Chapter 16 #2
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.