Abstract: An improved method and apparatus for managing real pages, also called physical pages, and virtual pages, also called logical pages, in a virtually indexed cache that is implemented as two physical caches. A list of free real pages that is a doubly linked list with a single anchor in addition to the free real pages is created. The pages are sequentially associated with each other using two sets of pointers. A set of forward pointers are used with the first pointer connecting the anchor page to the first physical page in the list and subsequent pointers connecting subsequent pages with each other with the last page having a pointer pointing to the anchor page. A set of backward pointers are employed with the first pointer pointing from the anchor to the last page in the list with subsequent pointers traversing the list towards the first page with the first page having the last pointer pointing to the anchor page.