The Ice Twins Read Online Free PDF Page 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 firstplace? 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.
    ‘I’ll go,’ I say. ‘It’s my turn.’
    And it is: the last time Kirstie woke up, after one of her nightmares, was just a few days ago, and Angus had loyally traipsed upstairs to do the comforting.
    Setting down my wine glass, I head for the first floor. Beany is following me, eagerly, as if we are going rabbiting; his tail whips against the table legs.
    Kirstie is barefoot, at the top of the stairs. She is the image of troubled innocence with her big blue eyes, and with Leopardy pressed to her buttoned pyjama-top.
    ‘It did it again, Mummy, the dream.’
    ‘Come on, Moomin. It’s just a bad dream.’
    I pick