Page 46 of The Twilight Garden

Gemma dropped her head. She knew exactly why she’d done what she had. She’d been terrified. Terrified of a life which might easily backfire. Always afraid of what might be around the corner – some disaster which might befall them that they couldn’t pay for – a broken boiler, an expensive car repair. She needed a safety net beneath her, a little pot of money which would smooth over the bumps in the road, and so she had turned away from the dreams she and Leo had once shared and instead set about making her life the way she wanted it.

‘But my life with Rowan hasn’t been all plain sailing,’ said Willow. ‘It isn’t now. We’re only ever an inch away from going under, and that’s hard. What happened with the break-in might not have mattered all that much to some people, but for us that was years of work – building up a store of equipment so that what we’re doing now would even be possible. Losing it hurts like hell, but experience has taught us that we’ll always have enough, even if we have to redefine what our definition of enough is. Fortunately, we’re both quite good at that.’

Gemma nodded. She could see it in the way they spoke to one another, the way Rowan would wrap his arms around Willow without saying a word because he was there, and that was all she needed.

‘So how did you and Rowan first meet Leo?’ she asked.

‘At a sustainable living exhibition. It was one of these huge events, full of hundreds of stands and equally full of people who could all talk the talk, but very few we suspected who had ever walked the walk.’ She held up her fingers, adding quotes around her last words. ‘It was ridiculous, really. Their stands were shiny and new, their brochures glossy, but somehow you knew that what was on show was all for show and fundamentally different from the way in which the company normally operated. Just like the staff manning the stand, who were all guzzling water from disposable plastic bottles behind the counter. When we met Leo, he was perched on a stool he’d evidently brought from home and was eating a cheese and pickle sandwich out of tinfoil. It was the first truly honest conversation we’d had all day, and I virtually had to prise Rowan away from him. Plus, he was the only one offering anything different. He wasn’t interested in one size fits all but clearly wanted to work with people to help fulfil their dreams, not his. We weren’t quite ready when we first met him, but we stayed in touch and, as soon as we signed on this place, we invited him to stay.’

‘And the rest, as they say, is history,’ said Gemma, repeating her earlier words. ‘It sounds like he came along at just the right time,’ she added, knowing that that too was how she had felt about Leo. She waited until Willow had finished digging the area she was working on, the edge of the beautiful stone path now clear. ‘I know what you’re trying to do,’ she said.

Willow looked up, not a trace of guile on her face. ‘And what would that be?’

‘Walking me down memory lane where the sun always shines and the view is always rose-tinted.’

‘It doesn’t hurt from time to time,’ Willow replied. ‘I look back at my younger self and wince more often than not. But I also know that that person, who made a lot of mistakes and often cared far too deeply about things which didn’t really matter, was the person I grew up from, and I still have a lot to thank her for, even if she was an idiot. Every thing has its time, and maybe you and Leo have missed yours, but unfinished business is unfinished business.’

Gemma gave her a quizzical look. ‘What makes you say that?’

‘Only that whenever Leo and I have talked, I’ve always got the sense that there’s something big he still carries around with him. A sadness… or maybe it’s even deeper than that. I don’t know if that’s you, or something else, but whatever it is, it’s something he’s been running from for years.’

Willow was fishing, but Gemma couldn’t blame her. She and Leo were both currently living under her roof, and that entitled her to be curious. It probably also entitled her to know whether the situation was likely to improve.

‘There was a thing,’ she replied. ‘A very big thing, and one we couldn’t get past. I don’t know whether our relationship would have lasted had it not happened, but it doesn’t matter in the end – it did happen. It shone a light on everything that was wrong in our relationship, and we couldn’t move forward. We still can’t. Blaming each other. Firing accusations about letting each other down. It’s what we argued about the other day… which seems ridiculous after all this time. We just step straight back into the roles we’ve always played, and I hate that.’ She stared off into the distance. ‘What’s worse is that, back then, I was utterly convinced that my arguments were the right ones. Leo would line his up, like a row of ducks at a fairground, and I’d use mine to shoot them down, one by one. Now I can’t even remember what they were, not properly. They seem slippery – just as I grab hold of one to have a good chew on it, it slithers out of my grasp, and all I’m left holding are the flimsy remains of what I was once so certain was the truth.’ She sighed, cross with herself.

Willow’s smile was warm. ‘But we all change, Gemma. What we think when we’re younger is rarely the same as we do when we’re older. Life doesn’t go in a straight line. It sweeps one way and then another. It curves, doubles back on itself. And the truth isn’t linear either. It’s bumpy and thorny and it’s capricious, too. It can change like the wind, become something else entirely when our backs are turned. But the most important thing I know about the truth is that the way we see it depends entirely on our point of view. Look at it from another angle and it isn’t the truth at all. It’s a deception. And yet we still clasp hold of it like it’s the most important thing in the world because if we drop it, our lives will shatter into so many pieces we’ll never be able to put them back together again.’

‘So how can we ever know what the truth really is?’

‘By accepting that there’s more than one version of it. It obviously didn’t seem like it at the time, and it might not seem like it now either, but what you see and what Leo sees… They’re two sides of the same thing, Gemma.’

