The Ice Twins. S. Tremayne K.

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СКАЧАТЬ both with milk, thanks, Jenny.’

      Angus glanced across to the corner. Five men, of varying ages and virtually identical crew-neck jumpers, sat at a large round wooden table. The pub was otherwise deserted. The men were silent as they squinted back at Angus over their pints.

      Then they turned to each other, like conspirators, and started talking again. In a very foreign language.

      Angus tried not to gawp. Instead he asked Josh, ‘Gaelic?’

      ‘Yep. You hear it a lot in Sleat these days, there’s a new Gaelic college down the road. And the schools teach it, of course.’ Josh grinned, discreetly. ‘But I bet they were speaking English before we walked in. They do it as a joke, to wind up the incomers.’

      Josh lifted a hand and waved at one of the men, a stubbled, stout, handsome guy, in his mid-forties.

      ‘Gordon. All right?’

      Gordon turned, and offered his own, very taciturn smile.

      ‘Afternoon, Joshua. Afternoon. Ciamar a tha thu fhein?’

      ‘Absolutely. My aunt was struck by lightning.’ Josh tutted, good-naturedly. ‘Gordon, you know I’ll never learn it.’

      ‘Aye, but maybe one day ye can give it a try now, Josh.’

      ‘OK, I will, I promise. Let’s catch up soon!’

      The coffees had arrived: proffered by the bored bar-girl. Angus stared at the twee little cups in Josh’s rough, red, stonemason’s hands.

      Angus yearned for a Scotch. You were meant to drink Scotch, in Scotland, it was expected. Yet he felt awkward downing booze, in the afternoon, with sober Josh.

      It was a slightly paradoxical feeling: because Josh Freedland hadn’t always been sober. There was a time when Josh had been the very opposite of sober. Whereas the rest of the gang from Uni – including Angus – had mildly dabbled in drugs, then got bored and returned to booze, Josh had spiralled from popping pills at parties, into serious heroin addiction: and into darkness and dereliction. For years it seemed that Josh was slated for total failure, or worse – and no could save him, much as they tried, especially Angus.

      But then, abruptly, at the age of 30, Josh had saved himself. With Narcotics Anonymous.

      And Josh had gone for sobriety the same way he’d gone for drugs: with total commitment. He did his sixty meetings in sixty days. He completed the twelve-step programme, and entrusted himself to a higher power. Then he’d met a nice, affluent young woman in an NA meeting, in Notting Hill – Molly Margettson. She was a cocaine addict, but she was cleaning her scene, like Josh.

      They’d promptly fallen in love, and soon after that Josh and Molly had married, in a small poignant ceremony, and then they’d exited London, stage north. They’d used the money from selling her flat in Holland Park to buy a very nice house, here in Sleat, right on the water’s edge, half a mile from the Selkie, in the middle of the place they had all loved: near to Angus’s grandmother’s island.

      The beautiful Sound of Sleat, the most beautiful place on earth.

      Now Josh was a stonemason and Molly, remarkably, was a housewife and businesswoman: she made a decent living selling fruits and jams, honeys and chutneys. She also did the occasional painting.

      Angus stared across the pub. Pensive. After years of feeling sorry for Josh, the truth was, he now envied him. Even as he was happy for Josh and Molly, he was jealous of the purity of their lives. Nothing but air, stone, sky, glass, salt, rock and sea. And Hebridean heather honey. Angus too wanted this purity, he wanted to rinse away the complexities of the city and dive into cleanness and simplicity. Fresh air, real bread, raw wind on your face.

      The two friends walked to a lonely table: far away from Gordon and his Gaelic-speaking mates. Josh sat and sipped coffee, and spoke with his own conspirator’s smile.

      ‘That was Gordon Fraser. He does everything, fixes shit from Kylerhea to Ardvasar. Toasters, boats, and lonely wives. If you need a boat, he could probably help.’

      ‘Yes, I remember him. I think.’ Angus shrugged. Did he really remember? How much could he recall, from so long ago? In truth, he was still shocked by his own miscalculation of Torran Island’s nearness to the mainland. What else had he remembered wrongly? What else had he forgotten?

      More importantly, if his long-term memory was unreliable, how reliable was his judgement? Did he trust himself to live, peacefully, with Sarah on this island? It could be very difficult: especially if she was opening the boxes, shining lights into the darkness. And what if she was lying to him? Again?

      He wanted to think about something else.

      ‘So, Josh, how much has it changed? Declined? Torran?’

      ‘The cottage?’ Josh shrugged. ‘Well you really should prepare yourself, mate. As I said on the phone, I’ve been doing my best to keep an eye on it. So has Gordon – he loved your gran – and the local fishermen stop by. But it’s in a state, no denying it.’

      ‘But – the lighthouse keepers?’

      Josh shook his head. ‘Nah. They only come once a fortnight, and they’re in and out, polish a lens, fix a battery, job done, head back to the Selkie for a jar.’

      ‘OK.’

      ‘We’ve all done our best, but, y’know, life, it’s busy, man. Molly doesn’t like using the boat on her own. And your gran stopped coming here four years ago, so it hasn’t really been inhabited since then, at all.’

      ‘That’s a long time.’

      ‘Too right, mate. Four long Hebridean winters? Damp and rot and wind, it’s all taken a toll.’ He sighed, then brightened. ‘Though you did have some squatters for a while, last summer.’

      ‘We did?’

      ‘Yeah. Actually they were OK. Two guys, two girls – couple of lookers. Just kids, students. They actually came in the Selkie one night, bold as bollocks. Gordon and the guys told them all the stories – Torran was haunted – and they freaked. Left next morning. Didn’t do that much damage. Burned most of your gran’s remaining firewood though. Fucking Londoners.’

      Angus acknowledged the irony. He remembered when he and the gang, from London, had been the same: sitting in this pub, listening to the folktales of Skye, told by locals, in return for a dram, those tales designed to while away the long winter nights. His granny had also told these stories of Skye. The Widow of Portree. The Fear that Walked in the Dark. And och, the Gruagach – her hair as white as snow, mourning her own reflection …

      ‘Why haven’t you been up since?’

      ‘Sorry?’

      Josh persisted: ‘It’s fifteen bloody years since you’ve been here. Why?’

      Angus frowned, and sighed. It was a good question: one he had asked himself. He struggled towards an answer.

      ‘Don’t know. Not really. Maybe Torran became a kind of symbol. Place I would one day return to. Lost paradise. Also it’s about five million miles away. Kept meaning to come up, СКАЧАТЬ