Chapter 19 Zoe Spring 2025 #2
‘The key?’ That isn’t what Zoe is expecting. She’s carried the key with her since it went missing. She takes it out of her pocket and lays it on the table. ‘This key?’
Steph stares at it if it might explode. ‘Only Mum knows this, and Granny and Patrick. We never told anyone else. Even Dad.’
‘And?’
Steph picks at her nail. ‘You have a twin brother,’ she whispers.
That’s it, thinks Zoe. Kylie. Kylie and Kai. They were the names mentioned in the letter. Kylie and Kai.
Steph
1990
‘You’re a good lad, aren’t you?’ said Patrick, stroking Kai’s cheek. ‘Not like your naughty sister.’ He sat on the wooden bench in front of the empty fireplace. It had been raining for days and the small amount of wood we’d found was too damp to light.
My feet and back ached from walking back and forth but it was the only way to keep Kylie’s screams to a murmur. The minute I stopped she seemed to think she was going to be fed.
It was the coldest night by far, the sky stretching like a planetarium over us, the hole in the roof acting like a telescope. Last night I’d done star jumps for minutes at a time to keep warm. But we’d run out of food again and my limbs felt too heavy to lift.
‘Can’t you just feed her?’ he said, as Kylie got louder.
‘I’ve tried. You know I’ve tried. There doesn’t seem to be anything there.’
‘What do you mean nothing there?’ He watched me over his shoulder as I paced.
‘I’m just so thirsty,’ I said, trying to squeeze some saliva around my tongue to lick my cracked lips. ‘If I had a cup of tea or something, I’d have milk for them.’
‘We all want a fucking cup of tea,’ he said, resting his cheek against Kai’s. ‘He’s cold, Steph.’
‘We’re all cold,’ I said, briefly wondering if there was any part of me that was warm.
When I’d peed that morning, I’d wanted to hold my hands in the stream just to feel something warm.
When you’ve been that cold, it’s hard to remember ever feeling warm.
In the depths of winter when you’re wearing every item of clothing you own, it seems impossible to believe that in six months you could be sweltering in shorts and a t-shirt.
‘No, I mean he’s really cold.’ He stood up.
‘You need to put him inside your coat, it’s the only way.’ Kylie was nestled between my jumpers and my coat, my scarf wrapped around her hat.
‘He fucking wriggles too much. I worry he’s going to suffocate. Kylie might scream but at least she’s still.’
I took off my glove and touched Kai’s cheek. My hands were so cold, it was hard to feel whether there was any difference with him. We were all cold. But he looked different somehow. Slower, maybe.
‘Look, you take her and I’ll put Kai under my coat.’ The change in my pace upset Kylie. She started to build up to her drill-like scream. ‘Hold her,’ I said to him. Patrick shook his head and started shaking Kai gently. ‘She’s better with you. C’mon, my lad. He’ll be okay.’
I went back to pacing from one side of the bothy to the other, avoiding the mud, now frozen to a slippery crust. Kylie settled into a low grumble.
I fantasised about toasting crumpets in front of the roaring log fire at Highdown.
I’d turn round and Mum would pour me a mug of tea.
I’d gulp it in one, burning the roof of my mouth, and get her to pour me another.
I’d slather Sussex honey on the crumpets and it’d melt and drip through the holes in the bottom, melding with the butter into a deliciously sticky and warm mess.
Or maybe it would be one of Mum’s home-made jams. I’d eat the whole packet and Mum would smile and open another and hand them to me to slide on to the toasting fork.
I’d sit so close to the fire I’d singe my slippers.
‘Steph, Steph, he’s not moving now.’ Patrick’s urgency sliced into my fantasy and I was back in the starlit bothy. ‘Look,’ he said.
He held out Kai to me and I sat on the bench so I could keep Kylie inside my coat and hold Kai in my arms. I kissed his forehead, my lips immediately cooling where they touched him. He was a heavy sort of cold. A still sort of cold.
I shook him slightly, expecting his eyes to open, his mouth to start puckering with the beginning of a cry. But he stayed silent. ‘Kai, Kai, darling. Wake up.’ I took off my glove and touched his cheek. I still couldn’t tell how cold he was.
