Page 1 of Lessons in Love at the Seaside Salon

CHAPTER ONE

‘Pet, hand me those scissors, will you?’ Trudy takes the cigarette out of her mouth and, with her other hand, takes the scissors from Evie, who has already whirled back to her client, who’s sitting there with wet hair over her face, awaiting a fringe.

Stephanie, her name is. Came in saying she wanted a haircut like The Princess of Wales has and Evie tried to tell her that Diana has really thick hair that layers nicely whereas Stephanie has fine hair that won’t sit the same way, but Stephanie insisted.

At that point Trudy stopped paying attention.

She’s seen it all before. In thirty-odd years of running the Seaside Salon she’s had clients requesting all sorts, and usually whatever it is can’t be done.

Being a hairdresser means being an expert in managing unreasonable expectations while still trying to make the woman look beautiful.

Because that’s all they want, isn’t it? To look beautiful.

So that someone can notice them and give them a little lift in their day.

Trudy always hopes the salon itself will give her clients a lift in their days.

When she opened it – a few decades ago now – she decked it out in peach: peach walls, peach benches, cream accents.

She considered calling the salon Peaches and Cream, but her father advised against it.

‘What if one day you wake up and want to change the décor?’ he said.

It was a reasonable question. And, sure enough, one day she decided it needed a change.

In fact, she changes the décor of the salon about once a decade.

In 1984 the walls became orange and the benches pink.

Some might say it’s a lurid colour scheme – and, true, the decorator thought Cyndi Lauper was the acme of style – but the clients love it.

‘Ooh, Trudy,’ one of them said the other day. ‘I smile just thinking about this place. The bright colours make me happy.’

So, yes, Trudy gives her ladies a lift in their days, and that lifts her in turn. Even if sometimes she has to not so much lift them up as put them in their place.

Last week one of her regulars came in saying she wanted to look like that Krystle Carrington in Dynasty . Silly show. And, yes, Trudy watches it. Entertainment is a priority these days.

‘You can’t do that look, pet,’ Trudy told her. ‘You need more length on the sides and you just don’t have it.’

Did the client listen? No. So Trudy did her best. That’s all a person can ever do, isn’t it?

She put some streaks in the client’s hair and layered on top and flicked the fringe out to the side, and the client was happy even though Trudy told her she’d need to spend an hour with a blow dryer at home to get the same effect.

For all she knows the lady is wandering around the local shopping centre looking like a half-done Krystle Carrington and thinking she’s the best thing since sliced bread.

And why shouldn’t she? Why shouldn’t they all?

Trudy sighs as she starts trimming her client’s hair.

The woman is loud – she’s new, and not local, which they know because she keeps saying she’s up from Sydney , and don’t they know that Sydney is just so busy and it’s so nice being in quiet little Terrigal on the Central Coast for a few days instead.

She probably thinks she’s paying them a compliment but somehow those statements end up sounding like the person is looking down their nose at poor old Terrigal.

If another person wants to take it that way, of course.

Trudy isn’t offended. As her Laurie liked to say, everyone is entitled to their opinion.

It’s been two years since he said anything like that. Or anything at all.

Two years since she lost the man who had been by her side, supporting her as she ran this little hairdressing salon by the sea.

Originally it was called Trudy’s – after she abandoned Peaches and Cream – and it was Laurie who suggested she change it to Seaside Salon.

He thought it was reassuring – like a good memory, he told her.

She wished she could say she had only good memories of him but he was so sick in those last months that she has to work hard not to think of him thin and sallow as his body tried and failed to combat the cancer that snuck up on him.

On them both. It’s a cruelty, she reckons, to have your mind full of images of the man you love at his worst. With time, she hopes, the shock of his illness and what she saw, what she felt, will wear off and she’ll be left with thoughts only of his big smile and his bushy eyebrows and that uneven shave he always had.

They used to go walking on the beach after she closed the salon for the day. That’s a good memory. Every time she smells the salt air she thinks of him; she’s been smelling it since she was a child, yet it reminds her of Laurie more than anything.

Some might say, then, that she’s torturing herself by working so close to the ocean.

She wouldn’t change it, though; wouldn’t leave it, even if it causes her pain.

Who would? Terrigal is a glorious spot and she knows she’s lucky that her father helped her buy this building in Church Street – one road back from the beach – in the 1950s, at a time when the place comprised not much more than a few fibro shacks and a dozen fishermen.

It’s come a long way, this village she has known and loved all her life.

For so long it was a well-kept secret, then the Sydney people found out about it and started coming here for their weekends and their school holidays.

Now the population of Terrigal is like the tide, always coming in and going out, and she’s used to it.

Likes it, in fact, because the incoming tide brings more clients and some of them return each holiday, and she likes that too, the consistent inconsistency of it.

The way they’re happy to see her. It makes her feel useful.

There’s still a place for her in this world even without Laurie in it.

Even if there are days when she wonders what she’s going to do with herself.

‘We’re out of Nescafé,’ Evie mutters in Trudy’s direction.

Trudy snaps back to attention. Someone wants a coffee, obviously. Probably Stephanie.

‘There’s a tin of International Roast in there,’ Trudy mutters back, but obviously too loudly, because Stephanie makes a face that is visible even above the smoke coming from the cigarette she holds.

