Page 20 of Lessons in Love at the Seaside Salon

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The radio is on softly enough to not wake the kids as Anna sits in her workroom with the pile of sewing she has to do.

It’s more mending, really. Hems to take up, buttons to sew back on.

Some of it is alterations and she likes those – modifying a garment for its wearer, making it unique for her.

It’s usually a her. Men don’t seem to worry about alterations unless it’s for length or girth – usually taking up one and letting out another.

She always has to explain that most pairs of men’s pants don’t have enough fabric to be let out but they always want her to try – ‘They’re my favourite pair, can’t you do something?

’ She wants to tell them that they could do something, like buying a new pair, although that would mean losing business, so maybe she should just stick to the way things are.

She usually listens to the local radio station while she works; at night they have talkback and people call in with their woes.

Currently there’s a woman on saying ‘my de facto’ has gone to prison for three to five years and she’s wondering what to tell the kids.

Anna often wonders about the term ‘de facto’.

It even sounds temporary, as if it’s waiting to be turned into something else, which she supposes it is.

Her mother drilled into her that she was not to move in with a man unless they were at least engaged, because the man has to offer something of value in exchange for everything she would bring to his life.

Clearly the caller to the local station didn’t have the same sort of mother, because she’s now complaining about having to work full time because the de facto left her with nothing and the dole isn’t going to cover all the expenses.

The radio host has no sympathy, telling her she shouldn’t have got herself involved with a crim.

The caller is, somewhat understandably, upset at this.

‘ Shit ,’ Anna says as she accidentally sticks a needle into her thumb.

She forgot to put on her rubber thumb guard.

After hustling the kids in from after-school sport, getting them through baths and dinner and homework, then sitting down with a cup of tea and the radio and the sewing, she forgot to do something so habitual she really shouldn’t forget it.

She’s got her period, that’s what it is.

Every month she feels vague for a couple of days, as if she’s not really here, in this place, in this time.

When Gary was around more he’d notice she was off and ask if she was okay.

Sometimes he’d rub her lower back, which aches at such times.

She misses that Gary. That Gary was subsumed into long-hours-working Gary and hasn’t been seen for a while.

She sticks her thumb in her mouth so she doesn’t get blood on the shirt she’s mending and searches for her thumb guard in the tin of miscellany she keeps on her workbench.

‘Mummy?’ She looks up to see a sleepy Renee standing in the doorway, holding her beloved one-eyed teddy bear.

‘What are you doing up, sweetie?’ She put the kids to bed an hour ago.

‘I can’t sleep.’ Renee yawns and ambles over, then puts her head on Anna’s shoulder.

It’s one of the most precious things, Anna believes, when your child shows how much they trust you by putting their head on your shoulder.

It’s surrender on their part, and love and cosiness and sweetness.

She will miss it when they’re older and they think she’s the un-coolest person alive.

The switch that is flicked between child-sweetness and teenage-disdain has no due date but she wished it did so she would know when to have her last cuddle and snuggle and nuzzle with her babies.

‘That’s no good,’ Anna says, kissing the top of Renee’s head, knowing if she lets her stay there for a few minutes she’ll fall asleep.

It’s a routine that’s developed since Gary moved out.

She starts humming a lullaby, ‘Hush Little Baby’, which Renee loves even though at seven years old she’s past lullaby age.

A minute or so goes by and she hears Renee’s breath slowing. Success!

But then a knock at the door makes them both jump and she could curse whoever it is – probably Gary. He called her around this time a couple of nights ago and she told him off for waking up the children.

‘But I don’t know what time they go to sleep,’ he protested.

‘Exactly,’ she said then hung up on him.

They haven’t spoken since, so it has to be him, come round to have the conversation he didn’t get the other night.

‘Stay there, darling,’ she whispers to Renee, then gently lies her down.

A glance through the stained-glass panels on the door – the original owner’s idea of a fancy embellishment, she has long thought – tells her she was right: it’s Gary. He’s seen her so she can’t pretend she’s not home.

‘What did I tell you about this time of night?’ she says as she opens the door.

‘But …’ He frowns then looks at his watch. ‘I’ve just finished work.’

‘Gary, your children are asleep.’ Not entirely true, but he doesn’t need to know that. ‘ Were asleep.’ She presses her lips together and glares at him despite being mildly pleased that he looks chastised.

‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘Sorry, sorry.’ And he does sound it.

Pulling her long cardigan around her to guard against the night air, she puts the snib on, steps outside and pulls the door to.

Renee needs to go back to bed and, besides, if she sees her father she may think he’ll be staying the night.

Both kids have started asking about Gary lately; his absence seems to have made their hearts grow fonder.

‘What do you want?’ Her arms are folded, just so he really gets the message that she doesn’t want him here.

It’s only after she says it that she notices the bunch of roses in his hand.

Soft pink and blooming, they are. Unlike his face, which is pale and creased.

She feels bad for having a go at him but, honestly, why would he surprise her at this time of night?

Although it’s technically still his house, so she should be grateful he didn’t just walk in and really give her a shock.

‘I, ah …’ He holds out the flowers. ‘These are for you.’

She takes them – she doesn’t want to be churlish – and their scent wafts up, so she sniffs it in and can’t help a smile. ‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘But what are they for?’

‘Ah …’ His eyebrows lift and she realises they’re still outside and she should really invite him into the house he still owns.

‘Sorry, come in,’ she says, standing aside.

‘Thanks,’ he says. ‘Are the kids …?’

