I went on making dinner, puzzled. Why would I feel hate? “No Katie, I’m not angry.” She must have thought that because I didn’t continue, I didn’t mean it, for she was still unhappy. She doesn’t know, even now, how little there is to be said.

She was sad through dinner, and quiet, but it didn’t occur to me that we hadn’t finished with it; it no longer concerned me, and I didn’t see that it would still concern her. But when she was leaving after dinner to go back to the hotel, she asked if she could come back again. “I know you probably don’t want me, but I’d like to make it up to you. I’m sorry I came unstrung.”

“Of course you can come back. I was expecting you to. Why would you think you couldn’t?”

She looked at me, surprised. “But I’ve behaved so badly and you must be so angry. I can imagine what the garden means, it’s your food. It was terrible of me to try to destroy it, it was unforgivable.”

What could I have said? Words were inadequate, wouldn’t explain, and yet words were what she wanted, what she was accustomed to.

“Look Katie,” I said firmly. “I’m not angry. I’m truly not. There’s no reason for you to feel badly. Something just happened, it’s finished now and it doesn’t make any difference. I know how you must feel about this place, and I don’t see that you have to pretend; you’ll never get what you came for if you pretend. Now go on back to town and get a good night’s rest.”

“What do you mean, what I came for? I’m not pretending.”

“Oh yes you are, Katie.” I wanted to make it very clear, so that we didn’t waste understanding again.

“You said you came here to get to know me. Well, you never will if you’re humouring me. I assumed that because you were in the garden, you wanted to be there, and that wasn’t true at all. I can’t know anything about you if you’re doing something that’s a lie, and I can’t be myself if I have to keep worrying about whether or not you’re happy. It doesn’t matter to me if you want to garden or not; it doesn’t make me happier that you’re there, or unhappier that you’re not. I do what I do, that’s all. If you’re reading in the living room, I don’t join you if I don’t feel like it. Just be yourself, Katie. If we like each other, we’ll like each other. If we don’t, we won’t.”

I don’t think she understood. Not then. Maybe by now it’s coming to her.