Trudy lets the clients smoke in the salon because she’s not about to give it up herself – losing Laurie was one thing, losing cigarettes would be one insult too many in a lifetime – and she can see from Stephanie’s choice of slender cigarette and request for Diana hair that she fancies herself a classy lady and International Roast just won’t do.

Trudy understands, but sometimes circumstances warrant a compromise.

Evie makes a face as well. ‘Really?’

‘It’s that or Bushells. Take your pick.’

Since her other hairdresser, Jane, left, it’s been only Trudy and Evie in the salon, and when they both have clients there’s no one available to run out for more Blend 43.

Jane was with her for ten years. Her best cutter, she was.

Jane could take a lady with dead-straight hair and turn her into a Charlie’s Angel with some artful layering – and a regular blow-dry, of course.

Trudy thought of Jane as the daughter she never had.

They confided in each other. Right up until the day Jane resigned, saying she needed to take a break.

It turned out she was taking a break so she could set up her own salon.

On the beachfront. Where all the tourists walk past. Yes, yes, Trudy knows she’s had a good run with Seaside Salon being the only salon in town and it was only a matter of time before another one opened.

But Jane opening it … Trudy felt that like a physical wound.

Jane knew how upset she was – is – about Laurie, and to go and do that was a cruelty Trudy truly didn’t think she deserved.

How much grief can a person bear? She’s finding out.

And it’s far more than she wants to, that’s for sure.

Trudy wishes – even more than usual – that Laurie were still here so she could talk to him about the other salon and what she can do to win back the regulars who followed Jane there.

Although he’d probably tell her to let them go.

Say they weren’t regulars if they could so easily take off elsewhere.

That she should forget about them and concentrate on the people who stayed, not the ones who left.

If only she and Evie could manage the ones who stayed on their own.

All it takes is for Evie’s son, Billy, to have a sick day and he’s home from school and Evie has to be home with him.

Those are the days when Trudy has to cancel clients – and once you start doing that, word gets around.

That she’s unreliable. Maybe she’s lost her touch.

Maybe her business is going down the sink.

So Trudy needs to find another hairdresser, preferably a good cutter, and she’s looking for an apprentice too.

Someone to do the washing and the sweeping, who can run around to the newsagent’s to buy the New Idea and the Woman’s Day and the other magazines the clients expect.

And Trudy would quite like to reduce her hours if she can.

Make time to see her son and his family in the city.

She becomes vaguely aware of Stephanie squawking at Evie and brings her attention back to the present.

‘How can you only have International Roast?’ Stephanie says.

‘My fault!’ Trudy sings out. ‘I’ve been run off my feet, pet. Haven’t made it to the shops in a few days. But don’t worry – coffee’s on the list.’

Stephanie huffs out a sigh then drags on her cigarette. ‘I suppose it will do ,’ she says.

Trudy sees Evie smile tightly into the mirror.

‘Won’t be long,’ she says in that fake-chirp Trudy knows well. It’s the tone Evie uses when she’s fed up and can’t show it. They can never show it. Otherwise the client won’t come back and probably also goes away and says mean things to their friends.

Her own client – the tourist – has actually been a dream. So far. She’s been quiet, mostly; reading a magazine and letting Trudy get on with it.

Except now she’s staring at her reflection in the mirror.

‘I’ve never had a blow-dry,’ she says, sounding almost afraid.

‘Oh,’ Trudy says, looking down at the dryer in her hand. The woman had a shampoo in preparation for her cut and Trudy usually dries them when their hair is wet. Doesn’t everyone?

‘Would you like one today?’ she enquires.

‘Will it be … poufy?’ The woman’s brow knits.

‘Only if you want it to be.’

Her face relaxes into a smile. ‘Yes, please,’ she says.

‘Righto.’ Trudy turns on the dryer to its highest setting. She’s vaguely aware of Evie putting down a coffee in front of Stephanie and another in front of her. ‘Thanks, pet,’ she mouths over the noise.

Evie wrinkles her nose in response. It’s her cute little shorthand for ‘you’re welcome’. She always does it. Mainly because one or both of them are usually drying someone’s hair and it’s too noisy to speak.

After a few minutes the tourist client is patting her hair from underneath and grinning. Then she gives Trudy a tip on top of the fee and Trudy feels chuffed. The day is turning out better than she thought. Better than she’s had in a while. Maybe it would be all right to have some hope.

Once Stephanie has left with the best Diana do Evie could manage, Trudy sits down for a few minutes of respite before her two o’clock turns up.

‘You did well,’ she says as Evie sweeps up hair. ‘She was tricky.’

Evie shrugs. ‘She’s okay. Just has some unrealistic dreams.’

‘Don’t we all.’

Evie gives her a funny look – probably because they’ve never discussed their hopes and desires before.

‘What’s your dream?’ she says.

Trudy smiles sadly. ‘That my husband isn’t dead any more.’

‘Ah,’ Evie says, looking up to smile quickly. ‘I see what you mean.’

She keeps sweeping, away from Trudy, who is about to ask what Evie’s dreams are when the two o’clock arrives early.

‘Hello, pet,’ she says to one of her longtime clients. Then she sits her down, goes to the back room to get a cape, and the routine starts again.