Gemma was late shutting the door on the hencoop that evening. She and Willow had been determined to get as much done in the garden as they could and, fuelled by the growing warmth of the afternoon, they had stayed far beyond the point where they would normally call it a day. As a consequence, dinner had been slightly later than usual, and so had everything else, but she reminded herself that this was perfectly okay. Mr Fox would not be out and about just yet, and time was still firmly on her side.

As it was, the hens had already put themselves to bed and it was the work of a moment to check that they were all home, shut the door and make sure it was secure. The sun was almost gone, but although the temperature had cooled, the evening still felt full of promise.

She wandered through to the orchard where the apple trees were filled with the palest of pink blossoms, their scent drifting in the air. In a few months she would see them filled with apples – apples which, come autumn, she would gather to make into pies and crumbles. If she stayed… The year was turning and for once in her life, Gemma felt as if she was turning with it, instead of pushing against the passage of time.

She crossed the field and headed for the garden, suddenly needing to see all that had been accomplished, to remind herself of everything that had changed. The brambles where she had first searched for eggs were long gone, and in their place was a growing order and sense of space. The paths were now established, as were the edges of the borders, and little by little, new discoveries were being made. Like the rambling rose which had threaded its way through the brambles, a rose which Gemma now knew would have tumbled over an arbour seat, the most perfect place to sit a while.

A fleet movement caught her eye. The hare stood on its hind legs no more than five metres away. It looked at her, its eyes liquid amber and gold in the fading sunlight. Looked, but did not look away, and Gemma felt her breathing still, caught in a web of wonder deep inside her chest. To be this close, to be allowed this close… The moments stretched out and still they looked at one another, the wild animal and the woman, held fast in each other’s gaze, before, with a twitch of its ears, the hare was off, bounding through the grasses with ease.

And in the middle distance, just before the line of the hedge, she saw… four, five, no, six others, playing in the twilight. This was their time – on the cusp between day and night – a celebration of the day just ending and excitement at the one to come.

She watched until her eyes ached. Until she could no longer tell whether what she saw were the long limbs of the hares as they leapt for joy or the tall fronds of the grasses, blown by the breeze.

17

Gemma’s first thought of the day was that she must not cry and now, two hours later, she was still urging the tears to stay away. It was her birthday. It should be a good day… it could be a good day as long as she let it be, and tried not to think about it too hard. Because it was also her mother’s special day, the one they shared between them, and the one she had been dreading the arrival of for weeks.

She had planned to spend the day in Flora’s garden – everybody else called it her garden, but Gemma would always think of it as Flora’s – and although, at first, Ashley had planned to be with her, she had messaged the night before to say that something had come up and she could no longer make it. On the one hand, that was disappointing. Ashley was good company and her cheerful chatter would almost certainly have helped with the way Gemma was feeling. But on the other, the thought of solitude was also appealing. There was comfort in being able to let her guard down, to feel whatever she was feeling without the need to hide it from others. She had done forced jollity to death over the years.

So it was with the resolution to let the day be whatever it wanted to be that Gemma headed out. With the pathways which divided the garden into quadrants now fully uncovered, she had begun to clear the beds which lay on either side of them. It was painstaking work. If anything had survived of Flora’s planting then it would be a miracle, but it would also be delicate, tentative shoots struggling towards the light against the mass of vegetation which covered it. It would be so easy to rip out new shoots along with the old, to think they were just as unwanted as the rest. Only the strongest things had gained mastery over the garden: the thickest stems, the hardiest plants, those with an invasive nature. It was time to let the weaker elements have their moment, if she could find them.

The nettles were the worst, along with the ever present brambles. They sent down huge networks of roots which had sprawled in all directions, deep and unyielding. And leave one little piece behind and more growth would spring up, overpowering whatever might be beneath it.

Her hair was not dissimilar from the weeds, growing in length, her natural curls springing to life now they were no longer being ruthlessly cut away. She tucked it back behind her ears, and peering closer at the patch of soil she had uncovered, picked up the small hand fork she was using. In her back pocket was a list of the plants which Flora had grown here, and every now and again she pulled it out to study it, trying to bring to mind everything she knew about each of them, particularly the shape of the leaves. She paused, scrutinising the fledgling plants in front of her, the palmate design, with almost feathered edges. Larkspur? No… Her heart quickened. Delphinium, she was sure of it. She sat back on her haunches. Could they really have been here all this time? Every year sending out new shoots in the hope that they would reach maturity, and every year beaten back by the thicket of brambles? Well, not this year.

Gemma worked as quickly as she could, pulling at anything which wasn’t one of her beloved flowers. Some of the plants were tiny, only just pushing their heads from beneath the soil, whereas others were a few inches taller, but by the time half an hour had passed, she had uncovered a patch of them. Now all she had to do was wait, because the best bit was yet to come, and she hugged the thought to her. Would they be darkest purple, or a rich royal blue? Palest lilac, or pearlescent pink? Vibrant magenta or blushing coral? Only time would tell. And time knew no boundaries out here. A single year or fifty, it made no difference; the circle of life continued.