in summer but a bargain in the winter depths.

He would have stayed with Josh and Molly again – they were normally very generous – but it didn’t feel right. He was too angered by Sarah’s outrageous accusation. He would make his friends uncomfortable.

Child abuse.

It was insane. The idea – the mere idea of the idea – entirely enraged him. Maybe it was a good thing he was stranded on Sleat, away from his family, because if he saw Sarah, after all these whiskies, he would probably kill her. Actually kill her. He would. He could. Just break her neck.

Now he could see his father in himself: kicking the shit out of the little woman. The difference was that he, Angus, was justified.

Child abuse.

Did you rape Kirstie?

He swooned with rage, but steadied himself with another slug of whisky. And another. What else could he do? It was all her fault, anyway.

Standing up and walking to the window, Angus gazed drunkenly through the thick glass at the island, now blurred by rain and dark.

How was his daughter doing, stuck on that island in the storm? Did Sarah have the sense to hunker down properly? Would she secure all the doors and windows, slide the necessary bolts? Would she lash the boat to the lighthouse railings? She wasn’t an idiot. Perhaps she would
do all this.

But she was also unstable, and had been so since their daughter’s death. She’d recovered her senses in recent months but now she was, apparently, right back in the vortex. The whirl of her private insanity.

Child abuse.

Angus wanted to spit the words onto the floor. Bitch. Fucking cunt. Child abuse?

What lies was she pumping into his daughter right now?

He needed to get over there, and take control, but the tide was in, and the weather was too foul for anything but the biggest boat to cross in safety; Josh’s RIB was not built for gales like this. And this storm could take several days to clear.

That meant, if he had to get to Torran by boat, he would be obliged to call the authorities and seek official help. He would need the police, the coastguard, the law. But if he brought them into this mess, everything would unravel: he might – he probably would – get arrested for child abuse. And even if he managed to prove the absurdity of that allegation, the police might then ask questions about the accident, and they might discover that the sister pushed the sister, that there was a murder, however childish.

And then, everything he had striven to do – to keep the family together, despite it all – would come flying apart. Their lives would be shattered, for the second time. A whirling nightmare of police, doctors, child psychologists. Sarah would crack when her guilt was revealed, when her denial was ripped away.

And yet she might crack anyway: because of his stupid outburst.

He shouldn’t have said what he’d said about the kist. He’d just been lashing out, in his fury. Not thinking. Yet now, if she remembered this remark, and actually looked in the bottom drawer, she would see the truth and there was no guessing how she might react. Out there. When she was meant to be caring for his little girl.

Perhaps he should have destroyed the contents of the drawer, months ago. Yet he’d always kept it, in reserve. Spare ammunition. Once his daughter was safely grown up, he’d thought he might show it to her:
See, here, bitch, this is what YOU did. This is what REALLY happened.

Too late.

Angus sat down, defeated, drunk, angry, trembling, on the hard uncomfortable chair. He was paralysed. He couldn’t do anything until the storm passed, could he? But he was desperate.

‘All right there, Angus?’

It was Gordon, passing out of the pub.

‘Yer girls out on Torran?’

Angus nodded. Gordon frowned.

‘Raw night for them to be alone, out there. That cottage is hellish cold in these storms.’

‘I know.’

Gordon shook his head. ‘And that thunder. Could drive a man to drink!’ He glanced at Angus’s whisky glass, and frowned again. ‘Well now. If you need any help, ye know where to call me, any time.’

‘Thanks, Gordon.’

Gordon sighed, blatantly dismayed by Angus’s attitude, then opened the door to the blasting wail of the storm, and disappeared.

Angus stared out of the window again. The wind was so strong it was ripping small branches off the trees down the way: the car park of the Selkie was a mess of leaves, and twigs, and shrivelled bracken.

What was Sarah doing on Torran? What was she doing with his daughter?

He had to get out there as soon as the tide allowed. It didn’t matter how dangerous it was: not doing anything was worse. He had to get out there and make Sarah see sense. Or calm her down. Or maybe silence her.

That, then, was his plan. Cross before dawn, at the next low tide, six a.m. And before then he would drink away the pain, and stifle the anger. Until he needed that anger.

26

I ask for the third time, maybe the fourth time. This is too much.

‘What do you mean, it was
me
?’

I cannot disguise the trembling fear in my voice. Lydia has now stopped screaming, stopped crying; but she is looking away from me. Leopardy is lying next to her. She picks him up and hugs him close, as if he is a better friend to her than me. Better than her own mother.

‘Lydia, what did I do? What do you mean it was me?’

‘Not saying.’

‘Come on, please. I won’t be angry.’

‘Yes, you will. Like you were before, in the kitchen at Nannan’s.’

The wind rattles the windows, like a burglar. Testing the house. Finding the weak points.

‘Lydia. Lydia,
please
.’

‘Nothing. No one. Nobody.’

‘Lydie-lo, please tell me. Please!’

She turns, eyes narrowed. I can hear the kitchen door rattling in the gale; the wooden bolt creaking.

‘You took the pills, remember, Mummy?’

‘Sorry?’

She shakes her head. She looks very sad, but she is not crying.

‘What do you mean, I took the pills?’

‘Everyone said you were sick, Mummy. I was frightened you were going to die like Kirstie.’

‘What pills?’

‘Special pills. Oh, Mummy, you know? Daddy kept them.’

‘He …’

Pills? I am getting the sense of dim memories, returning. I
did
take pills, after the accident. It was that therapist, who emailed me, who recommended the medication. Yes, I can vaguely remember that.

But why? Was there a special reason?

‘Take them again, Mummy. You were better when you took them.’