‘Asleep,’ she repeats, because she wants him to think it’s true.

He nods, and she feels like adding, As they usually are when you get home . But she doesn’t. There’s no point.

Ushering him past the door of her workroom, she walks to the sitting room and takes a spot on the couch. In the middle, so he’s not tempted to sit beside her.

‘What can I do for you?’ she says and he looks pained in response.

‘You can’t – I’m not …’ He sighs. ‘I can’t get anything right, can I?’

‘Is that what this is about – trying to get things right?’

‘Isn’t it?’ His frown is so deep she wonders if he might disappear inside it and, if so, how she would feel about that.

Sad. She’d be sad. Because despite it all, she still cares about him.

The Gary she fell in love with is in there somewhere.

She doesn’t think he was faking it all those years; he’s never been a good actor, not able to keep up a fake smile when they bumped into someone he didn’t like or pretend her sister-in-law’s cooking was great.

It’s just that she doesn’t know what he’s done with that Gary and she knows if he reappeared she’d love him again.

‘Anna … what’s happening?’ he asks with a plaintive tone.

‘What do you mean? Nothing’s happening . It’s happened .’

‘To us.’ That frown is still in place. ‘What …’ He sighs and it’s ragged and Anna realises he may be about to cry.

That makes her want to cry, partly because she doesn’t understand why sticking up for what she needs and what she wants should lead to her husband crying.

Surely he should understand and support her.

If he really loved her. Maybe he doesn’t.

That’s definitely something she’s been contemplating for a while, after months – years – of him working late every night.

‘I love you,’ he says, and it’s strangled and desperate and it sounds like the plea of a condemned man, which she guesses he is.

She realises something then that has never occurred to her before: she has power in this situation.

That’s what he’s just shown her, that she has the power to break him.

And she doesn’t want to. Even in this flush of knowing she has the power, she has no inclination to use it maliciously.

Rather, she wishes she’d known it before, back when he was in the process of alienating himself from the house, from her, from the kids.

She could have wielded it. Maybe she could have stopped what happened between them.

Stopped the withering of their marriage.

She remembers something her mother said once – and she really does get irritated that her mother is so regularly wise, because Anna would like to have some of that wisdom herself one day.

‘Women can control the moon and the stars, the tides and the heavens,’ Ingrid said.

‘That’s why men are so scared of our power.

That’s why they tell us that we have none.

But here is the thing, darling: with that power comes responsibility.

And freedom. If we are prepared to accept that power, we can do what we want, when we want, as long as we uphold our responsibilities. ’

Or it was something like that. Anna might be making it more grandiose in her memory because it sounded like such a shocking thing, really, to hear at the time, that she – Anna of the Central Coast, Anna of the sewing machine and the old Corolla and the hair she hasn’t been looking after for years – might have the power to move worlds.

Yet here’s the proof, in front of her: her husband, desolate because he isn’t with her any more.

This moment, right here, feels like an opportunity for a reckoning. With her power. With what she can use it for. With him.

He’s waiting for her to say something and she knows that he wants her to say she loves him, but she doesn’t feel she can. It doesn’t feel true. Not yet. Not again.

Instead she pats his hand, then his cheek. Caring gestures; not declarations of love but loving all the same.

‘I know,’ she says. ‘But it’s one thing to say it, Gary. It’s another to show it.’

His mouth opens and he looks a little shocked. Probably because she’s never said anything like that to him before.

‘Then I want to show you,’ he says. He sniffs and glances away, then huffs like a steam engine gathering pace. ‘I would like to take you out to dinner,’ he says, his voice sounding stronger than it has in months.

‘Oh?’ she says, trying to recall when they last went out for a meal, just the two of them. It was before they had children, she’s sure.

‘There’s a French restaurant in Gosford,’ he says.

The spiteful part of her wonders how he knows about that. When has he gone there? Who with?

Does it matter?

No, it doesn’t. Not right now. Because she doesn’t care. Does she?

‘My mother will look after the children if we go there for dinner this Saturday night,’ he continues.

So clearly his mother knows what’s going on. Anna hasn’t spoken to Sylvia for a while. They’ve never really been chums and her mother-in-law has been a disengaged grandparent at best.

‘That’s good of her,’ she gets out, not wanting to give Sylvia too many credits.

‘So … would you like to go with me?’

He looks so hopeful, like he did when they were first seeing each other, as if he couldn’t believe she’d spend time with him. That’s the version of both of them she liked the best.

‘Yes. All right,’ she says, and watches as he visibly relaxes.

‘I’ll pick up the kids at six,’ he says, ‘and take them to Mum’s. Then I’ll come back to pick you up.’

She opens her mouth, about to suggest that they just take the children on their way to dinner – but that’s the arrangement of a couple who are still close and familiar, and she also doesn’t want to try to organise things when he’s taken the initiative.

‘Sounds good,’ she says.

He smiles, and it’s brighter than anything she’s seen for months.

‘Thank you,’ he says. ‘I’ll, uh … I’ll let you get back to it.’

He gives her a peck on the cheek before she has a chance to work out what he’s doing, then he’s gone, and she wanders slowly back to her workroom and decides not to try to figure out what it all might mean right now.

Renee is curled up on the floor, asleep. Best to leave her there until Anna goes to bed herself. Which won’t be for a while, because she feels a little agitated.

Sewing is a good distraction – she can focus and just be in the moment with her task. So, with thumb guard on, she picks up the piece she’s mending and gets to work.