‘Kai, Kai.’ I kissed him again and then shook him, harder this time.
‘Careful, you’ll hurt him,’ said Patrick, leaning over.
My heart was thumping, adrenaline making me warm. ‘Kai.’ I was shouting then and Kylie started to cry louder.
I unzipped my coat and took her out, handing her to Patrick. ‘Put her inside your coat.’ He shook his head.
‘Put her inside your fucking coat.’ I ground out the words and he silently undid his jacket.
I took off my own coat and my top jumper and immediately started to shake uncontrollably.
The jumper fitted twice around Kai and I slipped my arms back in my coat and slid him between my breasts.
Despite being so cold myself, he made me colder.
Even the proximity to the milk he had wanted earlier so desperately didn’t make him stir.
Fuck. I breathed warm air down on his face, my breath jumpy.
Come on, Kai. Don’t do this. God, don’t do this.
Maybe we were being punished for what had happened at the lab.
Maybe that was it. But it wasn’t Kai’s fault.
He hadn’t even been born then. I imagined being in the village church, kneeling in front of the altar, begging.
Please, please, God. I’ll do anything. I’ll go home, tell Mum, tell everyone I’m sorry and I was wrong.
Tell the police what happened. I’ll tell them where Patrick is.
Do everything and anything. Study. Sit my exams. Never go out again. I’ll even help Fi with her maths.
We stayed like that for a long time, my hips swaying with muscle memory. Kylie kept up a steady stream of protests inside Patrick’s coat. He said nothing but watched me and Kai.
‘Check him,’ he said eventually.
I stared at Patrick. I didn’t want to check him. I didn’t want to know. The not-knowing was better. He was just chilly and I was warming him through. Like any mum would.
I’d do the Duke of Edinburgh thing Mum had been on about. I’d visit old people. I’d help John in the garden. If only Kai would be alright.
‘Fucking check him, Steph.’
‘I can’t, I can’t bear it if—’ I tried to say, licking my lips. My tongue was swollen in my mouth. I looked down at the top of his head, hiding underneath my scarf. I wanted Mum.
‘Here, there’s a little water in the bag finally.
’ Patrick reached up and took one of the plastic bags off his water system.
I sipped it, licking my lips and then holding the little water in my mouth.
I offered it back to him and he shook his head.
I drank down the remaining water. It felt like nectar slipping down my throat.
I licked the inside of the bag to get any remaining liquid and handed it back to Patrick for him to rig up again.
Kylie was lying on the bench screaming, and my nipples finally prickled. Thank God.
Patrick wrenched open my coat, the zip tearing. He grabbed Kai and opened up the swaddling. There was no reaction from him. I sat down on the bench and picked up Kylie, shoving her towards my breast. I could feel some milk oozing out and she started suckling immediately.
‘Give him here,’ I rasped at Patrick. He handed Kai to me, and I slid him under my jumper positioning his mouth on my wet nipple.
There was no reaction from him but then he’d always been a poor feeder compared to Kylie.
I readjusted her and then squeezed the milk into his mouth but it just dribbled off and slid down his cheek on to my jeans.
I took him out from my jumper and looked at him properly.
His face was grey, his eyes closed. I touched his cheek. ‘Kai,’ I whispered.
Patrick dropped to his knees next to me. He was sobbing. ‘He’s gone.’
Anger flared inside me. ‘If you’d just put him inside your coat like I said—’ He smacked me across the face, and I jolted to the side, gripping both babies tightly. Kylie screamed as she lost contact with my nipple. Kai didn’t react.
‘Don’t fucking blame me. It was you who fucked up at the lab and brought the police on to us.
It’s your fault we ended up in this shithole.
If he dies, then it’s your fault too.’ A blast of cold hit me as he disappeared through the door, which then swung back on itself, letting in another gust of freezing air.
I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t bear it. I dragged Kylie back to my breast but she couldn’t seem to get what she wanted. I put Kai on the other side and sat there, Kylie thrashing and Kai perfectly still. So still.
