‘For me too. I just couldn’t figure out how to mend things. Was it better to keep a distance and try and let things blow over, or face it head on, or make out it had never happened, or ignore you? I just ...’ Remy looked a little overwhelmed, and she understood. This felt a lot like progress.
‘Listening to you now, it sounds like you’re posing one of those conundrums that Guy and the knobhead used to debate whendrunk: would you rather get attacked by one horse-sized duck or twenty duck-sized horses ...’
‘Gee, that sounds like fun!’ Remy gushed with fake enthusiasm, her smile turned to a sneer. She clearly wasn’t a fan of either man. This smacked of loyalty that was very nice to see. It made her laugh.
‘Oh, it was.Somuch fun!’
‘I’d rather neither, Ash. If I had the choice.’
‘You were always the wise one.’
‘In some ways.’ Remy huffed. ‘Thought I had all the answers, even when I was ten.’
‘Well, my problem, sis, or one of them’ – she puffed on her cigarette, deciding to wade even further into the honesty pool – ‘is that I’ve never been as confident as I present. And it’s hard to breathe sometimes when you feel a little less than.’
‘You’ve never been less than, Ash. You have so much going for you. I mean, you can be an arsehole, but you have that lovely life in London. And if you ever worried about not measuring up to that prick you married and the people you hung out with ...’ She gave a wry laugh. ‘None of them deserved you.’
Ashleigh shook her head. ‘Not just them, although yes. I wanted so badly to be liked by his parents.’
‘Oh God! I remember them – what were their names?’ She clicked her fingers, the well-known aide memoire. ‘Margot and Freddie?’
‘Close. Elaine and Dickie.’
‘Elaine and Dickie! That was it!’ Remy chuckled. ‘Now theywerearseholes!’
‘She liked me far more after we divorced. Don’t think the German tolerates her arseholeness.’
‘Well, there’s a lesson.’
‘Yep.’
Remy stood. ‘Shall I go and get us a cup of tea?’
She nodded. She liked the sound of it; her and her sister having a cuppa at the back of the garden, just the two of them. ‘That sounds like a plan.’
Remy wiped the seat of her dress with her palms.
‘People always ask me when they find out I’m an identical twin if I can feel your pain; they want to know if we have a psychic link. The look on their faces, Rem, when I tell them no is always one of disappointment.’
‘Yep. I’ve had similar conversations.’
‘I did once though, that night, when you and Tony ...’ It was almost instinctive, the way her sister rubbed her shoulder as Ashleigh spoke. ‘I got this sharp pain in my shoulder and felt winded.’
‘Weird!’ Remy acknowledged, this the first time Ashleigh had mentioned it.
‘Yes, weird. But over the last few years, I’ve known you were mad at me.’
‘Don’t think you need a psychic link to figure that one out, Ash.’
‘I guess not, but more than that, I could feel it, likereallyfeel it, if that makes any sense, and it hasn’t felt good.’
‘I could feel it too,’ Remy whispered.
‘I guess what I want to say, is that I’m, erm’ – she felt the flare of emotion and exhaled through bloated cheeks – ‘I am sorry, Remy. I am. I’m sorry.’
‘I’m sorry too.’ Remy looked directly at her, and it was a moment of connection, of understanding in the way twins did, that this was the start of healing. ‘I’ll go and get the tea.’ She offered a small smile.
Ashleigh watched as her sister made her way along the path towards the back door.
