The Ice Twins. S. K. Tremayne

hall and we would make love in the first place we found: on the kitchen table, on the bathroom floor, in the rainy garden, in a delirium of beautiful appetite.

      Then we’d lie back and laugh at the sheen of happy sweat that we shared, at the blatant trail of clothes we’d left behind, like breadcrumbs in a fairy tale, leading from the front door to our lovemaking, and so we’d follow our clothes back, picking up knickers, then jeans, then my shirt, his shirt, then a jacket, my jumper. And then we’d eat cold pizza. Smiling. Guiltless. Jubilant.

      We were happy, then. Happier than any other couple I’ve known. Sometimes I actively envy us, as we were. Like I am the jealous neighbour of my previous self. Those bloody Moorcrofts, with their perfect life, completed by the adorable twins, then the beautiful dog.

      And yet, and yet – even as the jealousy surges, I know that this completion was something of an illusion. Because our life wasn’t always perfect. Not always. In those long dark months, immediately following the birth, we almost broke up.

      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