I wanted Mum. I wanted Mum here. She would know.
She would make it right. What had I done?
Patrick was right, it was all my fault. Calling the wrong number to warn them about the bomb had set off a whole trail of events – the lab not being evacuated; Patrick being named as a suspect; having to go on the run with the twins; running out of safe places to stay and then finding this hut; the money going and having no food; Patrick’s temper meant we had lost the few friends we had; winter; cold.
Kai had always been the smaller twin. Would it have been different if I’d had him in hospital?
They had those plastic jugs of water in hospital.
Food brought to your bed every few hours.
Warmth. Clean sheets. I could have had that if I hadn’t called the wrong number.
My arms had gone numb and I readjusted them. Kylie grumbled and shifted slightly. Kai was still. People who didn’t have twins would never get what it was like to have two babies. One and one didn’t make two, whatever they’d said at school. The weight of both of them in my arms.
After what seemed like hours Patrick reappeared. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said straightaway. ‘I just couldn’t—’
He saw me with the babies crossed against my chest and a spark of joy illuminated his face.
I shook my head. He came over then, and knelt in front of me.
Kylie had fallen asleep on my breast, her mouth still wet.
Patrick slipped his hand under Kai and lifted him off.
His face was stained with milk, the creamy white only emphasising the grey of his cheeks.
Patrick was crying again as he wrapped him back up in the blanket.
He stood there cuddling him for a long time.
I couldn’t look at them. I missed his weight already.
Eventually he sat down in the corner of the room, Kai on his lap.
‘He’ll be cold like that,’ I said. But he just shook his head and looked at him.
I wrapped Kylie back up and slid her underneath my jumper, my forehead touching hers.
I must have slept for a while because I woke with my heart thudding, wondering where Kai was.
How he was. I stared around the room, then saw Patrick was asleep, sitting on the cardboard in the corner, leaning over Kai, his hand on him.
The remembering was almost as painful as the discovery.
My eyes pricked but no tears would come.
Kylie woke up but didn’t cry; her anger at the pathetic amount of milk earlier had seemingly been exhausted.
She looked up at me, her dark blue eyes unblinking.
Would she remember these months with her twin?
I wondered. She’d grown with him, entwined with him for nine months within my womb and then spent another three living with him outside, their bodies still entwined at times.
Their feet would touch when I fed them together.
It looked like they were playing footsie.
Would she always feel there was a part of her missing?
Tell me what to do, I telepathed to her. She stared back at me. I asked her again.
The crescent moon cast shadows through the patchy roof.
For the first time I noticed a faint tinge of blue on Kylie’s lips.
Maybe it was just from her crying. My torch battery had died a long time ago so there was no light and I didn’t want to wake Patrick by going outside.
I eased off one glove and her face chilled my already cold fingers.
She’s freezing, I realised. Maybe it’s only because she was born the biggest that she’s the strongest, that she’s survived this long.
My heart contracted and I looked into the corner of the room where Kai appeared to sleep peacefully on Patrick’s lap in the Babygro he’d never grow out of.
What shall I do? I asked her again. Mum, I need you.
What should I do, Kylie? Stiffly she turned her head towards the door.
I glanced at it. We’d stuffed plastic shopping bags in the gaps, but still the wind had got through, creeping under the blankets to snap at our toes, seeping into every pore, every bone.
I held her close against my body. I tensed every muscle into moving as slowly as it could, inching across the room. I leaned over Patrick, and pressed my lips against Kai’s cold cheek. I would never forget that feeling, that moment.
Before I opened the door, I looked round.
There was nothing to take. All the things I’d so excitedly brought from home eight months ago had been stolen or sold.
What was left was just squalor. Piles of rubbish from the snacks I’d bought or stolen from different shops and the twins’ used disposable nappies, though most of those had been reused many times.
I gripped the door handle and pulled it open slowly, my eyes fixed on his face. I couldn’t see Kai from the way Patrick was leaning. My baby and I slipped through the door, and I pushed it to, then I was running, tripping, the moon and stars lighting the way home to Highdown.