Page 52 of The Twilight Garden

‘The wiring, and a few other things… all of which will mean they’ve thrown their money down the drain if I don’t fix them.’

‘And yet Willow also told me that you would. No doubts, just absolute faith in you.’

Leo was silent for a moment, his gaze resting somewhere in the distance. ‘I guess I still find that hard to believe,’ he said.

Gemma took a deep breath. It was finally time to say it. ‘I know you do. And I think that’s my fault. You haven’t told me about the solar panel which broke either, because I was the one who always doubted you. I’m the reason you doubt yourself now.’

Leo stared at her for a long time, his eyes never leaving hers. Gemma was right to say what she had, but his silence was becoming unbearable. The longer it went on, the deeper the hurt it showed. She wanted to look away but what would that tell him? That she doubted him still?

Gradually, the intensity of his gaze softened. ‘I thought that once,’ he said eventually. ‘But not any more. You were right to doubt me. I was different back then, and I let you down.’

She shook her head. ‘No, I wanted someone to blame and I picked you. You were an easy target, full of guilt about Dad, about the lack of money you contributed to the household. You were torn between having to work jobs you hated just to earn some money or putting your energy into getting your business off the ground. But I’d already turned you into the no-good husband who always let me down, so you really didn’t have a choice. And then when Dad died, well…’

‘I loved Bernie, Gem.’

‘I know you did.’

‘He was the only one who thought I should follow my dreams, and he made me feel special because of it. I still go over and over that day in my head, thinking it should never have happened. But the truth of it is that accidents do happen. It’s senseless and unthinkable, but there’s nothing we can do to stop them.’

Gemma laid a hand on his arm, and he lifted his head to look at her, searching her face for clues to how she was feeling.

‘It’s the fear that I made the wrong choice,’ he added.

‘You don’t have to do this, Leo.’

‘No, I do. I need to talk about it because I’ll never, ever know whether the choice I made was the right one. Your dad knew immediately how final things were when he fell, that was the thing. He knew that hitting the side of your head on a rock was bad news, and the look he gave me – he could feel the end was coming. But I’ll never know if I’d gone for help straight away whether it would have made any difference. Whether he might have survived.’

Gemma ran her hand down his arm to slide her fingers beneath his, tears slipping down her cheeks.

‘But how could I leave him?’ said Leo. ‘Alone, cold, in pain. Longing for the comfort of a loved one to ease his last moments on the earth. I couldn’t. And I still wouldn’t.’

‘I know, it’s okay…’

‘Your dad was conscious every second until his last. He knew he was beyond help, Gem, but he also knew I could carry his final messages home. To tell you how much he loved you and June, and how sorry he was to be letting you down. I didn’t make that up, Gemma. I swore that whatever else I did, I would make sure you knew how loved you were. It was the last thing I could do for him, and the only thing which brought me any comfort.’

‘And I don’t think I ever properly thanked you for it,’ she whispered. ‘But it did make a difference, it truly did. Knowing that in his last few moments we were all he was thinking about. But you know he loved you too, don’t you?’

Leo nodded. ‘He didn’t say as much, but I knew, I could see it in his eyes. He thanked me right before he slipped away, and I knew it wasn’t just for being there at the end. It was for all the times we’d shared, too. The walks, the talks, the pints of beer on a Saturday evening…’

He stared out across the garden for a moment, his jaw working as he thought what to say. ‘I’ve never told you this, but one of the worst things about that whole day was that after he’d gone, I did have to leave him – because I still had to go and get help. If we’d done a hike like that today, we’d all have phones and GPS gadgetry, but back then all he had was his crappy Nokia and that bit the dust the minute he fell over. So I had to leave him and walk miles to raise the alarm. And the most ridiculous thing is that I’d almost convinced myself a miracle would have happened in the time it took me to get back to him and I’d find him alive. The shock of seeing his body again was like being hit for a second time.’

‘Oh, Leo… I’m so sorry. Sorry that he died when I knew how much you loved him. Sorry that it was you who was with him on that day, you who took the responsibility for it all, but mainly because it was you who had to make that ultimate decision, which I know has haunted you ever since. You made the right decision, Leo. Because you were the only one who could.’

He nodded, no more than a slight movement, his eyes closed against the pain he was feeling still.

‘I had a breakdown not that long ago,’ he said after a moment. ‘I thought Rowan might have told you, but…’

Gemma shook her head. ‘Willow mentioned you’d shared something with him, but it wasn’t for either of them to say.’

‘I’d been seeing someone…’ He took a deep breath. ‘Had been for a while, and I thought it was serious. She knew everything about me, all of it, even the things I wanted desperately to hide – the hurt of what had happened, the guilt I carried, the anguish that I had made the wrong decision. She told me they didn’t matter, that they belonged to the past, a past where I was a different person. But as time went on, things changed.

‘She began to withdraw from me, small things, in small ways, even just the mention of something silly someone had said that day at work. And because they were so small, I told myself they didn’t matter. That there were plenty of other things we shared. But over time, they added up, until I realised that, one day, the number of things she didn’t share outweighed those she did. And when I asked to talk about it, she told me I was being silly, that I was nagging her… until the day, of course, when she told me she was leaving. And that the reason she’d stopped sharing her life with me was because she’d begun sharing it with someone else.’ He gulped, as if running out of air.

‘I didn’t take it very well, I’m afraid. I think I would have been okay in time, grown-up and rational – it was just another break-up, they happen, c’est la vie – except that she used everything I had told her about my past against me. Said I was weak. Pathetic for hanging onto things which had happened so long ago. So I had a breakdown. And I very nearly gave up, until the day I found an old photograph of me and Bernie, the man who had been more of a father to me than my own. The man who had always believed in me and encouraged me to follow my dreams. And I told myself that if that man could believe those things, then that was good enough for me. It was the light at the end of the tunnel which, much to my surprise, didn’t turn out to be the oncoming train at all.’

Gemma swallowed. ‘I never thanked you properly for the forget-me-nots. For the book you gave me. It was a beautiful thing to do… And your message reminded me not only of Mum, but of Dad, too. How you gave us his last words to remember how loved we were. I’ve never forgotten that, but what’s wrong is that I never let you know how much that meant, or that I knew how much your decision had cost you. Why else do you think I was so determined that Mum wouldn’t die alone? I promised her I would be by her side, however hard it was. However painful it was for me, because when her time came she would have someone with her who loved her, someone who would hold her hand, and tell her it was okay. That Dad would be waiting for her. I accused you of letting me down, but it was me who let you down.’

‘I tried, but I couldn’t carry the weight of us both,’ said Leo. ‘I had no one holding me up. So I sank. And I sank so far down that I was in danger of pulling you with me, so I did what I thought was right – I let go. To at least give you a chance to keep your head above water.’