‘I really don’t know what you are talking about, Lydia. We just have to sit out the storm.’

Lydia looks at me, imploring. Very young again: wanting her mother back. ‘Mummy, I’m frightened by the storm. Please just take them. I know where Daddy kept them in the bedroom drawer. I saw him put them there for you.’

The kist. Angus’s chest of drawers. I never looked in all of it, not thoroughly. And he mentioned the bottom drawer in the phone call
.
I haven’t confronted this yet. Is there something else in there?

‘OK,’ I say. ‘It’s getting late now. Do you want to go to sleep?’

‘No.’

‘You sure?’

‘No.’

‘You can sleep in Mummy’s bed, if you want.’

‘No!’

Lydia is clutching Leopardy tight, as if she fears the wind will rip him from her arms. And why not? Because the moaning of the wind in the trees is like a pack of wolves. We are being stalked by the weather: it is a huge beast on the prowl, battering the windows, seeking prey. This has been going on for six hours, and it could last for three days.

‘Want to go to bed with Leopardy.’

Thank God. Thank God.

‘OK. Then let’s do that.’

This is better: I can get Lydia to bed, then I can look in the chest of drawers. Sort this poisonous mystery once and for all: and then maybe we can both sleep through the worst of the storm; maybe we will wake up and the sky will be blue and clear, and Knoydart will sparkle with snow across Loch Hourn. I will have to apologize to Angus. What I said was awful;
but he still betrayed me with Imogen.

What is in that chest of drawers?

It is surprisingly easy to get Lydia ready for bed. We run to her room and she rips off her clothes, and she dives into her pyjamas and she slips quickly under two duvets, and I tuck her in tight and she closes her eyes, with Leopardy clutched in her fists. I kiss her. She smells sweet, in a sad way. Nostalgic.

The rain thrashes at her window; I close the curtains so Lydia cannot see reflections of her dead sister. I am about to turn off the light when she opens her eyes, and says, ‘Mummy, am I becoming Kirstie?’

Sitting on the bed, I take her hand, and squeeze. ‘No. You are Lydia.’

She stares up at me, blue eyes trusting, and hopeful, and desperate. ‘But, Mummy I don’t know any more. I think I am Lydia, but sometimes Kirstie is inside me and she wants to come out and sometimes Kirstie is in the windows and sometimes she is just here, out here, with us.’

I stroke my daughter’s soft blonde hair. I’m not going to cry. Let the wind do all the lamenting: it is loud enough for all of us. I can hear terrible crashing outside: perhaps one of the doors is being wrenched away. Maybe I did not lash the boat properly. I do not especially care. We couldn’t use the boat in this weather anyway: we would drown.

‘Lydia, let’s go to sleep. Tomorrow the storm will be over, I promise, and then everything will be better. Tomorrow we can go somewhere else.’

Lydia looks at me, as if she does not believe me. But she nods, and says:

‘OK then, Mummy.’

‘Goodnight.’

I kiss her once more and inhale her scent so that I can remember it; then I shut the light, and close the door, and I sprint to my bedroom and grab the little key, and open the bottom drawer of Angus’s kist. The wind thumps the walls and the slates. It sounds as if someone is dragging something along the roof.

Or maybe like a madman trying to get in.

There. Lots of pill bottles.

Tricyclic antidepressants.

They clink as I grab them from the drawer and turn them in my hand. They have my name on them: Sarah Moorcroft. The latest of the bottles is dated eight months ago. I recognize the bottles. I dimly remember taking the pills. I have images of myself holding one. Popping a pill. In the kitchen in Camden.

So it’s true: I took antidepressants after Kirstie died? And I’ve forgotten. This is hardly a revelation. My daughter had died. I was in a terrible state.

But there is a letter here in the drawer under the bottles. I see from the letterhead it’s from Dr Malone. My own, regular GP. My doctor is in his sixties, and he’s probably the last doctor to write real letters in England. But this letter is written to Angus? Why is my doctor writing to my husband?

I pick up the letter and read. The wind slows to a sad crooning. As if it is exhausted, for the moment.

The letter is all about me. It says I am suffering from Complicated Grief Disorder. It says I have ‘deep abiding guilt’ about the death of my daughter.

The letter shakes, slightly, in my hand. I read on.

Clearly she feels, or felt, responsible for some aspects of the accident, as a result of her adulterous liaison that night. The guilt is therefore too much to bear, causing this situation-specific memory loss, which may well be permanent. This is rare but not unknown, a distinct form of Transient Global Amnesia. She will recall certain minor fragments, lucidly, and build a false picture therefrom, but the crucial, more personally painful elements will be missing.

Bereaved parents, especially, are known to suffer this kind of amnesia if they are implicated in the death of a child. And when grief takes a morbid turn, as it has done with your wife, there is no remedy but time. However the pills she has been prescribed will alleviate the worst of her symptoms: the mutism, the insomnia, &c. As I say, if and when she makes a recovery, her memory of the most important events surrounding the accident will, very likely, be completely absent.

My advice is to treat this as a blessing: you can then move on, start with a clean slate, which is necessary, if you want to rebuild your family, as you have indicated. And you should make no reference to her psychological disturbance, as this may cause regression and deepen her depression. It is very important to restrict all knowledge of this to your immediate family circle, as you are doing now. Suicidality is a concern, if she ever learns the truth, from any source.

The letter goes on. It wishes Angus and me the best of luck. And then it signs off.

Adulterous liaison?

The first outlines of an old memory emerge in my mind. Like breath misting on cold glass. I remember that strange dream I had: naked, hairless, in the kitchen. Then sex.